Principled Spying: The Ethics of Secret Intelligence - Hardcover

Omand, David; Phythian, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1626165602 ISBN 13: 9781626165601

Publisher: Georgetown University Press, 2018

Synopsis

Intelligence agencies provide critical information to national security and foreign policy decision makers, but spying also poses inherent dilemmas for liberty, privacy, human rights, and diplomacy. Principled Spying explores how to strike a balance between necessary intelligence activities and protecting democratic values by developing a new framework of ethics. David Omand and Mark Phythian structure this book as an engaging debate between a former national security practitioner and an intelligence scholar. Rather than simply presenting their positions, throughout the book they pose key questions to each other and to the reader and offer contrasting perspectives to stimulate further discussion. They demonstrate the value for both practitioners and the public of weighing the dilemmas of secret intelligence through ethics. The chapters in the book cover key areas including human intelligence, surveillance, acting on intelligence, and oversight and accountability. The authors disagree on some key questions, but in the course of their debate they demonstrate that it is possible to find a balance between liberty and security. This book is accessible reading for concerned citizens, but it also delivers the sophisticated insights of a high-ranking former practitioner and a distinguished scholar.

About this title

Review

Provides valuable both-sides arguments on the issue that warrant a read by both intelligence professionals and the lay citizen alike.

--Washington Times

The format is unique, taking the form of a dialogue between the two authors, with each author's contribution labeled as such. Their approach to the problem of intelligence ethics is promising as they seek to use just-war theory as a way to offer ethical guidance on how to engage in actions forbidden altogether in normal society.

--Choice

This groundbreaking volume admirably brings these two worlds into dialogue, bridging an imagined divide of utility versus principle with a new paradigm for considering the ethics of intelligence operations.

--Theological Studies

About the Author

Sir David Omand, GCB, was previously UK security and intelligence coordinator, permanent secretary of the UK Home Office, and director of GCHQ, the UK signals intelligence and cyber security agency. He is the author of Securing the State. Mark Phythian is professor of politics in the School of History, Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester and coeditor of the journal Intelligence and National Security. He is coauthor of Intelligence in an Insecure World and has nearly a dozen other books to his name.

Edition details

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1626165602
• ISBN 13: 9781626165601
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 296