Official Secrets Act
Official Secrets Act, 1911. The first Official Secrets Act (1889) was ineffective. It required the government to prove a suspect was a spy, even where it was obvious. The 1911 Act put this right, and extended the law further. It was passed in a panic, during an anti-German spy scare, and on a hot summer's day when many MPs had gone home. Section I dealt with espionage; section II, however, forbade the unauthorized revelation of any government information, however innocuous to national security. In 1985 Clive Ponting, a civil servant, was acquitted under it, against the evidence, because the jury felt he had acted in the public interest. That led to a third Official Secrets Act in 1989, which narrowed the range of information it covered, but made it impossible to plead ‘public interest’ as a defence.
Bernard Porter
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Official Secrets Act