We’ve got a leak

In the fallout of the Mallia resignation, the one question which the public keeps asking is, was it ethical (or even legal) for someone, presumably within the police force, to leak recordings of those incriminating telephone conversations to the the PN media? 

Many are citing the Data Protection Act and asking whether it has been breached. Will the public feel safe in reporting certain information if they feel that their voice can be published (and maybe even identified) without their consent?

The new Police Commissioner Michael Cassar has made it clear that he is not happy that the recordings were passed on the media and apparently, whoever did it cannot even be technically protected by the Whistleblowers’ Act because it did not fall under the two options of “internal” and  “external” disclosure.

In other words the correct procedure would have been to hand over the recordings to the Acting Commissioner (which was impossible since he was directly involved) or to someone outside the police department, presumably the OPM.  But whoever it was obviously agreed with the PN that even Muscat himself was involved in the cover-up, so the most obvious choice was the media - but not just any media house, it had to be that owned by the Opposition.  

As a political strategy, it hardly needs to be explained why Media Link (and whoever passed on the information) did what they did. And you don’t have to be Einstein to conclude that if the shoe were on the other foot, Labour would have probably done the same. However, I have been told that from a legal standpoint, yes, the law was broken so whoever did it took an enormous risk either because of vested interests or because they genuinely felt the public had a right to know. 

Of course, this leak of police recordings has set a precedent because it has posed the question of whether leaks are always acceptable, because the ends justifies the means, no matter what.    

From a media perspective, on the other hand, it should be obvious that newsrooms thrive on these types of “leaks”. Think back to the oil scandal and you will recall that it was through confidential documents and emails given to MaltaToday that we learned of what was going on.  I know consistency is not many people’s forte but we cannot applaud leaks when they suit our political agenda and disapprove of them when they don’t. 

The reason someone decided those recordings needed to be leaked was because they were convinced that the truth of what happened that night would never be revealed otherwise - in other words, they assumed that the Board of Inquiry would not do its job properly. 

In retrospect, even though the telephone conversations created a buzz (and led to a lot of memes and spoofs) they only served to underline that the findings of the Inquiry were correct. The sequence of events, and the origin of that phrase which caused so much trouble, “warning shots”, are right there in those recordings.  

Where Media Link completely fouled up was in the publication of the first transcript which for some reason, it decided to do in the form of a heavy-handed, badly acted reenactment of everyone’s voices (except, inexplicably, for one sentence where the actual voice was heard).  This rendered the whole thing almost farcical. 

But what was even worse was the fact that it edited out the most important phrase of all “warning shots” and that, in journalistic terms, is unforgivable. If you are going to leak something so important, it has to be unaltered and unedited so that the public can make up its own mind. You do not get to pick and choose what to publish. 

Plus, Media Link should have realized that they could not really get away with such a thing without being caught out and, in fact, the next day that’s exactly what happened when the full transcript of that conversation was published by The Times and MaltaToday.  

Undoubtedly, the PN media kept the country entertained for a few days when it then started releasing the actual “secret tapes” bit by bit as if they were episodes of a soap opera (complete with a daily cliffhanger), but the tapes did serve another purpose. They revealed the almost too casual relationship that Mallia had with his driver (“OK siehbi” is one phrase which will never be the same again) as well as the lack of proper police procedure when incidents like this happen. 

There was also that curious lackadaisical attitude towards Sheehan and whether he should obey the Minister and stay at home, or go to the Police depot to give his statement to Internal Affairs. Shouldn’t there be an established practice in place when a police officer is involved in an altercation with a citizen?   

The Opposition has said that without these leaked recordings the truth would never have come out because the government would not have published them. The transcripts were, however, available to the Board of Inquiry and their conclusions of what happened that night cannot be faulted. 

What is certain is that, in the aftermath of these leaks, I’m pretty sure that any police officer communicating with the Control Room and the Emergency number 112 will from now on be much more careful about what they say over the phone.