The relationship between mass media and secret intelligence

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MASS MEDIA AND SECRET INTELLIGENCE ANUSH SARKISIAN MA International Relations Hons, Donetsk National University A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SOCIAL

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MASS MEDIA AND SECRET

INTELLIGENCE

ANUSH SARKISIAN

(MA International Relations (Hons), Donetsk National University)

A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ………4

Summary……… 5

List of Tables……… 6

List of Abbreviations……… 7

Chapter I Introduction………8

Chapter II The Media……… 21

Chapter III The Intelligence……….35

Chapter IV Media-Intelligence Relationship……… 45

Chapter V Media-Intelligence Relationship in the Russian Federation……… 60

Chapter VI Media-Intelligence Relationship in the United Kingdom……….78

Chapter VII Conclusions……… 95

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Professor Karen Jane Winzoski, for her valuable comments, guidance and warm encouragement throughout the research Without her help, this project would not have been possible I also thoroughly enjoyed working with my professors at NUS and thank them for widening my horizons I also would like

to thank Mr Andrei Soldatov for sharing his insightful thoughts during the interview, which was indispensable for this project

Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my family and my friend Michelle for their 24/7 love and support that helped me not to give up during this academic journey

SUMMARY

Both intelligence and the media operate in the industry of information collection, analysis and dissemination Therefore some amount of interaction between two actors is inevitable The inherent problem with this relationship is the tension around the intelligence agencies’ need for secrecy and the citizens’ right to know, which the media aims to fulfill

This study establishes a framework within which the media-intelligence interactions in a given state may be analyzed A fundamental question is raised: Under which conditions and in whose favor the point of contact between two institutions occurs? Is it the regime type that determines the nature of their relations, as the prevailing literature suggests? I propose that the factors that define the tone of these interactions are the levels of autonomy and penetration of the intelligence services and the media outlets’ commitment to investigative reporting Based on this assertion, I adopt six models of media-intelligence relationship

The findings are further applied to the case-studies of the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation, which represent a variety of scenarios of the media-intelligence encounter

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Press Freedom in Democracies and Autocracies, 1980 – 2008……… 23Table 2 Typology of Security Intelligence Agencies……… 42Table 3 Models of Media-Intelligence Interaction……… 47

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BND – Bundesnachrichtendiens

CIA – Central Intelligence Agency

DA Notice – Defence Advisory Notice

DIB – Domestic Intelligence Bureau

DIS – Defence Intelligence Staff

FBI – Federal Investigation Bureau

FSB – Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti

GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters

IRGC – Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps

ISC – Intelligence Security Committee

ISS – Independent and Security State

JIC – Joint Intelligence Committee

JTAC – Joint Terrorism Analysis Center

KGB – Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti

NSA – National Security Agency

MEK – People’s Mujahedin of Iran

MIT – Turkish National Intelligence Organization

MI5 – Security Service

MI6 – Secret Intelligence Service

MOIS – Ministry of Intelligence and Security

PP – Political Police

SIGNIT – Signals Intelligence

SRI – Romanian Intelligence Service

TECHINT – Technical Intelligence

VEVAK - Vezarat-e Ettela'atvaAmniyat-e Keshvar

WMD – Weapons of Mass Destruction

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

The term ‘information age’ with its 24-hour news cycle on TV and Internet has gained much momentum during the last two decades Regularly updated news websites, ‘No comments’ channels and the burgeoning ‘new media’ have created an environment, in which the consumers’ demand for a new publication is no less than his need for freshly baked bread Media companies, whether big or small, printed or online, are involved in a cut-throat competition to be first in information delivery In such conditions, journalists resort to anything to reveal the most unknown and unique information to their consumers

The media have always been attracted to intelligence issues Mostly because intelligence services are generally perceived to be mystical and exotic, news reports on this subject are always worthy of public attention However, media-intelligence interactions are not restricted to just an ‘uncovering the covered’ type of relationship Intelligence services strategically provide media with secret information to shape public opinion, as well as to reveal some inside information about their activities to prove their political usefulness On the other side, the media can serve as a powerful instrument of external oversight over the intelligence services’ activities, pointing out on their wrongdoings, failures and perspectives for democratization

My purpose in this study is to establish a framework with which the relationship between the media and intelligence services in a given state may be analyzed While my initial assumption was that the ‘regime type’ played a major role in determining the nature of this relationship, my preliminary research has revealed that even the categorization of a given state as a ‘democracy’

or ‘autocracy’ does not fully explain how media and intelligence in these regimes interact and manage their power relations Empirical data reveals that in two states of same political regime type media-intelligence relationships may be structured differently Conversely, political regime transformations within a given state, for example from autocracy to democracy, may not essentially bring about substantial changes in the way the two actors relate to each other One reason for this is that even after regime transformations, in most of the cases both intelligence services and media communities remain in their old frames, with the same personnel and institutional arrangements

Therefore, to build a more flexible theory, which is not limited to particular nominal regime types, we will analyze both institutions of the media and intelligence services, the ways they perceive each other and, hence, the relationship they are likely to develop with each other

My argument suggests that it is the level of intelligence services autonomy and penetration, which is not the simple product of the regime type that largely determines the character of the relationship with the media As for the media, its behavior takes mostly the form of ‘reaction’ rather than ‘action’, and it is the level of journalists’ commitment to investigative reporting that determines the nature of the media’ response to intelligence services’ activities Accordingly, the inherent problem with their interaction is the tension around the intelligence agencies’ need for secrecy and the citizens’ right to be informed, which the media aims to fulfill This study hopes

to explain under which conditions and in whose favor the point of contact between two actors occurs

In this research I will test two hypotheses, which evaluate the nature of the intelligence relationship:

media-H1: Media-intelligence relations are based on the qualitative characteristics of both actors

H2: Media-intelligence relations are based on factors other than the qualitative characteristics

of both actors

This study is mainly theory-testing and policy-evaluative It is based on a literature review of books, academic journal articles, newspaper reports and electronic sources, which offer a general context and necessary insights into the topic For the purpose of this project, I have also conducted an interview with a journalist Mr Andrei Soldatov who offered me valuable insights for my case study of Russia My research contributes to the theory of media-intelligence

interactions, which has been previously focused mostly on liberal democracies, and has not offered a general theory applicable for a variety of security intelligence agencies and types of media organizations While I do not intend to build a policy-prescriptive and predictive study, the summary of findings will nevertheless propose explanations to understand the nature of media-intelligence interactions likely to occur in a given set of circumstances Two main cases

of the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom with a number of examples from other countries will illustrate the practical application of our theory

C Case Selection

On the basis of diverse case selection method1 the cases of the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation, representing two extremes of intelligence openness, are selected to demonstrate the variety of the outcomes of media and intelligence involvement with each other and capture the contrasts addressed by my theory At the same time, both types of the media are represented in our cases This will allow me to observe how media behavior varies depending on their interaction with different intelligence services

