Post by RedFlag32 on May 7, 2007 21:41:48 GMT
From The Blanket
www.phoblacht.net/AM060507.html
Censorship Complementing Cover Up
Censorship may suit the state, but it's a disaster for society
Despite progress in the peace process, security forces in Northern Ireland
are still stifling freedom of information
Anthony McIntyre • Index on Censorship 2007
Ever since Peter Brooke, as Northern Ireland Secretary of State, made his
1990 statement that Britain had no selfish strategic interest for
remaining in Ireland most people have come to accept that Brooke called it
pretty much as it was. Northern Irish unionism rather than any imperialist
imperative on the part of the British state was what ensured the
continuation of partition.
Enter MI5. That situation now demands some reappraisal. With the new MI5
building at Hollywood, County Down, designed to monitor and combat
‘international terrorism’ the British state now has a long term strategic
interest in keeping the North within the UK. Having a security service as
the fulcrum on which long term political strategy turns is not without
considerable consequences for human rights.
This becomes all the more pronounced in the wake of the Northern Ireland’s
policing Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s damming report on collusion between RUC
Special Branch and loyalist murder gangs. Special Branch emerged from that
report looking pretty indistinguishable from the terrorist gang, whose
murder campaign it was complicit.
The lesson is simple - those who police society from the shadows are often
more shadowy and sinister than the forces they seek to monitor. They are
therefore to be trusted only reluctantly and always in the wake of a
serious health and safety check which pronounces them fit for democratic
purpose.
One crucial body whose task it is in democratic society to perform such
health and safety checks, the press, is now being forced on the back foot
by a state eager to curb the prowess of the press and enhance the powers
of the security services. The recently drafted Policing (Miscellaneous
Provisions) Northern Ireland Order allows PSNI personnel to seize notes
and electronic records for up to 96 hours. Claiming that new powers are
needed because of "the increasingly sophisticated nature of serious crime"
the Northern Ireland police guided by the intelligence agencies will now
be able to mount surgical strikes aimed at heading off at the pass any
journalistic investigation into the activities of the security agencies.
The irony of course is that the body most recently exposed as having being
up to its neck in terrorism was a crucial element in the British state
security apparatus, RUC Special Branch. It is a matter of public record
how abusive the security services are whatever their guise. Why increase
their scope for abuse?
This move comes at a time when documentation is either, depending on whose
ox is being gored, a crucial asset or liability being fought over by
contesting sides. MI5 currently want their documents back from the Stevens
team, whose task it has been for the best part of two decades to
investigate collusion between the security services and armed groups in
the island of Ireland. The new legislation currently being proposed will
allow the same agencies to pervert the course of justice. It is to curb
journalists from publishing their findings and also to intimidate
whistleblowers and other sources from providing journalists with the much
needed information that would lift the lid on nefarious state activities.
There is of course nothing new about this. The British state has been
involved in numerous cover ups since it sent its troops onto Northern
Irish streets in 1969. In 1972 Prime Minister Edward Heath set the
parameters for justice when he told Lord Widgery on the eve of his inquiry
into the bloody Sunday killings to be mindful that the war being waged by
the British had a propaganda dimension. Widgery duly obliged and his name
has been synonymous with whitewash ever since.
The former Greater Manchester Chief Constable, John Stalker, almost had
his career destroyed in the 1980s when he began to investigate RUC shoot
to kill operations which were carried out at the behest of the
intelligence agencies. Canadian Judge Peter Cory, who in recent years
investigated security service collusion, was reportedly furious with the
British government’s tardy and obstructive approach to his findings and
recommendations.
In other cases, including the 2005 trial of the MI5 agent Denis Donaldson,
prosecutions were aborted or alternatively, Public Immunity Certificates
were issued by the British state in a bid to ensure that knowledge about
informers did not come to public attention. Arguably this was less rooted
in concern for the welfare of informers than it was in the need to shield
from democratic scrutiny the fact that information received that could
have prevented death was in fact not acted upon. This issue is at the
heart of concerns over the role of MI5 in relation to the 1998 Real IRA
bombing of Omagh town which produced massive civilian casualties.
