THE CHIS BIZ
Spying on Journalists and Recruiting Them as Spies
Recent revelations that the Metropolitan police spied on two investigative reporters examining state collusion with paramilitary death squads in Northern Ireland has caused The Upsetter to examine the various covert means used to identify journalists’ sources.
Of course, pulling a reporter’s phone records isn’t the only tool in the police’s digital armoury.
Sadly, there are those in our profession who while pretending to be journalists are betraying confidential sources and spying on their own colleagues for a supplementary stipend of thirty pieces of state silver.
In this dispatch, The Upsetter reveals how the National Crime Agency, Britain’s FBI, recruits journalists to become paid informants or, in cop speak, Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS).
This newsletter can report such a thing with authority because over sandwiches in a central London hotel the NCA once asked The Upsetter to be their man on the inside.
“Nobody would ever, ever know,” the handler insisted, including the London organised crime boss the NCA was immediately interested in.
But first, to Northern Ireland, where the Met and two other police forces have been caught spying on journalists Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney.
The role of the Met is currently being explored by a panel of surveillance judges. While we wait to hear their views, former police insiders in Belfast and London offer an insight into how these things get done.
