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The most disturbing aspect of the Met's offer to force the guard to reveal their sources has been using this ancient piece of the law

The failed attempt by the Metropolitan Police to force the guard to reveal their confidential sources and other journalistic material raises important questions about press freedom and the operation be performed Weeting way.

But the fact that the application of Met was based, in part, the powers of the Official Secrets Act 1989, which was certainly the most disturbing. The request was made under the Act 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE). However, the 1989 law aimed at Pace, as a judge grants an order for production of confidential journalistic material must first be convinced that it should be possible to obtain a search warrant for the material in any law if the 1984 Act.

The reason behind this complicated mechanism is to give additional protection for journalistic material. The Met has chosen to argue that it would have been able to obtain a search warrant under the Official Secrets Act 1989 for suspected holding that the material had been approved by a police officer in the Guardian was covered by sections four and five Act of 1989 - that (controversy) prohibits the disclosure of documents published prevent detection or prosecution of alleged crimes.

is clear that ultimately the judge's discretion as to whether to grant an order for production should be exercised in a manner consistent with the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act - which (along with other factors such as the protection of journalistic sources of contempt of court the Act), he would certainly have provided the Guardian with a strong public interest. But overall the performance of the public interest in the context of official secrecy is totally unsatisfactory.

course, unless you're an absolutist information should be a deterrent against the disclosure of damaging national security really. But, as highlighted in the Guardian implementation, official secrets acts are not limited to that territory, not constantly deployed and do not work enough.

Official Secrets Act 1989 was enacted at the height of Cold War paranoia. Spycatcher glorious makes its way through the courts and Clive Ponting was acquitted of an offense significantly under the Official Secrets Act 1911 by the revelations related to the Falklands War. The 1989 Act was taken first to ensure that it was the defense of the general interest in public disclosure considered to qualify as official secrets. This intention was confirmed by the House of Lords drastic in the case said Shayler, who argued that the ban (subject only to the safety valve of prior authorization) for revelations of personal security does not violate the rights to freedom of expression in the European Convention.

Massiter Cathy, an officer of MI5, which was motivated by his conscience leak intelligence information against trade unionists and civil libertarians, was prosecuted under the 1989 Act not would have no defense. The only consolation from the box Shayler was related to the earlier application for confidential journalistic material Observer journalist Martin Bright and has been largely unsuccessful - in self-incrimination and freedom of expression patterns

So there is really no defense at all of the 1989 Act? Well, there are still ways through the thorns. Katharine Gun, an employee of GCHQ, was acquitted in 2004 of the famous flight of U.S. demand for UK members of UN failures in the period before the Iraq war. His defense - a form of need - was the desire to prevent an illegal war. The prosecution failed to refute this and soon dropped the case at the door of the court.

Although there is no defense of the public interest, public interest is relevant in determining whether a disclosure is damaging prohibited (a requirement for most of the crimes of the Act) . This is particularly relevant when the government claims that the revelation is so diplomatically embarrassing that could seriously undermine the international relations - far from endangering state secrets or national security. So yes, the last in David Hare, eight pages of movie, our Prime Minister has agreed to confidential distribution to torture, the disclosure of which could be a crime under the 1989 Act, but the public interest would be relevant to determine whether disclosure would be harmful.