Watching over spies will do nothing to rein them in

Among Canadian politicians, the debate over a sweeping new antiterror bill has focused on parliamentary oversight.

Both New Democrat and Liberal MPs say Bill C-51 should be amended to let a committee of parliamentarians, sworn to secrecy, monitor Canada’s intelligence agencies.

They note that other countries, such as Britain and the U.S., do this.

Implicit in their argument is an assumption that legislative oversight deters powerful security services from engaging in illegal or improper activities.

But does it? The evidence is not heartening.

In fact, most legislative oversight committees have limited authority. Those with greater powers, such as the U.S. Senate and House intelligence committees have, in many cases, given their imprimatur to dubious security practices.

A report on oversight in four Western countries, published in 2013 by New Zealand’s parliament, is instructive.

The report looked at Australia, the United Kingdom, Norway and New Zealand itself. It found that with the exception of Norway, legislators assigned to monitor their countries’ security services are kept on tight leashes.

Typically, they are given a free hand only with issues such as administration and financing.

Australia’s parliamentary oversight committee is barred from examining either operational methods or specific operations.

It can’t hear individual complaints. Nor, with the exception of agency heads, can it compel staffers from the country’s intelligence services to appear before it.

It is not permitted to make public any information that the intelligence agencies want kept secret.

New Zealand’s oversight committee is subject to similar constraints. It is also specifically barred from inquiring into whether the country’s intelligence services are breaking the law (an appointed inspectorgeneral does that).

In Britain, that country’s parliamentary oversight committee can look at past operational matters (if the prime minister agrees) as well as other matters that the prime minister wants it to examine.

The government can deny the committee any information it deems sensitive.

The committee’s annual reports to Parliament are subject to censorship by the prime minister.

Of the four countries examined, only Norway gives its oversight committee a wide mandate. It is specifically empowered to protect individuals from abuse by the security agencies and to ensure that these agencies keep within the law.

Norway’s oversight committee can look at anything within its mandate and require testimony from anyone. However, it can’t publish material the security services want kept secret. And it can be suspended by the government in times of crisis.

Oddly enough, Norway’s parliamentary oversight committee contains no parliamentarians. Legislators choose the committee’s members but cannot themselves sit on the oversight body.

On paper, the U.S has a far more robust system of oversight. Both houses of Congress have intelligence committees that, in theory, operate independently.

But history shows that in many cases both the House and Senate intelligence committees have been co-opted by the agencies they purport to control.

True, the Senate intelligence committee produced last year a watershed report on torture by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency — a report that the CIA did not want released.

But tellingly, the report was issued years after the agency terminated its torture program. Even here, there was no effective real-time oversight.

Other revelations about U.S. security service abuses came to light not because of the oversight committees but in spite of them.

In 2005, the New York Times broke the story that, in apparent violation of American law, the country’s National Security Agency was engaging in warrantless wiretaps of U.S. citizens.

In this case, the chairs of both legislative oversight committees had known of the program since its inception in 2002. But they had done nothing.

In 2013, contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on so-called metadata collection by the NSA and its partners (including Canada’s Communications Security Establishment.)

Again, U.S. oversight committees had long known of this practice without curbing it.

Here in Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper opposes setting up a parliamentary oversight committee to monitor the country’s spooks. He says it won’t do much good.

For reasons other than those he may want to admit, the prime minister is probably right. Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.