Yesterday’s Guardian carried this story:
Privacy rights of innocent people will have to be sacrificed to give the security services access to a sweeping range of personal data, one of the architects of the government’s national security strategy has warned.
Sir David Omand, the former Whitehall security and intelligence co-ordinator, sets out a blueprint for the way the state will mine data – including travel information, phone records and emails – held by public and private bodies and admits: “Finding out other people’s secrets is going to involve breaking everyday moral rules.”
Omand’s frankly terrifying report has been published by the ippr’s Commission on National Security in the 21st Century. What is not reported by the Guardian is who is funding this work (is the maxim ‘follow the money’ really forgotten in journalstic circles 35 years on from Watergate?). Fortunately, the ippr do at least acknowledge this:
ippr would like to thank EDS, Raytheon Systems Ltd, De La Rue and Booz Allen Hamilton for their generous support of the Commission’s activities
Let’s run through all those funders.
- EDS is one of the government’s main suppliers of ICT services
- Raytheon Systems Ltd is another technology company with major contracts with the Ministry of Defence
- De La Rue specialises in security printing, papermaking and cash handling systems
- Booz Allen Hamilton is a leading strategy and technology consulting firm with numerous US government contracts.
In short, this report has been paid for by the very sector which has a business stake in delivering the databse state which Omand insists must be implemented.
There are serious issues at stake here: firstly, what is it about the state of our media that prevents a journalist from even looking at the inside front cover of a pamphlet he is reporting on to see who is funding the research? The incuriosity of Alan Travis is frankly gobsmacking. I’m not suggesting it invalidates the research, but just as we expect politicians to declare an interest, we should expect it of think tanks as well. This is one of the things that the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency has been seeking to highlight.
But the other issue is a problem for Liberal Democrats, and Lord Ashdown in particular. As co-chair of Commission on National Security his reputation and gravitas clearly opens doors for this report and grants it a respectability it would otherwise not enjoy. Lord Ashdown may disagree with every word of this paper; he has declined the opportunity to clarify this in the report.
In my view this is a pretty untenable position to be in. When it comes to debating security, and in particular its implications for privacy and human rights, it is crucial that any pecuniary interests are made clear from the outset. Otherwise, you risk being a party to the sort of lazy, whitewash journalism that the Guardian article above exemplifies. I am sure that Lord Ashdown is not profiting from this personally, but it does seem extraordinarily naive to allow his name to be used this way on behalf of the industry.
Ultimately, it is hard to reconcile this concept of a 360-degree surveillance state with anything even vaguely resembling liberalism. If Lord Ashdown is at all concerned about the direction we are headed in terms of the erosion of our civil liberties and privacy, he needs to be more scrupulous in making that clear.
Declared interest: James Graham is the Campaigns and Communications Manager of Unlock Democracy, which is a member of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency. He writes in a personal capacity.
Editor’s note: Paddy Ashdown has refuted James Graham’s article in the comments thread here.
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22 Comments
I don’t understand how the civil libertarians of yesterday have turned into the people that in the 60s they would have called (with justification) fascists, And what has happened to traditional British bloodymindedness? I remember a Young Liberal campaign against the use of postcodes – maybe that really was the start of dragooning us all into being obedient little citizens parroting “If you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to fear”.
The added madness is that both theory and practical trials have shown that data mining doesn’t work. You can’t tell the good guys from the bad until they do something bad. So not only is this report scary, it’s downright wrong.
What sort of Lib Dem organ is it which makes the outrageous charges made in this piece about a fellow Lib Dem without even asking the Lib Dem concerned to comment before hand?
What sort of Lib Dem organ is it which, having published this kind of article, then closes the comment column so that a response is impossible and forces me to contact the Editor directly to provide a response facility?
What sort of Lib Dem organ is it which prefers to indulge in wild speculation about a colleague’s integrity – but hasn’t even bothered to look at what he or she has said on the record about, in this case, the Government’s plans to establish an “all seeing IT system”. Just for the record, I first made a speech in the House of Commons warning of the dangers of creating an huge nationwide data base on individuals, in which I predicted the opportunity would soon be available for the Government to know everything about everyone all the time, in, if I recall 1987 (by the way to much derision on all sides).
