MI5
 Military Intelligence, Section 5     | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Formation | 1909 |
| Parent organization | UK |
| Headquarters | Thames House |
| Type |  intelligence agency |
| Subgroups | • MI5/A Branch • MI5/B Branch • MI5/C Branch • MI5/D Branch • MI5/E Branch • MI5/F Branch • MI5/G Branch • MI5/H Branch • MI5/K Branch • MI5/T Branch • Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre |
| Interest of | Christopher Andrew, Richard M. Bennett, Katherine Horton, Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, UK/Home Office/Investigatory Powers Tribunal |
| Exposed by | Cathy Massiter, Tony Robinson |
| Subpage | •MI5/A Branch •MI5/B Branch •MI5/C Branch •MI5/D Branch •MI5/Director General •MI5/E Branch •MI5/F Branch •MI5/G Branch •MI5/H Branch •MI5/K Branch •MI5/T Branch |
| MI5 (Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core in the main British domestic intelligence service. | |
Contents
Official narrative
MI5 is the internal "Security Service" of the UK State, based at Thames House, Millbank London on the North bank of the river Thames. Map Since 1989, its principal statutory basis is the "File:Security Services Act 1989.pdf". Its main responsibilities are "protecting the UK against threats to national security from espionage, terrorism and sabotage, from the activities of agents of foreign powers, and from actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means". Its correct title is "The Security Service".
The following is from the UK National Archives - Intelligence Records section: [1]
- "MI5 started life in March 1909 when, following a recommendation of the Committee of Imperial Defence, the Secret Service Bureau was founded by Captain Vernon Kell (K) and Captain Mansfield Cumming (C) who were responsible for counter-espionage and gathering overseas intelligence, respectively. The extreme secrecy surrounding its operations is reflected by the fact that the sole copy of the sub-committee report regarding its foundation was placed in custody of the Director of Military Operations at the War Office: CAB 16/232 . During August 1914 Kell and his small staff were absorbed into the Directorate of Military Operations as MO5 (g). The following year MO5 became part of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, assumed the title MI5, and was made responsible for upholding the provisions of the Defence of the Realm Regulations and the Aliens Restriction Act in the face of German espionage. Following the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 MI5 began to concentrate on the perceived threat of Communist subversion, which (together with Irish terrorism) was to remain a principal theatre of operations until 1989."
- "The majority of MI5 records are retained under section 3 (4) of the Public Records Act (1958). They remain exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (2000). However, since 1999 approximately 2000 'historical' files have been transferred to The National Archives. These cover a wide range of subjects and individuals that have fallen under the purview of MI5 since its inception. These include files on MI5 operations during World War One; German spies and intelligence agents, renegades, double agent operations, espionage cases, Japanese, Hungarian and Italian intelligence agents, SOE agents, right-wing extremists and fascists, Soviet intelligence officers, communist 'front' organisations, pacifists and refugees; German and Soviet intelligence operations, the ARCOS raid and British fascism; the History of the Security Service, the 'Curry Report' and MI5 section history's; Soviet, Pro-Nazi and Zionist organisations; Jeffrey Hamm, compromised SOE agents and investigation of leaks of information to German intelligence."
History
Monitoring Prime Ministers
The Mail on Sunday reported in April 2010 that MI5 bugged Downing Street under five Prime Ministers between 1963 and 1977. The bugs were initially ordered by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. After a brief gap they were reinstated by his successor, Alec Douglas-Home. It is not clear whether Edward Heath and Harold Wilson were told of the surveillance. Historian Stephen Dorrill suggests this revelation appears to justify Wilson's belief that he was being spied on.[2]
The surveillance was ended on the orders of Prime Minister James Callaghan in 1977. Callaghan nevertheless denied in the Commons that No. 10 had ever been bugged.[3]
Details of the bugging were due to appear in Professor Christopher Andrew's 2009 official history of MI5, The Defence Of The Realm, but were removed at the insistence of the Cabinet Office. [4]
Vetting Ministers of State
Once a new Government has been formed MI5 briefs the incoming Prime Minister on any Ministerial appointments it thinks may be of concern to 'national security'. MI5's director general, Sir Stephen Lander told Radio 4: "In 1997 therefore the way the then cabinet secretary and I agreed we would deal with it... was that I would produce the summaries, one sheet for each of the individuals that we thought we should make a comment on... and if the prime minister said I'm thinking of making X secretary of state for defence, they [the cabinet secretary and the prime minister's principal private secretary] would say 'well prime minister, you might like to read this from the security service'." [5]
Binyam Mohamed case
In February 2010, the Security Service was sharply criticised in a draft judgement by the Master of the Rolls (head of the Court of Appeal) Lord Neuberger over its role in the case of Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed:
as the evidence in this case showed, at least some SIS officials appear to have a dubious record when it comes to human rights and coercive techniques, and indeed when it comes to frankness about the UK’s involvement with the mistreatment of Mr Mohammed by US officials. I have in mind in particular witness B, but it appears likely that there were others.[6]
Senior Management
Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding give the following list of senior officers
- Director General (DG)
- Deputy Director General (DDG)
- Director and Co-ordinator of Intelligence (Northern Ireland)
- Legal Advisor to the Security Service[7]
Management Board
According to the MI5 website, the Director General, Deputy Director General and Legal Advisor make up the Management Board of the Service, along with seven branch Directors. The board is supplemented by two Non-Executive Directors from outside the Service in an advisory role.[8]
Branches
The following list is taken from the 2003 edition of Hollingsworth and Fielding's Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and the War on Terrorism and may now be somewhat dated.[9] This is supplemented with branch descriptions from the MI5 website in italics where these seem to match Hollingsworth and Fielding's account.[10]
There are some differences between the two accounts. According to the website, international counter-terrorism and counter-espionage are the the responsibility of a single branch, suggesting that Hollingsworth and Fielding's D and G branches may have been merged or re-organised. The website also lists a separate Information Services and Technology Capability branch, suggesting that information technology may have been separated from H Branch.
- A Branch - Operational Support (Operational Capability)
- A1A: Technical Operations, such as covert entry and audio and video surveillance.
- A1F: As above, but on longer term target sites.
- A2A: intercept transcription.
- A3 and A5: Technical support for operations, including specialised covert photography and lockpickers.
- B Branch - Human Resources (People and Security)
- B1: Protective security for MI5 including building security and staff vetting.
- B2: Personnel.
- B7: Training and recruitment.
- D Branch - Non Terrorist Organisations
- D1: Vetting of non-MI5 personnel.
- D4: Counter-espionage. Targets include Russia and China.
- D5: D Branch agent runners.
- G Branch - International Terrorism (International Counter Terrorism, Counter Espionage, Counter Proliferation)
- G2P: Counter-proliferation
- G3A: C-ordination of threat assessments.
- G3C: Countering threats from South Asia, e.g. Sikh militants.
- G3W: International terrorist threats not covered by other sections.
- G6: G Branch agent runners.
- G9A: Libya, Iraq, Palestinian and Kurdish groups.
- G9B: Iranian state and Iranian dissident groups.
- G9C: Islamic extremists.
- H Branch - Corporate Affairs (strategy, policy, finance and facilities)
- H1 and H2: Liason with Whitehall, the police and the media, covert financial enquiries, management policy including information technology.
- H4: Finance.
- R2: Main Registry
- R5: Restricted 'Y-boxed' files.
- R10: Registry for temporary files.
- R20: Administers GCHQ material.
- T Branch - Irish Terrorism (Northern Ireland Counter Terrorism)
- T2A: Republican and loyalist terrorism in Great Britain.
- T2B: Liaison with local Special Branches and agent runners responsible for investigating Irish terrorism in Great Britain.
- T2C: Threat assessment for Irish terrorist groups.
- T2D: Researches Irish terrorist groups.
- T2E: Liaises with Metropolitan Police Special Branch, based at Scotland Yard.
- T5B: Investigates arms trafficking
- T5C: Counters Irish terrorism in Continental Europe, including the Republic of Ireland.
- T5D: Irish terrorism in the rest of the world.