D Literature Review

The initial impetus and inspiration for current project was given by Robert Dover and

Michael Goodman’s Spinning Intelligence2, which consists of a series of essays by experts from government, media and academia, which demonstrate that relationships between mass-media and intelligence services are far too complex to be given an apparent characterization The authors view these relationships from vastly different angles For example, Corera and Bowen analyze the Open Source Intelligence strategy, according to which media and intelligence services cooperate in the battlefield of an ‘information war’ against terrorism and in the context

of nuclear non-proliferation Recently, this model of relationships has become even more relevant, as “the information technology revolution continues to present new data storage, search

1 Seawright , Jason, and John Gerring "Case Selection Techniques in Case Selection Research: A Menu of

Qualitative and Quantitative Options." Political Research Quarterly 62, no 2, p 300

2 Dover, Robert, and Michael S Goodman Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.

and information retrieval options,”3 such as social networks, Internet blogs, and mobile news apps with instant access to new information

In the same volume, Richard Aldrich describes how intelligence agencies, which he depicts as being concerned with public perceptions of intelligence work, use the press to reduce the generally suspicious and adverse public attitude toward secret government bodies Aldrich argues, “Much of what we know about modern intelligence agencies has in fact been placed in the public domain deliberately by the agencies themselves, or through other government departments.”4 For example, the US intelligence services have always enjoyed quite close relationships with its journalist community, which partly explains the remarkable transparency

of the American intelligence agencies: “The fact that we know more about the American intelligence community than almost any other is commonly assumed to reflect a written constitution that provides journalists wishing to write about intelligence with a remarkable degree of formal constitutional protection.”5 This exposes perhaps the most common misperception concerning modern intelligence services as hiding from the media and living in the shadows The actual situation is different “Over more than fifty years, intelligence agencies have been concerned to shape public perceptions of intelligence, partly because they have substantial budgets to defend.”6 Another reason why the intelligence services maintain a close relationship with the media is the need to keep the latter on the ‘right track’ during times when there is a substantial threat to national security Aldrich uses the case of the 9/11 attacks to illustrate this relationship In this situation, the media, perceiving the state of emergency,

“adopted a so-called war mentality that was largely supportive of government.”7 This is an important point for our study as well, as we assume that though the media by its nature is a hunter for newsworthy knowledge, it might find it ethically inappropriate to disclose sensitive information in the name of public security

By contrast, as an investigative journalist in the security and defense field in the United Kingdom, Chapman Pincher tells a different story based on his personal experience Pincher makes reference to a number of reports of false leaks provided by the British intelligence and intended to misinform its enemies Reflecting on his reporting of intelligence and security issues,

Pincher accepts that “the most cherished professional compliment” he ever received, is that he was known as a “public urinal where Ministers and officials queued up to leak.”8 In a retrospect, Pincher’s example is a classic illustration of the ‘partial’ media and the DIB relationships, which

I will elaborate on in later chapters

Rear Admiral Nicholas Wilkinson shows how the media and intelligence can utilize a balancing strategy, such as the DA-Notice Committee, which exists “to provide advice to the media and officials in the United Kingdom about the publication of national security matters.”9

Wilkinson admits that this balance operates in a ‘gray area’, facing a number of crosscutting issues related to national security: “the right and duty of the media to publish information about what is being done by government in the name of the public, versus the right and duty of the

government to conceal pro them certain sensitive information for the protection of the public.”10

However, Wilkinson provides two case-studies of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to illustrate how the balance over this ‘gray area’ was achieved I, in turn, will use the case of the DA-notice system to explain the ‘gentlemen’s relationship’ between the media and intelligence, which I call

‘self-regulation’ in this study

In sum, the editors of the volume come to a common conclusion that in the era of

‘information age’, thinking of spies and journalists as “blood brothers, separated at birth”11

allows a more extended examination of interaction between them Both the media and intelligence agencies are knowledge producers Normally, they operate without consent from people or other actors they are searching information about and they produce knowledge for their own distinct aims.12 This is a crucial insight to understand why the nature of these relationships can be shifted from conflict to cooperation and vice versa

To understand what constitutes the core of the relationship between these two communities and how they work together, I turn to Christopher Andrew’s edited volume “Secret Intelligence.”13 The volume develops a solid discussion on the definitional aspect of intelligence According to Vernon Walters, “intelligence is information, not always available in the public domain, relating to the strength, resources, capabilities and intentions of a foreign

country that can affect our lives and the safety of our people.”14 Lyman Kirkpatrick adds the following: “Intelligence is the knowledge – and, ideally, foreknowledge – sought by nations in response to external threats and to protect their vital interests, especially the well-being of their own people.”15 A study of the American intelligence establishment commissioned by the Council

on Foreign Relations defines intelligence as “information not publicly available, or analysis based at least in part on such information that has been prepared for policymakers or other actors inside the government.”16

As one can see, these definitions stress the ‘informational’ aspect of the term and sometimes equate ‘information’ and ‘intelligence’ However, such an interpretation is vague and incomplete, as it “does not say who needs information, or what makes the information needed in the first place,”17 i.e excludes the ‘actor’ from it This is important for my study, as information

is also a key aspect of mass media and the nature of its relationships with intelligence

Lowenthal18 goes further, arguing that intelligence is something more complex than information It can be also thought of as a process, activity, product and organization The informational component here is related to “important national security issues”, which are monitored, analyzed and provided to its consumers – policymakers Nevertheless, Lowenthal’s interpretation may include more areas related to national security or the military, but not essentially mean intelligence activity “The number of American males of age to bear arms, the weather conditions in Asia, and the age of Politburo member” may also be evaluated as military issues, but not be related to intelligence 19

The ‘missing ingredient’, which distinguishes intelligence from other intellectual and organizational activities, is presented by Abram Shulsky in his book “Silent Warfare.”20

According to the author, secrecy is what makes intelligence distinct from other governmental and non-government agencies Secrecy is also the essential component driving media-intelligence liaisons, either motivating journalists to report intelligence activities, or compelling the latter to intentionally leak a certain amount of secrets in mass media as part of their strategy

Shulsky briefly analyzes some of these secrecy strategies, utilizing the example of Russian intelligence services operations in Japan and their use of propaganda and spread of misinformation to convey certain messages to the target audience

Two models of intelligence services’ media strategies are presented by the former Director of the Israeli Government Ministries Security Unit Shlomo Shpiro in his article ‘The Media Strategies of Intelligence Services.’21 The models of ‘Defensive Openness’ and

‘Controlled Exclusion’ are analyzed within the contexts of Germany and Israel, respectively The models vary based on the “development of each country’s intelligence community, as well

as the level and form of its media freedoms.”22 Thus, the model of ‘Defensive Openness’ means

a “limited amount of openness to be maintained toward the media in order to influence media content.”23 In the case of Germany, this strategy was applied in four main directions:

