for 20 years, surveillance and security have become ever more entwined in our lives — a sign of a threat that has not gone away, as the head of m15 told the bbc today. we do face a consistent global struggle to defeat extremism and to guard against terrorism. this is a real problem and in the last four years, for example, working with the police, my organisation has disrupted 31 late—stage attack plots in great britain. a new counterterrorism operations centre was launched this summer by m15 and the police but the threats have also been changing. since 9/11, we have had a continued evolving, huge challenge with islamist extremist terrorism. we have the rise of extreme right—wing terrorism and we have definitely a resurgence of sharp and complex state threats. the only major national security threat which has