Press: How Not to Silence a Spy

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The Thatcher government insists that it has a moral duty to try to prevent Wright from setting a dangerous precedent. "It has nothing to do with freedom of speech," says a senior official, "but everything to do with the notion that if you're a secret agent, you bloody well stay secret." Still, it is one thing to stop an agent from violating his vow of secrecy and quite another to try to bar reporting about allegations that are now public. "To fail to distinguish between Mr. Wright's obligations to the government and the press's right to publish seems like a very serious mistake to me," says Sunday Times Editor Andrew Neil.

According to Neil, his paper plans to appeal the Law Lords' ruling to the European Court of Human Rights, whose decisions are respected by the British government. Although there is no British bill of rights that guarantees press freedom, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights does. Meanwhile, British newspapers continue to defy the ban. Last week News on Sunday published an excerpt from Spycatcher and was notified that it will be charged with "criminal contempt." Says Editor Brian Whitaker: "In the past, it's been necessary to break the law to defend free speech."