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Official Secrets Act

The Official Secrets Act, originally passed by Parliament in 1911, is the main
source of state control over secrecy and espionage in Britain. Compared with
many Western nations it is very powerful, and can be used to protect sensitive
information that the government of the day does not want disclosed, even
though the information hardly challenges the security of the state. Once one
has signed the Act, and this can be required before quite trivial information is
disclosed, one is permanently bound by it. Lengthy prison sentences can be,
and have been, handed down under the Act, and from time to time journalists
engaged in quite proper investigative reporting are restricted by it. Since the
1970s it has become increasingly unpopular and discredited, and several
parliamentary attempts have been made, unsuccessfully, to abolish or amend
it. By contrast the USA not only has no equivalent of the Official Secrets Act,
but in 1966 passed the Freedom of Information Act. Access to information in
the USA is so much more open than in the UK that British journalists
sometimes find it easier to discover what their own government is doing by
reading American government documents. The UK’s equivalent of a freedom
of information act, legislated at the beginning of the 21st century is nowhere
near as far-reaching as the American equivalent, and no liberalization of the
Official Secrets Act is probable.

Oligarchy

Oligarchy is one ofAristotle’sbasic forms of government. His theory, the first
ever, ofcomparative governmentdistinguished forms of government along
two dimensions, one dealing with how many people ruled a society, and the
other with whether they acted in the public interest or in their own interest.
Oligarchy, according to this schema, is the rule of a few, in their own interests.
It contrasts on one dimension withmonarchy(literally the rule of one) and
democracy, and on the other witharistocracy, also referring to the rule of a
few, but where the few are the best of the society ruling in the public interest.
In general it connotes any level of political system ruled undemocratically, and
primarily to serve their own interests, by a small group.