The revelations by former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden revelations in the Guardian showed the most catastrophic secret accretion of power by the British state in peacetime history, yet the reaction in Britain — the island that invented liberty under the law — has been beyond parody. The three lines of defense of British freedoms — the press, parliament and the law — have so far bent the knee to the secret state.
Newspapers that are meant to defend freedom have argued instead for the investigation of the Guardian, while the House of Commons has proved itself an overblown electoral college from which the executive is selected, rather than an independent legislature with clout to hold ministers to account.
The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ — the intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence) has the capacity to scoop up and store the e-mail and voice traffic of the entire population of Britain, regardless of whether they are suspects or have ever committed any crime. GCHQ says it only looks at the suspect messages, but what are its checks? Given its inability to keep its own secrets, how credibly can it promise to keep those of others?
END OF PRIVACY
The invasion of privacy is breathtaking. The defense that you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide is as outrageous as it was when made by the totalitarian states. Citizens may — for good or bad reasons — want their activity to be private without in any way being illegal. Privacy matters.
Not only were the British Cabinet and National Security Council, which oversees all issues related to the UK’s security, not told of this program, neither was the committee set up to scrutinize the communications data bill (proposed by the Home Office to take the same police powers that GCHQ already exercised). We know of the Home Office’s disingenuous deception from a pair of former chief whips — the Conservatives’ David Maclean (now Lord Blencathra) and Labour’s Nick Brown. These are not lightweight players and they were shocked.
Where were the watchdogs? After huffing and puffing about how everything was in order, the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee has at last announced an inquiry. We can write its conclusions. It will give GCHQ a clean bill of health and argue for some modest improvements in controls.
HANDPICKED OVERSIGHT
How do I know? Look at the composition of the committee, which is handpicked by the prime minister and only rubberstamped by the Commons. All its MPs are paid-up members of the security establishment. Former British foreign minister Sir Malcolm Rifkind is chairman, even though he had executive responsibility for the agency he is now overseeing when he was minister.
The Home Affairs Select Committee under chairman Keith Vaz has succumbed to pressure from rightwing Conservative Party MPs to investigate not the disastrous state invasion of privacy, but the behavior of the Guardian in bringing it to people’s attention. And the Joint Committee on Human Rights — which includes peers (members of the UK’s system of honors) as well as MPs — has stayed bizarrely silent even though state aggrandizement at the expense of individual freedom falls squarely in its remit.
RESPONSIBILITY
Surely the first question is who signed off this program? I discount the possibility that GCHQ went rogue. Its head at the time, Sir David Pepper, was a bureaucratic stickler. Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary in charge of intelligence Sir David Omand would also have insisted on ministerial sign-off.
So which prime minister and foreign secretary were responsible? Given that the Home Office later thought a full-scale parliamentary act was necessary to take similar powers for the police — the communications data bill — just what was the legal basis of GCHQ’s activity?
The GCHQ Tempora program was trialed in 2008. The decision might have been taken as early as 2006, which would put it just within the purview of then-minister of foreign affairs Jack Straw (June 2001 to May 2006). It is more likely to have been other former ministers of foreign affairs: Margaret Beckett (May 2006 to June 2007) or David Miliband (June 2007 to May 2010).
If it was Miliband, this may well explain why the Labour frontbench has been so muted. Though current Labour party leader Ed Miliband has been happy to admit past Labour errors on newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch and other matters, his appetite for political fratricide may be sated.
And the responsible prime minister? Former British prime minister Tony Blair resigned in June 2007, so either he or former prime minister Gordon Brown could be responsible. Was the Labour Cabinet told? Or was this an extraordinary instance of prime ministerial authority and the UK’s “elective dictatorship?” These questions are of constitutional importance, but none of them has been asked, let alone answered.
LIBERTY’S ROOTS
If parliament is condemned to behave like the executive’s poodle, people will have to rely on the law. Liberty is taking a case to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, but GCHQ has boasted to its US counterpart that it has never lost a case before that body and that its compliance regime is substantially more lax than that of the US.
That leaves judicial review. As former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald, QC says: “The question is whether the government had proper lawful authority for what they have done. It is potentially a subject for judicial review.”
There is an overwhelming democratic interest in testing whether that decision was ultra vires — outside legal powers voted by parliament.
There is normally a three-month time limit with judicial review, but that should not be an impediment when the powers continue to be used and when the original decision was secret. The Snowden revelations show an executive arm snatching exaggerated powers with no public debate or parliamentary approval. For the sake of citizens’ freedoms, but also Britain’s democracy, this needs to be put right.
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations