Problem

The Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangements are shrouded in secrecy, allowing for arbitrary or unlawful intrusions on the right to privacy which circumvent domestic legal restrictions on state surveillance. There is no domestic legislation governing intelligence-sharing, meaning that many of these arrangements lack legal basis and therefore democratic legitimacy. The “third party rule”, often included in intelligence-sharing agreements, forbids the disclosure of inter-agency information to third parties, ousting the possibility of oversight.

Some of the bilateral agreements falling under the UKUSA umbrella reveal the outsourcing of surveillance activities to corporations without limiting their access to classified information, contributing to the privatisation of espionage. This raises questions about the delegation of governmental functions to private actors that remain unanswered.

Solution

The public should have clarity as to the circumstances in which Five Eyes intelligence agencies will exchange information and the procedure governing such exchange, including limiting the sharing of intelligence to what is necessary and proportionate.

Governments must extend domestic and international constraints applicable to state surveillance to international intelligence-sharing agreements to prevent the emergence of parallel surveillance frameworks with double-standards.

In order to avoid the mishandling of intelligence information, due diligence obligations must be imposed on states obtaining, accessing, using, analysis retaining and sharing intelligence information. In particular, states must be required to analyse the accuracy or verifiability of the information received prior to acting upon it, and ensure the agencies with whom the information is shared do not have a negative human rights record,

Oversight mechanisms must be implemented to review, monitor and express recommendations on all aspects of intelligence-sharing agreements, ensuring that States comply with due diligence obligations.

SRC: https://www.privacyinternational.org/learn/five-eyes

Spies spy for the establishment not the people. It's not cool it's a problem.