David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor report:
A former MI5 secret agent is suing the London Evening Standard for revealing his name, his lawyers say, in an attempt to extend Britain’s privacy laws to cover the identity of intelligence officers.
The agent is also threatening the Guardian with a high court injunction if the paper re-publishes his identity. The Guardian is therefore withholding details, for the time being, that might give clues to his identity.
The man’s name continues to be available online, where legal complaints have failed to silence foreign bloggers and websites which specialise in intelligence leaks. His lawyers say: “We do not agree that the information is in the public domain.”
The altercation highlights once again the difficulty of suppressing information in the online age. What makes the case doubly unusual is that the agent is simultaneously fighting his former employers in the name of free speech. He wants to be allowed to publish his memoirs under a pseudonym.
Read more in the Guardian.