Liberty press release;

"Liberty is acting for Katharine Gun, a former GCHQ civil servant who has today been charged with offences under the Official Secrets Act relating to public interest disclosures allegedly made in the run up to the Iraq War.

In a statement read out after the hearing by her solicitor, James Welch, Mrs Gun said she would defend the charges against her on the basis that her actions were "necessary to prevent an illegal war in which thousands of Iraqi civilians and British soldiers would be killed or maimed".

Katharine said:

"I worked for GCHQ as a translator until June 2003. I have been charged with offences under the Official Secrets Act. Any disclosures that may have been made were justified on the following grounds:

- because they exposed serious illegality and wrongdoing on the part of the US Government who attempted to subvert our own security services and

- to prevent wide-scale death and casualties among ordinary Iraqi people and UK forces in the course of an illegal war

No-one has suggested (nor could they), that any payment was sought or given for any alleged disclosures. I have only ever followed my conscience."


Notes for editors:

This case is likely to put the legality of the Iraq War on trial.

The Attorney General advised on the legality of the war. This advice has yet to be put into the public domain but has been called into question by leading QCs on all sides of the political spectrum.

The same Attorney General personally consented to this prosecution.

It is clear that the Government must be uncertain about the wisdom of this prosecution. It has taken 6 months to decide to proceed to charge."

From the Guardian, as linked above;

"The secret surveillance operation involved intercepting the home and office telephone calls and emails of delegates to the UN.

The NSA made clear that the particular targets of what was described as an eavesdropping "surge" were the delegates from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan, the six crucial "swing votes" on the security council.

A memo sent by Frank Koza, a senior NSA official, said the information would be used "against" the key UN delegations. "

No wonder the NSA are keen to keep their activites under wraps...