The admission that PSNI covert surveillance operations targeting journalists, including one later ruled unlawful, were withheld from the UK’s surveillance watchdog is “deeply concerning”, Amnesty International has said.

Responding to the revelations, Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland Director, said:

“This is a shocking attempt to cover up unlawful surveillance on journalists in Northern Ireland. The PSNI not only authorised covert surveillance designed to identify journalists’ confidential sources, in flagrant violation of press freedom, but then withheld details of those operations from the very watchdog charged with holding them to account.

“Unfortunately, the PSNI has shown itself to be a repeat lawbreaker when it comes to covert surveillance of journalists. Not only did the police break the law in their attempts to identify journalists’ sources, but it also breached its legal duty by hiding those activities from the oversight body. These revelations strike at the heart of public trust in policing and oversight in Northern Ireland.

“The Chief Constable has repeatedly offered IPCO oversight as a reassurance to the Policing Board and the wider public that the PSNI has been acting lawfully. Those assurances now appear worthless, given PSNI’s failure to disclose and IPCO’s failure to identify unlawful surveillance through so-called ‘dip sampling’.

“Neither IPCO, the journalists affected, nor the wider public would know anything about these covert surveillance activities were it not for the successful Investigatory Powers Tribunal case taken by journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey. That shows the official oversight mechanism for police surveillance is simply not working, when a police force engaged in unlawful activity can pull the wool over the eyes of the statutory body meant to keep them in check. That is deeply concerning.

“This has implications not just in Northern Ireland but throughout the UK. There must now be an overhaul of the mechanisms designed to provide oversight of police surveillance activities across the UK.”

For Amnesty’s previous response to the landmark ruling against the PSNI and Met Police, see: Amnesty press release.

ENDS