I led one of our few Lib Dem Opposition day debates, as Leader in the Commons, on this very subject in 1989, when I said that the choice was for the Government to know have knowledge about everyone, or for citizens to have knowledge about everything and for liberals there could only be one choice to make. I wrote about this in my first book “Citizen’s Britain” and dedicated Party Leader speeches to it. And have continued my opposition to this right up to the present day saying that the Government’s plans for this are dangerous and must be stopped. Indeed I suggested to both Commons and Lords Parties that this would be an excellent Lib Dem Opposition day as we are the only voice now which will oppose this.
Please tell me what allows the author of this article to ignore all this and write a piece which infers a connection between me and the IT industry (in terms which some might take infer a pecuniary one)? I am not used to being called anyone’s “patsy” by anyone, least of all by a fellow Lib Dem who hasn’t even approached me or taken the trouble to look at the record, instead of indulging in unsubstantiated and unsupported speculation.
For the record:
1. Funders of the Commission which I co-chair, which your article did NOT mention, also include:
DfID
Cabinet Office
The Foreign Ministry of Sweden.
Amnesty International
2. All funders are required to sign a contract which explicitly forbids them from trying to influence the content of what we publish. As it happens, one funder did try to exert this kind of influence and their money was returned to them immediately and they were immediately showed the door.
3. The paper is a paper by David Osmand, and is NOT a paper by the Commission. Indeed to make this clear, the following words appear inside the front cover, which again, you took care NOT to quote:
‘The views in this paper are those of the author alone and are being published here in the hope of advancing public debate. They do not represent the views of the Commission panel or the views of any sponsoring organisation.’
Finally and again for the record, I do NOT agree with the Osmand paper and have made that clear to all.
Lib Dem Voice performs a vital function in the Party. Those with long memories may remember that, during my leadership, I encouraged the creation, through CIX of just this kind of network and used Party and personal funds to help establish it.
But the fact that you are important and useful does NOT entitle you to publish an article which falls far short of the standards Lib Dems should expect from their fellows, in terms both of journalist professionalism and basic liberal values.
Just to reassure Lord Ashdown and LDV readers that the only reason why comments were closed in this instance is because – as advertised here https://www.libdemvoice.org/site-down-time-11830.html – Lib Dem Voice is currently undergoing a major systems upgrade during which time no new articles or comments can be posted.
The issue of fairness, however, would require that no criticisms were posted whilst responses were not possible.
I am with Paddy on this one.
But John the post was up for over 24 hours before comments were closed.
James,
On reflection, isn’t this article a bit harsh?
Firstly, David Omand’s paper is clearly marked as a “discussion paper” being published “in the hope of advancing public debate” and explicitly not representing the conclusion of the Commission. Surely all thoughtful views should be welcomed, even if we might end up disagreeing with them?
And if an independent all-party Commission is to form a considered conclusion, why shouldn’t expert contributions be published, even if leading members might disagree with those arguments made?
You’re right that the great respect with which Lord Ashdown is held grants respectability to the Commission. And even if one might might take a different view to David Omand’s, this discussion paper seems to be useful contribution to examining what can be done about tensions arising from the fact that “the advanced technology now available to the intelligence community is particularly valuable in providing early clues to the existence of covert networks, but the very effectiveness of these techniques is already rubbing up against feelings of invasion of individual privacy, and worries over the wider uses to which such information might be put.” (p. 16)
Secondly, you say that Lord Ashdown “has declined the opportunity to clarify [his view] in the report”. I initially thought this meant that you or a journalist had actually asked him his view and he had refused to give it. Could you perhaps confirm that you weren’t suggesting that he has refused to give his view on the report?
Thirdly, your point that “just as we expect politicians to declare an interest, we should expect it of think tanks as well” would be pertinent, were it not for the fact, as you acknowledge, that the ippr *do* declare their sponsors. Or am I missing something here?
