Should British intelligence agencies be allowed to spy on UK citizens? Allegations that the UK's intelligence-gathering agency GCHQ may have used information from US agencies to spy on British citizens have been denied by the Government. An American whistleblower has claimed the controversial Prism surveillance system is secretly monitoring internet communications through major online companies, such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Apple, and Microsoft. However Foreign Secretary William Hague has defended the British intelligence services against accusations of illegal cyber-snooping, and said claims GCHQ circumvented the law to gather data on UK citizens are "baseless." Are we made safer by this kind of internet monitoring? And could the information be used? Scotland Tonight spoke with security and intelligence issues expert Charles Bird from St Andrews University.