

MI5, MI6, and GCHQ chiefs public hearing live on the BBC - baliex
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_news24/watchlive

======
acallaghan
This is a better live stream, with running text commentary:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24848186](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
politics-24848186)

~~~
alexkus
This may also work for those "outside the UK".

(It works for me whilst the original link doesn't as the BBC thinks my IP is
in .ch despite me being less than a mile from the Houses of Parliament.)

~~~
th0br0
I'm in Germany currently and it works fine for me, thanks a lot for sharing!

~~~
acallaghan
Sweet, no problem

------
InTheSwiss
What is the point of this? Does anybody honestly think they will be honest?
They will admit to a few little "bad" things but justify it all for the
Greater Good™. They will talk about "internal policy review" and "more
transparency with the public/government". They will apologise for "over
stepping". They, obviously, won't admit to anything that really matters. They
will be given a stern telling off then everybody will go home and nothing will
have changed.

Sigh.

~~~
d4nt
I agree, but...

Things like this matter in the long run. Remember how, before the war in Iraq,
over 1 million people marched in London against the war? We still went to war,
but Tony Blair never recovered from it, and when the issue of Syria came up
recently, MPs opposed intervention - that is the legacy of the opposition to
the war in Iraq.

In Britian at least, policy trends seem to be set over periods of 10-15 years.
(The battle with the miners is another example). Things rarely get sort out in
one big showdown. When it comes to government surveillance and privacy, the
important thing is that we keep the story going, that we keep the pressure on,
that we keep explaining to people why this is an issue and keep building the
argument. And making intelligence chiefs squirm is all part of that.

~~~
InTheSwiss
I agree with your point buy disagree regarding Iraq and Syria. Syria was about
getting involved in an internal conflict whereas Iraq was about WMDs (albeit
lies). Quite different IMHO.

~~~
d4nt
Yes, Iraq and Syria were very different situations. If anything Syria is the
one we should have got involved in. I just raised it to highlight how a non-
intervention policy is now firmly establish following years of pressure.

------
rtpg
Everytime I see anything about MI5 all I can think about is that article from
Adam Curtis (
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER)
). It's at the time reassuring (the agency is filled with people too
incompetent to do any of the major conspiracies we think they're up to), but
also bothering (their worldview is dangerous and is basically fearmongering).

Listening to this, I feel like the difference between storage and actually
looking at data is an important one. The view of the quasi-totality here seem
to think it's the same, but I think the distinction is important. Especially
when being looked at through search programs (and not human eyes), we run into
the whole "Chinese room" problem: the program doesn't understand what it's
looking at, so is it really "breaching" privacy? And what is the difference
between your e-mails being in a locked box at an ISP or a locked box with the
NSA if the key is in the hand of a judge anyways?

Then again I'm more of the sort to think that if a judge agrees, then access
to the info should be swift. Some people disagree with that.

~~~
BgSpnnrs
Without wanting to be too facetious "Don't worry, we may be violating your
privacy, but we're rubbish at it." isn't a particularly compelling defence.

The problem with the locked box analogy is that my ISP isn't going to
potentially scrutinise my data and decide that because I read stuff from all
sorts of sources - including the blogs of subversives, activists, hackers, and
political outliers (along with the thousands of other things I read online)
that I should be considered a threat to a society I am part of, and could be
considered a 'baddie', espescially given the UK's stupidly broad definitions
of terrorism.

Perhaps that is a slippery slope argument, but it's a valid one IMO especially
given that the reason for excusing it is one that not many of us put much
credit in (the omnipresent threat of terror and violence from fanatical foes).
I'd sooner we just didn't go around making enemies.

------
CallbackJockey
Oh dear.

The fact that certain communication methods are not secure or are hard to
secure has been know to people in IT for some time. The Snowden revelations
would've only helped those with no idea about IT. Are these people now going
to be immediately tech-savy enough not to choose another insecure
communication method? Or will they just give up?

Blaming the Snowden leaks for informing all the criminals about how not to get
caught is like blaming Google for enforcing HTTPS.

------
dons
There's a 2 minute delay on the feed in case they want to [redacted]

~~~
crishoj
A capability they just appear to have exercised. As one of the agency heads
went into details on their Syria strategy, the audio suddenly fell out for ~20
seconds. Strictly speaking, I can't rule out network issues as the cause, but
video was still 100% smooth.

