RIPA: NMA Rejects Draft Codes and Calls for Legislation
The News Media Association and other media bodies have rejected the draft communications RIPA and DRIPA Codes because they “will not provide the protection necessary for journalism, journalists or their sources.”
The Home Office has now published the promised consultation on the updated acquisition and disclosure of communications data code of practice and the new retention of communications data code of practice under DRIPA and RIPA, as extended by the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill. It invites views on whether the draft Codes sufficiently protects freedom of expression.
Responding to the announcement, the NMA said: “The draft Codes will not provide the protection necessary for journalism, journalists or their sources. There are no new exemptions, no new independent tests. Codes suggesting that the RIPA authorities think before using their powers against journalists and their sources proved ineffective before and will do so again. As our recent letter to the Home Secretary set out, legislative change is necessary, including:
- Mandatory prior judicial authorisation, injecting greater independence in the evaluation of applications such as those contained within the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE);
- Far stronger conditions for applicants to satisfy before any application or grant of such powers in any cases involving journalists, journalistic activities and journalistic sources; and
- Automatic, mandatory rights of prior notification, inter parties hearings and rights of appeal for the media organisations and journalists affected.
“The whole regime should then be subjected to more transparent and effective review with proper oversight and public accountability.
“This would provide the effective reforms which the home secretary, chancellor, culture secretary and Home Affairs Committee all agree is necessary.”
The chancellor George Osborne recently told regional press political editors and publishersthat he was concerned about the use of RIPA to investigate journalistic activity. He said: “I think the inappropriate use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act as a tool used to fight against serious crime, and yet has been used to investigate journalists’ and the sources that journalists have; that it not what Parliament wanted that Act for, it’s not appropriate, and it’s something that of course if the prosecuting authorities and criminal justice system can’t address, it’s something I think that the Government will have to address.”
Last week, chair of the NMA legal, policy and regulatory affairs committee Lord Black of Brentwood wrote to the home secretary requesting changes to the primary legislation to safeguard journalistic sources, followed by a “transparent and effective” review of the regime.
In the letter, Lord Black said that “tweaks to the codes are not sufficient to deal with such a serious problem” and that “the only possibility of effective safeguard requires changes to the primary legislation.”
The Society of Editors said: “While the consultation is welcomed proposed amendments to the Code go nowhere near meeting our concerns.
“Most important, the best changes suggest is that there should be automatic reference to the Interception of Communications Commissioner if a journalist or someone in other sensitive work is subject to a RIPA investigation.
“By then the damage is done and a journalist’s sources or other sensitive material can be compromised.
“The police don’t get it and now it seems ministers are missing the point. They are more concerned with who might talk to the media than whether or not the public have a right to know what is being hidden.
“Some police forces will not even tell us how many times they have used RIPA to investigate journalists.”