The UK's Police Federation has written to the Independent Police Complaints Commission about the alleged use of the UK's main surveillance law by Cleveland Police to snoop on three journalists, with the hope of using that surveillance to identify a whistleblower among its own ranks.

The Federation, which is the staff association for all police constables, sergeants, and inspectors, claims that the phone records of a serving police officer, three journalists on The Northern Echo, a solicitor, and Police Federation representatives, were all targeted using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). As The Northern Echo writes, the alleged request to obtain phone data "was in part made to track down the source of a front-page story The Northern Echo ran in 2012, when it revealed an internal report at Cleveland Police had uncovered elements of institutional racism."

What makes the case particularly noteworthy is that the surveillance law allegedly used by Cleveland Police was not used to investigate a serious crime, but to winkle out a public-spirited whistleblower revealing possible problems in the same force. Arguably, Cleveland Police should have been pursuing those causing the problems instead.

Moreover, in the course of trying to identify the whistleblower, it is alleged that Cleveland Police ignored the special nature of exchanges between journalists and their sources, and the privileged status of communications between solicitors and their clients. If the 2012 RIPA request is confirmed, this would suggest a dangerous indifference for widely-accepted surveillance norms that treat both as protected from casual snooping.

The importance of safeguarding sensitive conversations whose confidentiality is important to society is explicitly recognised in the the recently-unveiled Snooper's Charter: "The Investigatory Powers Bill will put in statute a requirement for all applications to access the communications data for the purpose of identifying or confirming the identity of a journalist’s source to be authorised by a Judicial Commissioner. The draft Bill will also require that statutory Codes of Practice issued in respect of communications data must make provision for additional safeguards that apply to sensitive professions."

Even though the current allegations relate to 2012, they are a salutary reminder that once in place, there is always a risk that intrusive surveillance powers will be abused. A particular concern is that they may be used to identify whisteblowers whose only crime is causing embarrassment to the authorities.