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PAUL, K. 1997. Whitewashing Britain. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
ROSE, E. J. B. 1969. Colour and Citizenship: A Report on British Race Relations. London: Oxford
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SAGGAR, S. 1998. Race and British Electoral Politics. London: UCL Press.
SALT, J. 1999. Current Trends in International Migration in Europe. Strasbourg: Council of
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SOLOMOS, J. 1989. Race and Racism in Contemporary Britain. London: Macmillan.
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 C H A P T E R 41
.................................................................................................................

T H E SE C U R I T Y
S TAT E
.................................................................................................................

RICHARD J. ALDRICH

THIS chapter will examine developments in the UK security state, focusing on the
intelligence and security services, together with the Whitehall machinery that con-
nects these agencies with the core executive. It will also consider related aspects of
security policing or ‘high policing’. It seeks to interpret the major developments that
have taken place since the end of the cold war against the background of Euro-
peanization, globalization, and the so-called ‘Global War on Terror’. The discussion
will address some of the more important legislative changes that have ushered in
mechanisms for oversight and a remarkable new culture of regulation. However,
before analysing these changes it might be helpful to advance some general propo-
sitions. During the last two decades, the UK security state has undergone a major
transformation that might be said to have three main aspects.
First, the UK security state has moved from the shadows to centre stage. During
the 1980s the very existence of the security services was often denied by a government
characterized by obsessive secrecy. The main agent for change here was Europe.
Important cases brought before the European Court propelled many countries,
including the UK, to avow their agencies, to place them on a firm legal basis, and
to institute oversight mechanisms. By the mid-1990s, Whitehall had begun to make
virtue of necessity, employing the Central Intelligence Machinery as a flagship of
Open Government and employing websites for personnel recruitment. This shift
towards a higher public profile accelerated with the debate over intelligence prior
to the Iraq War. Thereafter, multiple inquiries into intelligence transformed what
had been a gentle limelight into a harsh spotlight. By early 2005, as John Scarlett
 THE SECURITY STATE 753

took up his new post as Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) at Vauxhall
Cross, his face was well known and his track record was actively debated in the
broadsheet press. Hitherto secret parts of government have witnessed unprecedented
exposure.
Second, the inhabitants of the security state have ceased to be watchers and have
instead become fixers and enforcers. The main driver here has been globalization.
Until 1989 (with the exception of Northern Ireland) the cold war had required
the secret services to focus largely on the passive observation of a relatively static
enemy. However, by the late 1990s, the liberalization of economies, together with the
impending expansion of Europe, had increased anxiety about crime. Indeed, across
the world organized crime was killing more people than either war or terrorism and
was increasingly regarded as a security problem in its own right. This prompted a
shift towards intelligence-led policing and towards security agencies that would not
only observe but also disrupt harmful activities. This trend was already evident in
1999, but the upsurge in terrorism has completed a transformation of the security
agencies.
Third, the security state has expanded remarkably and its boundaries are now
uncertain. The size of the UK Security Service (MI5) has broadly doubled, reaching
c.4,000 in 2008. Expansion is also taking place in the Metropolitan Police Special
Branch—now merged with the anti-terrorist police. MI6 and Government Com-
munications Headquarters (GCHQ) are also growing. In April 2006, they were
joined by a new Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) with a strong intelligence
component. Moreover, all elements of government are now empowered to conduct
‘covert operations’. There are also important public–private partnerships. Increased
size has consequences for complexion and character. One of the historic virtues often
claimed for the UK security state is that it is small and operates as a genuine com-
munity. Senior staff have tended to be long-term professionals rather than political
appointees (unlike the United States) and are known to each other. However, the
UK’s expanded security state poses new challenges in terms of coordination and
management.
We also need to pause to consider the analytical frameworks that have been
applied to the security state. Conventionally, this area has been conceptualized in
terms of ‘intelligence’, ‘surveillance’, and ‘secrecy’. ‘Intelligence’ has been defined as a
secret activity designed to provide information that makes policy or operations more
effective, typically through advanced warning of events. Both Christopher Andrew
and James Der Derian have asserted that intelligence is remarkably for its under-
theorization (Andrew 2004; Der Derian 1993). It is perhaps more accurate to say
that it has been narrowly theorized, with much focus on why surprise attacks often
defeat elaborate bureaucracies designed to provide warning. Although limited and
profoundly positivist, this work has convincingly shown that intelligence failures
rarely occur because of poor intelligence collection. Instead they tend to result from
analytical weakness, bureaucratic failure, or poor responses by policy-makers (Betts
2007).
754 RICHARD J. ALDRICH

