British journalists, whistleblowers rip Official Secrets Act
By John Owen
The Freedom Forum Online
11.16.00
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| Tony Geraghty |
LONDON — Britain's Official Secrets Act came under fire in
London from leading journalists and whistleblowers who ran the risk of
prosecution for reporting what British governments say threatens national
security.
At a Nov. 10 conference at The Freedom Forum European Center, critics
of the act denounced the Labor Government of Tony Blair for reneging on
commitments to ease or eliminate the strictures while his party was in
opposition. The conference was organized by The Freedom Forum in association
with leading British human rights groups Index on Censorship, Article 19, and
Liberty, which have published a new report,
"Secrets, Spies and
Whistleblowers: Freedom of Expression and National Security in the United
Kingdom."
Tony Geraghty, the first
British journalist to be charged in 22 years under the Official Secrets Act,
said he had been subjected to "a process of consistent harassment, pressure,
and bullying" for writing about how intelligence agencies had used computer
surveillance in Northern Ireland.
Police and detectives raided Geraghty's home in December 1998 after he
refused to remove what Ministry of Defense officials claimed was "damaging
material" from a paperback version of his book, The
Irish War. A year later, charges against him finally were
dropped.
However, Geraghty's principal source for his book, Lt. Col. Nigel
Wylde, who was arrested at the same time as Geraghty, didn't have his charges
dropped until last week when the government's case against him collapsed.
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| David Shayler |
Britain's most celebrated current whistleblower, former MI5 officer
David Shayler, said that he had to be careful what he said, telling the
audience that "if I say the wrong thing today I could be arrested and my bail
rescinded."
Shayler and his lawyer, John Wadham, the director of the Liberty
organization, were in court the day before, trying to fight off attempts by the
government to try him in secret "for reasons of national security."
Shayler has been charged with three counts of violating the Official
Secrets Act. In 1998 he fled to France, where he spent four months in jail
while the British government unsuccessfully tried to extradite him. Among
several charges against him, he claimed that the British government had been
involved in a plot to kill Libya's President Moammar Gadhafi.
Several British newspapers and journalists had also been under threat
of being charged with violating the Official Secrets Act for reporting stories
based on information and documents supplied by Shayler.
Shayler returned voluntarily from exile last August after the
government decided not to try him on the Gadhafi-related claim but instead for
passing on classified information.
The British press generally doesn't question the government's actions,
Shayler said, asserting, "This kind of thing verges on totalitarianism but I
have to say that the only reason Parliament can get away with that is because
the free press in this country doesn't make a song and dance when our rights
are infringed."
Shayler noted that there had been little reaction to the High Court's
judgment and a 25,000 fine ($32,000 U.S.) against Punch magazine and its editor, James Steen, for
publishing Shayler's articles.
The lawyer for the Sunday
Times, Alastair Brett, said the government decided that the best
way "to silence the press" is to use a "law of confidence" that gave judges the
power to issue injunctions that act as a prior restraint against an article
that any top official can swear in secret will endanger national security.
Brett said that the Sunday
Times was "very, very careful — and we've done it time and
time again — not to put peoples' lives at risk" with its reporting.
No one from the Blair government or from previous Conservative
governments was willing to speak at the conference, prompting Wadham to say
that he had been unable in the past to "engage anyone from Parliament or the
security services " in a debate on these issues. Wadham said that "was not
acceptable in a democratic society."
The nearest the conference got to an official spokesperson was Rear
Adm. Nick Wilkinson, who serves as secretary of the Defense Advisory Notice
Committee or DA-Notice System.
Wilkinson said that the committee, which is has17 members —
including 13 news representatives — had tried but failed to come up with
a new definition of what constituted national security.
However, he argued that the voluntary system was preferable to "going
to law and risking blanket injunctions, police investigations, and
prosecutions."
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| Bob Haiman |
Duncan Campbell, an "intelligence specialist reporter" and the last
journalist to face Official Secrets Act charges in the U.K., claimed that only
a last-minute veto two weeks ago
by President Bill Clinton saved the United States from enacting what he said
amounted to an American version of the Official Secrets Act.
Campbell asked whether the First Amendment would have protected "an
American Colonel Wylde" if the law had passed.
Bob Haiman, a fellow at The Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center,
replied that "I think that the answer to your question is the one that you
fear. The only intervention would be an approach to the U.S. Supreme Court, and
then we'd see whether this act would be held to be constitutional."
"I believe that the United States came very close to the edge of the
precipice and would have gone over," Haiman said.
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