Absolutely fucking horrifying

H/T Obo for this one, I am genuinely staggered to read this.

Britain's security agencies and police would be given unprecedented and legally binding powers to ban the media from reporting matters of national security, under proposals being discussed in Whitehall.

Interesting how you can already guess that the definition of "matters of national security" is going to be infinitely flexible isn't it.

Fuck me, it's remarkably telling that the BBC haven't reported this anywhere. Maybe they're not planning on reporting it until the legislation has been passed and it'll be too late.

The ISC report said the DA-Notice system "provides advice and guidance to the media about defence and counter-terrorism information, whilst the system is voluntary, has no legal authority, and the final responsibility for deciding whether or not to publish rests solely with the editor or publisher concerned. The system has been effective in the past. However, the Cabinet Secretary told us ... this is no longer the case: 'I think we have problems now.'"

So the fact that the media can still lawfully ignore a D-Notice (as it's only "advice and guidance") isn't good enough for them. They want to force press with legal threats not to publish anything.

D-Notices have already been used to great affect, including (allegedly)

• Two high-profile (apparently "household name") Labour MPs implicated in Operation Ore - if anyone knows who these MPs are (it was leaked onto certain sites at the time) let me know
• Airport Security breaches in the 80s
• Prince Harry's excursion to Afghanistan (though this was eventually leaked)
• In fact, probably Prince Harry's paternity (doesn't stop numerous Mock The Week references though)

Two questions arise from this:
1) What else have D Notices been used for? The suspicious circumstances surrounding the deaths of many, many people, not least Robin Cook and Dr. David Kelly?
2) What the fuck has been leaked that they're not happy with, and what would be stifled in the future?

Christ all fucking mighty, we really are living in Soviet Russia now aren't we.