Conference Report by Jane Affleck
On November 10 2000 the Freedom Forum’s European Centre in London, in association with Article 19, Index on Censorship and Liberty, hosted a debate on National Security. (1) Three panels spoke on The Nature of National Security, British State Security in Northern Ireland, and The Internet – Circumventing Censorship?
The first session, on the nature of national security, was introduced by John Owen, Director of the Freedom Forum’s European Centre. He spoke of continuing threats to erode the First Amendment in the US, particularly recent legislation, [the Intelligence Authorisation Act (IAA)], which would have provided greater powers to prosecute whistle-blowers. Although vetoed by Clinton, it could be revived. In the UK, only a week earlier, the government had thrown out an attempt to prosecute Colonel Nigel Wylde under the Official Secrets Act. Duncan Campbell pointed out that if the IAA law had been passed, a US Colonel Wylde would have faced jail because there was no test of damage in that act unlike the situation in the UK [since the 1989 Official Secrets Act]. (2)
John Wadham (Director, Liberty) said this was the first conference raising issues of national security and freedom of expression and asked why no-one from the authorities was present. Many members of the Labour government had been very critical of, and voted against the OSA 1989 because it allowed the prosecution of whistleblowers, but a Labour Attorney General consented to the prosecution of the author Tony Geraghty, Wylde and Shayler.
Nick Fielding of the Sunday Times said that most of the debate was taking place in the courts and Parliament was left behind in the debate, the government refusing to discuss secrecy issues. A free press was the last resort for getting allegations out, David Shayler said. ‘My experience shows we don’t have a balance between free expression and national security.’ Only recently the government had tried to put the editor of Punch in prison. (3) ‘I used to think the problem was 18 years of Conservative government, now I think the problem is government per se.’
Rear Admiral Nick Wilkinson, Secretary of the D-Notice Committee, believes that without the D-notice system there would be more injunctions, and that a voluntary system is better than litigation, provided the system is applied in a liberal-minded way – his aim. He talked about the need to deal with National Security issues in a more mature way. He said, ‘I strongly feel we need more openness.’
Stephen Dorril spoke of a sense of deja vu, with prosecutions taking place under a Labour government again (Cf the ABC case in 1977-8), and that the Labour Party doesn’t know how to deal with national security and the intelligence services. Dorril said authors are under a lot of pressure to cooperate with the D-notice Committee; if they refuse to cooperate, their books are sometimes passed to the Committee anyway; and in practice most authors have to go along with it. But certain writers, such as Christopher Andrew are treated differently.
Andrew Puddephat (Executive Director, Article 19) said control of the media in Northern Ireland was essential to both sides, and this raised problems for journalists. He said that until the secrecy regime is fundamentally changed, we won’t know what happened in Northern Ireland. Alastair Brett, Legal Manager at Times Newspapers, spoke of the dangers facing journalists in Northern Ireland and the difficulties publishing Sunday Times journalist Liam Clarke’s articles on the activities of the Army’s Force Research Unit (FRU). Should the public not know that FRU set the office of Sir John Stevens on fire? (4) The government was trying to use the law of confidence or the OSA to silence the press and prevent the disclosure of incompetence or iniquity by elements of the state.
Tony Geraghty described his arrest and referred to the ‘consistent harassment, pressure and bullying’ which he and his publisher, HarperCollins, had been subjected to over the The Irish War, which included information about computer surveillance methods used in Northern Ireland.
The internet allowed people living in repressive regimes, or rebel groups, to get information out whilst keeping their identities and locations secret by the use of anonymising software and encryption. Rohan Jayasekera, Web Manager at Index on Censorship, said this could be a tool for social change in places where free speech is limited, such as China. The importance of the internet in making available information in the public interest is clear; for example, John Young, of the cryptome site, had received telephone calls on behalf of SIS, asking him to remove the CX95 document (concerning MI6 involvement with a plot to kill Gaddafy) from his website, but refused. But should anything be published on the internet? John Young said they would publish anything on cryptome.org; but John Wadham said sometimes privacy should be protected: for example, it would not be in the best interest if Liberty’s communications with Shayler were obtained and put on the internet. (Shayler’s trial is expected to start on April 23 2001).
Notes
- See article and links at www.freedomforum.org/news/2000/11/2000-11-16-04.htm
- Campbell was an expert for Wylde’s defence team, and his report, demonstrating that the contentious intelligence-related information from sections of Geraghty’s The Irish War was already in the public domain, led to the prosecution being dropped.
- Punch and its editor were fined on November 7 for Contempt of Court for publishing an article by Shayler about the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing, which breached an earlier injunction
- The Stevens team were investigating allegations of collusion between security forces and loyalist paramilitaries.