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Counter-terrorismand civil societyWhat are the effects of the ‘War on Terror’ and counter-terrorism measures on civil society?

NCVO/ESRC NGPA seminar series

Counter-terrorism and civil societyWhat are the effects of the ‘War on Terror’ and counter-terrorism measures on civil society?

This report is a summary of the presentations and discussion at the seminar which took place on 6 March 2009 at NCVO.

The seminar was the last in a series of seminars jointly organised by NCVO and the ESRC Non-Governmental Public Action (NGPA)research programme at the Centre for Civil Society (LSE).

The seminar series aimed to:

● Promote dialogue, exchange and learning between academics and practitioners bringing the findings of the NGPA research programmecloser to civil society organisations in the UK

● Promote international dialogue, exchange and learning bringing lessons from abroad closer to civil society organisations in the UK

● Promote learning drawn from examples of civil society in the Global South.

It brought together practitioners, academics and policy-makers andprovided them with the opportunity to share insights and take partin a stimulating discussion.

■■ The legacy of the ‘War onTerror’ is embedded inlegislations, institutions andpractices across the globe.

■■ In both the UK and the US,there has been a mix of ‘hard’and ‘soft’ measures to counterterrorism.

■■ The Charity Commission’sapproach to the presumedrelationships between charityand terrorism is much moremeasured and nuanced thanin the US.

■■ In the UK and in the US, civilsociety responses have beenmainly from human rightsactivists and Muslim groups.

■■ The silence of mainstream civilsociety organisations to thetargeting of Muslim groups raisesimportant questions concerningtheir independence and theirwillingness to speak out.

■■ Contesting border technologiesrequires uncovering themultiple ways in which thesetechnologies have enteredeveryday lives, and then makingthese more visible.

■■ Campaigning against smartborder technologies isincreasingly a matter of choosingemblems or cases which willcapture the public’s attention.

In a nutshellKey points in second presentationKey points in first presentation

■■ New and imaginative forms ofpublic action have emerged tocontest border technologiesand the idea that we live asecurable and securitised world.

■■ Some of these new forms ofpublic action have includedthe use of art, which has thecapacity to highlight whatusually goes unnoticed andmake people think differently.

IntroductionThe ‘War on Terror’ has led to a range of counter-terrorism measures across the globe. Thesehave included the introduction of anti-terror laws; changes in reporting requirements for civilsociety organisations; and the increasing use of new border security technologies. In manycountries, the impact of these measures on civil society and on citizens has been a source ofgreat concern.

Several projects of the NGPA research programme have looked at these issues across theglobe, focusing more specifically on countries such as Afghanistan, Kenya, India, the US andthe UK.

This seminar aimed to:

• Share insights on how global politics and international security are shaping local civilsocieties.

• Identify the responses of civil organisations to counter-terrorism measures and pressures.• Explore how the findings of these projects are relevant to a broad spectrum of civil society

organisations in the UK and what lessons can be learned.

The speakers were:

• Professor Jude Howell (Centre for Civil Society) and Dr Jeremy Lind (University of Sussex)who examined the effects of counter-terrorism measures on the spaces, organisations andactors of civil society in the UK and in the US.

• Dr Alex Hall (Durham University) who explored the ways in which border securitytechnologies shape and are being shaped by civil society.

• David Walker (Charity Commission) who drew out implications for policy and practice.

Dr Karl Wilding from NCVO chaired and facilitated the seminar.

■■ Political statements sometimesoverstate terrorist abuse ofcharities.

■■ The Charity Commission’sassessment is that the terroristlinks or abuse of charities is rarebut is completely unacceptable.

■■ The role of the Commission isto raise awareness of the riskand to support charities inprotecting themselves fromharm and abuse.

■■ When there is an investigation,the aim of the Commission isto protect the charity and allowlegitimate charitable activity tocontinue within the law.

■■ The Commission has produceda counter-terrorism strategyafter a full public consultationand will continue to work withthe voluntary sector for thedevelopment of its guidance.

Key points in third presentation

■■ Background

After 9/11 and the launch of the ‘War onTerror’, there was much concern, particularlyamongst human rights organisations, lawyersand activists, about the impact of counter-terrorist legislation on civil liberties and humanrights. However, little attention was paid towhat was happening to civil society actors,particularly those organising aroundmarginalised and vulnerable groups. Politicianswere making disturbing connections betweenterrorist financing and charities, as GordonBrown’s statement in 2006 exemplifies:

“We can address directly three of the mostdangerous sources of terrorist finance, the abuse of charities, the abuse of money service businessesand the abuse of financial transactions. We knowthat many charities and donors have been and arebeing exploited by terrorists”.

In reality, there are very few cases whereterrorist financing and charities are linked.

■■ Three research propositions

Our research project aimed to analyse theeffects of the global ‘War on Terror’ on aidpolicy and practice. It focused on threecountries: Afghanistan, Kenya and India, butfurther fieldwork was carried out in the USA,Denmark and the UK.

