WHISTLEBLOWERS face tougher jail terms under new proposals by the UK's Home Secretary.
John Reid wants a new official secrets law to target intelligence agency staff who leak sensitive information.
As well as wanting jail terms raised from the current two-year sanction doubled, he wants to remove an important statutory defense whistleblowers can currently employ to defend their actions.
The move is a bid to silence people like ex-GCHQ translator Katherine Gunn - a woman dubbed at the time by Hollywood star Sean Penn as a "hero of the human spirit" - and other security and intelligence agency employees from exposing unlawful acts.
The then 29-year-old worker at the Government's main intelligence monitoring centre sensationally revealed the contents of a March 2003 email that showed the US National Security Agency wanted key United Nations Security Council members bugged in the months the 2003 Iraq war.
The bid was made during attempts by the US to secure a Security Council resolution backing their invasion of Iraq.
Tellingly, the UK government eventually dropped its case against Gunn in 2004 after she invoked a clause in the government's own "Whistle-blowing charter" in her defense - a move that would have greatly embarrassed Tony Blair.
It is one of the first bids by his government government to alter official secrets legislation since 1989, when whistleblowers' rights to claim a defense of public interest were successfully revoked.
This latest proposal has yet to receive Whitehall clearance.
About a year after she blew the whistle, Gunn - who was sacked in June 2003 - said: "I'm not prone to leak secrets left, right, and centre.
"But I felt (what I did) was a really essential and important issue that needed to get out to the public.
"What I (objected to) was the fact that they were trying to twist arms in order to get a vote favourable towards an act of aggression.
"If the UN had been allowed to come to that judgment on their own terms, then that's fair enough, but they weren't allowed to do that."
John Reid wants a new official secrets law to target intelligence agency staff who leak sensitive information.
As well as wanting jail terms raised from the current two-year sanction doubled, he wants to remove an important statutory defense whistleblowers can currently employ to defend their actions.
The move is a bid to silence people like ex-GCHQ translator Katherine Gunn - a woman dubbed at the time by Hollywood star Sean Penn as a "hero of the human spirit" - and other security and intelligence agency employees from exposing unlawful acts.
The then 29-year-old worker at the Government's main intelligence monitoring centre sensationally revealed the contents of a March 2003 email that showed the US National Security Agency wanted key United Nations Security Council members bugged in the months the 2003 Iraq war.
The bid was made during attempts by the US to secure a Security Council resolution backing their invasion of Iraq.
Tellingly, the UK government eventually dropped its case against Gunn in 2004 after she invoked a clause in the government's own "Whistle-blowing charter" in her defense - a move that would have greatly embarrassed Tony Blair.
It is one of the first bids by his government government to alter official secrets legislation since 1989, when whistleblowers' rights to claim a defense of public interest were successfully revoked.
This latest proposal has yet to receive Whitehall clearance.
About a year after she blew the whistle, Gunn - who was sacked in June 2003 - said: "I'm not prone to leak secrets left, right, and centre.
"But I felt (what I did) was a really essential and important issue that needed to get out to the public.
"What I (objected to) was the fact that they were trying to twist arms in order to get a vote favourable towards an act of aggression.
"If the UN had been allowed to come to that judgment on their own terms, then that's fair enough, but they weren't allowed to do that."
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