Revision notes on Accountability and Oversight for Vigilant State. Topics covered:
- Accountability
- Intelligence and Security Committee
- Globalisation
- Oversight
- International Oversight
The literature on accountability is quite old: it was a fashionable subject in the aftermath
of 9/11 and WMD, intriguing to students of governance and public administration. Since
then, two other forms of accountability have risen to the fore - the committee
accountability mechanism has been complemented by Civil Society - journalists,
campaigners, lawyers, courts (a battle for jurisdiction between government and the
judiciary) and councils, bound together by the Internet. This has been driven by the
mismatch between intelligence mechanisms and global operations.
The first wave of accountability in the US was the Church committee, looking at the Iran
contra affairs (1975-85), to some extent a reaction to Watergate. Much of the incriminating
evidence had been destroyed, but eight different oversight committees into the CIA
existed by the 1980s and covert action was not possible without approval from several of
them (and had been a dying art form since the late 1970s). The style since the 1970s has
been one of ‘diet and binge’ - in 1979, Reagan campaigned on the basis of ‘releasing’ the
CIA and reestablishing its covert action capabilities. This inspired a paranoia in Whitehall -
suspicions of international espionage were everywhere, Special Branch surveillance of
extremist groups very present.
ISC
Tony Benn’s diaries provide some significant insight - he admired the US’ ability to
establish mechanisms for discovering what went wrong and how to put it right, inspiring
him to become involved in setting up oversight mechanisms in the UK. His efforts
encountered serious stonewalling from the then Home Secretary. But most of his
proposals were actually adopted by the 1990s. From 1985-94 we start to see oversight
committees popping up all over Europe, primarily as a result of the establishment of
European Court of Human Rights. The primary concern was the lack of a legal process or
footing through which those wronged by the intelligence services could appeal. The
ECHR saw this as a fundamental injustice, requiring member states to avow the existence
of their services. This saw a scramble not only for legal status, but for oversight (ICA, ISA
1994, SSA 1989, ISC).
The ISC was created as a parliamentary (not select) committee reporting to the Prime
Minister and producing heavily redacted reports. Its main problem is the lack of
investigative or research power - restricting its ability to probe the intelligence services.
The ISC’s report on Iraq was therefore incomplete and misjudged, requiring the Butler
Report to be completed in addition. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA
2000 - the most important piece of legislation delineating intelligence services’
boundaries) was also driven by law as described by the ECHR. MI5 moved quickly from
depending on invisibility to being backed by legal statutes and permissive legislation.
Campaigners for civil liberties underestimated the ability of a legal framework to be
permissive and enabling for the security services.
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