2012 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
6.5.11 Ministry of Defence (MoD)
My formal inspection visits at MoD took place in early May and November 2012. I was able to
scrutinise the MoD interception warrants and was satisfied that they were properly authorised
and up-to-date.
6.6 Meetings with the Secretaries of State
6.6.1 Meeting with Home Secretary
I met with the Home Secretary in January and December 2012 and matters related to MI5,
HMRC, MET CTC and SOCA were discussed. The Home Secretary has the largest volume of
warrants to authorise. I am satisfied that the Home Secretary takes great care before signing
interception warrants that potentially infringe on the private lives of citizens. It is apparent that
she takes time to read submissions, often requesting further information and updates from
officials in relation to certain warrants.
We discussed the advancement in communications technology over my 6 years in office and I
reinforced my broad support for legislative changes in order to keep pace with future technology,
and that extra staff and technical resources would be needed if the Interception of Communications
Commissioner takes on the extra oversight proposed by the draft Communications Data Bill. I
outlined that the intercepting agencies and wider public authorities have responded well to my
inspections.
We discussed the Governments proposal to place my prison inspections on a statutory footing.
I outlined that we have always received co-operation from the prisons, but that I did support the
proposal. The proposal would provide the opportunity to extend the arrangement to cover the
Scottish prisons and the secure hospitals which are not currently inspected.
6.6.2 Meeting with Foreign Secretary
I met with the Foreign Secretary in December 2012 to discuss the discharge of my oversight role
in relation to the intelligence agencies GCHQ and SIS for whom he is responsible.
It is evident that the Foreign Secretary takes his role very seriously and that he often questions
the proportionality of the warrants and requests early reviews or renewals in particularly
sensitive or intrusive cases.
6.6.3 Meeting with Northern Ireland Secretary
I met with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in December 2012. We discussed her
warrantry role broadly and also had a general discussion around the increased threat in Northern
Ireland, particularly to police officers.
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