2.
Freedom and the Security Services – a Labour Party Discussion Document
(£1.50 plus postage from The Labour Party, 150 Walworth Road, London, SE17 1JT)
With this the Labour Party has taken a significant step towards the public recognition that, as far as the spook industry is concerned, the view of this society long held by its left-wing is fundamentally correct.
Coups, bugging, surveillance, wiretapping, Special Branch, moles – the first 60% of this reads like a precis of State Research.(With some conspicuous omissions: Agee/Hosenball and the ABC trial, both of which happened during Labour administrations).
The second half, the section of recommendations, is less impressive. The one lesson that seems totally clear from the U.S. experience is that there is no effective way of supervising spooks – or of making them accountable to elected representatives. Parliamentary accountability of the so-called security services – the core recommendation here – is rather a joke. (I suspect that the committee which wrote this paper knows this but does not feel the time is yet right to announce it .) Can anyone imagine a spook service working in the interests of a socialist democracy? Still, it’s well worth the outlay for the first section alone. But be warned: there is nothing at all, not a word, on the events in Northern Ireland. The subject is entirely missing. Amazing (and rather pathetic) that the subject is still such a no-no.
(RR)
3.
Smiley’s People Close Ranks Against Labour Plans For Secret Services
(Peter Hennessy. T, June 6th 1983)
If Labour had won the election, Whitehall’s bureaucratic machine would have gone into action. “The first tactic of officials will be to brief Ministers on what insiders call ‘reality’ as opposed to ‘gossip’ in the Party’s document.” (More Hennessy ‘gossip’ .)
4.
Secret Intelligence
(Richard Norton-Taylor, G., June 6th 1983)
Thatcher Advisers Refuse To Face M.P.’s Questions. (Peter Hennessy T. April 21 1983)
The new Select Committees attempted to monitor the intelligence services and question the criteria for classification of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ documents. John Biffen, Leader of the House of Commons, said: “It is by no means clear that the intelligence services should come within the ambit of Select C’ttees”. The Secretary of the Cabinet, Sir Robert Armstrong, refused to appear before the Select C’ttee. As advisor to the Prime Minister on security and intelligence matters, he is one of, if not the most powerful, figures in Whitehall.
5.
Telephone Tapping
In 1977, James Malone, an antique dealer, was charged with offences related to the handling of stolen goods. It emerged during his two trials (he was eventually acquitted) that one of his telephone conversations had been taped for the police, and his phone had been metered listing calls in and out.
A series of court cases followed, going as far as the European Commission on Human Rights, in attempts to get the practice declared illegal. The Commission decided (June 1st 1983) to refer its findings to the European Court. The decision that Malone’s rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights had been breached, could lead to legislation on telephone tapping in Britain.
Minimum safeguards accepted by the Court in another phone tapping case included: supervision by a Parliamentary Committee; the right of a complaint against suspected interception; and notification to the victim once the interception had ceased.
Media attention to this latest phase, and to the whole case, has been minimal.
See G. and T. 2nd June 1983: also SR. nos 11 and 25 under ‘telephone tapping’, which followed the Malone case up to the European Commission.
Also Phonetappers And The Security State, Duncan Campbell (NS report no 2, 1981) for a view of the phone-tapping operation and a review of the White Paper ‘Interception of Communications in Great Britain’ (Cmnd 7873, HMSO April 1980.)