Index on Censorship http://ioc.sagepub.com/ Paradoxes of secrecy Duncan Campbell Index on Censorship 1988 17: 16 DOI: 10.1080/03064228808534500 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ioc.sagepub.com/content/17/8/16 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: Writers and Scholars International Ltd Additional services and information for Index on Censorship can be found at: Email Alerts: http://ioc.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://ioc.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav >> Version of Record - Sep 1, 1988 What is This? Downloaded from ioc.sagepub.com by Natasha Schmidt on April 9, 2013 INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 8/88 Duncan Campbell Paradoxes of secrecy The Prime Minister and her officials are utterly disdainful of press freedom, open government or the American concept of the press as 'fourth estate' Freedom of speech and journalistic But juries and many judges have never possibility of similar domestic political pluralism, which survived and occasionally liked the law. When journalists or activities in Britain. In 1975/76, the author thrived in Britain in the first half of the 'whistleblowers' (confidential sources or became part of this largely left-oriented 1980s has since then been debased and informants) have made disclosures in the interest. abused with increasing frequency. For the public interest, successive trials (including Although such activities as reporting the moment the UK cannot bear comparison my own trial on secrecy charges, ten years role of the CIA in Britain were not visibly with many governments' violent or ago) have shown that they are unlikely to opposed at the time by legal or security murderous excesses against the press. But be convicted; or if convicted, unlikely to be authorities, we have subsequently learned security forces are being given greater punished. In a particularly embarrassing that during the mid 1970s, the UK Security licence, and the deliberate suppression of 1985 case, senior defence ministry official Service (widely known as MI5) was investigative journalism already plays a Clive Ponting was acquitted of Official completing a major realignment of its role. major role in facilitating state 'counter- Secrets charges for having passed Instead of concentrating on the traditional terrorism'. Almost a decade of ministerial papers to an MP. The leaked target of foreign espionage (primarily from authoritarian rule under Prime Minister papers showed that the government had Soviet Bloc entities), MI5 moved many of Margaret Thatcher has scarred freedom of misrepresented the circumstances of the its resources to look inwards at so-called expression on controversial topics, and in sinking of the Argentine battleship 'domestic subversion'. Journalists, as well the broadcast media, for many years to Belgrano during the 1982 as lawyers, elected politicians, and liberal come. Falklands/Malvinas war. and law reform campaigners came under The legal basis of British government Widely drawn as the Act is, its greatest particular attention. secrecy is the wide-reaching and unpopular effect has been the long term During this period, from 1972 on, the Official Secrets Act (OSA), which was discouragement of any sort of 'open MI5 rules regarding which organisations or passed in 1911. The Act makes it illegal for government', rather than the instigation of individuals might be put under surveillance any public official or civil servant in Britain numerous prosecutions. Technical breaches became particularly elastic. I and some to give any information about government of the law by journalists have generally other journalists, who had no Communist, activity to the public —<- unless the been frequent, and are usually ignored Trotskyist or other far-left affiliations, were government has authorised it first. The bill except in cases of particular political justified as security service targets by being was passed in an era of exceptional embarrassment. Among the many categorised, bizarrely, as 'unaffiliated patriotic fervour, when Members of paradoxes of British secrecy is that critical revolutionaries'. The National Council for Parliament in disagreement with the Act reporting of such sensitive areas of Civil Liberties was made a formal security were forcibly confined to their seats to government affairs as domestic security target for equally ill-justified reasons (the prevent them speaking. service activities — an area which was marriage of a single senior official to a For anyone in Britain, receiving or taboo for mainstream media organisations former Communist party member was held indeed hearing of any official 'note, throughout most of the 1970s — became to make the organisation a 'Communist document or information', no matter how commonplace by the mid 1980s. front'). From May 1976 onwards, my trivial, is an offence 'unless the recipient So although Mrs Thatcher's government telephone line was tapped, an activity proves that the communication... was has had available at all times the sweeping which has to my knowledge continued well contrary to his desire'. The law covers all powers of the OSA to inhibit public into the mid 1980s, and probably continues official information, not just classified or discussion or journalistic enquiry, it has to this day. military data. All violators, including never actually used the Act for prosecuting The counter-attack against investigative reporters or editors who receive journalists. However, new changes in the journalism began in 1976-7. First, two unauthorised official information may be civil and criminal law have been proposed American writers, Mark Hosenball and punished by up to two years imprisonment or enacted in 1987 and 1988 which have Philip Agee, were deported as 'threats to — even if they do not publish. Section 2 of already seriously undermined independent national security'. Under prevailing the Official Secrets Act automatically or investigative reporting. procedures, no evidence was presented as to covers data about such items as agricultural what activities of theirs constituted the subsidies and health statistics. alleged threat. But it was soon clear that If 'investigative journalism' has a Hosenball's 'offence' had been the co- Duncan Campbell (35) has been an specifically British history, it began in the authorship, with me, of the first article ever investigative journalist in Britain for 12 1960s, with teams of TV and Sunday to describe the activities of Government years. He is now Associate Editor <?/New newspaper journalists increasingly willing Communications Headquarters, the now Statesman & Society magazine. He began to challenge the established order. The high well-known British electronic intelligence working on the New Statesman in 1977 while profile journalism of the early 1970s in the agency. Agee's 'offence' had been to write being prosecuted under Britain's notorious United States — the Watergate affair and and campaign about the international Official Secrets Act, Section 2, and has since the pivotal role of investigative journalism activities of the CIA, by whom he had repeatedly been investigated or threatened in the downfall of Richard Nixon — led to formerly been employed. with the Act. a rapidly developing interest in the Soon after the deportation, I and another Downloaded from ioc.sagepub.com by Natasha Schmidt on April 9, 2013 16 INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 8/88 Paradoxes of secrecy journalist were arrested in a connected case. author's definition, at any rate. Much many newspaper titles in the hands of the I and Crispin Aubrey were accused of tabloid (popular newspaper) journalism News International group controlled by the breaking Section 2 by having interviewed a claims the label of'investigative Australian/American entrepreneur, Rupert former soldier, John Berry. The case, which journalism'. Such writing often is the 'we Murdoch. Murdoch's takeover moved the became known as 'ABC after the expose the scandal of gay vicar' type of Sunday Times and Times significantly to the defendants' surnames, took almost two story. Characteristically, these reports are right, and cost these papers all their best years to come to trial. During this time the an intrusion into private lives of the investigative reporters. prosecution introduced several charges of powerless by enormously more powerful The Sunday Times 'Insight' team had espionage, one of which was intended to media corporations. I do not believe that, hitherto been a role model for investigative criminalise investigative reporting in to the extent that these stories use journalism. With that gone, in the new general. This new charge, which was investigative methods, they constitute mood of the times, investigative journalism quickly to fail in the final trial, asserted that 'investigative journalism' in the normal, became seen increasingly as a minority or it was an offence to gather publicly public-interest, sense of the term. left-wing anti-authoritarian enterprise. available information, if deductions might That investigative journalism may be Nevertheless, investigation could continue be made from these 'open' sources. characterised by its relationship to the through the 1980s, despite the maintenance The ABC secrets trial was, ironically, • distribution of power within society, and by of the OS A and a separate press self- sanctioned by a Labour (socialist) journalistic intervention typically on behalf censorship organisation,