Fourthly, the headline of your piece, your statement that “it does seem extraordinarily naive to allow his name to be used this way on behalf of the industry” and your final sentence all seem to imply that Lord Ashdown is being used in some way. Is your evidence for this simply that there are industry sponsors and that you think that these sponsors will approve of David Omand’s paper?
Just to be clear, my initial comment wasn’t directed at Paddy but at Jack Straw, Harriet Harman (who in the past very capably directed the National Council for Civil Liberties), Peter Hain, and all the other sixties radicals who sold out to New Labour authoritarianism.
Paddy,
What a ridiculous and ill tempered response.
Let’s get the straw men out of the way first:
An independent one. Reread the sentence again, folks, and think through the implications. Long may it continue.
One going through scheduled maintenance, which had been notified well in advance.
Ah, but that is precisely why I wrote the article. It is precisely your views in the past which made this so extraordinary. What I find even more extraordinary is that even you can’t come up with an example of you attacking the encroaching database state more recently than 1989. Even Tony Blair used to make vaguely liberal noises back in 1989. What does it prove?
You wouldn’t be the first Lib Dem peer to move over to the other side. We have to contend with Lord Carlile opening his big mouth on an almost weekly basis. It isn’t as if you haven’t been asked – repeatedly in fact – to give speeches on this very subject in recent years.
This is either utterly deceitful or betrays a lack of basic English comprehension.
First of all, let’s look at the word patsy:
As for infering a pecuniary interest, that it an outright falsehood. What I wrote was this:
I tentatively accused you, Paddy, of naivety. Having read your defence of the ippr’s intricate system of Chinese walls, I’m going to come out and say it: you are unbelievably naive if you think that a company gives money to a think tank without a pretty clear idea that what will eventually be published will be helpful for them. They do so in the full and certain knowledge that their name will be kept out of the press release.
Let’s be clear here: the ippr didn’t choose any week to publish this report. They chose this week specifically because of the (then) upcoming Convention on Modern Liberty. EDS, Raytheon Systems Ltd, et al must have felt they’d won the lottery.
They may well have signed an agreement and they may well have kept their big noses out of the writing process in order to maintain a veneer of respectability (the Establishment’s veneer of choice), but to imply they didn’t know precisely what they were paying for is like arguing for the existance of the Tooth Fairy (or, even more unlikely, maintaining that all that cash the Labour Party got from rich donors pre-2005 had nothing to do with the same individuals being rewarded with peerages a few months later).
As a supporter of civil liberties Paddy, you could have mitigated all that. You could have insisted on the co-chairs writing a preface. You could have written an article (respectfully) rubbishing Omand’s argument. Instead, you chose to sit back and let it happen.
Apparently, Edmund Burke did NOT say “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing,” but it is still apposite phrase here. Putting yourself in such a position of influence and then allowing such things go on with your name attached is simply unacceptable.
I have to admit here, Paddy, to finding your furious response somewhat revealing. Am I on the receiving end of a bit of misplaced anger, perchance? Since you mention CIX, I seem to recall a similar reaction whenever somebody asked you to confirm whether you had been having secret meetings with Tony Blair. A couple of years later, we all learnt from your diaries that you had. So excuse me if I don’t give you the benefit of the doubt this time.
But I have hardly accused you, Lord Ashdown of anything (beyond naivety), while you have been dishing them out Lib Dem Voice and myself like, well, jelly babies in an FPC meeting circa 1995. I suggest that we are owed an apology.
I think LDV and James are quite right to air this sort of view. It is, however, rather unfair to expect all but the most anorakish of anoraks to be aware of the preventative maintenance schedule of LDV. It is therefore quite understandable that Paddy got wound up when he found he couldn’t comment. It is good that he did comment on LDV. Quite a lot of peers wouldn’t “lower themselves” to doing that.
It would be appreciated to see a response to Lonely Wonderer’s very calm comments.
I am rather baffled by the reference in James’ response to the response about Lord Carlile. Lord Carlile is the exception to many rules. I don’t see why if one peer, particularly Lord Carlile, does one thing, it is necessarily some sort of corroboration that another peer will do something similar. It is a completely dud argument.
