A spokesman for the Home Office said covert surveillance was kept under "constant review" by the chief surveillance commissioner, Sir Christopher Rose, who monitors the conduct of authorities and ensures they are complying with the appropriate legislation.
These boxes were kept under continuous covert surveillance, with the time recorded when each chocolate was eaten.
And while some surveillance activities will always need to be covert, activities that are kept secret simply because they would be deemed unacceptable if the public knew about them should be scrapped.
Special operations forces in the region should be kept on high alert for quick, covert incursions to disable or even relocate the weapons to prevent their capture by unauthorized people.
And our folly is compounded because so many of these operations are covert and details are kept secret not only from the enemy but from most of the American people including much of the government.
For him, the very idea that utilitarianism may allow and even require such covert actions should itself be kept relatively secret.
"And, as far as they're concerned, this is a covert operation, and it's to be kept within Defense Department channels".
Hall said this information needed to be kept secret in order to protect the undercover spies and the covert techniques they had been using.
Yes, there is something between indictments and cruise missiles -- a middle ground of covert action and clandestine operations -- and these options should be kept on the table.
If it does, what does that mean for countries such as China, where its ability to radicalise is, for now, best kept covert?
