Index’s chief executive John Kampfner joins Jonathan Freedland and Jonathan Powell on BBC Radio 4’s The Long View to compare 17th and 21st century attitudes towards state secrets and freedom of information. If you haven’t listened to this great history series before, each week Freedland and guests “find the past behind the present”, they explore a moment in history that throws light on a contemporary debate.
In this week’s episode:
“At the Battle of Naseby in 1645, the King’s enemies captured carriages containing his private papers. Brought to London for decoding and publication, the documents laid bare the King’s secret negotiations with foreign armies, revelations that were immensely damaging to the Royalist cause. In the era of WikiLeaks, cyber attacks, phone-hacking and calls for ever-greater transparency”
Tony Blair’s appearance at the Iraq inquiry is a test of the competing principles of free expression and confidentiality. John Kampfner asks who should decide what the public hears?
Tony Blair would not appreciate being likened to Julian Assange. The feeling would, I am sure, be entirely mutual. Yet there is a link of sorts between these two figures, so controversial in their very different ways. It revolves around the notion of confidentiality.
The lead-up to the former prime minister’s second appearance before the Iraq enquiry has been dominated by the issue of private correspondence. The refusal by the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, to accede to the request of the committee chairman, Sir John Chilcot, to release the full musings of Blair and ex-president George Bush is based around a question similar to the one relating to the industrial dumping of US State Department documents. When are the musings of individual officials or politicians public documents and when are they private?
In both cases the competing principles of free expression and confidence stumble on each other, head to head. Assange and his allies argue their case mainly around public interest. The world, he insists, should know all the dirty deeds of dastardly diplomats. A more convincing argument in his favour might be that no serious organisation could remotely hope to keep a single email secret if circulated to 2.5m people, as was apparently the case with the US diplomatic service.
As for the Blair/Bush love-in, the case for secrecy is undermined by Blair’s own decision to publish some of the discussions in his memoirs. Furthermore, written memos between world leaders could surely not qualify as “private”. Telephone calls, presumably yes, but not the written word.
The public deserves to get the fullest possible account of why this country went to war on the basis of what turned out to be misleading intelligence. For many, this remains the rawest of issues; if we are ever to put it behind us, the inquiry must be seen to be as thorough and open as possible. Reaching sensible conclusions almost eight years after the invasion began will be difficult enough without the inquiry being fettered in this way.
In the spirit, we are sure, of free expression, a furious Chilcot decided to publish his exchange of letters with O’Donnell. The committee chairman suggests, in quintessential mandarin style, that he would be “disappointed” if Blair proved less forthcoming in his evidence than in his book.
Otherwise, the Telegraph concludes, “it will appear that Mr Blair is happy to breach the confidentiality of office for a lucrative book deal, but not to inform the British public of the process that led him to send our troops to war”.
John Kampfner is the chief executive of Index on Censorship
The information genie cannot be put back into the bottle, however hard authorities try. But the authorities continue to exploit the internet as a means of control
Who could possibly improve on the assessment of Justice Minister Lord McNally?
England’s libel laws are, he said, “not fit for purpose”.
McNally’s determination to drive through a bill in a crowded legislative market place marks an important step for the libel reform campaign. He made his comments at the celebration in early December of the first anniversary of the campaign, convened by Index on Censorship, English PEN and Sense About Science, and supported by many other organisations and publications, including Press Gazette.
The campaign had an immediate rallying point: the case of Simon Singh, who was being sued by the British Chiropractic Association. Singh’s battle was a perfect storm: a popular and charismatic writer being unjustly maligned for his honestly held views on a controversial alternative medical treatment.
One of the criticisms of the campaign made by those with vested interests in the status quo is that the problems with the law are concoctions drawn up by journalists and editors seeking a free pass to write what they want without fear of sanction.
The critics — based around law firms keen to maintain their profit margins – are not just wrong in the facts. They are wrong also, knowingly wrong, in suggesting time and again that our campaign is a proxy for “big media”.
We are not. The UK’s main newspapers are quite capable are looking after themselves. More fundamentally, free expression is an individual and societal right, not an industry right.
Libel has affected bloggers, scientists, doctors and charities that are unable to find the cash to fight off legal firms who deliberately string things along in order to drain the defendant of energy and time.
Less damaging than the cases that go to court are the cases that do not — people who time and again apologise and retract purely out of duress.
Inevitably there is a convergence between our aims and those of media groups.
As the industry lurches uncertainly forward on ever-dwindling resources, as investigative journalism diminishes, so democracy suffers.
If the job of the media is not to hold truth to power, then what is it for?
Our increasingly squeezed local newspapers are unlikely to be able to afford to go to the High Court, leaving editors unwilling to publish stories on local politicians and bigwigs for fear of a lengthy, expensive action.
The Reynolds Defence, held up as a boon for journalists, is realistically only applicable to papers with large newsrooms and legal departments. As one local editor pointed out at a libel reform meeting, some hard-up papers’ “legal departments” consist of an old copy of McNae’s.
As more of our work is conducted and published online, we are stuck with laws that fail to understand modern communication.
The current idea of “publication” means that every time someone clicks on a page, that page is freshly “published”.
In practice, this means the idea of a statute of limitation is out the window. Long forgotten copy can suddenly become subject of vexatious litigation.
These are just two of the issues that Index and the libel reform campaign seeks to address. We are hopeful that the draft bill promised this spring will favour a free press.
We are under no illusions, though, that the forces of resistance, the defenders of the rich and powerful, will use the pre-legislative scrutiny period to lobby hard to weaken the legislation beyond recognition.
For sure, 2010 was a great year for our cause, but 2011 will be absolutely crucial.
It’s vital the press embraces this opportunity to make our courts fairer, cheaper and firmly in favour of free expression.
John Kampfner is the chief executive of Index on Censorship
Tony Blair’s appearance at the Iraq inquiry is a test of the competing principles of free expression and confidentiality. John Kampfner asks who should decide what the public hears?