Britain’s heroic spies deserve better than the White House’s smears
I know from my work with them that GCHQ’s staff do their essential work always within the limits of the law
Agreat deal of the job of Foreign Secretary is in the public eye: the summits, handshakes, press conferences and speeches from every troubled part of the world. But there is also a more secret and less appreciated side to this role, which involves overseeing the work of two of Britain’s intelligence agencies, the Secret Intelligence Service – MI6 – and the Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ.
It is the Foreign Secretary who authorises the most sensitive operations of these agencies. Almost every night, his or her locked red box will contain proposals for signature, including the crucial warrants that authorise the interception of the communications of specific individuals.
For obvious reasons, the public cannot see the detail of this work. If they could, I believe they would be immensely reassured. In my own experience of dealing with such warrants for four years, great care is taken over their preparation. The submissions that accompany them sometimes run to dozens of pages, setting out in detail the arguments, risks, justification and legal considerations.
By the time the pen of the Foreign Secretary is poised over the page, he or she will have seen the comments of senior Foreign Office officials as well as those of the agencies seeking the warrant. His private secretary will have added further thoughts. He knows that his decisions, by law, must be necessary and proportionate, and that a judicial commission now reviews the signing of such warrants.
Much of the frequent debate about our intelligence agencies shows little understanding of this process. Accusations are made about “mass surveillance”, and civil liberties campaigners sometimes have a field day with revelations about the agencies. Yet at the heart of it all, the key decisions are made within a strong framework of law and accountability, with multiple checks on what is being done. Foreign secretaries can and do refuse to sign particular warrants, or call meetings to discuss them, or place restrictions on them.
It is against this background that we must assess the assertion of the White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, that GCHQ spied on Trump Tower last year, repeating allegations made by a commentator on Fox News. Even after an emphatic statement from GCHQ, President Trump declined to withdraw the allegation and Mr Spicer said: “I don’t think we regret anything.”
These assertions were clearly the result of the complete dismissal of Mr Trump’s claim that Barack Obama had authorised such spying by every authority on these matters in the United States. Even senators from his own party have been clear that there is not a shred of evidence of any such thing. One way to cling on to the fiction that Mr Trump was spied on by intelligence agencies is to switch to arguing that they must have done it with external help – hence the accusation against GCHQ.
The result is a completely bogus claim, which reveals a casual attitude to the truth and ignorance of how intelligence gathering is organised. The procedures of the US agencies, the CIA and the National Security Agency, are subject to judicial oversight. The senior officials of these organisations would in any case be deeply opposed to being used for partisan political purposes. As for GCHQ, there is zero chance that any such operation would get through a single one of the many levels at which legality, necessity, proportionality and risk are assessed.
Furthermore, the US and UK are the closest allies in the world in the field of intelligence and part of the longstanding “Five Eyes” relationship, which also includes Canada, Australia and New Zealand. A breach of the deep trust between these countries would be so catastrophic that none of the people who lead their agencies would contemplate it. Spying on a candidate to be the head of government in any of them would be such a breach.
It seems that people around the President, including Mr Spicer, are either scrabbling around desperately for distractions for reasons of their own or are living in a fantasy world. Neither possibility is an encouraging beginning to dealing with the array of challenges to the Western democracies that now have to be faced, from controlling North Korea, to defeating Islamic State militants, to dealing with Putin’s Russia.
The truth is that in the coming years we are going to need our intelligence agencies as much as ever. GCHQ had its origins in the work of Bletchley Park in the Second World War, where the extraordinary breaking of the Enigma code was achieved, probably shortening the war and certainly saving tens of thousands of lives. Today, the modern equivalent is still saving lives, as the information it gathers is fundamental to frustrating terrorist plots and protecting British forces overseas. Its work is indispensable to protecting British citizens and businesses from cyberattack, and detecting organised crime.
Such work also contributes materially to the security of the United States and other allies. It is time the White House spokesman started to learn about that. But the importance and integrity of the work of GCHQ and our other agencies also needs to be recognised and appreciated here at home. Their task is made more difficult by the revelations of Edward Snowden and recent “WikiLeaks” documents originating from America, which only help foreign espionage services, terrorist cells and crime syndicates to evade detection by changing their own ways of operating. Lauded by some, those responsible for intentional leaks of intelligence capabilities undermine the defences of free societies. The beneficiaries of Snowden’s leaks, as he now skulks in Russia to evade justice, are those who wish to harm, murder, spy on or steal from the people of this country and our friends.
In my own period at the Foreign Office, I spent a lot of time with the men and women of MI6 and GCHQ. Among them are some of our finest public servants, utterly dedicated to their jobs, to doing them with integrity and in defence of law and democracy. Their achievements are often unsung, and they are rarely able to speak up for themselves. As we each go about our daily business, we need these people who keep us safe and free. They deserve our support. And they deserve something better from the White House than the recycling of the baseless claims of fantasists.