Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is hosting a Global Conference for Media Freedom in London today. Meanwhile, 400 miles away in Strasbourg UK government lawyers are fighting for the right to continue spying on the press.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism today brings a case to the highest human rights court in Europe against the UK intelligence agencies’ mass snooping on press and public and the severe impingement on media freedom that this surveillance entails.

The case is being heard in the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) at the same time as Hunt hosts an event with 1,000 media and civil society representatives from across the world aimed at fighting for the protection of journalism and journalists’ sources.

As Hunt makes his address in London, in Strasbourg the British government will defend its regime of mass surveillance of data — including journalistic communications — claiming it is a crucial part of the toolkit the intelligence services have to protect the public. Sir James Eadie, QC, who represents the government on legal issues of national importance will lead that defence.

The Bureau, alongside a number of human rights groups, brought its case against the mass surveillance programme after Edward Snowden, the former CIA operative and whistleblower, revealed how intelligence agencies, including GCHQ, were storing and monitoring a huge swathe of our data communications.

This surveillance can include most journalistic communications, including correspondence with sources and as such is an intrinsic intrusion on press freedoms. Without adequate protection from such snooping journalists are unable to communicate freely with their sources, or offer anonymity.