Peter Greste, Macquarie University professor at the School of Journalism, told the NSW Council of Civil Liberties’ Annual General Meeting on October 22 that new laws on “secrecy” have had a chilling effect on journalists’ sources and that new public interest laws to protect sources are needed.
Greste, a former journalist, delivered an address on national security versus democratic rights. He worked for a number of big news outlets including . He was accused of “advocating terrorist ideology” because he and two colleagues from Al Jazeera had spoken to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. They were arrested and sentenced to seven years’ jail in 2013 for “falsifing news”. Greste spent 400 days in jail.
A military coup had toppled the Muslim Brotherhood six months earlier and mass demonstrations in Cairo were demanding that democracy be restored.
Greste told the meeting that, after 9/11, there have been “massive suppression orders” on media freedoms and civil liberties in Australia. One hundred separate laws on “terrorism” have been introduced, and that they have “unprecedented reach”.
He said a new restrictive push started after the Australian Federal Police (AFP)’s raid on the ABC in June 2019The AFP were demanding the finger prints of journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark. They had reported on the conduct of the Special Air Service Regiment in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2013, two years before.
Greste said the AFP was going after the journalists’ sources and it was not a question of “national security”.
“This is part of a global trend on security legislation. It places severe restrictions on freedom of speech. The police can detain people for up to a week without charge and carry out searches of private property, without a warrant.”
He said such powers only used to be used during times of war. But now they are “laws in perpetuity”.
How does this affect press freedom? The allows the government to investigate metadata for two years — with no warrant needed. Metadata provides details of your communications.
Greste said his search of those applying to access metadata, over a 12-month period, showed 350,000 applications by 80 government agencies. “A local councillor used the metadata to find out who owned a dog that did a crap on the footpath,” Greste said.
Greste said there is a need for “more robust reporting of applications for meta data” because “at the moment there is complete opacity” as “all sorts of organisations”, from local councils and the TAB, are using it without any requirement for a warrant.
“It has a serious chilling effect on investigative journalism, as journalists need to protect their sources.”
He said military whistleblower David McBride is the only person to land in jail over Australian troops’ misconduct in Afghanistan “not those men who carried out the war crimes”.
He said the Liberal-National Coalition and Labor have the same approach to “national security” issues and that only the Greens and the Independent Senators are willing to ask questions.
“There is some secrecy needed for government operations but we need to have robust press freedom to push back and protect civil liberties.”
Greste reflected on what he described as a “creeping culture of silence” which “stops people from talking to journalists”. He said so-called secrecy laws are having a “chilling effect on sources”, affecting journalists trying to do their job.
He called for more whistleblower protections to be placed in public interest laws, saying they need to consider human rights as well as freedom of information.