{"id":36844,"date":"2013-05-28T17:26:11","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T16:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/uk-security-services-completely-out-of-control\/36844\/"},"modified":"2013-05-28T17:26:11","modified_gmt":"2013-05-28T16:26:11","slug":"uk-security-services-completely-out-of-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/uk-security-services-completely-out-of-control\/","title":{"rendered":"UK security services \u2018completely out of control\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\t<!–Tony Gosling<\/a>–><\/p>\n

Beginning his working life in the aviation industry and trained by the BBC, Tony Gosling is a British land rights activist, historian & investigative radio journalist. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\n Published time: May 28, 2013 16:15 <\/span>
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\n A police forensics team searches a crime scene for evidence, where a man was killed the day before in Woolwich, southeast London May 23, 2013. (Reuters \/ Neil Hall) <\/p>\n

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The UK security services are overrun with incompetence and vested business interests, without being subject to checks themselves, British investigative journalist Tony Gosling told RT.<\/p>\n

\n An extension of their powers and surveillance capabilities
\n following the Woolwich tragedy will not benefit the UK populace.\n <\/p>\n

MI5 has kept tabs on numerous terrorists who have followed
\n through with successful attacks, despite surveillance, without
\n anyone stepping in to stop the perpetrators. Where are the checks
\n on their capabilities, Gosling asks, and why has nobody yet
\n stepped forward to offer explanations or been held to account?
\n

RT:<\/b> We\u2019ve seen extremist groups like the English Defence
\n League react, but are we now at a point where we\u2019re seeing
\n tolerant moderate people now turning against their Muslim
\n neighbors?<\/i>\n <\/p>\n

Tony Gosling:<\/b> It seems to be happening; it\u2019s extremely
\n worrying. But let\u2019s not forget that the Western intelligence
\n services have been involved in criminal acts in the past that
\n have fueled this kind of sectarian violence which seems to be
\n beginning here in Britain. There are some serious questions that
\n MI5 have got to answer about what happened last week in London in
\n Woolwich – first of all condolences go to Lee Rigby\u2019s family –
\n and the horrendous part of all of that is that how did these guys
\n who were right at the very top of the terror watch list, how on
\n Earth did they not get spotted preparing for some kind of terror
\n act? Was their car bugged for example \u2014 this is one question that
\n hasn\u2019t been answered.\n <\/p>\n

MI5 have gone very quiet on all these kinds of topics. How did
\n they get ammunition? How did they get a revolver? Have they been
\n following Lee? These kinds of questions. They\u2019ve got something
\n like 4,000 staff, MI5, and if they can\u2019t keep an eye on the
\n people who are on the very top of the watch list then there needs
\n to be a real shakeup and heads need to roll there.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \"The<\/p>\n

\n RT:<\/b> The UK home secretary though, has said there needs
\n now to be a look at the Communications Data Act \u2014 stronger powers
\n of surveillance. That is necessary now, isn\u2019t it? Because if you
\n did have those stronger powers of surveillance then those guys
\n may not have slipped through the net.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n TG:<\/b> Well, they would say that, wouldn\u2019t they? No I don\u2019t
\n think this is the right to be doing at all. We actually need to
\n have a look at who is to blame here. MI5\u2019s job is to stop people
\n like this committing acts like this and they haven\u2019t done it.
\n This isn\u2019t the first time. If we go back to the London bombing in
\n 2005, MI5 have been following these guys around as well. Now, all
\n fair play to them if they can stop some plots taking place, but
\n these guys were really at the top of the list, and if they can\u2019t
\n stop these people then what are they there for? You go back even
\n to the \u201890s and the Bishopsgate bomb. We now know that MI5 were
\n following the IRA for days and in the months with this bomb
\n beforehand, and yet still allowed them to blow it up.\n <\/p>\n

So the oversight of the security services really needs to be
\n looked at. And I think we need to have some serious changes in
\n the way it runs. The other thing is the oversight. MPs don\u2019t
\n oversee MI5 and MI6. It\u2019s actually civil servants that do and
\n they are then overseen by a handful of MPs including – what I
\n would suggest are rather lightweight MPs – pro-establishment like
\n Hazel Blears and Malcolm Rifkind. So there isn\u2019t any proper
\n oversight. And what these intelligence services seem to do every
\n time is to hide behind the veil of national security: \u201cWe can\u2019t
\n tell you what\u2019s going on.\u201d Even the inquiry that\u2019s been
\n instituted into the failures of what happened last Wednesday is
\n going to be kept entirely secret. And I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s time for
\n them to come out from under their shells and get a proper looking
\n at so that this kind of thing really can\u2019t happen again.\n <\/p>\n

