Who Is Katharine Gun? the True Story, Trial, and Life of the Gchq Whistleblower
By Chloe Bennett
Katharine Gun joined GCHQ in 2001 after completing Japanese and Chinese studies at Durham University. She spent her days translating intercepted Mandarin communications. She was not a political agitator. She was a professional linguist who had signed the Official Secrets Act in good faith.
Everything changed with the arrival of an email authored by Frank Koza, the chief of staff at the NSA's regional targets division. Koza requested British assistance in an intelligence surge against the swing nations of the UN Security Council. Washington and London were desperate for a second UN resolution authorizing military intervention in Iraq. The six non-permanent members, Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea, and Pakistan, refused to buckle under overt political pressure. The Koza memo authorized wiretaps, intercepted personal communications, and electronic eavesdropping to uncover leverage, personal secrets, or commercial vulnerabilities that could swing their votes.
Gun read the directive with rising nausea. The memo proved that prime minister Tony Blair’s government and George W. Bush’s administration were willing to violate international conventions to engineer a legal justification for war. She folded the sheet, carried it out of the facility, and handed it to an anti-war activist contact, hoping publicity would stop the war machinery before the first missiles fell.
Chloe Bennett explores the intersection of pop culture, streaming entertainment, digital trends, and contemporary lifestyle. Her weekly commentary reaches thousands of culture enthusiasts.
