American website identifies MI6 officers

8/22/2005 3:30:00 PM GMT

An American website posted on Sunday what it said was the names of 74 members of the MI6, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, the Guardian Unlimited reported.

It wasn’t clear what action will British intelligence officials or lawyers take to remove the names from the website. Most probably they would conduct a damage limitation exercise and warn those officers who have been identified.
The Guardian said that eighteen of those identified by the website held the rank of ambassador.

It added that the website published the names under a message thanking someone who it referred to as "A".

The D Notice committee, which advises news agencies on security and intelligence issues, demands the British media not to reveal the identities of MI6 agents even if they have been identified elsewhere.

This is not the first time that an American website reveals the identities of former or current MI6 officers.
About six years ago, former MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, was accused of giving a long list of MI6 officials to a website and revealing confidential information about the intelligence agency.

Tomlinson, who was jailed for violating the Official Secrets Act, denied the allegation at the time.

Recently, newspapers in Croatia have also published the names of some MI6 officers serving in the country.

In the United States, it is an offence to deliberately disclose the names of undercover CIA agents.

A grand jury investigation was launched after the identification of CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose name was given to many reporters by an unidentified source in the U.S. government in 2003.

A New York Times journalist, Judith Miller, was jailed recently after she refused to reveal the identity of the source.

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