Secrets: A Very British Affair
02/20/23 • 44 min
Welcome to a special series of the Whistleblowing Now and Then podcast, called:
The Public Interest and National Security Whistleblowing: Looking Back, Thinking Forward.
This 3-part series is a collaboration between Whistleblowing International Network and Kaeten Mistry, Associate Professor of History at the University of East Anglia, and co-author of the book Whistleblowing Nation: The History of National Security Disclosures and Cult of State Secrecy.The podcasts will consider how secrecy and liberty, and security and openness became competing concepts within democratic societies. We’ll examine these questions within and across national and regional boundaries, looking at Europe, North America, and South America. We’ll delve into issues relating to the United States, UK, Spain, France, Argentina, and Chile, among others.Today’s episode is entitled, “Secrets: A Very British Affair.” We speak to Martin Bright, Editor-at-Large at Index on Censorship, and Maurice Frankel, Director at Campaign for Freedom of Information, about public interest whistleblowing, government transparency, and state secrecy in the United Kingdom.
Additional Reading:
In addition to the podcast series, we share resources supporting those working on issues relating to whistleblowing, the public interest, and strengthening civil society organisations.
Below are some resources related to Episode 1.
Briefing on the National Security Bill - Protect
This briefing (2022) outlines the concerns of Protect, the UK’s whistleblowing organisation and legal advice centre, about new offences in the new National Security Bill that may criminalise whistleblowing where it involves disclosures to foreign regulators and journalists.
Introducing a public interest disclosure defence - Matrix and Mishcon de Reya LLP
This briefing paper by lawyers from Matrix and Mishcon de Reya, sets out the basis for the introduction of a public interest disclosure defence for breaches of the Official Secrets Acts (“OSAs”) or any replacement Espionage Act.
When We Speak (2022)
'When We Speak', directed by Tas Brooker, follows 3 whistleblowers: Katherine Gunn, Rose McGowan, and Helen Evans. By cutting between these stories, Brooker highlights their common threads, abuses of power, and exploited vulnerabilities. Crises of conscience, painful examinations of where one’s loyalties lie. We hear the motivation behind the decision to blow the whistle, and we see its dramatic fallout. The film offers a human perspective, on what can often be quite an abstract discussion. You can listen back to the Whistleblowing Now and Then episode with Director Tas Brooker here.
Official Secrets (2019)
Official Secrets is a film based on the case of whistleblower Katharine Gun who worked as a linguist at the UK’s government communication headquarters (GCHQ). In 2003, she intercepted an email from the US National Security Agency - an email asking GCHQ to assist the US in their efforts to legitimise a war on Iraq. She made a copy of the memo – given anonymously to a journalist at the Observer – as she believed revealing the proposed bugging and blackmail tactics
Welcome to a special series of the Whistleblowing Now and Then podcast, called:
The Public Interest and National Security Whistleblowing: Looking Back, Thinking Forward.
This 3-part series is a collaboration between Whistleblowing International Network and Kaeten Mistry, Associate Professor of History at the University of East Anglia, and co-author of the book Whistleblowing Nation: The History of National Security Disclosures and Cult of State Secrecy.The podcasts will consider how secrecy and liberty, and security and openness became competing concepts within democratic societies. We’ll examine these questions within and across national and regional boundaries, looking at Europe, North America, and South America. We’ll delve into issues relating to the United States, UK, Spain, France, Argentina, and Chile, among others.Today’s episode is entitled, “Secrets: A Very British Affair.” We speak to Martin Bright, Editor-at-Large at Index on Censorship, and Maurice Frankel, Director at Campaign for Freedom of Information, about public interest whistleblowing, government transparency, and state secrecy in the United Kingdom.
Additional Reading:
In addition to the podcast series, we share resources supporting those working on issues relating to whistleblowing, the public interest, and strengthening civil society organisations.
Below are some resources related to Episode 1.
Briefing on the National Security Bill - Protect
This briefing (2022) outlines the concerns of Protect, the UK’s whistleblowing organisation and legal advice centre, about new offences in the new National Security Bill that may criminalise whistleblowing where it involves disclosures to foreign regulators and journalists.
Introducing a public interest disclosure defence - Matrix and Mishcon de Reya LLP
This briefing paper by lawyers from Matrix and Mishcon de Reya, sets out the basis for the introduction of a public interest disclosure defence for breaches of the Official Secrets Acts (“OSAs”) or any replacement Espionage Act.
