[LINK] It's Queensland - (sorry to Qlders)

[Jan Whitaker]

At 03:38 PM 19/05/2011, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>He's 20, previously ZDNet and ITNews, before that a blogger. An
>autodidact in media terms - but ther *should* be a media law 101
>anywhere you have journalists.

Police return arrested journalist's iPad

  Aaron Cook
  May 20, 2011 - 9:58AM

Queensland Police have returned the iPad of a Fairfax journalist who 
was arrested on Tuesday after writing about a Facebook privacy flaw.

Following two days of negotiations between Fairfax lawyers and 
police, the iPad was returned to technology writer Ben Grubb last night.

It comes as criminal law specialists have condemned the actions of 
the Queensland Police Service after the seizure of a Herald 
journalist's iPad as evidence of a potential crime.

Grubb was arrested by police on the Gold Coast on Tuesday after he 
reported that a security researcher at a technology conference had 
downloaded a private photo from Facebook.

At the time of the arrest, Grubb's iPad was confiscated because 
police believed it contained evidence of an alleged offence.

The seizure raises questions about the safety of sensitive 
information held by journalists, such as the names and statements of 
confidential sources.

The president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, Terry 
O'Gorman, said the iPad was the equivalent of a traditional 
journalist's notebook, which would normally require a subpoena to obtain.

As a journalist holding legally privileged information, Grubb could 
have refused police access to his iPad, and under accepted protocol 
the iPad would have been sealed and lodged with the local magistrates 
court until police obtained a court order to access the device, said 
Mr O'Gorman, who is a criminal lawyer.

''There's far too many of these seizures of iPads and iPhones by 
police. People don't know they have the right to resist so the police 
continue to do it.''

A criminal defence lawyer from Brisbane, Bill Potts, said police owed 
Grubb a full apology. ''Also they need to give him and other 
journalists an assurance they did not go snooping through his iPad 
while they had it looking for confidential notes or names of his contacts.''

The general manager for news at Fairfax Digital, Darren Burden, said 
he was very concerned about the ability of police to confiscate 
tablets and smartphones, potentially compromising sources. 
''Journalists need to understand their rights about how to protect 
their new devices that are used to collate and write stories.''

Mr Burden said that as far as he knew the police did not access any 
information on the iPad.

This story was found at: 
http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/tablets/police-return-arrested-journalists-ipad-20110520-1evh7.html



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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