International Law

Daniel Houghton "also accused of unlawfully disclosing lists of intelligence staff" - MI5 and / or MI6 ?

BBC Radio 4 Six O'Clock News:15/04/2010 (iPlayer)

20.00 to 21.15 into the 30.55 broadcast.

Here's our Home Affairs correspondent, Andy Tighe

"The 25 year old is charged with stealing highly classified electronic files, containing intelligence gathering techniques belonging to MI5, the domestic Security Service.

He allegedly acquired them while working for MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, between September 2007 and May 2009.

It's claimed he tried to sell the files, but was caught in an undercover operation at a London hotel on March 1st this year, involving officers from the intelligence services and Scotland Yard.

Today at the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court, he was also accused of unlawfully disclosing lists of intelligence staff, containing sensitive personal details.

Wearing a jacket and open necked shirt, Daniel Houghton said nothing during the short hearing and gave no indication, as to whether he intends to plead guilty or not guilty.

He was remanded in custody and will next appear at a preliminary hearing at the Old Bailey on April 29th."

See also the BBC report Former MI6 man sent for Old Bailey trial, which is a slightly misleading headline, as a Preliminary Hearing is not the same as a full Trial at the Old Bailey.

It is not clear from Andy Tighe's BBC report if the " lists of intelligence staff, containing sensitive personal detail" were from MI5 the Security Service or MI6 the Secret Intelligence Service, or from both, or from other agencies as well.

Neither is it clear which bits of the allegations against Houghton relates to the Official Secrets Act 1989 and which to the Theft Act 1968,

See the Spy Blog category archive Wannabe Spies.

The importance of this case involves the bogus claims by Labour Ministers, that somehow the all of the insider staff who have access to, for example, the National Identity Register or the NHS Summary Care Record databases etc., will somehow have better personnel vetting and technological security measures than MI5 and MI6.

If these intelligence agencies cannot protect the "sensitive personal details" of their own staff from being smuggled out of their supposedly high security buildings and computer systems, then why should the general public believe Labour politicians and Whitehall mandarins, when they pretend to be able to protect the "sensitive personal details" of everyone in the whole country ?

Full post as published by Spy Blog on April 15, 2010 (boomark / email).