Lying about Iraq

Lobster Issue 45 (Summer 2003) £££

[…] unit in the Pentagon whose task has been defined by Pentagon officials as “searching for information on Iraq’s hostile intentions or links to terrorists that the nation’s spy agencies may have overlooked”. ‘ < http: //weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/ 610/op3.htm > . Essentially the same information is in Oliver Burkeman, ‘Rumsfeld picks team of experts to find […]

What’s been did and hid

Lobster Issue 51 (Summer 2006) £££

[…] GCSB’s Big Brothers) systematically spied on the UN. So, the answer is that spying on the UN is in America’s interests, and that the very junior NZ spy agency in the covert alliance is simply doing what it is told. Nothing has changed in 20 years, the UN is still a prime target for […]

The Shadow Man: At the Heart of the Cambridge Spy Circle by Geoff Andrews

Lobster Issue 72 (Winter 2016) FREE

[PDF file]: The Shadow Man: At the Heart of the Cambridge Spy Circle Geoff Andrews London: I B Tauris, 2016, £20, h/b This is a revelatory book that, in its own quiet, understated way, is likely to send shock waves through the historiography of British Communism. Geoff Andrews is the author of the disappointing last volume […]

A Spy Alone by Charles Beaumont

Lobster Issue 88 (2024) FREE

[PDF file]: A Spy Alone Charles Beaumont London: Canelo, 2023, £9.99 (p/b) Robin Ramsay This is only the second novel I have reviewed in Lobster.1 The cover and the author blurb tells us that author Beaumont is a ‘former MI6 operative’. ‘Operative’? Why not ‘officer’? The author tells me the word was chosen by the publisher. […]

Web Update

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1) £££

[…] may breach European privacy legislation and the European Commission is investigating four possible breaches of European law (Europe to Investigate Legality of RIP, 27/10/00, www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/14288.html and Net Spy Act may be Illegal, Independent 5/11/00, www.independent.co.uk/news/Digital/Update/ 2000-11/spy051100.shtml) A public consultation on the draft Codes of Practice (on Interception of Communications, Covert Surveillance and the use […]

Spies, Lies, and the War On Terror

Book cover
Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009) £££

Paul Todd, Jonathan Bloch, and Patrick Fitzgerald London: Zedbooks, 2009, £14.99, p/b, £39.95 h/b   This book is published as the debate rages in America about whether or not the activities of the Bush regime, specifically the torture of various combat detainees and suspects rendered from various parts of the world, should be subject to … Read more

Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers

Book cover
Lobster Issue 49 (Summer 2005) £££

Annie Machon Lewes (East Sussex): Book Guild, 2005, h/b, £17.95   It is hard to ‘see’ this book because a lot of the material, especially in the first half, is familiar, half-remembered from the press reporting of the Shayler-Machon drama and the book Defending the Realm by Nick Fielding and Mark Hollingsworth. Nonetheless, familiar or … Read more

Spinning the Spies: Intelligence, open government and the Hutton Inquiry

Book cover
Lobster Issue 49 (Summer 2005) £££

Anthony Glees and Philip H. J. Davies London: The Social Affairs Unit, 2004, £30, h/b   This is a curious little book (112 pp.) in which two conservative intelligence academics wrestle with the realities of the events leading up to the attack on Iraq. But what manner of beast is a conservative intelligence academic? The … Read more

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