CHAPTER 10: INTELLIGENCE
extreme caution in relation to the release of information into the public domain can
seem frustrating, and indeed contrary to the Agencies’ own interests. Procedures
which have never seen the light of day sometimes turn out to need improvement when
they are exposed to it.2
10.5.
Yet for what it is worth, my impression is of lean organisations by public sector
standards, proud of their vital work, able to admit to mistakes, prizing agility and
resourcefulness but accepting the need to be held to high ethical and legal standards.
They seek to promote public confidence via trusted public-facing intermediaries
(whether the Commissioners, the ISC or myself). But there is a growing realisation
that trust by proxy is not enough on its own, and that without prejudice to the
necessarily secret nature of most of their work, institutional safeguards and direct
public engagement are also needed.
The ISC Privacy and Security Report
10.6.
Having read the written evidence submitted to the ISC, together with transcripts of the
closed oral evidence to it (which was the subject of more penetrating questioning from
ISC members than was evident at the televised open hearing at which the three
Agency chiefs gave evidence in November 2013) I have no reason to doubt the
accuracy of the ISC Privacy and Security Report as a statement of the Agencies’
practice and, where applicable, of their views.
10.7.
There are a number of respects in which I could have wished for a fuller public
statement of the factual position, as it appears that the ISC itself may have done.3 But
I am not generally in a position to publish material which the ISC has recently felt
obliged to redact.4
10.8.
That said, there are respects in which I have now been able to include material that
the ISC was not:
(a)
2
3
4
Some brief examples of the utility of bulk interception are given at Annex 9 to
this Report: the justification to a public audience of such a potentially intrusive
power deserves and arguably needs more, but the examples give at least a
flavour of the classified instances on which I have been briefed.
A recent example is the Agencies’ procedures for dealing with legally privileged material, disclosed in
the Belhadj IPT Case and conceded by the Agencies to be inadequate.
The report broke new ground by avowing the use of bulk personal datasets, albeit with little detail
(paras 151-163). However no open examples are given of the utility of bulk collection (paras 82-89), of
interference with wireless telegraphy (para 173) or of CNE (para 178); and the treatment of what is
described as “another major processing system by which GCHQ may collect communications” (paras
65-73) is enigmatic. The ISC expressed regret that examples of the effectiveness of bulk interception
capabilities could not be published (para 81). It also stated that the Certificate which accompanies the
s8(4) warrants should be published (para 101), despite not having been able to do so itself, and that
“all the Agencies’ intrusive capabilities” should be avowed (para 285).
Particularly in view of the fact that the Prime Minister is authorised to exclude from this report any
matter that appears to him to be “contrary to the public interest or prejudicial to national security”:
DRIPA 2014 s7(7).
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