The use of the phrase ‘security state’ in the domestic context is synonymous with
excessive ‘surveillance’ and odious interference in everyday life (Sidel 2005: 10–14).
Ideas of surveillance have proved far more amenable to post-positivist approaches.
Theorists have often connected ‘surveillance’ with Foucauldian ideas of disciplining,
or with Gramscian notions of hegemony (Scott-Smith 2002: 9–12). Christopher Dan-
deker emphasizes the central importance of information gathering on citizens as a
facet of modern governance. This extends far beyond security agencies to areas such
as public health and the welfare state. Similarly, Giddens has argued that surveillance
is key to the mobilizing of administrative power in the modern state (Dandeker 1990;
Giddens 1990). Sociologists have tended to place more emphasis on technology and
view surveillance as an inescapable manifestation of modernity (Lyons 1994). This
latter approach reminds us that surveillance often manifests itself as ‘dataveillance’ by
corporations as well as states. Security activity now involves public–private partner-
ships that facilitate the data mining of passenger records, or data aggregation using
business methods. The UK public has proved surprisingly amenable to surveillance,
whether through its customer loyalty cards or CCTV.
Others have argued that the key conceptual prism for those analysing the secu-
rity state is not information but ‘secrecy’ (Vincent 1998). Many of the functions
of the security state, including gathering information, are not especially distinct
from other areas of government, or indeed the private sector—except that they are
covered by a cloak of intense secrecy. This opens the door to critical perspectives
that suggest that secrecy has less to do with operational efficiency and more to do
with hiding unsavoury activities, or evading democratic accountability. Typically,
this might mean the surveillance and disruption of fringe groups that are legit-
imate but inconvenient, such as environmental campaigners. Accordingly, critical
writers often use the term ‘security state’ interchangeably with the ‘secret state’.
The most sophisticated treatment of the lineage of UK ‘secret state’ is offered by
Peter Hennessy who underlines its long-standing cold war connections with states of
emergency and resilience. However, Hennessy argues that the UK secret state repre-
sented a proportionate response to the credible threat of Soviet subversion (Hennessy
2000: 18).
Contemporary theorization of the UK security state requires some consideration
of ideas of regionalization and globalization. Practitioners and scholars alike have
made great play upon the distinction between domestic security surveillance and
foreign intelligence, especially in recent legislation. In reality, within areas such as
communications interception, the distinction between the domestic and the foreign
is breaking down. More importantly, this chapter argues that the UK security state
has been placed under contradictory pressures by globalization. On the one hand,
its work in policing the underside of globalization—including global terrorism—has
required riskier operations by the security agencies and cooperation with unsavoury
overseas partners. On the other hand, the rise of global civil society has placed security
agencies under increasing scrutiny, one might say even ‘counter-surveillance’, by an
informal network of pressure groups and the media. Europe has also operated as
 THE SECURITY STATE 755

a restraining factor. The most visible manifestation has been the uncertainty about
how the UK might simultaneously embrace an American ally that conducts ‘extraor-
dinary rendition’ while meeting the provisions of the ECHR (Rees and Aldrich 2005:
905–7).

41.1 THE END OF THE COLD WAR

.............................................................................................................................................

The overall architecture of the UK security state still reflects its heritage. The most
venerable component is the police Special Branch whose origins lie in counter-
terrorism in the 1880s. The UK’s lead security element consists of the Security Service
(known as MI5), created in 1909 in response to anxieties about German espionage.
Their main cold war opponents were the Soviet Bloc espionage services whose human
agents achieved remarkable success in gathering intelligence, albeit their masters
proved incapable of making effective use of it in their policy (Andrew and Mitrokhin
1999: 554–5). The cold war and the rise of ideological conflict introduced concomitant
anxieties about ‘subversion’ and this in turn led to the expansion of political policing.
MI5’s directive, set out by the Home Secretary, Maxwell Fyfe, in 1952, required
them to address the problem of ‘subversion’, often defined as the undermining of
democracy by political, industrial, or violent means. Most of the activities surveilled
by the security state constitute a crime under UK law, but subversion does not. In
reality the notion of subversion focused on the possibility of instrumental economic
disruption. There is now substantial evidence of organized entryism by the far left
using flawed union elections during the 1960s. The Special Branch of each constabu-
lary worked with major companies such as car manufacturers to keep known activists
off the payroll. Large companies also made extensive use of intelligence gathered by
freelance organizations staffed by former intelligence officers. Surveillance of unions
probably reached its high point during Margaret Thatcher’s confrontations with the
miners in the early 1980s. Ironically, the process of curtailing union power eventually
turned in on the security state itself with the prolonged GCHQ trade union dispute
between 1984 and 1997 (Leigh and Lustgarten 1994: 396–403).
MI5 activity also involved a process of background checks on UK citizens engaged
in sensitive government work, referred to as ‘vetting’. The volume of individuals vetted
was high and included policy-makers in Whitehall, researchers at Aldermaston, and
even non-government staff in the arms industry. Vetting was introduced in 1951 under
strong American pressure following the discovery of Soviet moles, including the atom
spy, Klaus Fuchs. This was one of the last initiatives of the Attlee government. During
the 1960s and 1970s fear of Soviet penetration in both Washington and Whitehall
was intense. Security measures included background checks on BBC employees who
756 RICHARD J. ALDRICH

were sometimes debarred from promotion for fringe political activities. If deemed
suspect they had a ‘Christmas Tree’ stamp placed on the cover of their personnel file.
Controversially, potential ministers could also be blacklisted. Betty Boothroyd, the
former speaker of the Commons, has revealed that MI5 had once asked her to gather
information on four Labour MPs. MI5 also maintained files on both Jack Straw and
Peter Mandelson as a result of their youthful political activities (Sunday Times, 18 Feb.
1996; Barnett 2002: 376–7).
The end of the cold war took the UK’s security agencies by surprise. It was not pre-
dicted by the UK’s main intelligence analysis body, the Joint Intelligence Committee
(JIC), nor indeed by the intelligence agencies of its allies. Although this resulted in
budgetary cuts of some 25 per cent for the UK security agencies, they did not suffer the
sort of psychological crisis that gripped their American counterparts. After 1989, the
IRA was still active and spare resources were redirected towards Northern Ireland. In
1992, MI5 were given overall responsibility for intelligence on the IRA on a worldwide
basis. Moreover, the need to maintain a watch on extremist groups and to maintain
databases to support vetting remained. During the 1990s the focus moved to single-
issue groups such as animal rights activists (Leigh and Lustgarten 1991: 613–42).

