INDEX	August 19, 2022
The disease of obsessive secrecy
If you run a spy catching organisation you probably want to keep your activities and resources fairly close to your chest. This may mean some spies escape prosecution because it is more important to catch them than prosecute. And if prosecuting means giving away information that might help other spies escape detection, then the calculation has to be in favour of letting them go free. So MI5 has hardly ever (probably never) given evidence in court against spies. In fact, it's been involved in precious few prosecutions and these were usually it's own employees (double agents) or spies who have been caught thanks to defectors. Maintaining secrecy of this kind becomes addictive and MI5 kids itself that Government Ministers like to keep it this way because it enables MI5 to break the law (which it does frequently) without this becoming public knowledge. This is known as the Henry II strategy. Henry did not order his nobles to assisinate the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket, when he asked: "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" Becket died yet the King could justifiably say he didn't order it. To have an obsessively secret organisation that is capable of carrying out extraordinary deeds, can be handy sometimes; or at least it can seem to be handy. But there are inevitable problems when you have a powerful organisation that is not explicitly controlled by anyone. For example Peter Wright in his book Spycatcher argues that MI5 destroyed the Eden government by tapping into Egyptian communications and discovering that the Soviets planned to use its air force to confront the RAF over Suez. This so terrified the British Government that Eden was forced to give up the campaign and eventually resign as Prime Minister. It also led to the Americans opposing the British military adventure and never really trusting the Brits from that time forward. This intelligence was almost certainly false since a subsequent sweep of the Egyptian embassy revealed the Russians knew it was bugged. They wanted to plant the false story. If MI5 was clumsy but not malevolent during the Suez crisis, the same can not be said for Clockwork Orange, MI5's attempt to undermine the Wilson government. This "coup" consisted of a collection of absurd and naive stories fed to sympathetic journalists. It was from the start doomed to failure but it certainly rattled Harold Wilson. The man who revealed it's existence, Colin Wallace, subsequently spent a lengthy period in jail on a trumped up murder charge. Wallace also knew about MI5's collusion in the systematic rape of children in the Kincora Boys Home, another illegal MI5 operation run because they believed they were getting information from the perpetrators. Wilson was not the last PM to suffer at the hands of MI5. Margaret Thatcher was also a target. The issue was the 1989 Security Service Act. "Thatcher barely lasted a year after the services she so praised turned on her for making them observe the minimum standards required in a democracy," wrote Annie Machon, in her book Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers. It is not just the big issues that raise concern. It is also the day to day work of MI5 carrying out operations "against tiny organisations and harmless individuals who pose no conceivable threat to national security". All this is done behind not just a cloak of secrecy but a brick wall. "Obsessive secrecy means there is little or no public overview of its activities or the profligate waste of tens of millions of pounds," said Annie Machon. This secrecy is being used to hide the potential embarrassment of officials, not to protect society. Where other organisations deal with problems MI5 routinely uses secrecy to cover up its cock-ups. In 1999 the publication of the Mitrokhin Archive revealed that a KGB spy called Melita Norwood passed Britain's nuclear secrets to Russia. This caused a public outcry but as is the usual story in these cases, Norwood was never prosecuted. "Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, John Cairncross, Donald Maclean and Anthony Blunt-- ex public schoolboys to a man-- all escaped prosecution," said Annie Machon. "In the 1960s, George Blake was found guilty of three offences under the 1911 Official Secrets Act and sentenced to 42 years in prison-- three consecutive terms of 14 years, one year for every agent life lost as a result of his treachery-- but he escaped from a high secruity prison to Russia." Should MI5 have a purpose in the modern world, which is doubtful since spying is a thing of the past in this internet age when nearly all information is available either publicly or through hacking, then it is to make sure spies like these are behind bars. "If we can only maintain our reputation for democracy through lying, cheating and obsessive secrecy, then I suggest we are not really a liberal democracy at all," said Annie Machon. MI5's obsessive secrecy makes no sense given that the work it does has changed (it rarely, if ever, catches spies). "As MI5 moves increasingly into evidential police work, such as organised crime and terrorism, they should be equally accountable," Annie Machon maintains. Police special branch officers give evidence in open court, So why can't MI5 officers do the same when they are doing the same sort of work? The absurd lengths to which MI5 goes to preserve secrecy is illustrated by the personal files it has on Lenin and Trotsky. It refuses to place them in the public archives because this could reveal operational techniques. "The use of carrier pigeons perhaps," Annie Machon speculates.
Some years ago the Sunday Times consulted a psychiatrist to find out why the Cambridge Group of Soviet double agents had betrayed their country. His analysis could apply equally to MI5 in general. "It may be a prolongation of the adolescent or pre-adolescent phase of the secret society which many schoolboys form when they are struggling to get away from parents, and gang up together... People who are not sure of their actual capability for achievement like to have a fantasy life in which they do great things."		Page 181 Phillip Knightley The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century ISBN: 9781844130917
CASES	August 19, 2022