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.
Iain
I cannot see how you distinguish the blame between spooks and politicians. They are both essential functionary cogs to plutocratic rule. To imagine the spooks have a purpose beyond supporting wealth concentration misunderstands the states relation to capitalism.
@Anon1
14 Jun, 2015 – 9:50 pm
Yes, but you still haven’t answered my question (and have gone into personal attacks to disguise this fact):
What exactly do the security services do for the British public?
I don’t wish to sound juvenile and idealistic, yet you posit the same hollow arguemnent for keeping nuclear weapons. If we did away with nukes and spooks tomorrow would the UK suddenly dissolve into dust? Would we instantly be invaded by hoardes of mad mullahs and commies?
People like you are perhaps the ones with a comic book view of the world.
Go look up ‘paranoia’ in the dictionary; and whilst you’re pulling the “it’s a big bad world out there; grow-up” stuff you might also look-up ‘sociopath’ and ‘psychopath’.
And never forget, you’re a small minority.
Interesting little article about SYRIZA and its failure to do anything to combat tax dodging so far.
As many – including myself – have opined, if Greek govts had taken measures to ensure that people paid their taxes (direct and indirect), there would have been no budgetary crisis in Greece and no need for austerity measures.
The tax laws are there, tax rates are within the broad European average, but as so often in Greece, laws are no implemented.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“No measures taken against tax dodging
By Prokopis Hatzinikolaou
The budget shortfall keeps increasing after the first five months of the year, as revenues by end-May lagged by 650 million euros and little to nothing is being done to combat tax evasion.
The problem of revenues is likely to grow considerably by the end of this month, given that the collection flow has not yet been restored due to delays in the submission and processing of income tax statements.
The State General Accounting Office has stopped almost all payouts to state suppliers, while the funding of social security funds and the rest of the public sector has been limited to the bare necessities so as to cover operating expenses only.
Although it has been almost five months since the change in government and state coffers are all but empty, the SYRIZA-led government has not taken a single measure to date in order to combat tax evasion. On the contrary, one of the first measures taken concerned the improvement to the regulation for the settlement of expired debts, while two weeks ago it was announced that undeclared incomes could be voluntarily revealed to the authorities without incurring any fines, penalties or judicial consequences.
Notably, the crackdown of tax dodging had been one of the central pledges of SYRIZA before the January election, but its fulfillment is yet to be seen.
ekathimerini.com , Sunday June 14, 2015 (20:59)”
“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.”
The family denied that he was taking anti depressants almost straight after that smear was published in the Russian press (and then repeated by yourself).
“To my mind the doctors, in issuing the statement they issued, have protected Kara-Murza’s patient confidentiality.”
To your mind maybe. There of course appears to have been a whole succession of statements in the Russian press.
Well, I’ve re-posted your piece on my own blog. Let’s hope that other bloggers do the same.
BTW, at the very bottom of the post I have included a link to an archived copy of the original Sunday Times story. Alas it’s the text-only version, which is the only one available without payment, but at least people can read it whilst taking in your knock-down.
O/T
but speaking of nightmare newspaper stories:
Sunday Mirror anti-benefits story, choice highlights:
Couple save for their wedding out of their benefits, therefore the taxpayer is paying for them to get married;
Woman in the story has had a plastic surgery operation and is also unable to work for medical reasons, and is therefore scrounging off the NHS and the state – she is explicitly referred to as a “scrounger”;
82% of people who read this story believe the couple are not entitled to £190/week housing costs and £112 each /week ESA and JSA (although that cannot be right since neither of those benefits comes to that amount, eg JSA is £73.10/week);
I simply do not believe these people uttered the words attributed to them in the story (eg “Thanks to the taxpayer we were able to have a great day”).
Courtesy of Johnny Void. I don’t think it’s out of line to describe this article as hate speech. It’s really frightening.
https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/sunday-mirrors-savage-attack-on-elderly-womens-wedding-shows-where-the-labour-party-are-heading/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/couple-benefits-wed-ceremony-cost-5878755
Kind regards,
John
Winston
from your Guardian link above: concerning a defendant charged with Syria terrorism charges
Henry Blaxland QC, the defence counsel, said: “If it is the case that HM government was actively involved in supporting armed resistance to the Assad regime at a time when the defendant was present in Syria and himself participating in such resistance it would be unconscionable to allow the prosecution to continue.”
