MI5 and MI6 are the world's oldest secret intelligence agencies. They began in 1909 with the formation of a military section (MOT, which became MI5) and a naval section (M1-1C, later MI6). Captain Vernon Fell was the first head of MI5, a post he retained for thirty years. Fell was a xenophobic racist who believed that genuine British people "are sorry for any of our women folk who marry a foreigner". He set about compiling an "Alien Register" of all foreigners in the country; by 1914 it had details of 16,000 people on its files. Iggy pops singin',"I'm bored." terrific. "I'm the chairman of the bored."...Later... "MI5 installed Lord Tredegar, a well-known falconer, on the south coast of England with his birds as part of the Falcon (Interceptor) Unit with instructions to hunt down any suspicious-looking carrier pigeons that might pass by. MI5 later had Lord Tredegar imprisoned in the Tower of London for revealing his work to a fellow peer." The original 'Falcon.' "MI5's interrogation centre for enemy agents during the war was at Latchmere House, run by Colonel Stephens, who was greatly disliked within the service for his "almost Nazi behaviour and vile temper." One prisoner was beaten nearly to death and there were several suicides and attempted suicides in the cells. MI5 commenced Operation Double Cross, which involved "turning" German agents into working for British intelligence. There was, however, an element of "triple cross" to the system, with agents still secretly working for the Abwehr. Throughout the war, MI5 was at the centre of a series of blunders and misinterpretation of information, which led to several disasters in planning against German forces. For example, a captured map of the German invasion of France was dismissed as a fake." An army officer later to work in intelligence with Mi5 and ASIS,charles ellis,was later found to have sold the allied order of battle to the Abwehr.After the war he sold INT to the KGB.Shit happens. "British intelligence made a deal with Nazi war criminal Joseph Mengele for his records of the Nazis' development of the nerve gases Sarin, Tabun and Soman. Soon afterwards, Mengele's brother, father and co-researcher were all released from custody and allowed to resume their civilian employment without regard to their Nazi pasts; Mengele himself was allowed to emigrate to Argentina." Dont mess with those precursors,jimmy! Speaking of precursors,this ones timely... "In Iran, a popular nationalist leader Mohammed Mossadeq had become prime minister in 1951 and was seeking to nationalise the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company - the most powerful economic institution in the country. A joint MI6/CIA operation was mounted to depose Mossadeq and restore power to the pro-western Shah of Iran. MI6 provided a network of agents inside Iran; the CIA supplied $2 million and arms. A campaign of covertly-funded propaganda and bribery culminated in August 1953 with the overthrow of Mossadeq by army leaders in the pay of Western intelligence. The Shah always subsequently maintained close links with British intelligence during his reign of brutal dictatorship." "...a group of paranoid MI5 officers (notably Arthur Mann and Peter Wright) became convinced that a Soviet mole was present in the senior ranks of MI5 - possibly even the Director General himself, Roger Hollis. However the case against Hollis (who retired from MI5 in 1965) was largely circumstantial and the case was never proved. The obsessive mole-hunter Peter Wright left the service an embittered man; still convinced of Hollis' guilt..." Hollis helped set up ASIO. The CSIS and ASIO spy on you,(if your a septic.) Your NSA /CIA/ FBI spy on us.Its called ECHELON.Great model in some ways for APster.Responsibility is always offshore and deniable,cascading agencies.