Newly declassified documents obtained by Declassified Australia expose how far the government has gone to explore introducing a ‘D-Notice’ censorship scheme to control media reporting on defence and intelligence matters.
Six months ago, Declassified Australia exclusively revealed planning for this new D-Notice system, but newly obtained federal government documents reveal planning has accelerated well beyond initial stages.
The new documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, reveal that a multitude of Australian government officials attended an online Teams briefing on the D-Notice system in November 2022 with Brigadier Geoffrey Dodds, the secretary of Britain’s Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee, Britain’s military censor.
The DSMA Committee issues DSMA-Notices, colloquially referred to as ‘D-Notices’. These are ‘advisory orders’ to the media on what the committee considers should not be published in relation to British military and intelligence operations.
While theoretically voluntary, the DSMA Committee told the Australian officials at the briefing that it estimates 90 percent of the UK’s media comply with D-Notices it issues.
Australian government officials invited to attend the briefing on the scheme took a sceptical view of the ‘voluntary’ nature of a new D-Notice system for Australia, and also put forward questions about the legal repercussions for journalists who don’t follow D-Notices or committee advice.
Invited to the meeting were personnel from no less than seven Australian government departments and agencies: the Attorney-General’s Department (AGD), Department of Home Affairs (DHA), Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the Defence Department, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP), the Australian Federal Police (AFP), and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C).
The federal police were keen to know whether a journalist seeking advice from the DSMA Committee could use that fact as a defence against a prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, asking:
“Is the fact that a journalist has sought advice from the DSMA, and that advice did not indicate a national security risk, a defence against the Official Secrets Act?”
The DSMA Committee’s secretary told the AFP that there was “no legal basis for this”.
The AFP also wanted to know how the DSMA Committee handles UK journalists “who are clearly seeking to reduce risk of prosecution for (or even seek immunity from) publishing sensitive national security information that is arguably in the public interest”.
The secretary replied that public interest was “of no concern when issuing advice”.
An Attorney-General’s Department official at the briefing was particularly interested in knowing about the possibility of the Committee breaching journalists’ confidentiality.
The committee’s secretary replied that there is confidentiality about all communications with journalists and that: “HMG [His Majesty’s Government] and Police agree/accept” this arrangement. There could however be exemptions if the “credibility of the Secretary and the system is at stake”.
Regarding possible exemptions, Brigadier Dodds also remarkably stated that:
“[The] threshold is in the mind of the duty adviser. No governance documents exist.”
The Australian official also asked about what role the D-Notice committee played in providing evidence to assist in the prosecution of journalists.
The committee’s secretary claimed that he is “not required to submit evidence from discussions with media as part of police investigations or court proceedings”.
Further questions listed in the meeting agenda reveal the interests of the government representatives, including how the D-Notice system could be used to aid prosecutions. Some of the questions the Australian officials asked included:
- Whether there was risk of a disconnect between the DSMA Committee’s opinions and what law enforcement could perceive as “unauthorised disclosure of sensitive information”
- Whether the DSMA Committee helps law enforcement or police initiating legal action against journalists and gives them information about the committee’s interactions with them
- Whether consultation with the Committee could be used as a defence for prosecutions under the Official Secrets Act
The Australian officials at the meeting were no doubt relieved to hear the DSMA Committee secretary Brigadier Dodds in response to these questions claim that the D-Notice system operates completely in secret, and that the public interest is “of no concern when issuing advice”.
Also requested by the Australian officials was the DSMA Committee’s internal review of their own system prepared in 2015, which included a list of stories that the DSMA Committee had issued advice on.
The list of stories was first reported by the present writer with a colleague last December in Grayzone UK, and included numerous British domestic issues the media was reporting on that the Committee was concerned with.
The stories the DSMA issued D-Notice advisories for included allegations of sexual abuse by Scottish government officials, details of Britain’s secretive Porton Down biological and chemical weapons laboratory, the circumstances of the death of Princess Diana, and the coronial inquest into the death of a GCHQ codebreaker which concluded that an unlawful killing had occurred and that MI6’s involvement in the death was a “legitimate line of inquiry”.
‘Brothers in Arms’
The Australian officials from the seven federal Commonwealth departments and agencies were comprehensively advised of the workings of the D-Notice system. The minutes of the briefing obtained by Declassified Australia stated that:
- “Those who are not supportive of the [DSMA] system are mostly the strongest proponents of media freedom.”
- In some cases, the D-Notice system covers “transnational, serious, and organised crime”.
