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Official Secrets
In early 2003, GCHQ analyst Katharine Gun obtains a memo detailing a joint United States and British operation to spy on diplomats from several non – permanent United Nations Security Council member states (Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea), to "dig dirt" on them. This was to influence the Security Council into passing a resolution supporting an invasion of Iraq.
Angered that the UK is being led into a war on false pretences, Katharine leaks the memo to a friend involved in the anti-war movement, who passes it to anti-war activist Yvonne Ridley. She gets it to The Observer journalist Martin Bright.
The Observer foreign editor Peter Beaumont allows Martin to investigate the story. To verify the memo's authenticity, Martin enlists the help of the Observer ' s Washington correspondent Ed Vulliamy to contact the memo's author Frank Koza, Chief of Staff at the "regional targets" section of the NSA. Despite the Observer ' s pro-war stance, Peter convinces the chief editor Roger Alton that the leaked memo is worth publishing.
The leaked memo's publication in March 2003 generates public and media interest. The Drudge Report attempts to discredit the document as a fake, as staffer Nicole Mowbray had inadvertently changed the text from American to British English with a spellchecker. However, Martin is able to produce the original memo, confirming its authenticity.
Katharine's actions prompt GCHQ to launch an internal investigation. Seeking to prevent an invasion of Iraq and to protect her colleagues from suspicion, Katharine confesses to the leak. She is arrested, questioned, then released on bail.
Following the outbreak of the Iraq War, Katharine seeks the services of the Liberty lawyers Ben Emmerson and Shami Chakrabarti. The British Government decides to charge her with violating the Official Secrets Act, tasking the Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, with the prosecution.
To exert pressure, the British authorities attempt to deport her husband Yasar Gun, a Turkish Kurd. However, Katharine is able to halt the deportation with the help of her MP, Nigel Jones.
Katharine's defence strategy is that she acted from loyalty to her country, seeking to prevent it from being led into an unlawful war. With the help of Martin, Ed, and former Foreign Office deputy legal adviser Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Ben discovers that the Attorney General Peter Goldsmith changed his position on the legality of the war after meeting lawyers from the Bush Administration. Despite the odds against her, Katharine refuses to plead guilty in exchange for a reduced charge.
In court, the Crown prosecutor offers no evidence against Katharine. Ben responds that this is because doing so would have shown that the Blair government led the UK into war on false pretences.
The film then mentions the human toll of the Iraq War and that Lord Goldsmith's advice on the illegality of the Iraq War was made public in 2010. It ends with footage of the real Katharine addressing the media following the dismissal of her case, and Ben shunning Ken for putting Katharine through the ordeal "to make an example of her".