Ever since figures such as Snowden and Assange exploded onto our televisions in the early 2010s, we have become increasingly obsessed with the ethics of intelligence. The end of the Cold War ushered in a new age of scepticism towards the practises of intelligence gathering, analysis and execution. Modern discourse on the subject is increasingly distrustful of the state and ever critical whenever intelligence failures occur. To say nothing of the ever pervasive conspiracy theories surrounding events such as 9/11, whenever attacks occur in the West a series of legitimate questions emerge. Could it have been prevented? Who is to blame for failing to prevent such an attack? Is it an uncomfortable truth that intelligence failure is inevitable and will necessarily result in public endangerment from time to time?

By Alasdair Revie

Accountability in the intelligence process is often advanced as an absolute positive force, with those who advocate for it often pointing to evidence which states that, the more accountable an intelligence community is, the more effective its oversight procedures are. However, when the question of accountability is raised, several more questions necessarily follow. For example: to whom should the intelligence services be accountable? In the case of the United Kingdom, the apparatus of intelligence is purportedly accountable to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC), made up of nine parliamentarians. Yet, an analysis of whether the ISC is an example of true accountability and the effects of increasing the liability of the intelligence community to it, yields interesting results.

The ISC inquiry into the 2002 Bali bombings is illustrative. This inspection concluded that ‘MI5 made a ‘serious misjudgement’ and failed to ‘assess the threat correctly’...,’[1] while simultaneously noting that there had not been enough evidence available to prevent the attack. [2] Thus, the government responded by redefining threat level assessments in order to ‘make them more informative to customers’. [3] This reassessment was the suggestion of the Security Service review rather than the ISC, with “customers”, meaning the public, being a revealing choice of words. Hence, we have a case wherein the observations of the ISC, the proper mechanism of intelligence oversight, have been overshadowed by a solution which opts to pander to the “customer”. It may have been the case that the alternative solution was more agreeable to the government than attempting to address fundamental concerns with MI5's ability to correctly appraise threats and gather intelligence. However, this outcome has serious consequences for the accountability process, and lends itself towards the concept that British intelligence oversight procedures may be more of a political apparatus than a performance enhancing procedure.

Furthermore, when parliamentarians are presented with the opportunity to address the role and performance of the ISC through its annual report, it is rare to find a demand for an increase in accountability. Mark Phythian notes that during the 2006-7 debate on the ISC's annual report ‘...just nine MPs were called to speak, six of whom were members of the ISC. An additional six MPs, one of them an ISC member, made interventions during those speeches.’ [4] This is despite the fact that in 2000, and again in 2007, the ISC was denied access to the annual report of the Intelligence Services Commissioner on the grounds that the information within was too sensitive for parliamentarians. [5] Thus, there appears to be a lack of will on the part of parliament to empower themselves, where their role in intelligence oversight is concerned. This once again implies that without public - and therefore political - demand for accountability reform, the measures designed to prevent lapses in the intelligence process will not adapt of their own accord.

So, perhaps one can rely on the public to hold the intelligence consortium to account given that the principles of many Western democracies already assume this role of the electorate regarding government as a whole. Hastedt's analysis of this topic identifies two key circumstances which he claims must occur in order for the voter to play a role in intelligence oversight. Firstly, the notoriously clandestine activity of intelligence agencies and which inconspicuous figure is responsible for said activity must be evident to the public. Further, the public must prioritise voting on the basis of something being done about it. [6] The short answer as to whether or not this is a reliable and effective method for ensuring robust oversight procedures is no, [7] however it would be recommended to read further into the work of Hastedt in order to receive his long-form and rather more nuanced response. Accordingly, what can one possibly conclude from these observations?

It is easy, when addressing intelligence oversight, to leaf through mistake after mistake, ignoring the silent victories of every unrecorded terror attack or cyber breach. However, it is also important to bear in mind that it took a scandal on the scale of the Iran-Contra affair in order to see the creation of an independent inspector general to oversee the intelligence community in the United States. Thus, we must acknowledge that any organic evolution in the procedures of intelligence oversight remains unlikely. So too is an outcome in which government responds to intelligence failure in an apolitical manner. After all, both governance and intelligence are highly political animals; an unsatisfying and somewhat cynical conclusion perhaps. However, the question of what can be done about this remains open and, as in many things, identifying and exposing such issues can be the first step in finding a solution to them.

Sources

[1] Phythian, Mark. “The British Experience with Intelligence Accountability.” Intelligence and National Security 22, no. 1 (2007): 75–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/02684520701200822.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Government Response to the Intelligence and Security Committee Inquiry into Intelligence, Assessments and Advice prior to the Terrorist Bombings on Bali 12 October 2002, Cm 5765, February 2003, para.10 in Ibid.

[4] Phythian, Mark. “‘A Very British Institution’: The Intelligence and Security Committee and Intelligence Accountability in the United Kingdom.” The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, December 2010, 698–718. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195375886.003.0042.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Hastedt, Glenn. “The Politics of Intelligence Accountability.” The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, December 2010, 718–34. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195375886.003.0043.

[7] Ibid.