back to article UK spooks deliberately leaked 'Squidgygate' tapes

The infamous "Squidgygate" tapes of Princess Diana speaking intimately with an alleged lover were recorded by the Government Communications Headquarters and deliberately leaked over the public airwaves, her former bodyguard told an inquest panel looking into her death. The UK spy agency regularly bugged and taped Diana and …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No one has commented yet

    I think this stinks it's not the worst thing anyone ever did but it's unprofessional and wrong on a lot of levels.

  2. Steve Browne
    Black Helicopters

    Just remember

    These ARE the people who want your personal data and they want you to have an ID card to make it easier for them to trace you. If they will target a member of the Royal family, then you can rest assured that you too can be targeted by them.

    Strange how so much death follows New Labour critics.

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. tony trolle
    Alert

    carpet fitters

    I have heard this b4, is it common knowledge or do I have friends with black coats....

  5. Andy
    Black Helicopters

    For the crown!

    If Charles is to be King then he must have at least some popular support. Gone are the days when an English King can simply cut off his detractors heads and place them on traitors gate.

    As the monarchy relaxed political power (not financial power yet) they allowed their subjects to start thinking a little more freely. The beardy-weirdy crew would never have been tolerated in the old days. Nor would ASBO's be needed.

    But nowadays the crown has gone soft and the public opinion matters a great deal than it used to. The damned commoners are really quite uppity about their "rights" and hold opinions quite beyond their station.

    Unfortunately, if Charles is to be King he will need at least a modicum of public support.

    The job of the spooks is to protect the royal family and discrediting Diana in the public view is a good way to make Charles seem like the lesser of two evils. Broadcasting Diana's intimate conversations (if this really did happen) would have been an excellent way to serve the crown. And nobody has to go through the inconvenience of being decapitated and put on public display.

    Sometimes one has to make sacrifices in life. Even the royal family has to make sacrifices (during the war I believe their caviar supply was severely rationed) and they have been kind enough to sacrifice Diana's reputation in the interest of protecting the future monarch.

    The UK monarchy is like soap opera with fancy dress. They need to start chopping peoples heads off, having bastard children, and invading France again so that people will stop criticizing them.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ham radio? How quaint

    I suppose nowadays they would have put it on the internet instead.

    Still, I can't help thinking that we knew all this 20 years ago and didn't give a shit then either.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You wonder why people feel the need to invent MI5 plots...

    Guys, we don't need to invent plots by GCHQ/MI5 when every tabloid in the land is furiously monitoring the woman's only move. Given analogue phone calls were completely unencrypted, it's trivial to pay a ham to monitor them.

    Steve, care to name some of those "New Labour critics" that have met untimely ends?

  8. Alistair
    Thumb Down

    Duran duran

    Sorry but this is all tosh.

    First up, I don't believe Di couldn't operate a Yellow Pages let alone hire spooks to sweep her house for bugs.

    Second, listening in on AMPS/TACS mobiles was meat and potatoes for bored journos, hackers and hams throughout the '80s. It was very easy. Shame on the Royal household for being so wet when it comes to privacy. And thank the lord for the eventual arrival of GSM.

    Thirdly, the truth is often a lot more mundane than even the most plausible conspiracy theory. She died in a tragic accident caused by a drunk drug using Frenchman driving an armoured car too fast on wet Parisian roads at night.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Odds?

    'Given analogue phone calls were completely unencrypted, it's trivial to pay a ham to monitor them.'

    Some statistician want to work out the odds of an amateur intercepting that particular conversation?

    Consider that the bands used were not ham bands, and not on the normal coverage of vhf/uhf ham transceivers.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmm...

    I call bullshit, it just sounds too implausable. If the calls, which I seem to recall, were made from a non-encrypted analogue radio cellphone, were recorded by GCHQ/MI5 why would they give away the fact that they were monitoring calls by re-transmitting them? More likely it was the tabloid press, who have form in attempting (and sometimes succeding) to monitor royal's calls who were re-transmitting it in order to maintain plausable deniability.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    RE: Odds

    Although not a Ham band, your average Ham would have been more than capable of utilising a scanner to monitor it, and it wouldn't be too hard to be in the right area to pick up the calls, her location wasn't exactly secret, especially if you were in the pay of a tabloid.

