Here's the relevant part of the first link:

8 Safeguarding of information.

(1)Where a Crown servant or government contractor, by virtue of his position as such, has in his possession or under his control any document or other article which it would be an offence under any of the foregoing provisions of this Act for him to disclose without lawful authority he is guilty of an offence if—

(a)being a Crown servant, he retains the document or article contrary to his official duty; or

(b)being a government contractor, he fails to comply with an official direction for the return or disposal of the document or article,

or if he fails to take such care to prevent the unauthorised disclosure of the document or article as a person in his position may reasonably be expected to take.

(2)It is a defence for a Crown servant charged with an offence under subsection (1)(a) above to prove that at the time of the alleged offence he believed that he was acting in accordance with his official duty and had no reasonable cause to believe otherwise.

(3)In subsections (1) and (2) above references to a Crown servant include any person, not being a Crown servant or government contractor, in whose case a notification for the purposes of section 1(1) above is in force.

(4)Where a person has in his possession or under his control any document or other article which it would be an offence under section 5 above for him to disclose without lawful authority, he is guilty of an offence if—

(a)he fails to comply with an official direction for its return or disposal; or

(b)where he obtained it from a Crown servant or government contractor on terms requiring it to be held in confidence or in circumstances in which that servant or contractor could reasonably expect that it would be so held, he fails to take such care to prevent its unauthorised disclosure as a person in his position may reasonably be expected to take.

TL;DR: if you have sensitive information (and you know it is sensitive, and have not been given it by someone with access who expects you to keep it secret) and do not return or destroy it as you are asked you are committing a criminal offence.

I expect the storm of downvotes to arrive any time now.

Don't bring rational thought to this thread rcxdude.

Great TL;DR by the way.

> TL;DR: if you have sensitive information (and you know it is sensitive, and have not been given it by someone with access who expects you to keep it secret) and do not return or destroy it as you are asked you are committing a criminal offence.

If that is the case then Zen Pro is inviting everyone to google for something they will not find. That's not enhancing the credibility of his claims.

On the other hand there is evidence he is something of a Walter Mitty.

Oh the irony.

ZenPro must be lying because he referenced publicly available legislation and discussed the rationale behind destroying Guardian magnetic media. No one involved in the Intelligence Community would do such thing.

Thank God Edward Snowden leaked all those documents.

If you have evidence of me being a Walter Mitty by all means publish it. :-) I would love to see the evidence that mitigates my entire career, genuinely.

Go ahead. For each evidence you publish I will upload 1 x Annual Report and a link to 1 x professional publication in my own name and links to the intelligence reports I wrote which were later published on Wikileaks during the Afghanistan disclosures.

Go.

On a different tangent, I would be interested in hearing your personal views on having your own (classified) words put out into public - how did you feel when you found out? Worried about being taken out of context? Proud that despite the leaks there was demonstration of professionalism / reasonableness out there? Pissed off? None of the above?

Apart from people like Edward Snowden of course. They signed no such agreements obviously.

However, to demonstrate the breadth of your naiveté in your little witch hunt - here is the first line of that document you linked to.

ensure they are appropriately protected; support Public Sector business and the effective exploitation of information; and meet the requirements of relevant legislation and international / bilateral agreements and obligations. It applies to all information that government collects, stores, processes, generates or shares to deliver services and conduct business, including information received from or exchanged with external partners.

This is nothing to do with the Official Secrets Act. We disseminate these documents freely and at industry conferences to ensure List X companies are in compliance and also because the Intelligence Services have a vested interest in ensuring our economic and commercial IT infrastructure is robust. So struck out on the Official Secrets Act claim. Let us see how you do in reviewing policy...

You will find on Page 15 the extant legislation that I referred to in my original post above. So far so credible. It is almost like the intelligence operators were obeying that law or something...

...oh wait, the very next page.

This document should be read in conjunction with the detailed standards and guidance set out in the HMG Security Policy Framework (SPF).

Pretty sure I said that in my original post.

And then the gem of gems - Page 18. Destroy / sanitise to prevent retrieval and reconstitution followed by Guidance about the management and handling of security incidents is available in the SPF documents 'Security Breach Management' and 'Leaks Procedural Guidance' Relevant ICO guidance should also be consulted.

You are 0 for 2 there. Thanks for playing though. That's what happens when you attempt to position yourself as someone qualified to question a process you have neither been trained or educated in.

You will also find above this comment 4 other HN posters who confirm that US and Australian security procedures are the same and another poster confirming that the procedures are the same for civilian IT engineers working in commercially sensitive environments.

Are we all lying?

I think you've misunderstood. There's no witch hunt from this end. You seem to be interpreting questions as personal attacks and lashing out. Others are responding to that appropriately.

I know which paragraph of which publication you're referring to but it's protectively marked and as such neither of us will be posting it on here. That's where the Official Secrets Act comes in to it.

But you know full well it exists and you know full well I am right. Those lads had no option when they walked into the Guardian. It is also on Wikileaks.

That was the original argument before the sub-threads and vote gaming started.