When We Speak (2022)
'When We Speak', directed by Tas Brooker, follows 3 whistleblowers: Katherine Gunn, Rose McGowan, and Helen Evans. By cutting between these stories, Brooker highlights their common threads, abuses of power, and exploited vulnerabilities. Crises of conscience, painful examinations of where one’s loyalties lie. We hear the motivation behind the decision to blow the whistle, and we see its dramatic fallout. The film offers a human perspective, on what can often be quite an abstract discussion. You can listen back to the Whistleblowing Now and Then episode with Director Tas Brooker here.
Official Secrets (2019)
Official Secrets is a film based on the case of whistleblower Katharine Gun who worked as a linguist at the UK’s government communication headquarters (GCHQ). In 2003, she intercepted an email from the US National Security Agency - an email asking GCHQ to assist the US in their efforts to legitimise a war on Iraq. She made a copy of the memo – given anonymously to a journalist at the Observer – as she believed revealing the proposed bugging and blackmail tactics
Previous Episode
Episode 6: Tas Brooker, Director of 'When We Speak', Whistleblowing Documentary
On this week's episode WIN's Communications Officer, Verity Loughlin is joined by Tas Brooker - the director of the upcoming whistleblowing documentary 'When We Speak'.
Tas has been working as a producer across Film and TV for over 15 years. Her work has spanned everything from music, film, and cars to hard-hitting documentaries such as Channel 4's Dispatches, and the BBC's Panorama. In 2016 Tas co-founded the production company, Wiser Films, with Jim Wiseman.
'When We Speak' follows 3 whistleblowers; Katherine Gunn, Rose McGowan, and Helen Evans. By cutting between these stories, Brooker highlights their common threads, abuses of power, and exploited vulnerabilities. Crises of conscience, painful examinations of where one’s loyalties lie. We hear the motivation behind the decision to whistleblow, and we see its dramatic fallout.
Verity and Tas discuss the process of gaining trust and working with whistleblowers to tell their stories, the personal cost these women faced not only professionally but financially for speaking out as well as the role journalists play in handling whistleblower stories.
Next Episode
USA: Secrecy Superpower
Welcome to a special series of the Whistleblowing Now and Then podcast, called:
The Public Interest and National Security Whistleblowing: Looking Back, Thinking Forward.
This 3-part series is a collaboration between Whistleblowing International Network and Kaeten Mistry, Associate Professor of History at the University of East Anglia, and co-author of the book Whistleblowing Nation: The History of National Security Disclosures and Cult of State Secrecy.
This week’s episode looks at the United States. A nation founded on the principles of free speech and open government, is today home to the largest state secrecy regime in human history. A country that does not permit national security officials making public interest disclosures, has nonetheless produced some of the most famous cases of national security whistleblowing that have made history such as Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and Daniel Ellsberg.
Such cases have generated widespread debate about security and liberty, secrecy, and transparency, in the U.S. and internationally. Yet while public interest disclosures are commonly seen as whistleblowing in the public sphere, they are deemed to be “unauthorized disclosures” by the US government.
To unpack this, we sit down with two leading experts of whistleblowing and secrecy in the United States. Tom Devine, Legal Director at the Government Accountability Project and Sam Lebovic, Associate Professor of History at George Mason University, author of the prize-winning book Free Speech and Unfree News.
Additional Reading
A documentary concerning Edward Snowden and the NSA surveillance program.
A documentary following 3 whistleblowers including Daniel Hale who was a former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst who sent classified information about drone warfare to the press.
United States v. Reality Winner (2021)
A documentary exploring story of 25-year-old NSA contractor Reality Winner who disclosed a document about Russian election interference to the media and became a target of the Trump administration.
TOP SECRET: Our Classified Documents System Is [Redacted] | The Problem With Jon Stewart Podcast
Jon Stewart and Matt Connelly discuss the U.S. classification system and system of secrecy.
Whistleblowing and the Press Panel
The keynote panel on ‘Whistleblowing and the Press’ at the conference Exposing Secrets: The Past, Present & Future of US National Security Whistleblowing and Government Secrecy, featured US intelligence community whistleblowers, Edward Snowden and John Kiriakou, and The Guardian journalist Ewen MacAskill, in conversation with Kaeten Mistry.
The Espionage Act Has Been Abused — But Not in Trump’s Case | Politico
Opinion piece by Jameel Jaffer, Executive Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, on the Espionage Act and the need for reform.
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