And James gets all worked up about a report coming out in the same week as the Convention on Modern Liberty. So what? It’s only a report, for goodness sake. Surely the way to deal with it is welcome it in the spirit of free speech and deal with its points, isn’t it? Majoring on a rather clumsy ad hominem attack seems daft.
Apart from anything else, surely Ashdown is acting in the best liberal tradition of encouraging opposite views?
But where the wheels start to seriously fall off you argument, James, is when one looks at the other sponsors of the IPPR. Your argument would be a slam-dunker if it was funded only by IT companies. But it is also funded by Amnesty International and the Foreign Ministry of (that home of freedom of information) Sweden, amongst others. These are hardly people that fund “patsies” for the IT industry, are they? More likely, the mixture of funding from a wide variety of sources reflects an organisation which propogates a wide variety of views to move the debate forward. Again, in the best liberal traditions.
This little debate has been characterised by quite a lot of testosterone and the reknowned mammoth egoes of the two particpants. More heat than light. It might be a good idea for you to sit down over a coffee or beer and have a quiet chat about this. Your views on the subject after that might be a great deal more rewarding and easier to understand clearly.
Lonely Wonderer has indeed written some calm and balanced comments. Let me try to add to them.
James comes close to suggesting that no Lib Dem should get involved with business interests when they appear to be gently marketing their wares to government. Well, of course politicians should be wary. But the IT industry aren’t exactly selling cluster bombs. They do have views that need listening to, even if they may also need forceful rebuttal. If we just kept clear of them, we would risk losing touch with what is happening. I suspect Amnesty International paid up so as to keep a careful watch on developments, and perhaps that was Paddy’s motivation too.
Nevertheless, Lib Dem politicians do need to be wary. That point might have come across more clearly if made more temperately. Sir David Omand has explained to us why he thinks civil liberties are a dead duck if we are to maintain national security. Will the Commission now ask someone to offer an opposing expert opinion on how we can beat Al Qaida without sacrificing liberty?
Got to agree with David here. You know James, not all of the IT world are scumbags. There are good geeks as well as bad geeks. It’s important to differentiate between the two. One of my personal heroes is Bill Gates. He’s donated billions to charity. Frankly I couldn’t give two figs that his operating systems have been the cause of incurable high blood pressure. You could think of him as the Desmond Tutu of the software industry if you like . . .
Laurence, one reason for Gates’ millions is that, unlike most charitable trusts, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation does not (or at least, did not until 2007) have an ethical investment policy.
Gates’ money, which he has admittedly used for some good, has come from investments in schemes which have damaged the environment, caused illness in the poor, and generally countermanded the good that his donations have made.
Never mind the blood pressure, or that his corporation is a convicted monopolist which repeatedly tries to enslave the world into its markets using Digital Restrictions Management and software patents (both issues on which the Lib Dems fall short, incidentally). Gates’ money is blood money.
Hmm. Can’t really comment on that side of things Dave. But the principal reason for the fund’s billions (not millions) is surely that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett pumped them in at the start. Calling it all blood money is maybe going a bit far? In any case, there was a degree of irony in my post which may have been lost on anyone who has not been closely monitoring spats between me and James.
Paul, regarding the other list of funders that Paddy mentioned, it appears to be a red herring admittedly I should have tackled in my last post.
I’ve scoured every single one of the Security Commission’s publications, as well as its website, and cannot find a single mention of Amnesty contributing funding. I have found two publications which mention the Swedish Foreign Ministry and DFID, but not in this one. Nowhere on the website does it list a set of core funders, including DFID, the Swedish Foreign Ministry, the Cabinet Office or Amnesty. I am emailing Amnesty for clarification: if they are funders, they are very silent ones. Perhaps Lord Ashdown can enlighten us?
ALL publications acknowledge EDS and Raytheon and the secretariat of the Commission is lead by Ian Kairns, a Deputy Director of ippr who also just happens to be a former EDS staffer. The implication I took from Lord Ashdown’s intervention was that EDS and Raytheon’s funding was on a par with the other funders he mentions. Looking through them all, I see plenty of evidence which appears to contradict that.
