Annie Machon

Libya, MI6, and torture - interview on Press TV

Libya, MI6, torture, and more happy subjects discussed recently on "Africa Today" on Press TV. 

The programme was interesting, informed and balanced.  Do have a watch:

The Official Secrets Act - when will the Britsh media learn?

I have been watching with a certain cynical interest the unfolding of Operation Weeting, one of the plethora of Metropolitan Police investigations into the UK phone hacking scandal, involving many of our favourite players: shady private investigators, predatory journalists, bent coppers, and politicians contorting themselves in an effort to protect both their own reputations and their Friends in High Places.  And the ripples are spreading internationally.  Nothing like a little bit of globilisation....

The Guardian newspaper has made most of the early running in exposing the corrupt practices of the now defunct News of the Screws, highlighting all the dubious tabloid practices of hacking, blagging, pinging, and god knows what else.  All this done with the help of bottom-feeding private investigators, but also manifestly with the help of corrupt police officers who were not averse to the idea of taking a bribe to help their friends in Wapping.  And how far might this "trickle down corruption" might have gone, um,  up?

Despite the self-righteousness of other UK newspapers, it has also now become apparent that these dubious and potentially illegal practices were common throughout Fleet Street, and other national newspapers are also under investigation.

And yet it appears that all this could have been nipped in the bud over a decade ago, when Steven Nott, a concerned British citizen, tried to expose the vulnerability of mobile phones after he stumbled across the practice by accident.  He took his findings to a variety of national newspapers, all of whom seem to have initially thought there was a good story, but every time the news was buried.  Well, I suppose it would be, wouldn't it - after all, why would hacks expose a practice that could be so useful?

But back to the dear old OSA and the media.

In yesterday's Observer newspaper, it was reported that the police have threatened the journalists at The Guardian with the Official Secrets Act (1989) to force them to disclose the identity of their source amongst the police officer(s) in Operation Weeting who leaked useful information to the newspaper to help its exposure of illegal practices.  And, rightly, the great and the good are up in arms about this draconian use of a particularly invidious law:

"John Cooper, a leading human rights lawyer and visiting professor at Cardiff University, echoed Evans's concerns. "In my view this is a misuse of the 1989 act," Cooper said. "Fundamentally the act was designed to prevent espionage. In extreme cases it can be used to prevent police officers tipping off criminals about police investigations or from selling their stories. In this instance none of this is suggested, and many believe what was done was in the public interest.

"Cooper added: "The police action is very likely to conflict with article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of speech."

But I think he's missing a bit of recent legal history here.  The UK had the 1911 OSA which was supposed to protect the country from espionage and traitors, who faced 14 years in prison upon conviction.  Needless to say this provision was rarely used - most of the cold war Soviet moles in the establishment were allowed to slink off to the USSR, or at the very most be stripped of their "K".

However, as I've written before, the revised 1989 OSA was much more useful for the establishment.  It was specifically put in place to stop whistleblowing after the embarrassment of the 1980s Clive Ponting/Belgrano case. 

The new act was specifically designed to strip away the "public interest" defence used by Ponting in his trial, and also to penalise journalists who had the temerity to report leaks and whistleblowing from the heart of the establishment.  The OSA (1989) has been used extensively since the late 1990s, despite the fact that many senior figures in the former Labour government opposed its provisions when it went through Parliament.   Journalists are just as liable as whistleblowers or "leakers" under the provisions of this act (the infamous Section 5).

So, back to The Guardian and its legal champions.  I agree with what they are saying: yes, the 1989 OSA  has a chilling effect on freedom of speech that unduly victimises both the whistleblower and the journalist; yes, it is a uniquely draconian law for a notional Western democracy to have on its books; yes, there should be a defence of "acting in the public interest"; and yes, the OSA should be deemed to be incompatible with Section 10(2) of the European Convention of Human Rights, guaranteeing free speech, which can only be circumscribed in the interests of "national security", itself a legally undefined, nebulous, and controversial phrase under British law.

But if all the outraged lawyers read up on their case law, particularly the hearings and legal dogfights in the run up to Regina v Shayler cases, they will see that all these issues have been addressed, apparently to the satisfaction of the honourable m'luds who preside over British courts, and certainly to the establishment figures who like to use the OSA as their "get out of jail free" card.

So I wish The Guardian journalists well in this confrontation.  But I have to say, perhaps they would not have found themselves in this situation today vis a vis the OSA if, rather than just a few brave journalists, the media institutions themselves had put up a more robust fight against its provisions during its bastard birth in 1989 and its subsequent abuse.

It has been reported today that the police may have downgraded their investigation to a purely criminal matter, not the OSA.  Whatever happens does not obviate the need for the media to launch a concerted campaign to call for reform of the invidious OSA.  Just because one of their own is no longer threatened does not mean the chilling threat of this law has gone away.  As Martin Luther King said while imprisoned in 1963:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

I would also suggest the new generation working in the British media urgently read this excellent booklet produced by John Wadham of Liberty and Article 19 way back in 2000 Download Article_19_Liberty_on_OSA_2000,  to remind themselves of fundamental arguments against draconian legislation such as the OSA and in favour of the freedom of the press.

Libyans caught between a rock and a hard place

This article in today's New York Times, particularly these following two paragraphs, sent a shiver down my spine for the fate of the Libyan people:

"The most powerful military leader is now Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the former leader of a hard-line group once believed to be aligned with Al Qaeda.The growing influence of Islamists in Libya raises hard questions about the ultimate character of the government and society that will rise in place of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s autocracy.....

