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Tuesday, December 16th, 2003
British Intelligence Leaker Facing Prison Time For Exposing U.S.-UN Surveillance Scandal

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Former British intelligence employee Katharine Gun is facing up to two years in prison for violating the Official Secrets Act when she disclosed a top-secret NSA memo in March outlining a U.S. surveillance operation directed at UN Security Council members ahead of the vote on Iraq.
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In the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, the British newspaper The Observer exposed a highly secret and aggressive surveillance operation directed at United Nations Security Council members by the U.S. ahead of the vote on Iraq.
The Observer obtained a top-secret NSA memorandum that outlined a surveillance operation involves intercepting home and office telephone calls and emails of UN delegates focusing “the whole gamut of information that could give U.S. policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals or to head off surprises."

The target of the surveillance were the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations, including Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan, who could swing a Security Council vote on Iraq.

In a story that has received almost no media coverage in the U.S., the former British intelligence employee who leaked the memo, Katharine Gun, is now facing up to two years in prison for violating the Official Secrets Act.

We speak with Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy about the case of Katharine Gun. His article “For Telling the Truth” published in the Baltimore Sun is one of the few U.S. accounts of the story.


<ul> ~ British intelligence leaker facing prison time for exposing UN</ul>