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No cat and mouse game with Singapore's secrets
Shanmugam: Recipients of leaks, those publishing them will all be punished
By Jeremy Au Yong
IF SINGAPORE had its own version of the WikiLeaks disclosures, it would not be just the direct culprits taken to task; recipients of the information and anyone else involved in its publication would also be in the soup.
Laying out the Government's position on information leaks, Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam noted that the Official Secrets Act allows prosecution of everyone with a role in the leak, not just the public officers responsible for it.
He said: 'The Government has consistently taken this approach, and has on occasion charged private citizens for their roles in leakage of government data.'
To do otherwise, he said, would make government information that is confidential 'the object of a cat and mouse game'.
He was answering a question from Mr Zaqy Mohamad (Hong Kah GRC) on Singapore's information security policies in the light of whistleblower website WikiLeaks running thousands of United States diplomatic cables leaked to it by an American soldier.
In the wake of the leaks, the so-called Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination (Shield) Bill was introduced in both houses of Congress last month to tighten control over official information.
Critics of the Bill argue that it should apply only to government employees; media outlets and others should still be free to publish the information leaked.
Mr Shanmugam used opponents of the Shield Bill to illustrate his point.
He said: 'If recipients of official information who are not themselves public servants cannot be prosecuted or prevented from publishing it, it would create an unacceptable situation where people outside government would have every incentive to obtain confidential information from public servants in every way possible.
'And public servants would constantly be weighing the benefits to themselves of releasing the confidential information, against the likelihood of getting caught and punished. Meanwhile, the broader public interest will suffer.'
Mr Shanmugam, who is also Law Minister, also spelt out the procedures already in place in the Singapore Government to keep confidential information under wraps.
'Every officer undergoes security clearance before being employed by the public service. He is also informed that access to classified information is granted on a need-to-know basis. He is required to comply with the secrecy requirements spelt out in the government instruction manuals and to sign the undertaking to safeguard official information under the Official Secrets Act,' he said.
Some countries had allowed their secrecy rules to be weakened in the belief that this was in the interest of freedom of information, but Singapore did not subscribe to such a belief, he said.
'We do not intend to encourage cat and mouse games. Public interest in free flow of information cannot justify the abuse of confidential government information,' he said.
In fact, he argued that it would be impossible to conduct diplomacy or bilateral negotiations if what was said or written in the process ran the risk of being made public.
'Officials will no longer commit their true thoughts and reasons in writing for fear of leaks. The end result, ironically, will be less transparency and less accountability,' he said.
[email protected]
No cat and mouse game with Singapore's secrets
Shanmugam: Recipients of leaks, those publishing them will all be punished
By Jeremy Au Yong
IF SINGAPORE had its own version of the WikiLeaks disclosures, it would not be just the direct culprits taken to task; recipients of the information and anyone else involved in its publication would also be in the soup.
Laying out the Government's position on information leaks, Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam noted that the Official Secrets Act allows prosecution of everyone with a role in the leak, not just the public officers responsible for it.
He said: 'The Government has consistently taken this approach, and has on occasion charged private citizens for their roles in leakage of government data.'
To do otherwise, he said, would make government information that is confidential 'the object of a cat and mouse game'.
He was answering a question from Mr Zaqy Mohamad (Hong Kah GRC) on Singapore's information security policies in the light of whistleblower website WikiLeaks running thousands of United States diplomatic cables leaked to it by an American soldier.
In the wake of the leaks, the so-called Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination (Shield) Bill was introduced in both houses of Congress last month to tighten control over official information.
Critics of the Bill argue that it should apply only to government employees; media outlets and others should still be free to publish the information leaked.
Mr Shanmugam used opponents of the Shield Bill to illustrate his point.
He said: 'If recipients of official information who are not themselves public servants cannot be prosecuted or prevented from publishing it, it would create an unacceptable situation where people outside government would have every incentive to obtain confidential information from public servants in every way possible.
'And public servants would constantly be weighing the benefits to themselves of releasing the confidential information, against the likelihood of getting caught and punished. Meanwhile, the broader public interest will suffer.'
Mr Shanmugam, who is also Law Minister, also spelt out the procedures already in place in the Singapore Government to keep confidential information under wraps.
'Every officer undergoes security clearance before being employed by the public service. He is also informed that access to classified information is granted on a need-to-know basis. He is required to comply with the secrecy requirements spelt out in the government instruction manuals and to sign the undertaking to safeguard official information under the Official Secrets Act,' he said.
Some countries had allowed their secrecy rules to be weakened in the belief that this was in the interest of freedom of information, but Singapore did not subscribe to such a belief, he said.
'We do not intend to encourage cat and mouse games. Public interest in free flow of information cannot justify the abuse of confidential government information,' he said.
In fact, he argued that it would be impossible to conduct diplomacy or bilateral negotiations if what was said or written in the process ran the risk of being made public.
'Officials will no longer commit their true thoughts and reasons in writing for fear of leaks. The end result, ironically, will be less transparency and less accountability,' he said.
[email protected]