I’m all for open debate and this article is a contribution to that. It is frankly odd that people here appear to think that pointing out who is funding what research is somehow shutting down debate when it is in fact opening debate up into other avenues. Whether certain individuals are uncomfortable with that is neither here nor there.
And funding is crucial. We have wasted the best part of a decade with public opinion confused over climate change thanks to “independent” research flying in the face of the scientific consensus which turned out to be funded by Big Oil. For similar reasons, we should seek to look at how research into security is financed. I never said that renders Omand’s report worthless, but if you genuinely believe in open debate then you should support it being placed in its proper context.
Laurence states “there are good geeks as well as bad geeks” and he is right. Crucially, I have yet to come across a single IT professional who doesn’t have a vested interest in providing massive database and security systems to the government who thinks the current headlong rush towards “transformational government” is either practical or ethical. Indeed, it is the geeks who don’t have a vested interest in all this whose views I personally value the most.
Yes, James. I was just going from Paddy’s list when I wrote my comment above. Afterwards, yesterday, I looked on the IPPR website myself and couldn’t find any mention of Amnesty International in the list of funders of the Commission on National Security. (I was going to make a comment to that effect here but got distracted). I even checked in the Google cached record of that page on the website, but there was no mention of AI there either. So it isn’t as if the mention was there but has recently been removed, it seems. However, I did find a page which listed the other sponsors which Paddy listed above. It says:
“Supporting the Commission
ippr would like to thank the following organisations, who are supporters of all the Commission’s activities:
EDS
Raytheon
We would also like to thank the following for their support of specific research streams feeding into the Commission’s deliberations:
UK Department for International Development – conflict prevention and peacebuilding
Swedish Foreign Ministry – conflict prevention and peacebuilding
Booz Allen Hamilton – energy security and protection of critical national infrastructure
De La Rue – borders and identity management
For more information about the Commission, its activities, and possible opportunities to sponsor some of its work, please contact Ian Kearns, [email protected].”
Here:
http://www.ippr.org.uk/security/?id=3109
..But not the Cabinet Office I have now noticed.
I would feel much more comfortable about this, James, if instead of asking Paddy questions on this comments board, there was avidence that the two of you have talked together about this. You are under no obligation to do so, of course. But I have always found that when people talk to each other it tends to move the debate forward, and disperse unnecessary conspiracy theories. If Paddy says Amnesty International funds his commission, then I trust him at his word. I may be a complete prat to do so, but hey ho. The fact that Amnesty International are not mentioned on the website could be for any number of reasons, including a complete cock-up. But I am sure you will enlighten us.
For the avoidance of all possible doubt I am NOT accusing Lord Ashdown of lying, I am merely point out the disparity. And I am awaiting clarification from Amnesty themselves. But even if Amnesty did fund the Commission, they didn’t fund the Omand report.
“But even if Amnesty did fund the Commission, they didn’t fund the Omand report.”
Indeed, that is clear.
Your bonnet must be like a positive hive considering the number of bees you get in it. But then again I can talk 😉
James, Paul, other contributors, I’d like to add a few points to the discussion you’ve all been having, from my perspective as the Deputy Chair of ippr’s Commission on National Security in the 21st Century. I know the issues raised are important,and what to try to clarify a few things.
First, whatever else you might feel there is ambiguity over, there can be no ambiguity over this statement inside the paper by David Omand:
‘The views in this paper are those of the author alone and are being published here in the hope of advancing public debate. They do not represent the views of the Commission panel or the views of any sponsoring organisation.’
It’s hard to know how we could be clearer about who’s views are being published here and it does seem unfair to assume that Paddy Ashdown necessarily agrees with it. I don’t agree with all of it myself and it would have been nice if this explicit delimitation of who’s views were being expressed had been acknowledged in the initial post by you James.
Second, the Commission itself, as a Commission, has only released one paper, its interim report, (Shared Destinies: Security in A Globalised World, available at
http://www.ippr.org/security) This interim report was signed off by the entire Commission panel, and it is therefore fair to assume that all members of the Commmission panel can be held accountable for what it says. We’d obviously be very pleased if people would read it!