- The D-Notice system faces challenges like “digital media” from overseas being able to publish without DSMA Committee intervention.
- The unwillingness of “tech giants” in participating in the D-Notice system, and that the committee’s secretary believed that the tech companies wanted to “settle a bargain with [the British] government”.
- The DSMA Committee’s secretary is technically a public servant hired by the Ministry of Defence, the DSMA Committee is run out of the Ministry of Defence building, and the secretary has a Ministry of Defence email address.
A reference in the minutes to the relationship between the British government and the Committee, was extraordinarily revealing:
“The DSMA system has very deep roots in the [British] Ministry of Defence, so the Ministry of Defence press office sees the DSMA Secretary as a ‘brother-in-arms’.”
In response to a question from Australian officials asking whether there were instances of journalists publishing information against DSMA advice, the Committee’s secretary wrote:
“Yes but very rarely. Tends to be extreme, non-msm [mainstream media] organizations. Eg: Declassified UK (online pub).”
The secretary had named Declassified UK, a British online media outlet focused on defence, national security, and foreign policy. [Note: Declassified UK is not formally affiliated with Declassified Australia.]
The secretary cited instances of Declassified UK publishing a ministerial brief that was “inadvertently” sent to the outlet by the British Ministry of Defence in response to an FOI request, as well as the outlet publishing an article against the wishes of the DSMA Committee that named a British lieutenant-colonel who drafted a crisis management document for the government of the African nation of Cameroon.
Also included as evidence for his claim was that Declassified UK had “published embarrassing details of HMG [His Majesty’s Government] views on a developing country”. The mention of this example, in spite of the secretary’s saying it was of “no DSMA concern”, suggests that the DSMA committee was proactively monitoring Declassified UK’sjournalistic output.
When Declassified UK inquired to the DSMA Committee’s secretary about being labelled “extreme”, he denied ever doing so, telling the outlet that he used “the then timely example of the Cameroon article as an example of non mainstream media not accepting DSMA advice” and that while he regards Declassified UK as “non mainstream media”, he said “the informal speaking notes … do not categorize Declassified [UK] as extreme”.
The Monday following the DSMA Committee’s briefing to the group of Australian officials, the Attorney-General’s Department’s (AGD) Andrew Warnes sent an email to attendees saying that the “AGD found it to be a highly useful session”.
Towards the end of November, an Australian Federal Police (AFP) official sent an email to Warnes, saying that it was “very useful to hear firsthand how the UK system operates and how it may be applied to Australia”.
The AFP official noted that “the UK system’s efficacy is because of the [DSMA Committee’s] relationship with media that has been built over decades”, indicating some scepticism on whether an advisory D-Notice system would work in Australia because of the lack of such a relationship.
Accountability on Notice
Australian officials in the UK had begun contact with the DSMA Committee as early as August 2019, as we first revealed in Declassified Australia six months ago. Liaison and contact between the DSMA Committee and Australian officials has been established since that date, including through November 2022, well into the first term of the present Labor government
In a Senate Estimates hearing in February this year, Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge asked Home Affairs leadership about the meetings with the DSMA Committee revealed earlier by Declassified Australia.
The senior officials in attendance could not provide answers to the Senator’s questioning, but agreed to answer the Questions on Notice. They later answered:
“Department of Home Affairs officials met with the UK Defence and Security Media Advisory Secretary between 5-10 December 2021 (exact date not known) and 10 May 2022.”
Home Affairs also stated that the primary role in examining the D-Notice scheme was now with the Attorney-General’s Department:
“On 1 June 2022 responsibility for this work transferred to the Attorney-General’s Department (AGD). No work is currently being undertaken by the Department on this issue.”
Those two occasions that Home Affairs facilitated meetings with the DSMA Committee were a December 2021 meeting with then-Deputy Secretary Marc Ablong, and the May 2022 meeting First Assistant Secretary Warnes attended.
Declassified Australia can reveal a further meeting of Australian officials with the DSMA Committee to discuss the D-Notice process was held on 2 November 2022. This briefing, revealed earlier in this article, was conducted as a Teams online meeting, and was facilitated by the Attorney-General’s Department who invited along officials from seven Australian departments or agencies.
Declassified Australia contacted both the Department of Home Affairs and the Attorney-General’s Department to ask about the liaison held with the DSMA Committee. Home Affairs declined to provide any answer, and Attorney-General’s did not respond by the deadline for publication.
It is alarming that detailed discussions across a number of years and by so many government officials and departments have taken place about the planning for a D-Notice censorship scheme without any sharing of information let alone discussion with the public.
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