(July 6) -- Britain's incoming intelligence chief suffered a case of overexposure after his wife posted personal pictures of him on her Facebook page. The pictures were featured in a report from the Daily Mail of London on Sunday.
Sir John Sawers, a spy and soon-to-be chief of British intelligence agency MI6, is seen spending time with family and vacationing on the beach. In one photo, Sawers plays a game of Frisbee wearing only a snug bathing suit.
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See the pictures in question: The Daily Mail
Emmanuel Dunand, AFP / Getty Images
John Sawers, incoming chief of British intelligence agency MI6, was featured in family photos posted on his wife's public Facebook page. The pictures were taken down, but debate swirled about the possible security threat posed by the pictures.
Sawers' wife, Shelley Sawers, had virtually no privacy protection on her Facebook page, according to the Daily Mail. While the photo pages were removed from public view soon after the report came out, speculation about the photos' impact on security remained.
Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman Edward Davy called on the British prime minister to investigate the severity of the breach. "Normally, I would welcome greater openness in government for officials or politicians but this type of exposure verges on the reckless," he told the Mail.
The Foreign Office dismissed the criticism."It's not a state secret that [Sawers] wears Speedo swimming trunks," Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in a television interview. "The fact that there's a picture that the head of MI6 goes swimming -- wow, that really is exciting."
The statement reflects a new attitude towards state intelligence, the The New York Times noted. The intelligence world is no longer the cloak-and-danger industry of James Bond; Sawers appointment was even openly announced at a press conference June 26.
But while the photos have been largely dismissed as a security breach, they are generating questions about what is appropriate to post on social networking sites. One Daily Mail column declared Sawers' wife was victim to the "pathetic addiction" of social networking sites and the photos of Sawers were simply "too much information."
