1.31.
I was also conscious that the team required a variety of skills and competences,
in particular:
(a) a person with the necessary technical background to understand the SIAs’
systems and techniques, and the uses to which they could be put;
(b) an investigator with experience as a user of secret intelligence, including
intelligence generated by the SIAs; and
(c) independent counsel with the skills and experience to challenge forensically
the evidence we were shown and the case studies with which we were
presented by the SIAs.
1.32.
Fortunately, and despite the compressed timescale, it proved possible to recruit
precisely such a team. The slots identified above were filled by:
(a) Dr Bob Nowill, an independent security consultant who was Director of
Cyber and Assurance at BT until 2013 and, prior to 2005, Director of
Technology and Engineering at GCHQ;42
(b) Gordon Meldrum QPM, Director of Intelligence at the National Crime
Agency [NCA] until 2015, an experienced and demanding user of SIA
intelligence product, particularly in the context of organised crime; and
(c) Cathryn McGahey QC, a barrister with experience of criminal and civil cases
and major inquiries who, as a special advocate acting in the interests of
suspected individuals, had developed particular expertise in interrogating
intelligence-based cases put forward by Government in the national security
context.
A fuller description of the experience and expertise of each team member was
given on my website when the Review was announced on 7 June.43
Contact with SIAs
1.33.
42
43
I wrote personally to the three Agency chiefs at the outset of the Review to
emphasise to them the need for the fullest disclosure and cooperation, to a very
challenging time scale, if they were to do themselves justice in terms of
persuading me of their case. All three SIAs responded with speed and
efficiency.
Dr. Nowill also acted as technical consultant to AQOT, as I recorded at AQOT 1.23. I have
appreciated both his former detailed knowledge of GCHQ’s secret systems (a rare commodity,
without which it would not have been possible to interrogate and challenge GCHQ on a
technically-informed basis) and his independent turn of mind, reinforced by a wealth of
experience outside GCHQ.
https://terrorismlegislationreviewer.independent.gov.uk/bulk-powers-review/.
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