The Age newspaper raided in hacking probe
- by: Nick Leys
- From: The Australian
- December 16, 2011 12:00AM
Detectives from the Victoria Police e-crime squad executed a search warrant on The Age all day yesterday, seizing computers and documents. Last night the newspaper took out the injunction against Victoria Police in the Supreme Court, blocking the removal of computer equipment.
In the raid, six detectives held lengthy discussions with editor-in-chief Paul Ramadge, Fairfax lawyers and a number of IT staff. Computer hard-drives and hard copy files used by investigative reporters Royce Millar and Nick McKenzie were examined, and it is understood police seized some material from the equipment.
The injunction will be challenged by Victoria Police in the Supreme Court today. Despite assurances they are co-operating with police, The Australian understands two of the journalists are yet to respond to written requests for information from a Victorian electoral act parliamentary committee.
The detectives arrived at Fairfax's Media House headquarters and were met by Mr Ramadge. The investigation relates to allegations the journalists broke the law when they accessed an ALP database of electoral information before last year's state election.
The Australian last month revealed Victoria Police's intention to interview the journalists, Mr Ramadge and senior editor Mark Baker. It was also revealed they would be asked to appear before a parliamentary inquiry to explain themselves.
Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood yesterday vigorously defended the journalists at the centre of the criminal investigation, arguing they had broken no law and had conducted themselves ethically.
In a statement, Mr Ramadge said the police were receiving full co-operation, and the newspaper stood by its reporters. He said he believed they had acted in the public interest when they revealed the details of the database.
Detective Sergeant John Manly said outside The Age: "We appreciate your interest in this investigation but because it is an ongoing investigation I cannot say anything more at this point in time."
Mr Hywood said the journalists were "ethical professionals, and I am completely confident that they investigated and reported this story in an entirely proper way. It would be extremely disappointing if quality journalism, the public interest in the story and the integrity of what we stand for, including protecting our sources at all costs, suffers because powerful individuals didn't like what we revealed."
Mr Ramadge said they had "grave concerns over the risk that our sources for the report may be identified". "We protect our sources at all costs. It is a code that cuts to the heart of everything we do as journalists. It is about trust. It is about ethics. If the sources for this report are identified through the police searches, even inadvertently, it will be a dark day for journalism," Mr Ramadge said.
"The reporters who wrote the story published on November 23 last year acted entirely appropriately. They were approached by someone with legitimate concerns about the content of the database. That source provided authorised access to the database.
"This was a story with significant public interest - a powerful, highly influential organisation (the ALP) collecting private information on voters without their knowledge and giving campaign workers, including, it seems, volunteers, access to it." Mr Ramadge claims that The Age discovered, via a whistleblower, that the ALP was collecting and storing personal information about members of the public, unbeknown to those individuals, "and we reported, carefully and precisely, what those files contained without breaching any person's privacy". "The files included personal health and financial information the sensitivity of which we respected."
In November last year The Age revealed the ALP was holding the personal details of tens of thousands of Victorians in a database that was being accessed by campaign workers.
As research, it conducted searches of prominent Victorians, including former police commissioner Simon Overland, barrister Peter Faris QC and radio presenters Neil Mitchell and Jon Faine.
Last month, a Victoria Police spokesman said: "An investigation is under way and if those individuals have not been spoken to yet, then they will be spoken to as part of this investigation."
It is understood the warrants executed seek access to the computers and notes of a number of Age journalists, including Millar. Police are also seeking the telephone records of several reporters over the four days leading up to the publication of the story last year.
It is understood police are seeking to identify which reporters accessed the ALP database from their computer terminals. Police also want to try to identify the person who allegedly provided any reporter with the password to access the database.
The vice-president of Liberty Victoria, Anne O'Rourke, said journalists should not break the law. "Hacking is a criminal offence - whether it's in the public interest or not it is illegal," she said.