13 October 2004. Thanks to Intelligence Digest.

(GTH: The following letter to the editor of The Guardian rebuts the claims made in the article "Keep power and sewage plants secret, media told" which was reproduced in INTELLIGENCE DIGEST on 11th October.)

Defence advice

Saturday October 2, 2004

Letters to the Editor
The Guardian

Your report on a possible addition to the advice to editors on the publication of matters concerning counter-terrorism measures, which is under consideration by the defence, press and broadcasting advisory committee (Keep power and sewage plants secret, media told, September 25), is misleading in two respects.

First, the committee is not considering advising non-reference "to such visible installations as sewage works and power stations", or to anything else already widely in the public domain. It is considering only how best to remind editors that details of any weaknesses in key points in the critical national infrastructure which are not in the public domain and have not yet been rectified, would be of interest to terrorists planning attacks on such things as the telecommunications, energy, transport and water supplies.

Such advice against publication would not include, for example, reports of where the authorities had failed to take action to rectify weaknesses apparent to the media and the public, but it might include details of existing covert security systems in the course of being upgraded. Advice of the latter kind is already given occasionally concerning secret intelligence and nuclear sites, and editors understand the rationale where it involves potential danger to life and/or counter-terrorist operations.

Second, the article implies that the committee has already agreed the proposed additional wording. The media side wishes to discuss further the detail and how it might be interpreted in practice, and this will happen at the next meeting of the committee, on November 17.

Nick Wilkinson

Secretary of the defence, press and broadcasting advisory committee