Reports that the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (Gsoc) has been monitoring journalists' phone contacts without their knowledge in the course of up to eight separate investigations of alleged garda malfeasance is alarming. Gsoc's power to do so was conferred on it last year – via the Garda Síochána (Amendment) Act 2015 – in a bid to increase the effectiveness of the ombudsman's office in dealing, among other things, with unauthorised leaks to the media by gardaí. And the act extended to the chairman of Gsoc the right of the Garda commissioner to authorise interceptions in cases of "serious" criminal offences.
That the use of such powers by Gsoc has apparently in the interim become routine is deeply worrying. Journalists depend on confidential sources, sometimes gardaí, for a wide range of stories, from what may be described as merely titillating, sometimes salacious, gossip of no “public interest”, to important exposes of wrongdoing. To do so, and maintain a flow of such information, they have to be able to assure sources that they will be protected. Indeed, this paper was forced to go to the European Court of Human Rights only a couple of years ago precisely to defend its well-established European Convention right, also acknowledged by our own Supreme Court, to protect sources.
Unfortunately, undermining the ability of journalists to protect those who provide tittle-tattle will also inevitably undermine our ability to offer protection to those crucial to exposing serious wrongdoing. The revelation of the extent of routine Gsoc monitoring of journalists’ phones will have a dangerously chilling effect on journalism and the ability of the media to exercise its democratic duty as a watchdog on those in power.
The bar is set too low. Did legislators really intend the class of “serious” offences qualifying for possible monitoring or interception approval to include all leaks by gardaí to the media? At the very least Gsoc should be required to show cause to a senior judge as to why it requires a particular authorisation. Not a particularly onerous burden.