The secret state
Behind President Carter's 'human rights' rhetoric lies the reality of dozens of dependent dictatorships in the Third World. Meanwhile, in the developed capitalist nations, whose leaders pride themselves on the liberty enjoyed by their citizens, new measures of social control are being...
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| Published in: | Race & class 1979-01, Vol.20 (3), p.219-242 |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Behind President Carter's 'human rights' rhetoric lies the reality of dozens of dependent dictatorships in the Third World. Meanwhile, in the developed capitalist nations, whose leaders pride themselves on the liberty enjoyed by their citizens, new measures of social control are being introduced. In Britain the targets of these attacks include the right of citizens to know what is done in their name.
The deportation from Britain of Philip Agee and Mark Hosenball and th prosecution, under the Official Secrets Act, of Crispin Aubrey, John Berry and Duncan Campbell have been part of a concerted campaign by the state to stop journalists from writing about matters of which it is determined the public should remain ignorant. By its actions the British state has focussed attention not only on official secrecy but also on the very questions it sought to hide from view — the operations of the CIA in Britain, western Europe and the Third World; the increased size of British security services and their brief to keep political activists under surveillance, and the role of Signal Intelligence (SIGINT), not only in monitoring the communist world, but in eavesdropping on the communications of many Third World countries.
E.P. Thompson, the historian, here takes up two aspects thrown up by these cases. First, the secrecy that surrounds the British state and especially those agencies concerned with surveillance and covert actions at home and abroad. Secondly, he takes the left to task for failing to respond on questions of civil liberties and democratic rights in the past decade. Throughout the last two hundred years the liber tarian strand of radical and working-class groups have come together to oppose repeated attempts by the state to curb political rights. This 'nerve of outrage' is in urgent need of re-discovery. In particular, he attacks those on the left who dismiss the need for action on the grounds that all states, all police, all law are bad. And, in doing so, Thompson takes up questions which are relevant not only to Britain but to all liberal democracies. |
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| ISSN: | 0306-3968 1741-3125 |