Walsh, Patrick F., Miller, Seumas. (2016). Rethinking ‘Five Eyes’ Security Intelligence Collection.

From Digital Culture & Society

Walsh, P. F., & Miller, S. (2016). Rethinking ‘Five Eyes’ Security Intelligence Collection Policies and Practice Post Snowden. Intelligence & National Security, 31(3), 345-368 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684527.2014.998436

Kevin Pendergast

Since World War 1, intelligence has been an essential aspect of defence agencies around the globe. With every generation and new technological achievement, practices develop among the intelligence community. Today’s digital age fundamentally changed how society communicates with one another. Since the advent of the digital age, two events have impacted intelligence agencies the greatest, 9/11 and Edward Snowden’s leaks in 2013. In Patrick F. Walsh’s and Seumas Miller’s journal article, Rethinking ‘Five Eyes’ Security Intelligence Collection Policies and Practice Post Snowden, Walsh and Miller argue that the current security intelligence methodologies and policies, especially those of the “Five Eyes” (US, Canada, UK, New Zealand, and Australia), must be altered to abide by ethical foundations which would provide citizens with security without the sacrifice of privacy. The article’s strongest quality is its organization of arguments and topics which makes it much easier digest. There is however a lack of statistics and evidence to back up some of their arguments. Despite this, Walsh’s and Miller’s article acts as a strong reference for any who wish to better understand the past and present state of government surveillance.

The general breakdown of the different aspects of government surveillance provides a clear organized communication of the articles argument. One-point Walsh and Miller make quite clear is that the debate on government surveillance is not as clear cut as privacy vs. security. This is achieved by breaking down the surveillance debate into 3 categories: methods of intelligence gathering, context of intelligence gathering, and targets of intelligence gathering. Each of these categories have their own variables which are important discuss in their own context as well as providing an argument that builds and melds with each consecutive category. Firstly, in the “methods of intelligence gathering” category, Walsh and Miller effectively communicate the historical progression of wiretapping, metadata, and social media. Their approach clearly outlines the advantages and disadvantages of each method, examining each through an economic, ethical, and security lens. In addition, the “context of intelligence gathering” category examines how different situations both domestically and internationally should affect the intelligence collection policies as seen through the contexts of: Military and Counter-Terrorism, Counter-espionage, and Economics and Trade. Through the breakdown of contexts, Walsh and Miller successfully analyse the implications of each context in multiple states including the present one. From this they demonstrate what works and what does not in the current context of the “Five Eyes” intelligence community. Finally, the category “targets of intelligence gathering” argues that there should be a distinction in the targeting between authoritarian countries and terrorist groups and the citizens these intelligence agencies govern. Walsh and Miller traverse this moral dilemma through what can be justified and what cannot. Their emphasis on the grand impact of the 9/11 attacks is evident throughout the section, and how it is ultimately responsible for the overly proactive policies which followed the attack. The overstepped intelligence gathering is well explained and argued through evidence provided through Snowden’s NSA leak, policy changes and various intelligence operations within the past decade.

Although the article is mostly consistent with evidence, there are areas which beckons the question, “how?”. This can be best exemplified when Walsh and Miller claim metadata can never be the “golden goose” of intelligence gathering. They back this up by claiming that metadata analysis is too slow to properly identify a terrorist before an attack happens. They make this claim despite only lines before saying, “Given the secrecy around the metadata programs, it is difficult to provide an accurate assessment of their effectiveness”. While their claim is likely to be correct, the definitiveness of their conclusion and the assumption of analysis technology never reaching the level where it could prevent an attack seems presumptuous.

Despite the small lack of evidence for some arguments, Rethinking ‘Five Eyes’ Security Intelligence Collection Policies and Practice Post Snowden demonstrates how the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence gathering practices must change through its strong organization and its analysis of the cause and effects of 9/11 and the 2013 Snowden NSA leaks on the intelligence community. Walsh and Miller find a proper balance of security and privacy. The ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence agencies must find justification for all intelligence collection practice and could use Walsh’s and Miller’s approach to ethical intelligence collection.