Cameron backs MI5 chief over "damage" from leaks The prime minister has given firm backing to a speech by the new head of MI5 that suggested leaks by Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, are undermining the fight against terrorism. As the Guardian said it would continue publishing leaked documents provided to it by Mr Snowden, David Cameron let it be known that the speech by MI5 director-general Andrew Parker had his full support. Mr Parker implied on Tuesday that the revelations by Mr Snowden were a "gift" to terrorists and were doing "enormous damage" to western efforts to confront jihadism. Mr Cameron's spokesman said on Wednesday: "The prime minister thinks it was an excellent speech and we are, as you would expect, always keeping under review the measures that are needed to contribute to keeping our country safe." Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, defended the paper's decision to publish the documents and suggested there would be more to come in the near future. He argued the documents exposed a degree of surveillance by western intelligence agencies "beyond what Orwell could have imagined." He told the BBC: "If you read the whole of Andrew Parker's speech it is a perfectly reasonable speech and it is what you would expect him to say. If you are on the security side of the argument you want to keep everything secret, you don't want a debate and you don't want the press or anyone else writing about it. But MI5 cannot be the only voice in this debate. Challenged on Mr Parker's suggestions that publishing the information was helping terrorists, he replied: "They will always say that." Remarks from Mr Cameron's spokesman suggest the government wants to try to revive the data communications bill, which was blocked by Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister. Asked whether the MI5 chief's remarks showed the bill was not dead, the Number 10 spokesman said: "The position hasn't changed. The government continues to consider how best we continue to ensure our intelligence agencies, our law enforcement agencies are able to stay up to date in what is - in one of the points Andrew Parker was making - a continually evolving technological environment. In comments to the Daily Telegraph, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who chairs the parliamentary body that oversees the spy agencies, said the intelligence agencies should be trusted to operate in secret because they were not "political tools" of repression like those in Russia and China. Sir Malcolm, chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, said: "When we know that Snowden has over 50,000 classified documents relevant to UK interests the idea that he or others would be able identify which are damaging to national security is naive. Even knowing the technology that is available to GCHQ or MI5 or MI6 is valuable. Some of these terrorists are very, very smart. It's not like the old days when communication could only be by letter or telephone call.