The Intelligence Services Bill
01 November 1993
The Intelligence Service Bill introduced in parliament on 23 November is intended to legitimise MI6 (also known as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), or the Intelligence Service). It is the UK's overseas intelligence agency (similar to the CIA) founded in 1909. The Bill also covers Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), founded in 1946, at Cheltenham, which together the American National Security Agency (NSA), monitors telecommunications throughout the world. This Bill, which has been introduced in the House of Lords, supplements the Security Service Act 1989 which covers MI5's activities. The provisions are in many ways the same as in the 1989 Act with the proposed appointment of a Commissioner (a senior judicial figure) reporting to the Prime Minister and a Tribunal to which complaints can be made. Neither of which has engendered much public confidence. The Bill does not cover the activities of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) or the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which is in the Cabinet Office.
Section 1 of the Bill sets out the role of MI6. Its functions are defined as:
(a) to obtain and provide information relating to the actions or intentions of persons outside the British Islands; and (b) to perform other tasks relating to the actions or intentions of such persons...[in relation to] the interests of national security, with particular reference to defence and foreign policies...the interests of the economic well-being of the UK...or in support of the prevention or detection of serious crime.
Or in plain language to: spy on "hostile" foreign countries; to subvert and or undermine organisations or political parties opposed to governments the UK supports; to gather economic intelligence in "hostile" and "friendly" countries in order to further the interests of UK businesses and capital; and to act in support of MI5, the Special Branch and the police in countering terrorism, drugs, money laundering and illegal immigration.
GCHQ role covers exactly the same objectives - national security, economic well-being and serious crime - and its functions are to:
"monitor or interfere with electromagnetic, acoustic and other emissions and any equipment producing such emissions and to obtain and provide information derived from or related to such emissions or equipment and from encrypted material (Section 3)."
In other words the interception, transcription or interference with the communications of foreign governments, military forces, international companies and private individuals.
The actual activities of MI6 and GCHQ are only set out in regard to the "Authorisation of certain actions" which are defined in Section 5. This says that if the Secretary of State (the Foreign Secretary) issues a warrant: "No entry on or interference with property or with wireless telegraphy shall be unlawful...". The only limit to the issuing of warrants is that actions should be of "substantial value" in MI5, MI6 and GCHQ carrying out their defined (vague) functions. MI5 can execute warrants in the UK on behalf of MI6 & GCHQ (except in the detection of serious crime which is the preserve of the police).
The Bill also sets out "Authorisation for acts outside the British Islands" (in other countries). Section 7 states that if an agent or official of MI6 acts, outside the UK, in a way that would normally make then liable to prosecution under the criminal law, they will not be liable if their actions are authorised by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State can authorise potentially "illegal" activities if they are in pursuance of the functions of MI6. The Secretary of State is given a general power to authorise these actions which can include a "particular act or acts, of a description specified in the authorisation or acts undertaken in the course of an operation so specified" and these may be limited to a particular person, or persons, or they may not.
After years of speculation about the need for parl