Anthony Glees

"Professor Glees is the Director for the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security"

A historian by training, his 1987 The Secrets of the Service: British Intelligence and Communist Subversion was one arguably the first academically rigorous treatment of early Cold War Soviet penetration of the UK intelligence and security services. His recent The Stasi Files represents the only detailed historical analysis of East German intelligence operations in the UK based on the archives of the East German secret service. Besides identifying a number of significant Stasi 'agents of influence' in the UK, The Stasi Files has been described by Michael Evans of The Times as one of 'the best books about the Cold War.'

With Dr. Davies he is co-author of Spinning the Spies: Intelligence, Open Government and the Hutton Inquiry (published by the Social Affairs Unit (SAU) in late autumn, 2004) and the BCISS working paper on the Butler Review Butler's Dilemma: Lord Butler’s Inquiry and the Reassessment of Intelligence on Iraq's WMD published by the Social Affairs Unit. 

Anthony Glees co-published a report entitled When Students Turn to Terror: Terrorist and Extremist Activity on British Campuses in 2005

"The study of campus extremist and terrorist activity that I have done with my colleague Chris Pope shows that UK universities and colleges have dropped their guard for so long that there is every reason to believe such groups constitute a real security threat." 

Criticism
The report was criticised by the National Union of Students, NUS National President Kat Fletcher and NUS Black Students' Officer Pav Akhtar said:

"The paper offers nothing to the serious debate about how to address terrorism in society".

"No evidence is presented to support the view that campus life contributes to students becoming involved in terrorism, other than that some individuals who have been, or are alleged to have been, involved in terrorist activity also attended a UK college at some point".

"NUS fears that the report's unsubstantiated claims have the potential to endanger Muslim students by inflaming a climate of racism, fear and hostility, and place a cloud over perfectly legitimate student Islamic societies." 

David Rhind, vice-chancellor of City University, has been one of the most vociferous critics of the research. City was included in a list of universities where extremism was said to have been detected. However, Professor Rhind said this allegation was based on nothing more than the fact that Sajid Badat, who pleaded guilty to attempted terrorism, had once been offered a place to study at City, which he had not taken up. 

He added that the research as a whole, which was described by Universities UK as being built largely on "anecdotal evidence", "appeared to be based on a collection of snippings from the internet with no quality control".