World Press Freedom Day 2012
The last year has seen tumultuous shifts for media freedom. But core problems still remain in the world’s troublespots, says Padraig Reidy
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Doubt cast over part two of Leveson Inquiry
A statement released by the Leveson Inquiry late last night has raised doubts as to whether the second part of the Inquiry into press standards will go ahead, due to concerns over value and costs.
In the statement, Lord Justice Leveson expressed concern over the “enormous cost (both to the public purse and the participants)” and voiced his fear that the Inquiry may “trawl over material then more years out of date”.
While not ruling out the possibility of a second part, Lord Justice Leveson said: “It is likely that the process of pre-trial disclosure and trial will be lengthy so that Part 2 of this Inquiry will be delayed for very many months if not longer.”
He added:
In those circumstances, it seems to me that it is in everyone’s interests that Part 1 goes as far as it possibly can. If the transparent way in which the Inquiry has been conducted, the Report and the response by government and the press (along with a new acceptable regulatory regime) addresses the public concern, at the conclusion of any trial or trials, consideration can be given by everyone to the value to be gained from a further inquiry into Part 2.
Part Two of the Inquiry, intended to commence after any possible criminal trials would have been completed, would examine the extent of unlawful or improper conduct at News International and other media organisations.
Part One, which is currently underway, is looking at the culture, practices, and ethics of the press and will make recommendations based on the findings this autumn.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
Whether it’s porn or piracy, ISPs should not be forced to police the internet
Why did the Today Programme invite Claire Perry MP to debate website blocking this morning? Aside from giving Perry an impression of authority on the internet that she does not command — the peg for the discussion was the high court ruling that ISPs block the music file-sharing site Pirate Bay. Perry is leading a campaign to make internet service providers (ISPs) responsible for access to pornography online. While both issues concern ISPs’ role as gatekeepers, conflating pornography (legal) with copyright infringement (illegal) dangerously muddies the argument – a point that the Internet Service Provider Association’s Nicholas Lansman attempted to make before being defeated by John Humphrys’ bluster.
Despite the government making it clear that it is not interested in introducing default filtering for pornographic websites in a response to Index on Censorship and other civil liberties groups in January, Claire Perry remains insistent that this is what is required. Her scaremongering report (“the whole history of human sexual perversion is only a few clicks away”) calls for network level “opt-in” to force ISPs to provide customers with a “clean internet feed as standard”. In other words, Perry would like the internet to be censored for everyone; in order to access “adult content”, customers would have to choose to receive it.
The first problem with this is – who decides what is adult content? The classification of pornography is a subjective issue: one man’s work of art is another man’s history of sexual perversion. All filtering systems will censor some aspects of culture as pornography. The researcher Seth Finkelstein was the first to decrypt blacklists of pornographic material back in 1995 and found that feminism, gay rights and sex education were all swept up by puritanical filters. It is not possible to filter pornography without interfering with our right to freedom of expression and our access to information.
The second problem is – that Perry and her supporters are calling for the censorship of legal material. This would set a dangerous precedent for censoring any material that we might personally find distasteful or offensive.
And the third problem is an issue that faces the high court as much as any parent who would like the responsibility for monitoring their children’s access to content taken out of their hands. If, as Perry’s report claims, children are now more “tech savvy” than their parents and know how to circumvent device filters, then they will find their way past network filters too.
The blunt tool of high court injunctions and crude filters can only offer limited protection – whether for copyright holders or anxious parents – at the high price of our access to information .
Jo Glanville is editor of Index on Censorship magazine
DPP tells of police "pushback" on hacking investigation
The Director of Public Prosecutions has said there was a “degree of pushback” from former Metropolitan police assistant commissioner John Yates against his suggestion of investigating the infamous “for Neville” News of the World email further.
Appearing for a second time at the Leveson Inquiry, Keir Starmer QC said Yates had told him during a 20 July 2009 meeting that the email, which contained phone hacking transcripts that suggested the practice went beyond one reporter at the News of the World, was not new material, had been seen by counsel and would “go nowhere”.
“I had been told in July 2009 in confident terms by Yates that all of this had been looked at, there was nothing new,” Starmer told the Inquiry, noting that Yates had told him he “needn’t concern” himself with the issue.
“[But] I became increasingly concerned about confidence with which those answers had been given to me,” he added.
Starmer said that out of an “abundance of caution” he sought further advice from David Perry QC, the counsel who had led the 2006 prosecution of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire and former News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman for intercepting voicemails.
By the time of the February 2009 Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee report that said the police had been wrong not to investigate the “for Neville” email further, Starmer said he felt he had “exhausted the exercise with Perry” and was unsure what else as DPP he could do.
Goodman and Mulcaire were jailed in 2007 for listening to voicemail messages left on the phones of members of the royal household. Goodman was sentenced to four months and Mulcaire six months.
Earlier today Perry gave evidence via video link from Northern Ireland, taking the Inquiry through the details of the 2006 prosecution. He told the Inquiry he was “concerned to discover” the extent of the activity, raising the issue at an August 2006 conference with police officers and the Crown Prosecution Service following the arrest of Goodman and Mulcaire.
“I have a clear recollection of asking whether there was any evidence implicating any other individual employed by News International in the criminality and being informed by the police (I cannot recall which officer) that there was not,” Perry said in his written evidence.
The Inquiry will resume on 23 April, when evidence will be heard from media proprietors and owners.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson