Is the UK stepping towards trans-nationalism? The Serious Organised Crime Agency (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

The nature of the European Union with it's open borders that permits the free movement of people, goods and services has necessitated an evolutionary change in the organisation of intelligence and security in the United Kingdom. This change has taken place simultaneous to the merger of Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise into the Her Majesties Revenue and Customs. A new intelligence and security organisation called the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) came into being on 1 April 2006 amalgamating the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), and investigators from Customs and the Home Office's Immigration Service. In doing so SOCA is the UK's Financial Intelligence Unit and is in addition to MI5 and MI6. The new agency also uses international agencies to identify links between illegal gangs in the UK and abroad with 120 offices, based in 40 countries around the world, working as liaison offices. The agency commenced with 4,200 staff - about half criminal investigators and half analysis and intelligence. The formation of SOCA is indicative that intelligence is no longer about gathering information and analysis by one agency for the defence of the territorial borders and external interests of a sovereign state and no longer about the gathering of information and analysis by another agency on activities within a sovereign state for surveillance and counter purposes. It is a single agency that aims to operate without constrains of territorial borders. The formation of SOCA has been reactionary given that throughout the EU the nature of threats that face sovereign states, societies and individuals requires the gathering and analysis of information and implementation of security measures that are not constrained by time nor space nor by territorial borders and not by organisational fiefdoms. Such threats have progressively been by terrorists, fundamentalist movements and organised crime. This paper will consider the notions and theories underlying international and trans-national intelligence and security and consider whether the creation of SOCA is the UK's first step in this direction.