MELBOURNE (The Australian / Pacific Media Watch): Police officers are preparing to interview four journalists at The Age as part of an investigation into the newspaper's alleged computer hacking of an Australian Labor Party electoral database and accessing of the personal information of high-profile Victorians.
"An investigation is under way and if those individuals have not been spoken to yet, then they will be spoken to as part of this investigation," a Victoria Police spokesman told media.
Detectives from the e-crime unit executed a search warrant on the ALP's state headquarters on Thursday morning and that warrant ordered Labor to surrender material relating to unauthorised access to the party's Eleczilla database during the state election.
The warrant named The Age's reporters Royce Millar and Nick McKenzie, editor-in-chief Paul Ramadge and senior editor Mark Baker.
Legitimate inquiries
Ramadge and Baker did not respond yesterday to attempts to contact them for comment on the raid or the warrant but have previously defended the newspaper, saying it had made legitimate journalistic inquiries.
Ramadge has not explained his own involvement in the access of the database, some of which was done from computer terminals inside The Age's building.
He has previously said "the story came through entirely appropriate journalistic methods" and that a whistleblower with authorised access provided entry to the database.
The raid occurred on the day Fairfax Media held its annual general meeting in Sydney and John B. Fairfax, the company's last link with its founding family, said he was selling his 9.7 percent stake at a considerable loss.
The story by Millar and McKenzie revealing the existence of the database appeared in the newspaper shortly after last November's state election that deposed Labor from power and followed searches by them of the database that included former police commissioner Simon Overland, barrister Peter Faris, QC, developer Daniel Grollo, 3AW presenter Neil Mitchell and ABC radio presenter Jon Faine.
Personal information
The database is legal and contains information collated by all political parties that includes names, addresses, phone numbers, marital status and confidential details the person may have had with the party.
"Victoria Police e-crime squad is investigating the allegation that personal details of Victorians were electronically accessed by a media outlet via a confidential political party database without authorisation," a Victoria Police spokeswoman told the Sunday Herald Sun yesterday.
"The investigation is active and ongoing."
It is alleged that the searches of the database took place over four days in the lead-up to the election.
The searches included key words such as lesbian, abortion, corruption, gay, Muslim and privacy.
The Age subsequently published a report that said the newspaper had "gained access" to the ALP's database.
'Just ask me'
Yesterday Mitchell said he had not been contacted by police or The Age about the matter.
"If The Age want to know anything about me they just have to walk up a couple of flights of stairs to ask me," he said. 3AW and The Age share the same building.
"I don't quite understand what it is they have or haven't done, but if they have broken the law they should be prosecuted.
"I'm more concerned about the ALP holding information like this, to be honest."
Yarra City councillor Stephen Jolly, whose records in the database were accessed by The Age, told the Herald Sun: "People are innocent until proven guilty, but if journalists working for The Age have been digging dirt on people's personal lives using illegal means, I think that's outrageous and I think their peers and also Age readers are going to be shocked and horrified."
The Herald Sun said it had seen legal advice arguing "reasonable grounds for suspecting the newspaper's actions breached the commonwealth's Cybercrime Act 2001 as well as the Victorian Crimes Act, which carries a penalty of up to two years in prison for illegally accessing a secure database".
ALP Victorian state secretary Noah Carroll did not return calls.
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