[HN Gopher] The D-Notice: A British Way of Censoring the Press
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The D-Notice: A British Way of Censoring the Press
Author : caret
Score : 104 points
Date : 2022-05-05 14:53 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thedissenter.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (thedissenter.org)
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| D-notices certainly aren't the only way the British censors the
| press. They famously sent agents to the headquarters of The
| Guardian and forced them to physically destroy the Snowden hard
| drives in the basement in front of them.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-rele...
| zahllos wrote:
| Yes. The reason for this is that the Official Secrets Act makes
| it illegal for anyone to keep or share anything that is
| "official information" under it except for "official purposes"
| i.e. for your government job on a government computer. There is
| no opt out for journalism and it applies regardless of whether
| you "sign" it or not. IANAL, but my understanding is the sole
| thing you can do legally if handed or finding classified
| documents is to take them to a police station and hand them
| over.
|
| I would guess that the UK Gov knew full well that destroying
| these documents in the UK would not stop reporting, but doing
| nothing might set a precedent that they're not keen on.
| notavalleyman wrote:
| I wanted to get behind this more but there were a few sections
| that had me doubting.
|
| 1. It says the UK media largely ignored the Snowden leaks due to
| a D-Notice - the source supplied didn't really back that up and
| it didn't sound right to me. Maybe someone can share examples of
| Snowden-leak-related stories which would have been in UK public
| interest but were only covered abroad?
|
| 2. It says the Steele dossier is largely discredited - I wasn't
| aware of any discrediting, let alone total. I don't know why the
| author thought this spin was necessary for the article.
|
| Edit to add 3. It says that a D Notice was used to suppress a
| link between Sergei Skirpal's handler and Orbis Intelligence,
| while the only sources provided negate that
| Trumpi wrote:
| Regarding point 2:
|
| There is an ongoing trial at the moment where I expect we will
| see evidence against the Steele dossier.
|
| Here is the Grand Jury charge:
| https://www.justice.gov/sco/press-release/file/1433511/downl...
|
| I don't have access to Pacer to search for the other filings
| and the record so far, but the case number can be found at the
| top of the linked charge if anyone is interested in looking at
| this trial.
| Trumpi wrote:
| This lawsuit could also bring up evidence against the Steele
| dossier: https://openargs.com/wp-content/uploads/Trump-v-
| Clinton-laws...
| colpabar wrote:
| According to the new york times:
|
| > Was the dossier a reliable source of information?
|
| > No. It has become clear over time that its sourcing was thin
| and sketchy.
|
| https://archive.ph/2fHH5
|
| This was on page 1 of google for "steele dossier", and the
| title is "Why the Discredited Dossier Does Not Undercut the
| Russia Investigation", so it seems to be pretty widely accepted
| that it was a bunch of nonsense.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| I think it's worth noting, though, that saying its "sourcing
| was thin and sketchy" is not the same thing as saying it was
| "a bunch of nonsense." Many of the allegations in it could,
| of course, still be true even if poorly sourced.
| sofixa wrote:
| Regarding 1, The Guardian, a UK based publication, was one of
| the main ones behind the Snowden interviews and reporting, so
| it seems to be a bogus claim.
| dijit wrote:
| I do sincerely hope you're joking; the guardian got
| absolutely crucified by the british government at that time.
|
| Their HQ was stormed by police along with forced compliance
| of the destruction of information:
|
| https://www.techdirt.com/2013/08/19/uk-govt-forces-
| guardian-...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/01/edward-
| snowden...
|
| That said; in theory D-Notice's are voluntary, but non-
| compliance is vaguely threatened with "increased scrutiny".
|
| D-Notices themselves are not exactly secret; they even get a
| mention in the movie V For Vendetta.
| aww_dang wrote:
| > It says the Steele dossier is largely discredited - I wasn't
| aware of any discrediting, let alone total. I don't know why
| the author thought this spin was necessary for the article.
|
| There are at least two ways to interpret this:
|
| 1)If the Steele dossier is legitimate, then the author is
| propagandizing the issue.
