The use of intercepts of supposed coded message has a long pedigree in Britain in cases involving presumed enemies of the state and where sufficient evidence to convict is lacking. In Gullivers Ttravels, that most memorable skit on Great Britain and their ruling Whigs, Swift ridicules the conviction of his friend Francis Atterbury on the basis of such methods( Tribnia is an anagram for Britain and Langden for England):

I told him, that in the Kingdom of Tribnia*, by the Natives called Langden, where I had long sojourned, the Bulk of the People consisted wholly of Discoverers, Witnesses, Informers, Accusers, Prosecutors, Evidences, Swearers; together with their several subservient and subaltern Instruments; all under the Colours, the Conduct, and pay of Ministers, and their deputies. The Plots in that Kingdom are usually the Workmanship of those Persons who desire to raise their own Characters of profound Politicians; to restore new Vigor to a crazy Administration; to stifle or divert general Discontents; to fill their Coffers with Forfeitures; and raise or sink the Opinion of publick Credit, as either shall best answer their private Advantage. It is first agreed and settled among them, what suspected Persons shall be accused of a Plot: Then, effectual Care is taken to secure all their Letters and other Papers, and put the Owners in Chains. These Papers are delivered to a Set of Artists, very dextrous in finding out the mysterious Meanings of Words, Syllables and Letters. For Instance, they can decypher a Close-stool to signify a Privy-Council; a Flock of Geese, a Senate; a lame Dog, an Invader; the Plague, a standing Army; a Buzzard, a Minister; the Gout, a High Priest; a Gibbet, a Secretary of State; a Chamber pot, a Committee of Grandees; a Sieve, a Court Lady; a Broom, a Revolution; a Mouse-trap, an Employment; a bottomless Pit, the Treasury; a Sink, a C—t; a Cap and Bells, a Favourite; a broken Reed, a Court of Justice; an empty Tun, a General; a running Sore, the Administration.

When this Method fails, they have two others more effectual; which the Learned among them call Acrosticks and Anagrams. First, they can decypher all initial Letters into political Meanings. Thus, N, shall signify a Plot; B, a regiment of Horse; L,. a Fleet at Sea. Or, secondly, by transposing the Letters of the Alphabet, in any suspected Paper, they can discover the deepest Designs of a discontented Party. So for Example, if I should say in a Letter to a Friend, Our Brother Tom has just got the Piles; a Man of Skill in this Art would discover how the same Letters which compose that Sentence, may be analysed into the following words: Resist, —– a Plot is brought home —– The Tour. And this is the Anagrammatick Method.

Transatlantic airline plot: The case that “couldn’t be allowed to fail”

By Julie Hyland

WSWS

9 September 2009

Three men have finally been found guilty of the 2006 transatlantic airline terror plot, which it was claimed at the time threatened imminent mass carnage.
It has taken three years, two trials, and the largest ever counter-terrorism investigation in British history at the cost of £40 million to convict anyone for the plot, which caused panic and mayhem at airports internationally. Read the rest of this entry »