Stirring stuff from the Times, Telegraph and Mail today in the campaign against the grim RIPA - aka the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
This legislation was introduced to give public bodies a new weapon against terrorists, but the police have since discovered that it's a rather nice tool to use against journalists.
"This is not good enough," said the Telegraph. "This is not democracy," thundered the Times (describing the outrage as Snoopergate.) "These are the tactics of the Stasi," shouted the Mail.
Their concern was focused on the fact that police have been using the law to trace journalists' sources. They might have mentioned that RIPA's provisions are equally iniquitous for lawyers, doctors, priests and their clients, patients and parishioners.
The papers largely skirted round the fact that RIPA has been in place for 15 years and has already been tweaked to stop councils using it to spy on people who don't put out their dustbins in the right way or on the right day. Our eagle-eyed Press has noticed only recently how it has been used by the police against its own industry - largely thanks to a campaign orchestrated by Press Gazette and some good reporting by Alex Spence in the Times.
To listen to Alan Rusbridger addressing the Royal United Services Institute this week, you might think that the authorities were about to be given new powers rather than see existing ones adjusted:
"The Home Office wants the police to feel free to authorise themselves to access the phone and email records of journalists," he said. “That’s not something to sneak in a few paragraphs of an obscure Home Office consultation document."
This isn't a law being snuck in. It's already there. What is new is that the Home Office has been conducting a six-week consultation on proposed changes to the way the law works. Changes that will not offer the sort of protection journalists - or priests, doctors or lawyers - would want.
So the most baffling aspect of today's dawn chorus of disapproval is why the leader writers started singing just after the consultation period ended at 11.45 last night.
Would it not have been more effective to have given voice to their concerns earlier so that readers might also be in a position to pick up the refrain?
SubScribe: RIPA and the protection of sources
This legislation was introduced to give public bodies a new weapon against terrorists, but the police have since discovered that it's a rather nice tool to use against journalists.
"This is not good enough," said the Telegraph. "This is not democracy," thundered the Times (describing the outrage as Snoopergate.) "These are the tactics of the Stasi," shouted the Mail.
Their concern was focused on the fact that police have been using the law to trace journalists' sources. They might have mentioned that RIPA's provisions are equally iniquitous for lawyers, doctors, priests and their clients, patients and parishioners.
The papers largely skirted round the fact that RIPA has been in place for 15 years and has already been tweaked to stop councils using it to spy on people who don't put out their dustbins in the right way or on the right day. Our eagle-eyed Press has noticed only recently how it has been used by the police against its own industry - largely thanks to a campaign orchestrated by Press Gazette and some good reporting by Alex Spence in the Times.
To listen to Alan Rusbridger addressing the Royal United Services Institute this week, you might think that the authorities were about to be given new powers rather than see existing ones adjusted:
"The Home Office wants the police to feel free to authorise themselves to access the phone and email records of journalists," he said. “That’s not something to sneak in a few paragraphs of an obscure Home Office consultation document."
This isn't a law being snuck in. It's already there. What is new is that the Home Office has been conducting a six-week consultation on proposed changes to the way the law works. Changes that will not offer the sort of protection journalists - or priests, doctors or lawyers - would want.
So the most baffling aspect of today's dawn chorus of disapproval is why the leader writers started singing just after the consultation period ended at 11.45 last night.
Would it not have been more effective to have given voice to their concerns earlier so that readers might also be in a position to pick up the refrain?
SubScribe: RIPA and the protection of sources
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