The project set forth a number of propositions:

police and intelligence services have beengiven greater power to investigate terrorism.There has also been increased surveillanceand information gathering fromcommunications companies and governmentfiles, the introduction of biometric passportson an experimental basis and the reneweddebate about ID cards. The UK governmenthas endorsed the recommendations of theFinancial Action Task Force (FATF), the inter-governmental body whose purpose is thedevelopment and promotion of policies,both at national and international levels, to combat money laundering and terroristfinancing, including one aimed specifically at civil society organisations.

After the London bombings in 2005, therewas a shift in government policy with theintroduction of ‘soft’ measures, which haveincluded seeking out alliances with moderatecommunities, setting-up community-ledworking groups on preventing extremism,abandoning the expression the ‘War onTerror’ and preventing radicalisation. TheDepartment of Communities and LocalGovernment has invested significant sums ofmoney on a range of initiatives. These ‘soft’measures have acted as a counterpart to the‘hard’ measures put in place after 2001.

■■ Impact on UK civil societyorganisations

The project showed that in the UK and inmany other countries, counter-terrorismmeasures have led to the construction of Islamand Muslims as problematic, and are partlyresponsible for the linking of Islam withterrorism by the media and politicians. Therehas been greater discrimination against Arabs,Asians and Muslims: police stop-and-searchtargeted at Muslims, for instance, has increasedsignificantly, as has the surveillance of Muslimstudents and student groups at universities.The FATF recommendation on charities hasaffected organisations in a number of ways,particularly those with international partnersthat have had to re-examine theirarrangements for transferring funds. In certain

Counter-terrorism measures andcivil society in the UK and USProf. Jude Howell, Centre of Civil Society and Dr Jeremy Lind, University of Sussex

4 Counter-terrorism and civil society: What are the effects of the ‘War on Terror’ and counter-terrorism measures on civil society?

■■ ‘War on Terror' regime

The project refers to the ‘War on Terror’ as aregime, characterised by a complex weavingof discourses, political alliances, policy andlegislative shifts, institutional arrangementsand practices.

The key features of this regime are that it has:

• served as a mobilising discourse thatpoliticians and leaders have used to justifytheir political, geostrategic and militaryobjectives;

• used militaristic language and rationalisedextraordinary responses such as pre-emptivemilitary intervention;

• provided a polarised vision of the worldthat pits barbarism against civilisation,modernity against backwardness, goodagainst evil, freedom against oppression;

• led to a global political re-ordering with anew set of institutional and policyarrangements.

Even though the expression ‘War on Terror’might not be used by politicians as much nowas it has been in the past, the legacy of the‘War on Terror’ is embedded in legislations,institutions and practices across the globe.

■■ Counter-terrorism measures inthe United Kingdom

In the UK, anti-terrorist legislation has beenmuch debated, particularly control orderswhich enable the Home Secretary to imposean unlimited range of restrictions on peoplesuspected of involvement in terrorism. The

• The ‘War on Terror’ has brought civil society into the gaze of securityinstitutions, and made a distinctionbetween the ‘good parts’ and the ‘badparts’ of civil society.

• The ‘War on Terror’ has deepened and intensified the relationships betweendevelopment and security andgeneralised these to development aidpolicy in general, not just to conflictand post-conflict settings.

• The way the ‘War on Terror’ regime unfolds varies according to a range ofcontextual factors, which include thenature of relations between a specificcountry and the US, the historicalrelations between state and civil societyand the responses of civil society.

conflict zones have raised concerns about the impact of the FAFT recommendations on their activities. Médecins Sans Frontièreshas continually highlighted the effects ofincreasing military involvement in thedelivery of aid on aid workers.

It was only once the ‘War on Terror’infrastructure began to impinge upon thevoluntary sector in the UK that mainstreamorganisations started to take action. Forexample, when the Home Office and theTreasury launched their review of therelationship between charities and terrorism,NCVO acted very quickly to set up a paneladvisory group to produce a shadow report.This was an important step, because untilthen it had felt almost as though the effectsof counter-terrorist strategies on marginalisedgroups and Muslim communities wassomehow separate from and not part of thevoluntary sector or part of civil society.

■■ Counter-terrorism measures inthe United States

As part of its ‘War on Terror’, the USgovernment launched a broad offensiveagainst what it deemed to be the ‘bad parts’of civil society, i.e. organisations allegedlyacting as potential financiers and recruitersfor terrorist causes. Anti-money launderingand counter-terrorism financing measureshave been a significant aspect of the USgovernment’s scrutiny of civil society.President Bush used extraordinary powers to expand the freezing of assets of terroristorganisations and their financiers.

Other new regulatory requirements on civilsociety have arisen from the Patriot Act thatimposes stiff civil and criminal penalties forproviding material support or resources toterrorist organisations. The Act gives powersto the executive branch to freeze or block theproperty or assets of persons or organisationssuspected of supporting terrorism. TheTreasury has shut down and designated sevenUS charities and foundations as supporters ofterrorism, but to date only three have facedcriminal prosecution and none have beenconvicted. Nearly all of the US charities thathave closed, have been Muslim organisations.This includes the Holy Land Foundation whichwas the largest Muslim charity in the US.

