Former spy guilty of disclosing secrets

Ex-MI5 agent David Shayler is found guilty of breaking the Official Secrets Act after revealing documents to a newspaper in 1997.
Full story:
news.bbc.co.uk...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the government is supposed to be "By the People, For the People", doesn't that make the Official Secrets Act illegal to start with?

I suspect and always suspected that the Schayler case was disinfo: from the little information we can get the bulk of what he is saying is that the secret services are misinformed and incompetent -which is just what secret services want people to think.
Students of media freedom will not just how effectively a "liberal democracy" can shut down the flow of information.

zif you're not British, you may never have heard of a D-notice: it's well worth a search to see how easily the press in a "free" country can be muzzled.

if you're not British, you may never have heard of a D-notice: it's well worth a search to see how easily the press in a "free" country can be muzzled.

And the fact that this "spy" has just been given 6 months (so out in 3) further persuades me that the whole thing is disinfo.