Despite the media controversies surrounding high-profile cases of undercover policing, it is not always clear what ethical issues are at stake. Can undercover policing be justified? What are the ethical issues surrounding concealment and infiltration? What larger questions does undercover policing raise about the nature of policing and the legitimacy of coercive state action? In this timely and clear account, Christopher Nathan explores these questions and more. He rejects the view that the consequences of undercover policing always justify the means, instead advancing an argument that through their actions people can make themselves morally liable to some forms of undercover policing. Drawing on several recent, high-profile case studies, Christopher Nathan argues for a new understanding of proportionality in undercover policing that takes account of innocent parties, vulnerable targets, and manipulation into wrongful action. He also defends a central role for the judiciary in the oversight of undercover policing.

Cases and Materials on Constitutional and Administrative Law provides an essential collection of key primary and secondary materials with incisive commentary from the authors.

By using informers to provide intelligence on terrorism, the security and intelligence agencies who handle them gain knowledge of their offences. Charges may then be brought against them, provided evidence supports this course of action. But if imprisoned, an informer no longer has access to the time-sensitive, potentially life-saving intelligence they once had. There is therefore a tension between continuing to use an informer to provide intelligence on terrorism and upholding the law. This tension is at the heart of this book. Terrorist Informers in Northern Ireland analyses prominent terrorist informers such as Agent Stakeknife, and lesser-known examples, who collectively were active throughout Northern Ireland from the 1970s to the present. It looks at both those involved with republican groups and with loyalist groups, and also those working for the police, the armed forces, and MI5. Valuable pieces of the puzzle are unearthed in sources such as court judgments, official reports, and in interviews conducted by the author. The book also analyses the way successive governments, the police, the armed forces, and MI5 have addressed the regulation of terrorist informers' involvement in criminality, as well as allegations of 'collusion' between informers on one hand and the security and intelligence agencies on the other. Accordingly, the book also assesses the varied retrospective investigations into the use of terrorist informers, and therefore the competing needs for secrecy and transparency. As Samantha Newbery's research here shows, although there is a tension between intelligence and the law, this can be successfully navigated.

In July 2012 Mark Ellison QC was commissioned to conduct a review examining allegations of corruption surrounding the initial, deeply flawed, investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. He was also asked to examine whether the Metropolitan Police had evidence of corruption that it did not disclose to the Macpherson Inquiry and thirdly, whether there was inappropriate undercover activity directed at the Lawrence family? On corruption, Ellison finds that specific allegations of corruption were made against 1 of the officers who had worked on the investigation of Stephen Lawrence's murder, Detective Sergeant John Davidson. The allegations were made by a police officer to his superiors but were not brought to the attention of Macpherson. The MPS's record-keeping on its own investigations into police corruption are a cause of real concern. Key evidence was the subject of mass shredding in 2003. Ellison identifies the wholly inappropriate use of an undercover officer during the Macpherson Inquiry. A Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) officer, referred to as N81, had been deployed into one of the groups seeking to influence the Lawrence family campaign, effectively becoming an MPS spy in the Lawrence family camp during the course of judicial proceedings in which the family was the primary party in opposition to the MPS. N81 also met the detective writing the MPS's submissions to the Macpherson Inquiry, a completely improper action. SDS officers also operated as if exempt from the proper rules of disclosure in criminal cases. And this means there is a real potential for miscarriages of justice to have occurred.

This important new book explores contemporary concerns about the protection of national security. It examines the role, influence, and impact of Big Tech on politics, power, and individual rights. The volume considers the manner in which digital technology and its business models have shaped public policy and charts its future course. In this vital text for legislators and policymakers, Andrea Monti and Raymond Wacks draw on several case studies to analyse the changing nature of national security and revisit the traditional idea of the sovereignty of the State. They highlight some of the limitations of the conventional understanding of public policy, national security, and the rule of law to reveal the role of digital technology as an enabler as well as discriminator in governance and social disorder. Further, the chapters in the book explore the tenuous balance between individual freedom and national security; the key role of data protection in safeguarding digital data; Big Tech’s appropriation of national security policy; the debate relating to datagathering technologies and encryption; and offers an unsettling answer to the question ‘what is a leak?’ A stimulating read, this key text will be of immense interest to scholars of politics, cyberculture, and national security, as well as to policy analysts, lawyers, and journalists.