FC: British secret spy file posted on U.S. site, FBI tries to censor it

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

**********

> Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 08:08:01 -0700
> To: declan () well com
> From: Diana Mertz Hsieh <diana () brickell net>
> Subject: British Spy Agency File Posted on Web
>
> Politech readers might be interested in the following:
>
> British Spy Agency File Posted on Web
> http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2555003,00.html?chkpt=zdnnstop
>
> The British government is upset that one of their documents (which purports to
> give details of their surveillance of Libyan agents operating in the UK) has
> been posted onto an American website.  The document allegedly reveals the
> identities of British agents working in Libya, and is classified "UK Eyes
> Alpha", which means that it is so secret that it can't even be shared with
> friendly intelligence agencies such as the CIA.
>
> Although the ZDNet story does not give the URL of the document in question, it
> is located  here (http://cryptome.org/mi5-lis-uk.htm) at the cryptome.org
> (http://www.cryptome.org/) site.  British intelligence has requested the
> assistance of the American FBI in tracking down copies of the document and
> taking them down.  However, the site owner John Young has stated, "I do not
> believe that posting the document is illegal under US law and does not violate
> Verio's terms of acceptable use. And that an informal request, not a court
> order, is insufficient reason to remove the document which provides 
> significant
> public information."   So far, Verio (the ISP for Cryptome), has continued to
> back the site owner on free speech grounds, although at least one other mirror
> site has been taken down by its ISP, presumably after government pressure.
> Details of the dicussion are available here
> (http://cryptome.org/mi5-verio.htm).
>
>
>
> Diana Hsieh
> GeekPress: http://www.geekpress.com
> Today's Tech News, Sifted and Summarized

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology
To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------