Why Bletchley Park could never happen today

So what can civilisation do if one man can REALLY wreck a country, can live within your borders (look at Oklahoma City, done by natural-born Americans), and can conceal his activities until it's too late? That's the biggest fear of the spy agencies: the existential threat (and it's hard to gauge a threat as existential until it's exposed or committed) that gets away. We may not be there YET, but there are signs it is dangerously close (the current leader is a long-incubation airborne rapidly-mutating RNA virus that's carried by a world-hopper who spends time in front of airport ventilation intakes and such).

As for human intelligence, they've always had a big problem: the bad guys know the good guys' rules and can screen based on them--usually by taking you past a point of no return. For example, picture an organization that won't trust you until you commit a murder and get on the wanted list (preferably that of a soldier which would basically make you a traitor). Now you're basically stuck with them.

The real reason why you couldnt do it today

is because the budget for carpeting and pictures in the foyer would be larger than that for IT.

"I will make it legal" - Emperor Palpatine

Perhaps the remit of GCHQ should be made completely public and written into law.

Within the remit of anti-terrorism and anti-espionage matters, GCHQ will be given the ability to investigate any and all data that could be captured within our shores, or utilising infrastructure which falls within our territories. Access to this data will be retained for use only by UK MI agencies, and any data requests from civilian authorities are to be rejected as standard, unless specific, pre-organised joint operations within GCHQ's direct remit are underway.

In short, the police will not be allowed access to any of this data, unless they are assisting on a terrorism / espionage case and have a specific need-to-know. Any data capture by the police must be carried out within their own legal boundaries.

Data and information captured by GCHQ with no intelligence within their remit (and including any evidence of crimes at all levels- murder, child porn, drug distribution, TV-show piracy etc) is to be destroyed, and not made availalbe to local authorites.

Who is the enemy?

I think another problem is the constant shifting of focus: especially the Americans drop friends easily. Who was once an ally in the fight against communism is now an enemy in the fight against "terrorism". So if someone has been sworn in to help this person/group/country suddenly finds himself ordered to fight the same person/group/country.

No War

A very well written and interesting take on the difference between the situations, but I think the main point is the second paragraph on the first page.

The difference between then and now is quite simply we were in the middle of an industrial war, for the people at doing the code breaking it was a matter of not ‘national security’ but ‘national survival’ the enemy was tangible and identifiable threat and the effects of the war could be seen on a day to day basis.

After the war the people that worked there kept the secrets because of the tangible and identifiable threat of the USSR and WWIII, and they had seen how important their work was, how it aided the allies and what happened because of it.

Snowden, rightly or wrongly (and if you believe him) was against the idea of the US ‘spying’ on its own citizens and allies, during peacetime.

The actions these people did was help to defeat the people trying to take over their country and kill them.

The NSA is Bletchley Park!

What was important about the whole Bletchley park thing was the industrialisation of espionage.

*EVERY SINGLE ENIGMA TRANSMISSION WAS RECORDED*

*EVERY SINGLE ENIGMA TRANSMISSION WAS DECODED*

Thousands of people worked on the project.

Although it started in the UK, by the end of the war most of the effort was being run from the US.

The NSA is the direct descendant of this. The current mess is simply the natural outcome. Did anyone seriously think they'd just shut up shop in 1945?

the future is bright

for a wide range of mainstream and off-centre ideas to embed loyalty into lowly human minions, to perhaps trigger some response when they attempt such impure thoughts, let alone actions. George Clooney and his goats might get re-employed on very favourable terms indeed ;)

bleh

A war on terror is like trying to nail jelly to a wall, the only way to reduce terror is to improve the lives of the people from where the terrorists recruit.

kill someone's relative they become easy picking for terror groups (or governments or criminals or ...etc) for vengeful acts of violence , educate them and improve their lives they will be harder to convince of the justification for "righteous slaughter" and also , hopefully , more critical of the arguments presented to persuade.

Intelligence gathering is still needed, I do not think spying on everyone is a good thing or justified.

You're SLOWLY getting there...

While Mr Mathieson has a long way to go, he is clearly beginning to understand what has been happening - and some of the commentators are way ahead of him. Which is heartening...

During the 1940s, we had a World War. In a war, the normal checks and controls that society expects to put on a government are thrown away. Your government may forcibly commandeer your property, attach you to the armed services, and investigate/spy on anything it likes.

Just after the war, many of the state bureaucracies which applied these new powers were swept away. Several were happy to be closed down - but many put up quite a fight. One example of the sort of thing that happened can be seen here:

Clarence Henry Willcock

Our State Secret Police and Intelligence Services were lucky - they survived the end of the war quite easily by moving into the Cold War virtually unchanged. Gradually the Cold War shrank, disappearing entirely in the early 1990s. It may be interesting to consider whether it would have gone earlier if it had not been in the interests of Security Service, the SIS, NSA, the CIA, KGB, Stasi, and many similar organisations to keep it going.

When the Cold War died these organisations were staring redundancy in the face. They have built up the threat of terrorism to justify their own existence. It may be interesting to consider whether Middle Eastern politics might have been very different if it were not for the intelligence services input encouraging destabilisation.

The intelligence services do not particularly WANT to spy on the entire civilian population. I'm sure that they are quite uninterested in the information they are gathering - indeed, they probably can't make any practical use of it. Famously, they have NEVER been able to show an example of a plot uncovered by the use of it. What they are interested in is justifying their existence. And big projects like this are self-perpetuating, and ideal for maintaining a lifetime's career.

We need supra-legal intelligence services in wartime. In peacetime we need the rule of law, applied by the police, democratically accountable and presented in open court. And that is what our intelligence services do not want to hear, and are very scared to see discussed...

