Now here’s a debate on a hot topic that no reporter, or student reporter, should miss: “Journalists, surveillance and the police: how can the secret state learn to live with the fourth estate?”
It’s a panel discussion due to take place on 30 March at City University London, and it looks likely to be a humdinger.
On the panel will be Sir David Omand, the former UK security and intelligence coordinator and an ex-director of GCHQ; Andy Trotter, former chief constable of British Transport Police who used to be the media lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers; Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media and co-winner of the Pulitzer prize for publishing the Snowden leaks; and Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists.
The speakers will consider the relationship between journalists who exercise their right to press freedom and the forces of the state who exercise their power to engage in mass surveillance.
It is a debate that is bound to raise any number of questions. Was the Guardian right to publish the NSA files leaked by Edward Snowden? Are the secret services right to monitor our phone calls and emails?
Why do the police think they should have a right to access journalists’ private phone information under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) without judicial authority? Is such surveillance fair and just?
Overall, just what legal protections should be in place to protect confidential journalistic sources from state surveillance?
I imagine the panel debate’s moderator, Press Gazette’s editor, Dominic Ponsford, will have his work cut out to maintain order.
It begins at 6.30pm at City University London’s Oliver Thompson lecture theatre on Monday, 30 March. It’s free to attend but you must sign up here to book a place. Miss it at your peril!