“continuous in-house media monitoring; proportionality of response; balancing denial with providing information, and rewarding journalists rather than threatening.”24 This type of relationships falls within my category of ‘symbiotic benefit’, which I explain later in this study I borrow Shpiro’s insight that within this model intelligence services allow the journalists to receive a certain portion of classified information to influence the media content and when necessary to keep certain issues out of their sight

In contrast, the model of ‘Controlled Exclusion’ presupposes inherent and absolute secrecy of intelligence activities “According to this view, because intelligence work depends on secrecy for its success, it should be kept out of the media entirely.”25 This model is mainly based

on three elements: “suppressing operational revelations, threatening or punishing uncooperative media outlets, and using the media for building up deterrence.”26 Any media coverage of Israeli Intelligence operations is estimated to limit its operational functions, taking into account the regional security conditions in which it operates The Israeli case supports my argument that the political regime itself does not give a full account of the nature of the relationship between the media and intelligence A similar case, where this model appears, is that of in Russia, which is

21Shpiro, Shlomo "The Media Strategies of Intelligence Services." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (2001).

one of the two case studies in this paper In a similar manner, Russian intelligence agencies often set an ‘iron curtain’ to block any kind of media coverage of their activities.

Glen Hastedt in his article ‘Public Intelligence: Leaks as Policy Instruments The Iraqi War’27 analyzes the use of intentional leaks to the media by intelligence services as part of their considered strategy Hastedt explains that purposeful leaks of secret information to the press can

be motivated by a wish “either to draw attention to oneself or to a policy problem, or to defend

or distance oneself from a policy failure.”28 Hastedt distinguishes between four patterns of media leaks which are: promotional, orchestrated, warring, and entrepreneurial, depending on “whether the leaked intelligence emerges in a sustained or episodic fashion and whether or not it is contested [by opponents].”29

Promotional intelligence means that classified information is disclosed in an episodic manner and is not contested by other sources In this pattern, secret intelligence becomes public without facing any significant barriers, such as alternative information The initial aim of promotional intelligence leaks is to focus public attention to a certain problem, or “or to defend

or distance oneself from a policy failure.”30

Entrepreneurial intelligence leaks happen when secret intelligence becomes public and is contested by other parties, which also use intelligence information to convince the respective audience (policy makers) that their information is strategically more important or relevant than the one offered by their opponent

Orchestrated intelligence leaks emerge when secret intelligence is uncovered on a regular basis and is not contested by other parties “More often than not orchestrated public intelligence will emanate from the executive branch It has greater access to the products of the intelligence community and it is responsible for the selection and execution of foreign policy.”31

Finally, warring intelligence leaks are carried out on systematic and contested basis

“Here the opposing sides are involved in a siege in which the objective is to wear challengers down to the point where their opposition is no longer politically significant.”32 The primary

27Hastedt, Glenn "Public intelligence: Leaks as policy instruments–the case of the Iraq war." Intelligence &

example here is the long episode of Soviet - US warring intelligence competitions during the Cold War

Regardless the dimension the mentioned leaks take, the media side is depicted as a passive actor of the process, the ‘projector’ through which a message is being sent Naturally, in such conditions reporters do not have any noticeable weight in framing the relationship Nevertheless, this categorization is important for our study, because it demonstrates that there is

no single pattern of intelligence leaks in the media, as different conditions drive them

More power to the media as a political actor is given, or at leastiswished to be given, by

Timothy E Cook in his Governing the News.33 Cook creates a “new model of the reporter as a key participant in decision-making and policy making and of the news media as a central political force in government.”34 Media strategies, according to Cook, are generally used by state authorities to counter the weaknesses of their institutions Through the press, officials promote ideas quickly and directly to their target audiences While “politicians dictate conditions and rules of access, and designate certain events and issues as important by providing an arena for them, journalists, in turn, decide whether something is interesting enough to cover, the context in which to place it, and the prominence the story receives.”35

A peculiar type of relationship between the media and intelligence occurs when media reports on intelligence failures In his article ‘Reports, Politics and Intelligence Failures’36

Robert Jervis brings up the example of American and British intelligence services’ failure concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) Intelligence failure is understood as a mismatch between the services’ expectations and what actually was found out during the operation.37 When it was revealed that intelligence estimates did not coincide with the reality faced by US forces in Iraq, the US government found it necessary to feed the public hunger for explanations and clarify the reasons for intelligence failure in the press Interestingly, while the official reports stressed organizational failures in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - such

as ‘groupthink’ dynamic, excessive consensus and analytical errors - the media reports have blamed the post 9/11 environment of high risks of new threats, which forced policymakers to

33Cook, Timothy E Governing with the News: The News Media As a Political Institution Chicago: University of

take preventive deterrence measures without conducting additional cross-checking.38 Thus, the press highlighted the problem of politicization of intelligence, defined as the manipulation and misinterpretation of intelligence information by policymakers to reflect their preferences We will return to the issue of intelligence manipulation in the case study of the United Kingdom

Intelligence failures and the subsequent reports in the media are also analyzed in Peter

Gill’s Intelligence in an Insecure World.39 In Gill’s opinion, in such situations, intelligence agencies tend to minimize their contacts with the press, “apart from planting stories with friendly journalists.”40 Thus, suitable liaisons with media allow intelligence to reveal selective knowledge, draw public attention to a particular agenda or justify its failures in a way that minimizes public dissatisfaction

In Policing Politics: Security Intelligence and the Liberal Democratic State, 41 Gill

focuses on the issue of the oversight and control of intelligence activities He uses the Gore Tex state model to categorize the intelligence agencies His typology, which I later use in this study

as well, is based on the level of autonomy of the intelligence service from the rest of the state machine, and its level of penetration into society Gill proposes three ideal types of intelligence services: Independent Security State (ISS), Political Police (PP), and Domestic Intelligence Bureau (DIB) The main reason I apply this typology is that it illustrates how the intelligence apparatus is positioned within a state and a society and at the same time is not a simple product

of regime type Gill himself sees the ideal security agency as the DIB, which has a statutory mandate and strong institutions of oversight ensuring that the agencies maintain respect for human rights Though there is some extent of idealization in this category, I will apply this category to my understanding of British intelligence

Important insights on the democratic control of intelligence through a number of effective measures are also provided in Thomas Bruneau’s and Steven Boraz’s volume

Reforming Intelligence Obstacles to Democratic Control and Effectiveness.42 The contributors

to the book offer a number of means to control intelligence, which is summed up in three basic

38Badie , Dina "Groupthink, Iraq, and the War on Terror: Explaining US Policy Shift toward Iraq." Foreign Policy Analysis 6 (2010):

39Gill, Peter, and Mark Phythian Intelligence in an Insecure World Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2006

40 Ibid, p 93

41Gill, Peter Policing Politics: Security Intelligence and the Liberal Democratic State London: F Cass, 1994

42Bruneau, Thomas C., and Steven C Boraz Reforming Intelligence: Obstacles to Democratic Control and

