The Official Secrets Act 1989 (c. 6) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It repeals and replaces section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. It is said to have removed the public interest defence created by that section.
Lord Bingham said that the white paper "Reform of Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911" (Cm. 408) (June 1988) was the immediate precursor of this Act and that its recommendations bear directly on the interpretation of this Act.
It is not a defence under the Act that the disclosure is in the national or public interest.
Famous quotes containing the words official, secrets and/or act:
“We were that generation called “silent,” but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period’s official optimism nor, as others thought, because we feared its official repression. We were silent because the exhilaration of social action seemed to many of us just one more way of escaping the personal, of masking for a while that dread of the meaningless which was man’s fate.”
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When he wants a wild embrace,
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A new wife suffers
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