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UNIFEED-UNTV
STORY: UN / FREEDOM OF OPINION
TRT: 2:31
SOURCE: UNIFEED-UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 22 OCTOBER 2015, NEW YORK CITY / RECENT
RECENT – NEW YORK CITY
1.\tWide shot, exterior UNHQ
22 OCTOBER 2015, NEW YORK CITY
2.\tMed shot, dais
3.\tWide shot, press room
4.\tSOUNDBITE (English) David Kaye, Special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression:
“So the purpose of the report is to identify the existing legal framework for protection of sources. I would say source confidentiality if we want to be a little more specific and protection of whistle blowers.”
5.\tMed shot, journalists
6.\tSOUNDBITE (English) David Kaye, Special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression:
“So the confidentiality of sources is actually pretty widely protected as a matter of law both statutory law and constitutional law around the world. The problem is generally not the protection as a matter of a piece of paper in a legal framework. It’s that that protection is not always effective.”
7.\tMed shot, dais
8.\tSOUNDBITE (English) David Kaye, Special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression:
“Governments often go around legal requirements in order to identify sources by using surveillance technologies, metadata analysis and that kind of approach. And that’s of course problematic as a matter of the rule of law.”
9.\tWide shot, press room and dais
10.\tSOUNDBITE (English) David Kaye, Special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression:
“All too often even when you have protection of source confidentiality you have a narrow definition of journalist, right. So it’s normally the journalist who stands up for the source and protects that person’s confidentiality.”
11.\tMed shot, dais
12.\tSOUNDBITE (English) David Kaye, Special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression:
“And so there are bloggers, there are citizen journalists, there are non-governmental organizations that really perform a kind of public watchdog role to use the phrase from the European Court of Human Rights that traditional journalists have done for decades. So I think that the narrow definition of journalism can be a problem and we should have a broader definition here.”
13.\tClose-up, journalist
14.\tSOUNDBITE (English) David Kaye, Special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression:
“States very often fail to take into account the public interest value of information when assessing the harm done to a legitimate interest by any particular disclosure. And the report makes the argument that any assessment of whistle blower protection should assess the public interest with respect to the potential harm. And that governments that seek to avoid protecting whistle blowers should really be identifying specific harm to a legitimately protected interest.”
15.\tWide shot, press room and dais
The UN Special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression released the findings of his new report on the protection of sources and whistle blowers.
At a press briefing today (22 Oct), David Kaye told reporters that the purpose of the report “is to identify the existing legal framework for protection of sources. I would say source confidentiality if we want to be a little more specific and protection of whistle blowers.”
He added, “So the confidentiality of sources is actually pretty widely protected as a matter of law both statutory law and constitutional law around the world. The problem is generally not the protection as a matter of a piece of paper in a legal framework. It’s that that protection is not always effective.”
Kaye pointed out that, “Governments often go around legal requirements in order to identify sources by using surveillance technologies, metadata analysis and that kind of approach. And that’s of course problematic as a matter of the rule of law.”
“All too often even when you have protection of source confidentiality you have a narrow definition of journalist, right. So it’s normally the journalist who stands up for the source and protects that person’s confidentiality,” he said.
He also pointed out that the narrow definition of journalism can be a problem and should have a broader definition. He explained that, “There are bloggers, there are citizen journalists, there are non-governmental organizations that really perform a kind of public watchdog role to use the phrase from the European Court of Human Rights that traditional journalists have done for decades.”
The UN Special rapporteur continued by saying, “States very often fail to take into account the public interest value of information when assessing the harm done to a legitimate interest by any particular disclosure. And the report makes the argument that any assessment of whistle blower protection should assess the public interest with respect to the potential harm. And that governments that seek to avoid protecting whistle blowers should really be identifying specific harm to a legitimately protected interest.”
