American Magazine Spreads MI6 Secrets to Newsgroups

An American magazine specialising in security issues
has published the list of MI6 agents which was released on a
Web site — then removed — earlier this week.

The list is now
generally available, and indeed hard to avoid for anyone looking
in the appropriate Usenet newsgroups.

The British Foreign Office, which was aware of the threatened
distribution, was forced Thursday night to take steps to protect
the safety of the agents widely listed on the Internet on Friday.

A source at the Foreign Office said that publication of
the list could adversely affect the fight against organised
crime, as agents are deployed against drug dealers and arms
smugglers as well as in the gathering of foreign intelligence.

At risk, too, are Internet Service Providers who unwittingly
continue to publish the names of the agents. Scotland Yard
has emphasised that any ISP that publishes additional names
will be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act.

In the list, the names of around 100 agents are given, together
with the cities and dates of their various postings around the
world, and even their dates of birth.