Guardian Article Says Media Gag Order Originated Over Desire to Maintain UK-US Relations

In an article this week, Richard Norton-Taylor and Michael White of the Guardian say that “[s]enior MPs, Whitehall officials and lawyers were agreed yesterday that Lord Goldsmith had “read the riot act” to the media” over the Daily Mirror’s leak of information in a 2004 memo that detailed President Bush’s floating of a plan to bomb al-Jazeera headquarters in Qatar. Goldsmith threatened to invoke the Official Secrets Act against Britain’s newspapers, which apparently has never been done before. Faced with the possibility of a High Court injunction, the Mirror decided not to publish any more information from the memo. Read more here. Meanwhile, a representative of al-Jazeera has requested a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss the contents of the memo. Read more here.