Investigative journalists express concerns over continued targeting of reporters in the UK following unlawful surveillance findings
Belfast: Two journalists, Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey, are speaking out after a tribunal found they were unlawfully spied on by police. They believe that this kind of targeting is still happening to reporters across the UK.
The tribunal’s ruling revealed that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Metropolitan Police had conducted covert surveillance on them. This all started back in 2018 when they were wrongfully arrested for making a documentary about police collusion in a tragic incident during the Troubles.
On the day of their arrest, the tribunal found that there was already an unlawful surveillance order in place against them. It turns out McCaffrey had also been spied on by the Met in previous years. But they weren’t alone; other journalists, including those from the BBC, had their phone records accessed too.
Birney expressed his belief that there’s a widespread operation to track down journalists’ sources, not just in Northern Ireland but throughout Britain. He pointed out that many journalists likely face similar scrutiny when reporting on stories that don’t favor the police.
He also mentioned that the PSNI, being a smaller force, likely relied on the expertise of larger security services like MI5 and Scotland Yard. The tribunal didn’t make any decisions regarding MI5 or GCHQ, which leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
After the tribunal, the BBC tried to find out if some of its journalists were under surveillance, but their request was complicated by closed sessions. The PSNI admitted to accessing the communications data of hundreds of journalists and lawyers over the years, often without any covert powers.
David Davis, a veteran MP, is now reaching out to police chiefs to gather similar data from other forces. While the PSNI claimed to have paused these practices during the tribunal, McCaffrey worries that they might have resumed right after the judgment.
He suspects that the PSNI might be using the Met to bypass accountability, which raises serious concerns about long-term strategies among police forces. Despite their victory at the tribunal, Birney and McCaffrey are skeptical about the system’s commitment to protecting journalists.
They only discovered last year that the tribunal had been holding secret sessions with the police and security services without their knowledge. Birney described it as peeking through a letterbox into a dark house, knowing there’s much more to uncover.
The Met stated that it follows the latest guidelines for lawful surveillance, while MI5 chose not to comment on the situation.