Contras this with Sir Jeremy Greenstock on Radio 4 ;s Broadcasting House at 14 mins in using the word “spontaneous” for the Syrian uprising against Assad. Spontaneous if you count the deployment of Libyan weapns and Jihadists by the CIA or the firing on both sides of the crowd, both protesters and Syrian Government forces, at a peaceful demonstration against Assad by UK army snipers.
Prime slot breakfast time bacon and eggs in the frying pan Radio 4 provides the big liars with a chance to pump David Cameron’s line that the UK bears no responsibility for Syrian refugees. Well done Sir Jeremy Laughingstock!
“Doctors said he was suffering from kidney failure, but no cause has been determined.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-under-vladimir-putin-like-nazi-germany-or-rwanda-warns-daughter-of-boris-nemtsov-10310920.html
Yet the gullible Mr Goss has been fed all the details and swallowed them whole. Appears that he is now smearing the doctors as well as Kara Murza and his family. Just remember the ends justify the means Comrade Goss!
James,
You said:-
” @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.”
The point surely is – be it “right” or “left” the benchmark is truth in journalism. The truth did not emerge and was not served – which I discern was, at least in part, Craig’s point. Two (2) “rights” (i.e. in false journalism and in facts) do not make it “right”. Correct?
Resident Dissident you are so paranoid! Get an early night for God’s sake! 🙂
Anon1:
“Well there is quite a problem with Islamic extremism, ”
Yes and the problem with it is that USUKIS is using it as a proxy army to carve out a state for Israel in Syria, and in Libya. The problem lying with USUKIS malign global hegemony politics, not with Islamic extremism.
John Spencer Davies
If you were a Mirror newspaper editor would you have put it in the bin? Apart from trans-gender it’s got everything! If it had come with an East Kent UKIP slant, I’d have said it was a direct wind-up for Craig to wind him up completely while his blog was being denied service by FCO bots.
When I had a small house in Treherbert in South Wales the spooks put a story in the local rag that a march was going to take place against Muslims starting in Treherbert. and some helpful contributors here asked if Treherbetans had ever actually seen a Muslim.
Phil @ 10.19 pm: The distinction I make between spooks and politicians is this: according to UK law politicians employ/fund the spooks. I can see the appeal of arguments that the relationship is symbiotic/ epiphytic/ nepotistic – ie, heads and tails of the same false coinage; and also that intelligence agencies should, as you suggest, be dismantled. However, until that happens – a perfectly sensible aim of anarchists – I think it better that their activities be subject to law rather than being a lawless abuse of power and influence (as with Henry II). Were the GCHQ de-cryptographers morally at fault for invading the privacy of German communications? Should Philby have been knighted?
Politics – domestic and internationally – is an arena of competing visions and false prospectuses. Live there rather than in a visionary world where the lion lies down with the lamb and no-one tells lies or abuses their authority.
This is NOT the same as working for nuclear disarmament. Using spies is and always has been part of the accepted armoury of states. They are not – as nuclear weapons are – weapons of mass destruction.
I doubt anybody but Resident Dissident and his sidekicks are much interested in Kara-Murza, but his first reaction to Nemtsov’s murder was that Putin did it. Same with Kara Murza. For years Resident Dissident was pushing the Spooks’ and MSM line that Litvinenko was deliberately poisioned by Putin. His other ‘Putin did it’ comments have beincluding en sending his regular army and military equipment into Novorossiya and shooting down MH17.
No wonder Herbie said of him “Your rather dated propaganda is tiresome.”
Vladimir Kara-Murza junior is very low down the colour revolution sixth column funded by the west which is fast losing any credibility. Boris Nemtsov was at the top but so unpopular he was better off to the Russians alive than dead. American author and Russian expert Stephen Lendman pointed this out back in March.
http://real-agenda.com/nemtsov-wanted-color-revolution-change-in-russia/
Iain
“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.”
They’re given much too much latitude by someone, certainly, but I doubt it’s our political masters.
Every Home Sec from at least the 1990s on has played hard ball with civil liberties, and been very proud that they’re seen as such. Both parties!
It’s a bipartisan approach, so something beyond party politics is taking the lead.
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?
Spooks and Police and corporates always want more powers. You don’t assume that because they want more powers, they actually need more powers to do their job effectively.
There’s the infamous Whitelaw response.
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.
There’s a ways to go yet before the SNP will be declared illegal and all members rounded up.
But. You really think that can’t happen in the UK? It all depends on what the fallout is from Scotland leaving. Where the interests lie and so on.
