How far will GCHQ go to enter the debate about privacy?

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Andrew Defty

IMG_1005The publication of an article in The Financial Times by the new head of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, has prompted a mixed response. While some have offered a cautious welcome to what may be seen as a new and genuine attempt to engage in an important public debate, others have been more sceptical, viewing it as little more than a PR exercise on the part of GCHQ.

The article was clearly carefully planned, UK intelligence agency chiefs do not make public statements without careful consideration, both of the content and the audience. Hannigan’s choice of The Financial Times was a clearly designed to enhance the impact of his message amongst the business community both here and more pointedly across the Atlantic. Public statements by British intelligence agency heads are not uncommon now, although they are still rare enough to attract widespread media attention. The first public statement by the Director-General of MI5 took place in 1994 when Stella Rimington delivered the Richard Dimbleby lecture on national television. Although the heads of MI6 and GCHQ were rather slow to follow MI5’s lead, with the first public speeches by serving heads of both agencies taking place in 2010, these occasional lectures have now become almost routine. Nevertheless, such events have generally involved the presentation of carefully prepared speeches, in front of carefully selected audiences with very little opportunity for interaction. Moreover, the first public appearance of the intelligence and security agency heads before the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee earlier this year was as carefully choreographed as any of their previous public outings.

If Robert Hannigan is genuinely committed to entering the public debate about privacy he must be prepared to debate, and if he really wants to break with tradition, he might consider appearing before one of the other parliamentary committees whose work overlaps with that of the Intelligence and Security Committee. As we show in our book, Watching the Watchers, in recent years a number of parliamentary select committees have sought to take evidence from the intelligence and security agencies, most notably the Home and Foreign Affairs committees and the Joint Committee on Human Rights. However, access has consistently been denied on the grounds that the ISC has sole responsibility for scrutiny in this area. This has in the past been the source of considerable tension between the ISC and a number of other committees, but it has done little to discourage the select committees from seeking to examine the role of intelligence agencies when their activities have encroached on existing inquiries, such as those on human rights or counter-terrorism policy. Moreover, while the ISC has jealously guarded its turf in this area, there is some evidence that the agencies have begun to engage with other parliamentary committees albeit on an informal basis. A number of committees have had briefings from the intelligence agencies with the proviso that these would not be entered as formal evidence and transcripts would not be published. Although interestingly committees have differed in their response to this, with the Joint Committee on Human Rights, for example, declining the offer of a briefing if it was not to be on the record.

Indeed, it is something of a myth to continue to assert that the intelligence and security agencies do not have a public profile or that they don’t already seek to influence public debate. While statements in the press, like Hannigan’s, are rare, the British intelligence and security agencies have a very prominent public profile, from inviting Judi Dench, who played ‘C’ in the Bond movies, to MI6 headquarters for lunch to unveiling an enormous poppy in the centre of the GCHQ ‘doughnut’. The agencies have also enjoyed a long and close relationship with the British media. The agencies, to some extent owe their very existence to a largely manufactured fear of German invasion whipped up in the British press at the start of the last century. More recently, in 2004 the ISC conducted an inquiry into the agencies’ relationship with the media which revealed that a number of media outlets have journalists ‘accredited’ to the agencies, and receive briefings ‘about matters relevant to the Services.’ When parliamentarians complain, as they often did in interviews for our research, that the intelligence agencies are not prepared to speak to Parliament, they often add ‘but they’re quite happy to talk to journalists.’

However, maintaining a public profile is not the same as being subject to public scrutiny, and while the agencies have embraced the former they have consistently avoided the latter. To be sure, an appearance before another select committee would be considerably more challenging than the gentle public ‘grilling’ the agency heads received from the ISC. Moreover, there would inevitably be points at which they would need to decline to answer certain questions for fear of revealing sources and methods, which would lead to inevitable criticisms. There would, however, be little threat to national security if the sessions were carefully handled. Leaving aside the farcical time delay in the ISC session, it is in reality highly unlikely that senior staff of the intelligence and security agencies would inadvertently blurt out vital state secrets. Nor would this mean, as some have suggested, that they would not be able to say anything. If Hannigan were to appear, for example, before the Home Affairs Committee, which is currently conducting an inquiry into the operation of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, he could without revealing any operational details, provide information on GCHQ policies with regard to interception and offer a vital perspective on whether GCHQ feel the Act is fit for purpose and whether or how it might be amended. If there is to be new legislation, and many would argue it is necessary, it will be debated in Parliament, so it might be helpful if parliamentarians knew exactly what they were being asked to approve.

