UK editors seek reform of police access to journalists’ records
Last updated: January 20, 2015 12:01 am
UK editors seek reform of police access to journalists’
records
By Henry Mance
Editors of all the UK’s national newspapers have written
to David Cameron calling for surveillance laws to be reformed to stop police
accessing journalists’ phone records without a judge’s authorisation.
In the letter to the prime minister, representatives of
nearly 100 news organisations said new draft legislation was “wholly
inadequate” to protect public interest journalism.
“Public sector whistleblowers will not come forward to
journalists in future if law enforcement agencies have the power to view
journalists’ phone records at will,” the letter said.
The editors’ intervention comes after revelations that
police accessed the phone records of The Sun’s political editor, Tom Newton
Dunn, who had been reporting on officers’ involvement in the “Plebgate” affair,
which led to the resignation of Andrew Mitchell as government chief whip .
Mr Newton Dunn refused to disclose his confidential
source but the Metropolitan Police requested data from his network provider
Vodafone without his knowledge, and thereby identified his contacts. The
request was authorised by a police officer, rather than a judge, using a little
known provision in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
A government consultation on how Ripa should be used ends
on Tuesday. A new code would require a higher threshold in some cases where law
enforcement officials wish to access the records of those handling confidential
information, such as doctors, lawyers and journalists.
But the trade associations for solicitors, barristers,
social workers and journalists want parliament to go further — and introduce
specific privilege for certain professions.
“We have seen a growing number of instances where data
and surveillance powers have been seriously and repeatedly overused,” the Law
Society, the Bar Council, the British Association of Social Workers and the
National Union of Journalists said in a joint statement. It is the first time
that the groups have formed a policy alliance.
The confrontation is the latest battle over internet and
telecommunications privacy following the revelations of US whistleblower Edward
Snowden.
On Monday, The Guardian published new information leaked
by Mr Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, saying that
GCHQ, the UK communications monitoring agency, intercepted emails between
journalists and their editors at news organisations including the BBC and Le
Monde.
The interceptions were part of a 2008 training exercise,
and were not necessarily intentional, The Guardian said.
GCHQ said it did not comment on surveillance methods but
had acted within the law.
After this month’s terrorist attacks in France, Mr
Cameron and Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, have called for increased
surveillance powers. That has been opposed by Nick Clegg, the deputy prime
minister and Liberal Democrat leader.
In the debate over Ripa, Mr Clegg has argued that the
police should only have access to journalists’ communications with the “the
say-so of a judge”.
The editors’ letter was signed by senior figures from The
Guardian and Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, who have been at loggerheads over phone
hacking, press regulation and Snowden’s revelations. Lionel Barber, the editor
of the Financial Times, is also a signatory.
“Giving police the ability to secretly view the phone
records of law-abiding journalists is not compatible with an open democratic
society,” said Dominic Ponsford, editor of Press Gazette, an industry
publication that has organised the campaign.
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