Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance 16 March 2015:
The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA), the union and industry advocate for Australia’s journalists, cannot support the Prime Minister’s proposal for government “agencies to obtain a warrant in order to access a journalist’s metadata for the purpose of identifying a source”.
The Prime Minister’s plan still permits an outrageous attack on press freedom and would have a chilling effect on journalism in Australia leading to whistleblowers being fearful that they risk exposure if they seek to reveal instances of wrongdoing, corruption, waste, illegal activity and dishonesty.
MEAA believes the lack of understanding of what is at stake requires the proposed Parliamentary Inquiry into press freedom concerns to go ahead in order the concerns of journalists and media organisations are heard and acknowledged by MPs.
MEAA CEO Paul Murphy said: “What needs to be understood is that no journalist, anywhere, can ever allow the identity of a confidential source to become known – that is a guiding principle of journalism the world over. It is a principle acknowledged by every Australian journalist in clause 3 of MEAA’s Journalist Code of Ethics: ‘Where confidences are accepted, respect them in all circumstances’.”
Murphy added: “Accessing metadata to hunt down journalists’ sources, regardless of the procedures used, threatens press freedom and democracy. It means important stories in the public interest can be silenced before they ever become known, and whistleblowers can be persecuted and prosecuted. It means journalists can be jailed for simply doing their job.
“The so-called ‘safeguards’ recommended by the Parliamentary Committee were no safeguards at all because they still allowed government agencies to hunt down journalists’ sources. Similarly, the Prime Minister’s proposal also allows those agencies to trawl through a journalist’s metadata in order to expose a confidential source. Putting a hurdle like a warrant in the way will not change the outcome: using a journalists’ metadata to pursue a whistleblower. Why does the Government not understand that no journalist can breach their fundamental ethical obligation to never allow the identity of a confidential source to be revealed?”
MEAA has consistently explained this principle of press freedom in every submission to Parliament on the national security laws. MEAA also repeated those concerns on Thursday last week when it was visited by representatives from the Prime Minister’s, Attorney-General’s and Communications Minister’s offices and the AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin. During that meeting, the AFP confirmed it has been repeatedly asked to hunt down journalists’ sources by accessing journalists’ metadata and he confirmed that it is doing so. The Data Retention Bill will simply formalise these activities with no regard to the press freedom implications and presumably encourage at least 20 government agencies to go trawling through journalists’ metadata.
Murphy said: “Journalists cannot allow the relationship they have with a confidential source to be breached, under any circumstance – that is their ethical responsibility. If the surveillance continues and is formally adopted in the Data Retention Bill with or without a warrant, then journalists will be forced to use the tools of counter-surveillance such as anonymisation and encryption to protect their sources. It remains our fundamental position that this Bill should not be proceed at all and that the press freedom concerns of the previous two tranches of national security laws must be addressed.”
MEAA CEO Paul Murphy said: “What needs to be understood is that no journalist, anywhere, can ever allow the identity of a confidential source to become known – that is a guiding principle of journalism the world over. It is a principle acknowledged by every Australian journalist in clause 3 of MEAA’s Journalist Code of Ethics: ‘Where confidences are accepted, respect them in all circumstances’.”
Murphy added: “Accessing metadata to hunt down journalists’ sources, regardless of the procedures used, threatens press freedom and democracy. It means important stories in the public interest can be silenced before they ever become known, and whistleblowers can be persecuted and prosecuted. It means journalists can be jailed for simply doing their job.
“The so-called ‘safeguards’ recommended by the Parliamentary Committee were no safeguards at all because they still allowed government agencies to hunt down journalists’ sources. Similarly, the Prime Minister’s proposal also allows those agencies to trawl through a journalist’s metadata in order to expose a confidential source. Putting a hurdle like a warrant in the way will not change the outcome: using a journalists’ metadata to pursue a whistleblower. Why does the Government not understand that no journalist can breach their fundamental ethical obligation to never allow the identity of a confidential source to be revealed?”
MEAA has consistently explained this principle of press freedom in every submission to Parliament on the national security laws. MEAA also repeated those concerns on Thursday last week when it was visited by representatives from the Prime Minister’s, Attorney-General’s and Communications Minister’s offices and the AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin. During that meeting, the AFP confirmed it has been repeatedly asked to hunt down journalists’ sources by accessing journalists’ metadata and he confirmed that it is doing so. The Data Retention Bill will simply formalise these activities with no regard to the press freedom implications and presumably encourage at least 20 government agencies to go trawling through journalists’ metadata.
Murphy said: “Journalists cannot allow the relationship they have with a confidential source to be breached, under any circumstance – that is their ethical responsibility. If the surveillance continues and is formally adopted in the Data Retention Bill with or without a warrant, then journalists will be forced to use the tools of counter-surveillance such as anonymisation and encryption to protect their sources. It remains our fundamental position that this Bill should not be proceed at all and that the press freedom concerns of the previous two tranches of national security laws must be addressed.”
In
an interesting twist, the Australian
Federal Police issued a media
release in which it admitted that police already request access to journalists’ metadata:
Fact check: Use of metadata in
relation to journalists
Release
Date: Tuesday, March 17 2015, 02:34 PM
In
a statement released yesterday, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
(MEAA) claimed that AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin confirmed the AFP had “been
repeatedly asked to hunt down journalists’ sources by accessing journalists’
metadata and he confirmed that it is doing so. The Data Retention Bill will
simply formalise these activities with no regard to the press freedom
implications and presumably encourage at least 20 government agencies to go
trawling through journalists’ metadata.”
This is inaccurate and a distortion of the comments made.
Commissioner Colvin said that over the past 18 months, the AFP has received 13 referrals relating to the alleged unauthorised disclosure of Commonwealth information in breach of section 70 of the Crimes Act.
This offence specifically criminalises the activity of Commonwealth officials who have released Commonwealth information in contravention of their obligations, not journalists.
In the overwhelming majority of these investigations, no need was identified to conduct a metadata telecommunications inquiry on a journalist. AFP requests for accessing a journalist’s metadata are rare. [my red bolding]
On 19 March 2015 the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 was passed by the House of Representative. Only three MPs voted against it - The Greens'Adam Bandt and Independents Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan.
This is inaccurate and a distortion of the comments made.
Commissioner Colvin said that over the past 18 months, the AFP has received 13 referrals relating to the alleged unauthorised disclosure of Commonwealth information in breach of section 70 of the Crimes Act.
This offence specifically criminalises the activity of Commonwealth officials who have released Commonwealth information in contravention of their obligations, not journalists.
In the overwhelming majority of these investigations, no need was identified to conduct a metadata telecommunications inquiry on a journalist. AFP requests for accessing a journalist’s metadata are rare. [my red bolding]
On 19 March 2015 the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 was passed by the House of Representative. Only three MPs voted against it - The Greens'Adam Bandt and Independents Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan.
Image from The Guardian 19 March 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment