Newspaper: British government has access to Internet giants’ data via US spy agency.

LONDON – Britain’s Guardian newspaper says that the U.K. government has been secretly gathering communications data from American Internet giants through the medium of the U.S. National Security Agency.

The paper says that it has seen documents showing how the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ has had access to America’s “Prism” system since at least June 2010.

It says the program has generated 197 intelligence reports in the past year.

GCHQ declined to comment on the story Friday, saying only that it takes its legal obligations “very seriously.”

The Guardian has recently published a series of stories on America’s secret surveillance dragnet, revealing the stunning details of an undisclosed intelligence operation targeting millions of Americans’ phone, email, and Internet records.