Director-General of Security Service speaks on recession threat

by Michael Smith

Britain faces a new security threat as a result of the global economic crisis, the head of the Security Service, MI5, Jonathan Evans, has warned, in the first ever interview by a director general of the Security Service.

He said the international recession could be a "watershed moment" which will shift the balance of power away from the West and the way things are going he might well be right. If that is the case we are in trouble, on more than one level.

Despite MI5 achieving notable success against al-Qaeda in Britain, Mr Evans warned that with the decline in economic power of the UK, US and Europe, new threats to national security are likely to emerge.

"Where there have been watershed moments, there have often been national security implications from that, a new alignment," he said. "We have to maintain flexibility and respond to threats. The world will not stay the same."

MI5 has scored, so its Chief explained, significant successes against al-Qaeda in Britain in the last two years which was forcing terrorists to "keep their heads down." But he warned that not all potential extremists could be monitored by the security services.

But, scores of British Muslims are still traveling to terror training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan every year. Others are traveling to lawless areas of Somalia.
We also must not forget that the USA has “lost” a lot of young Somalis. They have all turned up in those lawless areas and are, apparently, going through some kind of training and fighting there.

And apparently the terrorists who launched the Mumbai attacks in November had indirect links to the UK. But what does he mean with “links to the UK?”

In addition to that, he said, the growth in the use of Internet telephone services may pose a "significant detriment to national security" as terrorists can communicate more freely.

Oh dear! The growth in the use of Internet telephone services may pose a "significant detriment to national security" as terrorists can communicate more freely, said the MI5 chief. Do I hear here the encoded call to limit the access of Brits to the likes of Skype?
Yes, Skype. That free Internet telephone service whose calls are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be intercepted very well. So, I guess, beside the new legislation that Internet Service providers in the UK have to have all email to be stored (and I do not believe for one moment that no contents of those emails are going to be held) for a year, they will now try to make the use of Skype illegal or limited or make it illegal for Skype to encrypt calls from UK IPs. You do not stop terrorists and terrorism that way.

But it is the economic turbulence that is gripping the world that is likely to present the security services with their latest challenge, Mr Evans said.

"Our focus in the next few years will be international terrorism, al-Qaeda and its associates, but we are also looking at the global economic crisis," he said at his Whitehall office.

Although Mr Evans declined to go into details, Britain has already experienced a surge in spying by the re-emerging economic powers of Russia and China.

This should be quite obvious to all bu the very blind seeing the recent and not-so-recent cyber attacks by Russia and China against British (and American) assets, which the MI5 chief, however, forgot to mention, it seems.

Countries which face economic and political meltdown, such as Pakistan and Somalia, are also emerging as bases for terrorism. And as global alliances are re-drawn there could also be threats from of state-sponsored terrorism, particularly in the Middle East.

"As the world develops there is a knock-on effect in terms of domestic extremism, global power and the relationship between states," Mr Evans added. "National security tends to be a spin-off issue from wider changes."

He said there was no direct relationship between economic fortunes and extremism but added that it was important to consider what would happen if the "West becomes less economically dominant."

"There is no single path that leads people to violent extremism," he said. "Social, foreign policy, economic and personal factors all lead people to throw their lot in with extremists."

Economic factors do not make people terrorists, at least not in the main. However, the kind of actions of countries with which this country is supposedly befriended and fact the actions that this country are not being condemned by the government of the UK is what breeds terrorists in this country. And yes, I am referring to the current murderous actions of the Zionist state against the Palestinian people.

If Britain wants to stop the growth of homegrown fundamentalism then its government will have to stop sponsoring the likes of regimes like that of the Zionist entity in Palestine and following the United States blindly into any action against anyone who just remotely might be interfering with US interests.

Mr Evans said that MI5 has succeeded in targeting homegrown fundamentalism, securing 86 successful prosecutions in the last two years and he described developments as "very encouraging" but warned "the networks have not gone away."

"There could easily be activities that we are not aware of," he added. "We don't have anything approaching comprehensive coverage."

No, MI5 does not have – as yet – anything approaching a comprehensive coverage but we can be sure that they are working on that. Why else are we headed for a total archiving of emails sent from and to Internet users in Britain.

Does that all make us safer in this country? It certainly does not but then again, it has nothing to do with safety of the people and the country but everything with people control, and control of the subjects of Her Majesty, for there is no such thing as a British citizen, whatever they may claim.

Back to the “Recession Threat”, however.

When it comes to the nation the threat is not from supposed Islamic terrorists or such but from other nations, such as Russia and China. I think we can safely forget about countries such as Pakistan and Somalia in this equation.

However, we must, on no account, not forget our supposed friends either. Someone once said “God defend me from my friends; from my enemies I can defend myself” and this is very true especially as regards to the “friend” across the big pond and also that one next to the big dessert.

Or does anyone really believe that they do not (1) spy on Britain and (2) would not act against our county should they feel threatened, economically or otherwise.

I am sure we remember Benjamin Nethanyahu who was abducted from Britain and then imprisoned in his country. Remember the one who told the world that Israel has nuclear weapons?

It is OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons, WNDs, but when some other Middle-Eastern country wants to develop civilian nuclear programs they are being threatened by both the USA and also Britain. How can this be?

When it comes to this nation's security we should be careful who we go to bed with and what bugs they may carry.

© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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