Bugging: 'Significant pressure'
I can reveal the identity of the former police officer who says that he carried out the bugging of a prison conversation between the Labour MP Sadiq Khan and a terror suspect.
A document seen by the 91Èȱ¬ reveals that Mark Kearney, the former police intelligence officer at Woodhill high security prison, says that he came under "significant pressure from the Metropolitan police requesting that we covertly record a social visit between a terrorist detainee and a member of Parliament....The MP concerned was Sadiq Khan, the member for Tooting, and indeed the constituent MP for the suspected terrorist... I did record the visit but have never felt it was justified in these circumstances. The government has already ordered an inquiry into the affair."
Kearney's involvement emerged in a statement he drew up as part of his defence against criminal charges that he leaked stories to a local newspaper journalist. Sources have told the 91Èȱ¬ that Khan, though not the formal target of the bugging, was of "significant interest" to the police, some of whom regarded him as "subversive". Mr Khan has chosen not to comment on the reports since his interview with Andrew Marr on Sunday. He won't be surprised that some in the Met are not fans of his given his role as a high profile lawyer and campaigner for civil liberties.
The Wilson doctrine, which was supposed to protect MPs from bugging, was drawn up after Harold Wilson was faced with revelations that the security service had bugged political activists including the young John Prescott, one of the leaders of the seaman's union.
The debate now will focus on whether political surveillance is returning, or whether MPs - like us all - should be liable to be bugged if there is a perceived threat to national security.
The government will not be helped by another revelation tonight. I've just been told that officials at the Ministry of Justice and the 91Èȱ¬ Office were told weeks ago - in December of last year - about the bugging, even though ministers were not told until two days ago. Questions are sure to follow about why ministers - and therefore Parliament and the public - were not told.
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Comments
Once again it is up to the press to tell politicians what everyone else in their department seems to already know.
And once again we need another enquiry taking up weeks of valuable time when ministers could get more facts by reading a few newspapers and blogs and asking their staff a few questions.
Is this Governemnt in meltdown or have we long passed that point ?
Maybe someone should order an enquiry into that too.
Nick, the prisoner was held on extradition charges for suspected support of terrorism.... surely you should have said an alleged terror suspect?
Regarding this surveillance question, there should be, at the very least, a Commons committee to oversea any security issue involving MPs. Was there no question of surveillance of Sinn Fein MPs who never took their seats?
The bigger question is, 'Is Parliament being deliberately bypassed?'
"But 91Èȱ¬ political editor Nick Robinson said ministers in charge had not been aware until the Sunday Times reports emerged this weekend."
Is that an accurate statement of what you said? It's not clear whether you are claiming yourself to have knowledge of whether or not ministers were aware, or whether you are reporting their denials, or some unnamed source's denial on their behalf. I can see this is most likely some mildly garbled summary of your last paragraph on this story, but could you clarify - yes, I understand you don't want to risk giving away clues that could identify your sources - can you nonetheless enlarge a little on what you've been told and/or what you are claiming here?
Also, could you perhaps elaborate on
"Mr Kearney faces charges - unrelated to the bugging claims - of leaking information to a local newspaper"
What charges? Official secrets act? Has he ever signed it? Or is this some general "you-may-not-speak-about" law? Apart from the OSA and the voluntary D-notice system, what other regulations are even relevant in this field?
No law should be passed which is not applicable to all the residents in a country. To imagine that MP's should be exempt from a legal system they themselves created is mind boggling. Equality is not dispensed, it is absorbed.
Des Currie
This all seems very suspicious. Rules being ignored, ministers being kept in the dark - I wonder if we'll ever learn the true purpose behind all of this.
Dear Nick
This has come to light because its been spotted, Every day, people are bugged, ordinary people journalists judges, trade unionists, and it has been going on since the millenium.yOU may SAY THATS NOT CORRECT, but IT IS, OVER 1000 people aday are bugged.Not only by the police but social services, private detectives, The security Services, HM customs, its rife, and the WILSON bug, goes to show what goes on in Politics, becsuse even today MPs ARE bugged, regardless of the statements to the contrary, ever get the F.I.O, data on bugging, IF you can??
Of all the section of society I am of the opinion that politicians are the least to be trusted. They are self-centred, self opinionated, of doutful moral stamnding and profligate with the public purse in pursuit of their own interests. Their honesty is questionable and they should not be exempt from surveillance
Just what the situation required; MP’s now find that they are now caught in the same creep of state surveillance as the rest of us. The question is will they accept that it has all gone too far or just exempt themselves from its reach.
Hi Nick,
As I wrote yesterday. Bugging, MP or not, should only be allowed if authorised by a suitably knowledgable judge, like they do in the USA.
