Indy claims Government is upping the D notices

This morning's Independent in a front page exclusive claims that the governemnt has plans to prevent the media reporting on matters of national security.

The paper says that

The Intelligence and Security Committee, the parliamentary watchdog of the intelligence and security agencies which has a cross-party membership from both Houses, wants to press ministers to introduce legislation that would prevent news outlets from reporting stories deemed by the Government to be against the interests of national security.

The case that seems to have brought this about was the 2007 plot by Islamists to kidnap a Britis soldier

The then director general of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, was among those who complained to the ISC. "We were very angry, but it is not clear who we should be angry with, that most of the story of the arrests in Op Gamble were in the media very, very fast ... So the case was potentially jeopardised by the exposure of what the story was. My officers and the police were jeopardised by them being on operations when the story broke. The strategy of the police for interrogating those arrested was blown out of the water, and my staff felt pretty depressed ... that this has happened."

Not surprisingly the Indy says that censorship is not the answer.In its leading article the paper says

Not for the first time, a sledgehammer seems to be being used to crack a relatively small nut. If ministers believe police leaks are a problem, then better police discipline is the answer, not wholesale censorship of the media