■■ Civil society critiques andreactions

Civil society has launched a number ofcritiques against these various counter-terrorism measures. Groups working overseashave argued that the wide meaning of whatconstitutes material support threatens theirwork. The prohibition in the Patriot Act toprovide ‘expert advice or assistance’ waschallenged by the Humanitarian Law Project,and was ruled unconstitutional by a federaljudge in 2004.

US civil society organisations and groupshave criticised the lack of due processprotections in the Patriot Act, which doesnot, for instance, require criminal charges tobe filed prior to administrative confiscationof an organisation’s assets. There is also noadministrative requirement to inform thegroup being investigated that its assets willbe seized and no requirement to provide astatement of reasons for either thedesignation or investigation.

The other significant measures taken by theUS government to prevent the misuse ofcharities have involved a set of financingguidelines for charities. These guidelines ongovernance transparency and grant-makingwere devised by the Treasury departmentwithout prior consultation. They imply that

cases, this has affected alternative remittancesystems and the ability of diaspora groups toremit money to their home countries.

The Charity Commission has played animportant role in investigating charities andchecking that they comply with the rules. Since2001 it has carried out various investigationsinto organisations alleged to have someassociation with terrorism. After investigation,this proved to be true only in the case of twoorganisations: the Tamil Relief Organisationand the Finsbury Park Mosque. Interestingly,following its investigation of the Tamil StudentsUnion, the Charity Commission took actionagainst one of the organisation’s trustees,who was found to be on the designated listof terrorists, but not against the organisationitself. This shows a very different approach tothe US. The Charity Commission’s approach tothese presumed relationships between charityand terrorism is a much more measured andnuanced approach. As one of the intervieweesat the Charity Commission said:

“our approach is light touch regulation that will beeffective, which does not overburden the sector. It is arisk based approach and our approach is miles awayfrom the sledgehammer approach in the US, whereif there is doubt, you just take out the charity”.

In its investigations the Charity Commissiontries to underline the benefits of charitablework to the government and maintain publicconfidence in the sector.

■■ Civil society responses

In the UK as in many countries, civil societyresponses have come mainly from humanrights groups, activists and lawyers who, alongwith Muslim leaders and organisations, havechallenged some of the legal problems andthe excesses of ‘hard’ measures. Muslimcharities like Islamic Relief have played animportant role in setting up the HumanitarianForum that aims to strengthen the capacity ofMuslim organisations in the UK and in Muslimmajority countries, with regards to governanceand transparency. Humanitarian NGOs in

Counter-terrorism and civil society: What are the effects of the ‘War on Terror’ and counter-terrorism measures on civil society? 5

Mainstream civil society,which is primarily engaged inservice delivery and funded bygovernments and donors has,until fairly recently, not beenvery vocal about what hasbeen happening in relation to the ‘War on Terror’.

charities are obliged to carry out theburdensome and costly work of intelligencegathering themselves and run the risk ofdamaging relations with their grantees, bothwithin America and overseas.

Anti-terror measures have been used totarget and intimidate dissenting voices. Forinstance, political leaders in the RepublicanParty accused unions of endangering nationalsecurity in the aftermath of 9/11 anddemonised public employees who did notaccept significant wage and benefit cuts,calling them unpatriotic. The FBI enhancedits monitoring of political groups with noclear association or connection to nationalsecurity issues. Amendments to the ForeignIntelligence Surveillance Act, under thePatriot Act, have expanded the authority offederal agencies to conduct warrantlesselectronic surveillance if there is a reasonablebelief that one of the parties involved isoverseas and is suspected of being connectedwith Al-Qaeda. Muslim advocacy groups havebeen particularly targeted. For instance, theCouncil on American Islamic Relations, whichis the leading organisation in Washingtonthat lobbies on behalf of Muslim Americans,has been accused by the Republicans ofbeing an extremist Islamic group and ofhaving ties to both Hezbollah and Hamas.

■■ Civil society responses

These measures have had a chilling effect oncivil society in the United States, especiallyfor Muslim groups. As in the UK, theresponses of mainstream civil society havebeen slow to emerge. This partially reflectsthe political atmosphere in the immediateaftermath of 9/11. The few dissenting voiceshave since become more vocal and debatehas centred on opposing the use ofgovernment’s power. Unlike in the UK, thereis still a lack of debate on the ‘War onTerror’, the need for counter-terrorismmeasures or indeed the causes of terrorism.

There has been particularly acute pressure onMuslim groups, but there has been a lack of

response to the political threat to the sector bya wider spectrum of civil society organisations.It was only when various counter-terrorismmeasures were being used amongst a broaderrange of organisations that action was taken. In2005, for instance, a working group of charitiesand advisors released the principles ofinternational charity as an alternative to theTreasury department’s own guidelines. Otherinitiatives have involved private foundationspublishing a handbook on counter-terroristmeasures, as a way of promoting compliance,and pressure groups actively organisingaround the rights of charities.

A new political organising within US Muslimcommunities has emerged. The Council forAmerican Islamic Relations, for example, hasexpanded significantly since 9/11. There arealso signs of renewed vigour within thecommunity of civil rights and civil libertiesgroups. The membership of the AmericanCivil Liberties Union (ACLU) has more thandoubled since 9/11.

