UK media organizations have warned that if a government bill authorizing police to seize journalists' notebooks, photos and digital files is passed Monday, it could seriously endanger press freedom in the country.
Currently, requests for reporters’ notebooks and files must be
made in open court, and representatives of news organizations are
allowed to be present in the courtroom. However, if Clause 47 in
Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Letwin's deregulation bill is
passed February 3, secret hearings could authorize the seizure of
journalists’ files.
Under the bill, the police will be basically given carte blanche
to access journalists' information without their consent.
Although the rules stating whether police can have access to
material or not will remain unaltered, without media groups
present at hearings judges could be more easily persuaded to
authorize police seizures of journalistic material, The Guardian
reported.
The voice of Britain’s media, the Newspaper Society, which
represents 1,100 newspapers, 1,600 websites and other print,
digital and broadcast channels, has protested against the
controversial bill's provisions.
"Reporters are put at risk, whether reporting riot or
investigating wrongdoing, if perceived to be ready sources of
information for the police and media organizations too vulnerable
to police demands for journalistic material," the society
warned in a statement.
The Newspaper Society said it strongly opposes Clause 47 of the
Deregulation Bill because "it would take away important
statutory safeguards for journalistic material against unlawful
seizure by the police, through repeal of important provisions in
the Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act 1984. The Bill would
remove the mandatory statutory procedural safeguards in PACE
itself, which allow the media to have advance notice of police
applications for production of journalistic material by the media
and guarantee inter partes hearings."
The society has pointed out that the deregulation bill's
provisions could enable the current statutory safeguards to be
"removed completely, reduced, weakened or otherwise radically
altered at any later time, without prior consultation of the
media affected nor detailed parliamentary scrutiny of the
effect."
"We are alarmed that the removal of such important statutory
protections of freedom of expression is put forward as a
deregulatory measure," the society’s statement concluded.
However, a Cabinet Office spokesman told The Guardian that every
measure in the deregulation bill was only meant to "remove
unnecessary bureaucracy."
"Clause 47 would bring the Police and Criminal Evidence Act
into line with other legislation in this area and would allow the
criminal procedure rules committee to make procedure rules that
are consistent and fair," he said.
In November, the Metropolitan Police ordered journalists to hand
over confidential information in secret courts. The case involved
a former SAS officer accused of leaking information to a Sky News
defense correspondent. Sky News has been ordered by the secret
court to hand over emails and any other information passed
between the soldier and the journalist. The High Court ruled that
seeking production orders in closed courts was unlawful, and the
charges against the SAS man and a second soldier were later
dropped. However, London’s Metropolitan Police is seeking to
overturn the High Court’s decision so they will be allowed to use
secret courts to force journalists to hand over documents in
future, the Press Gazette reported.