Hillary Clinton: we need to talk sensibly about spying

Hillary Clinton: we need to talk sensibly about spying | World news | The Guardian: "David Bickford, a former legal director of MI5 and MI6, told the Guardian that the current oversight regime for Britain's intelligence agencies was "obviously inadequate."
"Secrecy in this country is over-protected and under-regulated," he said. "The UK has signally failed to prepare itself for openness when dealing with politically sensitive issues such as terrorism or the involvement of their secret agencies in the gathering of information by secret means."Bickford added: "We see only a fleeting and ephemeral face of the intelligence agencies chiefs; ministers glide over the threats, never explain their relationship with those agencies and are content to retain an obviously inadequate system for their supervision."
Bickford said public scepticism was "made worse by the Communications Data Bill's proposal that the agencies themselves control their mining of communications data."
He added: "Unless government takes this debate seriously, secrecy will be pierced by the needs of society and terrorism and organised crime will plunder our sovereignty."" 'via Blog this'