------
CallbackJockey
The needle in the haystack analogy, in that they are only looking at data
through complex queries to find the needles, and not looking at data collected
from the public directly, only works if they get no false positives.

Are they expecting us to believe they have a perfect system? If so, why
collect all the data in the first place and run their queries in real time?

The board questioning doesn't have the technical background to ask any
challenging questions.

------
gadders
For people that are interested, there was a good [podcast] interview with the
head of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal - "a judicial body, independent of
the government, which considers complaints brought against the intelligence
services, the police, military and local authorities."

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03gbs6n](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03gbs6n)

------
devonbarrett
_' so we have to do detective work' \- Iain Lobban_

uuum... what did he think his job was?

------
grey-area
Although this is a bit of a whitewash, it's good to see these issues
discussed, and spies questioned to some extent, and forced to justify their
activities in public for the first time.

 _Asked about complicity in torture. Sir John of MI6: "I don't accept the
allegations that have been made against us"_

There have been several court cases about M16 involvement in torture,
including that of Abdel Hakim Belhaj, which exposes our cynical backing for
terrorists when it suits our agenda after sending them to be tortured just a
few years before.

 _GCHQ denies listening into telephone calls or reading emails of the
majority. "That would not be proportionate, that would not be legal, and we
would not do it."_

Like Obama, they're denying something they haven't been accused of. Tempora is
_storing_ and _sharing with the NSA_ as much data as they can manage, even
though it's not legal or proportionate. This non-denial is very misleading if
you don't know that background. They don't need to read emails or listen to
phone calls for this to be incredibly dangerous - it's enough that everything
is recorded and stored for potential future or current use by any partners
with access.

 _34 terrorist plots have been thwarted in the UK since the 7 /7 London
bombings. One or two were major plots aimed at mass casualties._

What's most interesting is the focus on terrorism as a way to deflect
criticism - they've learned that talking about terror switches off the brain
quite effectively and stops people doing a risk benefit analysis. This is
incredibly useful, as along with having broad laws passed which restrict
rights as part of the war on terror, they can tar anyone with that brush, and
immediately turn the public against them. According to Kovats QC for the gov.
in the Miranda case, we have a new definition of terrorism: _" simply having
this data is terrorism"_.

Terrorism is not a great threat to either the US or the UK - a tiny number of
people have been killed by it, and yet it is painted as an existential threat
which must be fought at all costs. Many of their activities have nothing to do
with terrorism, but we've heard nothing about the Belgacom hack ( _Operation
Socialist_ ), tapping cables crossing the Atlantic, subverting encryption
protocols, tapping internal traffic at providers like Google for the NSA,
tapping G20 attendees, Mastering the Internet™ with Tempora, or tapping
Merkel's phone. Very little of that is useful for combatting terrorism (most
terrorism is not organised on the internet but face to face, terrorists like
Bin Laden are not stupid), but it's very useful for economic and political
espionage.

That none of that has been mentioned, let alone questioned, betrays just how
little proper supervision this committee provides.

~~~
thex86
> Terrorism is not a great threat to either the US or the UK - a tiny number
> of people have been killed by it, and yet it is painted as an existential
> threat which must be fought at all costs

"Americans Are as Likely to Be Killed by Their Own Furniture as by Terrorism"

[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/ame...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/americans-
are-as-likely-to-be-killed-by-their-own-furniture-as-by-terrorism/258156/)

~~~
rtpg
Are we going to go into this numbers game again?

Few people were killed in the Boston Marathon bombings. But many were maimed ,
and it will remain traumatic for them for the rest of their lives. But , more
importantly, this bomb hit a group of people whose only reason for being
hit/killed was that they were in the same geographic area as this bomb. There
was no reason for this tragedy.

