ABSTRACT
Western intelligence services in Europe and North America share many historical roots, where the experiences and ordeals of World War II and the Cold War stand out as formative. The end of the Cold War brought considerable changes to the global security landscape and the focus of the intelligence services in Europe as well as overseas. The gradual and uneven introduction of various means and models of intelligence oversight is a story with greater diversity between the same countries. The focus on international terrorism was not entirely new – Al Qaeda and a number of other international terrorist groups from the Indian subcontinent, for example, had come on to the radar of Western security and intelligence agencies during the 1990s. International bodies attempted to reconcile the contradictions by proposing guidelines for fighting terrorism while respecting human rights. The growth in international intelligence cooperation carries potential benefits but also the risks of deniability and circumvention of legal constraints by proxy.