I was living in London, near Kilburn when the pub got bombed and was near enough to hear the bang. Compared to now, we had probably orders of magnitude more terrorist activity at the peak of the troubles, but we never allowed that to turn this country into a quasi police state, even after the Brighton bombing. Of course, this country always did bend over for anyone who offered enough cash. The NSA being the current client and gchq getting paid a tidy sum to proxy what can't be done legally in the US.

More cctv than the former E Germany and legislation (RIPA) that allows councils to snoop on citizens who are supected of filing bins too full, or "cheating" to get theri kids into a preferred school. Then, blanket surveillance of everybody by unaccountables and you are already nearly at Orwell's nightmare. Sorry, but it's not ok by any measure. As for "parliamentary oversight", it's a joke, probably because they know they are at the edge of the law and really don't want to know what they are up to. All this, just to catch a couple of plots being plotted every year. Not even good value for money.

As for privacy, some will argue that all this is ok because we live in a democracy, but what happens if we get an extreme right or left wing government in power, with all that "useful" infrastructure already in place ?. The last government presided over the most sustained attack on civil liberties and privacy in a hundred years, but will the country never wake up ?...

"Can you keep a secret?"

Had to sign a piece of paper way back which say's I should. Not entirely sure it was necessary, but you takes the money, you follow take the creed. It's how things work.

Simples.

During the war, and after, people kept quiet about what they did because they believed they should keep quiet. Not because a government told them to.

It really is a question of whether a removal of a liberty is justified or not. Sometimes it is and people will lament that but shoulder the burden. Other times it is not and they are right to speak out.

How does spying stop Islamic Terrorists shooting up African Shopping Centres

It doesn't as the main priority of the spying game is to ensure the ball stays well out of your own goal and if it means it goes in someone elses then it goes in someone eleses same as it always has.Bletchly Park was about knowing when to use knowledge and when not to,sometimes this heart breaking process would lead to servicemen or allies dieing because of our inaction.So it was and still is a balancing act of when and not if to use the information.

At the end of the day the park came about because of the boots on the ground that found the enigma machine and codes in the first place. So one does not work well with the absence of the other as the Americans keep finding out to their cost.

freedom’s last, best hope

I could be freedon's last, best hope if it wasn't for my terrible human rights record.

Privacy concerns are valid; spying ones are crocodile tears

Every nation with the wherewithal spies on every other one in which they have an interest, friendly or unfriendly. If Brazil hasn't caught up, it will.

You're forgetting that GCHQ was the direct descendant of Bletchley Park

A lot of the people who were involved in Bletchley Park stayed quiet because:

A) They were proud to have helped in defeating the obviously evil Nazis

B) They were absorbed into GCHQ after the war and were still collecting government paychecks.

C) The government would throw the book at them using the Official Secrets Act if they blabbed.

The success of Bletchley Park was the only secret. It was pretty obvious that Britain had SOMETHING big going on to intercept German communications, especially after the U.S. MAGIC intercept program of Japanese communications was declassified right after WW2 so that congressional investigations of Pearl Harbor could have a clear view of what was known about Japanese intentions and dispositions before December 7th, 1941

Why can's the likes of The Guardian ...

Find and leak secrets of those who really need exposing. I put such things as Iran and North Korea and Al Queida [sp?] in this regard. Those "secrets" would be especially helpful in these "interesting" times.

Sure, there are secrets some countries keep, but how about being an "equal opportunity leaker".

Fair is Fair!!

An Obversation

If someone asks you to tell them a "secret", you query them:

"Can you keep a secret?"

Of course they will answer "Yes.".

The next statement should be: "So can I!".

Secrets

So the people who read the secrets, generally those in power, usually keep them until the day they die, many of them knowing why certain events happened and what the possible outcomes would have been because of them.

We had many people back in the "golden days" who took what they learnt to the grave also

It only seems recently that world+dog wants to be a whistle blower whether they think it is for the good of the world+dog or not.

So what has changed between those who did ( and still do) keep those secrets with no desire to spill the beans and those who just want to shout it out to the world?

are the new batch holding a higher sense of morals? Or do they just not value the word/promise given (probably numerous forms signed, and possibly an oath said too) that they are going to keep what they find out as hush hush for ever ( or until someone more important deems it ok to talk about it)

yes I would love to know all the secrets that conspiracy theories are about, if I got to see them but had to keep my word until I die would I? I like to believe I would, many on the other hand seem to think that we all should know and damn the consequences ( maybe it is a result of there being less consequences for younger generations then we had, not sure on that but it does seem like it)

I fear what this means long term for national sovereignty.

Let's say the US admits we can listen to any phone and internet connection in the world. Let's say GCHQ says the same thing. Immediately one of two things will happen. Either various first world nations will scream and demand treaties preventing it... Or, more likely, anyone not already full vested in that space will want to get in on it. In other words it will draw the various first world countries closer together.

Imagine the US signing a treaty with France allowing them to spy on US citizens at will. Why would the US do this? Because France would reciprocate. We already know some of this is happening, but it will grow more in depth. At some point these countries, in the interest of reducing costs, would likely want to setup an entity for this purpose. Oh, that's right, let's give control of that to the UN...

Do you see where this leads?

As good as the ideas on the article sound, I fear it's just another step on the path to a one world government which I feel isn't a good thing

There's dozens of Bletchley Park.

I'm at a loss to understand how the author seriously thinks that all the security services do is known to him.

War or no war

Its is less about the objective reality of what is war and more about the shared perception of being at war with a another country. Where "us" and "them" is easy to portray in propaganda.

If we (the general tendency of society) were living with a perception of being at War like they had in WW2, we would not have any empathy for Manning, Assange, or Snowdon.