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Terrorism laws should not be used to sidestep press freedom, says NUJ
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The seizure of a Newsnight reporter's laptop using special powers under the counter-terrorism laws has been condemned by the NUJ. The BBC and journalist Secunder Kermani, who has reported extensively on UK-born jihadis, were targeted in an order police obtained from a judge under the Terrorism Act following Newsnight reports in which an individual identified as a member of Islamic State had featured.
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: “Yet again we have a situation where the police are riding roughshod over press freedom and using anti-terror legislation to get their hands on journalistic information. There are serious questions to be answered about why the order obtained by the police warranted the seizing of a journalists' laptop - which may well have contained confidential information on other sources and other stories too.
“Using journalists as tools of the police in this way has a chilling effect on press freedom and hampers the ability of journalists to protect their sources and do their jobs properly and with integrity. Police and state interference is making the lives of journalists incredibly difficult and potentially jeopardies their safety in the process. Whether it's the routine use of surveillance by police on journalists, the legal cases brought against journalists accused of corrupting public officials or the targeting of journalists covering public order situations - it all creates a climate where trusting in journalists or being a whistleblower is incredibly difficult.
“How can any potential source, someone who believes that they have information that absolutely should be in the public domain, have any faith that their identity and their future can be safe in any one journalist or newspaper’s hands? We lose the ability to protect our sources at our peril. Terrorism laws should not be used as convenient cloaks to sidestep measures that protect press freedom and the ability of journalists to inform the public and to hold power to account."
Meanwhile Newsnight editor Ian Katz has also spoken of his concern over the seizure of a BBC journalist's laptop by police acting under the Terrorism Act. Katz said police use of the act to access information shared between journalists and sources could cause problems when reporting about Islamic State (IS).
“While we would not seek to obstruct any police investigation, we are concerned that the use of the Terrorism Act to obtain communication between journalists and sources will make it very difficult for reporters to cover this issue of critical public interest," Mr Katz said.
According to the BBC News web site at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34666281 Mr Kermani, who has previously worked for BBC London, Channel 4 News and the Islam Channel, joined Newsnight last year. During his work for the current affairs programme he interviewed a number of people claiming to be connected to IS, including Jake Bilardi, an 18-year-old Australian whose photo with IS fighters appeared online last December.
DATELINE: 29 October, 2015
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