China is up against it with US backed splittists. Scotland hasn’t quite got there yet.
Should that day come, then I’m sure you’ll see the fangs. Ireland’s been through this nonsense so many times it ain’t real.
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.
And exactly the same thing happened in the US.
In both cases a strong impression was given that intel agencies did not agree with the assessments predominating in media.
So where did they come from. Well, from media. And media people operating within the White House, State and Defense, and No 10.
To what extent these issues were directed by Blair or Bush is hard to know. But, there’s scriptwriters and then there’s the on air talent.
That sexy dossier guy’s career didn’t seem to suffer so much, but all around him collapsed
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.
I don’t think so. Our elected leaders are now little more than actors. Tony Blair and Cameron no more make policy than the No 10 cat.
Their role is simply to sell it, with media support.
I’m afraid our system is in much greater peril than you imagine.
Iain,
In relation to this:-
“This is NOT the same as working for nuclear disarmament. Using spies is and always has been part of the accepted armoury of states. They are not – as nuclear weapons are – weapons of mass destruction”
Isn’t the real point that the spies and officers and agents are the ones who set the stage for the lies to be fielded and the WMDs to be “launched” into the public domain and to be embedded into the public mind to support the launching of the actual WMDs?
Iain,
On this:-
“Politics – domestic and internationally – is an arena of competing visions and false prospectuses. Live there rather than in a visionary world where the lion lies down with the lamb and no-one tells lies or abuses their authority.”
Is the issue really about – ” … the lion lies down with the lamb..”?
As I see it – it may have been the Philosopher – Bertrand Russell – who said that after World War 111 we shall be fighting World War 1V with stones and bows and arrows ( just going from memory – I could be wrong on the accuracy of the quotation). However, if even one is a realist strategist and foreign policy expert – is it not that those of us who are the feeling and caring ones ( not necessarily the same as “visionary”) simply have a right to say that we do not want to get to the point of fighting the fourth World War – even if by some luck and/or chance we survive the Third?
Happy to debate you on this perspective of mine.
Iain,
I got this off a net search:-
“Albert Einstein once said, "I do not know with what kinds of weapons the Third World War will be fought, but the Fourth World War will be fought with sticks and stones”
You educate me – but – you are a well educated and knowledgeable man who got the point – regardless.
Over to you.
John Goss, who says Majid Ali is dead?, let us have the gist here please. with that I shall go to bed
Herbie
14 Jun, 2015 – 11:28 pm:
“I’m afraid our system is in much greater peril than you imagine.”
I’ll second that.
Nevermind, I put the link on another blog. Unfortunately without subscribing in some way I could only read the first two paragraphs. I already subscribe to more than enough sites. So sorry. Perhaps you’d like to give the Herald Scotland your email details.
From what I can tell other members of his family have been killed in Pakistan and I do not know what, if any, measures Theresa May has taken to prevent his death.
Herbie @ 11.28 pm – Can we please have less rhetoric – pleasing as it is to the ears of this anti-Blairite – that “Tony Blair and Cameron no more make policy than the No 10 cat.”?
By your logic, Blair is not responsible for agreeing with Bush to invade Iraq: other forces made him do it – “manslaughter, not murder”. I agree that others [party-funders, newspaper proprietors, friends, political advisers etc] were influential. But it was his decision to put a motion to Parliament; and it was the decision of individual MPs to vote for the invasion, even if they suspected that the dossier stank.
How do you intend to take up arms? What effect do you think your (or my) comments on Craig’s website have? But please don’t set up Quangos like MI5 and MI6 your enemy. For us both to mount a hunger strike opposite MI 5 or MI 6 HQs might hit the headlines (for a few days) and I will consider that if you we can agree either that it’s to the death or not.
I advocate Parliamentary and extra- parliamentary action. What other actions do you, Phil and others advocate?
Iain,
” I advocate Parliamentary and extra- parliamentary action. What other actions do you, Phil and others advocate?”
Answer: Truth, honesty and defence of arguments when really challenged.
Herbie @ 11.28 pm you posted this:
“There’s a ways to go yet before the SNP will be declared illegal and all members rounded up.
But. You really think that can’t happen in the UK? It all depends on what the fallout is from Scotland leaving. Where the interests lie and so on.
China is up against it with US backed splittists. Scotland hasn’t quite got there yet.