■■ Concluding reflections

The research found that in both the US andUK, there is a mix of both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’measures being used to respond to theperceived threat that charities are misused tosupport terrorism. In the UK, the role of theCharity Commission as an independent charityregulator seems key. The US has adopted avery heavy-handed approach, which hopefullywill change with the Obama administration.

The effects of the post 9/11 regime have beenfelt most acutely within Muslim communitiesand groups, but not exclusively, as witnessedby groups working in conflict areas overseas orwith migrants and asylum seekers. The silenceof mainstream civil society organisations to thetargeting of Muslim groups both in the UK andthe US, raises important questions concerningthe impact of government funding on civilsociety’s independence and therefore thewillingness of civil society organisations tospeak out.


The Contested Borders project, led by LouiseAmoore at Durham University, explored howthe regime of the ‘War on Terror’ has turnedto smart technologies to securitise the border.It aimed to understand the effects of thesenew technologies on non-governmentalpublic activity.

The question of how we define thecontemporary border in a digital world is anopen question. The border’s effects areincreasingly embedded in everyday life – incredit card transactions, daily journeys andticket purchasing. Watch-listing, profiling,inter-agency data sharing and automatedtargeting often lack a physical and visibleexpression, which means that contestingthese technologies and their impact can be difficult. The work of contestation andcritique requires uncovering the multipleways in which border technologies haveentered everyday lives, and then makingthese more visible.

effects of technologies like backscatter, thatremains unshaken by interventions which usetraditional concepts of privacy or rights ascritical tools. The task for public action is tokeep pace with the ways in which these smarttechnologies are altering the way we thinkabout ‘privacy’ and ‘dignity’.

■■ Drawing the line: spaces ofpolitical action

The project explored the spaces of publiccontestation and public critique and foundthat the ‘War on Terror’ had led to thedemarcation and reordering of public spaces,spaces which have become increasinglyconstricted. For instance, in the exclusionzone surrounding Parliament Square, withinwhich unauthorised demonstrations are nolonger allowed, a taxi with an advertisementfor the Trusted Borders Consortium(responsible for the e-Borders programme)can circulate freely, but the implementationof the programme cannot be contested inthis space without prior permission.

When the border is increasingly embeddedinto the transactions and routines ofeveryday life, the physical border frontierbecomes less significant in security terms.However, the symbolic practice of contestingat the border retains its importance, andborders themselves can be the target ofpolitical actions.

The ‘No Border’ network, for instance,supports freedom of movement bycoordinating international border camps atthe border or near immigration detentioncamps. The work of groups like ‘No Borders’shows that the technologies of the ‘War onTerror’ are producing and shaping civilpolitical action, creating multiple publics whoengage in a political response to itssecuritised practices. Their actions are madepossible through the coalition of diversegroups that merge, coalesce or collaboratearound particular issues.


■■ Circling the issue, capturing theimagination

Contesting border technologies becomes morethan ever a matter of choosing emblems orcases which will capture the public’s attention.Advocacy groups such as the Electronic PrivacyInformation Centre (EPIC) or Liberty in the UKand the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)in the US have been strategic in their choicesin order to denounce the wider implications ofsecurity technologies.

In the UK, for instance, advocacy groups havecontested government plans to introduce IDcards. In many ways, ID cards are one aspectof a much broader governmental turn topersonal data, yet the campaigns against themhave allowed advocacy groups to open upthe debate to a wider set of questions aboutthe kind of society people want to live in: theyact as a succinct ‘way into’ a complex set oftechnological, political and ethical questions.

Privacy and rights to human dignity are a wayof mobilising the general public, as can beseen in the work of civil liberties lawyers andactivists around the new airport backscatterscanners. The use of backscatter has beendescribed as a virtual strip search that showsdisregard for passengers’ privacy rights. FramingID cards or backscatter scanners as a matter ofprivacy or civil liberties cuts to the heart of thedebates about who has the right to have rights,how rights may be protected and who has therecourse to the rule of law.

The central critical juridical questions havetended to debate how, or whether, imagescollected and seen on the screen at thecheckpoint can be made to comply with dataprotection laws, and whether there isadequacy in the treatment of data by publicauthorities. Yet, the research found that it isquite possible for technologies like backscatterto fulfil the legal requirements of privacy and data protection. Backscatter routinelycaptures images of a ‘naked’ body at airportsecurity and this exposure is deemedacceptable because the images are viewed inanother room. There is something about the

Contesting borders: public actionand the technologies of the ‘War on Terror’Dr Alex Hall, University of Durham

Examples of smart border

technologies

• Example 1: X-ray backscatter technology is used to screen bodies atairport security checkpoints withouttravellers being aware of the type ofimage being produced of them.

• Example 2: A Somalian resident of London is not able to electronicallysend money to his family in hiscountry because he has the misfortuneof sharing two of his names with theformer leader of Hamas, and has beenblacklisted.

