ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines and explores some of the recent changes that have taken place in the practice and organisation of Western intelligence, with particular reference to the American and British cases. American concerns with the organisational reform of its intelligence community are outlined and evaluated. Transatlantic comparisons are made, with particular reference to debates about intelligence and human rights. The legacies of the British experience in Northern Ireland are examined, not least for the evolution of attitudes to the use of torture and the preservation of the rule of law. The British experience of ‘talking to terrorists’ is explored and the contemporary implications of such past exchanges are considered. The argument that the ‘War on Terror’ is a ‘battle of ideas’, and represents an essential factor in all of these questions, is made. Finally, the future prospects for, and the expectations of, intelligence reform are discussed.
