Security - new material (9)
01 September 2000
Don't shoot the messenger, David Shayler. Observer 27.8.00. Article by the former MI5 officer who has returned to the UK to face charges under the Official Secrets Act, after spending three years in exile. Shayler defends his decision to go public with evidence that MI6 were involved in plotting to murder Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi, pointing out that "the real criminals in this affair are the British government and the intelligence services." He concludes by asking Tony Blair: "To expose the truth."
New Labour and spooks set to repeat Spycatcher mistakes, Stephen Dorril. Free Press (March-April) 2000, p4. This article examines the Labour government's "highly visible crackdown on journalists and writers who cover the security and intelligence field". It also tackles the government's campaign to prevent the names of two MI6 officers, David Wilson and Richard Bartlitt, who are alleged to have played a role in the assassination plot on Libya's Colonel Gadaffi, from being named, despite the fact that they can be found on the internet and in numerous international newspapers.
Archiv Schnüffelstaat Schweiz - Themenüberblick. Kommittee Schluss mit dem Schnuffelstaat, June 2000. This newsletter gives a brief summary of current developments in Switzerland as well as a selection of news cuttings. Issues include interception of telecommunications, the reorganisation of the Swiss police forces and the merging of three police data collection systems, thereby abolishing the former distinction between "suspicion of drugs dealing" and the more severe accusation of organised crime. The newsletter also deals with the recent case before the European Court of Justice (A. vs Switzerland, 16.2.00.) which decided that the telephone interception as well as the keeping of personal data of a former employee at the Soviet embassy in Bern was illegal. This decision (on grounds of Article 8 of the European Human Rights Convention: the right to a private life) is seen as a landmark decision in Switzerland where hundreds of personal files are kept illegally or on questionable legal grounds as a result of widespread interceptions of telecommunications. Available from KSS, Neuengasse 8, Bern, Switzerland.lloc