INDEX	August 19, 2022
MI5 spends £750k investigating Guardian journalist
In 1993, MI5 began a three-year surveillance operation against Guardian journalist Victoria Brittain (including phone-tapping and bugging her house). The reason for this massive operation was that a total of £250,000 of money had arrived in her bank account. MI5 believed that she was involved in laundering the money, at least some coming from Libyan sources. However, what Brittain was really doing was channelling the money to the rather famous (and squeaky clean) law firm of Geoffrey Bindman, a fact that should have become clear at a very early stage. The money originated from the Ghanaian military officer Kojo Tsikata. Brittain had agreed to channel Tsikata's funds for a libel case against The Independent through her personal account. Source Wikipedia. The MI5 operation had its own code word Shadower and at one stage, according to Annie Machon it was even proposed to get Brittain's daughter Thea Sharrock arrested on trumped up charges in America, to delay her return so that MI5 could "sneak and peek" Brittain's home, in other words burgle it. The idea was to install a bug. MI5 was compelled to use overt methods before invading privacy like this. Officers even had to complete a form certifying they had tried all legal means before they apply for a warrant to break into a home. In Victoria Brittain's case there was a huge amount of material available about her activities in newspaper cutting files. They did not look at the databases, though one officer did trawl through a few paper copies of The Guardian at the same time as the Home Secretary was signing the warrant. Most democracies ban "sneak and peak" and under the 1989 Security Service Act, MI5 is only allowed to do it to protect national security or to prevent serious crime. A libel action is unlikely to fall into either of these categories. In addition to tapping Victoria Brittain's home phone, it was even proposed to tap the home phone of Geoffrey Bindman; but for some reason MI5 legal officers advised against that. The closed shop of the lawyers, perhaps? Victoria Brittain's home phone was bugged from early 1995 for about a year.
INDEX	August 19, 2022