|
| 2)If the Steele dossier is discredited (in some circles)
| propaganda, but you are not aware of the deception, then
| perhaps it isn't spin. This experience could be a reflection of
| the information you consume.
|
| In the interest of avoiding inflammatory discussions, I'll
| leave it to other commentators to discuss the veracity of
| either side.
| notavalleyman wrote:
| > but you are not aware of the deception, then perhaps it
| isn't spin
|
| You are quite right that I am lacking complete awareness, so
| I think it would behoove the author to at least link to
| something to back up their statement, and without sourcing it
| does feel like spin.
|
| Similarly, there's a section of the article where the author
| suggests D-notices were used to suppress a link between
| Sergei Skripal's alleged handler and the Orbis Intelligence
| company whose founder wrote the dossier. There is again no
| souring or backing up this allegation. I didn't understand
| here either, why the author is using these unsourced points
| to discuss D Notices
| aww_dang wrote:
| I agree that sources are valuable and important. My
| preference would be that they are included. However they
| are rarely cited in a meaningful way, even in mainstream
| publications.
|
| The beauty of these kinds of discussions is that one could
| spend about 5-10 minutes searching and come up with a
| plethora of sources supporting either claim from whichever
| side you prefer.
|
| From this premise the sources become _almost_ irrelevant.
| You could examine the source taking a given position on
| either issue and declare it false. You need only find a
| contradictory source suitable to your biases.
|
| You could instead reason about the outcome of the
| accusations leveled in the Steele dossier. If those
| accusations were truthful, why was action not taken? Again,
| the partisan biases take hold:
|
| 1) Action was not taken because the dossier was fabricated
|
| 2) Action was not taken because the accused held political
| power
|
| Getting back to the larger topic, I ask you: Does
| censorship enhance your ability to trust the media and
| discern information, or does it hinder it?
| notavalleyman wrote:
| Not having access to the names and methods of
| intelligence agencies doesn't hinder my trust in the
| media, no, and I can't really establish from this article
| that much more than that is happening. If anything it
| boosts my trust, knowing that these publications are
| considered legitimate enough by the UK government to be
| on their d-notice distribution list.
| [deleted]
| tristor wrote:
| > It says the Steele dossier is largely discredited - I wasn't
| aware of any discrediting, let alone total. I don't know why
| the author thought this spin was necessary for the article.
|
| This was a political football during the last US election,
| since then it's been more thoroughly investigated and the
| majority of the content has either been proven false, or has
| yet to be verified as true. There was some truthful information
| within the dossier, but generally speaking it was mostly
| hearsay and unverified allegations and not completed when it
| was leaked. The leaking was clearly politically motivated and
| it was used as the basis of starting Congressional
| investigations which ultimately resulted in only minimal parts
| of the content being verified. There are many people who are
| politically aligned with the leaker of the dossier that believe
| the dossier is true because the general thrust of the
| allegations was true, but the actual specifics were mostly
| false, and the truth of what did occur mostly was found in the
| later investigation, which did not corroborate the dossier.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| > it was used as the basis of starting Congressional
| investigations
|
| This is false and a right-wing talking point. Papadopoulos's
| bragging launched the investigation.
| tristor wrote:
| I wasn't in the room when the decision was made, but my
| understanding from reading both the Steele Dossier and the
| published Mueller report is that Mueller drew considerably
| from the Steele Dossier as a way to understand where to
| consider targeting the investigation early on, and then
| expanded elsewhere after they had identified that most of
| it was not actionable intelligence. Mueller's investigation
| ultimately resulted in several convictions, so where there
| is smoke there is fire, but in this case the fire was
| burning oak wood and the smoke smelled like mesquite.
| [deleted]
| omnicognate wrote:
| This has been downvoted at the time of writing, but it's
| quite right: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_investi
| gation_origins...
| notavalleyman wrote:
| Thanks for the context - I didn't really understand you
| though - why do you say the actual specifics were mostly
| false, while also saying the Congress investigation verified
| some parts and couldn't verify others?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| There were a large number of allegations in the dossier.
| So, pulling numbers out of the air, but... say it was
| something like 70% of the allegations were false, 10% were
| verified true, and 20% could not be verified as either true
| or false.
