The Sound of Silence !

In this highly connected electronic world the opportunities for business crime seem boundless.  It is not uncommon for billions to mysteriously disappear from the trading accounts of nations simply because someone has discovered a means of by-passing the security checks that prevent such happenings.  Price gouging and the padding of contracts to reward " enablers " is common in many industries and some products perform well below their advertised claims because of deliberate intent.

The best defence the public have against this sort of crime is the " whistle blower ".  Usually an insignificant cog somewhere in a position to see something that is very wrong and who takes the risk of making that known to someone with the ability to create change - and very often that means someone totally extraneous to the company or industry involved.

So often today, the choice of confidante the whistle blower chooses is a journalist, and very often supplying that vital information puts the informant at risk.   By law, journalists have the right to protect the identity of their information sources and all information is jealously guarded.  Sometimes very powerful people are involved in some of these crimes and they are prepared to go to extreme lengths to avoid the disclosure that will see them face prison.

In recent times, governments and their agencies are facing the threat of terrorists and the advanced need to track their activities.  Laws have been passed to require the communications industries to retain and store the metadata arising from phone and computer communications.  Specific laws are in place to prevent the police being able to spy on journalists to learn the identity of their informants. The Federal police have come forward to confess that on one occasion they inadvertently broke that law.

They blame that omission on human error.   The fact that they self reported it makes it unlikely to result in any punitive action, but it is of some concern that the individual journalist concerned has not been notified of the breach.   Whatever work he or she may have been doing may have been compromised by putting the identity of their informant at risk and they have not had the opportunity to warn that person.

What is also making some aspects of the media nervous is the provisions that allow for judicial officers to gain a warrant to access a journalists metadata if a breaking terrorist matter makes that imperative - and that intrusion to be kept secret.

Judicial officers appointed by the Attorney-General would make that decision which would pass through the hands of " public interest advocates " - also appointed by the government.  It seems that " secrecy "  is the prerogative decision of two sets of officers who have every reason to do the governments bidding - and their decisions alone determines whether that journalists phones, computers, laptops and other devices can be accessed and their contents examined.

What will have many people wondering is what happens when the subject matter under investigation by a journalist happens to involve illegality - by the very government who instructs those people who approve secret searches ?