Annie Machon

Interview on Russia Today TV, 30 June 2010

And here's an interview I did yesterday for Russia Today TV about the the spy story:

From Russia with Love (to the USA)

I've been following with interest the retro, Cold War spy saga currently unfolding in the USA.  The headlines being that 10 alleged Russian sleepers ("illegals" in spy lingo) have been arrested by the FBI and are now charged with "working as agents of a foreign power", which carries a sentence of five years in prison.

These Russian "illegals", some of whom reportedly have been living openly as Russian immigrants, some as other foreign nationals, have allegedly been infiltrating the US since the mid-1990s, and were tasked to get friendly with American power-brokers, to glean what information they could about the thoughts of the US great and the good about Russia, Iran, defence plans etc.

Whatever the truth of this case, and the charges are detailed, I find the timing and media attention given to this story interesting for three key reasons:

From what has been reported of the court papers, the FBI investigation has been going on for years.  Apparently they have known about the spy ring since 2000, and have included communications intercept material in the indictment dating from 2004 and 2008, as well as sting operations from the beginning of this year.  So it's curious that the FBI decided to swoop now, in the immediate aftermath of a successful and, by all accounts friendly, meeting between the Russian and American presidents in Washington DC. 

Many people are commenting on this aspect of the timing.  And, indeed, one might speculate about wheels within wheels - it appears that there are still hardline factions within the US administration that want to ensure that a warmer working relationship cannot develop between Russia and the USA. A strategy of tension is good for business – especially companies like Halliburton and Xe (formerly Blackwater) which profit from building vast US military bases in Central Asia.

But what also intrigues me is the possible behind-the-scenes action. 

This story is getting blanket media coverage.  It's a good, old-fashioned, Cold War-style coup, hitting all the jingoistic spy buttons, just at a time when the US spooks are under pressure about their performance in the nebulous and ever-shifting "war on terror", the shredding of constitutional rights, the illegal surveillance of domestic political activists, and complicity in extraordinary rendition and torture. It's a useful "reminder" that the bloated US security infrastructure is worth all the money it costs, despite the dire state of US national finances. Pure propaganda.

I'm also willing to bet that there is a more covert aspect to this story too - some behind-the-scenes power play.  There are, at the last count, 17 acknowledged intelligence agencies in the US, all competing for prestige, power and resources.  By making these arrests, the FBI will see this as a step up in the spy pecking order.  It reminds me inevitably (and perhaps flippantly) of the classic spy novel by former intelligence officer Graham Greene, "Our Man in Havana".  In this no doubt entirely fictional work, a British MI6 asset invents a spy ring to increase his standing and funding from London HQ.

Also curious is the role played by one Christopher Metsos, allegedly the 11th man, not initially arrested, who is reported to have passed money to the spy ring.  He was caught yesterday in Cyprus trying to board a plane to Hungary, and inexplicably granted bail - inexplicable at least to the Greek police, who always worry that their suspect will flee over the border into the Turkish segment of the island, never to be seen again.  And this has indeed happened, according to The Guardian newspaper this evening. Perhaps he has some urgent appointments to sell vacuum cleaners north of the border.....

The Importance of Whistleblowers

Some positive media coverage about the importance of whistleblowers.  It gives me hope.

Dirty Tricks in Iraq and UK Media

An interesting example of press manipulation appeared today in the UK media.  Britain is in the throes of a general election and many pundits are saying that the result is too close to call - the feeling being that the UK's third party, the Liberal Democrats, may hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.  The Daily Mail, one of the most rabidly right-wing of the national newspapers, chose today to print a story about the arrest and subsequent rescue of two UK soldiers in Iraq in 2005. 

The general thrust of the piece was that the Labour government was willing to sacrifice our soldiers by refusing to authorise their rescue, in order to avoid political embarrassment.  This story appears to be a fairly obvious attempt by The Daily Wail to encourage military personnel and their families to vote against the incumbent government, which was willing to sacrifice our boys' lives for political expediency.

However,I would suggest that there is another level to this story.  Many remember when the news first broke: how two SAS soldiers, working under cover and disguised as Arabs, failed to stop their car at a checkpoint and engaged in a shoot-out that killed one Iraqi and injured three more.  The SAS operatives were arrested and taken to a police station where the authorities discovered that their car contained weapons and explosives. The SAS launched a rescue, ploughing into the police station with tanks, and then tracking their targets to a local militia house nearby, fighting their way in and saving their comrades.  All heroic stuff.  However, the obvious follow-up questions are:

1) What the hell were these two soldiers doing in disguise, and with a car-load of weaponry?

2) Precisely why was the government so embarrassed about the potential political fall-out?

I think these two questions are inter-dependent.  Dirty tricks and collusion are a standard methodology for the SAS and the intelligence community - a well-documented tactic they used in the war in Northern Ireland over three decades.  So just what was the intended destination of the weaponry?  Would they have been used for an attack subsequently blamed on "insurgents" or "Al Qaeda"?

As for the potential political embarrassment, the Daily Mail's excuse - that the British government didn't want to undermine the perceived sovereignty of the Iraqis at that time - is just too feeble to stand up.  The issue of political embarrassment makes far more sense if seen in terms of UK government awareness of the use by the British military of dirty tricks, collusion or false flag terrorism in Iraq. 

Of course, this is a perfectly standard tactic used by many countries' military and intelligence infrastructures.  It would be naive to think it does not happen, but it is a retrograde, risky and counter-productive tactic. 

In the 21st century it is more naive to think that such activity is either effective or acceptable in a world where the spread of democracy and the application of international law and human rights are the way forward.

US Intelligence targets Wikileaks

The US government has apparently been getting its knickers in a twist about the excellent Wikileaks website.  A report written in 2008 by US army counter-intelligence analysing the threat posed by this haven for whistleblowers has been leaked to, you've guessed it, the very subject of the report.

Wikileaks was set up three years ago to provide a secure space for principled whistleblowers around the world to expose corruption and crimes committed by our governments, intelligence agencies and mega-corporations.  The site takes great care to verify the information it publishes, adheres to the principle of exposing information very much in the public interest, and vigorously protects the identify of its sources.

By doing so, Wikileaks plays a vital part in informing citizens of what is being done (often illegally) in their name.  This free flow of information is vital in a democracy. 

Well, no government likes a clued-up and critical citizenry, nor does it like to have transparency and accountability imposed on it.  Which led to the report in question.

As I have written before ad nauseam, whistleblowers provide an essential function to the healthy working of a democracy.  The simplistic approach would be to say that if governments, spies and big corporations obeyed the law, there would be no need for whistleblowers.  However, back in the real, post-9/11 world, with its endless, nebulous "war on terror", illegal wars, torture, extraordinary rendition and Big Brother surveillance, we have never had greater need of them.

Rather than ensuring the highest standards of legality and probity in public life, it is far simpler for the powers that be to demonise the whistleblower - a figure who is now (according to the Executive Summary of the report) apparently seen as the "insider threat".  We are looking at a nascent McCarthyism here.  It echoes the increasing use by our governments of the term "domestic extremists" when they are talking about activists and protesters.

There are laws to protect whistleblowers in most areas of work now.  In the UK we have the Public interest Disclosure Act (1998).  However, government, military, and especially intelligence professionals are denied this protection, despite the fact that they are most often the very people to witness the most heinous state abuses, crimes and corruption.  If they try to do something about this, they are also the people most likely to be prosecuted and persecuted for following their consciences, as I described in a talk at the CCC in Berlin a couple of years ago.

Ideally, such whistleblowers need a protected legal channel through which to report crimes, with the confidence that these will be properly investigated and the perpetrators held to account.  Failing that, sites like Wikileaks offer an invaluable resource.  As I said last summer at the Hacking at Random festival in NL, when I had the pleasure of sharing a stage with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, I just wish that the organisation had existed a decade earlier to help with my own whistleblowing exploits.

Secrecy legislation, such as the Official Secrets Act (1989) in the UK, is often drafted to stifle whistleblowers rather than protect real secrets.  Such laws are routinely used to cover up the mistakes, embarrassment and crimes of spies and governments, rather than to protect national security.  After all, even the spooks acknowledge that there are only three categories of intelligence that absolutely require protection: sensitive operational techniques, agent identities and ongoing operations.

This US counter-intelligence report is already 2 years old, and its strategy for discrediting Wikileaks (by exposing one of their sources pour encourager les autres) has, to date, manifestly failed. Credit is due to the Wikileaks team in out-thinking and technologically outpacing the intelligence community, and is a ringing endorsement for the whole open source philosophy.

I've said this before, and I shall say it again: as our countries evolve ever more into surveillance societies, with big brother databases, CCTV, biometric data, police drones, voting computers et al, geeks may be our best (and last?) defence against emerging Big Brother states.

MI5 looking for a Needle in the Haystack

The Xmas Day "Al Qaeda" terror attack on a transatlantic flight bound for Detroit is an interesting one.  Awful for those on the flight, of course, and my heart goes out to them for the fear they must have experienced.

But which are the governments most staunch in their prosecution of the war on terror?  Let's call them the "Axis of Good".....

The USA, the UK, and the Netherlands.

So it must be just nuts to them that the immediately identifiable Al Qaeda terrorist is reported to be a Nigerian-born UK engineering student who is flying via Schiphol airport in NL to the USA.  Even better, he acquired his "bomb" in Yemen - interestingly, a country that is under increasing assault by the US military at the moment. 

This ticks a number of useful national security boxes, reminding us what a threat our nations face. 

The alleged terrorist is reported to have been on the watch list of the US security apparatus, but not on the "no fly" list - which is unverifiable anyway, but reportedly contains the names of over a million people. So yet another break-down in this unwieldy security system.

We already have a situation where all citizens of the US, UK and NL are effectively treated like criminals every time they take a plane, as well as everyone else attempting to fly into these countries.  However, this incident has demonstrated that the security around flying is not just a slow irritant - a "Big Brother Lite" with its stupid restrictions around liquids, maquillage, shoes, belts and laptops - it has been dramatically shown not to work.

Identifying potential terrorists is like looking for a needle in a haystack.  This has become an establishment cliche these days: the terrorists have to be lucky only once, and the security services have to be constantly lucky to stop an attack.  The odds are acknowledged to be impossible. 

What used to be agreed within British and other European spook circles is the view that the best intelligence comes from tricky-to-run human sources.  They may have their flaws, but they can occasionally provide precise and lifesaving intelligence. The US approach has long been diametrically opposed to this approach - instead they sit back and hoover up every scrap of information via data mining and hope to sieve something out of it.  They then tend to respond with whizz-bang, hands-off gadgetry, much like a deadly video game.

So, that said, let's make two guesses how this new attack will be interpreted and used by our governments and security forces:

1) They admit that they need to reassess their approach to the "war on terror".

2) Focus on ever more draconian data mining measures at the point of travel - whether they work or not, whether they slide us ever nearer a police-state or not - until we are effectively prisoners in our own countries. 

A difficult prediction for 2010. 

The final annoyance will, at least from a personal perspective, be that they now ban the carrying of powders as well as liquids on board a flight.  If they stop me travelling with my Max Factor, that's it.  Trains only in the future.

Happy New Year!

FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds

I strongly recommend you take the time to watch this film about FBI whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds. 

"Kill the Messenger"  joins some interesting dots, not just about what might have been going on round Sibel's case, but also adds a different perspective to the notorious outing of CIA officer, Valerie Plame.

Of course, a film that investigates how the might of the state can be used to stifle the legitimate dissent of a whistleblower will always resonate with me. 

Same message, different country.

Vers la Verite, Paris, October 2009

So the Vers la Verite events in Paris earlier this month were a great success.  I've organised a few international tours and events in my time, but this was one of the most concentrated series of different happenings I've been involved in.  Thanks go to Debora Blake for all her work in situ in Paris, and also to the ReOpen posse, who offered a lot of practical support and were major sponsors of the weekend.

Vers la Verite was a gathering of campaigners and activists from across Europe and North America, who met to discuss "geopolitically incorrect issues" (as Debora likes to call them!), such as the illegal wars in the Middle East, media spin, intelligence manipulation, the erosion of our civil liberties in the name of the unending "war on terror" - and the need for a new, independent enquiry into the tragic events of 9/11, the nexus of so many of these issues.  It was fantastic to see so many old and new friends in Paris - what a show of commitment to making the world a safer and more equitable place.  It gave me hope.

We were also privileged to have campaigners of the calibre of the 2008 US Green Party presidential candidate Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, journalist and  recent MEP Giulietto Chiesa, Professor Niels Harrit of Copenhagen University, and French actor and director Mathieu Kassovitz at the events. 

The weekend started with a press conference on Friday 9th October at the Mairie of the 2nd arrondissement in Paris, kindly hosted by the Mayor, himself a Green Party politician.

In the evening, while the activists met up at the all-night watering hole, Cafe L'Etincelle on the Rue de Rivoli, Cynthia was the guest of honour at a sponsors' dinner at the famous Le Procope brasserie.  This is the oldest restaurant in Paris, and has hosted Benjamin Franklin (who reputedly worked on the draft of the American Constitution there), as well as Voltaire.

The Saturday was the main day of events, starting with a light lunch for  international activists at Les Halles des Oliviers at La Bellevilloise, with impromptu music from Dr Jazzz.  In the afternoon we convened for a planning session, followed in the evening by a public meeting.  Debora ably hosted the event with Cynthia McKinney, Giulietto Chiesa and Niels Harrit and myself as the speakers, discussing different aspects of government cover-ups and lack of accountability, all drawn from our own experiences.  The film "Zero", directed by Giulietto Chiesa, was screened, as well as excerpts from "American Blackout" featuring Cynthia, and the work of wonderful French comedian and campaigner, Jean Marie Bigard.

A surprise and very welcome attendee was Mathieu Kassovitz, who successfully bid in the auction for the collector's edition of the excellent "Global Outlook" research publication, signed by Cynthia.

The weekend wrapped up with a demo on Sunday morning, marching from Place de la Republique to Place Bastille - two resonant locations - before an informal farewell Parisian lunch.

It was fantastic to meet so many inspiring people, who are committed to changing the world for the better. Thank you all for taking the time and trouble to get to Paris for the weekend  - it was great to see so many old and new friends!

And thanks once again to Debora, AtMoh, Marc, Jean Marc, Christophe (x2!), Arno and the rest of the Paris posse. Also to Cynthia, Giulietto and Niels for their professionalism, dedication and sheer joy, all in the face of adversity. 

Cynthia McKinney Event in Paris, 10th October

Here's my latest effort.  It should be an amazing weekend in Paris, with Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, the 2008 US Green Party presidential candidate, headlining our "Vers la Verite" event on the Saturday night.  Have a look at the website for the full line-up.

Alan Johnson's MI5 File?

I wonder what information, if any, MI5 has on file about new-ish UK Home Secretary, Alan Johnson?  Or, more pertinently, what HE thinks the spies might have......

How else explain his recent comments in The Daily Torygraph? He said that he will be the voice of those who cannot defend themselves - ie those poor, anonymous intelligence officers in MI5.  He even drags out the hoary old chestnut that a criminal investigation into prima facie evidence that the spooks have been involved in serious crime - the torture of another human being - would damage national security. 

I'm surprised he managed to bite back Tony Blair's infamous line, that an investigation into possible spy incompetence and crime would be a "ludicrous diversion"

Ever since Labour came to power in 1997, we have had a series of Home Secretaries straining to avoid doing their job vis a vis the spooks in Thames House: the job being that of political master of MI5, thereby providing a modicum of democratic oversight to an extremely powerful and secretive organisation, holding it to account and ensuring it obeys the law. 

The role of Home Secretary is not to be the champion of unaccountable spies who are protected from investigation and oversight by a whole raft of secrecy legislation.

More and more evidence is emerging that MI5 assisted the USA's extraordinary rendition plan, that it  was complicit in torture, and that its officers have lied to cover their tracks.  Under this avalanche of scandal, some MPs have finally woken up to the fact that the Home Secretary should be ensuring MI5 obeys the law.  Some are even daringly suggesting that there should be proper Parliamentary oversight of the spies, rather than the fig leaf that is the Intelligence and Security Committee - hand-picked by and only answerable to the Prime Minister, and powerless to question intelligence officers under oath, demand papers, or look at anything more serious than policy, finance or administration.

The Metropolitan Police have even begun a criminal investigation into MI5's complicity in torture.  While I doubt any case that could, ahem,  "damage national security" will ever come to court,  a few junior officers may be asked to do the decent thing and quietly walk the plank. 

But the real issue - the closed, self-perpetuating group-think culture, where officers should just follow orders and not rock the boat - will continue unchallenged, resulting inevitably in yet more scandals.

It is time we had a Home Secretary who is up to the job and who has the backbone to initiate some meaningful reform of MI5. 

The Case of Gary McKinnon

I've been following the extraordinary case of Gary McKinnon for years now in a long range kind of way, but we are now in the final throes of his prolonged fight against extradition to the USA, and he needs all the support we can give him.  The Daily Mail recently started a campaign against his extradition:  it's not often I agree with the Wail, but I'm wholeheartedly in favour of this initiative. 

For those of you who have been living in a bunker for the last 7 years, Gary McKinnon is the self-confessed geek who went looking for evidence of UFOs and ETs on some of America's most secret computer systems at the Pentagon and NASA. 

And, when I say secret, obviously I don't mean in the sense of encrypted or protected.  The Yanks obviously didn't feel that their national defence warrants even cursory protection, as Gary didn't have to hack his way in past multiple layers of protection.  Apparently the systems didn't even have passwords.

Gary, who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, is no super hacker.  Using a basic PC and a dial-up connection in his bedroom, he managed to sneak a peek at the Pentagon computers, before kindly leaving a message that the US military might like to have a think about a little bit of basic internet security.   Hardly the work of a malignant, international cyber-terrorist.

UK police investigated Gary soon after this episode, way back in 2002.  All he faced, under the UK's 1990 Computer Misuse Act, would have been a bit of community service if he'd been convicted.  Even that was moot, as the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute.

And that, as they say, should have been that. 

However, in 2003 the UK government passed yet another draconian piece of law in response to the "war on terror" - the Extradition Act.  Under this invidious, one-sided law, the US authorities can demand the extradition to America of any British citizen, without presenting any evidence of the crime for which they are wanted.  Needless to say, this arrangement only works one way: if the Brits want to extradite a suspect from the US they still have to present prima facie evidence of a crime to an American court.  The Act also enshrines the questionable European arrest warrant system in British law.

So how on earth did the half-wits in Parliament come to pass such an awful law?  Were they too busy totting up their expense fiddles to notice that they were signing away British sovereignty?  This law means that it is easier for a US court to get a Brit in the dock than it is for them to get a US citizen from another state.  In the latter case, evidence is still also required.

Let's get this straight.  The UK authorities decided not to prosecute in this country.  Even if they had, Gary would probably have been sentenced to community service.  However, if he is extradited, he will get up to 70 years in a maximum security prison in the US.

So a year after Gary's bedroom hack, and after the CPS had decided there was no case to answer, the US authorities demanded Gary's extradition retroactively.   The UK government, rather than protecting a British citizen, basically said "Yes, have him!".  Gary has been fighting the case ever since.

He has not been alone.  Many people from across the political spectrum see this unilateral law as invidious.  And the government reckoned without his mum.  Janis Sharp has fought valiantly and indefatigably to protect her son from this unjust extradition. She has lobbied MPs, talked to newspapers, gained the support of many public and celebrity figures.  She even recently met the PM's wife, Sarah Brown, who was reportedly in tears for Gary.  Yet still the majority of the parliamentary half-wits refuse to do anything. 

In fact, it gets worse.  Over the last few years many MPs have signed Early Day Motions supporting Gary's fight against extradition.  But in a recent debate in the House of Commons about the need to revise the provisions of the Extradition Act, 74 of these MPs betrayed him and voted for the government to keep the Act in place.  Only 10 Labour MPs stuck to their guns and defied the party Whip.  One Labour MP, Andrew MacKinley, will stand down at the next election in protest at this hypocrisy.

This week is crunch time: on Friday a final judicial ruling will be made about the case.  It was the last throw of the legal dice for Gary.  If this fails, he will have to rely on political intervention, which is possible, to prevent his harmful, unjust and unnecessary extradition to the USA.  Please visit the Free Gary website and do all you can in support.

Diamonds and Rust

So Colonel Gaddafi of Libya has been dishing out the diplomatic gifts generously to the former US administration.  Listed in the public declaration are even such items as a diamond ring presented to former Secretary of State, Condaleeza Rice, and other gifts to the value of $212,000.

This seems a slightly uneven distribution of largesse from the Middle East to the West.  Before 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror, Gaddafi was still seen by the west as the head of a "rogue state".  Bombs, rather than gifts, were more likely to rain down on him.

However, since 2001 he has come back into the fold and is as keen as the coalition of the "willing" to counter the threat from Islamic extremist terrorists.  So now he's the new bestest friend of the US and UK governments in this unending fight. 

But that was kind of inevitable, wasn't it?  As a secular Middle Eastern dictator, Gaddafi has traditionally had more to fear from Islamists than has the West.  Particularly when these same Islamist groups have received ongoing support from those very governments that are now cosying up to Gaddafi.

Just to remind you, the reason I helped David Shayler in his whistleblowing on the crimes of MI5 and MI6 was because of just such a plot- the attempted assassination of Gaddafi in 1996 that was funded by the UK external intelligence gathering agency, MI6.  In 1995 Shayler, then the head of the Libyan section in MI5,  was officially briefed by his counterpart in MI6, David Watson (otherwise known as PT16/B), about an unfolding plot to kill Gaddafi.  A Libyan military intelligence officer, subsequently code-named Tunworth, walked in to the British embassy in Tunis and asked to speak to the resident spook. 

Tunworth said he was the head of a "ragtag group of Islamic extremists" (who subsequently turned out to have links to Al Qaeda - at a time when MI5 had begun to investigate the group), who wanted to effect a coup against Colonel Gaddafi.  They needed funding to do this, and that was where MI6 came in.  As a quid pro quo, Tunworth promised to hand over the two Lockerbie supsects for trial in Europe , which had for years been one of MI6's priority targets - not to mention all those juicy oil contracts for BP et al.

Over the course of about 5 months, MI6 paid Tunworth's group over $100,000, thereby becoming conspirators in a murder plot.  Crucially, MI6 did not get the prior written permission of their political master, the Foreign Secretary, making this action illegal under the terms of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act. 

Manifestly, this coup attempt did not work - Gaddafi is now a strong ally of our western governments.  In fact, an explosion occurred beneath the wrong car in a cavalcade containing Gaddafi as he returned from the Libyan People's Congress in Sirte.  But innocent people died in the explosion and the ensuing security shoot-out.

So, MI6 funded an illegal, highly reckless plot in a volatile part of world that resulted in the deaths of innocent people.  How more heinous a crime could there be?  But to this day, despite a leaked MI6 document that proved they knew the existence of the proposed plot, and despite other intelligence sources backing up Shayler's disclosures, the UK government has still refused to hold an enquiry.  Quite the opposite - they threw the whistleblower in prison twice and tried to prosecute the investigating journalists.

Some people may call me naive for thinking that the intelligence agencies should not get involved in operations like this.  Putting aside the retort that the spies often conflate the idea of the national interest with their own, short-sighted careerism, I would like to remind such cynics that we are supposed to be living in modern democracies, where even the secret state is supposed to operate within the rule of law and democratic oversight.  Illegal assassination plots, the use of torture, and false flag, state-sponsored terrorism should remain firmly within the retro, pulp-fiction world of James Bond.

Spy Chiefs attack UK Police State

Sir Richard Dearlove, ex-head of MI6 and current Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, has been much in the news recently after gracing the Hay on Wye book festival, where he gave a speech.  In this, he is reported to have spoken out, in strong terms, against the endemic and all-pervasive surveillance society developing in the UK. 

Ex-spy chiefs in the UK have a charming habit of using all these surveillance measures to the nth degree while in the shadows, and then having a Damascene conversion into civil liberties campaigners once they retire.  Eliza Manningham-Buller, the ex-head of MI5, used her maiden speech in the House of Lords to argue against the extension of the time limit the police could hold a terrorist suspect without charge, and even Stella Rimington (also ex-MI5) has recently thrown her hat in the ring.  They nick all my best lines these days.

Wouldn't it be great if one of them, one day, could argue in favour of human rights, proportionality and the adherence to the law while they were still in a position to influence affairs?

Dearlove himself could have changed the course of world history if he had found the courage to speak out earlier about the fact that the intelligence case for the Iraq war was being fixed around pre-determined policy.  As it is, we only know that he objected to this because of the notorious, leaked Downing Street Memo.

The Guardian newspaper reported that Dearlove even touched on the reality of obtaining ministerial permission before breaking the law.  Which, of course, is the ultimate point of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act, and does indeed enshrine the fabled "licence to kill".  It states that MI6 officers can break the law abroad with impunity from prosecution if, and only if, they obtain prior written permission from their political master - in this case the Foreign Secretary.

However, according to The Guardian, he seems to have misunderstood the spirit of the law, if not the letter:

He said that the intelligence community was "sometimes asked to act in difficult circumstances. When it does, it asks for legal opinion and ministerial approval … It's about political cover". 

Momentarily putting aside the not unimportant debate about whether the spies and the government should even be allowed technically to side-step international laws against crimes up to, and including, murder, I am still naively surprised by the shamelessness of this statement:  the notion of ministerial oversight was put in place to ensure some kind of democratic oversight and accountability for the work of the spies - not to provide political cover, a fig leaf.

