Counterterrorism Blog

Lord Admiral Alan West, Gordon Brown's chief security minister made an unfortunate mistake yesterday - he spoke his mind. When asked at 8.20am whether, he thought detention times should be extended past 28 days he said, "I'm not convinced we need to hold terror suspects longer than 28 days". Following a breakfast meeting with the Prime Minister he emerged from Downing Street stating that, "Actually, I am convinced". Lord West is not a career politician and was bought into government by Gordon Brown as GOAT (Government of all the Talents). Moving the detention time for terrorists is a political power-play by the government and has little to do with what is actually needed. This episode also highlights an unfortunate trend in Britain, whereby Security and Intelligence officials are forced into making statements for political consumption. In the long run this is to the benefit of neither them or the public they are there to serve.

The focus of my CT blog postings is to be the intersection of terrorism, technology and innovation. By way of introducing the subject and demonstrating how they interact I would like to make some comment on the debate that continues in the UK regarding pre-charge detention times as they relate to terrorist offences.

The current terrorist threat faced by the U.K. is different to what has preceded it, but then no new security threat is the same as that which came before it. Terrorists innovate and adapt technology, so while the threat from domestic jihadi terrorism is of a new kind, the scale of home grown extremist threats in the UK is not. MI5 has long tracked more individuals than the 2,000 extremists that its new head claims are operating in the UK. The two main tactical innovations that jihadi terrorists have applied in the UK, which have proven so disruptive to the British legal and procedural response, are suicide bombing and use of the Internet. In essence the stated need for increased pre-charge detention times is a government tactical response to the terrorists tactical shift to suicide bombing. The practice of counter-terrorism has indeed changed since the days of the Provisional IRA. Counter-terrorism commanders tasked with intercepting terrorists no longer have the ability to allow plots to run long enough to form conclusive evidence against a terrorist cell - the introduction of suicide bombing compresses the space for interdiction. With the conviction against the Metropolitan Police in the de Menezes case under public health and safety legislation, the disruption of plots may now have to happen even further up the chain of events. This leads to an evidential reliance on material collected from suspect terrorist’s computers -- due to the terrorist use of the Internet for planning and communicating and the fact that ‘wiretap’ evidence is still considered to be outside the legal process.

The system of forensically discovering incriminating evidence on computers is time-consuming given the mass of data potentially involved in a large-scale plot. Hence, the stated need for the increased detention times. However, when faced with new threats it is imperative that the counter-terrorist agencies also innovate, and in this case the creation of specialized search software for use on seized computers may negate the need for dismantling important legal protections. The challenge is one of software not legislation. But is also likely that terrorists will simply change the rules of the game to ensure incriminating data isn’t held on hard-drives that can be seized, rendering this particular avenue of prosecution obsolete as well as making the debate over detention times seem rather quaint.

As part of the political battle surrounding detention times (Gordon Brown is said to favor an increase to 56 days) the British government has taken to using senior police and intelligence officers to bolster its case. All of these figures will focus on the need to change and add to the law’s covering terrorism - something the government has done four times since 2000 and proposes to do once more. British counter-terrorism doesn’t need new law it needs new technology, coupled with a recognition it is now fighting in a virtual landscape. Therefore, the next time the head of MI5 makes a public speech, it would be more re-assuring if he were announcing a deal with Google!