A/HRC/10/3 page 21 57. The Special Rapporteur is equally concerned about the supply of information to foreign intelligence services, when there are no adequate safeguards attached to the further distribution of such information among other governmental agencies in the receiving State, such as law enforcement and immigration agencies which have the power to arrest and detain a person. In the Arar case, for example, the information sharing between the United States and Canada was on the basis of a purely verbal “free flow” agreement: intelligence was to be exchanged in real time through direct communication among the various agencies involved.72 In this agreement, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police abandoned the privacy policies that ordinarily would have governed national security investigations, which resulted in the sharing of inaccurate and misleading information and in broader sharing of information than was usually the case. It was this information that led the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service to conclude that Arar was a member of Al-Qaida after which he was deported to Syria where he was subsequently tortured. C. Ex post facto accountability and the right to an effective remedy 58. Ex-ante control and oversight mechanisms are important in preventing and discovering human rights violations by intelligence agencies in the fight against terrorism. Equally important, however, is the duty of the State to create a framework that enables an independent investigation into human rights violations by intelligence agencies after a complaint has been received in order, firstly, to establish the facts and, secondly, to hold intelligence agencies and the executive accountable for their actions. The Special Rapporteur is concerned in this context about the adoption of indemnity/impunity clauses which result in impunity for intelligence agents.73 Such indemnity clauses can bar effective access to court and violate the human right to an effective remedy. The abuse of State secrecy provisions 59. While the Special Rapporteur recognizes that States may limit the disclosure to the general public of specific information which is important for the protection of national security, for instance about the sources, identities and methods of intelligence agents, he is nevertheless worried by the increasing use of State secrecy provisions and public interest immunities for instance by Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the United Kingdom or the United States to conceal illegal acts from oversight bodies or judicial authorities, or to protect itself from criticism, embarrassment and - most importantly - liability. 72 See Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar, Factual Background vol. I, p. 38; F. Bignami, “Towards a right to privacy in transnational intelligence networks”, Michigan Journal of International Law, vol. 28, No. 3 (2007), pp. 675-676. 73 See for instance Algeria, articles 45 and 46 of Ordinance 06-01 of 27 February 2006 (implementing the Charter for Peace and Reconciliation) grant impunity to members of the security forces and even criminalize criticism of State agents with years of imprisonment.