Busting myths about Coulson’s security vetting
Daniel Korski 9:03am
A recent turn in "Hackgate" has focused on the level of security clearance
given to Andy Coulson. The insinuation is that Number 10 knew that Coulson would not be able to pass the so-called Developed Vetting level (DV) and therefore gave him a lower level. I have no idea
what happened in No 10, or whether the allegations made against Coulson automatically disqualified him from obtaining DV level. But having been vetted several times, I can’t help but disagree
with the way the story has been covered by some organisations.
First, Coulson was, as far as I can gather, vetted to the Security Check (SC) level. That is not ‘the basic level of security vetting,’ as David Cameron and the Guardian have claimed. The basic level is called CTC or Counter Terrorist Check. When I asked somebody what it meant, I was told that you could be trusted not to blow yourself up at work. Kidding aside, there are levels even below this, such as EBS, or Enhanced Baseline Standard. To underline, then, Coulson’s vetting was not ‘basic’.
Typically, inquiries into personal circumstances, finances and lifestyles “will only be made as part of the DV or Security Check (SC) process”, to quote the Cabinet Office policy. So the idea that only under a DV process will investigators gather “details of psychological problems, alcohol and drug histories and mortgages, personal property, and debts” is false. Coulson’s SC status could therefore have come after a more thorough check. I don't know if it did, but it could have done.
Finally there is what a person with SC clearance is allowed to see. Again, reports would have one believe that the SC level does not really give access to anything special. As The Guardian says, ‘Alastair Campbell and Lance Price, press advisers to Tony Blair, said they struggled to understand how Coulson could operate on issues. . . . with such low level clearance.’ But the answer is simple. Because Coulson would, in fact, be given sufficient access. To paraphrase government policy: SC clearance is for people who “have long-term, frequent and uncontrolled access to SECRET assets and/or occasional, supervised access to TOP SECRET assets.” In other words, someone with an SC clearance would see SECRET and TOP SECRET information, though in the case of the latter only in a supervised situation (i.e. with a colleague in the room).
For a press officer, even the most senior one, that level would be enough to follow issues ranging from the British economy, NATO policy, European security policy, Afghanistan and the terror threat to the UK. It may have been more convenient to have a DV clearance, but not at all impossible to work unimpeded without it.
None of this exonerates No 10 if the decision was made for reasons other than professional ones. But the way that the details of the story are being written up is misleading.
Previous
Mirtha Tidville
July 22nd, 2011 9:18am Report this commentOh come on is yesterdays news the best the Speccie can come up with..OK so you hate Cameron, lots of us do, but the big news is the EU and their deluded `bail out`...not a cheap from you on that...get a grip pleeese
les
July 22nd, 2011 9:28am Report this commentMaybe they should have continued vetting Campbell whilst he was in No10!
Chris lancashire
July 22nd, 2011 9:29am Report this commentLook, if you really can't think about anything else to write about I am willing to contribute to a fund to send all Spectator staff on a month's holiday.
Perry the Hard Hearted
July 22nd, 2011 9:35am Report this commentMyths, lies, innuendo, changing stories, 'revelations', and much much more ... only tend to alert the cynic in me that this is all an elaborate ruse to turn attention away from the EUSSR and its balletic manoeuvres.
It is also a convenient distraction for the H2B so that, in all sincerity, he can claim his attention was focussed elsewhere.
Oh that we had a person who, whilst ably supported and attending to necessary minutiae, could draw attention to the bigger picture - which is certainly NOT Africa, NOR his stupid appointments, but rather the EUSSR and all the other topics regularly mentioned here that cry out for attention.
Oh well ...
Richard Nabavi
July 22nd, 2011 9:38am Report this commentIf Coulson had been vetted to DV level, the Guardian would be running with: "In a dramatic new development, the Guardian can exclusively reveal that Andy Coulson, the ex-NOTW editor at the centre of the scandal, had unlimited access to top-secret information. This raises major new questions about David Cameron's judgement, and the implications of the hacking scandal for national security."
Andy Carpark
July 22nd, 2011 9:41am Report this commentThe horse's carcass has been flogged, flayed, stuffed, boiled, interred, dug up and hung out to dry.
But lo, it lives again as the mount of myth-busting Daniel Korski - triumphant in his superman cape and his trolleys worn outside his tights.
laertiades
July 22nd, 2011 9:41am Report this commentAre we not just creating news?
telemachus
July 22nd, 2011 9:43am Report this commentPity poor Coulson. He is probably an honourable man but has become Cameron's soft underbelly
Hexhamgeezer
July 22nd, 2011 9:50am Report this commentAllegations or deeds, however serious, are not automatic bars to being granted DV status. Denial of them is.
nonny mouse
July 22nd, 2011 9:57am Report this comment>>under a DV process will investigators gather “details of psychological problems, alcohol and drug histories and mortgages, personal property, and debts”
Did Alistair Campbell pass a DV test? Given his public problems with drink maybe they didn't do a very good job of vetting him.
How about Brown? Doesn't throwing phones come under 'psychological problems'?
2trueblue
July 22nd, 2011 10:04am Report this commentTruely hacked off with it all. Who cares what Campbell thinks. His dealing with 'the dossier' surely means that he is not the one to garner info from. Lets move on. There really are more important things.
Del
July 22nd, 2011 10:15am Report this commentOr maybe we should consider why Campbell et al needed to have DV clearance; after all, they were only spin doctors not Ministers, DV clearnce would give them access to information that would be above their pay grade but of course the Tony & Gord show needn't worry about security, they simply ignored anything that didn't suit them and let their hatchet men blackmail and bully elected MP's and Ministers and castrated the media lobby's teat.