    I'd say the odds were pretty good.

    A Ham recieving the transmission on a Ham band, repeating, and this bit not being reported is unlikely. "Dodgy Royal phone" call will sell papers, "Dodgy Royal phone call rebroadcast over public frequencies, GCHQ refuse to comment" would sell a few more....

  12. Steve Browne
    Black Helicopters

    @Rupert Fiennes

    Dr David Kelly was the person I had in mind.

    I just fail to see how a person of his scientific standing would commit suicide. Especially with the monitoring of people holding such offices. I also noticed that new labour mps started to bad mouth him publicly, but shut up fairly quickly when the scientific community leapt to Dr Kelly's defence.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1131833,00.html

    Dr Kelly's death was far too convenient for me.

  13. amanfromMars Silver badge

    An Inconvenient Truth easily remedied with Instruction.

    "Unfortunately, if Charles is to be King he will need at least a modicum of public support."

    He will actually need to be know what being a King is all about. A position assumed by a God Given Right rather than merely granted or inherited.

    That sadly presupposes that presently he is not so equipped and it is therefore a Failing in Household Intelligence and ITs Support Services and Officers, which would extend to HMGCC.

  14. Matthew
    Paris Hilton

    Hmmm - @ Alistair and RE: Odds?

    Alistair - Sure journo's could've listened in on the calls, but would they have then broadcast them on a loop? That's a pretty dumb way of trying to keep your scoop from the other red-tops.

    RE: Odds? - Sure, this was an unencrypted analogue call, but it was in the Scottish Highlands. Considering the size of the Sandringham estate and analogue coverage in those days, I bet the emissions didn't travel far outside the estate to those *densely* populated Scotish Highlands.

    Besides, 'Squidgygate' sold more papers that 'GCHQ monitoring Di' ever would've.

    Paris is the new Di!

  15. Darkside
    Linux

    He was a Bodyguard, it must be true!

    He wouldn't be the first royal minion that was making it up to get their 15 minutes of fame, or cash from the tabloids. Or just living out his fantasies.

    Please can we have a YAWN icon? I'll have the penguin, it looks bored.

  16. Murray Landale

    Sandringham- Scottish Highlands

    Don't want to be picky but I thought Sandringham was in Norfolk not the Scottish Highlands. Its only 60 acres in size and in a fairly flat part of the country and as such radio waves would disperse quite easily without any major interruptions such as hills etc to break them up.

  17. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Linux

    @He was a Bodyguard, it must be true!

    Are you engaged in a damage limitation exercise, Darkside? Surely Spooks have more constructive things to do other than messin' around in Truth and Fiction. Using IT as the Truth in Fiction Creates Facts and the Future ..... which would surely be Hugely Profitable. .... which would also be AI Colossus of an Understatement.

    I'll have the penguin too, it looks contented.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    mobile phone leak ?

    I may have missed some details in the story but from what I understand, it says nothing about Diana being on a mobile phone. Gilbey yes, at an "undisclosed location", but for all we know Di could have been using a landline.

    If so that means the tap was either on the landline in the Royal estate (hear the black helicopters coming ? That's right, you can't because they ATTACK IN SILENCE) or the intercept was made on Gilbey's end of the conversation; and I assume, since I've never heard the name, that Gilbey's role and whereabouts (and therefore, monitoring opportunities) were waaaay less publicized than Di's.

    AC because GCHQ is monitoring this topic.

  19. The March Hare
    Black Helicopters

    amanfromMars - subverted or not?

    he (it?)'s starting to write amost English & the Use Of Caps is less! - I wonder if the black helicopter men have found hi... hey! who are you? how did you get in he................

  20. andy gibson

    Saying "squidgy" 53 times in half an hour?