41.2 NORTHERN IRELAND:

THE OTHER LONG WAR
.............................................................................................................................................

Although the UK security state enjoys a reputation for joined-up government and
integration with the core executive, this did not occur in Northern Ireland where
six different intelligence and security services spent the first decade of the Troubles
tripping over each other. For most of the 1970s there were over 250 deaths each
year and it was only in the 1980s that this fell significantly. Gradual penetration
of the paramilitaries, together with the deployment of a vast range of surveillance
technologies, deterred an increasing proportion of the planned attacks. In part this
required the UK to build a large corps of intelligence officers who were skilled
in running covert operations, a process which typically takes a decade (Gearty
1991: 123).
The challenge of Northern Ireland was assisted by the development of additional
Cabinet Office machinery. Hitherto the role of coordinating the intelligence and
security services had fallen to the Cabinet Secretary, reflected most clearly in his chair-
manship of the Permanent Secretaries’ Committee on the Intelligence Services (PSIS)
which reviewed budgets. This role had been greatly enjoyed by Burke Trend in the
1960s, but was becoming increasingly time consuming. In 1968 this role transferred
to the newly created post of Intelligence Coordinator in the Cabinet Office. The first
 THE SECURITY STATE 757

incumbent was Dick White (1968–72), former head of MI5 then MI6. His successors
were confronted with squabbling agencies in Northern Ireland. Proper order was
not imposed on intelligence in the province until the mid-1980s with the creation
of six regional Tasking and Coordinating Groups (TCGs) which had full over-
sight of all covert operations in a particular area. The current National Intelligence
Model employed by the UK police makes use of TCGs and other lessons learned in
Ireland.
Although MI5 gradually became the intelligence overseer in the province, the
most important institutional effect was the ‘Ulsterization’ of the British Army. Large
military intelligence units were developed and even routine regiments of the line
devoted 10 per cent of their strength to plain-clothes surveillance. Special sections
such as the Force Research Unit applied ruthless pressure to the paramilitaries
through agent penetration. However, this confronted the government with the awk-
ward problem of running agents who needed to commit criminal acts to main-
tain their cover. They also faced the possibility that violence between the various
paramilitaries would result in the loss of key agents who it had taken years to put
in place. The desire to avoid this contributed to the alarming collaboration between
intelligence and protestant paramilitaries revealed by the Stevens Report in 2004
(Rolston 2006).
A frequent complaint about the security state is that they can facilitate invisible
policies that are not subject to democratic scrutiny. This was certainly the case in
Northern Ireland. Contrary to Margaret Thatcher’s assertions about ‘not talking to
terrorists’, the UK was engaging with the IRA continuously through MI6 officers
based in Dublin. Latterly, this eased the way towards a political settlement in Northern
Ireland. Declining IRA activity was felt most keenly by MI5. Having taken the lead on
Irish terrorism following the end of the cold war, it was now losing another area of
core business. To keep it alive, the government took the extraordinary step of handing
MI5 some responsibility for intelligence support on organized crime after a process
of minimal consultation.
In retrospect, the last spate of IRA activity, which targeted the UK’s financial dis-
tricts, now looks like the first wave of the future. The attacks on the City of London in
1992 and Canary Wharf in 1996 signalled a new anxiety about strategic terrorism that
threatened national infrastructures and economic well-being, and raised worrying
questions about resilience. The response also pointed the way towards public–private
partnerships in security. A ‘Ring of Steel’ was thrown up around the City of London
reflecting a network of agreements between government agencies, private security
companies, and the financial institutions. The latest format is Operation Griffin,
which not only helps to train private security operatives employed by the banking
houses, but also permits the exchange of intelligence between public and private
partners. Some of the communications infrastructure for Griffin is provided by
JP Morgan rather than by government networks. ‘Griffinization’—the development
of public–private security partnerships—has accelerated (London Assembly 2005:
39–42).
758 RICHARD J. ALDRICH

41.3 EUROPEANIZATION AND

THE EUROPEAN COURT
.............................................................................................................................................

