Calling It Like It Is

The Geek has to confess that he had trepidations back in 1992 when Her Majesty's Government appointed Stella Rimington as Director of the Security Service (aka MI5.) Despite strong evidence to the contrary, he wondered if Ms Rimington (as she was known back then, she has since become Dame Rimington) had the sort of dark and devious mind needed for success in the grim and duplicitous world of counter-intelligence and counter-espionage.

The record of the next four years showed that she had all the necessary requisites to run an agency which was increasingly necessary and increasingly under a sort of siege from both external and internal political/social forces. She may not have been the most brilliant CI/CE chief ever, but she was up to the task--and more.

The "and more" part of Dame Rimington's mind and character have been more on display in the years since 9/11 and 7/7. She has been a vocal and trenchant critic of the assorted "security" practices and policies activated in both her native UK and elsewhere. The "and elsewhere" includes, even focuses, on the plethora of horribly wrong-headed actions undertaken by the administration of George W. Bush with the full support of a supine Congress.

In an interview with a Spanish outlet, Dame Rimington spoke the two essential truths concerning the overall impact of the spurious security measures introduced in the UK. The same applies to the US and other countries.

Here are her ground truths. The net effect of all the security programs, all the surveillance, all the data collection and archiving, all the new impediments to free movement, the casual erosion of human rights, is the laying of the foundation for a police state. The second of the Rimington Rules is that the result of the hyper-security has been to perpetuate a climate of fear--which is the goal of terrorists.

Unlike the eager exponents of more "security," Dame Rimington apparently remembers the famed aphorism of Lenin: The purpose of terror is to terrorise.

In a larger context, the measures of the Bush administration, most importantly the creation of the category "unlawful enemy combatants," the establishment of military commissions, the building of the Gitmo Kz lager, the use of allies to worm our way around restrictions on torture, have both eroded respect for the rights and dignities of the individual around the world and undercut the moral authority of the US in the ongoing struggle against authoritarian doctrines and regimes. If the US had sought to wound itself, no better job could have been accomplished than that constructed by Congress and President over the years since 9/11.

Ironically, none of these extraordinary measures were necessary. Had the US treated the people captured in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere as prisoners of war, we would have been able to hold them until the termination of hostilities. Given the nature of the war between the US and al-Qaeda and Taliban, that termination would have been determined by the US. In short, we could have held the captured combatants of whatsoever nationality until the infernal regions experienced glaciation.

As prisoners of war these individuals would still have been subject under the relevant international agreements to which the US is a party to trial for crimes which they may have committed. That includes the actions and conspiracies which fall under the rubric of "terrorism."

Further, the US would have been able to lawfully interrogate any and all prisoners of war. True, there would have been restrictions on the means employed during these interrogations, but the historical record shows that overly robust means of questioning produce results of dubious utility.

Gitmo, military commissions, black prisons, were not necessary. They are not justifiable in terms of either utility or the deterrence of future acts of terror. In short, they provide no real security to the US or other potential target nations. Dame Rimington recognises this and has been outspoken about it.

While she has been silent on the implication of this, it is nonetheless self-evident. The US and other Western nations are in a war without compromise with a totalitarian ideology which has limitless goals and aspirations. It is first and foremost a war of values, worldview and ethical imperatives. Insofar as the US or any other Western country takes actions which run counter to or undercut the long-standing core of Western principles, the cause is weakened. Ground is ceded to the enemy.

Chief among the traditions and values of the US and other countries including Dame Rimington's native land are the right of the individual citizen to be left alone by the government. Ranking along with this unstated but pervasive right to quiet enjoyment of life are such features as the right of movement, the freedom of expression, the right of voluntary assembly. Importantly, none of these specifics lives without the first right--that of being left alone by government and all its assorted minions of security.

As a person who ran a security service with responsibilities to protect the realm against secret attempts at espionage, improper influence of government, sabotage and terror, Dame Rimington well understands both the need for and the dangers of government surveillance and monitoring. She well understands that government databanks contain information which has no relevance to any legitimate security need.

More, she has the experience based cynicism which appreciates accurately that information held by a government will eventually be misused by that government. It will be used not to protect society but to suppress inconvenient individuals within that society. She knows that there are no guardrails on the slippery slope of government surveillance, monitoring and dossier collection.

Apologists both here and in the UK offer the "if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" defense of pervasive and intrusive government "security" activities. This is bunk.

In truth, as Dame Rimington implies, a person has everything to fear because he will never know when the government will decide that what he has been doing is now somehow "wrong." Blown by the winds of political fad and powered only by the need to hold and, if possible, expand authority, governments are unpredictable as to what will be defined as "wrong" at some future date.

One will never know when or if a particular political or social affiliation will be found "harmful" to the interests of government. One will never know if the words one has written or spoken today or the causes which one has supported yesterday will somehow, someway and for some hazy justification of "national security" be deemed injurious or even felonious at some tomorrow yet to come.

The US and other countries have been through this sort of phenomenon before. In the US frenzies of politically driven "national security" campaigns during World War I and in the decade following World War II saw individuals hauled before courts and other tribunals--including that of public opinion--for "offenses" of word, association or movement which occurred perhaps decades previously.

To suggest that the US or other states have learned from the mistakes of previous, pre-electronic age persecutions under the flag of "security" is to argue fantasy. Even more fantastic is the notion of trusting the government, the controllers of surveillance, the compilers of dossiers.

Of course, this is what HMG argued in response to Dame Rimington's critique. A Home Office spokesman using the bland tones to which all bureaucrats resort when placating the hoi polloi said, "The government has been clear that, where surveillance or data collection will impact on privacy, they should only be used where it is necessary and proportionate."

Right. For sure, Dude. Whatever those honey coated words might mean.

At least the polished faceless civil servant at the Home Office was not as offensively fear mongering as was former Vice-President Cheney in a recent interview. According to the ever-defiant, "What? Me Admit Error?" Cheney, without the Patriot Act, without Gitmo, absent waterboarding, lacking the other features of Security-American-Style, the US would have been nuked by al-Qaeda, bio-attacked by Taliban many times over. To Cheney and others like him who have never met an expansion of government power they did not love, the equation is simple: Repression equals security.

There can be and is perfect security for the individuals confined to a Federal "super-max" penitentiary. But, who among us wants to move there?