Although this is a bit of a whitewash, it's good to see these issues discussed, and spies questioned to some extent, and forced to justify their activities in p

Although this is a bit of a whitewash, it's good to see these issues discussed, and spies questioned to some extent, and forced to justify their activities in public for the first time. Asked about complicity in torture. Sir John of MI6: "I don't accept the allegations that have been made against us" There have been several court cases about M16 involvement in torture, including that of Abdel Hakim Belhaj, which exposes our cynical backing for terrorists when it suits our agenda after sending them to be tortured just a few years before. GCHQ denies listening into telephone calls or reading emails of the majority. "That would not be proportionate, that would not be legal, and we would not do it." Like Obama, they're denying something they haven't been accused of. Tempora is storing and sharing with the NSA as much data as they can manage, even though it's not legal or proportionate. This non-denial is very misleading if you don't know that background. They don't need to read emails or listen to phone calls for this to be incredibly dangerous - it's enough that everything is recorded and stored for potential future or current use by any partners with access. 34 terrorist plots have been thwarted in the UK since the 7/7 London bombings. One or two were major plots aimed at mass casualties. What's most interesting is the focus on terrorism as a way to deflect criticism - they've learned that talking about terror switches off the brain quite effectively and stops people doing a risk benefit analysis. This is incredibly useful, as along with having broad laws passed which restrict rights as part of the war on terror, they can tar anyone with that brush, and immediately turn the public against them. According to Kovats QC for the gov. in the Miranda case, we have a new definition of terrorism: "simply having this data is terrorism". Terrorism is not a great threat to either the US or the UK - a tiny number of people have been killed by it, and yet it is painted as an existential threat which must be fought at all costs. Many of their activities have nothing to do with terrorism, but we've heard nothing about the Belgacom hack (Operation Socialist), tapping cables crossing the Atlantic, subverting encryption protocols, tapping internal traffic at providers like Google for the NSA, tapping G20 attendees, Mastering the Internet™ with Tempora, or tapping Merkel's phone. Very little of that is useful for combatting terrorism (most terrorism is not organised on the internet but face to face, terrorists like Bin Laden are not stupid), but it's very useful for economic and political espionage. That none of that has been mentioned, let alone questioned, betrays just how little proper supervision this committee provides.