In summer 1911, an amended version of the Official Secrets Act, first passed in 1889, was steered through Parliament. For Britain, so long a torchbearer for freedom and democracy, the revised Act constituted one of the most illiberal pieces of legislation ever placed on the statute book. ‘A legal monstrosity’, claimed the Washington Post journalist Alfred Friendly some years later, ‘a burlesque of the excellence and fairness of law and judicial procedure on which Britain prides itself’. Section 1, commonly known as the ‘spying clause’, made it a criminal offence for anyone, ‘for a purpose that could be prejudicial to the safety or the interests of the state’, to collect, communicate or publish any plan, drawing or other item of official information to an enemy. The accused had no ‘right to silence’ and a trial could be held in camera. Section 2, which was targeted at civil servants, politicians and journalists, made a felony of both the unauthorised communication and the receipt of official information. It was widely drafted, embracing all types of information without any discrimination. A part-time clerk in the Home Office who discussed with his spouse the department's shortage of toilet rolls was in violation of the Act, as was a British national who betrayed critical naval plans to the Germans. In a radical departure from English law, where generally speaking the onus of proof is on the prosecution, the Act made the accused responsible for positive proof of innocence. In short, the wording of the Act dictated that there was no need to prove that any harm had resulted from the disclosure; guilt could be inferred simply from the circumstances of a person's actions or character. Under its aegis, Section 2 was capable of generating over 2,000 offences.