Monthly Archives: January 2014

Britain, Government, Human Rights, Intelligence, National Security, Politics, Scotland, Society

Protecting privacy requires Government action…

SURVEILLANCE

In the early 1990s a Scottish newspaper exposed the details of a routine police practice known as ‘metering’. This involved a senior detective and police officer requesting from British Telecom (BT) one of their customer’s phone records. Such records detailed the telephone numbers that person was calling, when the call took place, and the call’s duration. British Telecom handed these details over under a ‘private agreement’ it had formulated between itself and the police.

Not only did the newspaper reveal this practice, but divulged how little political or judicial oversight there was of it. Later, the Secretary of State for Scotland at the time, Ian Lang, announced new guidelines on metering for Scotland’s police forces, and a new reporting system was introduced to keep track of the practice. Details came to light following the theft of metering surveillance documents from the Headquarters of Lothian and Borders police in Edinburgh, in a saga that came to be known as Fettesgate.

More than two decades on one could be tempted to change the word ‘metering’ to ‘metadata’. In recent months, Edward Snowden, a former US intelligence officer with the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed the phenomenal scale of surveillance of the public’s phone, text, e-mail and social network communications, carried out by the NSA in joint collaboration with Britain’s GCHQ in Cheltenham. Matters arising now are the same issues that applied in 1992. Unlike the actual listening into telephone conversations, much of this surveillance focusses around metadata in the reading of e-mails and electronic texts but does not require ministerial permission and oversight.

The Scottish Government appears to accept the current democratic oversight may be insufficient. It suggests the scope of the practices used in surveillance may need to be reviewed in the event of Scotland becoming an independent country.

Some may say, however, that this is not good enough – arguing, that if the legislation needs to be reviewed then it should be done now: issues of public accountability, improved oversight and privacy apply regardless of Scotland’s constitutional future.

Privacy, of course, is one of the biggest issues of the day. Electronic and digital communications have opened up channels for people in a way that would have been hard to imagine just a generation ago. Undoubtedly, though, this has been achieved at a price. One of the biggest challenges facing our parliamentarians is to balance the needs of the police and security services with the personal liberties and rights of law-abiding citizens who are entitled to enjoy a private life. Of particular concern is the apparent comfortable relationship that has evolved between the authorities and some of the large telecommunication companies, many of whom are already under intense criticism for being condescending with their customers’ privacy.

Scotland’s Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill MSP, must accept that his task is not only facilitating Police Scotland in their fight against crime, but also involves protecting ordinary citizens in Scotland from undue and unwelcome scrutiny of their private lives by the authorities. Mr MacAskill has remained silent on this issue despite surveillance being a major issue in the current era. The Justice Secretary must speak up and demonstrate that he has this balance right.

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Britain, Government, Human Rights, Legal, Military, Society

Iraq war crimes denied by the British Government….

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Earlier this month, the human rights lawyers PIL (Public Interest Lawyers) lodged an application with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, said to represent more than 400 Iraqis who have called for an investigation into alleged war crimes carried out by the British Army. The application lodged with the ICC has been made under Article 15 of the Rome Statute.

The legal dossier poses serious implications well above those allegations embedded within the document. For example, it seeks to know whether leading figures in the army and UK government should be called to account.

The submission to the ICC refers to ‘thousands of allegations of mistreatment amounting to war crimes of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’. The dossier also alleges that some ‘at the highest levels’ were mostly responsible, including head of the army General Sir Peter Wall and ex-defence secretary Geoff Hoon.

Following the lodging of the document with the court Foreign Secretary William Hague was quick in responding with a firm statement that the allegations are either already under investigation or have been dealt with in previous government inquiries and rulings. Mr Hague insists that any bid to prosecute British politicians and senior military figures for alleged war crimes in Iraq should be rejected. The speed with which Mr Hague reacted and contested the claims is perhaps reflective over concerns the UK government has over the potential damage to Britain’s reputation.

