Question:
Can MP'S question the Intelligence Service Heirarchy?
Hello
2007-04-27 04:45:07 UTC
Given MPs are our elected representative "mouth pieces", surely they can ask and EXPECT answers from anyone and can use thier own judgement as to "national Security and best judgement......"
QUOTE - http://www.channel4.com/news/article.jsp?id=262148
Alaister Campbell - "......I'll tell you, the answer to the question - yes or no? Did we abuse British intelligence? The answer to that question is no.

Jon Snow (ch4 News Broadcaster/journo): The answer to that question is - we do not know. And the reason we do not know is that there is obfuscation and diversion, part of which we are seeing played out right here before us.
The fact is that MPs want to question the chiefs of the intelligence services, and should be allowed to do so.
Instead you are preferring, you the government, are preferring a 'hole in the corner' operation with an intelligence committee which is not held in public, and which is answerable to the Prime Minister. ...."
Four answers:
WC
2007-04-27 04:49:14 UTC
They can ask anything of anyone they want, but they may NOT get an answer.
Wamibo
2007-04-27 05:18:58 UTC
The answer to your question is THEY DO and I find the comments you quote by certain TV journalist hard to believe.



You do not seem to be aware, the House of Commons has a number of Select Committees made up of 10 to 15 elected MPs of all parties. These Committees can and does summon "ANYBODY" before them and any MP of whatever Party can ask them any questions they like, and this has on several occasions included questioning the leaders of our Intelligence Services, particularly on matters concerning Iraq and Afghanistan?



The Committees that would be most likely to question Intelligence service chiefs is the "Intelligence & Security Committee" which is one of the most powerful in Parliament.



But other Select committtees that might also do so are the Constitutional Affairs Committee, the Defence Committee, The Foreign Affairs Committee or the Home Affairs Committee all dependent on what particular matter the all parties Committee are investigating.



Although most of the Select Committees take evidence in public and their questions and answers are often broadcasted on TV satellite channel 504, when issues of national security are concerned deliberations of Select Committes may occasionally be held in secret if deemed necessary to protect safety of life by the Committtee Chair.
anonymous
2007-04-27 09:43:04 UTC
Although there is an Intelligence Committee in the House of Commons which tries to deal with these matters, it is highly unlikely that anything significant by way of actual intelligence would ever be discussed in what is in effect an open court for all the world to know and see.



A very difficult area indeed.



The SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] of UK is in many ways a law unto itself. It must [for the most part] be allowed to operate freely and without let or hinderance from politicians who may not know what they were reading, even if they were given [unlikely] access to a daily summary of gathered intelligence.



The vast majority of intelligence comes from electronic sources; radio intercept, wire tapping, bugging etc. Most of this is best described as gobbledegook - coded junk which has to be sifted through in the hope that a magic 'word' may appear in a text somewhere.



No group of people, not even a committee of MPs in the House of Commons, could ever totally come to grips with the amount of intelligence gathered on a daily basis from the electronic sources. This must be deal with by monster computers.



The SIS is divided into 'sections' such as MI5 and MI6 and others. None of these 'sections' is allowed to know in total what any other section is doing, not exactly anyway.



In the 1960s I was employed by an SIS section called MI8 - Signals Intelligence. Our job was to intercept radio transmissions, bug phones and bug just about anything else to hand. The entire taxi fleet in East Berlin was bugged, so that Red Army Officers, the most usual passenger, could be bugged while riding around in the taxi with a pretty girl who may have been a fully paid up member of MI someone or other. A great deal of 'pillow talk' intelligence was gathered in this manner. I have no doubt 'they' were doing the same to us. Who knows.



The 'spy game' is incredibly complex. Not for the feint hearted, full of gangsters, pimps and God knows who else.
anonymous
2007-04-27 04:48:54 UTC
yes they should be able to


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
Loading...