Journalism organisations are uniting to condemn the police’s attempt to obtain the name of sources that leaked phone hacking stories to the Guardian.

Scotland Yard applied for a production order last week against the newspaper “in order to seek evidence of offences connected to potential breaches relating to misconduct in public office and the Official Secrets Act”.

However, it will have to prove that the move is in the public interest, a decision that lies with attorney general Dominic Greeve, who is coming under increasing pressure to uphold the principle of protecting confidential sources.

“This is an outrageous abuse of power seeking to turn journalists into unwilling informers of the police,” said Arne König, president of the Federation of European Journalists (EFJ), echoing sentiments from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the UK’s National Union of Journalists.

“It is little wonder it has been resoundingly rejected as a measure more likely to find favour in police states’ regimes and we support efforts to defeat it.”

The Guardian has claimed that the Metropolitan police failed to consult the attorney general or the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmar, before invoking section five of the Official Secrets Act 1989.

The newspaper called the shock gambit “an unprecedented legal attack on journalists’ sources” and its editor, Alan Rusbridger said it would “resist this extraordinary demand to the utmost”.

Amelia Hill and Nick Davies broke the story in July that revealed the hacking of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone, sparking revulsion among the public and bringing the scandal to nationwide attention for the first time.

It also put the police’s relationship with Rupert Murdoch’s News International – the owners of the crisis-hit and now closed News of the World – under renewed scrutiny. The Guardian – and Davies in particular – has consistently accused the police of failing to investigate phone hacking properly despite having seized a huge cache of evidence several years ago from the home of the private investigator that carried out the illegal practice.

(Sources: NUJ, Press Gazette, The Guardian)

Photo taken by Flickr user wblj, licenced under Creative Commons.

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