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National Security Bill: Latest cynical attempt to stifle journalism should worry us all [1]

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Date: 2023-03

Journalism, as George Orwell famously said, is “printing what someone else does not want printed”.

But what happens if the someone who doesn’t want your story printed also has the power to put you in prison?

That sounds like the kind of question journalists in places like Iran or North Korea might have to contend with. But it’s a dilemma someone like me, living and working in the UK, could be asking soon, too.

The National Security Bill currently going through Westminster contains a clause saying that “providing” information that may “materially assist a foreign intelligence service” can be punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

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Here at openDemocracy we pride ourselves on publishing stories that the government and others in power would much rather never see the light of day.

We’ve revealed how the Treasury helped Putin’s sanctioned warlord to sue a British journalist in London, how Russian oligarchs have bankrolled the Conservatives, how dark money flows into British politics and more.

Investigative journalists like us at openDemocracy often receive sensitive information. Could our reporting be used by foreign powers to embarrass the British government?

The honest answer is ‘yes’. But does saving our government’s blushes mean the public shouldn’t know that the British army was aware of the dangers of ‘Snatch Land Rovers’, associated with the deaths of over 34 British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or how the UK’s corporate secrecy vehicles are used to hide oligarchs’ ill-gotten gains?

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/national-security-bill-journalists-secrecy-rishi-sunak/

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