|
| As I said, the numbers are made up. But I think the general
| gist is right - mostly false, a bit true, and some that is
| unknown.
|
| But this is why people say the dossier was discredited -
| the majority of it was false.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| > 2. It says the Steele dossier is largely discredited - I
| wasn't aware of any discrediting, let alone total.
|
| Look at David Shaylers career and how he has subsequently been
| done over by them, much like Chelsea Manning.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shayler#MI5_career
|
| Its the military's job to diffuse situations, identify threats
| on the horizon and use whatever means necessary to deal with
| them. Once you are dealing with something in a court, the
| threat has largely gone thanks to corrupt judges.
|
| Spooks are above the law, but just to make sure, its written
| into law. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/2019/nov/05/mi5-policy-g...
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54274605
|
| I really dont know why people come to the UK or most other
| organised country for that matter because entrapment &
| blackmail is still order of the day with all the security
| services, some of which you will read about in the press.
|
| Another name for the BBC is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MI7
| those television camera's and journalists get in everywhere,
| the press is the best form of spying in the world imo!
|
| So when is a D-notice not a D-notice? When its just reverse
| psychology to weed out some groups of people perhaps?
| fallingknife wrote:
| The Steele dossier was paid political opposition research, and
| therefore does not need to be discredited. It is false unless
| proven true. You could be excused for not knowing this
| important detail if you get your news from US "journalists."
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >2. It says the Steele dossier is largely discredited - I
| wasn't aware of any discrediting, let alone total.
|
| Numerous Steele dossier "sources" have been arrested for lying
| to the FBI in regards to the dossier, including Igor Danchenko,
| a primary Steel "source" who is apparently a fall down
| alcoholic who, among other things, fabricated conversations
| that never took place.
|
| https://www.axios.com/2021/11/04/steele-dossier-durham-inves...
| _dain_ wrote:
| >2. It says the Steele dossier is largely discredited - I
| wasn't aware of any discrediting, let alone total. I don't know
| why the author thought this spin was necessary for the article.
|
| If you aren't aware of it, that's on you. Frankly it amazes me
| that people still think it's real.
| bena wrote:
| It's real, it exists.
|
| But people who want to ignore it like to pretend it's
| something that it's not. It's raw intelligence. It's saying
| "Hey, here are things we heard you should check out."
|
| It's a lot like the VAERS database. It doesn't prove anything
| on its own, but it can indicate things we should look into
| more closely.
|
| And that's how a lot of people treated it: These are things
| we should probably check out.
| xienze wrote:
| > But people who want to ignore it like to pretend it's
| something that it's not. It's raw intelligence. It's saying
| "Hey, here are things we heard you should check out."
|
| "Hey, I heard a few things about Biden raping babies, you
| should check it out."
|
| See how it might be important to use more than "raw
| intelligence" about "stuff you should probably check out"
| as the basis for an investigation and media witch hunt?
| notavalleyman wrote:
| Maybe, but I am not including it in any of my articles, so
| it's not really on me to know everything about it.
|
| Another user provided an NYT link which suggested it was
| _real_ , but only indicative and not necessarily factual.
|
| https://archive.ph/2fHH5
| colpabar wrote:
| How can a document be "real" if it's full of "not
| necessarily factual" claims?
| db48x wrote:
| It's a real dossier full of hearsay, lies, calumny, etc.
| Steele was paid to assemble it, by a lawyer working for
| Hillary Clinton no less, for the express purpose of
| smearing Trump in the hopes that something would stick.
| zahllos wrote:
| I would reply to a sibling comment, but I believe this ought to
| be top level. I believe the author is conflating "D-Notices may
| be used to ask the press to self-censor" versus "'the man' is
| censoring Assange". So far as I am aware, nothing in the Assange
| trial would actually warrant a D-Notice, and if sensitive
| information were to be presented to the court it would be done in
| closed session anyway, since they at least theoretically have
| that option (they'd have to convince the judge of the need for
| this, if I understand correctly).
| AveburySutton wrote:
| at_a_remove wrote:
| This shows up in the sci-fi/horror film _Lifeforce_. "Gentlemen,
| that last remark is not for publication. This is a D-notice
| situation."
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Should I read anything sinister into the complete lack of
| comments (after one hour, as I write this) on this article?
| Veen wrote:
| Perhaps no one has anything to say about it. If you're eager
| for an opinion: I was already familiar with D-Notices--they've
| been around in some form since 1912--and I think they're a
| necessary tool to stop the UK press publishing information they
| shouldn't publish. I don't believe they are egregiously abused
| although there is scope for abuse and they have been abused in
| the past. Super-injunctions are more worrying to me because
| there is even less democratic accountability.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-injunctions_in_English_l...
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Personally, I think there is a level of fatigue that has set
| in. Post 9/11 Americans had a lot of their innocence taken away
| from them as various leaks ( including Assange's, Snowden's and
| others' ). Note that I say Americans, because it is genuinely
| difficult for me to gauge it elsewhere ( and quite frankly, I
| might be wrong about US too ).
|
| I could offer anecdotes, but my interactions with my social
| circles more and more indicate 'well, duh' to stories like this
| and not post-1981 book reading horror of realization that
| humans can be quite horrible to one another. And, well, since
| it is clear now that some information is suppressed and some is
| heavily promoted -- the distrust of general populace appears to
| be quite high.
|
| And this is yet another reason why I constantly argue against
| the temptations of censorship. That said, this is the path we
| are on.
|
| So to answer your question. No, I don't think it is sinister at
| all. It is just the current state of affairs. Some subjects are
| more risky than others.
| tomcatfish wrote:
| No. I'm being paid off by a different guy
| mike_hearn wrote:
| D-Notices aren't quite as obscure as the article makes out.
| I've known they existed for many years, I'm not quite sure why
| but there's no particular reason I'd know about them. I'm not a
| journalist and never was.
|
| The Official Secrets Act is probably bad law, it's one of the
| many places where the USA has superior laws that are much
| better at keeping bad government in check. The various attempts
| to expand censorship in the UK are also very bad, in my view.
| The D-Notice system is difficult to really get worked up about
| because, as this expose makes clear, it's:
|
| a. Voluntary.
|
| b. Sometimes ignored, even by major outlets like the Guardian.
|
| c. Largely made up of journalists themselves.
|
| d. So shadowy that they publish photos of themselves and upload
| meeting notes to government websites.
|
| e. Apparently very tightly concerned with stuff like publishing
| the names of spies, soldiers, troop movements, etc. The
| classical sorts of information that has a very direct and
| obvious reason for being kept out of the press.
|
| The article tries to build a case that it's being used in over-
| broad ways like with Assange, but honestly I don't buy it. The
| media doesn't need some shadowy committee to stop it covering
| the Assange story properly. At some point it became received
| wisdom in media circles to hate him and journalists need no
| incentive to bury stories if they find them inconvenient. The
| Guardian in particular has a long running and well documented
| vendetta against Assange. You'd see the same approach if
| D-Notices existed or not.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Yes there's a lot of looseness. Considering the history of
| the D-notice in wartime (1914-18 and 1938-45), when the
| stakes were high, it's a typical British implementation of
| "strong flexibility". The problem may actually be over-
| compliance. The days of Woodward and Bernstein have given way
| to journalists whose idea of ambitiously advancing their
| careers involves not offending anyone and running to mummy to
| ask permission at every juncture - not of government but
| their corporate/advertising lords.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| > _D-Notices aren 't quite as obscure as the article makes
| out._
|
| I think that puts it very mildly. There was a gigantic public
| scandal as far back as 1967 about D-notices.
| bell-cot wrote:
| No.
|
| It doesn't help that it struck me as drawn-out and disjointed.
|
| Worse - I never got the sense that the public would much care
| if the facts that the DMSA is keeping secret could be freely
| published in Britain. Nor (post-Snowden, and having read about
| some of America's secret gag orders) that the UK is up to
| anything all that bad (by the modern-day western world's _very_
| low standards).
| tomalpha wrote:
| The author is clearly against the extradition of Julian Assange,
| and the piece comes across as very much written in that context.
