Guido understands that in light of increased activities by foreign state actors – a month ago MI5 warned about suspected Chinese agent Christine Lee – a Security Intelligence & Risk Analysis Service (SIRAS) is being established to bolster the Parliamentary Security Department (PSD), which is responsible for physical and personnel security across both Houses of Parliament.
The PSD sets security strategy and is an operational service in partnership with the Metropolitan Police. The new SIRAS team will operate within the PSD – with responsibility for bringing together threat, incident and security intelligence with “other agencies”. This will include in particular the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) – to mitigate the elevated risk from hacking. The new Head of Security Intelligence will establish a Threats & Intelligence team, to
“bring together multiple streams of relevant intelligence and information, including reporting from within Parliamentary community, from social media monitoring, open source, police and crime intelligence, cyber, digital and secret intelligence from Agency partners.”
There is a well-sourced rumour in Westminster that the security services recently advised Keir Starmer that a Shadow Cabinet member was a security risk as the result of an affair, and consequently they were reshuffled to a position without any security sensitivities. This is the type of politically delicate issue that the new £75,953 per annum Head of SIRAS will be expected to handle…
A Bath university professor exposed as a Russian spy wrote an article praising Jeremy Corbyn’s declaration that he “would not push the nuclear button”. Timo Kivimaki, a professor of international relations at Bath, was found guilty and jailed for passing information to Russian ‘diplomats’ in Denmark in 2012. In 2015, when Corbyn said he would never use nuclear weapons if he became PM, Professor Kivimaki wrote an article for Bath university’s website agreeing with the Labour leader and arguing that Britain’s nuclear deterrent is unethical, not credible and “an unconvincing foundation for the country’s security”.
“Jeremy Corbyn is right that the prospect of a second strike cannot safeguard the country against well hidden terrorists…
Is it… ethically possible for the United Kingdom to base its strategic thinking on a doctrine of nuclear deterrence that targets civilians in order to influence UK’s enemies. Given the ethical restrictions is the strategy of nuclear deterrent credible even when the prime minister is someone else than Jeremy Corbyn?
In addition to moral dilemmas nuclear deterrence poses also practical dilemmas. Is the strategy of second strike credible any longer?…
The foundation of British strategic security requires ideas and assumptions that we can no longer be sure of. Regardless of what the opposition leader says, on the long run nuclear deterrence seems an unconvincing foundation for the country’s security. While material foundations might remain the same, ideas that give them meanings change and this is a reality that was not born in the recent speech by Jeremy Corbyn.”
Hiding in plain sight…
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the only judicial body with the power to investigate MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, has ruled today that it’s completely fine for spooks to snoop on the communications of MPs. The ruling lays firmly to rest any pretence that the Wilson Doctrine – the principle that MPs’ and peers’ phones should not be tapped, holds any water with GCHQ. If it ever really did…
“We do not accept that the Wilson Doctrine was ever absolute. The policy or general policy of which Mr Wilson spoke was one of not tapping the telephones of Members of Parliament. It seems unlikely to us that such policy, particularly once RIPA was passed by Parliament, with its statutory justification for warrants by reference to the necessity for the interests of national security or the purpose of preventing or detecting serious crime etc , was intended to rule out any tapping of such telephones or other similar direct surveillance and certainly not any incidental interception. It is difficult to see how there could be an absolute policy which would rule out interception of any communications with parliamentarians, as opposed to a policy relating to those involving confidential communications with constituents etc.”
Maybe MPs will be more interested now they know all their calls, texts and emails are being logged…
There are so many new spooks flooding into GCHQ’s iconic doughnut building in Cheltenham that the intelligence agency is applying to build a new temporary block to put them in. It’s only 12 years since GCHQ moved into their shiny headquarters, yet they are applying to lump a 4,500 square meter building on their car park and to tarmac over a nearby field in order to lay down hundreds of parking spaces.
The new building will somewhat negate the raison d’être of the doughnut that was designed to facilitate talking among staff, with a circular walkway that means staff are never more than a 5 minute walk away from each other. They’ll have to start using the phone…
GCHQ was rapped last year by the Intelligence Services Commissioner Sir Mark Waller for excessive spying on its own staff. The revelation is made today in Sir Mark’s annual report which describes the over-zealous internal monitoring at GCHQ as an “error” caused by a lack of understanding:
“In 2014, GCHQ reported one error to me which happened when an internal monitoring system of some staff communications was found to be capturing more information than it was authorised to. I followed up on this error during my May inspection and the team explained that because of a lack of understanding of the systems’ full capability more data than had been authorised had been collected.
It was clear to me that this was a technical error and not deliberate. Following the discovery of the error GCHQ deleted the captured data and reconfigured the system to ensure that it only collected the information that it was authorised to collect.”
Let’s hope the spooks don’t make any “technical errors” while they’ve hoovering up the public’s personal data…
Mark Pritchard has refused to comment on speculation that he had tried to recruit the woman who accused him of rape to the British security services. “I do not discuss matters relating to our intelligence agencies,” Pritchard said in a curt statement as Guido reported the chatter in yesterday’s Sun. The 48 year-old single Tory sits on Parliament’s Joint Committee for National Security Strategy and that is not a denial…