Third, just to clarify, the report that stimulated this debate, by David Omand, was not published in the week leading up to the Convention on Liberty. It was published on the 9th February. The reason the report received media coverage in the week that it did is that Alan Travis of the Guardian read it in his own time, then published a piece based on it, on a timeline of his and the Guardian’s choosing. His piece was then read and picked up by other journalists, including Andrew Gilligan in the Evening Standard, who also drew the same inaccurate conclusion about when the report had been published and why.
Fourth, how the Commission is paid for has been made clear by Paddy and by Paul Walters above. Amnesty International come into the picture as sponsors of an upcoming speech on human rights, the details of which, in terms of speaker and timing, are just being ironed out. All details will be on our web-site just as soon as arrangements are finalised.
This speech forms part of a wider series of security lectures which run alongside and feed thinking into the Commission. Nick Clegg delivered a speech in this series on October 13th 2008 (again, see http://www.ippr.org/security).
Fifth, I would argue that there is a distinction to be made, (and it is an important one in an open society that needs more informed and civilised debate, not less) between questioning the integrity or naivety of individual commission members and engaging in a legitimate debate about whether this Commission is genuinely independent. Paddy has rightly set out the contractual position the ippr takes with funders in this regard but in the end, it seems to me that the only way to demonstrate independence of view is through what debates this Commission starts and what policies it recommends.
In this regard, and in addition to the piece by David Omand, I would just ask people to consider the following:
The recent demolition of torture practices as illegal and dumb, by Commission panel member Charles Guthrie in The Times;
Our ongoing efforts as a Commission to develop a final report that says something meaningful not just about counter-terrorism but also about what the United Kingdom should do to better promote human rights around the world and more effectively prevent the recurring tragedy of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity;
The call, in our interim report, for the global eradication of nuclear weapons, and the setting out of a series of steps to help get us there;
The call, in the same document, for the UK to fully meet its responsibiilty to prevent violent conflict in order to save thousands of innocent lives in some of the poorest countries on earth;
Our policy proposals on improving global readiness to meet the challenges posed by pandemic disease, and issues raised by 21st century advances in bio-technology which bring huge potential advances for humanity, but also new security concerns.
I’m not sure which, if any of these activities and proposals serve the interests of the IT industry. But I’d suggest these ideas, and the ideas we publish in our final report later this year are what you should judge us on. We’re all in favour of open debate, hope you’ll read our interim and final reports, and engage us in a lively debate about our final report when we publish. In the end, we’re trying to advance solutions to a range of pressing security challenges and to leave something better for the next generation. While we’re trying and in the interim, if anyone wants to know more about the work of the Commission, or has any great ideas about what we should be recommending, please just get in touch with us at the ippr.
Best Wishes
Ian
This is nonsense from start to finish and you know it.
To start with, this is a general disclaimer. It does not infer disagreement with the paper, merely that agreement cannot be inferred either.
Secondly, I did reconise this fact when I stated:
If I was claiming that Lord Ashdown agreed with this report, I would not have said that, and a catch-all disclaimer does not tell anyone anything.
Are you stating, for the record, that no ippr staff member or agency acting on their behalf lobbied Alan Travis to write his article at any point after 9 February?
Yes, we know all that, and I have been speaking with Amnesty directly. What has been made clear is that this is a total red herring.
Tellingly, not a single one is against the interests of the IT industry. Can you cite a policy that EDS and Raytheon would actively object to in a business capacity?
You are right, we will have to wait and see what the Security Commission finally comees up with. But the real test of its independence will be whether it takes a position on privacy and datamining at all, or whether, after flying a kite and getting lots of media publicity out of it, the final report just fudges it.
“What has been made clear is that this is a total red herring.”
You’ve certainly made clear where AI’s involvement sits precisely. However, it seems an entirely legitimate thing for Paddy/Ian to point out. If the Commission are organising a series of debates which Amnesty International are donating money towards, which are to be given, as I understand it, by an internationally recognised figure, then this is only a red herring in that it doesn’t fit in with your rather obsessively over-stated argument, James.