Given that it has taken twenty years for the agency heads to appear in public before a parliamentary committee, stepping out from the comforting gaze of the ISC might seem highly unlikely. However, Hannigan may be prepared to take the plunge. Unlike his predecessor he is a Whitehall man, not an agency insider. He has considerable personal experience of appearing before a range of parliamentary select committees from his time in various Whitehall departments, including the Public Accounts Committee, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and the Defence Committee. His experience of working with senior politicians, particularly in the Cabinet Office, may mean that he is also more likely to have an appreciation of the dynamics of political debate. Given current concerns it may not be a comfortable experience, but if Hannigan is as certain as he seems that GCHQ’s approach is both necessary and proportionate then he should be prepared to subject his argument to detailed parliamentary scrutiny.

This post first appeared on the Political Studies Association blog. Our work on the intelligence services and the select committees was published in a recent article in Parliamentary Affairs.

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ISC Privacy & Security Inquiry – public sessions

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Andrew Defty

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:

Rt. Hon. David Blunkett, MP;

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.

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New Book – Watching the Watchers: Parliament and the Intelligence Services

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Andrew Defty

wtw2Our new book, Watching the Watchers: Parliament and the Intelligence Services, has now been published by Palgrave Macmillan.

The book provides a new and detailed examination of parliamentary scrutiny of the British intelligence and security agencies, and policy. Through detailed analysis of parliamentary business, coupled with interviews with more than 100 MPs and Peers and a number of senior officials in the Cabinet Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, it examines the various mechanisms by which parliament seeks to scrutinise the secret state, and assesses the extent to which parliament has both the capacity and the will to provide effective oversight of intelligence and security policy and agencies. In addition to providing a detailed analysis of the impact of the Intelligence and Security Committee, this is the first book to examine the various other means by which a range of parliamentary bodies including select committees,  all-party groups and individual parliamentarians have sought to scrutinise the intelligence agencies and the handling of intelligence by government.

Until recently, intelligence and security matters were not the subject of parliamentary debate in the United Kingdom. The veil of secrecy surrounding the intelligence and security agencies has gradually lifted since the late 1980s when a raft of legislation placed the agencies and their activities on a statutory footing. In particular, in 1994 the Intelligence Services Act created for the first time some form of parliamentary oversight of the intelligence and security agencies with the establishment of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), a cross-party committee of parliamentarians, to examine the ‘expenditure, administration and policy’ of the agencies. Whilst the role of the ISC has expanded considerably since 1994, questions remain about whether this is the most effective means of providing oversight, and in 2013 the government introduced the first substantive reforms of the ISC as part of the Justice and Security Act.

There is also evidence of an appetite for greater parliamentary scrutiny of intelligence beyond the ISC. Prompted in part by the Labour government’s use of intelligence to make the case for war in Iraq, terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom, and concerns about the role of the intelligence agencies in the interrogation of terrorist suspects, a number of parliamentary bodies and individual parliamentarians have pressed for broader parliamentary scrutiny of intelligence. In particular, in recent years a number of parliamentary select committees, most notably the Home and Foreign Affairs committees and the Joint Committee on Human Rights, have called for greater parliamentary accountability for the intelligence and security agencies, including the replacement of the ISC with a parliamentary select committee. In some areas All-Party Groups, such as the APG on Extraordinary Rendition, have sought to pressure the government and the ISC to reveal more about the work of the agencies. There is also evidence that the House of Lords is playing a more central role in the scrutiny of intelligence issues, with the first ever Lords debate on the work of the ISC in 2006, and the appointment of Peers with direct experience of the agencies, most notably Pauline Neville-Jones, former Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, and Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former Director-General of MI5, who used her maiden speech to attack proposals for the detention of terrorist suspects for up to 42 days. 

Existing studies of parliamentary scrutiny of intelligence within the UK have focused almost exclusively on the work of the ISC. This is the first book to examine the role of parliament as a whole in this respect.

