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Blair’s police state starts to disturb the cabinet While in the US there is an argument going on about whether the intelligence services may spy on Americans without a warrant, in Britain we have had unsupervised surveillance for years. But The Independent on Sunday reports that Mr Blair’s quest for total power has started to worry even some cabinet ministers. This in particular:
Until now, successive administrations have pledged that there should be no tapping “whatsoever” of MPs’ phones, and that they would be told if it was necessary to breach the ban.
But that convention – known as the Wilson Doctrine, after Harold Wilson, the prime minister who introduced it – is to be abandoned in an expansion of MI5 powers following the London bombings.
American readers may wish to note that our equivalent of attorney-client privilege is very nearly dead, too.
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It is always hard to tell what is really going on with Cabinet level leaks or briefings to Sunday newspapers.
Alternatively, this might mean that there is an attempt, pehaps by Sir Richard Mottram, the new Cabinet Security Intelligence Co-ordinator, to bring an existing scheme of Francois Mitterand style bugging and snooping on NuLabour’s political rivals, allies and opponents within the admittedly authoritarian Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
Either way, will the Members of Parliament actually stand up to Tony Blair this time , when their own privacy, and that of their families, business associates, constituents, whisltelblowers etc. is destroyed through phone and email interception ?
“MPs should be treated in the same way as other citizens and will be given the same safeguards against wrongful tapping, the Prime Minister will say.”
Absolutely.
If citizens can be tapped at the descretion of the MI5 so should be MPs.
Exactly. Unfortunately the people that should be subject to bugging are the civil servants enforcing these actions, rather than the morally and politically flaccid NuLab cabinet. In yesterday’s papers there was an article about the colossal mismanagement of the QinetiQ affair, where Sir Wilfred Newton, former chairman of London Transport, is quoted as saying,
Yes, it is just amazing how they only care when it starts to effect them.
I think its despicable that they only start to get uneasy when its them being spied upon. Their stand, if this is a stand, isnt on any principle whatsoever.
Here’s my view, also as posted at
http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/2006/01/the_independent_on_sunday_mi5.html
There are 3 issues here.
Firstly, there is no good reason why MPs should be protected against investigation for criminal activity. Phone tapping for criminal investigation needs to be authorised by a judge. The procedure should probably be the same, irrespective of whether the target of investigation is an MP or not; though perhaps an additional safeguard, as mentioned below, would be appropriate for MPs.
Secondly, there is good reason to protect MPs from state-originated eavesdropping on their legitimate political activities. Thus investigation by MI5 is different from investigation by the police, as MI5 investigations are not authorised and overseen by the (independent) judiciary.
Thirdly, there is no overriding reason for MPs to be assumed innocent, by position, from activities against the national security interest. Thus there is no good reason for investigation of this to be disallowed – subject only to protection against potential misuse raised in second point above.
As to the way forward, one possibility is that the Speaker of the House of Commons (for MPs) should be notified in advance of any such investigation (both national security and criminal), be kept fully briefed on the ongoing results of any investigation, and have the option of requiring cessation or notification of the MP concerned. There should be similar suitable protection for Members of the Lords, though it is less obvious there who would be a suitably indepenedent person.
I hope this helps.
Best regards
A case in point being yet another scandal of allowing paedophiles to continue to work with children in the education system. One now has to wonder how much of this is lax and ineffecient bureaucracy and just how much is down to direct protection of paedophiles from within ministerial ranks.
A good post by Guy.
Part of series of posts on the development (not yet finished) of a police state in Britian.
A little while ago (when facing some half hearted opposition in the House of Commons) Mr Blair said (with contempt) “are you saying we are trying to create a police state?” and the opposition benches fell silent.
If only the gutless Conservatives had said “yes, that is what you are trying to create”.
Well it’s a long time since I graduated Law, but I thought even MI5 had to get a Judge to authorise a tap.
I think our suspicion on this site is that they just want to bug everybody, and I totally agree (with the sentiment not the bug!).
My only hope is that we will end up with a situation like East Germany and the Stasi, when half the population were reporting on the other half and nobody has time ro read any of the reports, so the whole thing breaks down of it’s own inertia.
Not the case RAB. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 s5 (Blair legislation, note), warrants are issued by the Secretary of State on the instance of all sorts of public authorities, and not, pace Nigel Sedgwick, subject to prior oversight by a judge, only a general watching brief by the Interception of Communications Commissioner.
I’m not sure if the Wilson Convention was ever extended to communications data – the Home Office takes rules very literally when it suits it – so public authorities in the meaning of the Act may already (self-authorised) know who MPs talk to, if not what they say. The members of the cabinet currently so exercised as to be leaking heavily probably didn’t think much about all this in 2000. There was very little parliamentary opposition.
And of course I would love to know what “Dave” Cameron thinks about this.
Thanks to Guy for the correction.
Given no effective differentiation in approval etc between criminal and national security investigations, MPs should have protection against interception for potentially political purposes (actual, suspected or imagined). My thought remains that this should be by prior notification to the Speaker, and his option to render overt such continuing interception as he finds unjustified.
The rest of us will have to continue to rely on the good offices of the (independent) Interception of Communications Commisioner, whose address, interestingly enough, is given by SpyBlog as c/o Home Office.
Despite likely contrary views here and elsewhere, I continue to see no adequate justification of MP’s comminications being given blanket protection.
Best regards
Nigel Sedgwick writes:
“Despite likely contrary views here and elsewhere, I continue to see no adequate justification of MP’s comminications being given blanket protection.”
Given the number of Labour MPs at one time in the pay of the former Soviet Union, it is hard to see why they should be treated any differently from anyone else.
I am reminded of that scene in the film, The Day of the Jackal, when the French interior minister asked the detective how he knew which Cabinet minister’s phone to bug. The detective replied, “I did not know who it was so I bugged all of them.”
“Blair’s police state starts to disturb the cabinet”. How do you tell when a boiled vegetable is disturbed?
Verity, when it orders fries to go!
Guy thanks for the correction. Like I said it’s been a long time, and I’m not in that racket anymore.
It was a different world in 73. The arse may have been out of our collective National trousers, but at least the laws were subject to scrutiny and common sense.
A Blarite nod through job eh?
I friggin despair!
Well THEY will do what they want. Like I said above, it’s processing it that counts.
Look at Kelly and List 99.
the Interception of Communications Commissioner.
Why does such a title put the fear into me!!?
I sure would like to know what that person looks like,
just for starters!
After all, he probably knows me.
Jonathan,
It would indeed be interesting to know what David Cameron thinks. He’s one of a minority of senior MPs who was first elected in 2001, after some of the key police-state legislation (RIP Act 2000, Terrorism Act 2000) was put through. However, I doubt we will find out this side of a general election, since no opposition leader is going to make promises about such stuff even if he might be interested in doing something.
David Cameron thinks
Surely a contender for oxymoron of the day? 🙂
Good post, guy. Keep ’em coming.
Guy Herbert – The Beeb must be shocked, shocked at the avalanche of responses it got on Have Your Say – “Do you worry about ID fraud?”. Hundreds have written in saying pants to ID cards. Their opinions are very robust, which is rather heartening.