Two Counts Of Making A Damning Disclosure
by digby
With the Queen coming to town this week, it seems like a perfect time to take a look at one of the principles that drove Americans to stage a revolution:
Tony Blair's ill-fated war with Iraq claimed two more victims yesterday when a civil servant and an MP's researcher were convicted of disclosing details of a secret conversation between the Prime Minister and President George Bush.
Last night, MPs, lawyers and civil rights groups described the prosecution as a "farce" and accused the Government of misusing the Official Secrets Act to cover up political embarrassment over the war.
David Keogh, 50, a Cabinet Office communications officer, was today jailed for six months. He passed on an "extremely sensitive memo" to Leo O'Connor, 44, a political researcher who worked for an anti-war Labour MP, Anthony Clarke. O'Connor was today sentenced to three months in jail after an Old Bailey jury found them guilty yesterday of breaching Britain's secrecy laws.
At the centre of the trial was a four-page Downing Street document which recorded discussions about Iraq between Mr Blair and Mr Bush, held in the Oval Office in April 2004 in the run-up to the handover of power to the Iraqi government.
Keogh, who copied the document to O'Connor while he was working in the Cabinet Office, said that he acted out of conscience because he believed the document showed Mr Bush to be a "madman".
[...]
The prosecution allege that the leaking of the document could have cost lives and insisted that in this case "secrecy is not the enemy of democracy".
David Perry, prosecuting for the Crown, told the jury: "We live in a democratic society, not the Wild West. It is not for people to decide they are going to be the sheriff in town."
But Keogh's barrister, Rex Ted QC, said there was nothing in the document that related to British troop action in Iraq. He told the judge that Keogh had not acted for a political motive but had been following his conscience.
[...]
"I think we live in a society and operate under a system that values secrecy to an excessive degree."
He said of Mr Blair's letter: "He is obviously grateful on behalf of his friend George Bush. It makes you wonder what he is grateful for."
Keogh was found guilty of two counts of making a damaging disclosure, O'Connor of a similar single count. The two men were granted bail and made no comment as they left the court but Keogh's solicitor, Stuart Jeffery, said that his client would be "shell-shocked".
Sentencing him this morning, trial Judge Mr Justice Aikens said Keogh's " reckless and irresponsible" actions could have cost British lives.
We don't have an official secrets act because of the first amendment. But if the Republicans had had their way these last few years, we certainly would have adopted one, damn freedom of speech. (The constitution is not a suicide pact, don't you know..) And Lord knows, "the Decider" has governed as if he were a monarch.
I continue to find it ironic that those who wave the American flag with such fervor and speak of "freedom" and "democracy" in reverent tones usually reserved for sports and Jesus, are just a bunch of forelock tugging subjects at heart. If their King George hadn't turned out to be just slightly less mentally incompetent than the mad british King of the same name, our institutions might not have been able to keep this undemocratic movement from usurping our government all together. We may have gotten lucky by their extremely poor choice of both advisors and frontmen, but it makes me very nervous that they have come this close.
Meanwhile, I'd love to hear those tapes, wouldn't you? Judging from the rare occasions when Bush was caught unawares, he reveals an arrogance that does border on lunacy, particularly considering the fact that he is a failure of epic proportions. The world has a right to know if the president of the United States is a "madman."
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