MPs to investigate police use of Ripa powers to snoop on journalists

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/05/mps-police-ripa-powers-snoop-journalists

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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.

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.

His intervention comes after it emerged that police investigating the former MP Chris Huhne’s speeding fraud secretly obtained a Mail on Sunday reporter’s phone records without his consent, despite laws protecting journalistic confidential sources.

The newspaper said it had learned that officers from Kent police used laws designed for anti-terrorism to identify a source they had failed to secure through a court application.

In a strong leader article, it said the revelation demonstrated that the law was giving “officials frightening and near-totalitarian powers”. It said police were using these secret powers to “wrongfully” seize the phone records of thousands of innocent people.

It is the second time in a month that revelations have emerged of the police secretly ordering phone companies to hand over journalists’ phone bills, fuelling fears that media organisations will not be able to protect sources, particularly police whistleblowers.

In September it emerged accidentally that the Metropolitan police had obtained the Sun’s newsdesk telephone records and those of its political editor, Tom Newton Dunn, to try to identify who had leaked it the Plebgate story about the former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell’s altercation with police at the gates of Downing Street.

Kent police used Ripa laws after the Crown Prosecution Service applied for disclosure of material from the Mail on Sunday in an effort to identify the source who was the basis of stories about the Huhne affair.

The CPS also wanted disclosure of material they believed had been provided by Constance Briscoe, a barrister and part-time judge who was jailed in May for trying to pervert the course of justice as part of the investigation into Huhne.

The application was made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), which enshrines the principle of journalistic privilege and allows journalists and their employers to make representations to the court to protect their sources. On this occasion the judge ruled that the Mail on Sunday did have to disclose material but with names of sources redacted.

Some of Briscoe’s emails in relation to the speeding fraud referred to her having a police source, and Mr Justice Sweeney subsequently ordered that a police force should investigate whether she had compromised the investigation into Huhne’s speeding ticket.

Unknown to the Mail on Sunday, Kent police secretly went to their journalist’s mobile phone provider and ordered the release of records. They did not use Pace, which requires the police to go to court, but Ripa to get the records.

Ripa can be used with approval from an officer of superintendent level or above, and does not require the police to disclose their intentions to snoop on journalists.

“They trawled through thousands of confidential records 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 Mail on Sunday said.

The paper said the source of its story was identified by police to be a freelance journalist in Cornwall, Andrew Alderson, and details of telephone calls and emails between him and its news editor David Dillon were passed to Huhne’s defence lawyers.

Police files included an entry which read: “Landline attributed to David Dillon for the period 14/11/2011 to 13/11/2012. Checked for contact with all numbers … ”

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.

“I will be writing to them, each of the police forces, to ask how many times they’ve used Ripa powers and where. I’d like it broken down by profession.” He said the use of it against journalists struck “a serious blow against press freedom”.

Vaz said he would suggest to the select committee that they call on the interception of communication commissioner to answer questions on the use of Ripa and its justification.

Kent police believe the use of Ripa rather than Pace, which protects journalists, was justifiable. A spokesman told the Mail on Sunday: “These applications were proportionate, lawful, necessary and were relevant lines of inquiry for the investigation and the faces were made available to the court and defence.”

Gavin Millar QC, who acted for Mail on Sunday publisher Associated Newspapers, and who is supporting an application to the European court of human rights to investigate British laws that allow GCHQ and police to secretly snoop on journalists, said he was alarmed by the police interventions in both the Huhne and Plebgate cases.

“This is a speeding points case. Plebgate is a case about a low-level officer leaking some information not for payment but with whistleblower intentions. The crimes being investigating in both these cases are not serious, they are not terrorism and they are not organised crime. There is no justification for using Ripa. It gives an insight into how freely they use this, but how can we have a debate about it unless they are transparent about it.”

He said journalists now kept so much source material electronically that it was a “win win” for police to use Ripa to get access. “They are getting the information without having to do the work and in secret, taking a shortcut without having to go before a judge and justify it and give journalists an opportunity to defend confidentiality of their sources,” said Millar.

Media lawyers and press freedom campaigners, including Liberty and the National Union of Journalists, expressed deep concern about the police’s use of Ripa last month when it was revealed they had snooped on the Sun and Newton Dunn.

Scotland Yard refused to reveal to the Guardian and other media organisations how many times it had used Ripa to force phone companies to have over journalists’ phone records.

The Guardian is now awaiting a response from the Met to a freedom of information request for information in relation to its investigation into the Sun.