their activities are overseen by an independent person who has held high judicial
office. I am also left in no doubt as to the agencies’ anxiety to comply with the
law. In a case of doubt or difficulty, they do not hesitate to contact me, and to seek
advice.
10. During the year I also met the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State for Defence and (in
the absence of the First Minister) the Justice Minister for Scotland. It is clear to
me that each of them gives a substantial amount of time and takes considerable
care to satisfy himself or herself that the warrants are necessary for the authorised
purposes, and that what is proposed is proportionate. If the Secretary of State
wishes to have further information in order to be satisfied that he or she should
grant the warrant then it is requested and given. Outright and final refusal of an
application is comparatively rare, because the requesting agencies and the senior
officials in the Secretary of State’s Department scrutinise the applications with
care before they are submitted for approval. However, the Secretary of State may
refuse to grant the warrant if he or she considers, for example, that the strict
requirements of necessity or proportionality are not met, and the agencies are well
aware that the Secretary of State does not act as a “rubber stamp”.
11. During 2004 I also visited the communications service providers (CSPs),
that is to say the Post Office and major telephone companies. Each of the CSPs
employs personnel who play the important role of executing interception of
communications warrants. They have acquired expertise in their field and, again,
in the course of my visits, I was impressed by the care, interest and dedication of
these employees to their work in this sensitive area and with their understanding
of the need at all times to comply with the safeguards imposed on them.
12. At the beginning of 2004 I met Sir Stephen Lander and provided him with
evidence on the issue of the interception of communications for his review into
identifying the right resources and capabilities required for the planned new
Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). The Home Secretary announced the
formation of SOCA on 9 February 2004.
13. Between 3-5 October 2004 I attended the fourth international biennial
conference of the Intelligence Review Agencies in Washington DC, USA. The
theme of the conference was “Balancing National Security and Constitutional
Principles within a Democracy”. I was asked, and gladly agreed, to address the
conference on the “Role of the Judiciary in Intelligence and National Security”.
Members of the Intelligence and Security Committee were also present at, and
addressed, the conference. There were delegates from a large number of countries
from round the world, and the primary topic for discussion was the oversight,
legislative, judicial, or otherwise of intelligence and law enforcement agencies in
their intelligence work. I found the discussions during the conference and in the
course of informal meetings to be interesting, informative and valuable.
14. In November 2004 I met a team of officials from Hong Kong who had been
tasked by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government to examine
various issues relating to the interception of communications. The visit focused
on how the United Kingdom legislation works in practice, the methods of
oversight and accountability, compliance with the Human Rights Act and
admissibility of intercepted material as evidence. The discussion I had with the
team was wide-ranging and fruitful.
The Extent of Interception: General
15. As in the past, the Annex to this Report contains a summary of the numbers
of warrants in force at the end of 2004 and those issued throughout the course of
the year by the Home Secretary and the First Minister in Scotland. The great
majority of warrants issued in England and Wales and Scotland remain related to
the prevention and detection of serious crime. The continuing incidence of serious
3