Ottawa. Sydney. Paris. Copenhagen. Four major Western cities attacked in five months by Islamist terrorists and all committed by perpetrators with lengthy histories of criminal activity.
When the next terrorist attack occurs, there will be those that demand to know why intelligence agencies failed to watch the perpetrators closely enough (as was the case with the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby). However, should we not also ask what we, as a society, are willing to do to make our intelligence agencies’ job easier?
Consider the current debate surrounding communications data (the who, when, where, and how of a communication, but not the what – i.e. the content). Access to communications data is not so different to other long-standing forms of state interception. Imagine communications data being the equivalent to the interception of an envelope showing an address and a postmark containing a date and geographic location. The content data would be the actual letter inside the envelope.
According to Home Secretary Teresa May, communications data ‘played a significant role in every Security Service counter-terrorism operation over the last decade’ and was ‘used as evidence in 95 per cent of all serious organised crime cases handled by the Crown Prosecution Service’. It is also vital in preventing child abuse and exploitation; identifying and locating suicide risks; identifying rapists, kidnappers or threatening callers; and murder investigations. A Secretary of State signed warrant is required in order to access content of the data and oversight is provided by independent commissioners (the extent to which this is oversight is sufficient is one of the subjects I explore in a soon-to-be-released Henry Jackson Society report on the impact that the Snowden disclosures have had on UK and US security).
To maximise its usefulness, communications data needs to be collected in bulk, yet our intelligence agencies’ access to it is declining. There are specific reasons for this. Previously, telephone communications and internet traffic traditionally took place via a fixed landline. Communications data – who was called, for what duration and the geographic location – was needed for billing reasons. Yet increasing amounts of people pay a fixed price monthly direct debit to their provider, making this data increasingly irrelevant to communication service providers (CSPs). As a result, CSPs have less need to generate – let alone retain – communications data. Furthermore, communications now increasingly take place via mobile networks and broadband. This has been accompanied by a growth in alternative communications methods: video messaging, instant messaging, Skype and social network platforms.
The government tried to address these challenges with the Communications Data bill in 2012 and was subsequently accused of trying to draw up a ‘Snooper’s Charter’, not least by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill concluded that the Bill paid ‘insufficient attention to the duty to respect the right to privacy, and goes much further than it need or should for the purpose of providing necessary and justifiable official access to communications data’. The Intelligence and Security Committee also encouraged more work to be done. The bill was shelved and the issue temporarily kicked back into the long grass.
Yet the urgent need to fix the issues that gave rise to the first Communications Data bill meant that inevitably the issue has been raised again, most recently by the Prime Minister and Home Secretary. The ‘Snooper’s Charter’ accusations have already resurfaced. We saw another glimpse into how this is going to play out in the media when David Cameron recently said that both communications and content data must be viewable if there is a signed warrant from the Home Secretary. Rather than this argument being taken on its merits, he was immediately accused of wanting to ban all encryption technology.
We demand privacy, the right to decide what data we share and security. Yet if the government attempts to plug gaps in the law that makes it easier to track or prosecute terrorists, cries of ‘police state’ erupt. Politicians are often accused of hypocrisy; but on these issues the hypocrisy mainly lies with the rest of us.
My upcoming report makes the clear case that all this needs to change. The debate regarding liberty/security/privacy has become – in part down to Edward Snowden – hopelessly skewed. While all citizens should be concerned about freedom and privacy, agencies like GCHQ are allies in this, not enemies. They protect the nation from a host of hostile state and non-state actors and, in fact, have been doing so for decades. Constantly denigrating those that help keep us safe is no way to build a more liberal or more secure nation.
Robin Simcox is a Research Fellow at The Henry Jackson Society. His report will be published in March.
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