Handbook of intelligence studies / edited by

its power from the people, all government institutions ought to act on behalf of the people, too.
Furthermore, in a democracy, no single area of government activity can be a “no-go” zone for
parliamentarians, including the intelligence and security services. If this appears as a rather solid
rationale for the necessity of parliamentary intelligence oversight, how can one then account
for Johnson’s observation on intelligence agencies’ practice in most countries: “They are
cloaked in secrecy, allowed privileged access to policy-makers, and given leeway to get the job
done – even if that means breaking laws overseas and engaging in unsavoury activities that
would be deemed inappropriate for other government agencies.” 15 If an agency is cloaked
in secrecy, this means that either virtually no independent overseers are being admitted to the
“ring of secrecy” or that those overseers admitted are kept on a very tight leash by the government.
Either way, the result is that the public has little say on what information is being held or
circulated among the agencies and the executive.
Obviously, the importance of intelligence on national security issues raises difficult
questions, such as how much knowledge (operational and non-operational) should be disclosed
so as to inform the interested public whilst not simultaneously jeopardizing national security.
The pursuit of a just and practicable balance between civil liberties and security is very difficult
to achieve and has long occupied the minds of both practitioners and scholars alike. As with
most complex balancing dilemmas, there exists no single blueprint adopted by all democracies
for achieving this end. National intelligence laws, i.e. the embodiments of different national
democratic wills, have proffered different ways to attain such a balance. Irrespective of the
legitimate variety of such balancing efforts, all measures ought to be predetermined by the
principles of democratic rule. Amongst these principles, the doctrine of the separation of
powers and the rule of law are pertinent. The application of these doctrines to the governance
of intelligence challenges any forms by which parliament would be excluded or insufficiently
involved in intelligence affairs and requires that intelligence services are bound by fundamental
human rights standards.
Comprehensive intelligence accountability
INTELLIGENCE ACCOUNTABILITY
In line with these principles, the exercise of democratic intelligence control may be said to rest
on five layers of accountability. These are: internal intelligence control by the services, strong
executive control, parliamentary oversight, judicial review and external review by independent
civil society organizations. 16 Each layer has a central task in the overall aim to avoid intelligence
abuse. The intelligence services restrain themselves by means of internal control (whistleblower
regulations, training of employees in accordance with a legislated code of conduct), the
executive performs executive control, i.e. giving direction to intelligence services, including
tasking, prioritizing and making resources available. The parliament oversees the services by
passing intelligence laws (that define and regulate the services and their control), by adopting
the corresponding budgetary appropriations and by questioning decision-makers in special
hearings. In addition, the judiciary is tasked to monitor the use of the agencies’ special powers
(such as surveillance and interrogation practices) and to adjudicate wrong-doings. Last but not
least, civil society organizations may curtail the functioning of intelligence services by giving an
alternative view (think tanks), disclosing scandals and crises (media), or by raising complaints
concerning wrong-doing (citizens).
The path towards the successful implementation of the general objective behind each of the
five layers remains beset by complex organizational and legal challenges. To illustrate this,
consider the summary of what the “Making Intelligence Accountable” research project’s
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