Chapter headings:

1. Introduction: The challenges of legislative oversight of intelligence

2. ‘The Government does not comment’: Parliament and the intelligence services

3. Managing continuity and change: legislating for intelligence agency accountability

4. ‘A unique and special committee’: the Intelligence and Security Committee

5. Issues of accountability and access: the select committees and intelligence

6. Other indicators of parliamentary interest: debates, questions, motions and groups

7. ‘No longer scared to ask…’: Parliamentarians and the intelligence services

8. New possibilities: legislative oversight of intelligence beyond Westminster

9. Conclusions: Parliament and the future of intelligence oversight

Sample chapter available on Palgrave website.

Hugh Bochel, Andrew Defty and Jane Kirkpatrick, Watching the Watchers: Parliament and the Intelligence Services, London: Palgrave Macmillan 2014, ISBN 9781137270429, hb. £68, also available as an Ebook.

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Intelligence implications of Scottish independence

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Andrew Defty

MI6 FlagSome thoughts on the intelligence implications of Scottish independence, prepared for Andrew Neal’s seminar series on security in Scotland, which I was unable to attend but Hugh did. It draws together some ideas with regard to the potential challenges of establishing a new intelligence infrastructure, and effective oversight mechanisms, and also provides links to a number of useful sources.

Scottish intelligence agencies

The intelligence implications of a yes vote are interesting and have been discussed both by the Government in Westminster and the Scottish Nationalists. However, discussion of this, as with other questions relating to independence, such as currency, are closely bound up with the campaign and as a result it is unclear whether we are being offered a clear picture of what is likely to happen.  The UK government has tended to stress what Scotland would lose, with the suggestion that they would overnight lose access to British intelligence resources and would be forced to start again from scratch. The Foreign Affairs select committee also looked at the question as part of its inquiry into the foreign policy implications of and for a separate Scotland. They too cautioned that Scotland should not expect the UK agencies to make up any shortfall in capacity while Scotland established new agencies.

The UK government have also implied, perhaps implicitly, that Scotland would then become a target for the British intelligence agencies. As an overseas territory, British spies operating in Scotland would not be subject to the same restrictions and legal framework which governs their activities in the UK. The SNP, on the other hand, have argued that they would want, and have the capacity, to establish their own independent intelligence agency, they have drawn on the example of the Nordic countries, whose intelligence agencies while effective have not tended to have the same global reach as those of countries like the UK, USA or indeed France.

In the event of Scotland becoming an independent country, Britain’s security would still be dependent on a secure Scotland. The Royal United Services Institute assessment of the post-independence securiry architecture in Scotland focuses heavily on the potential for significant security vulnerabilities for the whole of the UK in what might be an extensive transitional period before Scotland has a fully functioning intelligence and security apparatus. However, if the stakes are really that high, and they probably are, it would be in no-one’s interest to suddenly stop collecting and sharing intelligence on security threats North of the border. I suspect that the UK agencies would continue to play a central and guiding role in any transitional period, and would help Scotland to establish its own intelligence agencies. After this, intelligence sharing and operational cooperation would become the norm.

There are some parallels here, albeit historical. Britain’s closest intelligence relationships are with the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries were all once British colonies and Britain played a central role in establishing their intelligence agencies following independence (quite a long time after, in the case of the USA). The network of intelligence sharing between these states dates back to the Second World War, and is much closer than that Britain has with any other states, including within the EU.

The UKUSA agreement between Britain and the USA in which Britain and the USA agreed to share intelligence and to divide up the globe for the purpose of intelligence collection was established in 1943 and reaffirmed shortly after the war. The relations with Australia, Canada and NewZealand were effectively bolted onto this arrangement, with the result that a series of intelligence sharing agreements now exist, with an alphabet soup of acronyms – AUSCANNZUKUS, CANUKUS,AUSUKUS. Where an independent Scotland would fit into this is not clear but intelligence relations would probably more closely mirror those with the former (English-speaking) colonies than with Europe.

