Public Dialogue

Discussion Prompt: Is productive engagement on intelligence law, policy and oversight possible between the secret and civilian world and what can be gained from it? Reflections on best practice, lessons learned, and plans for the future.

The issue of intelligence in public debate has arrived at a noteworthy conundrum: on the one hand, we are experiencing a normalisation of intelligence politics — the Snowden revelations and the subsequent response by parliaments, governments, and agencies have had their share in that — on the other hand, many countries are still treating intelligence politics as a special, if not unique, realm of policy, one that necessitates secrecy by default. This prerogative leads to the exclusion of large swaths of institutionalised public life (from civil society to business, and from academia to tech industry) from the political and legislative process around intelligence. Weighing the need for national security and civil liberties should not be left to one sector alone. Rather than preclude the input of different stakeholders, we posit that sound intelligence policy and practice requires a plurality of cross-disciplinary inputs and partnerships. This discussion question seeks to investigate the practical possibility and the potential of reaching across the ‘aisle of secrecy’ by hearing from experts who have done that. 

Public engagement is key for robust intelligence oversight

How conferring with civil society reference groups can help intelligence oversight bodies do their job.

by Sharon Bradford FranklinPolicy Director, Open Technology Institute

Sharon Bradford Franklin is Policy Director at New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI). She directs the broad range of OTI’s policy work on issues involving broadband access, cybersecurity, encryption, freedom of expression online, government surveillance, net neutrality, privacy, and transparency and platform accountability. From 2013 to 2017, she served as Executive Director of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), an independent federal agency that reviews counterterrorism programmes to ensure that they include appropriate safeguards for privacy and civil liberties. Previously, she served as Senior Counsel at the Constitution Project, a nonprofit legal watchdog group, working on a range of issues involving national security and privacy and civil liberties. Franklin is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.

Sitting on the steel fence: my dialogue with the intelligence world

Digital evidence expert and public policy analyst Peter Sommer looks back at nearly three decades working as an intermediary between the public and the secret world.

by Peter SommerBirmingham City University

Professor Peter Sommer combines academic and public policy work with commercial cyber security consultancy, with a strong focus on legal issues. His first degree is in law, from Oxford University. He is currently a part-time Professor of Digital Evidence at Birmingham City University and a Visiting Professor at de Montfort University. Until 2011 he was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics. He has consulted for OECD, UN, European Commission, UK Cabinet Office Scientific Advisory Panel on Emergency Response, UK National Audit Office, Audit Commission, and the Home Office. He has carried out external audits of the Internet Watch Foundation hotline. The OECD work, written with Ian Brown, addressed the cyber aspects of Future Global Threats. He has further given evidence to the Home Affairs and Science & Technology Select Committees, the Joint Committee on the Communications Data Bill, and to the Intelligence and Security Committee. He was a Specialist Advisor to the old Trade and Industry Select Committee and to the Joint Committee on the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill (now an Act). During its existence Peter was the joint lead assessor for the digital speciality at the UK Home Office-sponsored Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners and has advised the UK Forensic Science Regulator and the Home Office on communications data. He has acted as an expert in many important criminal and civil court proceedings in the UK and international courts usually where digital evidence has been an issue including Official Secrets, terrorism, state corruption, assassination, global hacking, DDoS attacks, murder, corporate fraud, privacy, defamation, breach of contract, professional regulatory proceedings, harassment, allegations against the UK military in Iraq, “revenge porn” on social media and child sexual abuse. Particular themes have been situations where technologies need to be interpreted in legal terms and assessments of quantum and extent of damage. Peter is the author, pseudonymously, of The Hacker's Handbook, DataTheft and The Industrial Espionage Handbook, and under his own name, Digital Evidence, Digital Investigations and E-Disclosure (IAAC) now in its 4th edition and the Digital Evidence Handbook. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. http://www.pmsommer.com

Bridge of trust

How the Norwegian oversight body mediates between the intelligence services and the public.

by Arild FæraasCommunications Adviser, EOS Committee

Arild Færaas is the communications adviser in the secretariat of the Norwegian Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Intelligence and Security Services (The EOS Committee). He previously worked as a communications adviser for The Norwegian Board of Technology and as a journalist for Aftenposten and other Norwegian local and national newspapers.

A healthy thing for democracy: how my office engages with civil society

The former Inspector-General of Intelligence & Security of New Zealand on her experience with setting up a civil society focus group.

by Cheryl GwynFmr. Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, New Zealand

Cheryl Gwyn was appointed as New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security commencing 5 May 2014, for a three year term and was reappointed in May 2017 for a further three years. She is the first Inspector-General to be appointed under amended legislation which significantly expands the Inspector-General’s powers and resources and removes the requirement that the appointee be a retired Judge. The Inspector-General’s role includes reviewing the legality and propriety of intelligence and security agency activities and investigating complaints relating to the agencies. The Inspector-General has power to initiate her own inquiries. Ms Gwyn has broad public law experience, having spent ten years as Deputy Solicitor-General in the New Zealand Crown Law Office, where she provided legal advice and representation to Ministers and Departments, principally in constitutional matter, including indigenous rights and human rights issues. Latterly she provided advice to New Zealand’s intelligence community. That position was preceded by two years managing a large policy group, as Deputy Secretary for Justice. Before entering the public service, Ms Gwyn was a litigation partner at two of New Zealand’s largest law firms. In August 2019 Ms Gwyn was appointed as a Judge of the High Court of New Zealand