Free Republic

LONDON - A British intelligence translator has been cleared of leaking a secret e-mail that alleged the U.S. wanted to spy on United Nations Security Council members before the war against Iraq. "The prosecution offer no evidence against the defendant on this indictment as there is no longer sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction," prosecutor Mark Ellison told the court. Katharine Gun, 29, works at the Government Communications Headquarters, Britain's global surveillance centre. She was charged in November with breaching Britain's Official Secrets Act after an memo was leaked to the British newspaper The Observer. The newspaper reported...

Britain helped America to conduct a secret and potentially illegal spying operation at the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war, The Observer can reveal. The operation, which targeted at least one permanent member of the UN Security Council, was almost certainly in breach of the Vienna conventions on diplomatic relations, which strictly outlaw espionage at the UN missions in New York. Translators and analysts at the Government's top-secret surveillance centre GCHQ were ordered to co-operate with an American espionage 'surge' on Security Council delegations after a request from the US National Security Agency at the end of...