• Example 3: Personal data of travellers are gathered by the e-Bordersprogramme of the new NationalBorder Targeting Centre inManchester in order to produceprofiles of behaviours and travelpatterns and to pre-empt future risk.

■■ Engaging audiences

There are new and imaginative forms ofpublic action emerging around issues relatingto border technologies that raise awareness indifferent ways. For instance, in 2007 the artistMark Wallinger installed at Tate Britain areconstruction of Brian Haw’s five-year peaceprotest outside the Palace of Westminster,which was ended by the 2006 SeriousOrganised Crime & Police Act that prohibitedunauthorised demonstrations within theParliament Square exclusion zone. Art,resistance, and art about resistance merge in this installation. For the artist, interruptingpeople’s experience of the gallery creates an awareness of the border that might nototherwise be seen as a political act. Artprovides the opportunity to interrupt whatnormally goes unnoticed. However, therelationship between politics and art is notone that is easily established. With Wallinger’sexhibition, for example, the spatiality of thepolitical act is at issue. When a protest isbrought inside a space of art, are its politicaleffects altered? does it still ‘count’ politically?

Security practices in the ‘War on Terror’ can beseen as rituals of security that are increasinglypart of everyday life (e.g. the swipe of theOyster card, the handing over of the passport,the hands held up in the gesture of surrenderat security checkpoints). Art can be effectivein ‘arresting’ these rituals and making us seethem in a different light. The US artistMegan Trainer, for example, uses in her workradio frequency identification (RFID) chipsincreasingly employed to encode informationin passports and ‘smart cards’. She embedsthese chips into objects and invites people to

move them to trigger sounds. In one of herinstallations exhibited in a vacant office spaceclose to Ground Zero in New York, theenchanting potential of the RFID chips wasplaced in sharp contrast to the horrors of theterrorist attack. The evacuated spaces ofManhattan were reclaimed and transformedby people’s playful encounters withtechnology. Interestingly though, Trainerrefuses to outline a clear political position onRFID technologies, yet her art has clear criticalpotential. She opens a space of uncertaintyand surprise which contrasts with the currentemphasis on security, identification and safety.Her work shows that art has the capacity tomake people think differently withoutproposing an easy resolution or asking themto decide whether things are definitely goodor definitely bad, right or wrong.

■■ Conclusion

The interventions of artists, advocates andgroups like ‘No Borders’ constantly seek totrouble the contemporary border and theidea that people can live in a perfectlysecurable or securitised world. An issue in allof the interventions observed by the projectis the way in which they circle a muchbroader and nebulous question in multipleways: what kind of world do we want to livein? This question is at heart of the efforts ofcivil society to engage with people and makethem think about the technologies of the‘War on Terror’ that go often unnoticed ineveryday life. It is harder to address when theborder space is no longer simply at the geo-political frontier and increasingly embeddedin our daily transactions and journeys. Civilsociety groups and organisations are trying tomake visible what has threatened to becomemore and more invisible.


Broad topics like privacy and civil liberties unite often diverse political action,redrawing the lines betweenvarious interest groups,sometimes in unlikely ways.

This response is very much from theperspective of the Charity Commission, theregulator of charities in England and Wales.The two previous presentations havehighlighted how the government is stuckbetween a rock and hard place because it hasa responsibility to both protect citizens andto uphold human rights and civil liberties. It isa challenging situation to be in and it is veryimportant to have a continued public debateon the issues that are related to terrorismand counter-terrorism.

■■ How can charities take part andinfluence this debate?

The advancement of human rights is alegitimate purpose for charities and charitiescan engage in campaigning and politicalactivity. These are recent changes made bythe Charity Commission to reflect widerchanges in society.

The advancement of human rights as acharitable purpose was recognised in 2002.There are many ways in which charities canpromote human rights on a practical level.This can include monitoring abuses to raisingawareness, public education, as well ascommenting on proposed legislation andproviding technical advice to governmentand others on human rights matters.

With regards to campaigning and politicalactivity, the Commission has updated itsguidance. Promoting and defending humanrights is consistent to approaches to politicalactivity and campaigning. If a charity choosesto be involved in these activities, this has tobe exclusively in furtherance of its charitablepurposes and objectives.

■■ ‘War on Terror' terrorist financeand abuse of charities

With regards to the pertinent observations in the previous presentations, it is truestatements made by some key seniorpoliticians and others have sometimes

overstated the scale and nature of the threatto the voluntary sector, both on aninternational level as well as in the UK.However, it is undeniable that all sectors ofthe economy are at risk and that includes thevoluntary sector. Our message is that we needto be realistic about the scale of the threat,but we also have to be vigilant; the threatexists, it is ongoing and very serious.

Our assessment as a regulator is that terroristabuse is actually very rare in charities. Therehave only been a very few cases where thereare proven links or support of terroristactivities. While it is rare, it is completelyunacceptable and therefore theCommission’s approach is that if anythingcomes to our attention we will give it thehighest priority. Our role is to raiseawareness of the threat and to supportcharities in protecting themselves from harmand abuse. It is also about raisingunderstanding of the nature of the charitiessector in other parts of government, how itoperates and what safeguards are already inplace. This has involved linking with otherregulators, government agencies, lawenforcement and intelligence services.

