Photo by Jess Hurd

23 June 2016

By Michelle Stanistreet, General Secretary of the NUJ

The Investigatory Powers Bill, which will be debated in the House of Lords on Monday 27 June, contains a range of surveillance powers available to the security services, police and other public bodies that will allow the authorities to spy on journalists, trade unionists and citizens.

The Bill is extremely complex and the powers it contains are wide-ranging yet there is not much of a public debate even though this legislation will affect everyone in the UK.

My union, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), has been campaigning to highlight concerns about the safety and confidentiality of journalistic sources and whistleblowers as well as the dangers contained in the Bill that will allow the state to spy on trade unionists. We welcomed the changes to the Bill made by the government during the debate in the House of Commons but we still believe the Bill does not offer sufficient safeguards for journalists.

The NUJ was compelled to speak out when it was revealed the police had secretly accessed the mobile phone records and the call data from the newsdesk of a national newspaper in 2014. The police bypassed existing safeguards for the protection of sources set out under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. This legislation specifies that journalists are notified when the authorities want to access their material, and ensures that journalists have the ability to defend their sources in an open court with the chance to challenge and appeal the application and decisions.

Now the British government has decided not to use these safeguards for electronic communications and use a secretive back-door route to access journalistic communications and sources. Their pathetic and unacceptable justification is that journalists are not the "owners" of their own electronic communications.

We are campaigning because of the union's long-standing ethical principles - key to which is the sacrosanct duty to protect your source. The NUJ code of conduct was first established in 1936 and it is the only ethical code for journalists written by journalists that states: "A journalist protects the identity of sources who supply information in confidence and material gathered in the course of her/his work."

We remain determined to campaign about the Bill and continue to push for improved safeguards for journalistic communications, materials, sources and activities. The media should be able to challenge and appeal investigatory powers requests and decisions - so that the public interest and press freedom arguments are put forward and considered.

The media industry in the UK is united on this issue. From the NUJ to the Society of Editors, we all remain extremely concerned by the lack of safeguards contained in the Bill. A free press is a fundamental aspect of any functioning democracy. The bedrock of a free press is the ability of journalists to do their work without the secret interference of the state.

These extremely intrusive and unnecessary surveillance powers trample over the very basic principles of press freedom and democracy. It is not too late for people to wake up to the many dangers contained in this Bill and support our calls for fundamental changes.