I think he's rather given the game away here about how the spies really view the role of  their "political masters".

Amuse Bouche

A debate is currently under way in the (ex) Land of the Free about how much protection intelligence whistleblowers should be accorded under the law.

Yes, the country that has brought the world the "war on terror", Guantanamo Bay, and the Patriot Act, is having a moral spasm about how to best protect those who witness high crimes and misdemeanors inside the charmed circle of secrecy and intelligence. 

And about time too, following the mess of revelations about spy complicity in torture currently emerging on both sides of the pond.

Interestingly, intelligence officials in the US already have a smidgeon more leeway than their UK counterparts.  In the US, if you witness a crime committed by spies, you have to take your concerns to the head of the agency, and then you can go to Congress.  In the UK, the only person you can legally report crime to is the head of the agency involved, so guess how many successful complaints are made?  Even taking your proven and legitimate concerns to your elected UK representatives is a crime under the OSA.

Spooks in the UK now have access to an "ethical counsellor", who has reportedly been visited a grand total of 12 times by intelligence officers since 2006.  But this person has no power to investigate allegations of crime, and a visit guarantees a career-blocking black mark on your record of service: ie if you are the sort of person to worry your head with quaint ideas like ethics and morality you are, at best, not a team player and, worse, a possible security risk. 

This is surely culturally unsustainable in a community of people who generally sign up to protect the citizens of the country and want to make a positive difference by working within the law?  Those who have concerns will resign, at the very least, and those who like to "just follow orders" will float to the top.  As one of the leading proponents for greater whistleblower protection in the USA states in the linked article:

"The code of loyalty to the chain of command is the primary value at those institutions, and they set the standard for intensity of retaliation."

Some enlightened US politicians appear to be aware that intelligence whistleblowers require protection just as all other employees receive under the law:  perhaps more so, as the nature of their work may well expose them to the most heinous crimes imaginable.  There is also an argument for putting proper channels in place to ensure that whistleblowers don't feel their only option is to risk going to the press.  Effective channels for blowing the whistle and investigating crime can actually protect national security rather than compromise it.

The nay-sayers, of course, want to keep everything secret - after all, the status quo is currently working so well in upholding democratic values across the globe.  Critics of the new legislation talk of "disgruntled employees .... gleefully" spilling the beans.  Why is this hoary old line always dragged out in this type of discussion?  Why are whistleblowers always described in this way, rather than called principled, brave or ethical?

Blanket secrecy works against the real interests of our countries.  Mistakes can be covered up, group-think ensures that crimes continue, and anyone offering constructive criticism is labelled as a risky troublemaker - no doubt a "disgruntled" one at that.

Of course, certain areas of intelligence work need to be protected: current operational details (as ex-Met Assistant Commissioner, Bob Quick has discovered), agent identities, and sensitive techniques.  But the life blood of a healthy democracy depends on open debate, ventilation of problems, and agreed solutions.  Informed and participatory citizens need to know what is being done in their name.

Gareth Peirce on Torture, Secrecy and the British State

Leading UK human rights lawyer, Gareth Peirce, has written a powerful and eloquent article in the London Review of Books about the British state's involvement in torture. 

She also broadens out the argument to look at the fundamental societal problems - lack of accountability, secrecy, the use and abuse of the concept of "national security"  - that created a culture that facilitates and condones torture.

Gareth has fought for victims of injustice for four decades, focusing primarily on terrorism and intelligence issues. 

A long piece, but stick with.  It's worth it!

Agent Names Lost

So the good times keep on rolling for the spook community in the UK.  An officer of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) apparently lost top secret information such as the names of undercover agents while travelling in Ecuador.

SOCA is a relatively new agency set up in 2004 to police organised crime, particularly that revolving around the illegal drug trade.  The agency has the misfortune to have as Chairman Stephen Lander, erstwhile boss of MI5; a man whose management style was known as "Stalinesque". 

Even before this latest blunder, concerns had been raised by SOCA staff about ineffective and top-heavy management (shades of MI5 in the 1990s)and recent questions have been asked about whether the agency was producing meaningful results, as the price of illicit drugs has plummeted on UK streets, indicating a glut of recent imports. 

This latest blunder will hardly have reassured ministers.  Reportedly, the hapless SOCA officer lost a USB stick containing the names of undercover agents involved in the drug war in Ecuador, as well as information relating to 5 years' worth of investigations.   The blunder has reportedly jeopardised operations that have cost in the region of £100 million.

Agent identities are, rightly, the most protected of secret information.  This is an unforgivable gaff, and yet the officer is apparently only facing "disciplinary charges". 

So, if you are a whistleblower exposing heinous spy crimes, you are put on trial and sent to prison, even if the trial judge acknowledges that no lives were ever put at risk through your disclosures.  However, if you carelessly leave top secret agent information lying around in hostile territory, you don't even get the sack, let alone face prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.

I would suggest that the next intelligence whistleblower to emerge from the shadows should simply claim to have dropped a USB stick outside the offices of a national newspaper.  A rap over the knuckles will then be the worst that they face! 

Deja Vu

I had a strong sense of deja vu today, when I read about the woes of Mrs Green, the barrister wife of Tory MP Damien Green who was arrested last November for allegedly encouraging government information leaks. 

