American intelligence agencies spooked by Britain's open courts

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Telegraph

The CIA warned MI6 that al-Qaeda was planning an attack 18 months ago, but withheld detailed information because of concerns it would be released by British courts.

British intelligence agencies were subsequently forced to carry out their own investigations, according to Whitehall sources.

Several potential terrorists were identified with links to a wider European plot, but it is still not known whether the British authorities have uncovered the full extent of the threat.

The breakdown in relations came after the release of US intelligence in the case of Binyam Mohamed, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee who took legal action over his incarceration. The Government was subsequently forced to pay millions in compensation to him and other detainees.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9187353/American-intelligence-agencies-spooked-by-Britains-open-courts.html

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MPs seek to resist CIA demands over disclosure.

Central to the justice and security green paper, roundly criticised on Wednesday by parliament's human rights committee, is Britain's "special relationship" with the US. And central to that relationship is the sharing of intelligence.

The Bush administration told the Labour government that it would restrict the amount of intelligence the US passed to MI5 and MI6 if British courts were allowed to disclose such intelligence. The threat was prompted by an appeal court ruling in 2010 that a brief summary of CIA information about Binyam Mohamed, a British resident brutally treated in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, should be disclosed.

MI5 and MI6 responded to the threat by telling Labour ministers, and subsequently the coalition government, that a law must be introduced to prevent any intelligence information from ever being disclosed in court. They said they had been forced, in another case, to pay millions of pounds in compensation to UK citizens and residents incarcerated in Guantánamo in an out-of-court settlement. That, they claimed, was the only way to prevent sensitive intelligence from emerging in court. MI5 and MI6 are defending the "control principle" whereby the original gatherer of intelligence must decide whether or not it can ever be disclosed, not those subsequently provided with it. Thus the CIA, and the CIA alone, decides whether intelligence it passed to MI5 or MI6 can be revealed.

The joint parliamentary human rights committee of MPs and peers makes it clear what it thinks of such a principle. "An absolute exemption cannot in our view be considered to be consistent with the rule of law," it states.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/apr/04/mps-resist-cia-demands-disclosure?newsfeed=true

[xchrom]

1. Don't wanna share because they got busted for wrong doing.

How fucked up is that?

[Bolo Boffin]

2. This is one of those things where the Republicans wouldn't have done any better

And with the tip-off about the attack given, the British were able to investigate and the attack has obviously not happened.

But that's about the best that can be said about it. This is already having the effect of tearing the LibDem-Conservative coalition apart over the suggestion that a secret court be established to hear trials where evidence is classified. Britain is familiar with those kind of courts since way back in the 1600's. They called theirs the Star Chamber.

This drive for over-classification and secretive trials is not a Democratic or Republican problem: it's a Washington problem. It's a corroding influence on the democracy it's trying to protect. We need to find a way to deal with it sooner rather than later.

[Smilo]

4. It would appear that some in America, are of the

erroneous impression that because America won the War of Independence that means they are the overlords to Britain.




How sad that the spies themselves will not give up the information they have to prevent a tragedy in another country, because they can't get their own way.