Cheques and imbalances?

At least for the foreseeable future, the bulk of my contributions to this blog will focus on intelligence and private security matters. Judging from past research experiences on these topics, notably my doctoral thesis on parliamentary intelligence oversight for alleged intelligence governance malfeasances in the current counter-terrorism climate, a great number of reports and sources that I will use and comment on will be of North American origin. Having said this, whenever possible, I will either try to unearth the implications for European security politics or engage in comparisons with similar developments (or the lack thereof) in Europe.

Two things, in particular, should be further clarified in this prelude: First, just because the reporting and/or the actual intelligence or private security activities are of external origin does not mean that they do not influence European politics. (If any justification for this was necessary, consider the US-led extraordinary rendition programme and the shock waves and complicity investigations that followed in Europe). Second, focusing on the responses that some of these (mostly alleged) activities have provoked in North America, we can also draw precious lessons on how to better understand the challenges and, ideally, improve the practice of democratic security in Europe, too.