By coincidence, on the day that The Guardian revealed that Australian journalists’ reports on asylum seeker issues had been referred to the Australian Federal Police so their sources could be pursued, the submission by the Attorney-General’s Department on data retention has been made public.
As Crikey has reported previously, the AFP is on the record as saying it obtains the metadata of journalists and politicians in order to try to identify sources for stories deemed inconvenient or embarrassing for the government. That is why data retention is a direct threat to whistleblowers, because it will dramatically increase the chances of the AFP identifying them through the communications data of journalists or politicians.
In its submission, the AGD cavalierly dismisses this possibility, saying “legitimate whistleblowers” will be protected by the Public Interest Disclosures Act 2013, which gives them immunity from prosecution. It’s an eccentric claim on the face of it — it assumes that the AFP would decide prior to any investigation whether a leak has been “legitimate whistleblowing”; to do otherwise would lead to information about a whistleblower being obtained by the AFP even if that information was not later used.
More particularly, “legitimate whistleblowing” is extraordinarily limited — it applies only to non-intelligence agency public servants who have met a series of highly restrictive criteria relating to internal disclosure. There’s no protection for corporate whistleblowers, no protection for intelligence whistleblowers, no protection for public service whistleblowers too frightened to draw attention by raising misconduct internally. It is highly unlikely that any of the stories referred to the AFP by the government amount, under the Act, to “legitimate whistleblowing” — despite their being manifestly in the public interest.
As Crikey has repeatedly argued, data retention is a direct threat to a free press. Far from successfully addressing this concern, the Attorney-General’s Department has merely confirmed it.
Of course “Crikey has reported previously” on these ‘issues’, which provide it plenty of repetitious material at little investigative cost.
What’s NOT mentioned is that while of course “the AFP is on the record as saying it obtains the metadata of journalists and politicians in order to try to identify sources for stories deemed inconvenient or embarrassing for the government”, what may, on occasions only, relate to what embarrasses Governments, the information has other important uses which benefit Australian citizens. This may help explain why so many intelligent citizens believe Security is doing a relatively better job than its critics?.
That’s also why many accept the AGD assertion that legitimate whistleblowers will be protected by the Public Interest Disclosures Act 2013, which gives them immunity from prosecution.
Your “eccentric claim” that the AFP shouldn’t carry out investigations which might obtain information which later isn’t used beggars belief. Imagine a society in which investigations of suspected crime couldn’t be carried out in case some of the evidence gained showed there hadn’t been a crime?
Anyone for a basic Logic 101 course?
You’re right Norman, no one deserves privacy.
Norman, see – http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/fruit%20of%20the%20poisonous%20tree
THis goes very close to it.
Max, that’s as absurd an absolutist statement as those who assert privacy is an absolute. Privacy is of course a fascinating topic if one is prepared [and able?] to master the necessary disciplines.
So let me get this straight Norman. You believe that journalistic sources should be identified by the police on the off chance that they might also be criminals? You are aware, I have no doubt, that:
whistleblowers generally act in the public good;
identification of them often leads them to suffer personal and professional retribution from the people on whom they are reporting;
this threat of identification and reprisals causes fewer people to report wrong doing than otherwise would;
the people on whom they are reporting or who are embarrassed are embarrassed because that they are doing the wrong thing in secret and
there are many more threats to society’s well being that are perpetrated by those in power than those out of power.
Tell me again why the threat of terrorism is worth using tools that prevent or deter the ordinary citizen from acting in the best interests of the community.