The First Interception Provision: Section 4 of the Official Secrets Act 1920

Abstract

ABSTRACT Section 4 of the Official Secrets Act 1920 contained the first explicit statutory power to intercept communications. This article surveys the process leading up to its enactment against the background of the law of interception as it existed prior to World War I. Before then interception had taken place on the basis of a series of exceptions to a general prohibition on interception of postal and later telegraphic communications, as well as via the landing licences granted to private operators. These dual legal strategies were usually predicated upon the existence of an ‘emergency’, with the war fulfilling that requirement. As the war came to end a new legal basis was sought for that interception which did not take place through the Post Office. This article details the process by which the need for power was identified and the power drafted, challenging accounts which portray it as a sudden response to events elsewhere.