ABC trial

R v Aubrey, Berry and Campbell, better known as the ABC Trial, was a trial conducted in the United Kingdom in the 1970s, of three men for offences under the Official Secrets Act 1911. The men were two libertarian journalists of a similar political viewpoint as much of the Labour government, and a resigned GCHQ source seeking to heighten scrutiny of government-authorised wire-tapping and limit the work of the American espionage agency, the CIA, in Britain. These aims were furthered in the following two decades through detailed parliamentary scrutiny into and regular reports as to the work of security services, a Freedom of Information Act and regulation of wire-tapping. Aside from limited reportage from the Central Criminal Court, early analysis of the case comes in the account of one of its investigative-journalist defendants, Duncan Campbell, in the annual journal Socialist Register.