Home Secretary: UK needs capability to defend its citizens
25 Jun 2014 11:33 AM
Theresa May gives annual
Lord Mayor's Defence and Security Lecture
The world is a dangerous place
and the UK must maintain its capability to defend its citizens in the digital
age, Home Secretary Theresa May said yesterday.
Speaking at the annual Lord
Mayor’s Defence and Security Lecture in London, she spoke of the threat
the country faces, including from British people returning home from the
conflict in Syria.
But the Home Secretary said that
threat – whether from terrorism or organised crime – is changing
fast and the UK needs the capabilities to defend its interests and protect its
citizens.
And she said it was important to
talk about the balance between privacy and security “in the full context
of the threats we face” rather than “in a strange vacuum as if the
debate was entirely academic”.
Threats to UK
Home Secretary Theresa May
said:
The terrorist threats to this
country and our interests are changing faster than at any time since 9/11. We
continue to face possible attacks by al Qaida in Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
But we face further threats from
Syria and now from Iraq where al Qaida, ISIL and others have created a safe
haven with substantial resources including advanced technology and
weapons.
They are on the doorstep on
Europe, just a few hours flying time from London, and they want to attack us
– not just in Syria or Iraq but here in Britain.
The Home Secretary told the
event at Mansion House that it is important to be clear about the UK’s
capabilities and the challenges faced in maintaining them in a digital
age.
She said:
We are living more of our lives
online, using an array of new technology. This is hugely liberating and a great
opportunity for economic growth, but this technology has become essential not
just to the likes of you and me but to organised criminals and
terrorists.
Far from having some fictitious
mastery over all this technology we, in democratic states, face the significant
risk of being caught out by it.
Governments have always reserved
the power to monitor communications and to collect data about communications
when it is necessary and proportionate to do so.
It is much harder now –
there is more data, we do not own it and we can no longer always obtain it. I
know some people will say ‘hurrah for that’ – but the result
is that we are in danger of making the internet an ungoverned, ungovernable
space, a safe haven for terrorism and criminality.
Great danger
The Home Secretary described
loss of capability as “the great danger we face”.
She said:
The real problem is not that we
have built an over-mighty state but that the state is finding it harder to
fulfil its most basic duty, which is to protect the public.
That is why I have said before
and I will go on saying that we need to make changes to the law to maintain the
capabilities we need.
Yes, we have to make sure that
the capabilities can only be used with the right authorisation and with
appropriate oversight. But this is quite simply a question of life and death, a
matter of national security.
We must keep on making the case
until we get the changes we need.