4.10.
I have found these classifications to be a useful way of evaluating the claims of
utility that have been made to the Review team. They are adopted in the
remainder of this Report.
The measure of utility
4.11.
Establishing a framework such as that described in the last section is a start. It
is then necessary to assess the role of the powers under review in contributing to
a beneficial outcome.
4.12.
Cause and effect in this area are not always straightforward: indeed it will only
rarely be possible to attribute a successful outcome solely to the exercise of a
particular power. In almost every scenario to which I have been introduced, both
in the course of this Review and in several years of reviewing counter-terrorism
operations, various types of intelligence are drawn upon. A mosaic of different
information sources is classically involved in identifying a target or threat,
developing an understanding of the situation or taking the decision to launch
disruptive action.
4.13.
It would be unduly simplistic to insist, as a measure of utility, that the exercise of
a particular power must have identified or discounted a threat, caused disruptive
action to be launched, averted an incident or led to an arrest. Such outcomes
will typically be the product of numerous factors.
4.14.
For this reason, I have found it more useful to ask not whether a given outcome
can be attributed to the use of a bulk power, but rather to think in terms of
whether the use of such a power has made a significant contribution to one of
the processes or outcomes identified at 4.7-4.8 above.
Assessing alternatives
4.15.
My task consists not only of determining whether the use of the powers under
review contributed to the positive outcomes claimed, but of asking whether
similar results could have been achieved by other, less intrusive, means.
4.16.
At one level, this is both feasible and straightforward. On a narrowly-focused,
case-by-case basis, it can sensibly be asked whether a particular outcome (e.g.
the identification of a threat, the tracing of a person’s contacts or the recruitment
of an agent in a particular place) could have been achieved by less intrusive
means, and I have sought to do so.
4.17.
For example, it is legitimate (and necessary) to ask whether:
(a) targeted interception warrants are an adequate alternative to the first of the
bulk interception processes described at 2.19(a) above; and whether
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