# The MI5 model

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The MI5 model," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-mi5-model/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The proposal John Kiriakou says was already being discussed with the British in 1992 or 1993, an American domestic intelligence service on the MI5 pattern, without arrest powers, feeding what it collected on citizens to the FBI, and which he believes the post-January 6 legislation would finally deliver.*

- **Where the discussion happened:** London, on Kiriakou's first trip there as a CIA officer
- **When:** *"This must have been 1992 or 1993"*
- **The model:** [MI5](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/mi6), domestic intelligence only, no power of arrest
- **Who does the arresting there:** Scotland Yard
- **The American version discussed:** A service parallel to, or inside, the FBI, spying on American citizens and passing the product to the Bureau
- **Kiriakou's 2021 view:** *"It looks like it's gonna come to pass"*

**The MI5 model** is [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s name for a proposal he says he first heard discussed inside the agency in the early 1990s, and which he expected the domestic-terrorism legislation drafted after 6 January 2021 to deliver at last. Pressed in February 2021 on a bill that created new domestic terrorism units inside the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI rather than any new offence, his answer was that the idea was not new: *"that's been discussed since the early 1990s."*[1]

His own introduction to it came abroad.[1]

> *"On my very first trip to London as a CIA officer, I'd been to London many times, of course, but on my first trip as a CIA officer, we talked with MI5 about their duties as a domestic intelligence service. [MI6](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/mi6) is famously the foreign intelligence service. MI5 does only domestic intelligence. They don't have the power to arrest, but they don't need to arrest anybody. That's what Scotland Yard is for."*

The American application was on the table in the same conversations. *"The discussions way back then, I mean, this must have been 1992 or 1993, we were talking about setting a similar thing up in the United States, either parallel to the FBI or as a part of the FBI, that would just spy on American citizens and then provide that intelligence to the FBI to effect arrests."*[2]

What he draws from the gap is that the design outlasted every justification offered for it: *"here we are all these years later, 30 years later, and it looks like it's gonna come to pass."*[2][3]

## See also

- [MI6](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/mi6)
- [The Grenier counterinsurgency op-ed](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-grenier-counterinsurgency-op-ed)
- [Mass Surveillance](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/mass-surveillance)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. John Kiriakou on the Government's Dangerous Reaction to the Capitol Storming (2021-02-12), at 24:19. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audb55d98d8e&t=1459s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2021-02-12-scott-horton-john-kiriakou-on-the-governments-dangerous-re/
2. John Kiriakou on the Government's Dangerous Reaction to the Capitol Storming (2021-02-12), at 24:50. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audb55d98d8e&t=1490s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2021-02-12-scott-horton-john-kiriakou-on-the-governments-dangerous-re/
3. John Kiriakou on the Government's Dangerous Reaction to the Capitol Storming (2021-02-12), at 25:23. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audb55d98d8e&t=1523s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2021-02-12-scott-horton-john-kiriakou-on-the-governments-dangerous-re/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-mi5-model/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt