Sir David Omand expresses view in debate on surveillance featuring Guardian editor and Wikipedia founder
The Guardian, 17 December 2013 link
The heads of the security services should not be directly accountable to parliament, the former GCHQ chief has said. Sir David Omand said they should make more public appearances to make it easier to see "the kind of people they are", but that accountability was a different matter and would "build up the agency heads into something they are not".
Omand was speaking at a debate on spying held in parliament on Tuesday evening, and was joined by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, the Guardian's editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger and Labour MP George Howarth, a member of the intelligence and security committee, which oversees the work of the UK security services. Shadow home affairs minister Diana Johnson and her Labour colleague Katy Clark also took part in the debate on Tuesday evening. [...]
Wales said the public should be told whether or not the security services were storing their emails and listening to their phone calls. He acknowledged that doing so may provide some level of help to Britain's enemies "but that's tough – too bad", he said.
He said he speaks to leaders in what he said were authoritarian countries, such as China, and that he implores them to be more open. But, he said, the recent revelations about snooping allowed them to point to everything the UK and US were doing and say "what are you talking about?" [...]
Best friends forever: Alan Rusbridger, Jimmy Wales and Sir David Omand
Alan Rusbridger, Jimmy Wales and ex-GCHQ chief debate spying – as it happened
Guardian editor, Wikipedia founder and former GCHQ spy chief Sir David Omand debate UK surveillance with MPs
The Guardian, 17 December 2013 link
[...] He says he is a strong advocate of freedom of speech. He goes to speak to leaders in authoritarian countries such as China and he is always pushing them to be more open, more free, and to say they are on the wrong side of the history. Now they can point to everything the UK and US are doing and say "what are you talking about?"
It should be a fundamental human right that what you read on Wikipedia should be between you and Wikipedia - and Wikipedia hardly keeps any data on what is read, and what it does keep it doesn't keep for long. Now Wikipedia is encrypting all data. Such encryption is a "strong trend". He quotes Snowden as saying "encryption works". And it's getting stronger, Wales says - this is a trend government should support.
All the criminals Omand mentioned are also trying to spy on us, get our credit card numbers, and so on - so governments should increase and encourage encryption. That defeats their goal of spying on everyone - too bad. Of we wanted to solve the problem of burglary we could put a CCTV camera in every house, Wales says. The Stasi would have been thrilled to have the capabilities the NSA has today. The UK and US are not police states, but we have built the machinery to establish a police state. "This is not OK."
You need access to Tempora to know Ed Miliband's position on Tempora, Wales says, to laughter. Labour has not come out strongly on one side or the other. He says Labour will miss an important trick is if it puts young people off by not responding to these issues. Barack Obama was elected through the votes of young people, he says. Unions, too, worry about state surveillance because of their own history of being subject to it. It's not just about thinking of a viral video, it's about capturing people's hearts on an issue that they care about, he says. He calls on the young people here to make themselves heard and influence politicians.
Questions follow. [...]
