The problems of trying to get policing and national security to walk the line

IT COULD well be the case that the crises over policing and oversight that rocked the country this year could be replicated down the road in relation to the shadowy world of national security.

In recent months there have been steps — largely unnoticed in the media — to siphon off this nebulous world of policing from the “new era” of openness and transparency.

When the Government announced in March that it was setting up a Police Authority, there was no hint at that stage that it would be an authority for some policing, not all.