Would a new Tory government defy the wishes of the Murdochs and press ahead with introducing custodial sentences for convictions under the Data Protection Act?
       In early 2008, when the Labour government was about to enact a new Criminal Justice and Immigration bill, they were heavily leaned on by newspaper bosses, principally News International, to strike out Clause 77, which made persons found guilty of offences under the 1998 DPA liable to a term of imprisonment. The papers claimed that this would unreasonably restrain their journalists (despite the important provision of a public interest defence for bona fide investigative journalists).
       Mr Brown, whom the Sun newspaper still purported to support at the time, caved in quickly and the clause, while not entirely removed from the bill, was relegated to the status of a mere order-making power, which simply gives the Justice Secretary the power ask Parliament (and other interested parties) at some later date if they wanted it activated.
Since the Sun declared last September for the other side (for all the help that may be), Mr Brown’s Justice Department announced the following month that it was launching a consultation paper with a view to reporting its conclusions on January 31st, and, if positive, putting the new DPA custodial penalties in place in April – this month. The results of the consultation have not been published and there is no sign that this important deterrent to data theft, especially by tabloid journalists seeking private details of celebrities’ lives, will ever be put on the statute book. In any case, in a month’s time there may be a Conservative Justice Secretary in place.
How easy would it be for him to pick up where Jack Straw left off and ignore the wishes of the Conservatives’ friends in Fleet Street?
The Shadow Justice Secretary since January 2009 has been Dominic Grieve. His relationship with News International is unclear. A rumour surfaced in the Observer last year that News International boss, Rebekah Brooks told her old chum and the Tories’ Director of Communications, Andy Coulson that they wouldn’t support the Tories unless Grieve was replaced as Home Secretary. “There is little doubt that the Sun’s support will give Murdoch leverage over a Conservative government, and that power is already being used,” the Observer added. This is a fuzzy story, since Grieve left the Shadow Home Office job in January ’09 when he became Shadow Justice Secretary, and Rebekah Brooks wasn’t elevated to her job as CEO of News International until September ’09 – unless, of course, Rebekah and the Tories had been pow-wowing for over 9 months before the deal was done.
However, there is clearly some lack of harmony between NI and the potential new Justice Secretary. In response to my enquiry as to whether, if he is the New Justice Secretary after May 6^th, he would continue the consultation process over Clause 77 or abandon it, he said: “We agree with the Information Commissioner that custodial penalties should be available for deliberate or reckless misuse of personal data. The law provides the possibility of a defence for responsible journalism undertaken in the public interest and the Information Commissioner has advised that this defence should be made available.”
It looks as though under a new Tory government, there is at least one piece of the News International agenda that won’t be adhered to, if Grieve is given the Justice Department – in spite of the Murdoch’s wishes.

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At last, it’s been announced that the Justice Minister, Michael Wills, will activate a clause originally passed by Parliament in last year’s Criminal Justice and Immigration Act. Shamefully, it was then effectively neutered by three press heavies leaning hard on Gordon Brown to have it removed.
One of them was Les Hinton, former CEO of News International, who displayed such strong symptoms of convenient, chronic News International Amnesia when interviewed over a satellite link by the Commons Culture, Media, Sport Committee last month – like the senior management of the News of the World, who had already sat in front of the committee outrageously claiming they couldn’t remember/didn’t know how much and on what terms they’d paid off miscreant reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire. Even Stuart Kuttner, wily old managing editor and architect of many of the distasteful journalistic scams that the paper has pulled off, didn’t know who would know – which was a bit of a surprise. [And former Screws editor Andy Coulson couldn't remember publishing a verbatim transcript of a message left on Prince Harry's private voicemail by Prince William and illegally accessed by two of his staff who went to prison for it. He'd have gone too, if he'd admitted being party to it. But he said he wasn't - at least, he couldn't remember anything about it..... not.]
Also present at what was reported to be a dinner with the Prime Minster, was Paul Dacre, the man who employs Richard Littlejohn (in itself a crime against human decency). Muckraker Dacre then described the provision to make Data Theft an imprisonable offence as “a truly frightening amendment.” Truly frightening, for sure, to the editor of a newspaper which was found by the Information Commissioner a few years before to have routinely engaged in wholesale illegal information gathering (and got away with it).
Gordon Brown, as lily-livered as any politician confronted by press bosses who might have nasty things written about him and his government, agreed to “suspend” the clause, which the former Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas had fought so hard to have put in place.
The current Commissioner, Christopher Graham last month accused MPs of chucking out the clause, when, in fact Parliament had passed it. It was the Government, not Parliament who changed their mind.
Now, after the Guardian’s valiant disclosure that the Screws had been hacking into the voicemails of Gordon Taylor and two other people involved in the Professional Footballers’ Association, the government has accepted [as I have advocated many times on this blogspace] that it has no choice but to enact the clause. That they should now qualify this with a public interest defence is quite right and proper – no one wants to see responsible journalists impeded from exposing crime and corruption.
But the core fact is that medical records, bank account details, tax records, phone-call traffic information, or even journey details obtainable from registered Oyster cards, of individuals who have committed no offence greater than being of interest to those who read the Shag Rags can easily be passed on by an employee of the many companies and agencies that keep these records, using a USB stick with little risk of being caught and for a sizable cash fee. A serious penal deterrent is the only way this kind of traffic can be contained.
The press will circle to cut off this development, and it should be made clear to the government that public concern over personal privacy will not tolerate any more back-tracking, however many seductive dinners Dacre and Co buy the Prime Minister.

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