In drunk driving, you can place the cause relatively easily. Furniture falls
over because a shelf was badly built. You can place the cause. Most acts of
terrorism happen due to extremely nebulous and complicated reasons, so the
people who die in events such as 9/11 and Boston died "for no reason".

Talk to some Japanese people about the March 11th Tsunami. the feelings about
that event are very similar to those Americans have about 9/11, as a turning
point in society and something where many innocent people died for no good
reason. Terrorist attacks are basically on the same level as huge natural
disasters, emotionally.

Terrorist attacks are extremely traumatising for people just like getting an
arm cut off is traumatizing a lot more than being slowly bruised over and over
on the arm. It's a huge shock event that feels unavoidable, and people don't
want to experience it ever again (because we're not all robots who count lives
like we're accountants). It's a major event and trying to avoid it is entirely
reasonable.

~~~
viraptor
How are "In drunk driving, you can place the cause relatively easily." and
"only reason for being hit/killed was that they were in the same geographic
area as this bomb. There was no reason for this tragedy." incompatible in any
way?

You can also place the cause of the bombing extremely easily - the person with
the bomb. In drunk driving accident, people get hit/killed just because they
were in the same geographic area as the drunk driver. They will also get
sometimes extremely traumatised (enough to avoid any road travel).

Both cases are completely out of control for the affected people. What's the
big difference?

------
mtgx
I like how they talk about how much "balance" they try to maintain, so they
don't become another "North Korea" or something like that, or how they talk
about "oppressive regimes", yet they still stumble on explaining why they
accused David Miranda of terrorism.

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131106/10352625149/uk-
gov...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131106/10352625149/uk-govt-david-
miranda-might-be-terrorist-because-journalism-can-be-terrorism-also-we-had-no-
idea-he-was-journalist.shtml)

They also use the excuse that Snowden leaks could "help paedophiles (it always
seems lead to this one, doesn't it?):

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131107/00222225158/uk-
gov...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131107/00222225158/uk-govt-losing-
plot-now-claiming-snowden-leaks-could-help-pedophiles.shtml)

Let's not forget that whatever they say about the terrorists learning from
these leaks, the leaks wouldn't have happened if they didn't spy on
_everyone_. They could've just spied on the people they actually suspected of
terrorism.

------
SebastianM
German "Spiegel" has also a live stream:
[http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/live-aus-dem-
unterhaus...](http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/live-aus-dem-unterhaus-
britische-geheimdienstchefs-im-kreuzverhoer-a-932350.html)

------
fit2rule
I couldn't be more repulsed by these people. They simply justify their crimes
against humanity with the call "protection! security!".

~~~
CatsoCatsoCatso
"Alex from Ipswich emails: I really don't understand this furore over
industrial surveillance. If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear,
simple."

I don't want to live on this planet any more.

------
philliphaydon
Most of the questions they aren't even answering... this is pointless and
stupid.

------
jozan
The link is available to play in the UK only.

------
timdiggerm
Note: Only viewable if you live in the UK

~~~
mtgx
Is there some browser extension to be able to watch it?

~~~
stickydink
Media Hint is an excellent extension, that should allow this (if not through
that link, directly through the BBC's iPlayer)

[https://mediahint.com/](https://mediahint.com/)

------
alexkus
Excellent, some very sensible/esteemed members on the ISC.

~~~
crishoj
Yet, as mentioned above, not technically insightful enough to pose some
important challenging questions.

~~~
alexkus
True, but it's easy to email the people involved to suggest lines of
questioning for future public (and private) sessions.

------
bolder88
edit: Deleted due to the overwhelming amount of Guardian readers/conspiracy
nuts in the comments section, who aren't able to listen to reasoned debate.

~~~
luckyno13
The type of person that supports these sorts of activities is the sort of
person I would also expect to delete their message instead of standing their
ground regardless of adversarial opinions.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
Agreed, though I don't want to see people merely _stand their ground_ , I want
to see them _engage with_ adversarial opinions. I want both of us to have the
possibility of learning where we got it wrong. Leaving in a huff is even worse
than standing your ground.

The idea that this makes one "Guardian readers/conspiracy nuts" is laughable.