DavidDP
July 22nd, 2011 10:16am Report this commentWell, I for one think it's good to hear from someone who appears to know about the system, rather than the BBC or Alastair Campbell who have their own interests to push.
John Goode
July 22nd, 2011 10:19am Report this commentActually this could backfire on Labour. Given that SC clearance is sufficient for what is in effect a Press Secretary why was Alastair Campbell given such high clearance?
Is this confirmation that he in fact had an executive roll in goverment decisions?
Pramston
July 22nd, 2011 10:27am Report this commentRichard - Spot on, was going to write almost exactly the same myself, but couldn't have put it better. It really doesn't matter what happens it will be seen through the 'Scandal' prism.
Rhoda Klapp
July 22nd, 2011 10:29am Report this commentThis is more than just keeping a tired story going for a slow news day. This is a day when there is a story crying out for a little perceptive analysis, and it is being ignored. Or, and this is a novel alternative, be a journalist and go and find a story we might give a toss about, one that is not covered to extinction elsewhere.
Hugh
July 22nd, 2011 10:33am Report this commentCan't help laugh at the idea it's peculiar not to have followed the Alastair Campbell model for giving press officers unrestricted access to national security secrets and the like. What could go wrong, eh?
Liz Brown
July 22nd, 2011 10:43am Report this commentThis has become utterly tedious.
So, Campbell had top level clearance and look where that got us, an illegal war in Iraq and the horrific consequences...........
ollie
July 22nd, 2011 11:07am Report this commentCampbell could not be described as a "fit and proper person" by anyone who knew him, yet this unelected sociopath formulated government policy for many years.
I know Labour must be getting increasingly desperate if they've brought this maniac back to stir up trouble.
Rhoda Klapp
July 22nd, 2011 11:17am Report this commentHow about the ONS on the PSBR. That's a story you are not covering here. About how there aren't really any reductions in spending, in fact it is increasing out of any apparent control.
I find these things on the net you know. Blogs. Amateur blogs, finding stories about the world. Our world, that is, not the world of the village where all are idiots.
TomTom
July 22nd, 2011 11:43am Report this commentWho cares about so-called "Security Vetting" in Trumpton ? Most of it is simply to cover up basic incompetence and ignorance. Clearly it was Top Secret that HBOS and RBS were insolvent and only hedge funds knew....the EU disaster is also Top Secret and the public had to be kept in blissful ignorance.
Maybe our super Intelligence Information has found WMD posing a threat in Libya or Iraq but not in Pakistan or Iran ?
The whole system is a farce. Coulson is as clueless as Cameron or Miliband. They are all out of their depth
Sir Everard Digby
July 22nd, 2011 11:45am Report this commentNone of this exonerates Number 10 if they did this for other than professional reasons
Don't be shy,what reasons do you mean? Or don't you have any?
If you don't, what is the basis for your comment?
Perhaps Cameron was abducted by aliens and is living on the moon? Fanciful I know but at least it's not masquerading as serious journalism.
statechaos
July 22nd, 2011 12:20pm Report this commentIt was refreshing to hear Professor Robert Winston's take on 'hackgate' on Sky News last night. he thought the treatment of Rupert Murdoch by the non News Corp. media was dreadful, and borne out of self-interest rather than the public interest, and said that Murdoch has done a lot for news in the UK in particular providing welcome competition to the monopoly of the BBC.
starfish
July 22nd, 2011 12:25pm Report this commentI think you are missing the point
Vetting does not give access, it permits access on a need to know basis
The more sensitive the info the more thorough the risk assessment of people receiving it needs to be. Hence increased levels of vetting for those who may, on a need to know basis, need to see it
I have no idea if AC had a a DV but he would still be subject to the same rules as everyone else, if he had no need to see information he wouldn't have
Ralph
July 22nd, 2011 12:53pm Report this commentThis story has jumped the shark, and gone back for a second go, now a third.
Woody
July 22nd, 2011 1:25pm Report this commentSurprising comments by Lord Winston, but welcome nonetheless. Pity no-one in the tory party could have come up with a well-balanced comment like this, instead of joining 'the ostrich club' again.
Roger Norton
July 22nd, 2011 2:25pm Report this commentMore to the point, Alan Johnson wasn't DV'd for a period when he was Home Secretary, surely if ever a role demanded it, it was that.
The Engineer
July 22nd, 2011 4:17pm Report this commentUnlike many CHers, I was rather interested in this story - mainly because of the link to the Vetting policy document. I now understand why at some sites, clearance was very slow to come through, while at most it was a matter of a few days.
But there are ridiculous cases, at one site where I worked, I had access to highly classified information, while the guy sitting opposite to me didn't. What was silly was that he had actually written the document in question, a few years earlier, but had left the defence industry and his clearence had lapsed.
Reed
July 22nd, 2011 4:22pm Report this commentRichard Nabavi @ 9:38am has the measure of this. Either way, the Guardian/BBC will spin it in a negative way for Cameron and the Conservatives. They've got hold of something precious, a story useful to their agenda, and they're not going to let it go unless they have to.
Frank P
July 22nd, 2011 4:26pm Report this commentWoody
Link to
AJC
July 22nd, 2011 5:11pm Report this commentYesterday Michael Crick tweeted ...
"Damian McBride + Simon Lewis had deep vetting - highest grade. Gdian says A Campbell, D Hill + M Ellam also did. In contrast to Coulson."
D Short
July 23rd, 2011 6:21pm Report this commentThis is a confusing and hard to follow article, even by standards recently set by the Spectator.
I'd love to know how a formerly boozy, foul-mouthed, bullying and potentially violent person such as Blair's press adviser ever passed any kind of vetting.
And if you have been the editor of a scurrilous newspaper that plays fast and loose with the truth and the lives of the undertrodden it writes about, how can anyone trust you, never mind the Queen's First Minister?
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