To siblings: I don't think nbevans is burying his head in the sand. I think he means that the assets are more effective if they're secret, and he would prefer them to be effective.
As for the second paragraph, the more cooperation between intelligence systems, the more benefit for each system as well as the more risk to each when one is compromised. I imagine this is a demonstration of the violation of some rule of compartmentalization in intelligence theory. If you don't want to get any American damage on you, don't run with Americans.
I agree with your analysis of nbevans' post, but another valid reason not to know might be simple embarrassment at the incompetence of the secret state. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER for an eye-opening read, for example.
Of course, if the British secret state is in fact a highly competent totalitarian entity aiming at hiding their powers, that might be just exactly what they'd want you to read.. :)
Seriously for a moment though, I think the article, though well worth reading, kind of misses a significant point that protecting us from the Communist Threat (sorry, the Islamist Threat, nowadays) is not the be-all and end-all of MI5 &co's raison d'etre. I believe a significant part of their resources has, at least for the last 50 years or so, been aimed at suppressing non-criminal organised domestic dissent, and ensuring the continued dominance of the traditional rulers of our nation. For examples, tapping CND's telephones, involvement in smearing the Wilson government, infiltration of trade unions and the labour movement, etc. etc. none of which groups posed any serious criminal threat to "the establishment."
I suspect a detailed accounting might find a good deal more success in those activities than in the ones alluded to in Curtis' post.
I could not agree more. I'm staggered I've been down voted into oblivion for actually holding an opinion. I bet the down voters aren't even Brits so they don't even understand my point of view.
We suffered massively from American foreign policies in recent decades and we continue to suffer from, in this case, "renegade" NSA agents that defect to Russia and upload all British secrets to the internet.
I'm British and I don't think you have been downvoted for merely holding an opinion, but rather for supreme arrogance combined with a complete ignorance of the realities of the situation.
Again, my posts here are "lost" on the typical HN sheep. The average Brit doesn't really care about GCHQ or Snowden or the fact we're wire tapping everything in sight. They. Just. Don't. Care.
The absolute peak of the Snowden story in the UK was when it was disclosed that some GCHQ "Spooks" took an angle grinder and baseball bat to some computers in the basement The Guardian headquarters. Mainly because it reminded them of some sort of comedy sketch. After that blew over and nobody cared anymore. That's why it's only tech publications like The Register seemingly carrying this more recent story.
The reaction in the UK was lacklustre, I believe, because privacy in the UK was already eroded a long time ago. For example you can't even walk 10 meters in London without being recorded on some CCTV system somewhere. Or drive more than a couple streets without your car's registration being recorded on police cameras.
I'm one of the few that actually 1) has an opinion 2) it happens to be contrary to the typical expected American view of "this violates a tiny amount of my privacy therefore let's burn it at the stake".
Fucking hell, you aren't just digging yourself a hole here, you're using state of the art high speed tunneling equipment to do it with. Any other assorted nuggets you care to enlighten us with before you get too deep for signals to reach the surface anymore?
As for the second paragraph, the more cooperation between intelligence systems, the more benefit for each system as well as the more risk to each when one is compromised. I imagine this is a demonstration of the violation of some rule of compartmentalization in intelligence theory. If you don't want to get any American damage on you, don't run with Americans.