Journalists and Official Secrets Such professional bodies as the Institute
of Journalists do well to watch jealously any threat to civil liberties, and the Institute, which has been in conference at Keswick this week, has thrown interesting light on a recent case in which it is claimed that the Official Secrets Act was unwarrantably applied to journalists. As a result of information appearing about the contents of proposed legislation dealing with the coal industry, the Attorney-General's department set the machinery of the Official Secrets Act in motion and required the attendance at the Attorney-General's office of two Lobby correspondents, who declined to reveal the source of their information, but gave the assurance that no Civil Servant was implicated. It has now been revealed at the conference that the information was gleaned from a local paper, which reported an indiscreet speech by a member of Parliament in a remote constituency. The contention that the Official Secrets Acts were never meant to deal with such cases is obviously just, and it would be extravagant to claim that the publication of this information in any way imperilled the safety of the State.
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