The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

David Cameron Editors

Editors call on Prime Minister to end police snooping on journalists

Author

By John Glenday, Reporter

January 20, 2015 | 2 min read

Editors from across the journalistic spectrum have united behind an open letter to David Cameron calling on the prime minister to end police spying on journalists without the consent of a judge.

Amongst the dozens of signatories to the call to action are Lionel Barber, of the Financial Times, Alan Rusbridger, of The Guardian; Paul Dacre, of the Daily Mail, David Dinsmore, of The Sun and John Witherow, of The Times.

They join senior executives at Sky News and the BBC in voicing concern at the co-opting of surveillance laws to surreptitiously gather the phone records of journalists’ –fuelling concern that the identity of sources could be jeopardised.

The missive follows the latest Snowden revelations published by the Guardian which claim that government intelligence agency GCHQ intercepted and saved staff emails from the BBC, Reuters and The Sun.

A new code of conduct was introduced last year after the Metropolitan Police conceded that they had made use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA)to obtain mobile records for The Sun’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn during the so-called ‘Plebgate’ case as well as data relating to the journalist who broke the Chris Huhne’s speeding ticket dodge.

Dismissing this as inadequate however the letters signatories wrote: “The new code appears to do very little which would stop a repeat of such abuse of RIPA. The act was intended for tackling serious crime such as terrorism but it is clearly being used by police in relation to relatively minor crimes.”

A consultation on the proposed changes concludes today.

David Cameron Editors

More from David Cameron

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +