The gathering of intelligence by the Secret Services is now an issue of major importance in the modern world. It was on this basis that Bush and Blair decided to go to war ensuring that arguments both for and against will go on much beyond our own generations.
What are the ethical responsibilities of the Secret Services? They gather the information that is passed to politicians, who then decide how to act in our name. In order to gather intelligence anything is permissible except torture in this country deception, blackmail, eavesdropping, but do the means justify the end? In the process individual privacy is sacrificed, as are human rights and now we have extra judicial rendition.
But above all, how have the actions of the US government in recent years affected the general perception of the gathering and use of intelligence by the Secret Services? All these matters raise profound questions for the nature and future of democracy. We live in a culture of fear but what has this done for what Popper called The Open Society?
These are matters that all intelligent people should be concerned about, described and analysed brilliantly in this book.
