It is suspicious that the UK Met Office sign the Official Secrets Act (Debunked)

[David Fraser]

Within many of the UK forums there have been questions raised over why the staff at the UKs Met Office are subject to the Official Secrets Act, also why there are notices at the Met offices ground near Exeter. An example of this is by Look Up

Further we established that the sign referring to the Official Secrets Act was complete and utter nonsense. The Official Secrets Act is, generally speaking, designed to protect information made privy to members of organisations, so as to prevent them from being able to release that information. In layman’s terms that means they don’t want US to know what THEY know, because it will tell US what THEY are up to… which is, more often than not, something that is bad for US and being done by THEM. But we digress again. The sign has obviously been placed there to try and mislead people, member of the public, into believing they might be contravening the Official Secrets Act.

Content from External Source

http://www.look-up.org.uk/the-met-office/

The perception is that there is something suspicious behind the fact the Met Office and the Officail Secrets Act are linked. Firstly if one looks at the history of the Met Office it was a department of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) until 2011 and at that time as employees of the MOD they would have signed a declaration recognising their obligations under the Official Secrets Act, MOD Form 134.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/96825/response/239918/attach/3/396 MoD Form 134.pdf

However the Met Office since 2011 has been part of the Department for Buisness and Innovation Skills and is, and has been, a partly commercial entity yet there is a form to sign. Some find this unusual until you look at the relevant law. There have been a couple of versions of The Official Secrets Act (OSA) but the latest is OSA 1989, the full act available here; http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/6/contents

For ease of access I will use Wiki which states the act is applicable to the following:

The offences under sections 1(3), 2(1), 3(1) and 4(1) can be committed only by persons who are or have been, and the offence under section 8(1) can be committed only by persons who are, crown servants or government contractors.

Content from External Source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Secrets_Act_1989

So the act clearly states that all crown (civil) servants are subject to the Offical Secrets Act under certain conditions. However Section 5 of the act makes provision for its extension to the general public.

Section 5 - Information resulting from unauthorised disclosures or entrusted in confidence[edit]
This section relates to further disclosure of information, documents or other articles protected from disclosure by the preceding sections of the Act. It allows, for example, the prosecution of newspapers or journalists who publish secret information leaked to them by a crown servant in contravention of section 3. This section applies to everyone.

Content from External Source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Secrets_Act_1989

But why do employees of the Met Office sign a declaration. As mentioned earlier all Civil Servants are subject to the the OSA. The signing of the declaration makes no difference as they are still obligated under the law. The form just reminds them of their obligations

This form draws your attention to your obligations which continue after termination of Crown service and are lifelong

Content from External Source

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/96825/response/239918/attach/3/396 MoD Form 134.pdf


So is it suspicious? Purely anecdotal as I have not worked in all government departments but I have signed a document on a number of occasion, the Minstry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now DEFRA been the last). Many departments make you sign especially if there is commercially sensitive information. However as I mentioned earlier the OSA binds all Civil Servants and the public irrespective of signing the document or not. A example is here taken from Estyn (Her Majesty's Inspectorate for Education and Training for Wales)

29 Mis-use of confidential information, breach of the duties of confidentiality owed to
Estyn and to the Crown, and dissemination of inaccurate or misleading information
may lead to prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, further criminal proceedings
and/or disciplinary proceedings under Estyn’s Discipline Policy.

Content from External Source

So at the end of the day, there s nothing unusal here.

 

[BombDr]

What they also fail to understand is that signing the Official Secrets Act does not absolve you of being convicted of a crime. So, if someone was to spray unknown chemicals, for an unknown reason, but these chemicals are known to be harmful, then the Official Secrets Act will not save them from prosecution.

Seeing as no police investigation into chemtrails has even been initiated (to my knowledge) it should indeed be an indicator to the CTs of how serious a problem it is.

 

[David Fraser]

What they also fail to understand is that signing the Official Secrets Act does not absolve you of being convicted of a crime. So, if someone was to spray unknown chemicals, for an unknown reason, but these chemicals are known to be harmful, then the Official Secrets Act will not save them from prosecution.

Seeing as no police investigation into chemtrails has even been initiated (to my knowledge) it should indeed be an indicator to the CTs of how serious a problem it is.

In the UK at least a civil service whistleblower would be covered somewhat by the Public Interest Disclosure Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Disclosure_Act_1998 . While mainly aimed at employment protection it does open the door for a whistleblower.

 

[WeedWhacker]

I would say that (yet again) we see an insular group (in this example, seemingly focused solely on the UK and nearby European environs) who seem completely unaware that there are other claims of "chem"trails in many other locations around the globe.

IOW, the UK's "Official Secrets Act" certainly has no jurisdiction in the USA....nor Canada, New Zealand, Australia (etc, etc).