....Mr. Belhaj has become so much an insider lately that he is seeking to unseat Mahmoud Jibril, the American-trained economist who is the nominal prime minister of the interim government, after Mr. Jibril obliquely criticized the Islamists."

The Libyans, finally free of Gaddafi's 42-year dictatorship, now seem faced with a choice between an Islamist faction that has stated publicly that it wants to base the new constitution on Sharia - a statement that must have caused a few ripples amongst Libya's educated and relatively  emancipated women - or a new government headed up by an American-trained economist. 

And we all know what happens to countries when such economists move in: asset stripping, the syphoning off of the national wealth to transnational mega-corps, and a plunge in the people's living standards.  If you think this sounds extreme, then do get your hands on a copy of Naomi Klein's excellent "Shock Doctrine" - required reading for anyone who wants to truly understand the growing global financial crisis.

Of course, this would be an ideal outcome for the US, UK and other western forces who intervened in Libya. 

Mr Belhaj is, of course, another matter.  Not only would an Islamist Libya be a potentially dangerous result for the West, but should Belhaj come to power he is likely to be somewhat hostile to US and particularly British interests.  

Why?  Well, Abdul Hakim Belhaj has form.  He was a leading light in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a terrorist organisation which bought into the ideology of "Al Qaeda" and which had made many attempts to depose or assassinate Gaddafi, sometimes with the financial backing of the British spies, most notably in the failed assassination plot of 1996.

Of course, after 9/11 and Gaddafi's rapprochement with the West, this collaboration was all air-brushed out of history - to such an extent that in 2004 MI6 was instrumental in  kidnapping Belhaj, with the say-so of the CIA, and "extraordinarily rendering" him to Tripoli in 2004, where he suffered 6 years' torture at the hands of Libya's brutal intelligences services.  After this, I doubt if he would be minded to work too closely with UK companies.

So I'm willing to bet that there is more behind-the-scenes meddling from our spooks, to ensure the ascendency of Jibril in the new government.  Which will be great for Western business, but not so great for the poor Libyans.....

Spy documents found in Libya reveal more British double dealing

A cache of highly classified intelligence documents was recently discovered in the abandoned offices of former Libyan spy master, Foreign Minister and high-profile defector, Musa Kusa.  

These documents have over the last couple of weeks provided a fascinating insight into the growing links in the last decade between the former UK Labour government, particularly Tony Blair, and the Gaddafi regime.  They have displayed in oily detail the degree of toadying that the Blair government was prepared to countenance, not only to secure lucrative business contracts but also to gloss over embarrassing episodes such as Lockerbie and the false flag MI6-backed 1996 assassination plot against Gaddafi. 

These documents have also apparently revealed direct involvement by MI6 in the "extraordinary rendition" to Tripoli and torture of two Libyans.  Ironically it has been reported that they were wanted for being members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, the very organisation that MI6 had backed in its failed 1996 coup. 

The secular dictatorship of Col Gaddafi always had much to fear from Islamist extremism, so it is perhaps unsurprising that, after Blair's notorious "deal in the desert" in 2004, the Gaddafi regime used its connections with MI6 and the CIA to hunt down its enemies.  And, as we have all been endlessly told, the rules changed after 9/11...

The torture  victims, one of whom is now a military commander of the rebel Libyan forces, are now considering suing the British government.  Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary at the time, has tried to shuffle off any blame, stating that he could not be expected to know everything that MI6 does. 

Well, er, no - part of the job description of Foreign Secretary is indeed to oversee the work of MI6 and hold it to democratic accountability, especially about such serious policy issues as "extraordinary rendition" and torture.  Such operations would indeed need the ministerial sign-off to be legal under the 1994 Intelligence Services Act.

There has been just so much hot air from the current government about how the Gibson Torture Inquiry will get to the bottom of these cases, but we all know how toothless such inquiries will be, circumscribed as they are by the terms of the Inquiries Act 2005.  We also know that Sir Peter Gibson himself has for years been "embedded" within the British intelligence community and is hardly likely to hold the spies meaningfully to account.

So I was particularly intrigued to hear that the the cache of documents showed the case of David Shayler, the intelligence whistleblower who revealed the 1996 Gaddafi assassination plot and went to prison twice for doing so, first in France in 1998 and then in the UK in 2002, was still a subject of discussion between the Libyan and UK governments in 2007. And, as I have written before, as late as 2009 it was obvious that this case was still used by the Libyans for leverage, certainly when it came to the tit-for-tat negotiations around case of the murder in London outside the Libyan Embassy of WPC Yvonne Fletcher in 1984.

Of course, way back in 1998, the British government was all too ready to crush the whistleblower rather than investigate the disclosures and hold the spies to account for their illegal and reckless acts.  I have always felt that this was a failure of democracy, that it seriously undermined the future work and reputation of the spies themselves, and particularly that it was such a shame for the fate of the PBW (poor bloody whistleblower).

But it now appears that the British intelligence community's sense of omnipotence and of being above the law has come back to bite them.  How else explain their slide into a group-think mentality that participates in "extraordinary rendition" and torture?

One has to wonder if wily old Musa Kusa left this cache of documents behind in his abandoned offices as an "insurance policy", just in case his defection to the UK were not to be as comfortable as he had hoped - and we now know that he soon fled to Qatar after he had been questioned about the Lockerbie case.

But whether an honest mistake or cunning power play, his actions have helped to shine a light into more dark corners of British government lies and double dealing vis a vis Libya....

RTTV Interview: Libya - the perfect storm

My RTTV interview today about Libya, torture, and UK double-dealing:

 

Book review in The Sunday Express

Nothing like being paid to read a book - a win-win situation for me. 

Here's a link to my review in the Sunday Express newspaper of a new history of MI6, called "The Art of Betrayal" by Gordon Corera, the BBC's Security Correspondent.

And here's the article:

REVIEW: THE ART OF BETRAYAL - LIFE AND DEATH IN THE BRITISH SECRET SERVICE
Friday August 19, 2011
By Annie Machon

THE Art of Betrayal: Life and Death in the British Secret Service
Gordon Corera Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £20

THE INTRODUCTION to The Art Of Betrayal, Gordon Corera's unofficial post-war history of MI6, raises questions about the modern relevance and ethical framework of our spies. It also provides an antidote to recent official books celebrating the centenaries of MI5 and MI6.

Corera, the BBC's security correspondent, has enjoyed privileged access to key spy players from the past few decades and, writing in an engaging, easy style, he picks up the story of MI6 at the point where the "official" history grinds to a halt after the Second World War.

Spy geeks will enjoy the swashbuckling stories from the Cold War years and he offers an intelligent exploration of the mentality of betrayal between the West and the former Soviet Union, focusing on the notorious Philby, Penkovsky and Gordievsky cases among many others.

For the more cynical reader, this book presents some problems. Where Corera discusses the aimless years of MI6 post-Cold War attempts at reinvention, followed by the muscular, morally ambiguous post-9/11 world, he references quotes from former top spies and official inquiries only, all of which need to be read with a healthy degree of skepticism. To use a memorable quote from the Sixties Profumo Scandal, also mentioned in the book: "Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?"

In Corera's view, there has always been inherent tension in MI6 between the "doers" (who believe that intelligence is there to be acted upon James Bond-style and who want to get their hands dirty with covert operations) and the "thinkers" (those who believe, a la George Smiley, that knowledge is power and should be used behind the scenes to inform official government policy).

He demonstrates that the "doers" have often been in control and the image of MI6 staffed by gung-ho, James Bond wannabes is certainly a stereotype I recognise from my years working as an intelligence officer for the sister spy organisation, MI5.

The problem, as this book reveals, is that when the action men have the cultural ascendancy within MI6 events often go badly wrong through establishment complacency, betrayal or mere enthusiastic amateurism.

That said, the opposing culture of the "thinkers", or patient intelligence gatherers, led in the Sixties and Seventies to introspection, mole-hunting paranoia and sclerosis.

Worryingly, many former officers down the years are quoted as saying that they hoped there was a "real" spy organisation behind the apparently amateur outfit they had joined, a sentiment shared by most of my intake in the Nineties.

Nor does it appear that lessons were learned from history: the Operation Gladio debacle in Albania and the toppling of Iran's first democratically-elected President Mossadeq in the Fifties could have provided valuable lessons for MI6 in its work in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya over the past two decades.

Corera is remarkably coy about Libya despite the wealth of now publicly-available information about MI6's meddling in the Lockerbie case, the illegal assassination plot against Gaddafiin 1996 and the dirty, MI6-brokered oil deals of the past decade.

Corera pulls together his recurring themes in the final chapters, exploring the compromise of intelligence in justifying the Iraq war, describing how the "doers" pumped unverified intelligence from unproven agents directly into the veins of Whitehall and Washington.

Many civil servants and middle-ranking spies questioned and doubted but were told to shut up and follow orders. The results are all-too tragically well known.

Corera does not, however, go far enough.

He appreciates that the global reach of MI6 maintains Britain's place in an exclusive club of world powers. At what price, though?

Here is the question he should perhaps have asked: in light of all the mistakes, betrayals, liberties compromised, lessons unlearned and deaths, has MI6 outlived its usefulness?

Annie Machon is a former MI5 intelligence officer and author.

Verdict 4/5

Spies and the Media - my recent talk at the Centre for Investigative Journalism

Here's the film of my talk at the recent summer school at the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London a month ago:

 

Many thanks to Gavin and the rest of the CIJ team for such a stimulating and thought-provoking weekend!

Lawyers challenge integrity of UK spy torture inquiry

It was widely reported today that a number of well-respected British lawyers and civil liberties organisations are questioning the integrity of the much-trumpeted inquiry into UK spy complicity in torture.

And about time too.  One hopes this is all part of a wider strategy, not merely a defensive reaction to the usual power play on the part of the British establishment.  After all, it has been apparent from the start that the whole inquiry would be questionable when it was announced that Sir Peter Gibson would be chairing the inquiry.

Gibson has certain form.  He was until recently the Intelligence Services Commissioner - the very person who for the last five years has been invited into MI5, MI6 and GCHQ for cosy annual chats with carefully selected intelligence officers (ie those who won't rock the boat), to report back to the government that democratic oversight was working wonderfully, and it was all A-OK in the spy organisations.

After these years of happy fraternising, when his name was put forward to investigate potential criminal complicity in torture on the part of the spies, he did the publicly decent thing and resigned as Commissioner to take up the post of chair of the Torture Inquiry.

Well, we know the establishment always like a safe pair of hands....  and this safety has also been pretty much guaranteed by law for the last six years. 

Ever since the Inquiries Act 2005 was pushed through as law, with relatively little press awareness or parliamentary opposition, government departments and intelligence agencies have pretty much been able to call the shots when it comes to the scope of supposedly independent inquiries.

Interestingly, Tory grandee Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Foreign Secretary who now chairs the Intelligence and Security Committee, has also weighed in to the debate.  On BBC Radio 4's Today programme he stated:

"I cannot recollect an inquiry that's been proposed to be so open as we're having in this particular case. When was the last time the head of MI5 and the head of MI6 – the prime minister has made quite clear – can be summoned to this inquiry and be required to give evidence?"

