The lives of dozens of British intelligence agents were today put at risk when they were publicly identified on a US-based Internet website. The agents are all officers working for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), Britain's overseas intelligence gathering arm, formerly MI6.

The service - and Whitehall's senior intelligence advisers - began an immediate top priority investigation into the disastrous leak after they became aware of the site's existence at mid-morning today.
They were taking "all legal means" to either have the crucial information removed immediately or to shut down the website.
Rear Admiral David Pulvertaft, the Defence Advisory Notice Secretary at Whitehall - who gives advice to newspapers, television and radio on matters of national security - issued a plea to editors not to publish the address of the website or its contents as "such action could put lives at risk".     (Full text)

UK Lawyer Ex-Spy Warned He'd Post MI6 Names
6.31 a.m. ET (1031 GMT) May 13, 1999
Tomlinson was sacked he tried to write a book about his MI6 career. The action led to his being jailed in Britain in 1997 under the Official Secrets Act. He was freed on probation after six months and left the country.
But in every country Tomlinson visited, there was an injunction against him speaking about his secret service activities, Wadham said. He was banned from France, refused an Australian visa and not allowed to enter the United States.
The New Zealand-born Tomlinson joined MI6 in 1991 and served in Bosnia, Russia and the Middle East. In the past he has made several spectacular allegations, including that Britain had a spy in Germany's central bank who leaked secrets over a 12-year period. A year after Princess Diana died in a 1997 Paris car crash, Tomlinson alleged British intelligence agencies were involved.
    (Full text)

Cyberspace and spies: the dark side of the Net
By ITN Online's Fergus Sheppard
As the British secret service fought to prevent names of MI6 officers circulating on the Internet, ITN Online was able to find a copy of the web pages put up by ex-MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson.
One New York-based Internet site which copied Tomlinson's pages reproduced a list of eight names of people claimed to be MI6 officers. The site also declares: "Richard Tomlinson has written us today that there was never any names or information on his site that was not public information, and that HMG is overreacting for public effect to stigmatize his efforts."
Also provided was a copy of Tomlinson's Geocities website - removed from the Internet by the US service provider. The New York site claims the original Tomlinson site was removed at on May 12, 1999, at about 11am BST. However, the directory of MI6 names said to be part of Tomlinson's original website had been apparently been removed from the original site before it was copied.     (Full text)