Courts and bug product

[Ian Batten]

On 17 Feb 2008, at 10:35, Nicholas Bohm wrote:
>
> In the case of the Portland spy ring, Lonsdale and the Krogers (to  
> use the names they used as spies) were all foreigners, were quite  
> possibly in the UK illegally (I'm too idle to check), and were all  
> prosecuted here under the Official Secrets Act.

I think the logic was that if you pretend to be a UK citizen, you'll  
get tried as a UK citizen, but I can't run that to a source.

>
>
> I can't see any reason why people in the same position today  
> wouldn't be treated the same way.


Back then the baddies wore black hats and the goodies wore white ones,  
and `the establishment' knew which was which.  Fuchs was convicted,  
and had his citizenship removed, on the strength of a 90-minute jury- 
less trial.  The previous Prime Minister's wife was not available to  
act for his defence.   Burgess et al were all still in the future, and  
the attitude of the secret service that the Right Sort of Chaps would  
never be traitors was still unblemished.  Society at large believed in  
the police, law enforcement and the man in Whitehall.     The European  
Convention on Human Rights was either in the future (Fuchs) or had  
almost no legal form to enforce its will (Blake). Taken together, and  
the security services could take evidence, not matter what its form,  
to a judge, point to the guilty man and be sure of a conviction.    
Moreover, back then the defence barrister could be relied on to be  
that sort of chap too.  Post Oz, Post Chatterly, Post ABC...is Gareth  
Pierce that sort of chap?   And judges, too, can't be relied on: it  
was a judge that ended the ABC trial, after all.

Today, none of that applies.  A spying trial based on intercept would  
either have a jury or a very high-profile row about not having a  
jury.  The ABC case means the jury wouldn't be vetted.  Several  
serious newspapers would almost automatically regard the whole thing  
as a scandal, and Matrix (I always think Matrix Churchill) would be on  
hot standby to provide the best representation available.

>  Do you think they would instead nowadays all be quietly deported?

Yes.  Because a trial would be an admission of failure in  
intelligence, deeply embarrassing, and almost impossible to control in  
terms of where the defence might take it.   If they were a UK citizen,  
who knows: I suspect they'd (criminally, in my book) find themselves  
extradited to the US.

ian

>
>
> Nicholas
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