Police Scotland was currently caught up in a ‘spying controversy’ but no chance of that here because we have ‘The Guardians’!
It sounds a bit like an ITV 70s drama with Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman but it’s ‘gen’!
The whole world is under surveillance, if Edward Snowden is to be believed, but in the Isle of Man we have ‘snooping’ regulation sewn up pretty tight.
We have two ‘oversight’ commissioners and each year they have to produce a report which you would think must be worthy of scrutiny. However it turns out they are not!
The Communications Commissioner is Suzie Alegre. The last report she produced ran to six pages. However, if you are expecting any detail in there it’s pretty bare reading. Page one is a preamble of the role and the last para is just thanking everyone that a communications commissioner has to ‘probe’! In between there’s not much else except there doesn’t seem to be a great deal to worry about. Well, other than the fact that some statements seem contradictory (perhaps it’s just me) such as:
‘I note that this is a slight decrease in numbers as compared to 2013 but is still a relatively high number of warrants compared to previous years’, followed by ‘I don’t believe that the number of warrants gives a true picture of the relatively small scale of interception activity that is going on’.
Worryingly, she also indicates that the rules don’t always get followed saying: ‘The majority of the warrants were cancelled within the “relevant period” as defined by the Act but a small number of warrants were allowed to expire without official cancellation due to the fact that neither the Chief Minister nor the Minister for Home Affairs was available to approve the requested cancellation within the relevant time limits.’ Makes one wonder what is preoccupying Allan Bell and Juan Watterson so much.
She reassures: ‘I am satisfied ... that this delay was purely administrative and didn’t have a practical impact on the interception.’ So that’s al lright then!
At one point the report does start to get exciting with a reference to the AG saying: ‘The Act includes a requirement for consultation with the Attorney General. I can see that this has been done in relation to all warrants. I understand that there was a brief issue with the Acting Attorney General’s ability to delegate but that this didn’t affect any warrants in practice and has now been resolved through the Interpretation (Amendment) Act 2015.’ As we’ve been paying for two AGs this is exciting. However our excitement is unresolved as we don’t get to know what the ‘brief issue’ was. .
Our second ‘oversight’ guardian is Brendan O’Friel, the Surveillance Commissioner. If anything his report is more disappointing than Suzie’s. It runs to four pages and one of them is the snazzy cover.
If you persevere anyway it is pretty barren reading. The only thing of note is that authorisations for surveillance are up for the third year on the trot.
There is an item of interest where he outlines that ‘authorised surveillance played a significant part’ in recovering in recovering nearly a quarter of a million pounds. However, as always no detail so how can we judge the ‘significant’ bit! Interest awakens again when the AG pops up here as well but it’s fairly anodyne stuff.
Both reports are fairly bland and it really does make you wonder what the value of these ‘oversight’ bodies is.
It’s all a far cry from the early 1980s when the Manx police had their own secret snooping guidelines which they just made up themselves and they didn’t answer to anyone. Or the early part of this century when the police bizarrely tapped the phones of a number of their colleagues. We never got to find out what that was all about and you certainly didn’t find any light shone on it in any reports of the day!