The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has today confirmed it has received 13 referrals in 18 months from government requesting officers investigate the leaking of confidential government information by whistleblowers and government sources.

The revelation comes amid the ongoing debate over the retention of metadata and follows a “fact check” issued by the AFP condemning the journalists‘ union for a statement which quoted AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin confirming the federal police “had been repeatedly asked to hunt down journalists”.

Australian Federal Police described the media release by the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) as “inaccurate and a distortion of the comments made” before going on to confirm the “AFP has received 13 referrals relating to the alleged unauthorised disclosure of Commonwealth information in breach of section 70 of the Crimes Act”.

The AFP media release goes on to note that it is an offence for government officials to release Commonwealth information in contravention of their obligations to journalists and the media.

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“In the overwhelming majority of these investigations, no need was identified to conduct a metadata telecommunications inquiry on a journalist. AFP requests for accessing a journalist’s metadata are rare,” the statement noted.

MEAA CEO Paul Murphy told Mumbrella this afternoon that the AFP’s statement only further highlighted the danger of the proposed metadata laws, which would require telcos to retain information on electronic and phone communications for up to two years and give government agencies a greater ability to identify journalist’s sources.

“They say they are not going after journalists but they are going after journalism,” said Murphy. “If you are going after sources then you are going after journalism. Without whistleblowers and without the capacity of journalists to guarantee confidentiality then you are going to kill public interest journalism.”

The MEAA statement yesterday said the union cannot support the Prime Minister’s proposal for government agencies to obtain a warrant in order to access a journalist’s metadata for the purpose of identifying a source, arguing it was “an outrageous attack on press freedom and would have a chilling effect on journalism in Australia”.

Nic Christensen

The AFP statement issued this afternoon:

Fact check: Use of metadata in relation to journalists In a statement released yesterday, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) claimed that AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin confirmed the AFP had “been repeatedly asked to hunt down journalists’ sources by accessing journalists’ metadata and he confirmed that it is doing so. The Data Retention Bill will simply formalise these activities with no regard to the press freedom implications and presumably encourage at least 20 government agencies to go trawling through journalists’ metadata.” This is inaccurate and a distortion of the comments made. Commissioner Colvin said that over the past 18 months, the AFP has received 13 referrals relating to the alleged unauthorised disclosure of Commonwealth information in breach of section 70 of the Crimes Act. This offence specifically criminalises the activity of Commonwealth officials who have released Commonwealth information in contravention of their obligations, not journalists. In the overwhelming majority of these investigations, no need was identified to conduct a metadata telecommunications inquiry on a journalist. AFP requests for accessing a journalist’s metadata are rare.

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