Effectiveness Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007

mechanisms: executive, legislative and judicial oversight The cases of the intelligence practices

in the United States, United Kingdom, and France, Brazil, Taiwan, Argentina, and Russia are brought into the framework Mykhail Tsypkin’s chapter on the case of Russia addresses the issue

of the civilian control of Russian security services, including the role of the media in keeping the agencies accountable Tsypkin explains the factors behind the current state of affairs, which reveal how the weak institutions of intelligence oversight let the intelligence community grow into a ‘state within a state’ having minimum legal and public accountability

Another valuable source of information on the Russian case is the book by Andrei

Soldatov and Irina Borogan The New Nobility Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the

Enduring legacy of the KGB,43 which is a detailed investigation of Russian security services and their activities both at home and overseas The authors show the dynamic of the agencies’ prestige and legitimacy accumulation since the collapse of the USSR and the rise to power of famous KGB ex-agent Vladimir Putin to the Office of President/Prime Minister of the Russian Federation The book is even more interesting for me, as it is largely based on the authors’ experience as journalists, who have spent over a decade reporting on Russian security forces, and shed a light on the nature of relationships between the agencies and the media

To sum up, one can observe an increasing attention of scholars to intelligence issues, especially to the aspect of its oversight and democratic control After the years of academic

‘blackout’ during the Cold War and early 1990-s, intelligence is no longer considered a ‘missing dimension.’44 However, its relationship with the media is still an under-theorized topic in the academia Certainly, some aspects of it have been given an account, particularly those related to

‘leak scandals’ and revelations of sensitive information by reporters Another issue area, which receives a growing consideration, is the journalists’ ability to scrutinize intelligence activities and keep them accountable It is usually discussed in the wider context of intelligence activities

in liberal democracies Yet, there still has not been a systematic account of media-intelligence relationship which would explain under which conditions these actors come into contact and how their relationships are developed, regardless the political regime and the type of

43Soldatov, Andrei, and Irina Borogan The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB New York: Public Affairs, 2010

44Andrew, Christopher M., and David Dilks The Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities

in the Twentieth Century Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984

government The problem with existing literature on intelligence is not just in their ‘center shift’

on liberal democracies (this is understandable, considering that most of the scholarship on intelligence is coming from British and American schools of social sciences; two prominent

journals of the intelligence studies: International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence

and Intelligence and National Security are US based) The main fallacy, in my opinion, is in

understanding of the intelligence service as an extension of a state, while in fact it can have its own political agenda in relation with the public sector and the media, in particular My study will fill this gap, offering an analysis of media-intelligence relationship based on the characteristics

of both actors and the factors which make them behave the way they do

Organization of the Study

In order to understand what the possible scenarios of the media and the intelligence interaction are, I analyze the nature of both actors in the Chapters II and III First, I will focus on the conditions which allow/make the media perform its investigative function (watchdog media)

or carry out a biased coverage of intelligence issues (partial media) I argue that while the media freedom largely depends on the type of the government, its ability to scrutinize the intelligence activity is driven by a number of other factors, which do not depend on regime type That is why

I expect different types of media to exist in the same country In the chapter on intelligence organizations I provide a framework to understand the intelligence as an institution with fixed functions and activity I am particularly interested in power relationships across the nexus of state, intelligence and society Depending on the degree of its autonomy and penetration, three types of the intelligence apparatus (DIB, PP, ISS) are applied

Chapter IV shows how the two types of media behavior and three types of the intelligence interact and proposes six scenarios in which the relationships between these actors are expected to result

In Chapters V and VI I address the nature of the relationship between the intelligence and the domestic media in Russia and the United Kingdom respectively Analyzing the time period after 1991, I suggest that Russian intelligence can be categorized as ISS, and therefore its

interactions with the media result in the ‘media spinning’ (in regards to partial media outlets) and ‘criticism-punishment’ and ‘iron curtain’ (with the watchdog media outlets) In the UK case

I cover the same period with a particular focus on the events of the 2003 invasion of Iraq Using the categories offered above, I suggest that British intelligence is best categorized as a DIB and enters into three types of relationship with the media: ‘symbiotic benefit’ and ‘self-regulation’ with the partial media, and ‘media criticism’ when encountering with the watchdog media

CHAPTER II : THE MEDIA

Imagine prisoners who have been chained since childhood deep inside a cave Not only are their limbs immobilized by the chains, their heads are chained as well so that their eyes are fixed on a wall Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised walkway, along which shapes of various animals, plants, and other things are carried The shapes cast shadows on the wall, which occupy the prisoners' attention Also, when one of the shape-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of images.45

This passage is taken from Plato’s famous myth of the cave, in which he compares people with the prisoners who are looking at the shadows on the wall, naively believing that these images necessarily reflect the reality they live in, and having no clue that somewhere outside the cave there is an alternate world

This classic allegory is often read in terms of the modern information age with its floods

of imagery that our minds cannot resist Whether these shadows reflect reality or just a skewed image of it enormously depends on those who direct the images Talking in modern terms, the fundamental questions here are: Who in fact broadcasts the information we receive every day? When are the media powerful enough to hold opinion without external interference? In contrast, when is it a mere projector, whose reports serve the interests of other agents (in this case, the intelligence service)? In this chapter, I will first figure out what motivates the media to monitor and criticize government agencies and officials, in other words to act as a ‘watchdog.’ In the second part I will inquire into the conditions under which voluntary or involuntary media bias occurs

‘watchdog’ “as the degree to which the news media take the initiative to scrutinize and report critically about government behavior.”46 In this definition, the monitoring role of the media refers to ‘investigative journalism’ Hereby, ‘watchdogging’ is conceptualized as the “extent to which the news media engage in investigative reporting.”47 Mark Hunter, in turn, defines

‘investigative journalism’ as a type of reporting that “involves exposing to the public matters that are concealed – either deliberately by someone in a position of power, or accidentally, behind a chaotic mass of facts and circumstances that obscure understanding It requires using both secret and open sources and documents.”48

Lance Bennett and William Serrin define ‘watchdog journalism’ as “independent scrutiny by the press on the activities of government, business, and other public institutions, with

an aim toward documenting, questioning, and investigating those activities, in order to provide the public and officials with timely information on issues of public concern.”49 This process often includes combining both open and closed source information, archive data, official statements and press releases, and conducting interviews and polls, resulting in original analyses that reveal and highlight certain problems to attract public attention to them It is for this reason that the watchdog role is considered to be the most important contribution of the press to society

In this project, I do not differentiate the media by the means it uses to broadcast information, i.e the print newspapers, the Internet, TV, radio, etc The more important aspect here is the reporters’ ability to report without bias, stay impartial and remain dedicated to uncovering hidden information, because only when the media performs as the watchdog of society, when it is able to act as a platform for political debate, it becomes impossible for the officials to hide their wrongdoings

Turning to the preconditions that allow the media to perform its watchdogging function,

it would be safe to hypothesize that the higher the democracy-index of a given state, the more the engagement of the press in investigating reporting This is based on a general axiom that the media is capable to critically report on its government when democratic institutions are present

46 Whitten-Woodring, Jenifer, and Patrick James "Fourth Estate or Mouthpiece? A Formal Model of Media, Protest,

and Government Repression." Political Communication (2012) P 120

in a state.