Civil liberties and the right to privacy needs to be enshrined in British law and it about time we elected in a government which realised the importance of this and did something to claw back all the liberties we have given up.
Nick
Why do you just repeat the Government line - that it was first the fault of a junior official, then that, although officials in the departments knew, ministers were told nothing? Again David Davis produced a letter he had sent to the Prime Minister, and, conveniently enough, we learn that it never arrived and that the PM had not seen it.
And yet, all along the line, we learn that more people knew about it than at first admitted. Do you seriously believe that no minister had any idea, when even David Davis knew? This suggests either an outright lie, or total incompetence in running departments.
And you still try to broaden the debate - which the Government no doubt are willing you to do! - to say the real issue is should MPs be bugged. Surely the issue is whether we have been told the truth - but, sadly, that no longer seems to matter.
Nick, you seem to mumble jumble about where you got the info. or who knew what.
Why can you not get info. as to WHO and HOW did David Davis got to know about all this.
Maybe an interview with DD might shed some light!
This really goes back to the master control-freaks: Blair/Brown.
When the original plan was hatched for Labour to be the 'perpetual party of power' (PPP), it was necessary to be able to discredit potential opponents (the Opposition and independent thinkers in the party).
For the Met to think it was OK to bug an MP they must have had the nod from high-up.
Thanks to Blair/Brown we have a cowed House of Commons and a politicised civil service. The police are obviously next. After that, the courts will be 'controlled' to create a British version of Sharia law to ensure the one-party state.
For my money, matters of national security shouldn't be played out in the media, or used by political parties as a point scoring exercise. If an MP is considered (rightly or wrongly - intelligence suspicions are rarely definitive) to be a source of intelligence, or worse, a threat to national security, then the police and security services have a duty to keep tabs on them. It is a patent absurdity to suggest that modern day MPs should be in some way beyond the reach of those charged with protecting the country. We all know that not every MP is beyond reproach in their daily affairs; why should we believe that it is impossible in today's complicated world for one or more of them to have sympathies that are a threat to our safety? If the adage that nobody is above the law is true, then clearly so it should be for surveillance when necessary.
I know it is a side issue but your piece is another example of an increasing tendency to describe certain individuals as having "an interest in civil liberties" or being "civil liberties campaigners" as though these people were a peculiar fringe group.
The defense of civil liberties is not some antiquated minority sport like real tennis or quoits - it is the central purpose of government. Even Hobbes recognised that.
If the Met does not then perhaps we should not be surprised since its masters in Westminster have certainly forgotten it. I am reminded of Tony Blair's words in rejecting a petition calling for the abolition of the ID card scheme - he candidly admitted that he knew his arguments "would not satisfy those who object on civil liberties grounds" but he was determined to carry on regardless.
The purpose of laws is to define and enforce the goal of enhancing liberty and an MP who is a civil rights campaigner and a lawyer is therefore fulfilling his proper function. Any copper who regards that as subversive is confused. If the police broke the rules the better to impede the defence of liberties then it might be time someone explained to them just what it is that they are paid to defend in the first place.
It seems Mr Khan is, in effect, gagged by his position in the Government. I do hope he resigns his position the better to give his superiors both barrels
Why all the fuss? The rest of us can't even get on a bus without being spied on. If the MP and his jailed friend are doing no wrong, they've nothing to fear. Unless, like so many ordinary folk, he doesn't think the authorities can be trusted....well, he should know, being part of the hierarchy.
Of course I wouldn't want to see a Nixon-style situation with bugging for party political reasons, but this particular instance doesn't seem thus motivated. It would be more interesting to know the truth behind Arthur Scargill's claims that he was regularly monitored during the miners' strike - now if that really happened, that was very much a party-political bugging.....Mr.Scargill may not have been everybody's cup of tea, but he was hardly a potential terrorist.
What concerns me is who was the whistler-blower revealing the person/persons who reported the bugging. This country, like most of the democratic countries in the world, is at extreme peril from fanatical moslem terrorists. It's all very well to spout about civil rights, human rights, MPs privileges, etc., but when we are all dead, blown up by terrorist bombs, or living under strict Sharia law, these niceties will be no comfort.
Stories like this should really ring the alarm bells of the nation.
It has always been my understanding that we lived in a democracy. However under the current government there has been a steady erosion of the principal of democracy, i.e. civil liberty, the right of the individual at least notionally to determine the way in which they are governed.
The United Kingdom is slowly and subversively becoming a quasi Police state. This seems bizarre under a 'left wing' libertarian administration. That an elected member of parliament should be bugged, primarily because he was a thorn in the side of the Met is unacceptable in any free country. If a similar thing had occured in Russia or dare I say Iraq we would view it pretty poorly.