Alongside shifting targets, the UK security state has also faced nothing short of a
regulatory revolution. The main driver was two cases in the European Court of
Human Rights. The first was brought in 1984 by Harriet Harman when an MI5 officer
revealed that files were held on her and a colleague. The nub of their argument
was that MI5 had no legal standing and lacked proper mechanisms for oversight
and accountability. In the Leander case of 1987, the European Court found against
the Swedish security service on similar grounds. Like most European states, the UK
and Sweden had dealt with its security services by pretending that they did not
exist and hoping that its operatives were never caught. Across Europe, states now
rushed to put their agencies on the statute books. Despite initial anxiety, a firm
legal status and clear guidelines for surveillance have meant that agencies are free
to carry out more operations. The legislation has been permissive since the criterion
is now ‘is it legal?’ rather than ‘will we get caught’? This outcome was not anticipated,
nor indeed welcomed, by civil rights campaigners who had long advocated greater
regulation.
The Security Service Act of 1989 and the Intelligence Services Act of 1994 placed the
UK’s three main agencies on the statute book and gave them formal remits. Addition-
ally the functions of the National Criminal Intelligence Service were covered by the
1997 Police Act. MI5 retained a brief for countering subversion, although the problem-
atic term ‘subversion’ was no longer employed in the statute. A range of tribunals and
commissioners, normally former judges, were created to deal with public complaints
arising from operations. The security services introduced staff counsellors to respond
to colleagues who had anxieties about their work. Most importantly perhaps, they
also conjured into existence what has become the most visible mechanism for UK
accountability, the Intelligence and Security Committee.
The UK Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) resembles a Parliamentary
Select Committee. However, it is merely a statutory committee and has not enjoyed
the full powers of a select committee, nor is it owned by parliament. Instead its
members are selected from parliament by the Prime Minister and report to Downing
Street. ISC reports are made public, together with the responses of government, but
in a sanitized form, and can be edited by the Prime Minster. In short it is a committee
of parliamentarians but it is not of parliament. The ISC initially lacked any research
component, rendering it anodyne by comparison with its foreign equivalents. Mean-
while members of genuine UK Parliamentary Select Committees, typically on Home
Affairs, have argued that the creation of ISC curtails their own right to introspect into
the security agencies. Some have complained that its reports are mere ‘audits’ and
contain only limited reflection or analysis, albeit there is a good working relationship
with the agencies. There is little consensus on the effectiveness of the ISC. In July 2007,
Gordon Brown’s Green Paper on ‘The Governance of Britain’ undertook to consult
 THE SECURITY STATE 759

on how the ISC could be brought ‘as far as possible’ into line with that of other
select committees, including the restoration of the investigator whose services were
abruptly dispensed with in 2004. Similar notions were aired in the 2008 UK National
Security Strategy (Gill 1996: 313–31; Glees, Davies, and Morrison 2006; Leigh 2005:
84–9, 93).
Observers have expressed scepticism concerning the modernized security state.
Some have argued that the advent of tribunals, commissioners, and counsellors was in
part an attempt to keep disaffected intelligence officers away from the unpredictable
realm of courts and normal employment tribunals. Only one complaint to any
tribunal concerning intelligence and security matters has been upheld since their
creation in the mid-1980s. Depending on one’s view, this is either very reassuring
or else very worrying (HC 314 2007, s. 38). The argument that increased regulation
has in reality meant greater opaqueness is most compelling with regard to the new
Official Secrets Act of 1989. The original Act had been introduced to parliament in
1911 and passed in an afternoon. Widely criticized down the years by senior judges,
including Lord Denning, its last vestige of credibility was destroyed by the failed case
against Clive Ponting in 1985 and the Spycatcher affair in 1987. The new Act removed
the notorious catch-all Section 2, replacing it with offences that related to specific
groups of people and information. However, the new Act also went to great lengths
to remove the possibility of a ‘public interest’ defence. Subsequently, ‘whistleblowers’
such as David Shayler, the dissident MI5 officer, have had to fall back on the ECHR
with its relatively weak protection of freedom of expression. Notwithstanding this,
whistleblowers continue to trump government lawyers, as underlined by the Cather-
ine Gunn case in 2005 and the Derek Pasquill case in 2007 (Gill 1996: 313–20; Morrison
2006: 51–2).
More important has been the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000
(RIPA), which sought to control the use of covert surveillance, agents, informants,
and undercover officers by UK authorities. On the face of it, this legislation was
marked by the commendable incorporation of parts of the ECHR into its operating
principles. Managers are required to show that surveillance was necessary to avoid
public harm and that the information could not be obtained by less intrusive means.
There are also important references to the proper control of, and safety of, the agents
themselves, a category of person who is sometimes recruited under duress and whose
rights have historically received precious little respect. RIPA also created an Inves-
tigatory Powers Tribunal which superseded the Security Service Tribunal, the Intel-
ligence Services Tribunal, and the Interception Tribunal that had been established
between 1985 and 1994. This has the power to quash warrants, destroy records, and
award compensation. Importantly, the tribunal can also hear proceedings brought
under Section 7 of the Human Rights Act of 1998 against any of the intelligence
services.
At the same time, the public were disconcerted to learn just how many government
departments were now empowered to use covert surveillance. This included not only
the obvious praetorian elements, but all departments of state and even local govern-
ment. In 2008, Britain’s interception of communications commissioner revealed that
760 RICHARD J. ALDRICH

nearly 800 public bodies, including NHS trusts, were making an average of nearly
1,000 requests a day for communications data, including actual phone taps, mobile
phone records, email or web search histories, not to mention old-fashioned snail mail.
Empowered bodies also include 474 local councils who made 1,700 requests to access
mobile phone records and other private information in the last nine months of 2006.
Therefore, while Europe has initiated the UK security state into the new culture of
regulation, this was of a facilitating kind (Ash 2008).

41.4 GLOBALIZATION, E-INFRASTRUCTURE,

AND ORGANIZED CRIME
.............................................................................................................................................

The end of the cold war, and to some extent the drawing down of conflicts such as
Northern Ireland, reflected broader changes in the international system which relate
to ‘globalization’. Globalization is most commonly associated with deterritorialization
and assertions of the decline of the sovereign state, together with notions about the
communications revolution as an accelerator of these processes. For the UK, global-
ization has perhaps been most significant in economic terms. The UK deregulated
faster than most other European states and gained visibly from the expansion of
world trade and the financial services industry. This is symbolized by the growth of
London as a major financial capital and the emergence of its airport as the world’s
largest air transport hub. In short, the declinist predictions about the UK were
confounded.
Accordingly, during the early 1990s, few in government viewed globalization as
anything other than unqualified good. Many had bought into Francis Fukuyama’s
assertions about a peaceful post-cold war system characterized by economic compe-
tition between liberal democracies. A notable exception was Sir Colin McColl, the
Chief of MI6. Against the background of the end of the cold war and the decline in
domestic terrorism, he reassured his staff that they would not be without work. Far
from witnessing ‘the end of history’, he predicted that, instead, they would soon be
busier than ever. During the early 1990s, MI6 created a global issues section. Their
working style gradually began to shift from a focus on country stations in capitals
around the world to more London staff who responded to problems on a global basis.
However, they were unable to dissuade the Treasury from cutting the budgets of the
security agencies (Smith 2003: 233, 240).
McColl was right. One of the entities that thrived on globalization was Al-Qaeda,
which emerged just as the capacity to address it was being curtailed drastically.
Moreover, the 1990s saw the rise of separate but connected challenges, many of which
might be described as complex clandestine networks. They included narcotics, money
laundering, people trafficking, war-lordism, nuclear proliferation, and the illegal light
 THE SECURITY STATE 761

weapons trade. These problems were accelerated by globalization and overlapped

with new civil wars, of which the former Yugoslavia was the most prominent. In
Russia, the Balkans, and Central Asia, a range of shadowy figures from the security
services were also major players in the criminal underworld.
The common element among these new threats was that many of them operated
clandestinely. The UK response was to redirect the security state. One symptom was
more intelligence-led policing underlined by the creation of the National Criminal
Intelligence Service and eventually a National Intelligence Model that was rolled out
to all police services by the end of the decade. By 1998 government was reversing the
cuts in the budgets of the security agencies (Rice and Thomas 1997: 14–15). The shift
in emphasis was confirmed by a summit at 10 Downing Street in late 1999 attended
by MI5, MI6, and GCHQ which authorized a significant diversion of their resources
against organized crime. In June 2000, the shocking discovery of fifty-eight Chinese
illegal immigrants who had perished in a container lorry at Dover highlighted the
seriousness of these issues. They were now reconceptualized as a security problem.
In part this reflected the planned expansion of NATO and the European Union,
giving the UK an open frontier that extended as far as the Urals (National Criminal
Intelligence Service 2000; Barnett 2002: 366–7).
The increase in the power of global markets has been intimately associated with the
retreat of the state. In the UK this has manifested itself in terms of deregulation and
privatization. The UK’s new dependence on financial and service industries has also
required concerted attention to critical national infrastructure. In the 1990s, the new
priority was to guarantee secure e-commerce. This required a major culture change
for the UK security state. Hitherto the security of communications infrastructure had
been conceived largely in terms of government agencies. The work-a-day security of
government cyphers had been protected by the Communications Electronic Security
Group, the defensive arm of GCHQ in Cheltenham. However, during the 1990s there
was a growing realization that government would need to roll out the same level of
protection to banks and businesses. Moreover, many activities that had been state
owned, including the UK’s telecom infrastructure itself, had been privatized. Accord-
ingly, by 1997 the Communications Electronic Security Group transformed itself from
a secretive entity into a national technical advisory service with a public face, setting
standards for encryption and offering support to business on a cost recovery basis.
However, its activities have remained controversial, since many question its interest
in encouraging the independent growth of truly secure systems.
GCHQ is the intelligence giant in the UK, constituting the largest and most expen-
sive element in the UK security state. Yet despite its size, the exponential increase
in global communications traffic, together with new modes of communication,
have presented severe challenges. A Treasury-inspired review under Roger Hurn in
1995 revealed that GCHQ was falling behind and needed to undertake significant
change. The following year, under the direction of David Omand, much of the old
Fordist organizational structure was abandoned. Modelling themselves on leading
business corporations, they undertook a management revolution, which resulted
in flatter hierarchies, flexible teams, and greater knowledge sharing. Its Mechanical
762 RICHARD J. ALDRICH

Engineering Division was entirely privatized. This was followed by a decision to invest
in cutting-edge technologies under a programme entitled Signals Intelligence New
Systems (SINEWS). Emblematic of this change was the move to a vast new GCHQ
building on a PFI basis, completed in 2003 at many times the original estimated cost.
However, the world remained stubbornly unpredictable and the new building was
soon found to be too small to accommodate the expansion of GCHQ personnel that
followed the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

41.5 TERRORISM: AFTER 9/11

.............................................................................................................................................

During the late 1990s, the UK security state was gradually becoming aware of what
some have called the ‘new terrorism’. This was characterized by religious motivation
and ambitious attacks together with new organizational structures and operations
that took advantage of globalization. The physical manifestation of this was the
exodus of trained foreign fighters from Afghanistan after the end of the Western-
backed war against the Soviet occupation. There was also growing concern about
the interaction between terrorism, proliferation, failed states, and organized crime.
These trends were addressed by the UK Terrorism Act of 2000 which offered a
much wider definition of terrorism which included political, religious, or ideo-
logical causes and also covered activities outside the UK. The new act expanded
police powers relating to stop, search, and detention and empowered stronger finan-
cial investigation. In the wake of a peace settlement in Northern Ireland, some
found it odd that special provisions were being expanded rather than dismantled.
However, these changes anticipated future trouble (Cornish 2005: 148–9; Moran
2006: 343).
Following the remarkable attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September
2001, the UK government moved to implement a new counter-terrorism strategy
entitled ‘Contest’. Confronted with terrorists that favoured mass casualty spectaculars
and that seemed hard to deter, the official view was that merely increasing intelligence
activity would not be enough. ‘Contest’ consisted of four main strands:
! Prevention: addressing the underlying causes of terrorism both here and overseas

! Pursuit: using intelligence effectively to disrupt and apprehend terrorists, with

through, for example, support for moderate Islam;

increased joint working and intelligence sharing internationally, tightened bor-

! Protection: using protective security precautions to minimize risks to the UK

der security, and new measures to target identity theft and terrorist finance;

! Preparedness: improving resilience to cope with terrorist attacks or other serious

public at home and abroad; and

disruption.
 THE SECURITY STATE 763

Arguably, we have seen a fifth ‘P’ in the form of ‘pre-emption’ that reflects gov-
ernment anxiety about large-scale attacks and the potential use of unconventional
weapons. The security state is much less willing to allow potential terrorists to remain
at large. Over the years, and reflecting its experiences in Northern Ireland, the UK
had developed an intelligence strategy towards terrorism that might be described as
‘watch and wait’, hoping that terrorists who remained at liberty would continue to
give off valuable intelligence. Since 9/11, the UK strategy has increasingly leant towards
‘seize and strike’; however, once suspects are incarcerated, the flow of intelligence
quickly becomes outdated (Omand 2005: 107–16; Innes 2006: 222–41).
The events of 9/11 also triggered significant changes in structure. During June 2002,
the post of Intelligence Coordinator in the Cabinet Office was upgraded to become
a Second Cabinet Secretary with wider responsibility for Intelligence, Security, and
Resilience. The addition of ‘resilience’ greatly expanded the role and reflected Sir
David Omand’s desire to encourage joined-up government with many departments
that had hitherto given little thought to resilience or security (Omand 2004: 26–33).
The traditional view that security was the responsibility of specialist sections was at
an end. This was reflected in a new mechanism for processing operational intelligence
on terrorism, an all-source fusion centre called the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre,
located within the MI5 building at Thames House. This consists of participants from
many different departments. Its inclusiveness has been widely praised and its has been
emulated across Europe. MI5 itself has taken on an expanded coordinating role for a
range of national security activities that go far beyond its traditional roles (Bamford
2005: 744–5).
New organizations were accompanied by new powers. Most controversial was the
new Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act of 2001 which extended police powers
against suspects (Fenwick 2002). The authorities were quick to use the new powers
granted in 2000 and 2001 to arrest demonstrators who clearly had no relationship
to terrorism, typically peace protestors outside a DSEi arms fair in London. In one
case the police served a Section 44 Order (anti-terrorist order) on an eleven-year-
old-girl. Similarly, the US Department of Justice has conceded that the Patriot Act
has been little used against terrorism, but has proved useful against drug trafficking
and organized crime. This reflects a deliberate corrosion of the boundary between
intelligence and criminal investigation. The most obvious example of this in the UK
has been use of intelligence presented to ad hoc tribunals regarding immigration,
detention, or control orders. This material is of variable reliability and yet it is difficult
to challenge (Moran 2006: 342, 345; Wada 2002: 51–9).
Notoriously, Part IV of the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act allowed
a significant number of people to be held indefinitely without charge by derogation
from ECHR. For many, this recalled Ulster’s dubious era internment under the Spe-
cial Powers Act of 1972. By February 2004, some fourteen individuals were held under
these provisions and kept at Belmarsh Prison. These were non-EU citizens detained
on the basis of secret dossiers that often catalogued their associations rather than their
activities. Returning to their country of origin was the only alternative to permanent
detention. The following December, a nine-member bench of the House of Lords
764 RICHARD J. ALDRICH

ruled this to be a contravention of their human rights. This system has been replaced
by restraining orders that are akin to house arrest. Under further legislation passed
in 2002 the Home Secretary gained the power to revoke citizenship (Bamford 2005:
748–9; Chirinos 2005: 265–76; Walker 2005: 400–1).
The Civil Contingencies Act of 2004 is the most remarkable piece of recent leg-
islation and underlines the extent to which the whole UK state is now tinged with
security. This Act replaces outdated cold war planning and allows the government
to declare an ‘emergency situation’ and thence to restrict many civil liberties with the
imposition of curfews, the prohibition of public protests, forced movement of people,
and seizure of property. The original drafting of the bill set out a wide range of events
that might trigger the declaration of an emergency, including threats to political,
administrative, or economic stability. Although the phrasing was eventually tightened
up, government remains at liberty to declare a ‘state of emergency’ as the result of
threats that might disrupt transport or communications. Parliamentary criticism was
fierce and the final version for the Act incorporated a sunset clause of thirty days and
a requirement for approval by both houses within seven days (Bamford 2005: 750;
Cornish 2005: 152–5; Sidel 2005: 153–4).
Detention without trial and civil contingencies, together with the period during
which a suspect can be held for questioning, all created a political furore in the UK.
ID cards have also formed a perennial subject for debate. However, equally important
changes affecting UK citizens that have occurred outside the UK attracted almost
no attention. After uneasy negotiations, the EU and the United States came to an
agreement about the sharing of airline passenger data. A similar agreement gives US
counter-terrorist investigators access to data on money transfers in Europe completed
via the ubiquitous Swift system. There were also moves to require European telecom
providers to retain data on their callers for a period of five years in order to assist
investigators. These decisions resulted in the creation of vast warehouses of data
relating to UK citizens, which can be aggregated and shared with private entities, but
which are not within national control. Again, it is hard to resist the conclusion that the
boundaries of the security state are expanding and increasingly blurred (Mathieson
2005: 1–2; Rees 2006: 231).

41.6 IRAQI WMD AND THE FOUR UK

INTELLIGENCE ENQUIRIES
.............................................................................................................................................

On 20 March 2003, the UK government joined the United States in a controversial

invasion and occupation of Iraq that focused on non-compliance with UN resolu-
tions on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Prior to this the UK government
had decided to release two public dossiers on Iraq which it claimed to be based on
 THE SECURITY STATE 765

intelligence material. The dossiers had been prepared for public consumption and
were not actual declassified intelligence reports. Sceptical journalists could not believe
that government press officers had been able to resist the temptation to enhance the
dossiers. Subsequently, bitter arguments were played out in the full glare of publicity
and rendered the security state more visible than ever before. In particular, the role
of the JIC, a hitherto little-known organism, became the subject of national debate.
Although the dossiers were in line with a long-term trend of allowing intelligence a
more public profile, they also risked the charge that intelligence was being used to
generate political support rather than to illuminate policy issues.
Following the invasion, no WMD were found, despite an intense search by the
Iraq Survey Group. The controversy intensified and there followed an unprecedented
‘season of inquiry’ in Whitehall and Washington, with no less than four UK investi-
gations between July 2003 and July 2004. Intelligence on Iraqi WMD was the subject
of the first inquiry by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and the
second inquiry by the ISC. The third, chaired by Lord Hutton, looked into the death
of Dr David Kelly, a government scientist who had been closely cross-examined by the
first inquiry. Finally, Lord Butler, a former Cabinet Secretary, was called in to conduct
a more general investigation into the UK WMD intelligence. The Hutton inquiry, in
particular, treated academics and journalists to a remarkably detailed view of the UK
security state (Davies 2004: 495–520).
Was the Iraqi WMD fiasco a product of intelligence failure by the agencies, or
deception by politicians and spin-doctors? Inevitably, the answer is ‘both’. Having
badly underestimated Iraqi WMD stocks in 1991, intelligence officers did not wish
to be caught out a second time and so opted for ‘worst case analysis’. Moreover,
the allies cooperated so closely on WMD estimates that, far from challenging each
other’s findings, they succumbed to a form of ‘Groupthink’. Only the Dutch and the
Canadians expressed serious doubts. However, there was also government dishonesty.
There was some plausible intelligence to suggest that the Iraqis might have hidden
some old stocks from 1991. There was also some evidence that Iraq continued to seek
WMD components on the world market and had future ambitions. However, there
was no plausible evidence for the core claim that Iraq was engaged in ‘continued’
production of WMD. This latter assertion was made forcibly by the Prime Minister
in his personal foreword to the Iraqi WMD dossier. ISC identified this mis-statement
by Tony Blair, but curiously made little of it (Aldrich 2005: 73–5, 81). Equally, Butler
noticed that there was no change in the intelligence reports on Iraqi WMD during
the period between 2002 and 2003, when the UK shifted dramatically from a policy of
containing Iraq to a policy of confrontation (Runciman 2004: 76–7).
These fourfold inquires into the security state deflected accountability downwards.
Their remits did not allow an investigation of the relationship between intelligence
and policy-making and so transparency translated into a hunt for minnows, while
the big fish swam away. More importantly, by comparing these reports we can deduce
much about the weak overall management of the burgeoning UK security state.
The ISC pronounced UK intelligence on Iraqi WMD to be ‘reliable’ and credible,
while Lord Butler’s more thorough inquiry into the same issue pronounced the
766 RICHARD J. ALDRICH

intelligence unreliable and its validation to be flawed. While Butler’s conclusions

were more accurate, his team was soon dissolved and oversight of the UK security
state now remains with the ISC. Moreover, at Cabinet level there is supposedly a
Ministerial Committee on the Intelligence and Security Services. Yet despite repeated
exhortations, this body never met during the entire Blair administration. Arguably it
is in the realm of experienced managerial oversight, as well as accountability, that the
UK security state is impoverished.

41.7 TERRORISM: AFTER 7/7

.............................................................................................................................................

