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Ex-MI6 Officer Publishes Banned Novel on Blog
SpooForBrains writes "Ex-MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson has been fighting a battle with the UK Secret Services for some time now, over his plans to publish a novel detailing his experience in the service, and over claims that he published a list of MI6 agents online (a claim he denies). The latest salvo in the battle (as reported on The Register occurred on Friday when he published the first chapter of his new novel "The Golden Chain" on Blogspot. He has since put up all the remaining chapters, apparently in an attempt to have them seen before the security services have them taken down."
By default the government should be open. Encouraging anything less is nothing more than an evil attempt to harm and subdue a free people.
If the government believes that any specific data may compromise the lives of any person unduly, the government can be allowed to make its case and fight for the data to remain secret.
Some people seem to forget that this is how it was before WW2 because people were wise enough at the time, and chronologically close enough to historical examples, to know that no government can be trusted unless the people have been allowed to know what it is doing.
That is the same argument the British government put forward when Peter Wright did the same for MI5 in his "Spycatcher" book. Mr. Wright had been a faithful servant of the secret services for many years, and responsible for some very major intel breakthroughs, including some that were critical to the British war effort against the Axis. He, however, had good reason to believe that the highest levels of MI5 had been infiltrated by the Soviets, and he decided to take action.
He wrote a long report ("The Dossier") and sent it straight to the Prime Minister, who promptly forwarded it to the accused managers for review. They, of course, gave themselves a clean bill of health, and started making life hell for Mr. Wright. Disgusted at how his efforts to help his country were going nowhere, he decided to go public. "Spycatcher" was the result of that decision.
When he attempted to have it published in Britain, his publishers were pressured into dropping the book ("invited to have tea with the Treasury lawyers" is the jargon), and he eventually took it to an Australian firm. The aussies went ahead with the book, and the British government sued him in Australia. The judged ruled in Mr. Wright's favour, noting that the British government's case was entirely laughable and irresponsible.
To my knowledge, the book is still banned in Britain. However, in the rest of the world it became a massive best-seller, and eventually shamed the British government into pushing for reforms of the recruitment process of the intelligence services.
This is another case of a book that was deemed to be full of state secrets, and therefore should be kept hidden. However, how was it beneficial to the government of Britain, or the national security of Britain, to ignore and hush up the fact that their intelligence services were riddled with moles? In some cases, state secrets must be busted open, because sometimes they are only secret because they are embarassing, not dangerous.
I say give this guy a chance. If he's just a fame seeker who is gratuitously spilling secrets to get himself on a best-seller list, shut him down. But if he has something important to say - publish the hell out of his book. Make it visible in every corner of the world and make sure some change comes of it.
Something tells me this guy's going to end up doing time, no matter how good his book might have been.
Patriots serve in all sorts of less than obvious ways. Sometimes jail time for opposing the state is one of them.
KFG
If you were asked to keep a secret by the government that resulted in the fleecing of millions of taxpayers, would you? how about if it was something that had resulted in one or more deaths? would you keep it secret, then? what about gross abuse of government, and thereby taxpayer, resources? would you keep it a secret then? so you signed a piece of paper. are you going to let that stop you from releasing information you feel needs to be available? What if your commanding officer or fellows were, say, abusing prisoners of a false war in extremely demeaning and inhuman ways? would you report, then?
where do you draw the line between what the state has a right to hide and what it must not?
in short: who's watching the watchers?