Britain's Chief Spy in First Public Address

Britain's Chief Spy in First Public Address             英国间谍机构长官首次公开演讲
军情六局全称英国陆军情报六局（MI6=Military Intelligence 6），又称秘密情报局，缩写为SIS，代号为MI6。 军情六处(英国负责海外谍报工作的部门)，对外又称“政府电信局”或“英国外交部常务次官办事处”。西方情报界把MI6看成是英国情报机关的“开山祖师”，从伊丽莎白的开创初期至今，它和它的前身都是严格保密的。军情六处创始人是赫赫有名的英国“情报之父”卡明。1922年，卡明给自己取了个代号“C”，从此以后军情六处一直被外界称为神秘的“C”。1909年，为解决德国间谍在英国活动日益频繁的情况，英国情报机关根据首相阿斯奎思的建议进行改组，英国陆军情报六局（MI6=Military Intelligence 6）的称号由此诞生。
It was the first time a sitting head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service - known as MI6 - has made a public speech.
现任英国情报机构“军情六处”处长首次公开演讲。
John Sawers took the opportunity to outline his agency's attitude to torture. "Torture is illegal and abhorrent under any circumstances, and we have nothing whatsoever to do with it."

He said MI6 has a duty to ensure partner services respect human rights. He said, though, doing so is "not always straightforward" when innocent lives are at risk.
Earlier this year, the British government ordered an inquiry into allegations that British intelligence agencies were complicit in torture of terror suspects overseas.
Tim Cooke-Hurle is from the Britain-based human-rights group Reprieve. He says allegations that MI6 were complicit in torture have hurt the agency's reputation in recent years. Giving the agency a public face, he says, is in part a move to gain popular support. "I think there is a genuine intention on the part of the security services to clean up their act and to do this they do have to put people in the public light."
Cooke-Hurle also said that although MI6 does not itself carry out torture, the agency's hands are not necessarily clean. "It all happens in this awful gray zone where we know that allies, and by this I would include the United States under the (George) Bush administration, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and so on, do practice torture and the degree to which we cooperate with those groups can amount to collusion in torture in certain circumstances."
MI6 has been in operation for 100 years, but until 1994 the government refused to admit the organization existed.