This from the senior politician who has always denied that he was officially briefed about the illegal assassination plot against Colonel Gaddafi of Libya in 1996; this from the man who is now calling for the arming of the very same extremists to topple Gaddafi in the ongoing shambles that is the Libyan War; and this from the man who is also loudly calling for an extension of the ISC's legal powers so that it can demand access to witnesses and documents from the spy organisations. 

No doubt my head will stop spinning in a day or two....

Alastair Campbell - guilty of breaching the OSA?

I have long suspected that Alastair Campbell, Labour's former Director of Communications, may potentially have broken the UK's Official Secrets Act.  Now prima facie evidence is beginning to emerge that he did indeed breach the "clear bright line" against unauthorised disclosure of intelligence. 

I know that the Metropolitan Police have their hands full investigating the meltdown that is the News of the World hacking scandal - and also trying to replace all those senior officers who had to resign because of it - but they do have a duty to investigate crime.  And not just any old crime, in this case, but one that has potentially threatened the very basis of our national security.

Why do I say this? 

You'll no doubt have some vague recollection that, in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War, the British government produced a couple of reports "making a case for war".  The first, the September Dossier (2002), is the one most remembered, as this did indeed sex up the case for war, as well as include fake intelligence about Saddam Hussein trying to acquire uranium from Niger.  Most memorably it led to the "Brits 45 minutes from Doom" front-page headline in Rupert Murdoch's The Sun newspaper, no less, on the eve of the crucial war vote in Parliament.

There was also the notorious leaked Downing Street Memo, where the then-head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove (C), was minuted as saying that the intelligence and facts were being fitted around the [predetermined war] policy.

However, for the purposes of a possible Regina v. Campbell day in court, it is the second report that requires our attention.

It was published in February 2003, just before "shock and awe" was launched to liberate the grateful Iraqi people.   This report became known as the "Dodgy Dossier", as it was largely lifted from a 12 year old PhD thesis that the spin doctors had found on the internet.  However, it also included nuggets of brand-new and unassessed intelligence from MI6.  Indeed, even the toothless Intelligence and Security Committee in Parliament stated in paragraph 82 of its 2002-2003 Annual Report ( Download ISC_2003) that:

"We believe that material produced by the [intelligence] Agencies can be used in publications and attributed appropriately, but it is imperative that the Agencies are consulted before any of their material is published. This process was not followed when a second document was produced in February 2003. Although the document did contain some intelligence-derived material it was not clearly attributed or highlighted amongst the other material, nor was it checked with the Agency providing the intelligence or cleared by the JIC prior to publication. We have been assured that systems have now been put in place to ensure that this cannot happen again, in that the JIC Chairman endorses any material on behalf of the intelligence community prior to publication."

At the time it was reported that Blair and Campbell had spontaneously distributed this report to journalists travelling with them on a tour of the Far East.   The ISC confirmed that the intelligence had been passed to journalists without the permission of MI6 in its September 2003 special report - "Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction: Intelligence and Assessments" (see pars 131 to 134):

"The document was originally given to a number of journalists over the weekend of
1 and 2 February and then placed in the Library of the House on 3 February. The Prime
Minister described the document as follows:

“We issued further intelligence over the weekend about the infrastructure of
concealment. It is obviously difficult when we publish intelligence reports, but I hope
that people have some sense of the integrity of our security services. They are not
publishing this, or giving us this information, and making it up. It is the intelligence
that they are receiving, and we are passing on to people. In the dossier that we
published last year, and again in the material that we put out over the weekend, it is
very clear that a vast amount of concealment and deception is going on.”

"Conclusions:

"The Committee took evidence on this matter from the Chief of the SIS on both
12 February and 17 July and separately from Alastair Campbell on 17 July. Both agreed
that making the document public without consulting the SIS or the JIC Chairman was
a “cock-up”. Alastair Campbell confirmed that, once he became aware that the
provenance of the document was being questioned because of the inclusion of
Dr Al-Marashi’s work without attribution, he telephoned both the Chief of the SIS and
the JIC Chairman to apologise.

"We conclude that the Prime Minister was correct to describe the document as
containing “further intelligence... about the infrastructure of concealment.... It is the
intelligence that they [the Agencies] are receiving, and we are passing on to people.”

"However, as we previously concluded, it was a mistake not to consult the
Agencies before their material was put in the public domain. In evidence to us the
Prime Minister agreed. We have reported the assurance that we have been given
that in future the JIC Chairman will check all intelligence-derived material on
behalf of the intelligence community prior to publication."

Crucially, Blair and Campbell had jumped the (old Iraqi super-) gun by issuing this information, but Campbell seems to have got away with it by describing such a breach of the OSA as a "cock-up".  Or perhaps just another precipitous "rush of blood to the head" on his part, as recently described in the long-suppressed testimony of SIS2 revealed around the Chilcot Enquiry and reported in The Guardian:

"Papers released by the Chilcot inquiry into the war show that an MI6 officer, identified only as SIS2, had regular contacts with Campbell: "We found Alastair Campbell, I think, an enthusiastic individual, but also somewhat of an unguided missile." He added: "We also, I think, suffered from his propensity to have rushes of blood to the head and pass various stories and information to journalists without appropriate prior consultation" (my emphasis).

So why do I suggest that Campbell could be liable for prosecution?  It appears that he was a "notified person" for the purposes of Section 1(1) of the OSA.  While not employed by the intelligence agencies, notified persons have regular access to intelligence material and are subjected to the highest clearance - developed vetting - in the same way as the full-time spooks.  As such, they are also bound by the law against disclosure of such material without the prior written permission of the head of the agency whose intelligence they want to disseminate.  There is no room for manoeuvre, no damage assessment, and no public interest defence.  The law is clear. 

And a report in today's Telegraph about Andy Coulson and the phone-hacking scandal seems to show clearly that Campbell was just such a notified person:

"Unlike Alastair Campbell and other previous holders of the Downing Street communications director role, Mr Coulson was not cleared to see secret intelligence reports and so was spared the most detailed scrutiny of his background and personal life.....

"The only people who will be subject to developed vetting are those who are working in security matters regularly and would need to have that sort of information.

"The only special advisers that would have developed vetting would be in the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence and maybe the Home Office. Andy Coulson's role was different to Alastair Campbell's and Jonathan Powell.

"Alastair Campbell could instruct civil servants. This is why [Coulson] wasn't necessarily cleared. Given [the nature of] Andy Coulson's role as more strategic he wouldn't have necessarily have been subject to developed vetting."

So it would appear that Alastair Campbell is bang to rights for a breach of the Official Secrets Act under Section 1(1).  He released new, unassessed and uncleared MI6 intelligence within the dodgy dossier.  This is not just some technical  infraction of the law - although even if it were, he would still have a case to answer.

No, this report led inexorably to our country going to war against Iraq, shoulder to shoulder with the US, and the resulting deaths, maimings, poisonings and displacement of millions of innocent Iraqi people.  It has also directly increased the terrorist threat to the UK, as Tony Blair was officially warned pre-Iraq war by the then-head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller.  With the dodgy dossier, Campbell has directly harmed countless lives and our national security.

Of course, many of us might fantasise about warmongers getting their just deserts in The Hague.  But perhaps the OSA could prove to be Al Campbell's Al Capone-style tax evasion moment.

Now, what about The Right Honourable Tony Blair?

RTTV interview: Murdoch's ex-CEO arrested

UK spies get a B+ for intrusive surveillance in 2010

The quangocrats charged with overseeing the legality of the work of the UK spies have each produced their undoubtably authoritative reports for 2010. 

Sir Paul Kennedy, the commissioner responsible for overseeing the interception of communications, and Sir Peter Gibson, the intelligence services commissioner, both published their reports last week.  

Gibson has, of course, honourably now stood down from his 5-year oversight of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ in order to head up the independent enquiry into spy complicity in torture. 

And both the reports say, naturally, that it's all hunky-dorey.  Yes, there were a few mistakes (well, admistrative errors - 1061 over the last year), but the commissioners are confident that these were neither malign in intent nor an indication of institutional failings. 

So it appears that the UK spies gained a B+ for their surveillance work last year.

Both commissioners pad out their reports with long-winded descriptions of what precisely their role is, what powers they have, and the full, frank and open access they had to the intelligence officers in the key agencies. 

They seem sublimely unaware that when they visit the spy agencies, they are only given access to the staff that the agencies are happy for them to meet - intelligence officers pushed into the room, primped out in their party best and scrubbed behind the ears - to tell them what they want to hear. 

Any intelligence officers who might have concerns have, in the past, been rigorously banned from meeting those charged with holding the spies to democratic account.....

....which is not much different from the oversight model employed when government ministers, the notional political masters of MI6, MI6 and GCHQ, sign off on bugging warrants that allow the aggressive investigation of targets (ie their phones, their homes or cars, or follow them around).  Then the ministers are only given a summary of a summary of a summary, an application that has been titrated through many managerial, legal and civil service filters before landing on their desks.  

So, how on earth are these ministers able to make a true evaluation of the worth of such an application to bug someone? 

They just have to trust what the spies tell them - as do the commissioners. 

Keynote at Centre for Investigative Journalism Summer School, 16 July 2011

My next talk in the UK will be a keynote at the renowned CIJ summer school on 16th July. One of the major themes this year is whistleblowing, for obvious Wikileaks-related reasons, and it appears I shall be in good company.

My talk is at 2pm on the Saturday.  I understand the keynotes are open to the public, not just summer school attendees, so come along if you can and please spread the word!

UK Intelligence and Security Committee to be reformed?

The Guardian's spook commentator extraordinaire, Richard Norton-Taylor, has reported that the current chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) in the UK Parliament, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, wants the committee to finally grow a pair.  Well, those weren't quite the words used in the Grauny, but they certainly capture the gist.

If Rifkind's stated intentions are realised, the new-look ISC might well provide real, meaningful and democratic oversight for the first time in the 100-year history of  the three key UK spy agencies - MI5, MI6, and GCHQ, not to mention the defence intelligence staff, the joint intelligence committee and the new National Security Council .

For many long years I have been discussing the woeful lack of real democratic oversight for the UK spies.  The privately-convened ISC, the democratic fig-leaf established under the aegis of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act (ISA), is appointed by and answerable only to the Prime Minister, with a remit only to look at finance, policy and administration, and without the power to demand documents or to cross-examine witnesses under oath.  Its annual reports are always heavily redacted and have become a joke amongst journalists.

When the remit of the ISC was being drawn up in the early 1990s, the spooks were apoplectic that Parliament should have any form of oversight whatsoever.  From their perspective, it was bad enough at that point that the agencies were put on a legal footing for the first time.  Spy thinking then ran pretty much along the lines of "why on earth should they be answerable to a bunch of here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians, who were leaky as hell and gossiped to journalists all the time"?

