The Sunday Times has a story claiming that Snowden’s revelations have caused danger to MI6 and disrupted their operations. Here are five reasons it is a lie.
1) The alleged Downing Street source is quoted directly in italics. Yet the schoolboy mistake is made of confusing officers and agents. MI6 is staffed by officers. Their informants are agents. In real life, James Bond would not be a secret agent. He would be an MI6 officer. Those whose knowledge comes from fiction frequently confuse the two. Nobody really working with the intelligence services would do so, as the Sunday Times source does. The story is a lie.
2) The argument that MI6 officers are at danger of being killed by the Russians or Chinese is a nonsense. No MI6 officer has been killed by the Russians or Chinese for 50 years. The worst that could happen is they would be sent home. Agents’ – generally local people, as opposed to MI6 officers – identities would not be revealed in the Snowden documents. Rule No.1 in both the CIA and MI6 is that agents’ identities are never, ever written down, neither their names nor a description that would allow them to be identified. I once got very, very severely carpeted for adding an agents’ name to my copy of an intelligence report in handwriting, suggesting he was a useless gossip and MI6 should not be wasting their money on bribing him. And that was in post communist Poland, not a high risk situation.
3) MI6 officers work under diplomatic cover 99% of the time. Their alias is as members of the British Embassy, or other diplomatic status mission. A portion are declared to the host country. The truth is that Embassies of different powers very quickly identify who are the spies in other missions. MI6 have huge dossiers on the members of the Russian security services – I have seen and handled them. The Russians have the same. In past mass expulsions, the British government has expelled 20 or 30 spies from the Russian Embassy in London. The Russians retaliated by expelling the same number of British diplomats from Moscow, all of whom were not spies! As a third of our “diplomats” in Russia are spies, this was not coincidence. This was deliberate to send the message that they knew precisely who the spies were, and they did not fear them.
4) This anti Snowden non-story – even the Sunday Times admits there is no evidence anybody has been harmed – is timed precisely to coincide with the government’s new Snooper’s Charter act, enabling the security services to access all our internet activity. Remember that GCHQ already has an archive of 800,000 perfectly innocent British people engaged in sex chats online.
5) The paper publishing the story is owned by Rupert Murdoch. It is sourced to the people who brought you the dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, every single “fact” in which proved to be a fabrication. Why would you believe the liars now?
There you have five reasons the story is a lie.
This was not an isolated incident.
Too right, Phil, not a new idea at all. I imagine our various immigrant groups (as well as everyone else) are well supplied with chaps guiltily keeping an eye on their mates.
“Iain has argued that Russia has an advantage currently.
What is that advantage exactly, over spying agencies in the US and Europe?”
The FSB/KGB has 10 times as many employees as the CIA for starters – to say nothing of its network of informers, it is subject to far less political scrutiny, and the Head of State is a employee for starters.
It is amusing that Res Diss even when supposedly addressing a contemporary matter insists on relying on quite dated propaganda.
Not hard to work out why that is though.
Let’s hope Iain can address the contemporary matter he himself raised.
@Anon1
14 Jun, 2015 – 8:01 pm
I did pose a question to Craig earlier in this thread, as to what exactly the security services do for the British public, and whether the security services have any worth.
You appear to think that the security services have worth, so maybe you can explain what it is? (and please, no muslim bogeyman BS)
Ian Orr
“I suggest that Russia and China are both considerably more totalitarian than the UK or USA”
You’d be right, but it won’t go down well here. However, as I said intelligence gathering is a matter of budgets and technological expertise, before I was accused of being racist.
Oh dear Billy Big Bollocks is past – back from campaigning for the restoration of old Felix in front of the beloved Lubyanka or rewriting history regarding the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia or the Molotov Ribbentrop pact – all thinks that are happening under the modern leadership of Comrade Valdimir Vladimirovitch – praise to his name.
Perhaps Mr Goss might wish to explain how in modern Russia Kara Murza’s doctors have broken patient confidentiality (yes it should apply in Russia) to reveal his medical details to the Putin (PBUH) controlled press.
And if you think Solzhenitsyn thought the Gulags were better than whatever he disliked in the USA then you are a cunt of the first order (Marxist Leninists).
