14 DAY TRIAL // One NSA leak some months back indicated that most often politicians weren’t informed about what the intelligence agencies of their countries do so they can shrug their shoulders with sincerity when asked about such matters.
And while the subject of that particular leak was Germany, it does seem like the United States and the United Kingdom face pretty much the same problem.
In a recent article published in The Guardian, former British Member of the Parliament Chris Huhne says that he was never informed of what GCHQ’s involvement with PRISM or the Tempora project, despite being a member of the National Security Council.
“I was also on the National Security Council, attended by ministers and the heads of the secret and security services, GCHQ and the military. If anyone should have been briefed on Prism and Tempora, it should have been the NSC. I do not know whether the prime minister or the foreign secretary (who has oversight of GCHQ) were briefed, but the NSC was not,” Huhne wrote.
As he stresses himself, this makes the situation even worse, since the lack of information and accountability is a warning that intelligence services need more supervision.
“I have been shocked but also mystified by Snowden’s revelations. Throughout my time in parliament, the Home Office was trying to persuade politicians to invest in ‘upgrading’ Britain’s capability to recover data showing who is emailing and phoning whom. Yet this seems to be exactly what GCHQ was already doing. Was the Home Office trying to mislead?” the former MP wonders.
Politicians in the US have also claimed ignorance to what the NSA was doing, despite the agency’s director pointing the fingers at the Congress members who chose to leave DC early rather than stay on for a briefing.
Of course, given that the same chiefs then admitted to lying to the Congress, such accusations have lost all credibility.
The bottom line is that intelligence agencies seem to be working with no real oversight or regard for the laws and rights of those they spy on. And this is where politicians can take a stand and prove they were elected for a reason.