24 February 2000
Source:
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Times/frontpage.html?1116525
The Times, February 24 2000
OPINION
Magnus Linklater
A group of middle-aged dissidents met this week in a first-floor room on Piccadilly. They toasted the release of one of their number from the hands of the dreaded secret police and discussed how best to fight the prosecution of another. They swapped stories of surveillance and phone-tapping, of rooms ransacked and interrogation by government agents. They wondered why all this was happening, not in Albania or Beijing, but Britain today.
You think I exaggerate? Not entirely. The dissidents, of which I was happy to be one, were in fact the friends of Tony Geraghty, a distinguished former defence correspondent of The Sunday Times; the room where we met was in the impeccable premises of the RAF Club; and the secret police we complained about were the investigative arm of the Ministry of Defence. Otherwise, all is as I have recounted. The surveillance and the room searches were only too real. The prosecution we discussed is the first serious action to have been taken under the Government's new Official Secrets Act. And if this is how things are going be in Tony Blair's brave new world of openness and accountability, heaven help us all.
A brief résumé: 18 months ago, Mr Geraghty, who has written several books on military matters, published another entitled The Irish War. It contained a section on how the British Army carries out surveillance of IRA suspects, including some details about computer programs. It went on sale, was praised in a number of reviews and did well enough in the bookshops to encourage the publisher, HarperCollins, to announce a paperback edition. At that stage the D Notice Committee, a shadowy institution which most of us thought had long since disappeared, wrote asking for the book to be submitted for official scrutiny.
Mr Geraghty refused. In his experience, and it is considerable, handing over material to the MoD or intelligence agencies may place at risk the identities of informants who have been promised anonymity. He was certain there was nothing in the book which threatened security or put lives at risk; as a historian of the SAS, and a squadron leader in the RAF military reserve, who served with General Sir Peter de la Billière's staff in the Gulf War, he is hardly a novice in these matters, nor is his patriotism in doubt.
Shortly afterwards, however, he was arrested at his home on the Welsh borders by MoD police. They appeared to be operating without the co-operation of the local force, since Mr Geraghty had to tell them the way to his nearest police station. There he was charged under Section Five of the Secrets Act. At the same time, 150 miles away in Esher, Nigel Wylde, a former lieutenant- colonel in Army Intelligence, alleged to be Mr Geraghty's informant, was also arrested and charged under the tougher Section Two of the Act, which covers Crown servants disclosing information judged to be damaging to the national interest. Significantly, there is no public interest defence, and in Section Two the onus is on the accused to prove that he did not know national security might be damaged, rather than the other way around. That is, Mr Wylde is guilty until proved innocent. Both offences carry prison terms.
For the best part of a year, as the case proceeded, friends of Mr Geraghty found themselves subject to mysterious inquiries as his background was investigated. Telephone calls from strangers sought personal details. The Geraghty house was placed under surveillance. White vans with darkened windows were parked near Mr Wylde's home. Information was passed back that could have come only from tapped phone calls.
In view of all this, the case caused surprisingly little stir in Britain. But last December Anthony Lewis of The New York Times wrote about it, accusing the authorities of trampling on civil liberties. "It is an astonishing story," he said, "and it discloses a dirty little secret: the Blair Government has authoritarian instincts." Two weeks later, the Attorney-General quietly withdrew the case against Mr Geraghty. The action against Mr Wylde continues -- he is to be committed on May 24.
For those of us who recall the era of the Spycatcher and Belgrano prosecutions, the story has a depressingly familiar ring - it takes us back to the dark days of official secrecy under Margaret Thatcher. As ever in such cases, there is no real evidence of damage to national security. Mr Geraghty claims that all the information complained of is either in the public domain or has been published before. It is, on the other hand, embarrassing to the Government, since it discloses the extent of its surveillance among thousands of innocent civilians, and the mistakes it has sometimes made. The prosecution thus appears more an attempt to discourage others than to suppress information.
No good, however, will come of it. The "guilty until proved innocent" clause of the Act almost certainly contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights. In Scotland new freedom of information legislation is likely to give far wider rights to disclosure, thus further undermining the Act. And however determined the Crown may be to proceed, it is unlikely to convince a jury that genuine harm to national security has been done or was intended.
Tony Blair should point out to his Attorney-General that taking punitive action against two responsible citizens, who have given loyal service to their country, was not what he had in mind when he came to power promising freedom of information and more open government.