So it says a great deal that the spooks breathed a huge, collective sigh of relief when the ISC remit was finally enshrined in law in 1994.  They really had nothing to worry about.  I remember, I was there at the time.

This has been borne out over the last 17 years.  Time and again the spies have got away with telling barefaced lies to the ISC.  Or at the very least being "economical with the truth", to use one of their favourite phrases.  Former DG of MI5, Sir Stephen Lander, has publicly said that "I blanche at some of the things I declined to tell the committee [ISC] early on...".  Not to mention the outright lies told to the ISC over the years about issues like whistleblower testimony, torture, and counter-terrorism measures.

But these new developments became yet more fascinating to me when I read that the current Chair of the ISC proposing these reforms is no less than Sir Malcolm Rifkind, crusty Tory grandee and former Conservative Foreign Minister in the mid-1990s.

For Sir Malcolm was the Foreign Secretary notionally in charge of MI6 when the intelligence officers, PT16 and PT16/B, hatched the ill-judged Gaddafi Plot when MI6 funded a rag-tag group of Islamic extremist terrorists in Libya to assassinate the Colonel, the key disclosure made by David Shayler when he blew the whistle way back in the late 1990s.

Obviously this assassination attempt was highly reckless in a very volatile part of the world; obviously it was unethical, and many innocent people were murdered in the attack; and obviously it failed, leading to the shaky rapprochement with Gaddafi over the last decade.  Yet now we are seeing the use of similar tactics in the current Libyan war (this time more openly) with MI6 officers being sent to help the rebels in Benghazi and our government openly and shamelessly calling for regime change.

But most importantly from a legal perspective, in 1996 the "Gaddafi Plot" MI6 apparently did not apply for prior written permission from Rifkind - which they were legally obliged to do under the terms of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act (the very act that also established the ISC).  This is the fabled, but real, "licence to kill" - Section 7 of the ISA - which provides immunity to MI6 officers for illegal acts committed abroad, if they have the requisite ministerial permission.

At the time, Rifkind publicly stated that he had not been approached by MI6 to sanction the plot when the BBC Panorama programme conducted a special investigation, screened on 7 August 1997.  Rifkind's statement was also reported widely in the press over the years, including this New Statesman article by Mark Thomas in 2002.

That said, Rifkind himself wrote earlier this year in The Telegraph that help should now be given to the Benghazi "rebels" - many of whom appear to be members of the very same group that tried to assassinate Gaddafi with MI6's help in 1996 - up to and including the provision of arms.  Rifkind's view of the legalities now appear to be somewhat more flexible, whatever his stated position was back in the 90s. 

Of course, then he was notionally in charge of MI6 and would have to take the rap for any political fall-out.  Now he can relax into the role of "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?".  Such a relief.

I shall be watching developments around Rifkind's proposed reforms with interest.

How the Light Gets In festival - my talk

My recent talk at the excellent How the Light Gets In philosophy festival at Hay-on-Wye.  With credit and thanks to IAI TV and the staff of the Institute of Art and Ideas, the organisers the event.

 

Fair trials in the UK courts? Anyone?

This article in today's Guardian about the ongoing repercussions of the Mark Kennedy undercover cop scandal earlier this year piqued my interest.  

It appears that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has suppressed key evidence about the all-too-apparent innocence of environmental protesters in the run-up to their trials.  In this case Mark Kennedy aka Stone, the policeman who for years infiltrated protest groups across Europe, had covertly recorded conversations during the planning sessions to break into Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station.

Kennedy offered to give evidence to prove that the unit he worked for at the time, the private and unaccountable ACPO-run National Public Order Investigations Unit (NPOIU), had witheld this key evidence.  It now appears that the police are claiming that they passed all the information on to the CPS, which then seems to have neglected  to hand it over to the protesters' defence lawyers. 

Which makes it even more fascinating that in April this year the Director of Public Prosecutions, famous civil liberties QC Keir Starmer no less, took the unprecedented step of encouraging those same protesters to appeal against their convictions because of potential "police" cover-ups.

It's just amazing, isn't it, that when vital information can be kept safely under wraps these doughty crime-fighting agencies present a united front to the world?  But once someone shines a light into the slithery dark corners, they all scramble to avoid blame and leak against each other?

And yet this case is just the tip of a titanic legal iceberg, where for years the police and the CPS have been in cahoots to cover up many cases of, at best, miscommunication, and at worst outright lies about incompetence and potentially criminal activity. 

A couple of months ago George Monbiot provided an excellent summary of recent "misstatements" (a wonderfully euphemistic neologism) by the police over the last few years, including such blatant cases as the death of Ian Tomlinson during the London G20 protests two years ago, the ongoing News of the World phone hacking case, and the counter-terrorism style execution, sorry, shooting of the entirely innocent Jean Charles de Menezes, to name but a few. 

Monbiot also dwelt at length on the appalling case of Michael Doherty, a concerned father who discovered that his 13 year-old daughter was apparently being groomed by a paedophile over the internet.  He took his concerns to the police, who brushed the issue aside.  When Doherty tried to push for a more informed and proactive response, he was the one who was snatched from his house in an early morning raid and ended up in court, accused of abusive and angry phone calls to the station in a sworn statement by a member of the relevant police force, sorry, service.

And that would have been that - he would have apparently been bang to rights on the word of a police secretary - apart from the fact he had recorded all his phone calls to the police and kept meticulous notes on the progress of the case.  Only this evidence led to his rightful acquittal.

As Monbiot rightly concludes, "justice is impossible if we cannot trust police forces to tell the truth".

