The headlines attacking the intelligence and security committee grow ever more lurid – "MI5 kept watchdog in the dark", "MPs were misled over torture", and so on. The committee has been in existence for almost 16 years. I have served on it throughout. I have neither been a poodle of any prime minister in that time, nor "gone native" as alleged.
But it is not easy to explain to a public grown increasingly cynical about parliament why the committee functions as it does. Misunderstandings, exaggerations and errors in reporting how we operate make it more difficult. That is why we must show that we are independent and forthright in the way we go about our work, secretive as much of it may seem.
For instance, we are not "powerless to compel disclosure of documents". Indeed, we have more powers than select committees because we are cleared to see classified material. If any document is withheld from us we can, and do, publicly "name and shame". It is not the case that the prime minister's office gets to vet any report. Nor has it restricted the giving of interviews.
Let me set out the facts, some of which have been ignored and others twisted. Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national, was arrested at Karachi airport on 10 April 2002 for travelling on a false passport. In their open judgment of 21 August 2008, the high court said "the security service were right to conclude that he was a person of great potential significance and a serious potential threat to the national security of the UK. There was, therefore, every reason to seek to obtain as much intelligence from him as was possible in accordance with the rule of law and to co-operate as fully as possible with the US authorities to that end."
Thus the court has justified the decision of MI5 to send an officer to Karachi to interview Binyam Mohamed and to share intelligence on him with the US. But was it done within the rule of law?
The MI5 officer interviewed Binyam Mohamed on 17 May having flown to Karachi at short notice. He was responding urgently to the need to obtain information necessary to protect us from the terrorist threat. There has been no suggestion that the security service was responsible at any time for the conditions of Binyam Mohamed's detention.
On 16 May the dismembered body of the American journalist, Daniel Pearl, was discovered in Karachi. In the fevered atmosphere of the time, western intelligence services were trying to discover further threats to our security with enormous urgency. This is not to excuse any wrongdoing. But it is all too easy to forget these pressures when making judgments years later.
Binyam Mohamed alleged later that he was tortured in Morocco, in particular that his genitals were mutilated. Evidence before the court shows no MI5 involvement in this: only that they knew he had been deprived of sleep. It was the latter treatment which was described by the court as "… at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the US authorities".
One might have gained the impression from the media that torture was common practice among our security services: that they are out of control and deceiving both ministers and ourselves. The reality is that this is a case where MI5 had documents referring to sleep deprivation; they appear to have done nothing about them; and failed to communicate the fact in a timely fashion.
The inadequate record-keeping of the security and intelligence agencies has been a constant irritant that we have criticised publicly. There is no convincing explanation why key documents regarding Binyam Mohamed which showed MI5 had information on CIDT [cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment] were not made available to us and we have said that it is very worrying that these were overlooked. Had the service treated the committee's inquiries with the same rigour as they did when legal disclosure was called for and, indeed, had their records been fit for purpose then this information would have come to light during our original inquiry. We will report further on these matters, but it appears to have been administrative failure, not deliberate deception.
But all this is a long way from complicity in torture, for which no evidence has been forthcoming. I find it astonishing that Jonathan Sumption QC should have had to complain that Lord Neuberger's draft judgment would be read as stating "that officials of the Service deliberately misled the ISC … This reflects a culture of suppression in its dealings with the committee … to such a degree as to undermine any UK government assurances based on the service's information and advice."
These are extraordinary assertions which have received much publicity. What was not reported was Sumption's description of the Master of the Rolls' observations as "an exceptionally damaging criticism of the good faith of the security services as a whole," to which he contends that "ordinary considerations of natural justice would suggest that those responsible for the management of the security service should have had a proper opportunity to respond. No submission as extreme as this was made during the hearing, let alone supported by evidence." Quite so.
At least let us conduct a debate based on facts and evidence, rather than inaccurate and sensationalist allegations.