A political row has broken out in Scotland over the use by police of covert monitoring in order to discover a journalist’s confidential sources.
According to the Sunday Herald, Police Scotland’s counter corruption unit (CCU) snooped on the reporter without obtaining judicial approval. That practice was banned in March 2015 following controversy over officers using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to access journalists’ phone records, texts and emails.
The body that oversees the use of Ripa powers, the Interception of Communications Commissioner Office (IOCCO), revealed in a report last month that it was investigating two forces guilty of “serious contraventions” of its code of conduct.
Although IOCCO has refused to identify the two forces, maintaining that it would be “wholly inappropriate” to do so, Police Scotland has been separately identified as one of them.
Both Police Scotland and the Scottish government, led by Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP, have refused to confirm whether or not the report relates to the force.
But, following the Sunday Herald’s revelation, opposition parties have called on Sturgeon’s administration to address what the Herald calls illegal spying.
Labour party justice spokeswoman Elaine Murray said: “We need to know urgently what Nicola Sturgeon knows about these allegations and what she is going to do about them. As first minister the buck stops with her.”
She said the allegations were “deeply unsettling”. Journalists should be free to hold public bodies to account “without the state monitoring their private communications with sources.”
Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie has written to Scotland’s justice secretary, Michael Matheson, demanding that he reveal whether or not Police Scotland is one of the forces at fault.
“Transparency is vital,” he wrote, adding: “A free press is vital to holding the powerful to account. Use of these powers without proper judicial approval is wholly unacceptable.”
The Herald quotes a Police Scotland spokesman as saying: “IOCCO has clearly set out its rationale for not identifying organisations in its report, and therefore it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
And a Scottish government spokeswoman said the matter is a reserved issue for the UK parliament.
Sources: The Herald/Sunday Herald/IOCCO