In her research, Jenifer Whitten-Woodring50 matches media freedom and regime type:

Table 1 Press Freedom in Democracies and Autocracies, 1980 – 2008 51

Her findings show that “the most common combinations of media and regime type are government-controlled media in autocratic countries, and free media in democratic countries.”52

This brings us to a simple and predictable graph, showing that the higher the level of democracy (D), the more freedom (F) the media enjoys

F

0

D

However, before we proceed further, it is necessary to elaborate how media freedom is

measured in this study Freedom House generates an index of press freedom, which takes into

account a variety of factors affecting the media “The criteria which are considered for a free media are: constitutional aspects protecting freedom of the press and freedom of information; the enforcement of the constitutional aspects; whether laws restricting reporting are absent or not; whether the media outlets are free to determine their own content or not; free access to official and unofficial resources by the media; lack of official censorship and journalist self-censorship; freedom of the media from economic control both from the government and private ownership;

50 Whitten-Woodring, Jenifer "Watchdog or Lapdog? Media Freedom, Regime Type, and Government Respect for

Human Rights." International Studies Quarterly (2009) P 602.

51 Ibid

52 Ibid.

and freedom from economic manipulation.”53

Reporters without Borders takes into considerations additional factors affecting media

freedom, such as the use or threat of use of violence against journalists It also includes the level

of self-censorship and the journalists’ ability to oversee and openly criticize “Reporters without

Borders have taken into account not only the abuses attributable to the state, but also those by

armed militias, clandestine organizations and pressure groups.”54

Hence, there is a positive function between free media (F) and its watchdog behavior (W) Press independence from both the government and commercial pressures increases the degree to which news media act as watchdogs, because in such environments media becomes

truly investigative, and has a public-service focus rather than profit-maximizing goals.

DHowever, if we go back to the Table 1, we can observe that there are a percentage of states, both democratic and autocratic, that do not fit with the general pattern democracy → freedom of the press → watchdog journalism That means that the presence of democratic institutions and media freedom do not always result in the media that perform a watchdog role Similarly, the low index of media freedom does not exclude the possibility of the press criticizing government activities

Indeed, Whitten-Woodring’s empirical studies have found that there are some instances when autocratic regimes would create institutions that allow media freedom and tolerate an independent news media There are also a few cases where the media in democratic states are unable to function freely or criticize its government Whitten-Woodring uses the examples of Uganda and Mexico to illustrate the first case, and Greece and Portugal from 1981 to 1995 in the second case The very existence of such outliers prevents us from arguing that a watchdog media

is a feature of democracies only, or that the press in democratic states will necessarily investigate and report on its government This again supports my earlier point that we need to find out additional reasons that make the media and intelligence communities behave the way they do It compels us to consider the factors – be these characteristics exhibited by government or the media – that make watchdog reporting possible across different regime types

In exploring those exceptions, Whitten-Woodring suggests that “autocratic leaders might allow some media freedom for the very same reason that they sometimes hold elections: because they want to establish or maintain a facade of legitimacy.”55 Another explanation to this is that some “dictators might permit media freedom in order to remain informed about the performance

of lower level bureaucrats in remote regions.” 56 Whitten-Woodring and James also posit that

“watchdog journalism is influenced by whether there is a need for it.”57 My case studies will suggest that the degree to which the media acts as a watchdog is affected by the degree to which governments are perceived to keep their activities in secrecy, for the forbidden fruit is sweet, the obscured is intriguing If governments are hiding a large portion of their intelligence activities, watchdogs become suspicious and more motivated to find out the truth Their motivation is strengthened further by the ‘newsworthiness’ of intelligence stories, which are perceived to be

55 Whitten-Woodring,and James, p 119

56 Ibid, p 118

57 Ibid, p 120

full of conflict and drama Such stories normally lead to a bigger audience, which is one of the main targets of the media companies regardless of their profit orientation On the other hand, we assume that a reputation for openness and transparency discourage the media to dig in deep Because if the necessary information is available and easily accessible (i.e in official reports, statements, press-releases, minutes of meetings, etc.) the media finds itself satisfied with already large amount of knowledge to be analyzed

However, we also assume that when the secrecy (S) reaches its apogee (S2), it becomes almost impossible for the media to get information about governments’ activities Consequently, while watchdogging is an increasing function of perceived state secrecy, this activity declines, when a great deal of information is kept hidden In further chapters, my case studies of Israeli and Iranian intelligence service will illustrate this phenomenon

Based on the data from nongovernmental organizations that monitor media freedom and attacks on journalists, Whitten-Woodring and James argue that “media workers in states where media are only partly free from government control will sometimes report on government repression even if doing so puts them in great peril.”59 For example “countries like Sri Lanka, the

58 Byman, Daniel L., and Matthew C Waxman "Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate." International Security

(2000) P 9

59 Whitten-Woodring and James, p 115

Philippines, and Russia, where attacks on and murders of media workers are more common, are not necessarily those with the world’s most repressive media environments, but are generally places where private or independent voices do exist and some journalists are willing to pursue dangerous stories.”60

However, as in the case with “secrecy”, when state coercion is severe (C2), the watchdogging is anticipated to decline, because the legitimate fear of prosecution, arrest, murder, or the endangerment of family members, causes journalists to censor themselves Looking ahead, this is especially relevant in dealing with the ISS – a type of intelligence service, which uses violent measures to suppress domestic opposition

0

CAnother condition that plays an important role in the journalists’ ability to play the watchdog role is the professional environment, in which they operate Regardless the geography and political regimes, the basis of media professionalism is the journalist’s moral responsibility

to its audience, which is to expose information that the public ought to know about

Michael Gurevitch and Jay Blumler emphasize the most important features of media professionalism, such as “surveillance of the sociopolitical environment, reporting developments likely to impinge, positively or negatively, on the welfare of citizens; meaningful agenda-setting, identifying the key issues of the day, including the forces that have formed and may resolve them; dialogue across a diverse range of views, as well as between power holders and mass publics; incentives for citizens to learn, choose and become involved, rather than merely to follow and kibitz the political process; a principal resistance to the efforts of forces outside the media to subvert their independence, integrity and ability to serve the audience.” 61

60 Ibid, p 116

61 Lichtenberg, Judith Democracy and the Mass Media: A Collection of Essays Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1990 P 25