Intelligence oversight in an independent Scotland

The provision of oversight for new Scottish intelligence and security agencies raises further questions. In the case of Britain, the establishment of the intelligence and security agencies in their current form pre-dated the establishment of oversight mechanisms by more than eighty years. However, some form of democratic oversight of intelligence agencies is now the norm in Britain and around  the world, and it is inconceivable that oversight bodies would not be established at the same time as the creation of new intelligence structures in an independent Scotland.

However, what form these oversight mechanisms would take is not clear, and as with the intelligence agencies, Scotland need not follow the same model currently in place south of the border.

It is important to remember that intelligence oversight generally exists on a number of different levels, involving different institutions and actors with different roles. According to Born and Leigh it may include some, or preferably all, of the following:

  • Internal oversight – at the level of the agency, including chains of command and internal practices and procedures;
  • Executive oversight – by the government, which should be responsible for tasking the agencies, establishing priorities and providing day to day control;
  • Legislative oversight – accountability to parliament, usually through some form of oversight committee. This is important in terms of providing democratic oversight.
  • Judicial oversight – to ensure that intelligence agencies operate within the law;
  • Civil society – scrutiny by those outside the intelligence community including the media, pressure groups, and academics.

There is also some evidence for a growing interest in intelligence agency accountability on the part of international/intergovernmental organisations such as the European Union, the Council of Europe and the United Nations.

Providing intelligence agency accountability in an independent Scotland is likely to pose a number of distinct problems or challenges. Our research on parliamentary oversight at Westminster found that in addition to the form and powers of legislative oversight bodies, another crucial factor in their effectiveness is the level of expertise of those involved, and the question of legislative expertise in Scotland was also addressed in this recent blog by Paul Cairney on the subject of intelligence agency accountability in an independent Scotland. The Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee has drawn heavily on former Ministers with experience in domestic security, defence, and foreign affairs in order to provide the committee with the necessary expertise, although this has naturally led to criticisms that the committee has been too close the Executive and to the agencies. In the case of Scotland there are likely to be even fewer MSPs with any background in intelligence and with a much smaller chamber, a much smaller pool from which to draw expertise. Moreover, given that defence and foreign affairs have been a reserved powers the practice of appointing former Ministers is a less viable option.

One alternative may be to appoint a committee of external experts to oversee and inform parliament. This is a model which has been adopted in a number of countries, such as Canada, although it may be preferable to see this as a step towards direct parliamentary oversight rather than a long-term solution.

If as suggested above, Scottish intelligence agencies continue to work closely with their counterparts south of the border this also raises questions about the extent to which new oversight bodies will be able to oversee issues of intelligence sharing and liaison. Oversight of  liaison is perhaps the most difficult and problematic aspect of intelligence oversight as exemplified most recently in the relation to the Snowden leaks and the Binyam Mohammed case. Any problems are likely to be compounded if Scotland adopts stronger and more open oversight mechanisms than currently exist in Britain. In such circumstances the British government, and agencies, are likely to put pressure on Scotland along the lines that intelligence sharing arrangements will be jeopardised by Scotland’s oversight mechanisms.

Nevertheless, there are also a number of advantages to establishing oversight mechanisms at this time. Intelligence oversight in Scotland will not be created in a vacuum. There are a number of models on which to draw from other states, and also some notions of best practice, such as those developed by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. The tendency will be to seek to mirror the oversight mechanisms in place at Westminster but this is not the only option. The Parliamentary Intelligence  and Security Committee has evolved over time and has recently acquired new powers, but it has not been the most  powerful or effective of oversight bodies, and Scotland may want to look to examples from other states, including once again the Nordic countries or the Netherlands. However, it is also important to remember that powerful oversight structures don’t always make for more detailed or effective scrutiny. The USA has some of the most powerful legislative intelligence oversight committees, but much of the current debate has revolved around whether members of Congressional oversight committees have been willing to wield that power.

Another potential benefit of establishing oversight mechanisms at the same time as the agencies, is that the two processes can inform each other. In this way executive and legislative oversight bodies and civil society can play a role in ensuring that effective internal procedures are put in place regarding what is and is not acceptable for intelligence agencies to do, and what powers should be wielded by the different oversight bodies.

