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(L-R) Lawyer Niall Murphy, The Detail editor Trevor Birney, journalist Barry McCaffrey,and lawyer John Finucane. Photo courtesy of Sarah Kavanagh
THE PSNI has been urged to “come clean” on whether it targeted journalists in Northern Ireland.
Human rights groups Amnesty International and the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), along with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), today said that revelations police secretly spied on The Detail editor Trevor Birney and journalist Barry McCaffrey have raised wider issues about surveillance.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which looks at complaints against the UK’s intelligence services, is investigating how three police forces, the PSNI, Durham Constabulary and Scotland Yard, sought to carry out secret surveillance against the journalists.
The surveillance included obtaining telephone records and emails in an effort to identify journalistic sources.
In 2018, the journalists were falsely arrested over their documentary, No Stone Unturned, into the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) murder of six Catholic men in Loughinisland, Co Down, in June 1994.
The first public hearing in the IPT case took place last week, although it was adjourned after it emerged the PSNI and Durham Constabulary had produced around 1,000 pages of additional intelligence material at the last minute.
Barry McCaffrey at a press conference in Belfast. Photo by Claire Simpson, The Detail
Mr McCaffrey told the press conference in Belfast today that his and Mr Birney’s case is “only the tip of a very large and a very dangerous iceberg”.
“The public rely and trust journalists to hold authority to account on their behalf,” he said.
“In no other democratic society in the world is that a crime.”
The Policing Board asked the PSNI in September for an update on whether police had conducted surveillance of journalists or lawyers over the last few years.
But seven months on, no update has been given.
The board is due to discuss the issue again on Thursday.
Amnesty and CAJ wrote to the Policing Board last month, calling for it to launch a formal inquiry into the PSNI's use of surveillance powers against journalists.
Mr McCaffrey said today an inquiry was needed “to determine the full extent of this PSNI spying operation against journalists”.
(L-R) Daniel Holder from CAJ, Patrick Corrigan from Amnesty, journalist Barry McCaffrey and Ian McGuinness from the NUJ. Photo by Claire Simpson, The Detail
Patrick Corrigan from Amnesty said the board needs to hold the PSNI fully to account.
“The board has powers to institute such an inquiry under the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000,” Mr Corrigan said.
“Failing that, we have inquired how the board plans to fulfil its role to effectively ensure PSNI human rights compliance.”
He said that the PSNI needs to be more transparent about its operations, adding that the case has the “potential to undermine public confidence in policing”.
Mr Corrigan said the force had a “very poor track record when it comes to the freedom of the press in Northern Ireland”.
“Time and again, the courts have found that it has acted unlawfully, that it has ridden roughshod over the human rights of journalists," he said.
Ian McGuinness from the NUJ said: “The PSNI now needs to come clean on whether it targeted other journalists, and if so, how it did so, and is it still doing so?"
“If it has not done so, let them come out and say so publicly," he said.
A spokeswoman for the PSNI said: “As legal proceedings are ongoing it would be inappropriate to comment.”
Amnesty, CAJ and the NUJ also appealed to journalists who think they may have been placed under surveillance to make a complaint to the IPT and to lodge a subject access request with the PSNI to find out what records police hold on them.
Under IPT rules, any complaint is likely to be rejected unless it has been made within 12 months of the suspected intrusive surveillance having taken place.
Daniel Holder, from CAJ, said journalists should consider making a complaint as soon as possible.
“If you think of the subject matter of your reporting, your sources, and the modus operandi that is clearly emerging from what has happened to Barry and Trevor, that may give rise to suspicion that you also may have been subject to surveillance,” he said.
Mr Holder said despite the time limitation the IPT “is really the only show in town… as a court, in terms of complaints for abuse of covert surveillance powers”.