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Thread: The British on intelligence: a collection (SIS, MI5, GCHQ & more)

  1. #61
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Unravelling the tangled web

    A curious article via Twitter by a serving GCHQ official, which opens with:
    Security services across the globe struggled to keep pace with threats to public safety in the digital age, as insurgents, terrorists and criminals have moved online. Dr Paul Killworth considers the challenges GCHQ continue to face and argues for the need to bridge the ideological gaps between security specialists, academics and tech utopianists.
    Link:https://quarterly.demos.co.uk/articl...article-footer
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  2. #62
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    Default Snowden Doc Reveals How GCHQ/NSA Use The Internet To 'Manipulate, Deceive And Destroy

    Copied from a 2014 post in the Snowden thread to act as an introduction to the next post:
    A few weeks ago, Glenn Greenwald, while working with NBC News, revealed some details of a GCHQ presentation concerning how the surveillance organization had a "dirty tricks" group known as JTRIG -- the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group. Now, over at The Intercept, he's revealed the entire presentation and highlighted more details about how JTRIG would seek to infiltrate different groups online and destroy people's reputations -- going way, way, way beyond just targeting terrorist groups and threats to national security.
    Link:ttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...utations.shtml
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  3. #63
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default JTRIG: dirty tricks on-line

    Spotted via Twitter a PPT presentation and talk in Germany about JTRIG. The source is:
    This site offers a wide variety of video and audio material distributed by the Chaos Computer Club
    Their introduction to the 31 minute talk:
    The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), a unit in one of Britain’s intelligence agencies, is tasked with creating sockpuppet accounts and fake content on social media, in order to use "dirty tricks" to "destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt" enemies by "discrediting" them. In this talk, we reveal some of that content, in relation to infiltrating activists groups around the world, including during the Arab spring and Iranian revolution.
    Link:https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9233-unc...media_personas
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 12-31-2017 at 12:51 PM. Reason: 94,129v
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  4. #64
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default New Approaches to Intelligence Oversight in the U.K.

    I am always curious when a former British "insider" publishes an article abroad. This time it is the barrister David Anderson, who until recently as the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and the author of a review into the 2017 attacks.
    Link:https://www.lawfareblog.com/new-appr...e-oversight-uk

    Compared to the optimism of David Anderson there is a skillful dissection of the (Parliamentary) Intelligence & Security Committee, which has an odd history and the government is not always helpful:
    Oversight and scrutiny depend on primary evidence: without sight of the actual documents provided to Ministers we cannot ourselves be sure – nor offer an assurance to Parliament or the public – that we have indeed been given the full facts surrounding the authorisation process for the lethal strike against Reyaad Khan.
    Link:https://parliamentsandlegislatures.w...ity-committee/
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 01-10-2018 at 07:49 PM. Reason: 94,876v
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  5. #65
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    Default Intelligence, Attlee and the Brook Report

    Dr Dan Lomas (again) has a commentary which opens with:
    Sir Norman Brook’s report on the ‘Secret Intelligence and Security Services’ is an important document for understanding the state of Britain’s intelligence and security machinery at the start of the Cold War. Finished in 1951, this wide-ranging review of the intelligence community revealed that all was not well with Britain’s efforts to collect secret information on the Soviet Union. In contrast to the wartime successes of Bletchley Park and the Double Cross (XX) system, Britain’s Cold War spies faced an uphill struggle. Brook’s review tried to remedy this.
    Link:https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/01/...-brook-report/

    After the eventual WW2 successes, notably cracking the Enigma code machine used by Germany, and facing a new enemy to realize there was a lack intelligence came as a problem (being diplomatic).
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 01-16-2018 at 06:59 PM. Reason: 96,011v
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  6. #66
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    Default The Five Eye’s intelligence sharing network

    An interesting article, with both UK & US ex-intelligence directors commenting, on the Five Eyes network:
    In many respects, the Five Eye’s intelligence sharing network, sometimes written as FVEY, is the most enduring and robust alliance, eclipsing even NATO in terms of information exchange among members. The origins of the network can be found in the wake of World War II, when the U.S. and UK formalized their signals intelligence (SIGINT) partnership in the UKUSA Agreement, signed in March 1946.
    Link:https://www.thecipherbrief.com/artic...d-trump-tweets
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 06-28-2018 at 02:36 PM. Reason: 98,775v. 115k today.
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  7. #67
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    Default The UK was involved, nay complicit in US rendition and torture

    Finally after a long procedure, gathering evidence and questioning in private; with some official hesitation over publication - plus a refusal to answer their urging that a criminal investigation was needed for one matter - the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament has reported (usually referred to as the ISC).

    The headline in 'The Daily Telegraph': 'Britain tolerated 'inexcusable' treatment of terror detainees by US after 9/11, report finds', which is a very short article and a longer one, no surprise, in 'The Guardian' entitled: 'True scale of UK role in torture and rendition after 9/11 revealed'. That reports starts with:
    The reports published on Thursday amount to one of the most damning indictments of UK intelligence, revealing links to torture and rendition were much more widespread than previously reported.
    While there was no evidence of officers directly carrying out physical mistreatment of detainees, the reports say the overseas agency MI6 and the domestic service MI5 were involved in hundreds of torture cases and scores of rendition cases.
    Links:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...-detainees-us/ and https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-911-revealed?

    The ISC website has links to their short press releases and the fuller reports.
    Link:http://isc.independent.gov.uk/news-archive/28june2018

    There is a small, parallel thread on a related subject:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...hlight=torture




    Last edited by davidbfpo; 06-28-2018 at 03:07 PM. Reason: Add last link.
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  8. #68
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    Default The Five Eye’s video

    A video (1h 15m) of a Policy Exchange event yesterday, where five who should know spoke: a former Australian Prime Minister, a former Canadian PM, a ret'd US diplomat and Deputy NSA, a former New Zealand Foreign Minister and a former UK Defence Secretary & NATO Sec-General.
    Link:https://policyexchange.org.uk/pxeven...al-insecurity/

    Yet to listen to it all, although one speaker was on BBC radio yesterday AM and oddly only referred to the relationship in CT terms.
    davidbfpo

  9. #69
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    Default What a New Study of British Spies Reveals About the CIA

    A very short article that ends with:
    Examining the CIA in isolation does not give historians the full picture of American covert action during the Cold War. The prism of British secret history highlights the importance of alliances and audiences when planning and conducting covert action, but reveals competition and suspicion. It paints a picture of the CIA as a pragmatic operator, sometimes influenced by allies – sometimes played – but perhaps not always as bullish as critics like to maintain.
    The old cliché that the Britain had the brains and America had the money can now be debunked.
    Link:https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/169655
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 08-22-2018 at 02:55 PM. Reason: 120,706v today; up 22k since Feb '18
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  10. #70
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    Default Out of the shadows 'C' speaks in public

    A rare public speech by 'C', the head of SIS, at his old university this week and the BBC story does not reflect all he said. The BBC's headline was: 'Alex Younger: MI6 chief questions China's role in UK tech sector'.

    Link:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46431810?

    The full speech is here:https://www.gov.uk/government/speech...tion-espionage
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-29-2019 at 07:52 PM. Reason: 125,310v this post: 129,699v today
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  11. #71
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    Default ‘I'm proud of how MI5 responded to the Salisbury attack'

    A rare public scripted Q&A of the Security Service's Director and the full title is:
    ‘I'm proud of how MI5 responded to the Salisbury attack – but it hasn't distracted us from other threats,’ says spy chief
    Link:https://www.civilserviceworld.com/ar...80%93-it-hasnt
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