Stronger controls needed on email surveillance, MPs report
New controls on interception of private emails by the UK's intelligence services are called for in a parliamentary report just published.
A review by the Intelligence & Security Committee, which comprises MPs and peers, concluded that the bulk interception capability at the GCHQ security centre did not amount to blanket or indiscriminate surveillance, but that the current legal controls were too complex and lacking in transparency. It also called for a new offence of abuse of position by individuals in the intelligence services.
In response, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he was putting the oversight of the security services' use of bulk personal datasets, carried out by Intelligence Services Commissioner Sir Mark Waller, on a statutory footing.
Hazel Blears MP, speaking for the committee, said it had found that the security agencies did not seek to circumvent the law, nor did GCHQ have the authority, the resources or the technical capability to read everyone's emails.
"However," she added, "the legal framework is unnecessarily complicated and – crucially – lacks transparency. Our key recommendation therefore is that all the current legislation governing the intrusive capabilities of the security and intelligence agencies be replaced by a new, single Act of Parliament.
"There is a legitimate public expectation of openness and transparency in today's society, and the security and intelligence agencies are not exempt from that. While we accept that they need to operate in secret if they are to be able to protect us from those who are plotting in secret to harm us, the Government must make every effort to ensure that information is placed in the public domain when it is safe to do so."
Shami Chakrabarti of the human rights group Liberty criticised the committee as a "mouthpiece" for the intelligence services and said it was only thanks to the revelations by the former US intelligence worker Edward Snowden that it knew what was going on.
Responding to the report, the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, James Wolffe QC, called for "robust" protection of lawyer-client confidentiality. He commented: "The Intelligence & Security Committee has recommended that all the current legislation governing the intrusive capabilities of the security and intelligence agencies be replaced by a new, single Act of Parliament. It has recommended that this legislation should contain specific safeguards for particular individuals and categories of information, including legally privileged information.
"Last month, the UK Government acknowledged that the regime under which the intelligence agencies have been monitoring conversations between lawyers and their clients for the past five years is unlawful. New legislation would provide an opportunity for Parliament to address this – and to provide robust legislative protection for lawyer-client confidentiality. This was, he added, "one of the fundamental building blocks of the rule of law".