With considerably less fanfare than the appearance of intelligence agency heads before the first ever public evidence session of the Intelligence and Security Committee earlier this year, the committee held a series of public sessions last week as part of its Privacy and Security Inquiry.
Further analysis to follow, but details and links to the sessions are below.
Tuesday 14th October
Session 1 – 10.05 am – 11.46am
Witnesses:
Charlie Edwards, Director of National Security and Resilience Studies, RUSI;
Professor Anthony Glees, Director of the Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, University of Buckingham;
Baroness Onora O’Neill, Crossbench Peer, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission;
Rebecca Hilsenrath, Chief Legal Officer, Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The session can be watched online here.
Wednesday 15th October
Session 2 – 10am – 11.16am
Emma Carr, Director Big Brother Watch
Eric Metcalfe, Monkton Chambers on behlf of Justice
Isabella Sankey, Director of Policy at Liberty
Hanne Stevens, Interim Director Rights Watch UK
The session is available online here.
Session 3 11.40am – 1.00pm
Professor Peter Sommer, independent expert in digital forensics
Professor Charles Raab, Professor of Government, University of Edinburgh
Jim Killock, Executive Director, Open Rights Group
Jon Boutcher, Deputy Chief Constable for Bedfordshire Police
Richard Berry, Assistant Chief Constable, Gloucestershire Police.
The sessions can be viewed online here.
Session 4 – 2pm – 3.15pm
Professor Tom Simpson, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
Dr Julian Richards, Co-Director Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, University of Buckingham
Professor John Naughton, University of Cambridge
Peter Gill, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, University of Liverpool
This session can be viewed here.
Session 5
Rt Hon. Yvette Cooper, MP, Shadow Home Secretary.
The session can be viewed here, the Shadow Home Secretary’s evidence begins at approx 01:28.
Session 6 4.30pm – 5.19pm
Rt Non. Nick Clegg, MP, Deputy Prime Minister
The session can be viewed here, the Deputy Prime Minister’s evidence begins at approx 02:28.
Thursday 16th October,
Session 7 – 10.30am – 11.31am
Rt. Hon Theresa May, MP – Home Secretary
This session can be viewed online here.
Thursday 23rd October
Session 8 – 11.15am -12noon
Sir David Omand, King’s College London
Session 9 1pm-2pm
Rt. Hon. Philip Hammond, MP – the Foreign Secretary
Sarah McIntosh, Director-General, Defence and Intelligence, FCO
Laurie Bristow, Director, National Security, FCO
Sessions 8 and 9 can be viewed online here.
Transcripts of all sessions are now available on the ISC website.
Roundtable – Tuesday 14th October
In addition to the public sessions above, which were all broadcast on the Parliament TV channel, the ISC also held a roundtable session on Tuesday 14th October at which experts and members of the committee exchanged ideas in a more informal session. Probably due to its nature the roundtable session does not appear to have been broadcast and it is not at present clear who was invited to attend. Nevertheless, one of the participants, Dr Paul Bernal of the University of East Anglia has provided an account of the session on his blog.