British Prime Minister Gordon Brown may approve the use of evidence gathered by phone-tapping and other intercept evidence in criminal court cases.
Brown was to make a statement to parliament yesterday on the findings of an independent privy council review chaired by Sir John Chilcot, a former permanent secretary, which urges changes in the law to allow intercept evidence to be used.
Brown was to announce another review by a civil service committee to establish how such evidence could be used in practice and ensure safeguards are put in place. Britain is one of the few Western countries which does not admit such evidence in court.
Opponents of changes include MI5 (internal security), MI6 (secret service) and GCHQ (UK government's listening station), which have argued that it would reveal their sophisticated intercept techniques.
The parliamentary intelligence and security committee said last week the agencies were "adamant that their intercept capabilities must not be disclosed in court." The security services are nervous because changes could allow defense lawyers to demand full disclosure, including transcripts, of the whole operation. Some officials also fear any change would be vulnerable to challenge in the courts on human rights grounds.
Former minister of the interior David Blunkett said in a TV interview on Tuesday night he was "very sympathetic" to the idea that intercept evidence should be allowed but there were "very major challenges."
"There still are, which is why I think the announcement by the prime minister tomorrow will be of a limited nature," he said.
Unless the nature of the intercept was properly recorded, defense lawyers could have a "field day," Blunkett said, but added that "new methods of communication across the world and locally have changed the nature of way in which tapping takes place."
"This sounds like a breakthrough. We have been calling for this for years. The use of intercept has proved vital to counter-terrorist efforts almost everywhere else in the world," shadow minister of the interior David Davis said:
"The use of intercept evidence is overdue and will help to bring many criminals to justice without resorting to desperate measures such as a further extension of the period of detention without charge or trial to 42 days," Chris Huhne of the Liberal Democrats said.
The move came as Brown and Justice Secretary Jack Straw continued to face criticism over allegations that a government whip, Sadiq Khan, was bugged when he visited Babar Ahmed, a childhood friend and terror suspect, in prison.
Public prosecutions director Ken Macdonald has long argued that intercept evidence should be admissible in court proceedings.
The director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, has argued that the move would allow people, notably terrorist suspects, accused of wrongdoing to know what intelligence was being held against them.
Paul Kennedy, an appeal court judge who monitors communications intercepts, was skeptical.
He said in his official report last week that he was "firmly of the opinion that the benefits of any change in the law [on intercept evidence] are heavily outweighed by the disadvantages."
"At its simplest, it is a question of whether using intercept material in court would result in more terrorist convictions than are already achieved through its use to generate leads, and whether these would be sufficient to outweigh the possible reduction in the capability of the agencies to identify the terrorists and disrupt the attacks in the first place," the intelligence and security committee said last week.
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