Uncommon Priors

Can you imagine the nineteen layers of bureaucratese and euphemism this sort of statement would suffer in the U.S.?

Sir David Omand, the former Whitehall security and intelligence co-ordinator, sets out a blueprint for the way the state will mine data – including travel information, phone records and emails – held by public and private bodies and admits: “Finding out other people’s secrets is going to involve breaking everyday moral rules.”

His paper provides the most candid assessment yet of the scale of Whitehall’s ambitions for a state database to track terrrorist groups. It argues that while the measures are essential, public trust will be maintained only if such intrusive surveillance is carried out within a strong framework of morality and human rights.

“Modern intelligence access will often involve intrusive methods of surveillance and investigation, accepting that, in some respects this may have to be at the expense of some aspects of privacy rights,” he writes in a newly published Institute for Public Policy research paper.

“This is a hard choice, and goes against current calls to curb the so-called surveillance society – but it is greatly preferable to tinkering with the rule of law, or derogating from fundamental human rights. Being able to demonstrate proper legal authorisation and appropriate oversight of the use of such intrusive intelligence activity may become a major future issue for the intelligence community, if the public at large is to be convinced of the desirability of such intelligence capability.”

I wonder how the surveillance state and the rule of law can coexist, mind. But it’s a hopeful sign for same that they’re at least not doing it in secret, like in the U.S. At least the British can admit that they’re building a surveillance state, and can tell people when they’re being spied on.