Misuse of Pegasus Was Enabled by Governments Ignoring Calls to Reform Intelligence Agencies
Since Independence, every Union government brushed aside opportunities to create oversight mechanisms which are common in other parts of the world.
Illustration: The Wire
Rights28/Jul/2021
When India won Independence, it had the choice of two models for its intelligence agencies. One was the United States’s version, which gave intelligence work a legal basis, insisting on accountability and transparency through a system of checks and balances. George Washington, one of the founding fathers of the US, established this principle in his first State of the Union address in January 1790 by requesting the US Congress for funds to finance intelligence operations. The US passed the National Security Act in 1947 and the CIA Act in 1949 to cement these principles.
Official Secrets Act: UK government has a long history of suppressing journalism to hide its misdeeds theconversation.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theconversation.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Updated
Tuesday, 26th January 2021, 3:13 pm
Until October 1909, Britain had been without a professional, dedicated spy and counter-spy organisation, despite rising paranoia over German militarism since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The military had been reduced in strength as armies on the continent were expanding theirs. The shock by which a small but technologically superior Prussian army managed to invade and defeat France resulted in outrage over the state of Britain’s own military.
Shortly after the Prussian victory, George Tomkyns Chesney, a former captain in the Royal Engineers, wrote The Battle of Dorking as a warning to the general public about this new threat. In the book, Germany launches a successful invasion of Britain, landing at Worthing and converging on the ramshackle British defenders at the Surrey town. Germany inflicts a heavy defeat and Britain becomes a heavily-repressed German colony.