
On May 12, 1999, British officials issued a "D-notice" gagging order
to prevent the press from reporting the contents of a list that they
said former MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson had posted on the
Internet. Tomlinson's Swiss Internet service provider,
worldcom.ch, cooperated with the British, as did geocities.com in
the U.S., and both sites were closed. Every major newspaper in the
world hyped the story. Now Internet surfers were getting
interested, and thousands of people were looking for The
List.
Enough people already had it so that it was impossible to stuff
the cyber genie back into the bottle. Lyndon LaRouche's site posted
it for a time, and a site in Denmark is still up as this is written.
The hype was amazing. British foreign secretary Robin Cook
called the list "potentially dangerous to the people who have
worked in the service." Conservative spook-booster and writer Nigel
West (aka Rupert Allason) said that "this is hugely damaging to us,
on a scale of Philip Agee." One Foreign Office spokesman worried
about Osama bin Laden getting the list, and others said that
Britain now faces the difficult task of recruiting and training new
agents and restoring confidence in MI6.
"We're aware of the reports that the list is on other web sites,
and we're considering what action we need to take, if we can take
any action at all," another Foreign Office spokesman said. Scotland
Yard was on the case. Unnamed "government officials" were worried
that the list had been posted for some 24 hours before it was taken
down, enabling enemies of the British secret service to harvest the
information for possible retaliation against agents named on the list.
Rear Adm. David Pulvertaft, chief of the committee that browbeats
British media on national security issues, said "I don't want to
overdramatize, but peoples' lives were put at risk. The Internet
poses a unique difficulty. It offers an opportunity to the
blackmailer or the person with grievances. Government has to get a
grip on it, but I don't have a panacea. I wish I did."
In the U.S., at least, newspapers lapped up these quotations, and never asked whether something else might be going on. Let's take a closer look at this dangerous list of 116 names:
Sixteen of the above names were previously published, almost all of them in 1989. As soon as they were published, they were indexed in NameBase, which has been widely available since 1986 and updated continuously since then. Diplomatic lists (published by governments) were used to compile much of the information, in 1989 as well as 1999.
ASQUITH, RAYMOND B.B.
Britain 1985-1989, USSR 1985
Geheim Magazine (Germany) 1987-#5 (39)
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
BARRETT, RICHARD MARTIN DONNE
Britain 1975-1989, Turkey 1983-1985
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
BOWEN, RUPERT
Ireland 1970-1979, Britain 1970-1979
Lobster Magazine (Britain) 1985-#9 (15)
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
BREEZE, ALASTAIR JON
Britain 1958-1989, Indonesia 1960-1962, Iran 1967-1971,
Pakistan 1972-1976, Nigeria 1976-1979
Intelligence Newsletter (Paris) 1990-01-17 (3)
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
CHITTENDEN, GEOFFREY MARTIN
Britain 1969-1989, India 1971-1975, Czechoslovakia 1976-1978,
Hong Kong 1981-1985
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
CORDERY, ANDREW
Britain 1990, Germany 1990
Top Secret (Germany) 1990-F (21)
DEARLOVE, RICHARD BILLING
Britain 1966-1999, Kenya 1968-1971, Czechoslovakia 1973-1976,
France 1980-1984
Intelligence (Paris) 1999-03-08 (8)
Intelligence (Paris) 1999-03-22 (8)
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
GERSON, JOHN HENRY CARY
Britain 1968-1991, Hong Kong 1969-1991, Singapore 1971-1973,
China 1974-1978, Ireland 1978-1979
Intelligence Newsletter (Paris) 1991-09-11 (8)
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
GIBBS, ANDREW PATRICK SOMERSET
Britain 1977-1989, Brazil 1979-1981, USSR 1984-1985,
South Africa 1987-1989
Geheim Magazine (Germany) 1987-#5 (40)
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
LANGMAN, NICHOLAS
Britain 1983-1989, Uruguay 1986
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
REEVE, RICHARD ROBERT
Britain 1971-1989, Singapore 1973-1975, Hong Kong 1975-1987
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
REGAN, MICHAEL JOHN
Britain 1983-1989, Afghanistan 1986-1989
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
SCARLETT, JOHN MCLEOD
Britain 1971-1994, Kenya 1973-1976, France 1984-1987,
USSR 1991-1994
Intelligence Newsletter (Paris) 1994-04-21 (8)
SPEDDING, DAVID ROWLAND
Britain 1967-1999, Lebanon 1969-1972, Chile 1972-1974,
United Arab Em 1978-1981, Ireland 1981-1983, Jordan 1983-1987
Assn. National Security Alumni. Unclassified 1996-F (16)
Intelligence (Paris) 1996-08-26 (14)
Intelligence (Paris) 1997-12-01 (9)
Intelligence (Paris) 1999-03-08 (8 22)
Intelligence Newsletter (Paris) 1994-03-10 (8)
Intelligence Newsletter (Paris) 1994-03-24 (6)
Lobster Magazine (Britain) 1988-#16 (14)
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
TANTUM, GEOFFREY ALAN
Britain 1959-1989, Kuwait 1970-1972, Yemen 1972-1973,
Jordan 1977-1980, Italy 1985-1989
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
WOODS, IAN ALEXANDER
Britain 1976-1989, Germany 1984-1989
Lobster. A Who's Who of the British Secret State. 1989
Of these 16 names, 8 are of special interest. Seven of these were exposed
in 1989, and another in 1990, but what's interesting is that these 8 were
given -- and accepted -- additional foreign assignments subsequent
to their initial exposure. They weren't worried at all. No one particularly
cared, and they knew it!
ASQUITH, RAYMOND B.B.
Kiev 1992
BARRETT, RICHARD MARTIN DONNE
Amman 1997
BOWEN, RUPERT
Windhoek 1990, Tirana 1992
CORDERY, ANDREW
Oslo 1995
DEARLOVE, RICHARD BILLING
Washington 1991
LANGMAN, NICHOLAS
Paris 1994
REGAN, MICHAEL JOHN
Bangkok 1995
WOODS, IAN ALEXANDER
Warsaw 1995
QUESTION: If exposure in the media is so dangerous, such that those exposed feel that they are under increased risk, why did these eight continue to accept foreign assignments after they were exposed ten years ago?
ANSWER: This MI6 hoopla is not about protecting spies at all. It's about protecting unaccountability in high places. Fewer secrets mean more accountability to the citizens of the world, and this is what worries British officials as they consider new measures to regulate the Internet.
And that's the real scoop -- technology vs. government secrecy.
First it was the photocopying machine. Then databases on personal
computers and desktop publishing. And now the Internet. Perhaps
democracy has a chance after all.
source:
http://www.pir.org/
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