Official title: Security Service propaganda initiatives
What this chapter covers
Chapter 15 examines propaganda initiatives run by the Security Service in the 1980s. These were aimed at undermining republican paramilitaries, but some came to include material about Pat Finucane.
Key findings
- The executive summary records that the initiatives came to include Finucane and were brought to an end after the Service recognised it was on "dangerous ground".
- No political clearance had been sought for them.
- De Silva found the propaganda breached basic principles of the justice system.
- He found that Finucane was one target of the initiatives rather than their focus, and that he had no evidence that material about Finucane was actually circulated.
Criticism
Some commentators have argued that linking a named lawyer to the IRA in loyalist areas was inherently dangerous whatever the intention, and that the report's conclusions were too limited. The chapter itself sets out the documents and the Service's explanations.