MI5 A Branch
A Branch is a division of the Security Service (MI5).
According to Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, A Branch is responsible for telephone tapping, covert entry, and specialised secret photography:
- Known as 'Operational Support', this also runs mobile and static surveillance units, who cover long-term targets like embassies. Other parts of A Branch keep safehouses and and listening posts, and transcribe the tapes of tapped telephone calls.[1]
A Branch is presumably identical to the branch reporting to the Deputy Director General which is identified on the MI5 website as "responsible for managing the Service's operational capabilities such as its technical and surveillance operations".[2]
Contents
Sections
- A1A: Technical Operations, such as covert entry and audio and video survellance.[3]
- A1D: Lockpickers and carpenters. [4]
- A1F: As A1A, but on longer term target sites.
- A2A: intercept transcription.
- A3 and A5: Technical support for operations, including specialised covert photography and lockpickers.[5]
- A4: Physical surveillance teams or 'watchers'.[6]
Facilities
A Branch was at one time based at Euston Tower, near Kings Cross, London.[7]
Watchers have used cars based at a garage in Streatham High Street, South London, officially used by the Department of the Environment.[8]
History
Early Incarnations
The name A Branch has been applied to a number of different divisions within MI5 over the course of its history.
The earliest A Branch covered monitoring aliens during the First World War.[9]
When MI5 became the Security Service in 1931 the administration division was named A Branch.[10] After a re-organisation in 1938, A Branch covered administration and registry functions.[11] A Branch retained responsibility for administration in another re-organisation, launched by Sir David Petrie in 1941.[12]
1950s
A Branch retained responsibility for technical support and the surveillance 'watchers', in a re-organisation under Sir Dick White in the early 1950s.[13]
1970s
In mid-1974 false rumours that Labour Minister Judith Hart was a communist circulated around London after A Branch intercepted her phoning the British Communist Party HQ to inquire about the fate of dissidents in Chile.[14]
During the mid-1970s, former K Branch officer Hal Doyne-Ditmass worked in A Branch on computerising watcher records.[15]
1990s
MI5 whistleblower David Shayler revealed the Guardian journalist Victoria Brittain was under A Branch surveillance between 1993 and 1995, after MI5 wrongly concluded she was laundering money for Libyan intelligence.[16]
People
Directors
According to Michael Smith, Eliza Manningham-Buller is a former head of A Branch.[17] This may be identical with her appointment as Operations Director in 1994, described by Hollingsworth and Fielding.[18]
Notes
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, p.59.
- ↑ Organisation, MI5, accessed 19 July 2009.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, pp.320-321.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, p.74.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, pp.320-321.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, p.74.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, p.73.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, p.74.
- ↑ Michael Smith, The Spying Game, Politico's 2003, p.77.
- ↑ Michael Smith, The Spying Game, Politico's 2003, p.81.
- ↑ Michael Smith, The Spying Game, Politico's 2003, p.85.
- ↑ Michael Smith, The Spying Game, Politico's 2003, p.88.
- ↑ Michael Smith, The Spying Game, Politico's 2003, p.110.
- ↑ David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.228-229.
- ↑ David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.242.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, p.194.
- ↑ Michael Smith, The Spying Game, Politico's 2003, p.136.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War on Terrorism, André Deutsch, 2003, p.290.