Some 11 years on, the political sensitivity of the UK’s involvement makes the prospect of an international criminal court inquiry highly explosive. The government’s defence is that intensive inquiries have already been held at UK level. It says that some cases of abuse have been acknowledged with appropriate levels of compensation paid and apologies offered. An interim report on an extensive inquiry by Sir Peter Gibson was published last month. Rejecting the allegations of systematic abuses the Foreign Secretary said that the British armed forces ‘uphold high standards and they are the finest armed forces in the world’.

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Yet, there are two problems here for the government. The first is the increasing importance accorded to human rights in international relations. While such investigations into military operations in theatres of war have been questioned on the premise that they would underestimate the intense dangers and pressures which troops were operating under, concerns over human rights abuses has grown. The UK is a signatory to international human rights conventions.

The second problem is that there is a long history of domestic inquiries into the conduct of military operations that were subsequently found to have been inadequately deficient or incomplete. Any external investigation by an international court would spark concern within the Ministry of Defence, which has presided over numerous errors and shortcomings.

What is more, a failure to enforce compliance with the rules of war would be a grave allegation for the MoD to face. But unless such compliance is enforced from the top down with the level of robustness needed, such charges are only likely to be repeated.

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Britain, Middle East, Russia, Syria, United Nations, United States

Can the West still stand by following new evidence from Syria?

SYRIA

The evidence stemming from the organised mass murder by the Assad regime in Syria have led to international war crime experts using phrases that are loaded with historical weight and meaning. One such term now being used is ‘concentration camp’. Such terms should never be used lightly.

Photographic evidence smuggled out by a Syrian military policeman, who has since defected to opposition forces, adds to the chronicled death of some 11,000 people, many of whom appeared to have been tortured before they died.

The former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone, Sir Desmond de Silva, has described many of these photographs as being reminiscent of Nazi death camps such as Auschwitz and Belsen. Such comparisons should not be made without a great deal of sober reflection.

That war crimes experts now feel able to use these terms to describe the slaughter in Syria should give the world pause for thought. Such an assessment and use of rhetoric suggests everyone with a stake in the Syrian conflict – particularly those countries in the Middle East adding proxy support to the Assad regime – need to take a step back and reassess their positions on a conflict that has been going on for almost three years.

Wholesale slaughter in Syria should not come as a surprise. In July last year, the United Nations had already spoken of a death toll exceeding 100,000. However, if 11,000 bodies showing signs of torture turn up in just one area, it suggests that the figure declared by the UN may be a massive underestimation.

Following detailed examination we now have a greater understanding of the nature of many of these deaths. Not all have been casualties of fighting, or those caught up in the collateral damage caused by the indiscriminate shelling of civilian neighbourhoods. Experts are now learning that many were the result of systematic imprisonment and murder on an almost industrial scale.

Assad tested the West’s resolve last year with the use of chemical weapons against a rebel neighbourhood in Aleppo. Possible military repercussions against the Syrian government stalled when MPs in the House of Commons refused to endorse the use of limited force by the British military. Partly as a result, the United States backed away too from its plans in striking at the Syrian regime. The way was then left open for Vladimir Putin of Russia to find a way in brokering a deal that would involve the dismantling of the regime’s inventory and stockpiles of chemical weapons, with Assad remaining in power. But in light of this new evidence, is this diplomatic stalemate still a tenable option?

These revelations were timed to coincide with last week’s peace talks on Syria that were held in Geneva. Some interested parties have said that a ‘peace settlement’ might simply entrench the Assad regime and allow its barbarism to continue unchecked.  Following military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the West is rightly cautious about further military adventures in the Middle East that might involve ‘boots on the ground’. But with a new light now adding a new dimension to the horrors of the Syrian conflict, can the West really stand idly by? Being quiescent witnesses to a new holocaust requires action the West has so far been unprepared for.

 

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