MI5's Andrew Parker lives in a different world | Clive Stafford Smith |

MI5's Andrew Parker lives in a different world | Clive Stafford Smith | Comment is free | theguardian.com: "As for the accountability of MI5, my own experiences clash somewhat with his claims. He cites the ISC as one aspect of this strict and independent process. Of course, the ISC did nothing about the British "policy" that allowed agents to witness torture in 2002 until we forced it on them years later. Here we are after a decade: Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the ISC chair, recently wrote to one of my clients (Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo Bay) saying that it was not within their remit to consider individual cases.
Indeed, the rigorous accountability Parker expects from this quarter comes from Rifkind, who seems to spend more of his time insisting that he is being rigorous than he does actually holding the agencies to account. It is not just me questioning Rifkind's approach: Lord King, himself the Conservative longest-serving former chair of the ISC, recently told the Guardian that Rifkind's swift endorsement of the work of GCHQ was "unfortunate"."