Sprawa inwigilacji dziennikarzy

Sprawa inwigilacji dziennikarzy - list HFPC do organizacji międzynarodowych - Program Spraw Precedens
wtorek, 07 grudnia 2010 11:29
Sprawa inwigilacji dziennikarzy - list HFPC do organizacji
międzynarodowych
W zawiązku z doniesieniami o inwigilacji dziennikarzy przez służby specjalne, Helsińska
Fundacja Praw Człowieka postanowiła zaapelować do międzynarodowej opinii publicznej o
poparcie działań zmierzających do wyjaśnienia sprawy i przyspieszenia koniecznych zmian w
polskim prawie. W Piśme Fundacji wysłanym do piętnastu organizacji międzynarodowych, poza
opisem relacjonowanych w polskiej prasie przypadków podsłuchiwania dziennikarzy, zawarty
został zarys aktualnego stanu prawnego, który de facto umożliwia służbom specjalnym
niekontrolowane stosowanie środków operacyjnych, w tym kontroli operacyjnej.
Helsińska Fundacja Praw Człowieka zwróciła się do Rady Europy, Organizacji ds.
Bezpieczeństwa i Współpracy w Europie, UNESCO, Artykuł 19 (Article 19, Free Word Centre),
Stowarzyszenia Europejskich Dziennikarzy (Association of European Journalists), Komitetu
Ochrony Dziennikarzy (Committee to Protect Journalists), Human Rights Watch,
Międzynarodowej Federacji Dziennikarzy (International Federation of Journalists),
Międzynarodowa Wolność Wypowiedzi eXchange (International Freedom of Expression
eXchange), Międzynarodowego PEN Klubu (International PEN), Międzynarodowego Instytutu
Prasy w Wiedniu (International Press Institute), Reporterzy bez Granic (Reporters Without
Borders), Światowego Stowarzyszenia Prasy i Wydawców (World Association of Newspapers
and Publishers), a także do Światowego Komitetu Wolności Prasy (Word Press Freedom
Committee).
Poniżej zamieszczamy fragmenty listu w języku angielskim.
[…] For several years now, public opinion in Poland has been confronted with unlawful use of
operational techniques by special services. The matter was publicized especially with respect to
surveillance of the media representatives, instances of which were revealed by two major daily
newspapers – Rzeczpospolita and Gazeta Wyborcza.
Over a year ago, in October 2009, Rzeczpospolita published an article “Journalists intercepted
by the ISA (ABW)” (Dziennikarze podsłuchiwani przez ABW). The article describes abuses of
the Warsaw Appellation Prosecutor Office and the Internal Security Agency (Agencja
Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego, hereinafter “ISA”) with respect to controlling and recording of
the phone-calls between three journalists Wojciech Sumliński (Wprost magazine), Bodgan
Rymanowski (TVN) and Cezary Gmyz (Rzeczpospolita), as well as between Sumliński and his
lawyer, Roman Giertych. […] Recorded conversations, including those between Sumliński and
his lawyer, were not destroyed as provided by the law yet, in violation of the journalists’
privilege, they were declassified and disclosed in a civil case between the deputy head of the
ISA and Rzeczpospolita. On 27 October 2010, the Regional Prosecutor Office in Poznań, who
investigated the case, decided to discontinue its investigation finding that the prosecutors
involved in the case had not exceeded their powers. […]
In August 2007, the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, Janusz
Kaczmarek testified before the Parliamentary Special Commission on Special Services.
According to his testimony, from 2005 through 2007, a number of media representatives had
been subjected to surveillance by Polish security services. Mr. Kaczmarek’s statements led to
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Sprawa inwigilacji dziennikarzy - list HFPC do organizacji międzynarodowych - Program Spraw Precedens
wtorek, 07 grudnia 2010 11:29
investigation of the alleged unlawful surveillance by the Regional Prosecutor's office in Zielona
Góra (hereinafter “the Regional Prosecutor”). The services, which were supposedly involved in
the aforementioned surveillance activities are ISA, Central Anti-corruption Bureau (Centralne
Biuro Antykorupcyjne, hereinafter “CAB”) and the Police. In May 2010, the office of the Regional
Prosecutor decided to discontinue the preparatory proceedings and stated that there was no
crime committed.
According to Gazeta Wyborcza's article of 8 October 2010, “How did the special services
surveil journalists” (Jak specsłużby śledziły dziennikarzy), the ISA and the CAB obtained
access to the billing lists, the base transceiver station logins (hereinafter “BTS”) of the phones
belonging to ten journalists from various media: […]. Wojciech Czuchnowski, author of the
article in Gazeta Wyborcza, claims that special services aimed at obtaining personal data of the
persons the journalists contacted while gathering information related to their work. As a general
rule, access to such information is governed by journalists' privilege, which protects reporters
form being compelled to reveal and divulge confidential information. Under Polish law, the
journalists' privilege may be overcome through an order of exemption given by a judge or a
prosecutor, however, not if the information gathered was provided under the caveat of
confidentiality. This rule does not apply only to certain crimes, which are explicitly enumerated
in the Polish Criminal Code (Art. 180 (2-4) Code of Criminal Procedure). These crimes are:
genocide, terrorist attack, murder, coup d'état, espionage, threat to public safety, assassination
of a head of state, piracy and taking of a hostage (Art. 240 Criminal Code). […]
Surveillance, to which the media representatives were subjected, indicates serious abuse of
the special services' powers. Due to the vague character combined with the complexity of the
current regulation, special services may conduct surveillance activities – access billing lists and
BTS logins data – de facto without any procedural precautionary measures, such as the
General Prosecutor's or court's supervision. The Law on Internal Security Agency enables use
of secret operational control for the purpose of investigating crimes within ISA’s competence,
provided that other, less interfering measures are insufficient. Operational control encloses mail
and package interception, controlling, tapping and recording phone-calls and other information
transferred through telecommunication networks. Operational control measures are put in action
at the request of the chief of the ISA confirmed by the General Prosecutor. However, in cases of
urgency, the chief of the ISA may order operational control prior to the Court’s consent (Article
27 of the Law on Internal Security Agency and Intelligence Agency, Article 17 of the Law on
Central Anti-corruption Bureau and Article 19 of the Law on Police with respect to Police).
Despite these already weak precautions, the law provides for further exceptions enabling use of
operational control without any practical supervision. The said exception pertains exactly to
obtaining data through billing lists and BTS logins (Article 180c and 180d of the
Telecommunications Law in relation to Article 28 of the Law on Internal Security Agency and
Intelligence Agency). These measures provide special services with access to information
protected by the principle of telecommunication secrecy and personal data protection such as
the contents of a conversation, location data, etc (Article 159 of the Telecommunications Law).
The incidents and related legal aspects, as described above, display clear insufficiencies in
Polish law, which prevent effective control over the surveillance activities of the Police and
special services. The latter are endowed with extensive competences in this field. Nevertheless,
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Sprawa inwigilacji dziennikarzy - list HFPC do organizacji międzynarodowych - Program Spraw Precedens
wtorek, 07 grudnia 2010 11:29
these competences were prescribed as last resort measures, to be used in order to fight crimes
such as international terrorism, organized crimes, constitutional order or state security, certainly
not to be abused for political objectives. […]
Surveillance, especially through operational control, should be the measure of last resort used
only in exceptional situations and on the basis of clear legal provisions and court authorizations.
Therefore, there is an urgent exigency for clear and specific regulations on surveillance
procedures and techniques. Otherwise, basic constitutional principles and individual rights, such
as freedom of the media, may be endangered. Joomla SEF URLs by Artio
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