38
A Democratic Licence to Operate
Figure 2: ‘Do you think the British security services (such as MI5) have too many powers
to carry out surveillance on ordinary people in Britain, too few powers to carry out
surveillance, or is the balance about right?’ (%)
Source: YouGov
2.34
This is further supported by a YouGov poll of January 2015 which asked whether the
public thought the security services did or did not need more access to the public’s
communications (such as e-mails and phone calls) in order to effectively fight terrorism.
The majority (52 per cent) believed they did need more access, compared to 31 per cent
which believed that they already have all the access they need or more than they need,
while 17 per cent did not know.33
2.35
Overall trust in the SIAs also appears to be high, even when compared to the police.
In the same YouGov poll, 63 per cent of respondents said they would have trust in the
intelligence services to behave responsibly with information obtained using surveillance
powers, compared to 29 per cent who said they would not have trust. For the police, 50
per cent claimed they would trust the police to behave responsibly, compared to 42 per
cent who said they would not have trust.34
Perceptions of Oversight
2.36
A further significant concern of some portions of society, and of privacy and civil-liberties
groups in particular, is that there is insufficient oversight of the SIAs, and that they are
free to set their own mandate. The agencies, they fear, are ‘left virtually unconstrained
and unsupervised by out-dated legislative frameworks, [and] have unilaterally expanded
the scope of their activities and the extent of their capabilities’.35
2.37
The ISC is the body responsible for holding the SIAs to account. Critics argue that the
Committee has ‘consistently, and sometimes very publicly, failed in its duty to challenge
33. YouGov/Sunday Times, ‘Survey Results’, 15–16 January 2015, <https://d25d2506sfb94s.
cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/wt26kxdn72/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Timesresults-160115.pdf>.
34. Ibid.
35. Don’t Spy on Us, ‘Don’t Spy on Us: Reforming Surveillance in the UK’, p. 10.