If democratic scrutiny is to have any currency in Northern Ireland, an
unhindered press is a necessity rather than something to be doled out or
withdrawn in accordance with the self serving interests of the government
of the day. Censorship complementing cover ups might suit the state; it is
disastrous for society.
www.phoblacht.net/AM060507.html
Censorship Complementing Cover Up
Censorship may suit the state, but it's a disaster for society
Despite progress in the peace process, security forces in Northern Ireland
are still stifling freedom of information
Anthony McIntyre • Index on Censorship 2007
Ever since Peter Brooke, as Northern Ireland Secretary of State, made his
1990 statement that Britain had no selfish strategic interest for
remaining in Ireland most people have come to accept that Brooke called it
pretty much as it was. Northern Irish unionism rather than any imperialist
imperative on the part of the British state was what ensured the
continuation of partition.
Enter MI5. That situation now demands some reappraisal. With the new MI5
building at Hollywood, County Down, designed to monitor and combat
‘international terrorism’ the British state now has a long term strategic
interest in keeping the North within the UK. Having a security service as
the fulcrum on which long term political strategy turns is not without
considerable consequences for human rights.
This becomes all the more pronounced in the wake of the Northern Ireland’s
policing Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s damming report on collusion between RUC
Special Branch and loyalist murder gangs. Special Branch emerged from that
report looking pretty indistinguishable from the terrorist gang, whose
murder campaign it was complicit.
The lesson is simple - those who police society from the shadows are often
more shadowy and sinister than the forces they seek to monitor. They are
therefore to be trusted only reluctantly and always in the wake of a
serious health and safety check which pronounces them fit for democratic
purpose.
One crucial body whose task it is in democratic society to perform such
health and safety checks, the press, is now being forced on the back foot
by a state eager to curb the prowess of the press and enhance the powers
of the security services. The recently drafted Policing (Miscellaneous
Provisions) Northern Ireland Order allows PSNI personnel to seize notes
and electronic records for up to 96 hours. Claiming that new powers are
needed because of "the increasingly sophisticated nature of serious crime"
the Northern Ireland police guided by the intelligence agencies will now
be able to mount surgical strikes aimed at heading off at the pass any
journalistic investigation into the activities of the security agencies.
The irony of course is that the body most recently exposed as having being
up to its neck in terrorism was a crucial element in the British state
security apparatus, RUC Special Branch. It is a matter of public record
how abusive the security services are whatever their guise. Why increase
their scope for abuse?
This move comes at a time when documentation is either, depending on whose
ox is being gored, a crucial asset or liability being fought over by
contesting sides. MI5 currently want their documents back from the Stevens
team, whose task it has been for the best part of two decades to
investigate collusion between the security services and armed groups in
the island of Ireland. The new legislation currently being proposed will
allow the same agencies to pervert the course of justice. It is to curb
journalists from publishing their findings and also to intimidate
whistleblowers and other sources from providing journalists with the much
needed information that would lift the lid on nefarious state activities.
There is of course nothing new about this. The British state has been
involved in numerous cover ups since it sent its troops onto Northern
Irish streets in 1969. In 1972 Prime Minister Edward Heath set the
parameters for justice when he told Lord Widgery on the eve of his inquiry
into the bloody Sunday killings to be mindful that the war being waged by
the British had a propaganda dimension. Widgery duly obliged and his name
has been synonymous with whitewash ever since.
The former Greater Manchester Chief Constable, John Stalker, almost had
his career destroyed in the 1980s when he began to investigate RUC shoot
to kill operations which were carried out at the behest of the
intelligence agencies. Canadian Judge Peter Cory, who in recent years
investigated security service collusion, was reportedly furious with the
British government’s tardy and obstructive approach to his findings and
recommendations.
In other cases, including the 2005 trial of the MI5 agent Denis Donaldson,
prosecutions were aborted or alternatively, Public Immunity Certificates
were issued by the British state in a bid to ensure that knowledge about
informers did not come to public attention. Arguably this was less rooted
in concern for the welfare of informers than it was in the need to shield
from democratic scrutiny the fact that information received that could
have prevented death was in fact not acted upon. This issue is at the
heart of concerns over the role of MI5 in relation to the 1998 Real IRA
bombing of Omagh town which produced massive civilian casualties.
If democratic scrutiny is to have any currency in Northern Ireland, an
unhindered press is a necessity rather than something to be doled out or
withdrawn in accordance with the self serving interests of the government
of the day. Censorship complementing cover ups might suit the state; it is
disastrous for society.