- T5E: Studies terrorist logistics
- T8: T Branch agent-runners, includes a Northern Ireland-based section.[11]
Defunct Branches
- C Branch - Protective security
- E Branch - Empire and Commonwealth counter-subversion - 1953-1971
- F Branch - Domestic counter-subversion
- K Branch - counterespionage 1968-1994
Related organisations
People
Directors General
- Major-General Sir Vernon Kell - 1909-1940
- Brigadier Oswald Allen Harker - 1940-1941
- Sir David Petrie - 1941-1946
- Sir Percy Sillitoe - 1946-1953
- Sir Dick White - 1953-1956
- Sir Roger Hollis - 1956-1965
- Sir Martin Furnival Jones - 1965-1972
- Sir Michael Hanley - 1972-1978
- Sir Howard Smith - 1978-1981
- Sir John Jones - 1981-1985
- Sir Antony Duff - 1985-1987
- Sir Patrick Walker - 1987-1992
- Dame Stella Rimington - 1992-1996
- Sir Stephen Lander - 1996-2002
- Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller - 2002-2007 [12]
- Jonathan Evans[13]
Bugging of 10 Downing Street
The official narrative of MI5 was established with the publication in 2009 of Defence of the Realm, the first authorised history of MI5, which claimed that, while MI5 kept a file on Harold Wilson from 1945, when he became an MP – because communist civil servants claimed that he had similar political sympathies – there was no bugging of his home or office, and no conspiracy against him.[14] However in 2010 newspaper reports made detailed allegations that the bugging of 10 Downing Street had been omitted from the history for "wider public interest reasons". In 1963 on Harold Macmillan's orders following the Profumo Affair MI5 bugged the cabinet room, the waiting room, and the prime minister’s study until the bugs were removed in 1977 on Jim Callaghan's orders. From the records it is unclear if Harold Wilson or Edward Heath knew of the bugging.[15] Professor Andrew had previously recorded in the preface of the history that "One significant excision as a result of these requirements (in the chapter on The Wilson Plot) is, I believe, hard to justify" giving credence to these new allegations.[16] However Wright declined to let them see the files on Wilson and the plan was never carried out but Wright does claim it was a 'carbon copy' of the Zinoviev Letter which had helped destabilise the first Labour Government in 1924.
Surveillance
In July 2006, parliamentarian Norman Baker accused the British Government of "hoarding information about people who pose no danger to this country", after it emerged that MI5 holds secret files on 272,000 individuals—equivalent to one in 160 adults.[17] It was later revealed that a "traffic light" system operates:[18][19]
- Green: active — about 10% of files
- Amber: enquiries prohibited, further information may be added — about 46% of files.
- Red: enquiries prohibited, substantial information may not be added — about 44% of files
Events carried out
| Event | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Clockwork Orange | UK | UK deep state campaign carried out to discredit the government of Harold Wilson |
| Dublin and Monaghan bombings | Dublin Eire Monaghan | |
| Operation Crevice | London UK | A raid launched in the UK on the so-called "fertiliser bomb plotters". |
| Project Rich Picture |
Documents by MI5
Related Quotations
| Page | Quote | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Open government" | Investigatory Powers Act 2016 Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Additional Directed Oversight Functions) The Prime Minister, in exercise of the power conferred by section 230 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 ("the Act), directs the Investigatory Powers Commissioner as follows: Citation and Commencement
Additional Review Functions
Signed:  | ||
| 1989 | “In one sense MI6 and MI5 have got it right, are, in fact, a brilliant success. Faced with their biggest crisis of the post-war period, the end of the Red Menace which justified the budgets,
the careers and the gongs, they have emerged with budgets renewed, new agendas approved; untouched by the politicians, unsupervised by anyone, still - we are not supposed to laugh - still accountable to the Crown not Parliament ( i.e. to no-one). Both MI6 and MI5 have reacted to the new conditions post Cold War in thoroughly competent, even creative ways. Needing something something to justify the budget, MI6 picked the international drug trade. Far as I know, since MI6 joined the 'war against drugs' the price of cocaine and heroin in the UK at street level has halved: it is now cheaper to get off your face, as they say in Hull, on smack than it is on alcohol. And didn't I read a few months ago that MI6 had persuaded Clare Short to task them to provide her with early warning of coups in the developing world? An honest-to-goodness license to do anything, anywhere. Only a Labour government, timid and ignorant, would fall for a proposal as preposterous as that one. MI5 hardly paused for breath after losing the KGB 'threat' contained in the Soviet Embassy and its Trade Mission, before acquiring the domestic terrorism franchise from the Met Special Branch and beginning the process of hyping up the animal rights and green activists as a new terrorist threat. (And they are getting a new definition of terrorism run through the Houses of Parliament to support it.) Of course, only the politicians and some of the media - the handful who are paying any attention at all - take the talk of the war on drugs seriously. MI6 don't, I am sure; any more than they seriously intend to provide Clare Short with an early warning of coups in the Third World. At the higher levels of MI6, MI5 and all the rest they must be chortling in the senior dining rooms at the incredible gullibility of the British political class - and this present lot in particular.” | Robin Ramsay | |
| 2016 Investigatory Powers Act | Investigatory Powers Act 2016
Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Additional Directed Oversight Functions) The Prime Minister, in exercise of the power conferred by section 230 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 ("the Act), directs the Investigatory Powers Commissioner as follows: Citation and Commencement
Additional Review Functions
Signed: | ||
| Intelligence agency | “There is something very wrong indeed with the UK security services, which are most certainly not a force for freedom or justice. That MI6 can be headed by as extreme a figure as Dearlove, underlines the threat that the security services pose to any progressive movement in politics.” | Craig Murray | 11 January 2019 |
| Craig Murray | “The naive view of the world as “goodies” and “baddies”, with our own ruling class as the good guys, is for the birds. I witnessed personally in Uzbekistan the willingness of the UK and US security services to accept and validate intelligence they knew to be false in order to pursue their policy objectives.” | Craig Murray | 13 March 2018 |
| UK Independence Party | “Unbeknown to many, UKIP too had early roots in Britain’s intelligence services.