It appears that the notion of "citizen journalists" is just sooo 2006.  Now we all need to be not only journalists but also "citizen lawyers", just in case we have to defend ourselves against potential police lies.  Yet these are the very organisations that are paid from the public purse to protect civil society.  Is it any wonder that so many people have a growing distrust of them and concerns about an encroaching, Stasi-like, police state?

This is all part of engrained, top-down British culture of secrecy that allows the amorphous "security services" to think they can get away with anything and everything if they make a forceful enough public statement: black is white, torture is "enhanced interrogation", and war is peace (or at least a "peacekeeping" mission in Libya....).  Especially if there is no meaningful oversight.  We have entered the Orwellian world of NewSpeak.

But plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.  This all happened in the 1970s and 80s with the Irish community, and also in the 1990s with the terrible miscarriage of justice around the Israeli embassy bombing in 1994.  If you have the time, please do read the detailed case here: Download Israeli_Embassy_Case

We need to remember our history.

Former head of MI6 says that fact and fiction get mixed up

Former head of MI6, Sir John Scarlett - he of the dodgy September Dossier fame that led inexorably to the UK's invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the death, maiming, depleted-uranium poisoning and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people - has complacently stated during his recent talk at the Hay Literary Festival that:

"One of the problems of intelligence work is that fact and fiction get very easily mixed up.  A key lesson you have to learn very early on is you keep them separate.”

Well, no doubt many, many people might just wish he'd listened to his own advice way back in September 2002.

Scarlett is, of course, the senior UK spook who made the case for the Iraq war.  Here's the link:  Download Iraq_WMD_Dossier. 

No doubt you will remember the li(n)es: not only that Iraq's non-existent  "weapons of mass destruction" could be launched within 45 minutes, but also that fake intelligence documents had persuaded MI6 that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger , as Colin Powell asserted during his persuasive speech to the UN in 2003.

Scarlett publicly took the rap and, by protecting Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell, was rewarded with the top job at MI6 and the inevitable knighthood.  No doubt a suitable recognition for his entirely honourable behaviour.

But it gets worse - now he has apparently landed a lucrative job as an advisor on the situation in Iraq working for Norwegian oil mega-corporation, Statoil.

You couldn't make it up...

... or perhaps you could if you're a former top spy with an undeserved "K" and a lucrative oil contract who has difficulty separating fact from fiction......

 

Guardian article: the role of the spies in the UK

Here's the text of an article I wrote for The Guardian a while ago, where I suggest we need a fresh perspective and some clear thinking on the role of the spies in the UK. 

Worth reiterating, following the pre-emptive arrest of protesters:

The cascade of revelations about secret policemen, starting with PC Mark Kennedy/environmental activist "Mark Stone", has highlighted the identity crisis afflicting the British security establishment. Private undercover police units are having their James Bond moment – cider shaken, not stirred – while MI5 has become ever more plod-like, yet without the accompanying oversight. How has this happened to our democracy without any public debate?

From the late 19th century the Metropolitan Police Special Branch investigated terrorism while MI5, established in 1909, was a counter-intelligence unit focusing on espionage and political "subversion". The switch began in 1992 when Dame Stella Rimington, then head of MI5, effected a Whitehall coup and stole primacy for investigating Irish terrorism from the Met. As a result MI5 magically discovered that subversion was not such a threat after all – this revelation only three years after the Berlin Wall came down – and transferred all its staff over to the new, sexy counter-terrorism sections. Since then, MI5 has been eagerly building its counter-terrorism empire, despite this being more obviously evidential police work.

Special Branch was relegated to a supporting role, dabbling in organised crime and animal rights activists, but not terribly excited about either. Its prestige had been seriously tarnished. It also had a group of experienced undercover cops – known then as the Special Duties Section – with time on their hands.

It should therefore come as little surprise that Acpo, the private limited company comprising senior police officers across the country, came up with the brilliant idea of using this skill-set against UK "domestic extremists". Acpo set up the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU). This first focused primarily on animal rights activists, but mission creep rapidly set in and the unit's role expanded into peaceful protest groups. When this unaccountable, Stasi-like unit was revealed it rightly caused an outcry, especially as the term "domestic extremist" is not recognised under UK law, and cannot legally be used as justification to aggressively invade an individual's privacy because of their legitimate political beliefs and activism. So, plod has become increasingly spooky. What of the spooks?

As I mentioned, they have been aggressively hoovering up the prestigious counter-terrorism work. But, despite what the Americans have hysterically asserted since 9/11, terrorism is not some unique form of "eviltude". It is a crime – a hideous, shocking one, but still a crime that should be investigated, with evidence gathered, due process applied and the suspects on trial in front of a jury.

A mature democracy that respects human rights and the rule of law should not intern suspects or render them to secret prisons and torture them for years. And yet this is precisely what our spooks are now allegedly doing – particularly when colluding with their US counterparts.

Also, MI5 and MI6 operate outside any realistic democratic oversight and control. The remit of the intelligence and security committee in parliament only covers the policy, administration and finance of the spies. Since the committee's inception in 1994 it has repeatedly failed to meaningfully address more serious questions about the spies' role. The spooks are effectively above the law, while at the same time protected by the draconian Official Secrets Act. This makes the abuses of the NPOIU seem almost quaint. So what to do? A good first step might be to have an informed discussion about the realistic threats to the UK. The police and spies huddle behind the protective phrase "national security". But what does this mean?

The core idea should be safeguarding the nation's integrity. A group of well-meaning environmental protesters should not even be on the radar. And, no matter how awful, the occasional terrorist attack is not an existential threat to the fabric of the nation in the way of, say, the planned Nazi invasion in 1940. Nor is it even close to the sustained bombing of government, infrastructure and military targets by the Provisional IRA in the 70s-90s.