The bombings in Madrid in March 2004 and then London in July 2005, together
with the planned attack on airliners in August 2006, illuminate the scale of the
current challenge faced by the UK security state. MI5 had taken an interest in radical
Islamic groups in the UK during the 1990s but had not been greatly concerned
about their presence. Each group was primarily interested in their own ‘near enemy’,
namely their home governments in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Algeria, and were
regarded as inert from the point of view of London. However, Al-Qaeda was a
new element in the security equation because it thought globally and sought to
mobilize these parochial groups in a worldwide war against the ‘far enemy’—the
United States and its adherents (Gerges 2005; Bamford 2005: 739–40). Accelerated
by the controversy over the Iraq War and the UK’s closer association with the United
States and Israel, radicalized Islamic groups that had hitherto been of only marginal
interest to UK security agencies suddenly became a problem. The London bombings
of 7 July 2005 also underlined the scale of a new indigenous threat (Gregory and
Wilkinson 2005).
Shortly before the 7 July 2005 bombings, JTAC, the UK’s intelligence fusion centre
for terrorism, lowered the threat level. Subsequently, we have learned that two of
the bombers, Mohamed Sidique Khan and Shazad Tanweer, had been the subject
of attention by MI5 and may even have been filmed and recorded at meetings with
other individuals of interest. While the events of 7 July 2005 probably contained
some elements of intelligence failure, the more important lesson is that the efforts
of Al-Qaeda, perhaps helped by current Western policies, have energized many con-
stituencies that would not have thought to attack the UK a decade ago. As a result,
the number of active individuals is beyond the capacity of even an expanded security
state to keep under surveillance (Pythian 2005: 361–79).
Neither politicians nor the public recognize the limits of intelligence. During
2006, Elizabeth Manningham-Buller, Director of MI5, explained that there were 1,600
individuals of concern within the UK (Manningham-Buller 2007). Surveillance of
one suspect requires the allocation of twenty operatives. Even with the expansion
of MI5’s A Branch, larger specialist police elements, and the occasional co-option
 THE SECURITY STATE 767

of specialist military units it has not been possible to watch more than 200 people
at any given time. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, revealed in
the Summer of 2005 that he was spending £500,000 a day over budget on terrorism-
related security measures. The security state is at full stretch and this is also depleting
the ability to counter organized crime and espionage (Harfield 2006: 743–61). More-
over, counter-terrorist intelligence and the law do not make easy bedfellows. This
has been underlined by a change in the attitude of the judiciary. During the cold
war, commentators were inclined to observe that UK judges were cowardly when
confronted with the spectre of national security rationales (Leigh and Lustgarten
1994: 321). However, following revelations about Guantanamo, Abu Graib, and ‘spe-
cial renditions’, a new climate is evident. Equipped with the Human Rights Act of
1998 senior judges have become more robust in challenging the security state. The
most obvious example is torture. On 8 December 2005, the House of Lords ruled that
evidence obtained under torture from third countries was inadmissible in UK courts.
The subject of torture has resonance. Some have alleged that the planned multiple
attacks against airliners in the UK in August 2006 were thwarted by intelligence
gained after the Pakistani security authorities had vigorously interrogated Rashid
Rauf, a British subject (Danchev 2006: 587–95; Campbell and Ramesh 2006). More
recently, the Venice Commission has underlined the importance of actively ensuring
compliance with ECHR when cooperating with foreign services, a development that
has profound significance.
Government has sought avenues by which it might discourage radicalization, but
has moved uncertainly in this area. Efforts by the Foreign Office to engage directly
with radicals have been dismissed as too timid by some and tantamount to appease-
ment by others. Institutionally, the desire for a more sophisticated approach was
signalled by the creation of a new Office of Counter-terrorism and Security within
the Home Office in August 2007 under Charles Farr, a diplomat with extensive
experience of counter-terrorism. Simultaneously, the post of Intelligence and Security
Coordinator in the Cabinet Office has been downgraded. Farr’s new office contains a
Research Information and Communications Unit headed by Jonathan Allen, another
diplomat who has a background in public relations. This represents an overt drive to
win hearts and minds and parallels long-standing covert information activities. The
creation of a Home Office unit run by diplomats also underlines deterritorialization
and the end of a security state that has a largely domestic focus.

41.8 CONCLUSION
.............................................................................................................................................

Globalization is now the fundamental security challenge for the UK. The porous
nature of the market state has left government with little choice but to place its
intelligence agencies on the front line in the struggle against terrorism, people
768 RICHARD J. ALDRICH

trafficking, narcotics, and the other transnational pathologies of the early twenty-
first century. This requires operations that are riskier, more kinetic, and often involve
unsavoury partners. Activities against Al-Qaeda are an obvious example, but some
of the operations led by MI6 in Colombia against the drug cartels from 1999 would
serve equally well. The secret services are no longer the silent sentinels of the cold
war; they have been recast as the ‘toilet cleaners of globalization’. Yet at the same
time Europeanization has presented a very different vista. Europe is still driving the
new culture of regulation that overtook the security state in the 1990s. European
institutions have worked with civil society in an effort to restrain the security agencies.
As a result, the new security challenges that seem to call for more action, perhaps
even a degree of beastliness, sit awkwardly with the rise of civil society and a complex
legal culture. These contradictions do not augur well for the UK security state and its
partners (Aldrich 2006: 158–61; Urban 2006: 24–5).
This, in turn, tells us something about the trajectory of the state in general. In the
1990s many had made confident assertions about the decline of the state, phrased
in terms of marketization, the rise of consumerism, and the expansion of global
governance (Marsh 1996; Paul and Ripsman 2004: 355–60). The catchphrase was the
‘twilight of sovereignty’. Things look so different now. The long-awaited engines
of global governance—much beloved of academics—are nowhere to be seen and,
instead, muscular nation states are equipping themselves with arbitrary powers. The
formidable growth of the UK security state might be unprecedented in national
terms, but viewed through a comparative lens it is hardly unique. Enhanced mil-
itary and intelligence capacity, together with extraordinary statutes that confer an
intense cloak of secrecy, are now the spirit of the age. Political leaders who once
embraced a neoliberal perspective on globalization have had to fall back on the
Westphalian refuge of nation-state sovereignty. Accordingly, the security state that
we thought had fallen out of fashion in 1989 is now very much ‘back in’ (Sidel 2005:
145–6).

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