The Truth About British Spies

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ALEX CHADWICK, host:

So, international espionage can be a deadly business. Along with real life examples, the fictional British secret agent James Bond has carried a license to kill for decades. He used it again in the new movie Casino Royale, which did have a killer weekend.

But do some British spies really get a license to kill? That's a question for the explainer team at Slate. Here's Andy Bowers.

ANDY BOWERS: Yes, they do. But the relevant statute doesn't use those loaded words. In 1994, the British government publicly acknowledged the existence of the agency responsible for foreign espionage - the Secret Intelligence Service, or SIS, commonly known as MI6. And the 1994 Intelligence Services Act set up a system of Parliamentary accountability for MI6.

Under the act, the secretary of state can authorize persons to commit acts abroad for which they may not be held liable under British law. By implication, that includes all criminal law relating to the use of lethal force. An authorization, though renewable, may last for only six months. Of course, the act does not and cannot immunize agents from the law of the foreign lands in which they operate.

Before 1994, agents acting outside the British Islands would officially have been exposed to UK law, however the Intelligence Services Act codified what had essentially been de facto internal policy regarding covert action abroad. No MI6 officer has ever publicly admitted to or been charged with killing an enemy of the state, but a few assassinations are believed to have taken place during World War II and the early Cold War.

In any case, contrary to popular imagination, paramilitary action has long been carried out almost wholly by British Special Forces or foreign third parties, not by MI6.

MADELEINE BRAND, host:

Andy Bowers is a Slate senior editor and that explainer was compiled by Justin Shubow.

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