| D-Notices aren't quite as obscure as the article makes out. I've known they existed for many years, I'm not quite sure why but there's no particular reason I'd know about them. I'm not a journalist and never was. The Official Secrets Act is probably bad law, it's one of the many places where the USA has superior laws that are much better at keeping bad government in check. The various attempts to expand censorship in the UK are also very bad, in my view. The D-Notice system is difficult to really get worked up about because, as this exposé makes clear, it's: a. Voluntary. b. Sometimes ignored, even by major outlets like the Guardian. c. Largely made up of journalists themselves. d. So shadowy that they publish photos of themselves and upload meeting notes to government websites. e. Apparently very tightly concerned with stuff like publishing the names of spies, soldiers, troop movements, etc. The classical sorts of information that has a very direct and obvious reason for being kept out of the press. The article tries to build a case that it's being used in over-broad ways like with Assange, but honestly I don't buy it. The media doesn't need some shadowy committee to stop it covering the Assange story properly. At some point it became received wisdom in media circles to hate him and journalists need no incentive to bury stories if they find them inconvenient. The Guardian in particular has a long running and well documented vendetta against Assange. You'd see the same approach if D-Notices existed or not. |