[geeks] [rescue] Thread drift :)

[Phil Stracchino]

Mike Meredith wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:38:08 -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:
>> First, the background data:  In the UK, there exists something called 
>> the Official Secrets Act.  It's sort of the anti-FOIA.  Secrets are 
>> secret under the Official Secrets Act.  Certain non-secrets are also 
>> secret under the Official secrets Act, including that fact, so I just 
>> violated the Official Secrets Act by telling you that.
> 
> <muffled squawk as Phil is dragged off by the black helicopters to
> spend the rest of his life in a British Government internment camp. A
> secret one :) >
> 
> It actually doesn't work quite like this (and most closely resembles
> the Espionage Act). Most of the provisions under the act have nothing
> to do with secrets, and those that do only apply to certain groups
> (crown servants and government contractors). Of course it's a lot less
> draconian than it used to be, so most of the folklore relating to the
> act applies to the pre-1989 versions.

They revised it in '89?  I know when I was last in the UK, if you 
happened to be walking past 10 Downing Street and see a gardener at work 
planting bulbs, and you asked what he was planting, he wasn't allowed to 
tell you.  The brand of biscuits the Prime Minister had with his morning 
tea was also an Official Secret.  It was pretty bloody silly.


>> Once upon a time, there was a town in Sussex whose inhabitants became 
> 
> A town in Sussex ? Now this is getting *really* unbelievable :)

Might have been Surrey ... I don't recall for certain.

-- 
   Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
   alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
          Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                  It's not the years, it's the mileage.