Call labour movement conference!
Socialist Press1978 1978-09-06Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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ABC CASE AN SOMETHING GCHQ WITH Even while the TUC prepares to debate a resolution from the Tobacco Workers Union condemning police interference with the labour movement, journalists Crispin Aubrey and Duncan Campbell, and ex-soldier John Berry face an Old Bailey show trial in which each could go to jail for 14 years.
They are charged under Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act-the spying clause"-although not even the prosecution claims they are spies.
The charges centre on receiving information which "might be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy" and relate to a conversation between all three men early in 1977.
Not disclosed None of the content of that conversation has ever been disclosed or published though it is clear that it did include references to the secret surveillance agency known as Signals. Intelligence or SIGINT.
The arrest and of Aubrey, Berry. and Campbell is a determined bid by military and intelligence chiefs to reinforce and extend the Official Secrets Act as a device for intimidating journalists, civil servants and the labour movement.
As such it must be seen in the context of the establishment of the latest police Rees computer, in which 14 million out of 2 million files are political dossiers from the Special Branch; the ruthless use of the so-called "Prevention of Terrorism Act" under which 3,529 'suspects' have been held for up to seven days at a time, with only a handful charged; and the massive increase in police harrassment of the labour movement, including the establishment of the SPG antipicket squad, bans on demonstrations and new laws against occupations and work-ins.
Rees
All these developments in the strengthening of the capitalist state have taken place under the watchful eye of Labour ministers, including Home Secretary Merlyn Rees.
The extension of the Official Secrets Act in particular flies in the face of Labour's 1974 manifesto pledge to repeal the Act and replace it with a 'freedom of information' Act, and last