Mr Green was arrested under an obscure and antique piece of legislation for "conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office and aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office".  This, despite the fact that civil service mandarins had persuaded the Metropolitan Police Special Branch (MPSB) to investigate him because he posed a "serious threat to national security".  The case has now been dropped and reports have now shown that these civil servants significantly overstated the case to spur the police into action. 

In such a case the obvious step would have been for the Met to have invoked the draconian 1989 Official Secrets Act.  Certainly their heavy-handed response seemed to indicate that this was how they were viewing the gravity of the case, even if they were desperately trying to avoid the attendant scandal such a step would have provoked.    Special Branch officers in the Counter-Terrorism squad are not normally sent to rip apart people's houses for minor offences.

Which takes me back to the interview with the outraged Mrs Green.  A barrister specialising in highly confidential child abuse cases, she innocently let the secret police enter her home, only to watch in disbelief as they ripped it apart in what sounds to me like a counter-terrorism style search.  They, of course, found nothing relevant to their investigation, but scoured the computers, removed the bedsheets, took away love letters between the Greens, and even rifled through the children's books. 

I suppose I was more fortunate than the hapless Mrs Green.  When the secret police ripped apart my home in the same way back in 1997, I was in Europe with my ex-partner and colleague, MI5 whistleblower David Shayler.  After we had exposed the fact that MI5 was shamelessly breaking the law, the MPSB had obtained a warrant that allowed them to search our home for material relating to our employment in MI5.  As I was away, they jackhammered the front door in, and then spent two days ripping through the flat in Pimlico.  It had been my home for 4 years. 

Naturally, the police found nothing relevant.  That did not deter them from searching the place for two days, and taking away bags of possessions, including some of my underwear, the bedsheets, photographs, and our love letters.  They also smashed up chairs and lamps, ripped the bath apart, pulled up the carpets, and scattered my remaining underwear across the bedroom floor. It looked like they had been playing with it.

I saw all this when I returned home a month later, and I felt violated.  I know this is a common reaction when one's home is burgled; but in this case my home had been despoiled by the police, not by criminals.  No doubt, some would say that we, and the Greens, deserved this treatment.  After all, we had the temerity to expose malpractice, lies, and crime within government circles.  We, of course, would argue that we had acted for the public good. 

Whatever.  I still think that a counter-terrorism style search of a whistleblower's house is over the top and deliberately intimidatory.

The police may have ransacked my home, but I was never charged with any offence.  Nor did I ever did get my underwear or love letters back..... 

Quick to Miss a Trick

Former Assistant Commissioner of Special Operations at the Metropolitan Police, Bob Quick, has hit the headlines a couple of times in the last few months - for all the wrong reasons. 

Last November he authorised the arrest of Tory MP Damien Green for allegedly encouraging leaks of sensitive government information.  This had the knock-on benefit of waking MPs up to the fact that we are now living in a de facto police state.  Well, I suppose that must have been a welcome distraction for them.  It must be so dull merely to spend your time devising new and ingenious ways of fiddling your parliamentary expenses. 

This week, Quick was photographed entering Downing Street with highly classified documents under his arm about a sensitive UK terrorist investigation, which were clearly visible to waiting photographers.  The clearly visible "Secret" briefing document detailed an MI5-led operation, codenamed Pathway, and bounced the counter-terrorism agencies into making premature arrests of the suspects, many of them young Pakistanis in the UK on student visas.

Outrage followed this massive security lapse.  What on earth was the man doing, openly carrying secret documents?  Protective rules dictate that such papers are not allowed outside HQ unless signed out and in a security briefcase.  The voluntary press censorship committee, the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, has slapped a 'D' Notice all over the story.  Quick has, of course, resigned.  Reportedly, he may even (gasp) face disciplinary proceedings within the Met.

Is it just me, or people missing a trick here?  This man has disclosed a highly classified intelligence document without permission.  In addition, this document contained information about an ongoing operation AND the names of senior intelligence officers - according to MI5 lore two of the most damaging types of information that could possibly be disclosed.  So, why is Quick not facing prosecution under the draconian 1989 Official Secrets Act?  He clearly falls under Section 1(1) of the Act as a notified person if he is handling Secret documents:

1(1) A person who is or has been—

(a) a member of the security and intelligence services; or

(b) a person notified that he is subject to the provisions of this subsection,

is guilty of an offence if without lawful authority he discloses any information, document or other article relating to security or intelligence which is or has been in his possession by virtue of his position as a member of any of those services or in the course of his work while the notification is or was in force.

Under these provisions, there is no real defence under law.  Legal precedent in recent OSA trials has clearly established that the reason for an unauthorised disclosure of secrets is irrelevant.  (The theoretical and untested subsequent defence of "necessity" has no bearing on this particular case.)  Whether the breach occurs due to principled whistleblowing or a mistake doesn't matter: the clear bright line against disclosure has been crossed and prosecution inexorably follows.

Except if you have sufficiently seniority, it appears.....

The Real Reason for the Police State?

I haven't written here for a while, despite the embarras de richesses that has been presented to us in the news recently: Dame Stella saying that the UK is becoming a police state;  drones will patrol the streets of Britain, watching our every move; databases are being built, containing all our electronic communications; ditto all our travel movements. What can a lone blogger usefully add to this?  Only so much hot air - the facts speak for themselves.