    That must have been one hell of a conversation worth listening to if he got "squidgy" in every 30 seconds.

  21. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Alien

    A Royal Plant or AI NeuRobotIQ or Enigmas Revisited ?

    .... or even all three?

    "hi... hey! who are you? how did you get in he................"

    Through the Portal and up the Stairs, The March Hare. There are no closed doors whenever there are Open Windows.

    And the Alien because they're Virtually Machines and Spooky2? Scarlett Pimpernel Territory for Gilt-Edged Bonds? ...... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7180565.stm

    British IntelAIgents has been busy Properly Planning and Preparing to Prevent Piss Poor Performance Permitting a Sane Disregard of Haste........ and Orderly Change in Controls is ITs Master Pilot Program.

    Now y'all know as much as anyone else and a lot more than many.

  22. TeeCee Gold badge
    Black Helicopters

    Tinfoil hat time season again.

    This makes so much sense. If GCHQ *had* intercepted this and *did* want to leak it, it's entirely credible that they would do this by deliberately rebroadcasting it repeatedly until someone had picked it up rather than just dropping a tape anonymously through the letterbox of the editor of the Sun. I mean, it's just so much safer. The anonymous tape can be so easily traced to its origin, whereas it's totally impossible to triangulate a broadcast radio signal and prove where it's coming from.

    Yeah, right.

    This 'ere Occam's razor says he's a lying little twat.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    @andy gibson

    yeah that number looks a bit suspect to me too. Random tabloid statistic maybe? Or a sinister plot by MI5 to make Di look like some kinky squishy thing?

    AC of course ;-)

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    @Rupert - New Labour Critics..

    Dr David Kelly springs instantly to mind.

    Mind you, so does Saddam Hussien.

  25. amanfromMars Silver badge

    In the Absence of Truth does Fantasy play ITs Tricks .... both Dark and False Light

    Or an even more sinister plot to make MI5 look like some kinky squishy thing?

    It could even be spun to be a father's son sacrificing himself for a failed cause in capturing a Royal princess of Christian persuasion...... although that would be too cruel and heartless to bear in Reality.

    In this day and age, is there any such thing as anonymity? Is such invisibilty possible?

  26. heystoopid
    Black Helicopters

    The old story

    The oldest story in the book , for how do you discredit a noted person of international repute like Princess Diana who had been a very active campaigner against the manufacture and distribution of cluster bombs and all assorted land mines which just happen to be the mainstay of your military forces and a major subsidised export to third world countries as well !

    As it was it was just like water off a ducks back , as she was just way too popular to be brought down with any smear campaign by then and as usual her fans usually turned the flamethrowers back in the direction of the purveyors of dirt ninety nine times out of one hundred as it backfired big time !

    In the case of Princess Diana the vast majority of her fans will always retain an image of a fairy tale of a sweet innocent woman caught up in a marriage that was never to be to a husband that was a cad and no amount of doctored dirt from any source will ever tarnish that view for her legend is larger then life !

    As for the secret services with everyone fighting tooth and nail for the limited government funds in those days before they came up with the brilliant idea of the fake self created war on terror to turn all people in unquestioning sheep to mask huge government shipments of illicit drugs from places like Myanmar or Afghanistan they would have bared their bums and dropped their draws in high street if necessary for some money , for to those wowsers in the SS the ends justify the means and the means always justify the evil ends!

  27. Barry Mahon
    Stop

    Remember when....

    "Second, listening in on AMPS/TACS mobiles was meat and potatoes for bored journos, hackers and hams throughout the '80s. It was very easy. Shame on the Royal household for being so wet when it comes to privacy. And thank the lord for the eventual arrival of GSM"

    ...and other comments...

    Finally, somebody actually looked at the time it is supposed to have happened and the technology. There were loads of wanabees at that time and there still are, who eavesdropped, so that they could earn money or just have their 15 mins....

    It is obvious that the ex-spook bodyguard has scores to settle....

    Bye, Barry

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