How long official secrets act

There has been no apology or explanation from the state about the examples above and many other cases. For journalists to accept the new proposals would be a huge leap of faith that the government would use such legislation proportionally and sensibly. The new legislation would tip the delicate contract between personal freedom and national security towards a more authoritarian stance with a decided chilling effect on journalistic inquiry.

There has never been a more important time for rigorous fourth-estate monitoring of the intelligence complex, and many of the proposals in this consultation would be a further deterrent to robust investigative journalism. This article was originally published on The Conversation.

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Award: Master of Arts. Dr Paul Lashmar, Reader, is an academic. The proposed changes One of the main changes is to widen the scope for prosecutions.

Reporters say it could also deter people from passing secret documents to the press. A public interest defence Journalists and media rights groups are also concerned that the Home Office has dismissed the recommendations of the independent Law Commission, to include a new legal defence for those deemed to be acting in the public interest. More from News. Argentina votes in midterms amid pressure on President Fernandez. Turkey rebuffs French call for troop withdrawal from Libya.

But a close reading of the new proposals suggests the agenda is as much to deter journalists, whistleblowers and sources from embarrassing government and intelligence agencies. The Home Office, led by Home Secretary Priti Patel, has dismissed the recommendations of the independent Law Commission , which are supported by journalism and legal organisations , that any reform should include a legal defence for those deemed to be acting in the public interest.

This would give some protection to journalists and their sources. I am an investigative journalist with more than 40 years of experience reporting on national security, and my recently published book , Spies, Spin and the Fourth Estate, covers the relationship between journalism and national security. While it is quite right that foreign spies should be prosecuted, this legislation seems more designed to prevent government embarrassment.

Indeed many illegal operations have been exposed only by the collaboration of whistleblowers and journalists. There has been an Official Secrets Act since , aimed at spies and corrupted civil servants. It was passed in one day with minimal debate. They can simply be "notified" it applies to them, usually in their employment contract.

The law was first created in , and was most recently updated in Anyone - including journalists - can be prosecuted for publishing leaked information covered by the legislation.

This offence, known as "onward disclosure", currently carries the same maximum two-year jail term that applies to officials leaking information.

The Act does not allow for a specific public interest defence, despite attempts by MPs to introduce one when the law was passed. It means the defence available to most people prosecuted under the Act is to argue they did not know the disclosure would be damaging. The other option is to use the so-called "defence of necessity" - by arguing disclosure prevented a more serious crime being committed.

In May, the Home Office published a consultation paper containing a number of proposals to revise the Official Secrets Act. It followed a review of the legislation by the Law Commission originally commissioned in and finally published last September. The Home Office backed suggestions from the Commission that maximum sentences should be increased, and it should consider whether more types of information should be covered by the Act.

The government also said it would look at extending the Act to cover British citizens overseas, and non-British citizens. It said the changes were necessary to ensure sensitive information is better protected in the face of new security threats.