A/HRC/10/3 page 7 II. THE ROLE OF INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES AND THEIR OVERSIGHT IN THE FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM 25. In the course of his mandate the Special Rapporteur has noticed that lack of oversight and political and legal accountability has facilitated illegal activities by intelligence agencies.4 Such unlawful conduct may have been condoned or even secretly directed by government officials. This report will therefore reflect upon the human rights implications of conferring broader powers on, and increasing cooperation between, intelligence agencies. It will examine the case law, legislation and practice of a number of Member States in order to clarify the scope of their human rights obligations regarding intelligence agencies and to identify a set of best practices that would improve the accountability and oversight of these services in the context of counter-terrorism operations.5 A. Broadening powers granted to intelligence agencies and the need for ex ante accountability mechanisms 26. In general terms the main function of intelligence agencies is to detect potential national security threats, including terrorist threats, by gathering data6 and information in such a way as not to alert those targeted, through a range of special investigative techniques such as secret surveillance, interception and monitoring of (electronic) communications, secret searches of premises and objects, and the use of infiltrators. These investigative techniques are effective measures that States may utilize to counter international terrorism.7 Their justification can be seen in the positive obligation of States under international human rights law to take preventive measures in order to protect individuals whose life or security is known or suspected to be at risk from the criminal acts of another individual, including terrorists.8 4 The term “intelligence agencies” is used in this report for agencies with a foreign and/or a domestic mandate. 5 The Special Rapporteur is grateful for the assistance of his research assistant at the EUI, Mathias Vermeulen, and for the cooperation of the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), the International Commission of Jurists, and the participants of his PhD candidate seminar on legal issues in national, European and international action against terrorism at the European University Institute (EUI), in the preparation of the present report. 6 For the purposes of this document the word “data” is used here to describe hard, single, precise facts, which can be used to identify a living person (names, birthday, addresses, telephone numbers, fax numbers, e-mail addresses, vehicle registration data, fingerprints, DNA profiles). 7 See for instance: Klass and Others v. Germany, European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), 6 September 1978, paras. 48-50, Murray v. the United Kingdom, ECHR, 28 October 1994, para. 58. 8 The Human Rights Committee has stressed several times that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also protects the right to security of the person outside the context of formal deprivation of liberty. See especially Delgado Paez v. Colombia, communication No. 195/1985, Views adopted on 12 July 1990, para. 5.5.