The British intelligence MI-6 station in Moscow was given the task to locate a former CIA agent Edward Snowden who was granted temporary political asylum in Russia, states Center for the Study of Globalization, a Canadian non-governmental organization based in Montreal.

“The British authorities are aiming to find Snowden and, if possible, to ship him to the UK or the US,” says the Canadian NGO website without referring to any sources.

The British MI-6 employees in Moscow “have started analyzing intelligence received by US National Security Agency and UK Government Communications Centre in the course of surveillance on Facebook and other social websites in order to detect Snowden’s location,” says the Canadian research organization.

According to the NGO, at present, information on the chain of Twitter contacts connected to Snowden is being processed as well as information on phone calls made by four former employees of US intelligence services, who visited Moscow in October to meet with him. The Canadian NGO claims that all American contacts in Moscow have already been identified which made it possible to broaden the search for Snowden and learn his daily schedule.

As pointed out by the Center for the Study of Globalization, the Snowden search had the highest priority in the MI-6 station, “mostly due to the damage done to worldwide British intelligence operations by Snowden’s leaks, rather than a desire to find favor in the eyes of their American colleagues, the CIA.”

MI5 chief to testify in public about “national security threats” of Snowden’s leaks

British MPs asked on Tuesday the MI5 chief, Andrew Parker, to justify in public his claims that the Guardian has endangered national secury by publishing leaks from the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the Guardian reports. Parker is to give evidence in public to the Commons committee next week.

“A precedent has been set and now that the heads of the security services have given evidence once in public they should do so again to us, and not just to MPs they would like to have ask them questions. I would expect Mr Parker to attend,” said Julian Huppert, a Lib Dem member of the committee.

This decision was taken seconds before the committee had to meet with the Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger seeking to justify the outlet’s decision to publish a string of stories based on US and UK intelligence agency files leaked by Snowden to the media.

During the meeting the committee was focusing whether the news outlet had broken the Terrorism Act by sending the names of UK agents abroad as documents were shared with the New York Times.

Some MPs even accused the Guardian editor of treason.

“Rusbridger had admitted the names of British agents were in documents he could not bother to read, but he sent abroad to America. The Terrorism Act 2000 makes it an offence to communicate the names of the agents that protect us. It is for the police to take the decisions, but I hope he is prosecuted,” said Julian Smith, the Conservative.

Yet, the editor noted that the paper had consulted government officials prior to the publication of every story, but one. And only 1% of the 58,000 intelligence files leaked by Snowden have been published by the paper.

“The problem with the accusations is they tend to be very vague and not rooted in specific stories” Rusbridger said. “There is no doubt in my mind … that newspapers have done something that oversight has failed to do”.

The editor also pointed to a series of senior UK and US officials that had described the Guardian’s behaviour as incredibly responsible, insisting the Guardian was not a rogue newspaper, but acting in concert with other responsible newspapers to publish stories.

“We are patriots and one of the things we are patriotic about is the nature of our democracy and of a free press. There are countries and they are not generally democracies where the press are not free to write about this and where the security services do tell editors what to write. That’s not the country we live in, in Britain, and it’s one of the things we love about the country,” Rusbridger said finishing his speech at the meeting with MPs.

Voice of Russia, Interfax, the Guardian