“The FSB/KGB has 10 times as many employees as the CIA for starters”
You’re a complete buffoon, aren’t you.
Have you no idea just how many intel agencies the US has?
And that’s before we include the Googles, Facebooks etc and corporate agencies, who share their info, and then factor in the many mercenary groups and their backroom guys.
“– to say nothing of its network of informers,”
What evidence do you have that there are more informers available to them than to US agencies?
“it is subject to far less political scrutiny”
I wouldn’t be touting Western political scrutiny, if I were you, you’re already looking foolish enough as it is.
“and the Head of State is a employee for starters.”
Well, former.
George Bush was the boss of the CIA, and himself and his family for generations have been associates of those who set up the CIA.
You see, were you really as concerned as you pretend, this would worry you too.
It doesn’t of course, because you’re a fraud.
Herbie
8:27 not contemporary enough for you – but please also understand Putin has done nothing whatsoever to break from the past – quite the contrary.
Herbie
8:40pm your comparisons are otiose – quite clearly you will believe whatever you want to believe. Might I suggest you move to Russia and then try your line with Putin and the FSB as your target – then we can judge who is the more authoritarian? Or perhaps you could point me to those Russian bloggers who are targeting the open to scrutiny FSB?
Intel communities fighting back against all the suggestions from “serious” people lately that Snowden should be allowed back home and not prosecuted?
Let me repeat the link to Glenn Greenwald on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald.
Obama has certainly been acting like an employee of the U.S. intel community, ever since he was inaugurated.
Several things.
1) Your attack on the Sunday Times is unjustified. Every paper is biased. Murdoch’s ownership just means it is biased to the right, just as the Guardian and Independent is biased to the left. Furthermore, the Sunday Times had done some extraordinary journalism, some of which is “anti-establishment,” like its role in revealing the “cash for honours” scandal.
2) You imply that it is only spies in Russia and China that were compromised by the report. Could it not be the case the documents were also obtained by more hostile countries from the Chinese and Russian journalists, where there lives are actually at risk? Besides, even if spies are located within the embassies, surely a danger is still posed to them. And if they are safe, the revealing of possible agents does nothing to help already fraught Western-Russian tensions. (I have a sneaky suspicion, come a few years time, it will be revealed Snowden was actually a Russian agent!)
“Dirty rotten spineless toady bastards,” Jives.
Of course, that is precisely how they got, where they got. One can see the ‘… Of the British Empire’ written in invisible ink right after their names and the names of many others.
This phrase needs to be in a song – I hear it in a rock steady, or maybe calypso, song.
********************
Who killed Gareth Williams? He wasn’t an agent, he was an officer. If the unspoken rule is, ‘We won’t kill yours if you don’t kill ours’, then who killed him? Was it his own side?
Can we presume that Mr Goss as well as claiming that Guantanamo was worse than anything perpetrated by Comrade Castro is now joining Herbie in claiming that the FSB/KGB does nothing worse than which the British Security forces carried out in Northern Ireland?
James Burns,
When you posted:-
” 1) Your attack on the Sunday Times is unjustified. Every paper is biased. Murdoch’s ownership just means it is biased to the right, just as the Guardian and Independent is biased to the left. Furthermore, the Sunday Times had done some extraordinary journalism, some of which is “anti-establishment,” like its role in revealing the “cash for honours” scandal.”
Regardless of “right” or “left” bias – shouldn’t the honest standard be that everyone gets called out when the truth is not stated? Where then does that leave your argument?
Res Diss
Your rather dated propaganda is tiresome.
You either know or don’t know, or you’re simply lying.
There is absolutely nothing on the planet today to compare with contemporary US spying capability, and no amount of shouting Gulag every five minutes changes that fact one bit.
“You see, were you really as concerned as you pretend, this would worry you too.
It doesn’t of course, because you’re a fraud.”
It’s no good trying to argue common sense with Resident Dissident. He starts rambling with his false accusations of poisoning, and then when the truth comes out castigates the Russian media for answering questions raised by Kara Murza’s family who on their own insistence took samples of his hair and nails so his family’s doctors could also determine that there were no traces of poisoning. Yet his website is still publishing this ‘he was poisoned’ drivel and the BBC has not retracted its insinuations.
Thanks Anon 1 for the flattery of your trollery. As Rob G points out, what has MI6 ever done for the British people; that would be the ones who pay their salaries? I’m not a PutinBot or whatever you want to call it, just someone who is concerned about the danger of a world completely dominated by the USA and the corporate juggernauts that run it. I think opposition to war and empires is a worthier cause than name calling and sniping on blog comment threads whilst contributing nothing positive.
James Burns
I don’t know if Snowden is or was a Russian agent – but we do know that his Russian lawyer and the sponsor of the dinner for his Sam Adams’s award in Moscow was appointed to the Supervisory board of the FSB by Putin.
As for Snowden not taking the encrypted files to Moscow he didn’t need to they were posted on WikiLeaks as “insurance”.
@Courtney Barnett
I believe in honest journalism like everyone else.
The point of that particular bullet was responding to Craig Murray’s fifth point that because it is owned by Murdoch, anything it says is by implication false, and that it is a rubbish newspaper. That is simply not the case. It is biased, just like “anti-establishment” journalists are biased, yet it can still do very factual reporting.
Besides, whilst Murray puts forwards a convincing argument, what he says shouldn’t be taken as gospel!
“There is absolutely nothing on the planet today to compare with contemporary US spying capability”
This is not something I was denying – the argument was one about the ease of using that capability compared with the comrades from Russia and China where such things are rather more engrained and those in power are rather freer and more willing to use the capabilities that they have.
Mr Goss
Will you address the patient confidentiality point – or doesn’t it apply in Russia? Why do the Russian newspapers and yourself supposedly know more about Kara Murza’s condition than his family? Why do you ignore the family’s denials of what was said in the Russian press, and in fact repeat what the Russian papers say?
Answer the questions or just continue your slavering obeisance to Comrade Vlad – the choice is yours.
Whether people do or do not feel Ed Snowden is a hero for blowing the whistle, the reality is this: He threw the eyes of the public WIDE OPEN, and straight toward their government officials (in addition to the secret agencies that work form them on or “off” the direct payroll). If it endangered a few spies in the process, well I guess we’ll consider them collateral damage. That may seem heartless, and maybe it is a bit, but the secrecy under which the major powers of this world operate does very little to truly protect the people within their borders. Dishonesty breeds dishonesty.
What ever happened to conducting everyday business like ladies & gentlemen? Secret organizations, spies, covert black ops, false flag attacks…who are these serving? Not the general public, of that I am certain. They serve only the powers that be in their greedy grabs at more power, but they have historically done nothing to contribute to world peace. We need more people like Ed Snowden, that have the courage to blow the doors wide open and shine light in the dark corners of our Big Government, Big Business, Big Pharma, Big Oil (and MANY other) organizations.
We The People no longer have confidence in the very organizations and people that were put in place to serve us. They are no longer serving us. They serve their own interests, push their own agendas and take every opportunity to remove more of our individual rights and freedoms every day…in the interest of “National Security”. There is irony in that. They truly ARE protecting “National Security”, just not in the way most think. They are protecting their power by removing power from the people. If more people were truly awake and paying attention, they would see exactly how they are using media propaganda to prepare us for their next power grab. Wake up people! Stop this now, before it is too late!
Herbie @ 7.18 pm: I rather agree with the second part of Phil’s point at 6.25 pm:
” It’s probably more productive to spend time diminishing our own secret service, as little and however we possibly can, rather than say “but they’re worse”. ”
except that I’d put more emphasis on regulating/ monitoring than “diminishing”. What we as citizens are best placed to influence are the activities of the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and the police ie the legal framework and operational oversight within which the agencies operate. My worry is not that MI5 or MI6 are wilfully out of control but that they are given too much latitude by their political masters – cf Henry II’s rhetorical interrogative command: “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” [for Simon Schama’s preferred wording see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket%5D.
Comparisons of how these things are managed in different counties [which is where I chipped in] matter logically and politically. If UK and USA systems of intelligence gathering are judged WORSE than those in Russia and China, this suggests that changing Western practices so that they are more like those in Russchia would be an improvement. Who agrees with that?
I don’t know Russia at all (except for being chatted up by a number of intelligent and friendly KGB officials in China). China I know and like as a country/people – not as a polity. If Chinese legal systems were applied in the UK, vocal SNP supporters would be jailed as separatists and splitists. If they threw a rotten egg at the Minister for Scotland they would probably be executed.
Craig has not [yet, as far as I know] replied to a question about the value of work done by the intelligence agencies. My reply would be that what matters is the linkage between intelligence and policy. It is always there. What has changed over the years – in line with the non-partisan objectivity” of UK civil servants – is the importance attached to assessing the reliability of sources. The Iraq Dossier showed the result of giving more weight to the utility of a message in supporting current policy than to its reliability.
My experience as a “straight” FCO officer was that my MI6 colleagues often showed good judgement (eg in Intelligence Assessment meetings in the Cabinet Office). The same was true of contributions from serving offers in the UK defence forces. That was well-documented even before Tony Blair’s manipulation of intelligence to cow already cowardly Labour MPs into supporting the illegal invasion of Iraq.
It’s Ministers and the Prime Minister rather than the intelligence agencies who threaten our freedoms. Train guns on where the real enemy lies. Or, for those with a pacifist background, start and continue with peaceful protest … until changed laws make peaceful protest illegal.
Off topic. Majid Ali is suspected dead.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/06/theresa-may-condemns-majid-ali-and-defies-scotland/#comment-532146
RobG
“You appear to think that the security services have worth, so maybe you can explain what it is? (and please, no muslim bogeyman BS)”
Well there is quite a problem with Islamic extremism, but putting that aside because clearly you don’t want to discuss it – least of all you would not wish to discuss the way Putin deals with it – governments gather intelligence because they can. In an ideal world we would all like to live without it and nuclear weapons would be another thing we would like to live without, but the reality of how states deal with each other is quite different from the juvenile idealism we see on this blog.
Cf Summerhead’s post, though, it is more than juvenile idealism. You more often see a disapproval of Western intelligence operations alongside a tacit acceptance of foreign ones. What really motivates the likes of Dummerhead, cluttered up with all sorts of leftist agitprop she learned at university, is the fact that the West is in a dominant position. Therefore it is immoral. You can see it all in the comment : “any setback to Western spying operations has to be a good thing”. Openly supporting the other side, she would rejoice at the thought of a succesful Russian spying operation. You can do this in the West.
@John Goss
14 Jun, 2015 – 9:26 pm
I don’t think it’s off topic, John. To me it all seems related: a supposedly ‘democratic’ state that has a secret state within it that’s totally out of control (and I’m talking about the UK, not Pakistan).
Iain Orr, whilst I agree that many people in the security services do have integrity, I would also say that those pulling the strings do not.
It’s the old catch-22: the public are not allowed to know what the security services are doing, because the powers that be argue it would ‘endanger’ security. Thus all sorts of nefarious activity and corruption follow Alice down the rabbit hole.
I think it’s fairly obvious that the (still unresolved) Westminster child sex abuse scandal shows that the security services are totally corrupt and unfit for purpose; much like those who put their bums on the green and red seats in Westminster.
Gawd, and people think that places like Russia and Nigeria are corrupt.
RD, the important point is not patient confidentiality but the continual pressure of his family claiming that somebody had poisioned him even before Kara-Murza was out of a coma. To my mind the doctors, in issuing the statement they issued, have protected Kara-Murza’s patient confidentiality. First they had to address the concerns of his family who were making accusations of poisoning. So instead of saying that he took and overdose (a distinct possibility) they have said there may have been a reaction between the anti-depressants he was taking together with the antihistamine he was taking for his asthma.
I had a relative who took an overdose. She was flown to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham which has one of the best treatment centres. She died there of kidney failure. But I don’t suppose an overdose occurred to you. Poisoning by Putin makes a much better story for MSM and its trolls.
Iain
“I’d put more emphasis on regulating/ monitoring than “diminishing”.”
Yes, sorry diminishing was not the right word. I meant dismantling.
“It’s the old catch-22: the public are not allowed to know what the security services are doing, because the powers that be argue it would ‘endanger’ security. Thus all sorts of nefarious activity and corruption follow Alice down the rabbit hole.”
Agreed.