By A Correspondent | The United Kingdom has announced news laws that will see foreign spies being stopped from working in the country.
The new treason laws enforce registration for foreign agents and bring in toughened powers under the official secrets Act. They are developed to tackle hostile activity conducted by foreign states.
The revelations were made in Queen Elizabeth’s speech at the end of 2019.
She said, “Measures will be developed to tackle hostile activity conducted by foreign states.”
A BBC editor, Mark Urban commented saying, ”
“The Queens Speech statement ‘measures will be developed to tackle hostile activity conducted by foreign states’ heralds a long awaited push to update the Official Secrets Act + possible update to Treason Act & a US-style Aliens registration law.
“Although MI5 & police feel the secrets’ act has become largely unusable, Law Commission proposals in 2017 to update it sparked fears among journalists that a new law could be used to crack down on leaks to the media.
“Doubtless Whitehall mandarins want a more robust system for prosecuting leaks (Section 2 under the existing act), but they see the need to tackle foreign espionage, Section 1, as a more important driver for reform, e.g in making hacking of UK secrets from overseas an offence.
“So the proposed legislation will open up big questions about official secrets reform, whether it addresses ’21st Century Threats’ as promised & whether it has a chilling effect on reporting + whistle blowing.”
Also commenting on the development, Zimbabwean legal expert Dr Masimba Mavaza told ZimEye, “the proposed laws to combat activities of foreign states and official secrets act are a step towards eradicating terrorism. With the volatile situation in the Middle East, the laws will come in handy.
“While Iran is wounded, the chances of other countries taking up arms or engage in sabotage is very high.
“Any other country can cause or engage in terrrorist attacks in revenge of the events in the Middle East.
“So each nation has an obligation to maintain peace within its borders and to spread the peace abroad.”