MI5 kept schoolboy on its files

[emad]

May 11, 2005

MI5 kept schoolboy on its files
By Michael Evans
The partner of David Shayler reveals how a letter to the Communist Party brought its youthful author to the attention of the security services


Times

A BOY who wrote a letter to the British Communist Party for a school project ended up with his own MI5 file, a former Security Service officer claimed yesterday.

The boy had asked for information for his school topic, but his letter was secretly opened by MI5 in the 1970s when the Communist Party was still regarded as a hotbed of subversion, according to Annie Machon, who worked for the domestic intelligence service from 1991 to 1996.

Ms Machon is the partner of David Shayler, the former MI5 officer jailed under the Official Secrets Act for disclosing information acquired in the service.

In a book which has been passed for publication by her former employers, Ms Machon says that the schoolboy’s letter was copied, as was all correspondence to the British Communist Party at that time, “and used to create a PF (personal file), where he was identified as a ‘?communist sympathiser’ ”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1606727,00.html

[bennywhale]

1. And we're not terrified of ID cards

and citizens database why?

I have a cat. Do you think i'm on their file for animal rights extremist sympathiser.

Oh shit, i'm also a union member.

Thats it i'm escaping tonight.