Should that day come, then I’m sure you’ll see the fangs. Ireland’s been through this nonsense so many times it ain’t real.”
My response is to ask you to be realistic. Yes, there will be much apparent pressure from a Cameron Government that is undecided about whether it wants to enjoy permanent rule of the UK or of England. But please remember that brown paper envelopes [ not death sentences] is the British way of politics [cf Daniel Defoe]. The comparison with Ireland is flawed. Nicola Sturgeon is no Parnell – and is more strongly positioned because she is not.
Courteney Barnett @ 15. 23 am on 15 June: we seem to agree. There are two tricky areas – effective parliamentary and peaceful non-parliamentary action. Maybe we should meet – with others? – to come up with actions rather than words. I’ll be happy to meet in any London pub that you or others suggest. What about 20, 24, 26 or 30 June?
I’m still waiting for someone to tell me what MI5 and MI6 actually do, beyond bleeding the tax payer dry..?
I’ll probably hear a tale of faeries and unicorns, and of course muslim bogeymen.
The Snowden affair is indeed having wide ramifications.
It was with some sadness that locals of Meall an Udrigle accepted the notification of closure of the End of the Road cafe and petrol station, which provided cover for the dangerous but amusing English subversive, Rupert Fortescue-Smyth, who liked to pose as manager(and fervent SNP supporter with impeccable Scottish ancestry) of the aforementioned hostlery and victualling station… but better kent in yon ilk as ‘Fanny Boy’….. his code name when in communication with M, (codename Broadsword) his boss of MI5, in Lunnon toon.
How all will miss the regular communications over the UHF radio, every Sunday evening at 18.00hrs sharp.
“Fanny Boy calling Broadsword, Fannny Boy calling Broadsword. Do you read me? over.”
The local hotel was always packed on a Sunday evening because the proprietor played the exchanges over a loud-speaker system.
People would come from far and wide to listen to the earnest exchanges, conducted in the alien la-di-da language of the southern sassenachs.
It was a laugh a minute, guaranteed.
“Funniest thing I’ve heard on the radio since Round the Horne” was how one highland indigene put it.
So, at least in one part of the world, an English spy and subversive, will be sorely missed.
@Suhayl Saadi-8:50pm
“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?”
Gareth Williams was not the only one over the years.
The Play Killing Kit.
The play documents the circumstances surrounding Kit Marlowe’s death associating him with Gareth Williams, Dr David Kelly, Stephen Ward and Allan Turing, all British Intelligence workers who committed suicide by persons unknown.
http://internationaltimes.it/sneak-preview/
Iain Orr
“Politics – domestic and internationally – is an arena of competing visions and false prospectuses. Live there rather than in a visionary world where the lion lies down with the lamb and no-one tells lies or abuses their authority.”
I go along with the competing visions, Tory yob Nigel Lawson thinks solar panels like vegetable gardens are merely recreational and would rather destroy several Muslim countries to control the cheap flow of gas, while on the other hand China is prepared to use its Socialist power to fund a revolution in electricity generation through renewables .
The Tories are excrement on the walls of the tiny toilet known as Western Democracy. definitely the smallest room in the house of different choices people can use to live their lives or determine their existence.
But ” false prospectuses ” ? The deeply corrupt and political fag-end of Islam, Sufi peers, used to say that we should thank them for telling lies just as much as for telling the truth, because if they lied to us it would make us think and we would discover the truth from that thinking process.
No. Whoever makes a fitna/test/temptation/ unpleasant experience of any kind for righteous people, against the teachings of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad , peace be to all of them, i.e. “a false prospectus e.g.: through a colonial/political civil war you people are going to discover your faith and be stronger” and fails to repent of this abuse, will go to Hell.
We are instructed through every Book revealed from God to make life easy for those around us and speak the truth/ That’s not fairyland, that’s the essential requirement with belief in God for entering paradise.
So please don’t lecture us with weasel words about the legitimacy of false prospectuses in politics, because politics in the eyes of God is an unacceptable excuse for benefiting yourself at the expense of others.
Chinese policy is now morally one million mile ethically superior to the Zionist/Christian/ political Islam format of politics.
Western democracy’s disgusting politics is bankrupt and disastrous.
I wonder if the use of the term “agent” is correct. Maybe the “officers” are not in danger but the “agents” are, and had to be “brought in from the cold”
But alas I believe it is a made up news story to instill fear in us about the evil bear and the need to expand our military adventure to contain this non existent threat.