had under 18 years of Tory rule.
This is not simply the fruits of New Labour: the same was the case under "old Labour", too. Straw's attempt to ditch Labour's bold promises and fob off critics with meaningless "concessions" is a latter-day echo of the inglorious efforts of the Wilson and Callaghan governments to gag anyone seeking to investigate or expose the powers of the state.
Two notorious episodes sum up this long-running saga of reformist deference to a system designed to monitor, stifle and -if necessary - repress any serious challenge to capitalist rule:
The first was the decision by Home Secretary Merlyn Rees in November 1976 to deport two American journalists, Philip Agee, a former CIA agent, and Mark Hosenball, an investigative • journalist, "in the interests of national security".
T he second was what immediately became known as the "ABC" case, the arrest, prosecution and trial of Crispin Aubrey, John Berry and Duncan Campbell under the Official Secrets Act. Aubrey and Campbell were journalists: Berry, an ex-British soldier who had worked in Signals Intelligence, believed he had a responsibility to uncover the level of state surveillance.
The eventual trial ended late in 1978 in what was widely seen as a defeat for the state and a moral victory for the three defendants.
Agee, who had worked with the CIA in Latin America had been closely watched by British security services from his arrival in Britain in 1972, and during the three years in which he worked on his book Inside the Company, • Britain €20: cheques to Out(Also avallable in USA $35: Canada $40: Australa $35 New Zealand $35: South Africa RBO Swaden 330 SEK: Denmark 300 DKK: Hong Kong $120 (These and other agent addresses avalable on request):
CIA) and Mark Howh a journalist) on grounds thai Dans NOT TOLD lifting the lid on the activities of the his former employer.
But what drove the British and American secret servicemen from anger to apoplexy was when Agee then turned to active campaigning to promote the book and the information it contained, throughout Britain and western Europe, from his home in Cambridge.
The final straw seems to have been his visit to Jamaica in September T976, in the midst of the CIA's efforts to "destabilise" the social democratic government of Michael Manley. Agee confirmed in public meetings that the pattern of events during the stormy election campaign was typical of CIA operations, and named seven CIA operatives active in Jamaica.
Perhaps Agee was naïve or illinformed: he did not appear to be aware that a CIA operation of this type in an ex-British colony would have required at least tacit involvement of the British MI6.
Although no details were ever given, and none had to be proved or tested in court, it seems that this intervention into British and US efforts to control the Jamaican government was what tipped the balance and persuaded Rees to invoke a clause of the 1971 Immigration Act to deport Agee on grounds of national security.
Yes Pasus for change Hosenball's deportation was ordered on the same day in 1976. He had worked since 1974 on the staff of Time Out magazine, specialising in stories about the British and US security agencies.
In 1975 he and others had collaborated on an article listing 50 CIA agents based at the US Embassy in London. And in May 1976, working with Duncan Campbell, he had written a Time Out article The Eavesdroppers which was the first to detail the work of what was then the littleknown GCHQ listening post in Cheltenham, key to the British Signals Intelligence operation (SIGINT).
The Eavesdroppers showed the scale of the interception and monitoring of military and diplomațic communications not only in Eastern Europe, but throughout much of the Third World. It also described the scale of the US National Security Agency and its bases in Britain.
P rodded into action by back-room briefings from МIб, MIS, the defence Intelligence Committee and other highly-placed reactionaries, Home Secretary Merlyn Rees obediently invoked the controversial "Star Chamber" provisions of the 1971 Immigration Act to deport Agee and Hosenball. And, using the powers of the Act, he refused to tell the accused or anyone else any of the specific accusations against them.
Despite a vocal defence campaign, and opposition from almost 100 of his own backbench MPs, Rees stuck to his guns. Agee and Hosenball were allowed to appeal, but only to a hand-picked team of "three wise men" - one of whom was former post office union official Sir Richard Hayward.
The Agee-Hosenball Defence Campaign attracted wide support - and its leaders in turn' were seen as subversives, and immediately fell under surveillance from Britain's secret state machinery.
In the 1970s the left resisted Ae attack on press freedom ars and flats of leading C AHDC activists were broken into, and financial records of 'the campaign showing supporters names and details were stolen. Among the Labour MPs concerned at the level of state harassment was Robin Cook, who was assured by the Home Office minister that "it has not been possible to establish a motive for the offences."
The high-profile campaign, and the details published in The Eavesdroppers drew the attention of John Berry, who had been posted as a soldier to one of GCHO's listening posts in Cyprus.
He contacted the campaign, and Time Out journalist Crispin Aubrey thought his information was sufficiently interesting to arrange a meeting with Berry and with Duncan Campbell, coauthor of The Eavesdroppers.
The meeting in a Muswell Hill Flat was arranged over the phone, with MIS listening in. The meeting on February 18 1977 was watched, and all three men were and arrested by Special Branch at the request of MIS: they were charged with offences under Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act, which covered receiving and communicating official information. Despite the fact that this section of the Act was discredited, and that the Labour government had promised to reform it, Attorney General Sam Silkin rubberstamped the prosecutions. Indeed, Silkin went even further and agreed to charges being laid under the more draconian Section 1 of the Act, which is supposed to deal with spying, and which carries sentences of up to 14 years. The ABC case was not to come to trial until the end of 1978: but there were farcical events in the meantime. At the committal proceedings the prosecution made great play of insisting on the anonymity of their key witness, identified in court only as "Colonel B".
The following issue of Peace News revealed that this was none other than Colonel Hugh Anthony Johnstone, and this was also published in the Leveller magazine and in the NUJ newspaper The Journalist.
The Attorney General slapped contempt of court orders on the three newspapers, but the mainstream newspapers and broadcasting media refused in any way to stand up for freedom of the press. A pril's NUJ Annual Delegate Meeting in Whitley Bay saw a determined effort to name Johnstone, which included drawing his name in large letters in the sand opposite the conference hall with a push-chair.
Four Labour MPs then raised the stakes when they named the shadowy Colonel in the Commons, which in turn opened the door to coverage by the press.
The contempt proceedings in May found all three papers guilty of flouting a "decision" of Tottenham magistrates, and imposed fines of £200-£500 -despite the fact that the magistrates themselves had testified to giving no such decision.
The NUJ subsequently appealed to the House of Lords, which unanimously overturned the High Court decision, and strongly criticised Lord Chief Justice Widgery.
In September the first trial of the ABC defendants came to an abrupt end amid revelations of jury-vetting by the security services.
A fresh trial saw the prosecution criticised by Mr Justice Mars Jones for "very oppressive" use of Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act in a case which clearly involved neither spying nor sabotage. Under pressure the Attorney General dropped these charges.
Eventually Aubrey, Berry and Campbell were found guilty of breaching Section 2 of the Act: but the sentences for such an apparently serious offence were laughable. Berry was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years. The Campbell and Aubrey prosecution were given three year cost £250,000, conditional discharges. put the name The prosecution of GCHQ firmly on had cost the Labour the public government more than £250,000, and agenda served to put the name and, function of GCHQ firmly on the public agenda.
It is this inglorious and cowardly Labour tradition of allowing themselves to be manipulated by vicious and reactionary secretive state bodies which now underlies Tack Straw's pathetically weak Freedom of Information Act.
The lessons of the ABC case are that journalists and campaigners must have the courage to stand up against bad law and secrecy:and that the establishment media, however radical may be their rhetoric in abstract, are the worst defenders of press freedom when the chips are down and the state "security" forces breathe down the editors' neck.
look International, PO Box 1109, 1 London N4 2UU
VIEWPOINT. Still waiting