Secret info is best dispensed by a tap, not a tsunami

With intelligence information, it seems, it is flood or drought. For decades, Britain’s intelligence agencies operated so deep in the shadows that their public profile was defined largely by George Smiley and James Bond. Since 1994, they’ve crept slowly onto the public stage – in part thanks to the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) – and we now have a more accountable set of agencies operating under at least a modicum of democratic scrutiny.

In 2003, though, the objectivity and legitimacy of our intelligence agencies’ work was dramatically undermined; first by the weakness of their Iraq data – and its exaggeration to justify the invasion – and then by their connections to less scrupulous US allies in a war of dubious legality. This, perhaps inevitably, dragged their activities into the courts, causing serious reputational damage – and exposing far more of their work to public scrutiny than had ever been planned or anticipated.

Then came the Wikileaks – a flood of confidential information poured into the public domain, to be picked over by the world’s media. An outcome of the IT revolution, globalisation and growing disillusionment with western intelligence, in the short term the leaks will stoke tensions and create diplomatic embarrassment. The worst results, though, may take longer to emerge. Already, these leaks will have made North Korea’s and Iran’s leaders still more hostile and angry, condemning their populations to further deprivation and instability; and there is much more to come.

Some politicians and officials dislike the Freedom of Information Act, on the basis that it has made people less willing to take notes on private conversations within government; some intelligence officials, no doubt, would feel happier in the absence of the ISC. But both mechanisms have been shaped by accountable civil servants, approved by elected politicians, and designed to increase transparency and public scrutiny without putting at risk lives or property around the world.

The Wikileaks are different. Published without respect for the need for a confidential space between nations, without recognition of the possible impact on international relations, without consideration of the likely effects on whole populations, they represent an example of power without responsibility. Private negotiations between international actors are an essential ingredient in almost every successful peace process; when that space is weakened, so is the cause of peace.

Scrutiny is an essential tool in improving the accountability and quality of intelligence work, but – like the agencies themselves – it gains its legitimacy through a democratic process. So Britain has begun to irrigate our desert of intelligence information; but with these leaks, a lone maverick has opened the floodgates. And a flood like this has the potential to destroy irrigation systems, crops – and farmers too.