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Contrasting responses to US surveillance in Germany and the UK

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Andrew Defty

This post is prompted by a recent Twitter exchange with Stuart Wilks-Heeg, of Liverpool University. Following an article in The Guardian which noted that German politicians were proposing a return to using manual typewriters in response to revelations of US surveillance activities in Germany, Dr Wilks-Heeg observed that the political response to the Snowden revelations in Germany and the UK ‘could not have been greater’, and wondered at the relative lack of media and societal concern in the UK compared to Germany. Having exceeded my capacity to respond in 140 characters, this represents a more detailed and hopefully considered response.

We should be careful not to underestimate the level of concern within the UK, recent revelations about US surveillance have featured prominently in the British media, most notably The Guardian, as well as Der Speigel, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Nevertheless, reaction amongst politicians and the public certainly appears to have been more muted in the UK than  in Germany.  The British public have generally been supportive of the work of the intelligence and security agencies and although there was initially considerable support amongst the British public for Edward Snowden’s decision to leak US documents, this has fallen in more recent polls. Moreover, there has been little evidence of public support for reining in the power of the intelligence agencies. A YouGov poll undertaken in October 2013 after the publication of the Snowden revelations, found that only 19% of British public felt that the British intelligence agencies had too many powers, while 42% felt they had enough power and 22% thought they should have greater powers. Comparative polling data is difficult to come by but research carrried out by Pew Research, which asked individuals in 44 countries whether they thought it was acceptable for the US government to monitor the communications of citizens in their country, found that  87% of Germans thought this was unacceptable compared to 70% of Britons. The British public were less concerned about US surveillance than those polled in any other European country. When the same question was asked in relation to US surveillance of the communications of the leaders in their respective countries, 65% of Briton’s thought this was unacceptable, compared to 90% of Germans. In this case Germany was at the top of the poll, while the only European country with citizens less concerned than the UK about US surveillance of their leaders was Italy.

The difference in political responses has, if anything, been even more marked. Following the revelations about the interception of Chancellor Merkel’s communications, the German Bundestag launched an inquiry into US intelligence activities in Germany. Although initial expectations were low, the Committee of Inquiry has exceeded expectations with its determination to examine US activities. This was highlighted last month when the Committee took evidence from former NSA officers turned whistleblowers. One possible indicator of the scope of this inquiry was the recent claim that a German intelligence officer was arrested for spying on the Bundestag Committee of Inquiry on behalf of the Americans.

In contrast the British Intelligence and Security Committee has been broadly supportive of the British agencies’ involvement in US surveillance activies and it is inconceivable that the ISC would take evidence from disaffected intelligence officers, from Britain or the US.  Instead the ISC used its first public evidence session to provide a platform for the heads of the UK intelligence agencies to refute allegations that British agencies were involved in the widespread or illegal surveillance of British citizens and to highlight the damage caused by whistleblowers such as Snowden. Aside from some critical comments from the Home Affairs Committee which did take evidence from the editor of The Guardian and may yet seek evidence from Snowden, there has been little critical scrutiny within Parliament. Recent revelations regarding the manner in which the British intelligence and security agencies interpreted the law to allow for the monitoring of social media use by British citizens, generated only a modest ripple of parliamentary interest (see earlier post on Tom Watson’s EDM), and this week’s debates on the emergency Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill were poorly attended and passed through the House of Commons with an overwhelming majority, and little detailed scrutiny.

The most obvious explanation for the different response to the Snowden revelations in Britain and Germany, is that while Germany has clearly been a target for NSA surveillance at the highest level, the UK is a long-standing partner of the US intelligence agencies. Had Snowden revealed that the communications of the British Prime Minister had been targeted by US intelligence agencies, the response of the British media and public would presumably have been quite different. Few British newspapers or indeed the British public are likely to be concerned that the US has been targeting the phonecalls of the German Chancellor, and some may even be supportive of this. Of course the suspicion may arise that if the US is targeting allies why not the British, reinforcing the old intelligence adage that there are no friendly intelligence services just the intelligence services of friendly powers. However, in addition to details of US surveillance of allies, the Snowden files also revealed in considerable detail the extent to which British agencies have worked with the US agencies in intelligence collection.

