Some of you may remember the empty promises made by Gordon Brown back in July,
The proposals published in this green paper, 'The Governance of Britain', seek to address two fundamental questions: how should we hold power accountable, and how should we uphold and enhance the rights and responsibilities of the citizen?
See : 'The Governance of Britain (.pdf 63 pages)
There is a Chapter called:
2. Making the executive more accountable
Paragraphs 89 to 96 promised to reform, ever so slightly, the secretive and defective (in terms of public scrutiny and transparency) Intelligence and Security Committee of "experienced" Parliamentarians.
This supposedly keeps a democratic check on GCHQ, the Secret Intelligence Service MI6, the Security Service MI5, and the Defence Intelligence Staff, and perhaps the Serious Organised Crime Agency SOCA, with the occasional mention of what used to be regional Police "Special Branch" units and the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, through the totally inadequate mechanism of a heavily censored Annual Report, which the House of Commons cannot even be bothered to debate every 12 months.
The ISC does not seem to bother to scrutinise other intelligence gathering and snooping organisations such UK military Special Forces e.g. the SAS or the Special Reconnaissance Regiment etc. or the ACPO National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (who concentrate on animal rights extremists and on environmental and peace camp demonstrators), or any of the Treasury's terrorist finance financial snooping and asset freezing units, or HM Revenue and Customs etc. It does not scrutinise any of the European Union intelligence agencies to which the UK is signed up to e.g. Eurojust, Frontex , Europol or SitCen etc. It does nothing to question the supposed "special relationship" with United States intelligence agencies.
There is no evidence whatsoever of any reform at all, given that a new Labour chairman of the Committee i.e. Yet Another Ex-Minister, has been been appointed by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, without any public hearings, consultation or debate.
Written Ministerial Statements Tuesday, 21 October 2008
21 Oct 2008 : Column 8WS
Prime Minister
Intelligence and Security CommitteeThe Prime Minister (Mr. Gordon Brown): In accordance with section 10 of the Intelligence and Security Act 1994, I have appointed my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Kim Howells) to be the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) for her distinguished leadership of the Committee in providing effective and independent parliamentary oversight of the work of the Security and Intelligence Agencies.
Will we see Kim Howells grilling the Ian Lobban, the newly appointed Director of GCHQ and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, over her attempts to subvert this obviously necessary investment in new equipment for GCHQ under the Intercept Modernisation Programme, and to sneak in a democratically and judicially unaccountable secret data mining database of all Communication Traffic Data in the UK, thereby spying on millions of innocent British citizens, thereby circumventing the existing, audit trails and weak safeguards under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 ?
Committee Members
*Dr. Kim Howells MP (new Chair).
Rt Hon Michael Ancram QCDL MP.
Rt Hon Sir Alan Beith MP.
Mr Ben Chapman MP.
Rt. Hon. Lord Foulkes of Cumnock.
Rt Hon George Howarth MP.
Rt Hon Michael Mates MP.
Mr Richard Ottaway MP.
Ms Dari Taylor MP.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/intelligence
*Intelligence and Security Committee
It is of note that five out of the above nine members of this Committee are linked to the Friends of Israel lobby groups of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.
@ mary - Who exactly do you mean ?
What exactly does "linked to the Friends of Israel lobby groups" mean ?
Most of these senior parliamentarians have been on "fact finding" foreign trips at someone else's expense.
There is little mention of any direct financial links between any of these people and the Government of Israel or any Israeli lobbying groups in the Register of Members Interests entries:
Kim Howells (Labour, just re-shuffled out of Government as a Foreign Office Minister) has not declared any "fact finding" trips paid for by foreign Governments or lobbyists, but obviously has been on foreign trips whilst at the FCO.
Michael Ancram (Conservative, a former Conservative junior Minister, years ago) ) is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel UK, and has visited Israel and the Palestine Authority , but also, much more recently he has been to Kuwait, and separately to Syria and Afghanistan and even Cuba. Flights / private jets paid for by Lord Ashcroft's Flying Lions Ltd, accommodation by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office or the respective foreign governments.
Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat), as a member of the All-Party British-Norwegian Group has had trips to Norway. He is Chairman of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel group, but does not mention this in the Register of Members Interests.
Ben Chapman (Labour) , as Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary China Group, has had several paid trips to China. Similarly trips to Moldova as part of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Moldova, and an individual one to the disputed / occupied "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus".
Lord Foulkes / George Foulkes (Labour, former Labour Minister) also "double dips" as a Member of the Scottish Parliament. He is a member of Labour Friends of Israel, but does not mention this in the Scottish Parliament Register of Interests. His cringeworthy contributions to debates in the House of Lords and whenever hhe is interviewed by the mainstream media usually seem to be on the side of ever more snooping and granting the state bureaucracy ever more repressive powers.
George Howarth (Labour, former Labour Minister) - apart from being the Parliamentary adviser to the William Hill Organisation (bookmakers, online gambling etc.) has also been to Syria, paid for by the British Syrian Society, hospitality provided by Government of Syria
Michael Mates (Conservative, former Conservative Northern Ireland Secretary) is
"Parliamentary adviser to Siebel Systems UK Ltd; provider of customer relationship management solutions" and has also been to China as a member of the All-Party Parliamentary China Group. He is also a paid "Adviser on defence matters (no parliamentary involvement) to ABS Aircraft AG; a Swiss company manufacturing hovercraft."
Richard Ottaway (Conservative) trips to India as a member of Conservative Parliamentary Friends of India, trip to Egypt (with spouse) paid for by the Egyptian Government. A paid "Consultant on energy policy to South Hook LNG Terminal Company Ltd. The company is involved in the development and operation of a liquid natural gas receiving and regasification terminal."
Dari Taylor (Labour) has also been on subsidised trips to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, as a member of Labour Friends of Israel, and to Hong Kong, Pakistan, Norway and the Falkland Islands on other "fact finding" trips.
Who is the alleged fifth member of the Intelligence and Security Committee with "links" to Israel then ?