Former labour leader and Prime Minister Alfred Sant has expressed his scepticism about the need for a ‘secret’ service in Malta.

“I was always of the belief that at most Malta needs a special branch within the police corps. It would operate within set parameters with the purpose of conducting certain special investigations,” Dr Sant said on his blog on iNewsmalta.com

Dr Sant said that the way in which the secret service operates is too opaque.

“The law governing the secret service contains the obscene provision whereby action taken with the scope of defending workers’ industrial rights can be seen as a security threat, and subjected to secret investigations. I argued against this when the law was presented in Parliament,” Dr Sant said.

Taking the opportunity for a quick plug of his recently launched book ‘George Bush in Malta,’ Dr Sant said that he did not hold back from taking a satirical look at the secret service in his work of literature.

Dr Sant contrasted the current "storm" happening in Malta with the far more serious controversy of espionage by the United States on its supposed allies.

He said that while such espionage within the context of the cold war is understandable, it should only have been directed towards the likes of Russia or countries prone to cultivating terrorism.

He expressed his incredulity at the fact that the likes of the EU was subjected to “James Bond” style snooping of conversations and emails.