UK Police Abuse Of Anti-Terrorist Snooping Powers To Reveal Journalists' Sources Leads To Widespread Calls For Reform
from the and-they-want-even-more-surveillance-powers??? dept
Last month, we wrote about how the UK police used powers brought in to tackle terrorism and serious crime to snoop on a journalist's phone records in order to reveal his source. Last week, we learned that this was not a one-off: journalists at the UK's Mail on Sunday newspaper were also spied on using the same anti-terrorism law:Police used anti-terrorism powers to secretly spy on The Mail on Sunday after shamed Cabinet Minister Chris Huhne falsely accused journalists of conspiring to bring him down.These two cases have finally set the alarm bells ringing in the UK. The newspaper affected in the first case has written to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal about the incident:
Detectives sidestepped a judge’s agreement to protect the source for our stories exposing how Huhne illegally conspired to have his speeding points put on to his wife's licence. Instead they used far-reaching powers under the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) -- originally intended to safeguard national security -- to hack MoS phone records and identify the source.
They trawled through thousands of confidential numbers called by journalists from a landline at the busy newsdesk going back an entire year, covering hundreds of stories unrelated to the Huhne case.
The Sun has made an official complaint about the Metropolitan police's use of anti-terror laws to snoop on its political editor's phone calls.That's unlikely to have much effect, but a move by Keith Vaz, chair of the powerful home affairs select committee in the UK Parliament, may do:
It has written to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal to seek a public review of the Met’s use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to obtain Tom Newton Dunn's phone records.
Every police force in the UK is to be asked by a parliamentary committee to reveal how many times they have secretly snooped on journalists by obtaining their telephone and email records without their consent.Indeed, things have become so serious that even the Interception of Communications Commissioner, who oversees this area, is launching his own inquiry (pdf) - but not a public one, which is what The Sun newspaper has requested:
Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, said he wanted a detailed breakdown of police use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to force telecoms companies to hand over phone records without customers' knowledge.
Today I have written to all Chief Constables and directed them under Section 58(1) of RIPA to provide me with full details of all investigations that have used Part I Chapter 2 RIPA powers to acquire communications data to identify journalistic sources. My office will undertake a full inquiry into these matters and report our findings to the Prime Minister and publically so as to develop clarity in relation to the scope and compliance of this activity.This double-pronged attack should force the UK's top police officers to own up to what they have been doing secretly with RIPA. If it turns out that its powers have been routinely abused, the pressure for reforming the outdated RIPA will be greatly increased. Already, the Liberal Democrats, the junior partner in the UK's coalition government, have called for changes to RIPA that would protect journalists and whistleblowers from state snooping, while Keith Vaz wishes to go even further, as the Guardian reports:
Vaz said Ripa was not fit for purpose and needed "total refurbishment". He said: "It is important that the public and parliamentarians get statistics on the number of times it is being used and how it is being used without journalists having to submit freedom of information requests. All kinds of mistake are being made. Anecdotally we've heard of local authorities using it to check people's addresses when parents make applications for schools."It's rather rich that at precisely the moment we find out how the UK police have been abusing RIPA's anti-terrorism surveillance capabilities to investigate minor offenses, the head of the UK's National Crime Agency has the gall to ask for even more powers.
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Filed Under: anti-terror, journalists, ripa, snooping, surveillance, uk
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That if they don't release tons of redacted pages or the data isn't mysteriously destroyed due to an internal Katrina or something.
Still, one has to wonder if it's not too little, too late...
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freedom is the most important thing anyone can have! giving up even an iota only leads to more until the countries concerned are worse than the actual terrorists. no one wants to be affected by terrorism but to voluntarily give up or to have taken away the rights to freedom, freedom of speech and privacy is going to lead to nothing except what the democratic world has condemned for decades in countries like N.Korea, China and some of the arab countries.
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This is why everyone should fear governmental power
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Re: This is why everyone should fear governmental power
kind of disappointed only 9 comments here: THIS is HUGELY disturbing on a number of levels, *mostly* having to do with *OF COURSE* The They (tm) would *INSIST* that no, nyet, nein, non, nebber ebber would they use their UNSUPERVISED spying powers against the media to spy, influence, squelch, censor it...
nebber ebber, honest injun, cross my fingers and hope to die...
nebber...
oh, except The They (tm) have and are and shut up about it already...
THIS story is infinitely more important than any silly copymaximalist going full bull-goose looney... those are a dime a dozen, THIS is a blow to humanity...
really, one of the horrifying aspects of what was/is being done to risen et al, is that they were both tapping lawyers and story sources...
um, that is THE END for ANY hope of ANY real, honest, truth-to-power, afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted type of investigative journalism...
THE
END
.
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Re: This is why everyone should fear governmental power
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The dog ate my homework!!!
Unless every police force in the UK was officially directed to maintain exact records of all such secret surveillance actions, methinks the most common answer from most of the police forces in the UK will be:
"Umm, no idea. We didn't actually keep records."
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Re: The dog ate my homework!!!
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Re: Re: The dog ate my homework!!!
The use of RIPA to get information in the Huhne case is particularly worrying as a judge had ordered the anonymity of the source. Surely, the use of RIPA to find out this information would be Contempt of Court?
There is already precedence as there have been many cases of jury members being held in Contempt after using the Internet to find information about a case when specifically ordered not to.
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jan/23/juror-contempt-court-online-research
My point being as in the above case:
"The lord chief justice said Dallas, who was in court for the hearing, had deliberately disobeyed the trial judge's instructions not to search the internet and added: "The damage to the administration of justice is obvious.""
If an instruction by a judge not to reveal the identity of the source is not just ignored, but deliberately disobeyed, that surely must also be Contempt.
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Re: Re: The dog ate my homework!!!
But the recognition of bad acting by one group (the Press), does not necessarily prevent another group (the Police) from also acting bad.
While I've no sympathy for the currently useless Truth-Free Sensational Press, regardless of its location on earth, and agree that what they did was reprehensible and deserving of massive legal punishment, the fact that they were caught will have no deterrent effect on the police breaking - or in this case, bending - the law to try and prevent themselves from being caught.
Especially if, as I said, no specific legal demand has been officially mandated that they maintain exact records, thus allowing them to pretend incompetence due to misunderstanding.
It has become standard procedure for all official agencies, when asked to release their own incriminating records, to simply claim "the dog ate my homework". Since it is an acceptable excuse for the courts, it will continue to be used, whenever official misdeeds need to be kept hidden.
In my opinion only of course. :)
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