According to Whitten-Woodring, reporters’ professionalism has been the crucial characteristic in maintaining a watchdog role of the media in the repressing environments of Uganda and Mexico In Uganda, regardless of the government’s efforts to oppress the journalistic freedom, the reporters chose “to risk arrests rather than sacrifice their journalistic freedom and ethics.”62 Similarly, in Mexico, the media was inspired with the “disaffection with the political system and exposure to foreign models.”63

Hereby, in our last graph in this section we conclude that watchdog media have a positive relationship with media professionalism (MP):

to the perspectives of the highest powers in the system.”64

62 Whitten-Woodring, p 600

63 Ibid

64 Malikova, Svetlana “ The Role of Mass Media in the Survival Or Failure of Democracies.” MA thesis, State University of New York P 20

In the first rank of the supporters of this assertion we find Edward Herman and Noam

Chomsky with their Propaganda Model, which was laid out in their 1988 book Manufacturing

Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media Herman and Chomsky explain bias in the

media in liberal democracies, especially the United States The authors argue that the “media serves ‘political ends’ by mobilizing bias, patterning news choices and marginalizing dissent, and by allowing the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public.”65 Their propaganda model states that there are five filters, which define what is ‘the news’; put differently, what stories are finally presented in newspapers or TV channels These filters are the following: ownership of the media; funding sources; flak (negative reaction to media statements); the reliance of the media on information provided by government; and because the book was written in a Cold War context, anti-communism Herman and Chomsky suggest that these filters serve as gates that limit the range of news appearing on TV or in newspapers

There are several possible explanations for why journalists would voluntarily or involuntarily become the advocates of intelligence services For the purposes of this thesis, we combine them into two general explanations for partial behavior of the media: media sourcing (MS) and media punishment (MP)

Firstly, media bias occurs when government agencies provide the media with publish news This is more apparent for media companies that are owned either by the state or state-run companies, which allows for limitless favorable coverage or concealing of government activities A classic example is the case of the Russian Federation, where “51% of the main

ready-to-nationwide television network, First Channel, is owned by the state with the rest in the hands of

state enterprises.”66 The state-owned enterprise Gazprom, Russia’s biggest energy company, owns the channels NTV and TNT.67 Ren-TV and Channel 5 are owned by National Media Group (NMG), which again is owned by Bank Rossia The main shareholders of these companies are the brothers Kovalchuck, said to have close connections to Putin Channel Rossiya, Channel

Kultura and Channel Vesti-24 are directly owned by the state.”68 In such conditions it is hard to

65Klaehn, Jeffery Filtering the News: Essays on Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model Montreal: Black Rose

Books, 2005 P 4

66Nemniy, Vladimir Elektronim SMI — Polozhitel'ni Zaryad "The Electronic Media — a Positive Charge." 2005,

available at http://grani.ru/Society/Media/m.96932.html [accessed July 6, 2013]

67 Gazprom Media Holding’s Official Website, www.gazprom-media.com/en/tv.xml [accessed July 6, 2013]

68 Nemniy, 2005

argue for the existence of any real objectivity of the news outlets, as they serve the political elites, rather than the needs of their audience.

It may seem that this is intrinsic just for non-democratic regimes However, it would be fair to say that considerable media-sourcing happens in democratic societies as well Here the

“dominant elites routinely facilitate the news gathering process, providing press releases, advance copies of speeches, periodicals, photo opportunities, etc.”69 Klaehn suggests that

“government and corporate sources are attractive to the media for purely economic reasons Such sources are favored and are routinely endorsed and legitimized by the media because they

are recognizable and typically viewed as prima facie credible Information provided to media by

corporate and state sources does not require fact checking or costly background research and is typically portrayed as accurate.”70 Chomsky and Herman add, that “the media may feel obligated

to carry extremely dubious stories and mute criticism in order not to offend their sources in government and disturb a close relationship.”71 Consequently, such domination by official sources almost always brings to a media bias, because these sources are perceived to be

or any coverage critical of national security officials’ activities is one of the ways to prevent

69Chomsky, Noam, and Carlos Peregrín Otero Language and Politics Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2004 P 19

70 Klaehn, p.5

71 Chomsky, 1988, p 22

them from doing that In the most severe cases journalists are intimidated and threatened when they gain access to sensitive information or when there is little tolerance for media criticism Normally in such instances the judicial system fails to protect journalists’ nationally and internationally guaranteed rights (for example, those guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), not to mention the public’s right to be informed on certain issues The main perpetrators of such repression are usually police force and criminal organizations with possible links with government officials These hidden ties also cause a culture of impunity that discourages an independent and objective press Under such conditions, dissident reporters often suffer from persistent attacks and are forced to leave the country Others, under the fear of violence against them and their families, dare not raise their voices in the protection of their constitutional rights.

Another means to punish journalists is to boycott them “Because the press and the government are in a symbiotic relationship - with the press depending on the government, and vice versa, - government officials can temporarily stop returning the phone calls of disfavored journalists The press can be excluded from a press briefing, denied access to other proceedings, etc.”72

Also, licensing can be a method by which private media outlets can be regulated A media company may be deprived of its license or threatened with this punishment if it crosses the ‘unwritten’ redlines of admissible coverage In most cases, the official reason for the suspension of the license, obviously, would not be made clear

One recent example of this punishment comes from Ukraine, where “in August 2010 two independent television companies had a number of their licenses withdrawn due to alleged irregularities in their initial allocation However, Valeriy Khoroshkovsky, the owner of a rival media group and the head of the Ukrainian Security Service, was accused by one of the stations

of influencing the decision”73, the Freedom House report says A more complex negative

consequence of this is that even the outlets that are not subject to such decisions, self-censor their own reports to avoid similar consequences, which in turn erodes the very notion of impartial and diverse media “Actual shutdowns of media outlets are sometimes processed

72 Papandrea, Mary-Rose "Lapdogs, Watchdogs, and Scapegoats: The Press and National Security Information." (2008) P 256

73 A Freedom House “License to Censor: The Use of Media Regulation to Restrict Press Freedom.” September

2011 P 8

through legal channels but more commonly occur as the result of an extralegal executive decision While they are often temporary, the closures occasionally become permanent They are frequently imposed in periods of political or social tension, such as during election campaigns, protest movements, or outbreaks of ethnic or religious violence.”74 In most of the cases, the authorities would justify it by technical infringements, like in the Ukrainian case, while the true reason is to keep unfavorable media or certain reporters silent

Additionally, advertising boycotts can be used against private and perceived government news outlets, as state-owned companies normally buy advertising space in ‘loyal’ media in exchange for favorable editorial policies

anti-In Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model such ‘disciplining’ is called ‘flak’ “It refers to negative responses to a media statement or program and may be organized centrally or locally, or it may consist of entirely independent actions of individuals.” 75 “This may take the form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, lawsuits, […] and other modes of complaint, threat and punitive action.”76 Flak is, no doubt, costly to the media, mostly because of the loss of advertising income or the costs for numerous legal processes they often have to go through to defend their public image Besides governments, flak can also be arranged by private influence groups, such as advocacy groups or think tanks As the authors state, “the prospect of eliciting flak can be a deterrent to the reporting of certain kinds of facts or opinions.”77

