Germany:German journalists may soon have to meet their sources in underground car parks, Watergate-style, after the exposure of a wave of electronic phone taps.
Reporters from state broadcaster NDR, Tageszeitung newspaper and the Spiegel Online website have complained that their phone conversations with sources were recorded, transcribed and put into police files without their knowledge.
The news has alarmed German media organisations, days after investigators admitted opening letters to several Berlin newspapers earlier this year.
Authorities say the intercepted letters and phone taps were all legal measures and were part of an investigation into members of Germany's left-wing scene suspected of involvement in a series of firebomb attacks between 2002 and 2006 and suspected of trying to form a terrorist organisation.
Taps placed on their phones meant the contents of all conversations, including those with journalists about matters unrelated to the police investigation, landed in police files and were forwarded to state prosecutors.
"We find it extreme that journalists' names are showing up in the files of crimes with which they have no involvement," said Nicole von Stockert, deputy spokeswoman of the German Journalists' Association (DJV).
"We are of the opinion that a journalist's research is none of the government's business."
German authorities were shaken by the revelation that the September 11th, 2001, attacks were planned in Hamburg. This has lead to a series of new antiterrorism and electronic surveillance laws. For months, the cabinet in Berlin has debated a law allowing remote online searches. Last week it agreed a law obliging telephone companies to save data such as numbers dialled and the duration of calls for six months.
"Security concerns now seem to outweigh civil liberties, including freedom of the press," said Ms von Stockert.
A spokesman for Germany's federal prosecutor's office told journalists involved that "no malice was intended".