They\u2019re not going to play this game, I can assure you, of saying
\n \u201cWe need more money, we need more power, and we need more
\n surveillance of the general population,\u201d because they had all the
\n laws they needed to stop these people doing what they did last
\n Wednesday. They don\u2019t need any more power whatsoever.\n <\/p>\n

RT:<\/b> But the government is doing something by setting up
\n a new terrorism task force to target hate preachers and
\n extremism. Now, doing that, wouldn\u2019t that stop that sort of
\n violent act?<\/i>\n <\/p>\n

TG:<\/b> I don\u2019t actually think so. I think one of the things
\n which would stop it is William Hague pursuing this foreign policy
\n which bears no relevance to what the British people actually
\n want. It\u2019s not in our interests to be trying to arm Al-Qaeda and
\n Syria as he\u2019s been trying to do today over in Brussels.
\n Thankfully, most of the rest of Europe thinks it\u2019s a ridiculous
\n concept and is not going to let him do it. We actually need to
\n have politicians who represent what we say rather than business
\n interests.\n <\/p>\n

Back in the 1990s, MI5 was actually courting business interests
\n saying to HSBC \u201cWould you like us to come and spy for you, to
\n give you information from our files?\u201d They also said the same to
\n BAE Systems, one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world.\n <\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid this is an MI5 that\u2019s completely out of control. They
\n just seem to do what they want and there\u2019s no proper oversight of
\n our security services. Once you get this sort of situation you\u2019ve
\n got the possibility of all sorts of things going on illegally. I
\n mean, for example, we had this interview that was done on the BBC
\n last Friday evening, where the chap, as he\u2019s being interviewed,
\n Special Branch turn up at the BBC and arrest him as soon as he\u2019s
\n coming out. Now, you can\u2019t just arrest people for telling their
\n own version \u2014 friends of terrorists – about various stories to do
\n with\u2026.for example, this chap that committed this act it looks
\n like, last Wednesday, having been tortured and attempted to be
\n recruited by MI5, the public needs to know these things.\n <\/p>\n

And we, as parliamentarians as well, need to know these things if
\n they\u2019re going to have any proper oversight of our security
\n services. And we really need to do that, if we\u2019re going to
\n have any kind of real anti-terror operation in this country \u2014 we
\n need to have accountable security services. Because at the moment
\n we don\u2019t have at all.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \"Sergeant<\/p>\n

\n RT:<\/b> Does this draw attention to the public on Britain\u2019s
\n foreign policy? In what way could this have an impact on future
\n military engagements in Muslim countries?<\/i>\n <\/p>\n

TG:<\/b> It doesn\u2019t just have an impact on the Islamic
\n community. Many people in this country are unhappy. Look, for
\n example, at what we\u2019ve done to Iraq: an illegal war, no we\u2019ve had
\n another bomb attack today, 50 people killed over a hundred people
\n injured. We\u2019ve made a mess and a wreck of these places. The
\n Arab\u2019s League prediction that we were going to open gates of hell
\n in Iraq has come true. Actually Britain and Tony Blair, as well
\n as George Bush too, are responsible for this. So it\u2019s not just
\n the Muslim population here that are angry.\n <\/p>\n

The other thing is we\u2019ve got other extremists here in Britain,
\n anti-Islamic extremists. Two weeks ago a man coming from Mosque
\n in Birmingham was murdered and this got almost no coverage
\n whatsoever. We need to make sure that the security services are
\n taking exactly the same sort of measures against the anti-Muslims
\n as they are against the Islamic organizations. What they are
\n trying to do is to demonize Muslims in a similar way the Nazis
\n demonized Jews back in 1930s and it\u2019s ridiculous. We\u2019ve got to
\n stop it. We don\u2019t want that from MI5, thank you very much.\n<\/p>\n

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on: RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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