Editing ABC trial (section)

==Background==
London magazine ''Time Out'' in 1976, through the writings of the first and third defendants, published a two-page account of GCHQ called "The Eavesdroppers", this was among other evidence collected and imparted by the defendants as to how GCHQ operates from year-to-year including gathered evidence, such as photographs of radio masts, of its physical apparatus.<ref name=dc/>

By statute, the [[Attorney General]] needed to condone the prosecution for it to proceed; he did so.

The case took place from September to November 1978<ref name=aldrich>Aldrich, Richard J., "Unmasking GCHQ: the ABC Trial" in ''[[GCHQ]]: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency'', Harper Press 2010</ref> – still in an era of surveillance to counter ongoing threats due to the [[Cold War]] and from Irish and Northern Irish [[dissident republicans]]. Conviction of some form was assured as all parties could not deny a small amount of classified information had been communicated and no tenable argument of the law as to freedom of information such as on the basis of [[freedom of expression]] was raised.{{cn|date=February 2023}}

The [[Watergate]] scandal in the US, exposed by investigative journalists, showed the effectiveness of press reporting of the activities of secret government agencies. [[President Nixon]] had repeatedly claimed that the requirements of national security overrode the public's right to know, and this had been exposed by the press, Senate and Congress, to have been driven by his desire to cover up criminal activity.<ref name=dc/>