Plus, I've been a bit caught up over the last couple of months with Operation Escape Pod. Not all of us are sitting around waiting for the prison gates to clang shut on the UK. I'm outta here!

But I can't resist an interesting article in The Spectator magazine this week. And that's a sentence I never thought I would write in my life.

Tim Shipman, quoting a plethora of anonymous intelligence sources and former spooks, asserts that Britain's foreign policy is being skewed by the need to placate our intelligence allies, and that the CIA is roaming free in the wilds of Yorkshire.

His sources tell him that the UK is a “swamp” of Islamic extremism, and that the domestic spies are terrified that there will be a new terrorist atrocity, probably against US interests but it could be anywhere, carried out by our very own home-grown terrorists. According to Shipman, this terrible prospect had all the spooks busily downing trebles in the bars around Vauxhall Cross in the wake of the Mumbai bombings.

Apart from the suggestion that the spies' drinking culture appears to be as robust as ever, I find this interesting because well-sourced spook spin is more likely to appear in the august pages of The Speccie than in, say, Red Pepper. But if this is an accurate reflection of the thinking of our politicians and intelligence community, then this is an extremely worrying development. It goes a long way to explaining why the UK has become the most policed state in the Western world.

Yes, in the 1990s the UK practised a strategy of appeasement towards Islamic extremists. MI5's view was always that it was better to give radicals a safe haven in the UK, which they would then be loathe to attack directly, and where a close eye could be kept on them.

This, of course, was derailed by Blair's Messianic mission in the Middle East. By unilaterally supporting Bush's adventurism in Afghanistan and Iraq, in the teeth of stark warnings about the attendant risks from the head of MI5, Britain has become “the enemy” in the eyes of radical Islam. The gloves are off, and we are all at greater risk because of our former PM's hubris.

But now we apparently have free-range CIA officers infiltrating the Muslim communities of the UK.  No doubt Mossad is also again secretly  tolerated, despite the fact that they had been banned for years from operating in the UK because they were too unpredictable (a civil service euphemism for violent).

And I am willing to bet that this international perception that UK spooks will be caught off-guard by an apparently British-originated terrorist attack is the reason for the slew of new totalitarian laws that are making us all suspects. The drones, the datamining and the draconian stop-and-search laws are designed to reassure our invaluable allies in the CIA, Mossad, ISI and the FSB.  They will not be put in place to “protect” us.

MPs object to police state

An interesting political row has erupted this week in the UK about the arrest of the opposition Tory MP, Damien Green, who is also the Shadow Minister for Immigration.  He was arrested on Thursday for alleged breaches of an obscure common law  "aiding and abetting misconduct in public office".

Reports indicate that the Metropolitan Police Special Branch, or as the newspapers would have it the "anti-terrorism branch" was called in to investigate leaks from the Home Office about immigration policy, that Green was using these leaks to score points off the government, and the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in particular.

Naturally, MPs from both sides of the House have been frothing at the mouth:  how dare Plod embarrass an MP by arresting him without warning and by conducting co-ordinated searches of his homes and offices in both Kent and London?  Newspapers, particularly on the right of the political spectrum, have been full of headlines saying that this is proof that we are living in a police state.

While I have some sympathy for the beleaguered Mr Green, having also been hauled off by the Met Special Branch and quizzed for hours for discussing sensitive information that was very much in the public interest, as well as seeing my home ripped apart in a co-ordinated counter-terrorism style raid and seen friends arrested in co-ordinated dawn raids, I am still aghast at the hypocrisy of both the politicians' and media's reaction.

Many of us are already all to painfully aware that we live in a de facto police state.  Under the notorious Section 44 of the 2000 Terrorism Act, we can all be stopped and searched for no reason - and can even be arrested purely so that a bobby on the beat can ascertain our identity.  Notices to this effect are now helpfully pinned up outside most tube stations in London.  Thousands of people are subject to this across the UK every year on the streets of Britain.

But other points rather leap to my attention from the coverage of this case.  If MPs don't like the heavy-handed use and abuse of police powers, why did they pass these laws in the first place?  Did they not think through the implications?  Or do they think that, as MPs, they are somehow above the laws of this land?

Plus, senior MPs are arguing that the use of leaks from disgruntled civil servants is a time-honoured way for HM Opposition in Parliament to hold the government to account.  Well, that might be good for the MPs' parliamentary careers, but what of the hapless and frequently brave souls within the Civil Service who face 2 years in prison for such leaks if they are convicted of a breach of the 1989 Official Secrets Act?  And, of course, there is no legal defense under the OSA of having acted "in the public interest" - the very argument that MPs are using to justify Green's exposure of Home Office cover-ups and incompetence. 

As far as I can see, there have been no comments from either journalists or MPs about the fate of the source.    The most I could find was the following in the Daily Telegraph:

"An alleged "whistleblower", thought to be a male Home Office official was arrested 10 days ago."

Either that means that journalists and MPs couldn't give a toss about the fate of this person - after all, an MP's career is far more important - or that any reporting of the arrest of the whistleblower has been injuncted in the media to the nth degree.  This would be even more troubling, as someone can just be "disappeared" into a Kafka-esque legal nightmare.