Since Mat Handjob was caught breaching Covid regulations and other ministers have been caught up to no good, the Home office are doing a consultation on if you leak stuff to the press or you are an investigative journalist you and the journalists will soon be done for spying. Oh and you can't protest against it because of the Police and Crime bill the police weren't consulted on.
Consultation - https://www.gov.uk/government/consul...-state-threats
Opinion piece from The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...whistleblowing
Here we go again. Nearly 50 years ago one of us was arrested under the Official Secrets Act for working on a story for Time Out magazine, where the other one of us was the news editor. This led to the so-called ABC case, named after fellow reporter Crispin Aubrey, a brave ex-soldier whistleblower called John Berry, and the aforesaid Campbell. A lengthy Old Bailey trial followed in 1978 and, with it, a major discrediting of the use of the act against the press.
Soon after, the power of the pre-first world war, empire-era secrecy laws sank further when a jury acquitted the late Clive Ponting, a senior civil servant who sent MPs information about government deception during the Falklands war. A hasty law reform flopped in 2004 when evidence against the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun had to be withdrawn at the last minute. The government feared her trial would reveal that it had been told the Iraq war would be illegal.
The Home Office now wants harder and more extensive secrecy laws that would have the effect of deterring sources, editors and reporters, making them potentially subject to uncontrolled official bans not approved by a court, and punished much more severely if they do not comply. In noisy political times, a government consultation issued two months ago has had worryingly little attention. Although portrayed as countering hostile activity by state actors, the new laws would, if passed, ensnare journalists and sources whose job is reporting “unauthorised disclosures” that are in the public interest.
Endorsed by the home secretary, Priti Patel, the consultation argues that press disclosures can be worse than spying, because the work of a foreign spy “will often only be to the benefit of a single state or actor”.
Calling for parliament to consider “increased maximum sentences”, the Home Office claims that there is now not necessarily a “distinction in severity between espionage and the most serious unauthorised disclosures”, including “onward disclosure” in the press. Journalism could even create “far more serious damage” than a spy. Yet the 66-page document does not mention “journalism” once, and refers only to “onward disclosure … without authorisation”.
A new proposal for so-called civil orders would create “a power of last resort that would enable [the government] to impose a range of restrictions on particular individuals”. The orders “could include a range of restrictive and preventative measures, including measures to prevent an individual associating with certain people or from visiting specified sensitive locations” and ought to “be imposed by the executive rather than the courts”. The orders would create “a significant deterrent against those who may be vulnerable and susceptible to foreign state coercion and influence”.
Link to old piece from The Register - https://www.theregister.com/2017/02/...ists_as_spies/
Proposals in the UK for a swingeing new Espionage Act that could jail journalists as spies have been developed in haste by legal advisors, The Register has learned.
The proposed law update is an attempt to ban reporting of future big data leaks.
The British government has received recommendations for a "future-proofed" new Espionage Act that would put leaking and whistleblowing in the same category as spying for foreign powers.
That threatens leakers and journalists with the same extended jail sentences as foreign agents. Sentences would apply even if – like Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning – the leaker was not British, or in Britain, or was intent on acting in the public interest.
The proposals have been slammed by journalists who faced down British and US government threats after publishing Edward Snowden's sensational revelations in 2013.
Consultation - https://www.gov.uk/government/consul...-state-threats
Opinion piece from The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...whistleblowing
Here we go again. Nearly 50 years ago one of us was arrested under the Official Secrets Act for working on a story for Time Out magazine, where the other one of us was the news editor. This led to the so-called ABC case, named after fellow reporter Crispin Aubrey, a brave ex-soldier whistleblower called John Berry, and the aforesaid Campbell. A lengthy Old Bailey trial followed in 1978 and, with it, a major discrediting of the use of the act against the press.
Soon after, the power of the pre-first world war, empire-era secrecy laws sank further when a jury acquitted the late Clive Ponting, a senior civil servant who sent MPs information about government deception during the Falklands war. A hasty law reform flopped in 2004 when evidence against the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun had to be withdrawn at the last minute. The government feared her trial would reveal that it had been told the Iraq war would be illegal.
The Home Office now wants harder and more extensive secrecy laws that would have the effect of deterring sources, editors and reporters, making them potentially subject to uncontrolled official bans not approved by a court, and punished much more severely if they do not comply. In noisy political times, a government consultation issued two months ago has had worryingly little attention. Although portrayed as countering hostile activity by state actors, the new laws would, if passed, ensnare journalists and sources whose job is reporting “unauthorised disclosures” that are in the public interest.
Endorsed by the home secretary, Priti Patel, the consultation argues that press disclosures can be worse than spying, because the work of a foreign spy “will often only be to the benefit of a single state or actor”.
Calling for parliament to consider “increased maximum sentences”, the Home Office claims that there is now not necessarily a “distinction in severity between espionage and the most serious unauthorised disclosures”, including “onward disclosure” in the press. Journalism could even create “far more serious damage” than a spy. Yet the 66-page document does not mention “journalism” once, and refers only to “onward disclosure … without authorisation”.
A new proposal for so-called civil orders would create “a power of last resort that would enable [the government] to impose a range of restrictions on particular individuals”. The orders “could include a range of restrictive and preventative measures, including measures to prevent an individual associating with certain people or from visiting specified sensitive locations” and ought to “be imposed by the executive rather than the courts”. The orders would create “a significant deterrent against those who may be vulnerable and susceptible to foreign state coercion and influence”.
Link to old piece from The Register - https://www.theregister.com/2017/02/...ists_as_spies/
Proposals in the UK for a swingeing new Espionage Act that could jail journalists as spies have been developed in haste by legal advisors, The Register has learned.
The proposed law update is an attempt to ban reporting of future big data leaks.
The British government has received recommendations for a "future-proofed" new Espionage Act that would put leaking and whistleblowing in the same category as spying for foreign powers.
That threatens leakers and journalists with the same extended jail sentences as foreign agents. Sentences would apply even if – like Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning – the leaker was not British, or in Britain, or was intent on acting in the public interest.
The proposals have been slammed by journalists who faced down British and US government threats after publishing Edward Snowden's sensational revelations in 2013.
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