Entered into the database on Sunday, December 04th, 2005 @ 12:57:13 MST
As an indication of how well-entrenched the police state is in Britain, consider
the prosecution, under the Officials Secrets Act, of David Keogh, a former communications
officer at the Cabinet Office, and Leo O’Connor, a former parliamentary
researcher. “Mr. Keogh, 49, is charged with making a ‘damaging disclosure
of a document relating to international relations’ without lawful authority,
while Mr. O’Connor, 42, is charged with having receiving a document ‘through
its disclosure without lawful authority by a crown servant,’” according
to the Financial
Times. “The document, according to a report in the Daily Mirror, detailed
minutes of a conversation between Tony Blair and President George W. Bush, in
which bombing the headquarters of the Arabic satellite TV channel al-Jazeera
was discussed.” Interesting how it is a crime to reveal a war crime (or potential war
crime), deemed a “damaging disclosure,” and Keogh and O’Connor
may actually go to prison while Bush and Blair will be free to become “elder
statesmen” advising others on how best to kill innocent civilians and
journalists. It appears Keogh and O’Connor will not be allowed to defend themselves,
thus adding a rather Stalinesque flavor to the proceedings (Julie
Hyland described it as “a Kafkaesque quality”). “No details
of the memo were given in court and O’Connor’s lawyer Neil Clark
has said he does not know what is in the alleged document, and has never seen
it. Calling for the government to release the information, he said he needed
to ‘know the case’ against his client as it would be ‘impossible’
to defend him otherwise,” writes Hyland. Of course, the point here is not to allow Keogh and O’Connor to defend
themselves, but rather to send a message: if you reveal the murderous intentions
of the government (or a possible contrivance between two governments) to bomb
news offices and studios in a sovereign nation, you will be prosecuted and sent
to prison. As Hyland notes, using ” the OSA against civil servants is
… unusual. Former intelligence officer David Shayler was prosecuted and
imprisoned under the act, after he disclosed that Britain’s MI6 had backed
a failed plot to assassinate Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.” In other
words, the Officials Secrets Act is used only when something is released that
seriously embarrasses the government—or makes the government out for what
it really is: a collection of sociopaths capable of killing dozens if not thousands
of people under a veil of official secrecy. But the real story here, beyond the prosecution of Keogh and O’Connor,
is the alarming idea that heads of state get together in government suites and
connive to bomb media outlets and thus mass murder journalists, producers, technicians,
managers, etc., in a sovereign country (it is said Blair talked Bush out of
going forward with his idea). It says a whole lot about the mindset and character
of George Bush. But then we’ve known about that for a few years now.