Herewith, we observe a positive correlation between the degree of media punishment (MP) and the partial behavior of the media

Ultimately, media punishment results in self-censorship Indeed, intimidation, criminal prosecution, and financial pressure have a combined ‘dehydration’ effect that undermines the development and persistence of a free, objective and professional media Self-censorship happens when the media outlets pre-select ‘right-thinking’ reporters and adjust their policy not

to upset their owners, advertisers, parent companies, or those in political power In his report

‘Self-censorship: Why We Do the Censors’ Work for them’, Paul Sturges suggests that the feeling of fear is the ultimate and essential reason for self-censorship He further adds:

Dealing with terror first of all, it has to be acknowledged that some people do not reveal what they know or think because they have a very real fear of beatings, confinement, torture, and violent death that has nothing to do with the formal apparatus of the state or any other organization Clandestine hit squads of off-duty policemen or soldiers, members of political movements or, quite simply, hired thugs exist in many countries Political dissidents, social individualists, members of marginalized groups, and the journalists who might try to reflect their views are at threat in many countries, particularly those of Asia, Africa and Latin America.78

Sturges highlights the well-known case of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s assassination Politkovskaya reported critically on Putin’s regime and accused the Federal Security Service (FSB) – Russian domestic secret service - of suppressing civil rights and in order to re-establish another KGB Following the murder of Politkovskaya, which is widely accepted to have been organized by the FSB, the fear of self-censorship emerged in journalistic

circles The Guardian's Moscow correspondent, Tom Parfitt, said: "My fear is that almost

unconsciously one starts to self-censor what one does, because in the back of one's head is the idea that ‘Oh maybe I shouldn't write that potentially damaging or critical thing about prime minister Kadyrov in Chechnya, because I might get some comeback from it.”79

A term that is closely associated with self-censorship, and sometimes misinterpreted as its synonym, is self-regulation The difference between these two terms is drastic Self-regulation happens when the media voluntarily choose not to cover certain issues for national security reasons, concerns for territorial integrity, social stability, the rise of xenophobia, etc In a self-regulatory system, the media industry essentially polices itself through bodies such as a

78 Sturges, Paul " Self-Censorship: Why We Do The Censors' Work for Them." Delivered at LIBCOM Conference

in Russia, 2008

79"Murder of Russian Journalist Leads to Self-censorship Fear." Press Gazette, October 11, 2006, available at

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/node/35925 [accessed July 6, 2013]

nongovernmental media council or an ombudsman, which monitor compliance with agreed-upon codes of conduct In contrast with self-censorship, self-regulation has no correlation with government’s coercion or any kind of media punishment One real world example of such practice is the British invention - Defence Advisory Notice (DA-Notice) It is an official notice sent to media outlets requesting them not to publicize certain issues, such as the details of intelligence operations in the name of national security “For example, recently, broadcasters were asked not to show live pictures of military aircraft leaving UK bases for Libya, lest it give Gaddafi's forces any clues about targets.”80

I will explore the DA-Notice system in forthcoming chapters, and highlight the contrast between self-censorship and self-regulation in our case studies of the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom, where, I believe, the media-intelligence interactions illustrate the difference between these two practices At the same time, I do not exclude the self-regulation mechanism from our category of the partial media behavior Guiding the journalists to apply self-regulative mechanisms still means to putting restrictions on them and urging them to cover sensitive issues

in a light that is beneficial to the government’s policy

Overall, this chapter has shown that the media’s motivation and ability to scrutinize the intelligence services’ activities and serve as a check on their behavior depends on a number of factors and institutions, which are not essentially related to certain political regimes This understanding is more appropriate for my study, because it explains the presence of both watchdog and partial media outlets in my case studies of the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation, though these states fall under different categories of political regimes

80 Grimley, Naomi "Does the DA-Notice Inhibit Press Freedom?" The Guardian, available at

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/aug/22/ministry-of-defence-newspapers [accessed July 6, 2013]

CHAPTER III: THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

This chapter provides a theoretical framework for our understanding of intelligence as an institution with a hierarchical organization, fixed roles and areas of activity Because the field of intelligence studies is broad and complicated by the shadow of secrecy surrounding it, we will focus on just a few aspects of intelligence organizations’ activities, and in particular on the power relationships across the nexus of state, intelligence, and society The logical conclusions drawn from this exploration will help us understand why different intelligence agencies choose a certain type of relationship with media outlets This chapter also sets a theoretical background for our study of intelligence apparatus in the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation

A Conceptual framework

As I have noted earlier, due to the broad nature of this phenomenon, there is no consensus within intelligence theorists and practitioners on the definition of intelligence Most of them stress the ‘informational’ aspect of the term and sometimes equate ‘information’ and

‘intelligence.’ In this project I apply Mark Lowenthal’s multidimensional definition of intelligence consisting of three different but interconnected phenomena: first, he defines intelligence as a process: “Intelligence can be thought of as the means by which certain types of information are required and requested, collected, analyzed, and disseminated, and as the way in which certain types of covert action are conceived and conducted.”81 Second, Lowenthal refers

to intelligence as a product: “Intelligence can be thought of as the product of these processes, that is, as the analysis and intelligence operations themselves.”82 And finally, it is the organization: “Intelligence can be thought of as the units that carry out its various functions.”83 I will focus on the third aspect of Lowenthal’s definition, which looks at intelligence as an institution with distinct behavioral codes, policy agenda and ordering effect on how authority and power should be constituted, exercised, and distributed This definition makes us consider how intelligence organizations relate with other institutions, such as the media, and to what

81 Lowenthal, p.8

82 Ibid

83 Ibid

extent intelligence services’ behavior is constrained or enabled by the rest of the state and the society.

For the purpose of this study I apply three-partite typology of security intelligence

agencies developed by Peter Gill in his Policing Politics Security Intelligence and the Liberal

Democratic State Gill’s categorization is relevant to this analysis, because it elaborates on

preconditions, which affect the formation of a certain type of intelligence organization Before I proceed to the typology itself, it will be useful to unravel these preconditions in order to be accurate in my categorization of the British and the Russian Intelligence services in our last chapters

At the heart of Gill’s typology are the concepts of ‘autonomy’ and ‘penetration’

“Autonomy encompasses the relationship between internal security agencies and the state.”84 It

is measured by the degree of independence the intelligence apparatus enjoys from the rest of the state, which in turn demonstrated results from the mechanisms of external oversight by the executive, legislative and juridical branches of the state

Penetration represents the degree to which intelligence influences society “Albeit a

‘masculinist’ term, it does convey a sense of security agencies attempting, sometimes against resistance, sometimes unheeded, to gather information and exercise power within a particular context of law and rules which facilitates the state’s efforts to maintain security and order.”85

