The secret court that silenced The News Agents...until now
The News Agents
Global
4.2 • 4.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2025
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For nearly two years the government has taken The News Agents and other journalists to a secret court to prevent us from reporting a story of huge public interest.
In August 2023 Lewis was told of a massive data breach at the Ministry of Defence - a dataset including the names and contact details of 18000 applicants to the ARAP programme, the scheme for Afghans who had helped the British armed forces in the 20 year war in the country.
These people were already at risk of reprisal from the Taliban and now their details were out there, provided courtesy, in effect, of the British government. Including family members, nearly 100,000 people were affected. This led to a constitutionally unprecedented super-injunction, where the government forbade us from reporting the story, under threat of prison.
We can now finally tell you the full extraordinary story as to what has happened - The News Agents were the only media organisation there every step of the way, in a case of huge importance to our politics, to the thousands of Afghans affected - and potentially to the way our democracy works in the years to come.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.0 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:15.3 | Nearly two years ago, in August 2023, I got a phone call from a source in Whitehall. |
| 0:23.6 | This source told me that something very bad had happened, and it was gripping the inner workings |
| 0:28.6 | of government. I was told that there had been a catastrophic data breach at the heart of the |
| 0:34.6 | Ministry of Defence. I was told that a data set containing the names and details of all those who had applied |
| 0:41.3 | to the ARAP program, a scheme designed to provide asylum to those people who had assisted the |
| 0:47.3 | British Army in Afghanistan, interpreters, local officials, military assistance and so on, |
| 0:52.3 | had found its way into the hands of someone who ought not to have it. |
| 0:57.0 | It sounded like the numbers ran into the thousands. |
| 1:02.2 | I knew this was a big story. |
| 1:04.6 | Remember the context. |
| 1:05.8 | Only two years before, Britain and the United States |
| 1:09.2 | had been forced into a humiliating withdrawal from a two-decade |
| 1:13.1 | operation in Afghanistan. We have breaking news just into us. After nearly two decades at war, |
| 1:19.4 | sources say U.S. President Joe Biden will announce a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. |
| 1:24.8 | Amid the chaos, our governments had been accused of leaving behind |
| 1:29.1 | thousands of people who had helped us, had helped our soldiers, and to whom we owed the most |
| 1:35.2 | profound debt, people who could now be at the mercy of Taliban reprisal. And now, one way or another, |
| 1:43.6 | our government had allowed the names and contact |
| 1:46.4 | details of at least some of those people into the public domain. It was one of those stories |
| 1:52.9 | you couldn't just run with. Even though I knew it was a huge scoop, I needed to talk to the |
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