Page 266 - Law and the Media

Official Secrets
15.2 Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1911: Spying

15.2.1 General principles

Section 1 of the 1911 OSA states:

If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State:

(a) approaches, inspects, passes over or is in the neighbourhood of, or enters
any prohibited place within the meaning of this Act, or
(b) makes any sketch, plan, model or note which is calculated to be or might
be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy, or
(c) obtains, collects, records or publishes or communicates to any other
person any secret official code word or pass word, or any sketch, plan,
model, article or note, or other document or information which is
calculated to be, or might be, or is intended to be directly or indirectly
useful to an enemy . . .

. . . [he] shall be guilty of an offence.

The maximum sentence is 14 years’ imprisonment. The meaning of ‘prohibited place’ is set out
at extreme length in Section 3 of the 1911 OSA. It effectively includes every government and
military building, however insignificant, as well as all means of communications (for example
roads and railways) and essential services (for example gas and electricity stations).

15.2.2 Areas of risk for the media

As far as the media are concerned, the most likely area of danger in Section 1 is Section 1(c),
which concerns obtaining or communicating secrets.

However, the prosecution in any trial for an offence under this section would be required to
establish ‘a purpose prejudicial to the interests of the state’.

In 1978, charges under Section 1(c) were brought against two journalists, Duncan Campbell
and Crispin Aubrey, and a former soldier, John Berry, in the ‘ABC’ case. Information was
published in the magazine Time Out concerning signals intelligence and defence
installations. The prosecution alleged that the publication of the information in the magazine
was for a ‘purpose prejudicial to the interests of the state’.

On the fifteenth day of the trial, the judge made it known that he considered the charges to
be ‘oppressive’. The following morning the charges were withdrawn on the instructions of
the Attorney General. However, the judge did not close the door on future prosecutions
against the media:
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