Intelligence organizations with low degree of penetration are those with a clear statutory basis, organizational structure and a straightforward designation of its roles and functions

To measure the degree of the intelligence autonomy, we analyze the institution of oversight Accordingly, the stronger the institutions of intelligence services oversight, the lower their autonomy from the state

84 Gill, 1994, p 79

85 Ibid

B Intelligence Services’ Oversight

There is general agreement that there are three types of oversight: executive, legislative, and judicial oversight Each of them plays its specific part in keeping intelligence services accountable

Executive Oversight

Executive oversight, represented either by the President or the Cabinet of Ministers, or both, is typically the key mechanism ensuring that intelligence organizations conduct their functions properly, because it is mostly the executive branch that defines the purposes of the intelligence community and organizes it “Further, the executive branch is the primary consumer

of intelligence and therefore provides the greatest direction for the intelligence services on a daily basis.”86

The primary task of the executive is to ensure that intelligence services do not step beyond their responsibilities when they collect and analyze intelligence information Ideally, executive oversight will also make sure that the intelligence services do not compromise the independence of the media Another responsibility of the executive branch is to detect intelligence failures and take measures not to let them happen again

Legislative Oversight

Legislative branch “creates the key organizational, budgetary, personnel, and legal oversight mechanisms for intelligence services.”87 It may also serve as a check and balance of executive’s control of the intelligence community, ensuring that the executive does not misuse or manipulate the intelligence services for its own parochial ends The legislative branch may also review intelligence activity more effectively than the Executive, because intelligence services are often part of the executive branch and may receive direction from the Cabinet of Ministers or Head of state

86 Bruneau, Dombroski, p 14

87 Ibid, p 15

The secretive nature of intelligence work restricts and hampers parliamentary involvement in oversight Nevertheless, as the people’s representatives, parliaments need access

to intelligence information A solution to this dilemma is sometimes found in the establishment

of special parliamentary committees for intelligence oversight, which “should have the right to request reports, hearings and conduct investigations to expose shortcomings or abuses In order

to be able to perform this task, those parliamentarians must have – besides their integrity - the trust of both the intelligence services and the public.”88 Ideally, the parliament’s oversight committee should not give any directions on intelligence activities Simultaneously, it must not speak as an advocate of the intelligence community, because in both cases it may let politics spill over into the world of intelligence, which degrades the intelligence mission and its product

Some of the best examples of such parliamentary oversight committees may be found in Parliamentary Control Panel in Germany, the Intelligence and Security Committee in the United Kingdom, and the Bicameral Commission on Intelligence in Argentina

Judicial Oversight

“Judicial control encompasses an independent judiciary empowered to review and interpret the legal framework for which intelligence operations are conducted.”89 However, the judiciary is normally the less involved branch in intelligence oversight One of the reasons why intelligence-related cases reach the courts rarely is that “judges generally do not see it as their task to supervise the exercise of intelligence functions, but rather to review their constitutionality, legality or compliance with human rights standards.”90 Nevertheless, judicial oversight over the intelligence activities allows the courts to function as a final curb on arbitrary

or abusive uses of power by intelligence services

Judicial oversight of security intelligence issues has both its benefits and drawbacks “On the positive side, in most liberal states judges are perceived to be independent of the government; their detached view lends credibility to the system of oversight in the eyes of the

88Intelligence Services and Democracy Working Paper Series No 13 Geneva: Geneva Centre for Democratic

Control of Armed Forces, 2002 P 12

89 Bruneau, Boraz, p 15

90Born, Hans, and Ian Leigh "Democratic Accountability of Intelligence Services Policy Paper №19." Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Force (2007): P 14

public.”91 In worst cases, however, the judiciary is generally involved in maintaining the ‘legal’ umbrella for keeping sensitive or potentially sensitive information even more secret and punishing those who violate such state of affair, e.g leakers, whistle-blowers, independent reporters, etc

C. Penetration Intelligence Structure

The extent to which intelligence is able to penetrate society is one of the major indicators

of its accountability High level of penetration means that the intelligence agency holds an

unchecked power in monitoring and carrying out surveillance over citizens to the extent that it

prevents their political and social freedoms This includes illegal phone tapping, monitoring emails, social networks, financial and medical records, etc

I suggest that it is the organizational structure of the intelligence community that affects its ability to transgress the boundaries of their legal authority and abuse the basic principles of human rights

There is a belief both among the theorists and practitioners of the security services that domestic and foreign intelligence should be separated The rationale is that domestic and foreign operations are conducted with different mechanisms, for different purposes and should not be mixed up “The mission of domestic intelligence generally is to obtain, correlate and evaluate intelligence relevant to internal security Internal security aims for protection of the state, territory and society against acts of terrorism, espionage, sabotage, subversion, extremism, organized crime, narcotics production and trafficking, etc.”92

The purpose of foreign intelligence is to collect, analyze of information, which is required for the maintenance of external security With this aim, foreign intelligence focuses its activity on foreign threats and risks, evaluates the probability of activities overseas and their possible outcome Thus, “information is needed about intentions, capabilities and activities of

91 Ibid

92Born, H., and Marina Caparini Democratic Control of Intelligence Services Containing Rogue Elephants

Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007 P 31

foreign powers, organizations, groups or persons that represent actual or potential threats to the state and its interests.”93

On the other hand, domestic intelligence should be distinguished from law enforcement,

as the two services have fundamentally different objectives While the aim of the both services is

to maintain domestic stability, “the law enforcement’s goal is to get a conviction in a specific criminal case, and the task of the intelligence is to collect as much information as possible on potential threats to the state and society.”94

A separation of functions and powers is generally aimed to “prevent any single entity from having a monopoly on the production and use” of information.95 Some successful examples

of separation of powers may be found in the intelligence services in the United Kingdom (MI5 and MI6) the United States (the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation) As for the ‘failed cases’, the general picture is that the functions and responsibilities of domestic and foreign intelligence, and law enforcement organizations overlap

or become indistinguishable, and the legislation on which they are based is normally too elusive

to solve the issue Intelligence agencies in such cases are used to “identify domestic opponents, neutralize opposition to the government, and seek to generate domestic apathy or at least acquiescence to the regime’s rule using a variety of means, including control over the media.”96

One example of such security service is the Iranian intelligence community which includes the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Ministry of Intelligence and

Security (MOIS) known as VEVAK (Vezarat-e Ettela'atvaAmniyat-e Keshvar) “IRGC is a

complex combination of institutions - army forces, intelligence services, undercover and special operations forces, police, paramilitary forces and business groups with implications at a global level […] It is regarded as a military backbone of the state, and at the same time a social, political and business organization, […] produces a large number of political and business leaders and is involved in various domains of the state […] The security division of the IRGC

93Intelligence Services and Democracy Working Paper Series No 13, p 3

94 Ibid, p 4

95 Bruneau, Dombroski, p 16

96 Ibid, p 2