In 2001, former Conservative Party chairman Norman Tebbit called for an independent inquiry into revelations that UKIP had been infiltrated by MI5. In a televised interview on BBC News, Tebbit said: “A chap came to me and said UKIP had been infiltrated by the British intelligence services and then he gave me two names of people and from various ways I came to the conclusion that I was absolutely and completely certain that these people — although they had left the service and the Foreign Office some years earlier — in fact had been intelligence agents.” As Tebbit explained in a Spectator article that even Douglas Murray recently endorsed, he “half-heartedly” made his “own inquiries” after a source inside UKIP raised the concerns with him, “and unexpectedly struck gold... I am perfectly sure that the individuals had been active agents, although both would claim to have retired some years ago.” Tebbit had not suggested that UKIP’s leadership was aware of the intelligence operation. At the time, Nigel Farage admitted that he could not discount Tebbit’s allegations.” | Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed | 11 May 2015 |
Employees on Wikispooks
| Employee | Job | Appointed | End | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Richard Barrett | Director of Global Counter-terrorism | |||
| John Collard | Spook | 1946 | 1952 | |
| Nick Day | ? | |||
| Stephen Lander | Unknown | 1975 | ||
| Stephen Lander | MI5/T Branch/Director | February 1992 | 1994 | MI5 took the lead role against the IRA from the Metropolitan Police on 1 October 1992. |
| Stephen Lander | Head of T5 | 1991 | 1991 | This may have been a simple renaming from G5, after "terrorism" was moved to its own (T) section in 1990. |
| Stephen Lander | Head of G5 | 1990 | 1990 | |
| Stephen Lander | Unknown | 1985 | 1985 | B2. Dates are unknown, but he had this job in Autumn 1985. He proposed ending the traditional practice of placing new MI5 officers in F2 Section to learn the basics of counter-subversion work. This was strongly opposed by Director F. |
| Stephen Lander | MI5/H Branch/Director | 1994 | 30 March 2006 | |
| John Masterman | Civil Assistant | 1939 | 1945 | |
| Davey Neligan | Double agent | |||
| Andrew Parker | Director of Global Counter-terrorism | 1 September 2001 | 2005 |
Related Documents
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:Gerald James 2007 FOIA Appeal Statement | legal document | 2007 | Gerald James | Gerald James' appeal statement in the matter of the UK government refusal to release documents which would support his allegations of SIS orchestration of events and people that resulted in the destruction of his company, Astra Holdings. |
| Document:Getting it Right | article | 2011 | Lobster Magazine | A realistic appraisal of the functioning and lack of EFFECTIVE political oversight of the UK Secret Intelligence Services |
| Document:How British journalists are seduced by the Ministry of Defence and spooks | Article | 28 September 2021 | Richard Norton-Taylor | In the world of the spooks, few in the media raised questions about the root causes of terror attacks in Britain even when Eliza Manningham-Buller, then head of MI5, warned that the invasion of Iraq would increase the terrorist threat in Britain. |
| Document:How To Spot A Twitter Troll | Wikispooks Page | 2 July 2019 | Craig Murray | Exposure is the simple way to nullify the vast state propaganda programmes on social media |
| Document:How to spot a Twitter troll | blog post | 2 July 2019 | Craig Murray | Exposure is the simple way to nullify the vast state propaganda programmes on social media |
| Document:MI5 DG Speech 16-9-10 | speech | 16 September 2010 | Jonathan Evans | Speech by Jonathan Evans, as Director General of MI5, to the "Worshipful Company of Security Professionals" in October 2010. The "Worshipful Company" (ie livery company of the City of London) tag hints at the Masonic and occult nature of the British establishment in general and its Intelligence and security structures in particular. |
| Document:MI5 and MI6 pay out £12m to Britons held in Guantánamo | webpage | 11 August 2011 | Christopher Hope | |
| Document:MI5 and the Christmas Tree Files | book extract | 1988 | Mark Hollingsworth Richard Norton-Taylor | |
| Document:Mrs. May & MI5 In Disarray | webpage | 11 June 2017 | Matthew Jamison | |
| Document:Our Secret Servants - The Shayler Affair | Article | 1 January 1998 | Robin Ramsay | MI5 and its schizophrenic relationship with government |
| Document:Speech by Head of MI6 | speech | 28 October 2010 | John Sawers | A speech by then Director General of MI6 to The Society of Editors about the work of the SIS's and their relationship with the media. |