■■ Counter-terrorism legislation inthe UK

Counter-terrorism legislation in the UK is notisolated; it is aligned with and part of a widerset of legislation. It relates to the UnitedNations Terrorism Measures Orders andvarious EU regulations. If entities fall foul ofthe UN and EU legislations, this automaticallyapplies in the UK. However, the lack of ashared international definition of terrorismlimits what can be aspired to at aninternational level. This makes it difficult forcharities to understand what is or is notpossible; what the implications might be forthem and how they should deal with them.Again the role of the Commission is to addressthese issues very much in dialogue with thevoluntary sector and invest the resourcesneeded to achieve this. Our outreach worksuggests that the level of awareness in the

sector is very low, especially in the regionsand amongst small and medium-sizedorganisations. There is a real need for theCommission to make clear the expectationthat charities are not used to commit criminaloffences under international or UK terrorismlegislation. We need to point out the dangersof inadvertently breaking the law, particularlyto charities working overseas that run the riskof not complying with local legislation.

■■ Charities and terrorism:Commission investigations

There are very few ongoing investigations.The key purpose of these investigations is toestablish the facts underlying concerns andto critically assess the risk to the charity. Our aim is to protect the charity and allowlegitimate charitable activity to continue,within the law – not close it down. Ashighlighted in the first presentation of theseminar our approach in the UK is verydifferent to the one in the States.

Through the progress of a case, differentactions are taken according to the evidenceand the issues that arise. At times theCommission has used ‘soft’ regulatoryresponses to prevent problems rather thanopening a major statutory inquiry. Forexample, a particular charity saw its bankaccounts and assets frozen because of itsconnections to convicted terrorists. However,it was very clear to us that it was inadvertenceand ignorance of the law in this specific case.A lot of work was done with the charitytrustees to help them understand andaddress the problems. The results of anyinquiry are published for public accountabilityreasons, but also because there is a lot oflearning in these inquiries on wider issues

Counter-terrorism measures and civil societyDavid Walker, Charity Commission


The Commission tries its best to use its power in asophisticated and layered way to target the source of harm and abuse.


that have relevance for the broader sector.The Commission will be using these reportsto develop guidance.

■■ Conclusion: next steps

The Financial Action Task Force has been themain driver in the UK for the governmentreview of the vulnerability of the voluntarysector to abuse. The Commission hasengaged with it solidly and produced its owncounter-terrorism strategy after a full publicconsultation. We very much welcomed thedialogue with NCVO, Bond and otherorganisations in the sector and have workedvery closely with them at all the stages whendeveloping our strategy and continue to doso. We are currently working on a toolkit, inpartnership with the sector, to assist charitiesin undertaking risk assessment and minimisethe risk of terrorist abuse.


Open discussion

AHJH Jude Howell

JL Jeremy Lind

Alex Hall

DW David Walker

■■ The Financial Action TaskForce has impacted negativelyon the activities of civilsociety across the globe.

■■ When multiple partnershipsoperating in transnationalspaces, are engaged in bordertechnologies, it becomesincreasingly difficult to havetransparency and to knowwhere to seek redress.

■■ Privacy and data protectionare always playing catch-upwith what is possibletechnically and commercially.

■■ The evidence in the publicdomain about the efficiency orthe usefulness of data-miningtechniques has been notablyabsent.

Key points from the open discussionwhich is leading on this issue, and we are alsoinvolved in cross-government discussions.

In relation to the difficulties particularly in theWest Bank and Gaza, in our inquiry report on Interpal we recognised the humanitarianimperative for charities delivering emergencyassistance. We have clearly a very differentview to the Israelis and indeed to othergovernments.

In your example about AmericanExpress, we can see very clearly some

of the effects of risk-profiling on peopletrying to move or transfer money acrossborders. When multiple partnershipsbetween public and private authorities intransnational spaces are engaged in capturingdata and applying risk profiles, it becomesincreasingly difficult to have transparency.When our privacy, civil liberties and dataprotection laws are encoded nationally, it isextremely difficult to know where to go toseek redress. It is entirely unclear now inthese public-private partnerships wherecommercial data protection laws havepurchase and which law enforcementagencies are involved. Things are increasinglyopaque and difficult for those who findthemselves targeted.

Comment: A few years ago I had to go to a policymeeting in a bank in Central London. When I gotto the building, I was told I had to have my irisesscanned otherwise I could not attend my meeting.Because the bank had its headquarters inAmerica, I had to wait for clearance to come backfrom America. I was surprised that the bank wasallowed to do this.

I am working on another related projectat Durham University called Data Wars,

which is examining private-public partnershipsin new spheres of governance, like the onethat you describe. We are looking at theprominence of Passenger Name Records(PNR) for security practice. Currently, if youfly into the US or even over US air space, thedata that you give when you book your flightticket is retained in US databases for quite along time and is used for purposes that are

Comment: The impact of the Financial Action TaskForce on the activities of civil society has been verynegative across the globe. If an organisation islisted as a high risk organisation on the Office ofForeign Assets Control (OFAC) list it is effectivelydead in the water, it cannot operate because nofinancial institution will want any dealing with it.The OFAC list has 325,000 names so thepossibility of similarity of names is very high. Whenmoney is being transferred, it can be held up, forinstance, by American Express (which acts as aclearing bank around the world) and investigated.The organisation is charged €500 even if it iscleared. The implications can be very serious;money can be held up for months and this canlead to help not reaching the communities thaturgently require assistance. In some areas of theworld such as Gaza and the West Bank there arerisks of terrorism, but civil society organisationshave a duty to be present and to actively helpfamilies and children living in those areas.

Comment: It is important to bear in mind thatsome civil society organisations can havehomophobic, Islamophobic or racist tendencies.There are many tensions within civil society thatneed to be proactively addressed because they cancreate serious divisions. As a non-Muslimorganisation, we are making active efforts toengage with Muslim organisations and withMuslim communities, but what we have found is

that if you are not a Muslim there is sometimesamongst young Muslims a “what do you know?”attitude towards us. It is understandable, but itdoes make some of our work more difficult.

Comment: The focus on human rights and civilliberties is diversionary. It says nothing about theroot causes of terrorism and how they are going tobe tackled.

Your points about diversity are very apt.Since the late 1990s and after the Cold

War, the widespread image of civil society asa benign and harmonious sphere means thatcivil society as a site of diversity, powerrelations and conflict has been overlooked.Your comment on engaging with Muslimcommunities reminded me of the early days ofthe women’s movement when it was difficultto have a dialogue because people would say,“what do you know? you’re a man”.

I am well aware and agree with theseriousness of issues around banking.

The actions by the US and their designationhave a significant influence, particularly onbanks. Banks operating in the US becomepotentially vulnerable to prosecution.Banking is a huge concern for the CharityCommission. We are raising it withgovernment, particularly with the Treasury

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not entirely clear. There have been a range ofinterventions by the American Civil LibertiesUnion (ACLU) about the use of this data andhow it is retained. We are increasinglyrequired to give up data about ourselves, asyour example shows so well. Privacy and dataprotection are always playing catch-up withwhat is possible technically and commercially.Those who are trying to regulate in this fieldare finding it difficult to keep a handle on thechanges that are taking place.

Question: The information on designated terroristorganisations or individuals changes constantly.How do charities keep informed?

The UK has a consolidated list on theTreasury’s website. It is a combination

of organisations proscribed by the UnitedKingdom government and entities orindividuals designated under UN regulationsor European Union regulations. For the US, itis more difficult but the OFAC list can beaccessed. One of the things the CharityCommission might do if it is consideredhelpful, is to provide alerts when there arenew designations. Producing guidance is aniterative process; we will not get it rightimmediately but it will develop over time.

Comment: What we have been talking about thisafternoon could be regarded as the ‘War onTerror’s collateral damage. But I think we shouldall be grateful that as a result several hundredterrorist attacks have been stopped. It is difficult tocounter terrorism and we should give the securityforces the credit for having at least attempted todo so. It is a blunt instrument though.

Comment: There is currently much discussionabout what causes extremism to turn violent. Youdo not necessarily have to think about the rootcauses of terrorism, unless you are assuming thereis a rational basis for terrorism.

Comment: Government has established apreventing violent extremism policy without reallyproviding an evidence base. It has not been proventhat the actions they propose will tackle the issues.When money is made available at a communitylevel it comes down to local politics and local

community relations. Some local communitygroups will not want to work with government,but others will take advantage of the fact thatthere is funding because they are under-resourced,even though many of them might feel incrediblyuncomfortable with the strategy and what is beingasked of them.

Regarding the idea of collateral damage,the evidence in the public domain

about the efficiency or the usefulness of data-mining techniques has been notably absent.It is precisely the idea of the everyday kind ofcollateral damage and violence that I thinkshould be highlighted alongside the morespectacular symbols of the ‘War on Terror’like Guantanamo Bay. Increasingly we aregetting used to the notion that thesepractices have been proven to work, thatthey are ‘successful’. However the evidencebase is not emerging. It is important that civilsociety pushes for that evidence.

Governments have consistently failedto substantiate claims that charities are

misused by terrorist networks. Under theBush administration, Dick Cheney said: “if there is a 1% chance that Pakistani scientistsare helping Al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclearweapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in termsof our response, it is not about our analysis, it isabout our response”.

Open discussion


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Jude HowellCentre for Civil Society, LSE

Jude Howell is Professor and Director ofthe Centre for Civil Society at the LondonSchool of Economics and Political Science.Her recent books include Gender and CivilSociety (co-edited with Diane Mulligan)2005; Civil Society and Development (co-authored with Jenny Pearce) 2002; andGovernance in China, 2004. She has writtenextensively on issues relating to civilsociety, governance, development policyand gender and much of her empiricalwork focuses on China. She has alsoworked and carried out research in India,Mozambique, Kenya, Jordan, Afghanistanand Malawi. She is currently directing theEconomic Social Research Council researchprogramme on Non-governmental PublicAction. She has two publications due in2009: A co-authored book on the War onTerror, civil society and aid; and an editedcollection on Civil Society Under Strain.

