Spooks watching Potter
Not even Harry Potter devotees regard his adventures as a state secret. But fears that the sixth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, might have been leaked were serious enough for Britain's spy agency GCHQ to intervene.It contacted Nigel Newton of Bloomsbury Publishing in 2005, after the company had hired guards to protect the press where JK Rowling's book was being printed."GCHQ rang me up and said, 'We've detected a copy of this book on the internet'. They read a page to our editor and she said, 'No, that's a fake'."The latest instalment of the Harry Potter story is due to be released this year.There have been seven volumes in the Harry Potter series, with 450 million books sold worldwide.A GCHQ spokesman said: "We don't comment on our defence against the Dark Arts." ..
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