Commissioner Andrew Colvin yesterday said an investigator had sought and acquired the call records without a warrant, blaming “human error” for the breach which occurred during an investigation into a leak from inside the AFP.
Two days ago the matter was referred to the Commonwealth Ombudsmen, who will launch an audit of the breach next week.
But Professor Clinton Fernandes said even if the incident was an accident, it had put journalists’ sources at risk, and called for greater transparency.
He said the changes to metadata retention laws two years ago that gave extra protections to journalists were inadequate.
“Under the current laws we’re not allowed to know how many journalist information warrants — if any — were even applied for, how many were refused, how many were approved,” he said.
“We are allowed to know that information about other things, like telecommunications interceptions and so on, but when it comes to journalist information warrants, that level of transparency is not available.
“Now, the law ought to be changed to make that happen.”
He said similar laws provided information on warrant requests by police.
“You don’t need to tell a journalist that he or she is being investigated. That just defeats the purpose of an investigation.
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