Jeremy LindUniversity of Sussex

Dr Jeremy Lind is a Lecturer in HumanGeography at the University of Sussex.Previously, he was a Research Officer atthe Centre for Civil Society, where heworked with Jude Howell on the projectThe Global War on Terror, Non-GovernmentalPublic Action and Aid. His interests includedevelopment and security; NGOs andpeace-building; and livelihoodsprogramming in situations of armedconflict. Geographically, his interests are ineast and the Horn of Africa as well asAfghanistan. In addition to the work he iscurrently completing into the impacts andimplications of the ‘War on Terror’ for civilsociety, he is also developing work on thelinkages between civil society and violence,taking Kenya as an example to highlightcertain problematic assumptions in aidthat civil society is a harmonious, peacefulrealm that is suited to peace-building.

Alexandra HallDurham University

Dr Alexandra Hall is a Research Associateat the Department of Geography, DurhamUniversity. She is currently working on theESRC-funded Contested Borders and DataWars projects (with Dr Louise Amoore).Contested Borders is investigating the waysin which technologies of data-led bordersecurity in the ‘War on Terror’ are shapingthe agenda and scope of non-governmentalpolitical action, and how this politicalaction is framing and contesting newborder security measures in turn. Data Warsis focused on the use of particular formsof passenger and financial data in securitypractice. Her research interests encompassimmigration and asylum, borders, and themanagement of mobility; her PhDfieldwork focused on the use of detentionin immigration regimes. This work is beingdeveloped into a book for forthcomingpublication in 2010.

David WalkerCharity Commission

David Walker has spent two years as Headof Compliance Outreach and Developmentin the Compliance Division of the CharityCommission, following a year spent onthe Commission's Charity Engagementprogramme. Prior to joining the charityregulator, David spent over 19 yearsworking in international humanitarian reliefand development in Africa and Asia withSave the Children, latterly as their RegionalDirector for South and Central Asia.

Biographies

Karl WildingNCVO

Dr Karl Wilding is NCVO’s Head ofResearch. His research interests includemapping the changing third sectoreconomy and the relationship betweennew technologies and philanthropy. He isa trustee of the Association for Researchin the Voluntary and Community Sector(ARVAC), a trustee of St Albans CVS, andan Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow at theCentre for Charity Effectiveness, CassBusiness School in London. He is also aco-investigator for the ESRC/OTS Givingand Philanthropy Research Centre.

NCVO has over 7,000 members. With over 280,000individuals and over 13 million volunteers working for our members, we represent and support almost half the voluntary sector workforce. Our goal is to supportmembers by creating an environment in which voluntaryorganisations can flourish and develop. Join online at www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/membership

NCVO’s research aims to support the development ofeffective policy and practice in the voluntary andcommunity sector by building a relevant and robustevidence base. For more information go to www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/research

The Non-Governmental Public Action Research Programmeis an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)initiative directed from the London School of Economicsand Political Science which aims to better understand theimpact of public action by non-governmental actors.

We fund a wide range of researchers working in the UKand internationally. The researchers are based inuniversities, think-tanks, civil society organisations, projectsand networks around the world. The NGPA programmehelps researchers gather data and build theories of socialchange using a range of approaches including ethnography,international comparative analysis of political and economicdata and organisational sociology. It also supports them topresent their ideas and information to a range of audiences.

We are actively building links and sharing learning betweenresearchers, policy makers and practitioners in the field ofnon-governmental public action. We do this using a varietyof methods, including organising workshops, publishingpapers and presenting findings at conferences and meetings.

The director of the NGPA programme, Professor JudeHowell, is based at the Centre for Civil Society, in thedepartment of Social Policy at the London School ofEconomics. For more information about the Centre, go to www.lse.ac.uk/ccs


NCVO/ESRC NGPA seminar seriesThe other seminar reports are available on the NCVO and NGPA websites:www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/research/eventswww.lse.ac.uk/NGPA/events

Collaboration without bordersWhat can UK organisations learn about collaboration from international NGOs?


Changing governanceHow are civil society organisations in the UK and overseas experiencing the shift from government to governance?


Blurring boundariesHow is the blurring of boundaries between sectors impacting on civil society organisations in the UK and internationally?

Collaboration without bordersWhat can UK organisations learn about collaboration frominternational NGOs?

Changing governanceHow are civil society organisationsin the UK and overseas experiencingthe shift from government togovernance?

Blurring boundariesHow is the blurring of boundariesbetween sectors impacting on civil society organisations in the UKand internationally?


This publication can be made available in largeprint and alternative formats on request.Please contact NCVO on 020 7713 6161for more information.

National Council for Voluntary OrganisationsRegent’s Wharf8 All Saints StreetLondon N1 9RL

T: 020 7713 6161F: 020 7713 6300E: [email protected]

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The paper used for this publication is sourced from sustainable forests.

www.signgraphicdesign.co.uk

ncvo/esrc ngpa seminar series counter … legislation on civil liberties and human rights. however,...

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