Annie Machon

The Big Dig Journalism Conference, Copenhagen

I recently did the opening keynote at the Big Dig investigative journalism conference in Copenhagen.  Thanks to the organisers for a wonderful weekend!

 

Book Review on "Epilogue"

Reviewing "The Art of Betrayal" on Press TV's Epilogue with former MP Derek Conway and Glenmore Treanar-Harvey.

 

Journalists need to wise up to secrecy laws

I had a fantastic time at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Kiev last weekend.  A huge  well done to the organisers for a great four days, and I loved having the chance to meet so many interesting and interested people from across the world!

I was invited to give the opening keynote speech (video to follow), where I discussed some of my experiences from the MI5 whistleblowing years, but then went on to apply the harsh lessons learned to the current situation vis a vis the issue of spy influence on the media today and the thorny issue of whistleblowing and the protection of sources.

Part of my talk focused on the control of the media by the spies in Britain.  As I have written before, this is very much a "carrot and stick" scenario: the soft aspect, of course, being cosy chats with selected journalists, well-timed career-enhancing scoops, as well as an increasingly unhealthy journalistic dependence on briefings coming out of the intelligence world and government.

The stick aspect includes the battery of harsh laws that can be called upon to suppress free reporting in the UK, which sometimes leads to self-censorship by the media.  These laws include:

• libel laws (Britain is notorious as the libel capital of the world);
• Terrorism Act 2000;
• injunctions;
• super-injunctions;
• Public Interest Immunity certificates (PIIs) or "gagging orders" issued by ministers;
• production orders;
• contempt of court proceedings;
• the media self-censorship of the Defence Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee  (the infamous old "D" Notice system);
• and of course the abusive use of the Official Secrets Act 1989 

How do I know all this?  Well, as you can see from many of the links in the above list, I've lived through much of this and have followed with great interest similar and related cases over the years.  More information about these issues can be found in this excellent report produced by Article 19 and Liberty over a decade ago.  The situation has not improved.

While in Kiev I attended an excellent session where two Russian journalists discussed the ramifications of reporting on the modern incarnation of the Russian intelligence agency, the FSB.

I was somewhat startled to hear that even in Russia journalists have more legal protection than those in the UK - ie they face no criminal legal sanction if they report whistleblower material from the Russian spy agencies.  In the UK journalists potentially face 2 years in prison for doing so, under the invidious Section 5 of the 1989 OSA.

Way to go, British democracy.

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.

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!

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.

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.....

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.

Frontline Club/New Statesman (FCNS) whistleblower debate with Julian Assange

"This house believes whistleblowers make the world a safer place."

I was honoured to be asked to say a few words at the recent debate about the value of whistleblowers in London on 9th April 2011.

The Frontline Club and the left-wing New Statesman magazine jointly hosted the event, which starred Julian Assange, editor in chief of Wikileaks.  Here is the debate in full:

   

Needless to say, the opposition had an uphill battle arguing not only against logic, the fair application of law, and the meaning of a vibrant and informed democracy, but also against the new realities in the worlds of journalism and technology. 

The first more diplomatically-minded oppositionist adopted a policy of appeasement towards the audience, but the last two had to fall back on the stale and puerile tactics of name-calling and ad hominem attacks.  So good to see that expensive educations are never a waste....

The proposition was supported enthusiatically by the sell-out crowd, a resounding vote of confidence in the democratic notions of accountability and transparency.

Here's a snippet of my (brief) contribution to a fantastic afternoon:

 

Tony Soprano meets Joe McCarthy

Now I'm not a huge follower of US political theatrics.  Give it a few years and the US of A will probably exit from the world stage pursued by a bear (or panda).  So why waste your time on a dying beast?  All you can do is try to avoid the death throes as best you can. 

But this did pique my interest, purely from the Hollywood-blockbuster schlock value.  The new Chair of the US Homeland Security Committee, Republican Congressman for New York Peter King, has opened a hearing called  “The Extent of Radicalization (with a "z") in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response.” 

Here is the  Download Full_text and here's the video of King's opening statement:

 

Now isn't it wonderful that esteemed politician Peter King has woken up to the dangers of "the enemy within" - or not?  Over the last last few months he has flagrantly displayed his profound ignorance vis a vis the concept of terrorism.  Last December he called for the designation of Wikileaks, the high-tech conduit extraordinaire for public-spirited whistleblowers around the world, as a "terrorist organistion".  

And this from a politician who is reported to be a life-long supporter of the political wing of the Provisional IRA - another religious minority group that fought for its self-proclaimed ideals - and was for decades the "enemy within" the UK. 

In fact, until 9/11 the US Irish community was by far the biggest funder of PIRA terrorism for decades - so don't believe everything that is written about Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. 

I suppose it still holds true that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and Rep Peter King is clearly adhering to that point of view.....

Looking at the above video, I can't get out of my head that it's a bit like putting the fictional organised crime boss, Tony Soprano, in charge of a government committee investigating organised crime.

But it gets worse.  King even mentions the dread phrase "despite what passes for conventional wisdom in certain circles, there is nothing radical or un-American in holding these hearings".  Wasn't that also what a certain Senator Joe McCarthy said in the 1950s about the Communist witchhunts?

Such moronic statements would potentially be amusing - if it were not for the fact that Peter Chair is the King of the Homeland Security Committee of the world's dying and desperate super-power, the USA. 

Oops, silly me, I muddled the words.....

But sadly he is, and no doubt the whole world will feel the repercussions of this.  The morphing of the fictional Tony Soprano and paranoid Joe Kennedy has spawned a hellish brat - let's call him Emmanuel Goldstein, for ease of reference.

 

Durham Union Society Talk, 16 February 2011

It's a busy couple of months for talks, and I have the pleasure of speaking at the Durham Union Society tomorrow night (16th February).

My talk will be focusing on the modern role of intelligence agencies, the war on terror, what it's like to be recruited to work as a spook, whistleblowing, Wikileaks, police states and civil liberties.  An eclectic mix.

The talk is open to all students, not just members of the Union, so if you're in the area and have the time, do come along!

Cambridge Union Society, 28th January 2011

Well I had a fab time revisiting the old place last week to do a talk at the Union Society - somewhere I spent many happy hours, oh, aeons ago!

Many thanks to Rebecca and the rest of the team for organising and hosting the event, and to Silkie for setting the whole ball rolling.

It was a busy weekend.  The Friday evening began with an all-too-brief appearance at the first meeting of a new group, MI7 - can I say that, or is it a state secret? - organised by Silkie and Charlie Veitch of the Love Police. 

It was strange to go back to the Union as a speaker after so long and so many unusual experiences.  The audience seemed to stay wide awake for my hour-long talk, and the questions afterwards were interesting, lively and varied.  I was also encouraged to see that ideas deemed to be "radical" only a few years ago are now going mainstream.

The next day was taken up with interviews for The Cambridge Student and Varsity student newspapers, Sky 203 Channel,  and a photo shoot with QH Photography for a gallery exhibition in London later this year.

The Cambridge Student journalists gamely allowed the interview to be film by Sky 203 - not the easiest of scenarios.

"Varsity" newspaper did a colourful and intelligent interview - thanks Olivia! - which was rapidly followed on the newspaper website today with this puff piece about MI6. 

I can only assume that this is merely balanced news reporting, especially as the Master of Pembroke College, Chair of the Trustee Board of the Union Society, and former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, will be speaking at the Union in a couple of weeks..... 

Certainly an interesting juxtaposition!

The photo shoot was fun, and the results will be appearing in London at the end of this year.  As you can see from the photo on the left, Huy takes a mean picture.

I also ran into Ryan J-W Smith, who is in the process of completing his intriguing film, 2Plus2Makes4.  Limited private and festival screenings are expected this summer.

The film synopsis asks some fundamental questions:

"How close are we to sliding into Orwell’s totalitarian nightmare, ‘1984’? Controversial, shocking, powerful and honest - starring Tony Benn, Gore Vidal, former MI5, CIA, FBI agents, Senators, Presidential Nominees, etc.  A ‘Must-See’ feature documentary from award-winning filmmaker, Ryan J-W Smith. Smith’s previous films have received 16 International Film Festival Selections, 5 ‘Best Film’ Nominations, and 4 ‘Best Film’ wins."

Cambridge Union Society Talk, 28th January 2011

I shall be returning to my alma mater next week to do a talk at the Cambridge Union Society on 28th January.  I'll be discussing spies, civil liberites, whistleblowers, Wikileaks and much more.....