Drone Wars appeared before a two-day information tribunal this week seeking to overturn the decision of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to end the release of statistical information on the use of Reaper drones and other armed aircraft on military operations. This information has been a crucial way for the public and parliament to have oversight of UK military action and without the data, it will be much hard to hold the UK to account.
The MoD has been responding to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for statistical information since 2010. In January 2023, the MoD abruptly ended the practice arguing that the information could not be provided due to exemptions provided under Section 23 (Security bodies) or Section 24 (National Security), and Section 26 (Defence) of the Act.
Section 23 and Section 24 are used as ‘alternatives’ to disguise which exemption is being relied upon, that is whether the information comes from or relates to Special Forces, the intelligence service or similar bodies, or whether it is needed to protect ‘national security’.
The hearing took place partly in open session with Drone Wars present, but it also went into closed session when we were excluded, in order to hear evidence in secret.
The MoD provided a witness statement from Group Captain Redican, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Joint Air Force Component and someone with direct experience of Operation Shader in response to our appeal. Although the full witness statement contains 50 numbered paragraphs, only 15 were visible to us, the rest was redacted.
Documents also disclosed to us in the run up to the Tribunal revealed that at an earlier stage of our appeal, the Information Commissioner had asked the MoD to provide it with evidence that disclosure of the statistics to Drone Wars had caused harm or prejudice to the UK. The MoD wrote to the Information Commissioner:
“The information previously released cannot be directly linked to harm to UK forces in its current operating environment (predominantly Operation Shader) however it has revealed capability details for a system that is capable of use on global operations where the threat environment may be significantly different against a more sophisticated adversary.”
In his witness statement, Gp. Capt Redican stated:
“I am aware that the MoD has previously provided responses to similar requests issued by Mr Cole. The MoD now seeks to withhold information which it was previously content to disclose. This is due to the changing national and security context, detailed further below.” [note the following four paragraphs were redacted]
Asked to explain what he meant by the ‘changing national and security context’, Redican explained that following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK was now preparing for ‘State on State’ warfare rather than use of armed force against non-state groups. At the same time, he went on, the situation in the Middle East had changed since the beginning of Operation Shader, with Iran – which had previously engaged in the same task of opposing ISIS – but now, “was a major actor in that theatre, and their actions are contrary to British interests.”
Drone Wars strongly argued that the statistical data that we sought was simply not capable of providing insight into ‘techniques, tactics and procedures’ at the level of detail which could cause prejudice to the UK as claimed, but instead gave a broad overview which enabled public oversight.
MoD ‘drawing a line in the sand’
Redican argued that it was not about “the specifics of information” but that “a line in the sand had to be drawn somewhere”. He went on “at some point we have to set a new precedent. We are going to have to begin to protect our capabilities more and more.” Read more
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