Recent disclosures regarding the extent of US and British surveillance and monitoring of the public's phone calls and emails have alarmed many and been branded a grotesque invasion of privacy.

The activities of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and its British counterpart GCHQ have come under renewed scrutiny in the wake of leaks by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

World leaders have reacted with outrage to reports and allegations that their telecommunications have been monitored without their knowledge.

But is it really so surprising?

The fact that governments spy on their and other nation's citizens is, excusing the expression, an open secret.

Perhaps it would be more pertinent to ask why this furore is only occurring now when the truth began to emerge decades ago regarding the activities of the US spy base at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire.

Although operating in total secrecy what we do know about what goes on behind the perimeter fence and the base's giant golfball-like Radomes has come from investigative journalism - most notably by Duncan Campbell - and the indefatigable efforts of a group of dedicated women campaigners who have gained access to the base on numerous occasions.

Run by the NSA since 1966, the base is the largest secret intelligence-gathering system outside the US.

Menwith Hill is part of a global network of spy bases used to monitor all forms of international telecommunications - including private phone calls, emails and faxes - and is vital for the intelligence-gathering necessary for any US-led military attack.

It is also due to act as the ground receiver and relay station for Space-Based Infrared Satellites (SBIRS), part of the US Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) programme.

In recent years it has been suggested that the base has played a key role in the controversial US drone warfare programme, tracking and identifying potential targets via their telecommunications. The programme has been roundly condemned by human rights campaigners who point to the large number of civilians, including women and children, killed in the "targeted strikes."

UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Philip Alston has called the US drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere part of a "strongly asserted but ill-defined licence to kill without accountability" and warned that they are contributing to an erosion of longstanding international rules governing warfare.

Last month it was reported that Menwith Hill may have been involved in the monitoring of mobile phone conversations by world leaders including those of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Responding to the claims, Yorkshire CND's co-chair Dave Webb said: "Yorkshire CND is not at all surprised by the recent, and ongoing controversy surrounding the activities of the NSA and their British counterpart GCHQ.

"Campaigners here in Yorkshire have for years highlighted the ongoing scandal of the US spy base at Menwith Hill near Harrogate and its role not just in global espionage but as an integral part of the US BMD programme and how these systems are a vital contribution to the push for a military system that can strike anywhere on Earth within one hour - a so-called 'prompt global strike'.

"The revelations exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden have brought the issue to prominence but they are nothing new and have focussed more on the challenge to civil liberties and not focussed on the sinister military role of these bases.

"Menwith Hill monitoring station has operated as the eyes and ears of the US with the complicity of the British state for decades."

While nominally remaining an RAF base, Menwith Hill has been run as a US enclave with its own facilities and with the highest security clearance reserved for senior Department of Defence personnel and US contractors.

It operates in a kind of legalistic limbo, outside US law and unaccountable here although ministers insist they are briefed on its activities.

In 1994 local MP Bob Cryer triggered a parliamentary adjournment debate on the issue of Menwith Hill. The Bradford South MP had repeatedly demanded answers from ministers on the subject only to have his questions fobbed off.

In what would turn out to be his last speech in the house, Mr Cryer stated: "Menwith Hill is a spy station, a sophisticated version of the man in the dirty raincoat looking through a bedroom window or the pervert spying through a lavatory keyhole.

"Those who defend the station's invasion of our land, which has never been approved by Parliament, are no better. There is no glory or wonderful purpose involved in Menwith Hill. That is all the more true now that the cold war is over. Ministers justified the Menwith Hill base by saying it was part of the cold war, but we understand that that has finished. What is their justification for the spy station now?"

His criticisms were dismissed by Tory armed forces minister Jeremy Hanley, who accused Mr Cryer of peddling "ill-informed, second-hand fantasy based on prejudice against our allies which in itself is not in the national interest. His colourful language may well make good soundbites, but it is pathetic in its paranoia."

Now, almost 20 years on and as the evidence continues to mount regarding the NSA's surveillance programme, the allegation of paranoia looks even less credible than it did at the time.

If anyone emerged from that debate appearing pathetic it was surely Hanley and his government's pusillanimous pandering to US interests.

In 2001 an investigation into NSA bases by the European Parliament concluded that the agency was unlawfully providing US companies with sensitive commercial information to give them an advantage.

The NSA, perhaps unsurprisingly, did not comment on the probe's findings and no meaningful attempts were made to investigate the allegations in the US.

The European Parliament's conclusions led to the US being forced to close down its NSA base in Bavaria.

Menwith Hill, however, remained open as successive British governments failed to hold the base to account.

In 2002, the defence select committee expressed its concern that Menwith Hill would be used as part of the US missile defence system without permission.

Then defence secretary Geoff Hoon assured them that the technology at Menwith Hill was for early warning only and would be handled "entirely separately from missile defence."

In early 2007, prime minister Tony Blair promised a full debate "when we have a proposition to put" regarding British involvement in US missile defence.

Yet the day before Parliament went into summer recess and without parliamentary debate or consultation, the government quietly announced that Menwith Hill would indeed become part of the US BMD system.

A number of MPs demanded a full parliamentary debate on the matter. This has never happened.

To this day Menwith Hill remains active as a tool for the US to further its commercial and military interests and is still unaccountable to Parliament.