New concerns by journalists about snooping into their telephone records is not confined to Britain. It has become a major issue in Ireland too.
The Irish Times reports that some of the country’s largest media organisations are taking legal advice “on how they can establish whether their journalists’ telephone records have been accessed in the course of investigations by state agencies.”
The move follows “disquiet” over the accessing of two journalists’ mobile phone records during an investigation by the police force’s ombudsman into suspected leaks from police officers. The journalists’ records were accessed without their knowledge.
Independent News & Media believes one of its reporters, Conor Feehan of the Dublin Herald, had his phone accessed last year. The Sunday Times’s Irish office and RTÉ also want to know if their staff have been subject to surveillance.
Ireland’s justice minister, Frances Fitzgerald, has ordered a review into the accessing of journalists’ telephone records by the police ombudsman.
Although she initially expressed support for the ombudsman’s procedures, she changed her mind after noting the intensity of the public debate.
Another minister, Brendan Howlin, has suggested that “the stricter rules in Britain” over police access to journalists’ records “should be examined with a view to implementation in the republic.”
He said: “Each application for looking at a journalist’s telephone records would be subject to an individual analysis by an independent judge.” He also spoke of the need to maintain and protect freedom of the press, “which is a fundamental pillar of our democracy.”
The National Union of Journalists’ Irish office has expressed its concern after the revelations of the police ombudsman’s snooping.
Comment: It comes to something when our wholly inadequate safeguards in Britain to protect journalistic confidentiality are regarded as better than those in Ireland.
Worse is the fact that ours are under further threat should the draft investigatory powers bill be enacted.
As for Ireland, it is good to see at least one Irish senior politician - Howlin, a Labour party member, is minister for public expenditure and reform - prepared to argue the case for journalists.
