Political

What do the spooks want to be able to do to our privacy?

It’s fairly clear what Theresa May wants to do (and, please, don’t tell her what a threat walking is), but what to the spooks themselves actually want?

There are some intriguing – and from a civil liberties perspective, reassuring – hints in the report of a recent event at which “a former “C” (Chief of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)) presided as forty-plus participants from around the world sat down in private for three days to talk intensively through changed approaches to intelligence, security and privacy.”

It’s been written up by the investigate journalist Duncan Campbell, who was also there – and whose presenceĀ is a good sign of how there now seems to be some genuine effort on the part of spooks to engage with a wider constituency than simply their favourite ‘yes you can have what you want’ civil servants in the Home Office.

Campbell’s piece is well worth a read in full, but I was particularly struck by this:

Despite the collection of current and former CIA, GCHQ and SIS officials, counter-terrorism commanders, security managers, and former permanent secretaries present, as well as the former chair of Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee, I did not hear the phrase “capability gap” mentioned.

The supposed “capability gap” is the excuse rolled out by the Home Office for greater powers to spy on us online. Their argument is that technical changes are opening up a gap between what spying used to be possible and what will be possible, with the result that greater powers are needed to close the opening gap.

It’s usually presented as the absolutely central point for wanting more snooping powers – so for such a collection of spooks not to mention it at all does rather suggest they own views are rather different from those of the Home Secretary pushing the Snoopers’ Charter.

This was also promising:

One of the stipulations made by the intelligence officials and regulators alike at the conference was that there should be “no secret laws” about what agencies do, unavailable to the public. One of those attending, former GCHQ Director and Permanent Secretary Sir David Omand, has written elsewhere that “investigative activity should be regulated by ‘black letter law'”. Omand’s further published suggestion that “not everything that technically can be done should be done” was not disputed.

Promising, but not the attitude Theresa May is taking – so if you haven’t yet signed the petition against her Snoopers’ Charter plans, do so now here [now closed].

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