DA-Notice

A DSMA-Notice (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice) — formerly a DA-Notice (Defence Advisory Notice), and before that called a Defence Notice (D-Notice) until 1993—is an official request to news editors not to publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for reasons of national security. The system is still in use in the United Kingdom.

In the UK the original D-Notice system was introduced in 1912 and run as a voluntary system by a joint committee headed by an Assistant Secretary of the War Office and a representative of the Press Association. Any D-Notices or DA-notices are only advisory requests, and so are not legally enforceable; hence, news editors can choose not to abide by them. However, they are generally complied with by the media.

In 1971, all existing D-Notices were cancelled and replaced by standing D-Notices, which gave general guidance on what might be published and what was discouraged, and what would require further advice from the secretary of the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee (DPBAC). In 1993, the notices were renamed DA-Notices.

As of 2008^[update], there are five standing DSMA-Notices and one proposed:

According to an article in Defense Viewpoints, from 1997 to 2008 there were "30 occasions where the committee secretary has written to specific editors when a breach in the D-Notice guidelines is judged to have occurred."

In 1967, there was a political scandal in which Prime Minister Harold Wilson made a misjudged attack on the Daily Express newspaper, accusing it of breaching two D-notices which advised the press not to publish material which might damage national security. When the newspaper asserted it had been advised of no breach, an inquiry was set up under a committee of Privy Counsellors. The committee found against the government, whereupon the government refused to accept its findings on the disputed article, prompting press outrage and the resignation of the Secretary of the D-notice committee.

It has been reported that in 1971, four days following the Baker Street robbery, a D-Notice was issued, requesting that reporting be discontinued for reasons of national security. It is claimed that some security boxes contained embarrassing or nationally sensitive material. However, an investigation some years later showed that a request had never been made to the D-Notice committee. In fact, The Times newspaper was still reporting about the case over two months later.

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