BE AFRAID. BE VERY, VERY AFRAID. BE ABSOLUTELY FUCKING TERRIFIED.

The boss of MI5, like ex-MI6 boss John Sawers, has tried to terrify us, just as MPs start to draw up the bill to take away our privacy.

Advances in technology are allowing terrorists to communicate "out of the reach of authorities", the head of MI5, Andrew Parker has told the BBC.

The serving boss of the UK's home security agency told Today it was becoming more difficult to obtain online information.

He said internet companies had an "ethical responsibility" to alert agencies to potential threats.

But MI5 was not about "browsing the lives" of the public, he added.

Ministers are preparing legislation on the powers for carrying out electronic surveillance.

...Mr Parker also told the BBC:

The terrorism threat is the "most serious threat Britain faces in security terms"

Six alleged terror plots have been foiled in the past six months, which Mr Parker said was the highest number he could recall in his 32 year career "certainly the highest number since 9/11"

MI5 had to "make choices" about where to put resources, and make sure they were "focused where the sharpest threat is"

On the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby: "There cannot be a guarantee that we will find and stop everything. That's not possible. We can't monitor them all the time."

He rejected the suggestion that security service tactics can lead to radicalisation saying it was "completely untrue"

He paid tribute to the people who work at MI5 and their work "which so often goes unrecognised"

[source : MI5 boss warns of technology terror risk, BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34276525, 17th September 2015]