Organisation: Secret Intelligence Service

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Analysis and commentary by Echo Research.

The Secret Intelligence Service put necessity over secrecy: it donnned a new guise, learnt a new lingo and launched itself into cyberspace. "Licensed to surf: MI6 comes out of the shadows and on to the web"(Times Leader, 13/10). There was an undeniable irony about an organisation that must protect its secrets, embracing a medium of transparency and openess yet, given that only a decade ago the SIS did not officially exist, Friday's web launch was momentous. "MI6 not-so-secret service … seeks to recruit spies"(Personnel Today, 13/10)

The Service sought to highlight its official remit, dispel unsavoury myths, and doff its Oxbridge, 'shoulder tapping' method of recruitment. The SIS came clean: it wants talent, its wants diversity, it wants new forces in the fight against international crime and terror. "In the fight against al-Qaeda we need people, not tanks"(Guardian,17/10).

"MI6 launches website. Cat stroking megalomaniacs need not apply"(vnunet.com, 14/10). A jovial take on a serious concern, but the BBC assured that "security checks"would spot "unscrupulous individuals, journalists, or even Al Qaeda sympathisers"(13/10). Security checks, however, could not quell public debate: poor site design, lowly pay and slow, unstable web connections being among the early criticisms.