| Document:The Broader View Reveals the Ugliest of Prospects | blog post | 17 June 2019 | Craig Murray | I find it hard to believe that I live in times where Julian Assange suffers as he does for telling the truth, where a dedicated anti-racist like Jeremy Corbyn is subjected to daily false accusations of racism and to US and security service backed efforts to thwart his democratic prospects, where the most laughable false flag is paraded to move us towards war with Iran, and where there is no semblance of a genuinely independent media. |
| Document:The postwar photographs that British authorities tried to keep hidden | article | 3 April 2006 | Ian Cobain | The British military and security services are no strangers to torturing their prisoners when they judge it necessary. |
| Document:Theresa May's personal role in facilitating terror attacks | video | 5 June 2017 | Dan Glazebrook | Theresa May and her Cabinet are complicit in murder. They are war criminals. If the principles established by the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II were applied, they would be hung. |
| Document:UK Intelligence And Security Report, 2003 | report | June 2003 | Richard M. Bennett Katie Bennett | A compendious summary of the UK Intelligence And Security agencies, including people, events and places. |
| Document:Whitehall Farce | book review | 12 October 1989 | Paul Foot | James Rusbridger: "Secrecy turns otherwise rational people into fascistic nutters; secrecy allows untold billions of pounds and endless energies to be wasted in unnecessary intelligence; secrecy pollutes the political process, muzzles what is left of the independent press and makes a mockery of Parliament and elections." |
| File:Gerald James 2007 FOIA Appeal Statement.pdf | legal document | 2007 | Gerald James | |
| File:GeraldJamesStatements.pdf | legal document | 2007 | Gerald James | |
| File:Osp8.pdf | report | November 2005 | The selection criteria and process for deciding on the selection of Intelligence records for declassification and inclusion in the National Archive | |
| File:Security Services Act 1989.pdf | legal document | The Security Services Act 1989 | ||
| File:Spycatcher.pdf | ebook | Peter Wright | Memoirs of former senior MI5 officer Peter Wright. | |
| File:Ukintell0809.pdf | report | 2008 | UK Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report 2007-2008 |
A document sourced from MI5
| Title | Type | Subject(s) | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:MI5 DG Speech 16-9-10 | speech | MI5 Worshipful Company of Security Professionals | 16 September 2010 | Jonathan Evans | Speech by Jonathan Evans, as Director General of MI5, to the "Worshipful Company of Security Professionals" in October 2010. The "Worshipful Company" (ie livery company of the City of London) tag hints at the Masonic and occult nature of the British establishment in general and its Intelligence and security structures in particular. |
References
- ↑ UK National Archives - Intelligence Records
- ↑ Jason Lewis and Tom Harper, Revealed: How MI5 bugged 10 Downing Street, the Cabinet and at least five Prime Ministers for 15 YEARS, Mail on Sunday, 18 April 2010.
- ↑ Jason Lewis and Tom Harper, Revealed: How MI5 bugged 10 Downing Street, the Cabinet and at least five Prime Ministers for 15 YEARS, Mail on Sunday, 18 April 2010.
- ↑ Jason Lewis and Tom Harper, Revealed: How MI5 bugged 10 Downing Street, the Cabinet and at least five Prime Ministers for 15 YEARS, Mail on Sunday, 18 April 2010.
- ↑ Day One in Number Ten, BBC Radio 4 at 1100hrs BST on Friday, 14 May 2010.
- ↑ Binyam Mohamed case: full texts of Paragraph 168 - and how they changed, 26 February 2010.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, pp.320-321.
- ↑ Organisation, MI5, accessed 19 July 2009.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, pp.320-321.
- ↑ Organisation, MI5, accessed 19 July 2009.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, pp.320-321.
- ↑ MI5 - Former Directors General, accessed 26 February 2008.
- ↑ MI5 - Director General, accessed 26 February 2008.
- ↑ MI5 kept file on former PM Wilson, BBC News, 3 October 2009
- ↑
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{{URL|example.com|optional display text}} - ↑ MI5 has secret dossiers on one in 160 adults—The Mail on Sunday, 9 July 2006.
- ↑ Parliamentary Answer Revealing Traffic Light Coding of MI5 Files—Hansard, 25 February 1998.
- ↑ "Traffic Light Coding of MI5 Files". Archived from the original on 2007-07-02.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").—Hansard, 5 June 2006.