|
| To be clear: I'm not offering an opinion either way on the rights
| and wrongs of that, but the piece itself comes down very much on
| one side of the fence.
| colordrops wrote:
| What's the implication? That the author is hiding the fact that
| this is an opinion piece? Or that it's odd to be against the
| extradition?
|
| It's called _The Dissenter_ and they explicitly mention that
| they support whistleblowers in their about page.
| tomalpha wrote:
| I don't think it's going out of its way to hide the fact that
| it's an opinion piece. I wanted to highlight to someone
| unfamiliar with the case and issues (however few that may be
| around these parts), that it _is_ an opinion piece. It makes
| assertions through a lens of a bias to one side of the case.
| There 's nothing inherently wrong with that. Using the word
| "bias" isn't intended by me here as a slight - we're all
| biased to a greater or lesser degree about everything. But a
| casual reader should be aware of it without having to e.g.
| navigate to a separate "about" page :)
| stephen_g wrote:
| The Assange case seems relevant and topical. And regardless,
| what side of the fence would you expect somebody writing an
| article about press freedom and censorship to be on? To support
| extraditing to the US somebody who has never lived or worked
| there, after it was revealed US officials literally planned to
| kidnap and/or assassinate him? [1]. And only for the charge of
| revealing war crimes (apart from some trumped up "hacking"
| charges that the key witness now admitted lying about? [2]).
|
| I really do think somebody would have to be either hopelessly,
| desperately naive or deliberately lying to themselves to
| believe Assange could receive a fair trial in the US, and I
| don't think it's reasonable to assert that the US has any kind
| of jurisdiction over him.
|
| 1. https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/27/22696436/cia-kidnap-
| julia...
|
| 2. https://stundin.is/grein/13627/
| vkou wrote:
| > And only for the charge of revealing war crimes (apart from
| some trumped up "hacking" charges that the key witness now
| admitted lying about? [2]).
|
| I've read the allegations. If the allegations are true, he's
| guilty of hacking. It does not seem to be a case of the law
| being perverted past its intent. I'm sure the extradition and
| prosecution is politically motivated, but the problem with
| doing something that's squarely, dead-to-rights illegal that
| also happens to piss off the government is that they are
| within their rights to put you away for doing it.
|
| It'd be one thing if his supporters accepted the dead-to-
| rights-guilty part, and were making the claim that it was
| something akin to civil disobedience - illegal, but in
| service to a higher cause. Unfortunately, most of them are
| instead bending over backwards to argue that he can't
| actually guilty of anything. It's not very convincing.
|
| Probably because the most noteworthy accomplishment of that
| higher cause seems to be 'spending the next decade being a
| shill for the Kremlin' and 'helping Trump win 2016'. Sorry,
| but not sorry - I can't say I have an iota of sympathy for
| the architects of either.
| pasabagi wrote:
| > I've read the allegations. If the allegations are true,
| he's guilty of hacking.
|
| This is kind of interesting. To me, it seems convenient to
| the point of being totally unbelievable that the person who
| leaked evidence of US war crimes, who the US has been
| hounding for a decade now, is also dead-to-rights guilty of
| a charge that justifies the extradition they've been
| gunning for the whole time.
|
| Not being particularly engaged in the case, or the guy, it
| seems that this must be obvious to _everyone_.
|
| What's weird about it is that using a spurious charge as a
| form of harassment for a political dissident is a really
| big no-no for a liberal democracy. And that's exactly what
| this appears to be.
|
| I honestly expected some check or balance to step in at
| some point and point out that, no matter what you think
| about this guy, manipulating the legal system in such a
| blatant manner to produce a predetermined result is
| corrosive to legitimacy on every scale.
| mistermann wrote:
| > It'd be one thing if his supporters accepted the dead-to-
| rights-guilty part, and were making the claim that it was
| something akin to civil disobedience - illegal, but in
| service to a higher cause. _Unfortunately, most of them are
| instead bending over backwards to argue that he can 't
| actually guilty of anything._ It's not very convincing.
|
| Who, precisely, are you referring to here?
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Of course there's nothing new about this censorship, except
| widerspread knowledge of it. The D-Notice began in 1912.
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-Notice]
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