International Law

For how much longer will the UK media and bloggers be able to freely investigate stories like the Bob Quick anti-terrorist policeman / family wedding cars business story ?

The Mail on Sunday has been delving a little into the business dealings of the controversial Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, now in charge of the Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command, formerly the Chief Constable of Surrey.

Given the new "thought crime" provisions brought in by the Labour government, through the recent Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, will such investigative journalism, or any further analysis by bloggers etc., which mentions current or former military, intelligence agency or police personnel, be legally possible in the future ?

The original Mail on Sunday scoop:

Security scare over wedding car hire firm run from top terror police chief's home

By Martin Delgado
Last updated at 9:35 AM on 21st December 2008

This well researched story (checking the world wide web, companies house, magazine advertisements and classic car experts etc.) originally ran on the Mail on Sunday website (updated 11.30pm 20th December) on Saturday night,, illustrated with a photo from showing Judith Quick, the wife who runs the business, with one of the wedding cars. This was later censored to pixelllate out her face, and now the whole photo has been removed.

Remember to make "Save As" copies of interesting online newspaper or blog articles, instead of just adding the URLs to your web browser's Bookmarks or Favourites - they could, as in this case, be altered or censored later

Bob Quick complained to the media about the intrusion into his family life, claiming some sort of, unspecified "security risk", and accusing the Conservative Party and their friends in the Press of "corruption" and " intimidation". He now seems to have retracted his use of the word "corruption"

Anti-terror chief behind arrest of MP Damian Green issues grovelling apology for Tory corruption claims

Given the information of the vintage Rolls Royce and other vehicles available for wedding hire or for other "VIP" occasions, and the approximate geographical area, published by the Mail on Sunday, it takes only a few seconds using a web search engine and online business directories to find the "search engine optimised" website, and the business address and phone number and mobile phone details.

If these represent a "security risk" to Bob Quick and his family, then perhaps the family business (not necessarily a bad thing of itself) should be running from commercial offices rather than from his home on the Surrey / Kent borders.

It cannot be pleasant having a tabloid newspaper, and the following press pack and blogosphere investigating your private life and business dealings, but such a high profile public servant, in a position of immense trust and power, in charge of the leading anti-terrorism Police unit in the UK, is paid a lot of money to shoulder such responsibility and risks, and should have "nothing to hide, nothing to fear".

A soon as Quick's statement to the press mentioned the word "corruption", a couple of obvious questions sprang to mind:

• Have any of these vehicles, driven by ex-police chauffeurs, ever been magically "let off" from speeding tickets, parking fines or congestion charges etc. ?

• Have any of these "VIP" vehicles been fitted with electronic location tracking or bugging devices, at the expense of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command or, that of Surrey Police (Bob Quick used to be their Chief Constable) ?
  

More worryingly, we also have to ask:

Will the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command now attempt to arrest anyone who has read (or re-published) this article Mail on Sunday article, or this example of further analysis by one of our favourite bloggers Postman Patel, under the "thought crimes" sections of the vast and complicated arraty of anti-terrorism legislation ? e.g. Terrorism Act 2000 section 58 Collection of information
?

Surely any such investigative journalism by the mainstream media or by bloggers etc.,
will be further chilled, when the new Terrorism Act 2000 section 58A Eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc, comes into force ? This was sneaked onto the statute book, without any effective scrutiny by Parliament, via to the recent Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 section 76 (currently awaiting Commencement by Order):

Full post as published by Spy Blog on December 21, 2008 (boomark / email).