Once we understand the real threats, we as a nation can discuss the steps to take to protect ourselves; what measures should be taken and what liberties occasionally and legally compromised, and what democratic accountability exists to ensure that the security forces do not exceed their remit and work within the law.

The Age of Transparency?

Well, this is an interesting case in the US.  Thomas Drake, a former senior executive at the American National Security Agency (NSA), the US electronic eavesdropping organisation, is being charged under the 1917 US Espionage Act for allegedly disclosing classified information to a journalist about, gasp, the mismanagement, financial waste and dubious legal practices of the spying organisation.  These days it might actually be more newsworthy if the opposite were to be disclosed....

However, under the terms of the Espionage Act, this designates him an enemy of the American people on a par with bona fide traitors of the past who sold secrets to hostile powers during the Cold War.

It strikes me that someone who reports malpractice, mistakes and under-performance on the part of his (secretive) employers might possibly be someone who still has the motivation to try to make a difference, to do their best to protect people and serve the genuine interests of the whole country.  Should such people be prosecuted or should they be protected with a legal channel to disclosure? 

Thomas Drake does not sound like a spy who should be prosecuted for espionage under the USA's antiquated act, he sounds on the available information like a whistleblower, pure and simple.  But that won't necessarily save him legally, and he is apparently facing decades in prison.  President Obama, who made such a song and dance about transparency and accountability during his election campaign, has an even more egregious track record than previous presidents for hunting down whistleblowers - the new "insider threat".

This, of course, chimes with the British experience.  So-called left-of-centre political candidates get elected on a platform of transparency, freedom of information, and an ethical foreign policy (think Blair as well as Obama), and promptly renege on all their campaign promises once they grab the top job. 

In fact, I would suggest that the more professedly "liberal" the  government, the more it feels empowered to shred civil liberties.  If a right-wing government were to attack basic democratic freedoms in such a way, the official opposition (Democrats/Labour Party/whatever) would be obliged to make a show of opposing the measures to keep their core voters sweet.  Once they're in power, of course, they can do what they want.

One stark example of this occured during the passing of the British Official Secrets Act (1989) which, as I've written before, was specifically designed to gag whistleblowers and penalise journalists.  The old OSA (1911) was already in place to deal with real traitors.

And who voted against the passing of this act in 1989?  Yes, you've guessed it, all those who then went on to become Labour government ministers after the 1997 Labour election landslide - Tony Blair, Jack Straw, the late Robin Cook and a scrum of other rather forgettable ministers and Attorney Generals.....  And yet it was this very New Labour government in the UK that most often used the OSA to halt the free-flow of information and the disclosures of informed whistleblowers.  Obama has indeed learnt well.

It's an oldie but still a goodie: as one of my lawyers once wryly told me, it doesn't matter whom you vote for, the government still gets in.....

Can the product of bugs be used as court evidence in the UK?

An interesting story on Channel 4 TV news today: four London police officers are being prosecuted for beating up Babar Ahmad in 2003 while arresting him on suspicion of terrorism charges.  And it turns out that the key evidence for the prosecution comes not from Ahmad's complaint, nor from photographs of his injuries, but from the product of an eavesdropping device, more commonly known as a bug, planted in his home by the UK Security Service, MI5.

It's interesting in itself that MI5 has released this information for court proceedings against Met counter-terrorism officers.  I shall resist speculating now, but shall be watching developments with interest.

But the point I want to make quickly today is about the use of intercept material as legal evidence in UK courts.  This can potentially be crucial for lawyers when speaking to their clients, journalists who wish to protect their sources, polticial activists, and those who simply wish to protect their inherent right to privacy as the encroaching electronic surveillance state continues to swell.

It can also be potentially useful information for MPs talking to their constituents.  Indeed, returning to the years-long case of Babar Ahmad, there was a media furore in 2008 when it was revealed that the Met had authorised the bugging of his conversations with his MP Sadiq Khan during prison visits.  

And who was the commanding officer who authorised this?  Step forward former Met Counter Terrorism supremo, Andy Hayman, that much esteemed defender of British civil liberties who recently suggested "dawn raids" and "snatch squads " be used against political activists.

Unlike most other western countries, the UK does not allow the use of telephone intercept as evidence in a court of law.  As I've written before, it's a hangover from the cold war spying game.  MI5 has traditionally seen phone taps as a source of intelligence, not evidence, despite the fact that much of their work is notionally more evidentially based in the 21st century.  It also still remains a subject of debate and a fiercely fought reargard action by the spies themselves, who claim telecheck is a "sensitive technique". 

As if we don't all know that our phones can be bugged.....

However, eavesdropping devices that are planted in your property - your home, your office, even your car - can indeed produce evidence that can be used against you in a court of law.   All this requires a Home Office Warrant (HOW) to make it legal, but Home Secretaries are traditionally reluctant to refuse a request in the interests of "national security".  Moreover, if the owner of the property agrees to a bug, even without a HOW, they can be legally used.  So if you live in rented accommodation, befriend your landlord!

Not a lot of people know all that - but we should. 

How the Light Gets In - speaking in Hay-on-Wye, May 30 2011

I did two sessions at Hay-on-Wye philosophy and music festival - How the Light gets In in May 2011.

The first was a debate called "An Age of Transparency" with neo-conservative commentator Douglas Murray, and philosopher Nigel Warburton.

The second was my talk about "Spies, Lies, and Life on the Run".

Here's a link to a video of my talk.