The journalists who made common cause over the right to publish in 1987 are divided against themselves in 2014
You may, like many campaigning groups around the world, lament last week's high court verdict that it was quite OK to detain David Miranda, partner of Glenn Greenwald, for nine hours in a Heathrow lounge and strip him of the Snowden files he was carrying. Alternatively, you can join Stephen Glover and the Daily Mail in their celebrations ("The arrogant left may gnash its teeth but our judges are right about this reckless threat to our security"). Hope for a little agreement on the subtext, though.
When the Mail thunders about statutory threats to press freedom, does it realise that it is merely defending "journalistic expression", which is "a sub-class" of the "general case for free expression", as the court puts it? Does it understand that judges are always the supreme arbiters of what constitutes public interest? And that, because security matters are inevitably a jigsaw newspapers can never see as a whole, it only needs some spook-wallah from Downing Street to declare this or that newspaper inquiry off-limits for the courts to jump to attention?
Lord Justice Laws's judgment, in short, doesn't just disappoint Miranda, Greenwald and the Guardian. It says, in effect, that any security service type – maybe after a chat with PM Tony Blair, once he's finished helping Rebekah with something – can present "compelling", if studiously vague, evidence and see passing dossiers, however dodgy, enjoy portentous protection. It can, seemingly, declare media workers potential "terrorists" in a schedule 7 trice. It balances the right to be informed (article 10 of the European convention) against the security right to be forcibly shut up – and declares no contest.
But haven't we heard all this before? Perhaps, over a quarter of a century ago, in the same high court. Here's Andrew Neil, then editor of the Sunday Times; and here's plain John Laws, then the "Treasury devil" who leads for HMG whenever and wherever required. The case is one of contempt, involving Spycatcher, an ex-MI5 officer's autobiography that No 10 wants to ban (because of the usual compelling arguments about safety). The Observer and Guardian broke the story and have been injuncted into silence. Now the Sunday Times, along with the Indy and News on Sunday, have got a bit more into print.
But Neil has used "peculiarly sneaky methods" to get his extracts into print, says Laws. He "believes it is for his judgment of what is in the public interest, not the courts', when a question arises on whether his paper should or should not publish a story". Plus ça change … and the parallels run on.
Downing Street dispatched high-level witnesses – including a suffering cabinet secretary – around the world's courtrooms, expecting them to dance to the UK's security tune. But Spycatcher was published in Australia, America, Europe and then even Scotland before the English operation collapsed under the weight of its absurdity, a jigsaw strewn across the carpet. The European court of human rights – citing article 10 – found against Margaret Thatcher. It was a mixture of pantomime and pandemonium, with poor Laws doomed to play Widow Twankey.
Now here we go again, pretending revelations that have already transfixed America and echoed round the globe can be kept in a Cheltenham box. Laws and his rather muted colleagues exalt freedom of expression for the citizen but not for the facts – the crucial facts – that could give this freedom reality.
Yet, in one respect, this is not 1987 all over again. Then the press gradually made common cause. The Guardian and Observer weren't dubbed arrogant lefties and allowed to stew. Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Times and the Indy (with its co-founder, Stephen Glover) pushed back. David English's Daily Mail proved a supporter in need. There was a clear perception of threat, and of a judiciary compellingly up the creek. In a world without sub-class warfare.
source Guardian
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