The recent Official Secrets Act trial shows how the ‘war on terror’ is used to attack the public’s right to know, writes Julie-ann Davies

14 August 2007

The media has dragged a small concession from the jaws of censorship. A coalition of British media organisations has won a limited victory in an appeal against restrictions imposed on reporting the Official Secrets Act (OSA) trial of David Keogh and Leo O’Connor. 

Reporters Without Borders

Press Release

21 May 2007 

Reporters Without Borders today condemned a British judge’s order banning the press from mentioning a leaked memo about a meeting between Tony Blair and George W. Bush in their coverage of the trial of two persons accused of violating the Official Secrets Act by leaking the memo, which reportedly referred to the possibility of bombing the pan-Arab TV station Al-Jazeera.

Judge Richard Aikens imposed the gagging order on 10 May after he sentenced government communications officer David Keogh to six months in prison for passing a copy of the memo to Leo O’Connor, a parliamentarian’s researcher, whom he sentenced to three months in prison.

Index on Censorship

As two men are sentenced for breaching Britain’s Official Secrets Act on the day Tony Blair announces the date of he will step down as Prime Minister, there is more need than ever for a public interest defence for officials who ‘leak’ secrets on point of principle. Jo Glanville comments

11 May 2007  

By Chris Summers, BBC News

10 May 2007

Two men have been convicted of breaking the Official Secrets Act by leaking a confidential memo between President Bush and Tony Blair. The content of the memo has never officially been made public.

The memo at the heart of the trial in Court Five of the Old Bailey will remain secret for many years to come.

One day, perhaps 30, 50 or 100 years in the future, the contents will be revealed and British and American historians and journalists will pore over it at the Public Records Office.

By the time it is released its contents will no longer be embarrassing or damaging for those involved.

1 May 2007

Two men, David Keogh and Leo O’Connor are, at the time of writing, being tried under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) at the Old Bailey in London. Both deny the charges.

By Julie-ann Davies, 9 October 2006

Former British cabinet minister and memoirist Tony Benn discusses the protection of whistleblowers and why the public has a right to know 

On 25 July 2006 the Public Administration Select Committee published a new report Whitehall Confidential? The Publication of Political Memoirs. The document marked the first review of the issues surrounding the publication of memoirs for 30 years. The report recommends new guidelines and procedures and was prompted by a spate of recent controversial cases including those of Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Sir Christopher Meyer and Lance Price. Tony Benn, who gave evidence to the committee, believes that a radical overhaul of the system could have a profound impact on British secrecy laws.

Whistle-blowing has been on the increase and so has the rate at which secret documents are being leaked to the news media.  The longer Tony Blair has remained Prime Minister, the greater it seems has been the number of unauthorised disclosures.  Nicholas Jones, author of a new book, Trading Information: Leaks, lies and tip-offs, examines the background to the recent upsurge in the illicit flow of confidential information. And, against the background of recent cases involving whistleblowers, he assesses the motives for the government’s latest attempt to strengthen the Official Secrets Act.

Opposition to the war in Iraq has undoubtedly been the key factor in motivating many of the leaks which have given rise to the greatest political difficulties for Tony Blair.

Margaret Thatcher had been there before him: most of the illicit disclosures which caused her so much grief in the 1980s related to what were also perceived to have been acts of aggression by the state, whether it was the delivery of Cruise missiles, the Falklands War or the programme of pit closures which precipitated the 1984-5 miners' strike.

By Nicholas Jones, 4 October 2006

British newspaper front pages for the 19th of July 2003 tell the story of the tragic suicide of Dr David Kelly, who at the time of his death was Britain’s leading authority on biological warfare. I believe Dr Kelly was perhaps the most significant confidential source of information in British journalism in recent times, at least in the years I have been a reporter. But behind the front-age headlines, there is another untold story, of a black day in British journalism.

By Julie-ann Davies

28 August 2005

On 29 May 2003 BBC defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan reported on Radio 4’s Today programme that a ‘senior British official’ had told him the British government's dossier on Iraq had been ‘transformed in the week before it was published to make it sexier’ and build a stronger case for war. The unnamed source was Dr David Kelly and Gilligan’s report nearly brought the BBC and the British government to their knees.