However, as Wilks-Heeg suggested there may also be deeper societal reasons for Britain’s relative lack of concern about US surveillance. German citizens have suffered at the hands of their own secret services, during the Second World War, and more recently at the hands of the East German secret police, the Stasi. Given these experiences it is perhaps not surprising that Germans are more concerned about the exercise of state power, and the use of covert surveillance in particular. In contrast, the prevailing British view of intelligence appears to be based upon a combination of the war winning achievements of Bletchley Park, and the derring-do of James Bond. For a long time the most well-kept secret of the Second World War, Bletchley Park is now feted by politicians and Royalty, and its achievements have been invoked by successive Prime Ministers in making the case for increased vigilance and investment in communications security. Whilst one should not exaggerate the impact of James Bond  and other fictional representations on popular perceptions of the British intelligence agencies, research carried out by YouGov in 2013 found that a significant proportion of the British public felt that the intelligence agencies should be able to exercise considerably greater powers than at present including one in five of who felt the agencies should have a licence to kill ‘with no questions asked’. Moreover, in the cases of both Bletchley Park and Bond, Britain’s impressive intelligence apparatus is directed firmly at external enemies.

The sanguine public attitudes towards the British intelligence agencies also extends to Parliament.  The situation has improved somewhat since the 1980s, when one former MP in the Thatcher government interviewed for our research, observed that asking questions about intelligence was viewed as ‘unpatriotic’. Nevertheless, with one or two notable exceptions parliamentarians on both sides of the House are slow to criticise the work of the intelligence and security agencies. Statements and questions about the the work of the agencies are often prefaced by lengthy tributes to the vital work they carry out in the national interest. Although there is nothing wrong with this per se, it does help to create an environment in which the small number who do raise questions about the agencies are viewed as an ill-informed minority with a propensity for conspiracy theory. Moreover, a culture of deference is also apparent within the Intelligence and Security Committee itself. Members of the ISC interviewed for our research observed that some members clearly feel privileged by their appointment and as a result may be reluctant to ask difficult questions. As one member of the current committee observed there is still a tendency for some members of the ISC to get ‘starstruck’.

In contrast as a result of their historical experiences the Germans have a much stronger system of parliamentary accountability for intelligence agencies. Germany, along with the Netherlands, was one of the first states to establish legislative scrutiny of intelligence with the creation of a parliamentary oversight committee in 1956, some considerable time before the creation of similar committees in the USA in 1976, and the UK in 1994.  The German oversight committee also has greater powers than its British counterpart. It is appointed by the Bundestag, has considerable powers of investigation including subpoena powers and the ability to determine the legality of intelligence activities, and almost uniquely amongst legislative oversight bodies, can investigate individual complaints made against the German intelligence agencies.  Although the British ISC has recently been reformed and acquired significant new powers of investigation, it remains to be seen what impact this will have on its oversight role, and the wider perception both of the agencies and the committee itself.

However, it is also notable that reform of the British intelligence and security agencies has largely been a response to external pressures, principally from Europe, rather than domestic concern. This is in contrast to many countries, including post-reunification Germany and also the USA, in which intelligence oversight was introduced or strengthened in response to well-publicised scandals involving the abuse of power by the intelligence agencies. In Britain, in contrast, legislation which put the agencies on a statutory footing and regulated their activities was a direct response to a series of adverse rulings by the European Court of Human Rights. Recent changes which strengthened  the oversight of intelligence were included in the Justice and Security Act as a means to sugar the pill of limiting the power of the Courts, while the emergency passage of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill was once again a response to a judgement emanating from Europe.

It has long been accepted that the operation of national intelligence agencies and their respective oversight bodies are in part defined by the political culture and constitutional arrangements of particular states.  What is interesting about the Snowden case and about Wilks-Heeg’s question, is that this political culture may also impact upon attitudes towards foreign intelligence agencies, and more particularly intelligence liaison. Both counter-intelligence and intelligence sharing have traditionally been the most secretive aspects of intelligence activities and primarily conducted by the agencies some way beyond external scrutiny. Recent events including the Snowden leaks and the revelations about the US renditon programme have placed intelligence relations between allies on the public and political agenda in Britain, Germany and elsewhere. The response may be more muted in Britain than elsewhere, but what may be seen as globalising tendencies in intelligence accountability is such that the results of investigations taking place elsewhere will have an impact here.

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