Irish Police were given the green light by a court to spy on Gript Media journalists after the conservative news outlet published a video showing police attacking one of its reporters during a demonstration against a new migrant center. Yes, you read that correctly: A police force, in a country that claims to protect press freedom, secured a secret court order granting them access to a media organisation’s private communications. Today, Gript Media publishes an open letter, decrying the egregious assault on press freedom and the journalistic protection of sources.
A statement by the Gript Media Management Team
At the bottom of this statement, you will find a court order granted to An Garda Síochána in June of last year. The order instructed Twitter (now X) to hand over Gript Media’s private messages, as well as the personal details and IP addresses of everyone who had logged into the Gript X account over a specific period.
The reason? In April of 2024 Gript published footage, on X, of altercations between Gardaí and members of the public over the opening of an asylum centre in Newtownmountkennedy.
Some of you may recall that the footage we published of Newtownmountkennedy did not just document public disorder. It also showed Gardaí themselves engaging in the use of force – including, notably, the moment when Gript journalist Fatima Gunning was pepper-sprayed.
Regardless of the circumstances, the position is clear: An Garda Síochána, a police force in a country that claims to protect press freedom, secured a secret court order granting them access to a media organisation’s private communications.
Communications which, if exposed, could have jeopardised journalistic sources – with their only justification being an argument that reporting on a public event meant it was reasonable to believe we must hold additional material valuable to an investigation.
And the judge agreed. Using a law originally intended to give An Garda Síochána the power to pursue investigations into money launderers, drug traffickers and terrorist financiers, An Garda Síochána secured a Section 63 order giving them the right to spy on a news organisation – on what appears to have been nothing more than a hunch.
Make no mistake, we consider this act by the state’s police force to be an intolerable, and egregious, attack on the right to privacy and the right of a free press to operate within the Republic of Ireland.
This media platform always has declined, and always will decline, to voluntarily provide material garnered in the course of our work to An Garda Síochána. We will go to prison before we comply with a court order that compels us to hand over confidential information provided to us in good faith. And to date, no material in relation to this court order has been handed over to An Garda Síochána.
The reasons for this are obvious: To do so would be to effectively turn our journalists and employees into intelligence-gathering agents for the state, with material garnered in the course of their work being considered a resource for the state’s police force. Readers and sources would have no reason to trust us to report fairly or respect the confidentiality of information provided to us. We will defend that right up to the point of imprisonment, should that prove necessary.
The evolution of Section 63: From organised crime to going fishing
Section 63 orders give Gardaí the power to obtain court orders forcing access to private communications—if they believe the material is “likely to be of substantial value” to a criminal investigation. The legal threshold? They must show “reasonable grounds” to believe that such material should be produced or accessed, taking into account any “benefit likely to accrue” to an investigation.
In theory, that might sound like a serious legal bar for An Garda Síochána to meet. Based on what has happened here, it would appear such orders are being granted on the basis of little more than a Garda hunch.
When Section 63 was first introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 1994, its purpose was clear: to combat drug trafficking and money laundering. It allowed An Garda Síochána to apply for a court order compelling service providers to hand over evidence which they believed would be of benefit in investigations related to these specific offences.
Because of the serious nature of these crimes, the law included no requirement to notify the target of the order. The request wasn’t even made against the person in question – it was made against the company holding the data. That meant only the service provider (Twitter, in our case) could challenge it.
In 2005, the law was expanded to allow for the use of Section 63 orders when An Garda Síochána were investigating the financing of terrorism.
Then, in 2008, the scope of the law was widened even further, allowing Gardaí to use these orders for any indictable offence—which could mean anything from organised crime to simple assault.
We put a series of questions to An Garda Síochána about their use of Section 63 orders more broadly. They refused to answer them; but they did tell us two things.
First:
“In order to vindicate the rights of potential victims of crime, An Garda Síochána has a positive obligation to obtain all available evidence relating to particular incidents. At times, such evidence is procured on foot of warrants being issued by the Courts to An Garda Síochána.”
That first sentence may surprise some victims of crime, and some members of An Garda Síochána.
Second, when asked whether they bear any responsibility for how these orders are being used, An Garda Síochána had this to say:
“Any concern about the granting of Court Orders by a District Court Judge is a matter for the District Court Judge.”
In other words: If Gardaí are abusing these orders, it’s not their fault—it’s the judges’ fault for letting them do it.
That’s quite a convenient arrangement given that these orders are sought and granted in secret. Gardaí request secret access to private material. A judge grants it without the target ever knowing, and without that person ever being able to argue the order shouldn’t be granted. And if someone finds out and raises questions? Blame the judge.
What happened when Gardai were challenged? They backed down
So, the question must be asked: Was this a legitimate investigative tool – or was it simply a fishing expedition?
A reasonable person might think that what this looks like is an attempt to gain undisclosed access to a journalist’s private communications, under the cover of a legal process that was never designed for this kind of use.
And here’s the most alarming part: Under Irish law, X had no obligation to tell us about the request at all.
Had An Garda Síochána made this application to another company – one without X’s policy of notifying users – we may never have known that Gardaí were attempting to obtain our private data. In fact An Garda Siochána is currently refusing to tell Gript if they did seek, and were granted, orders to other companies which Gript has accounts with.
To their credit, X did notify us. More than that, we understand they opposed the order—which ultimately led to An Garda Síochána never getting the material they sought.
Gript understands that we are not the only people An Garda Síochána has sought to use these orders against – and that, in many cases where Twitter opposed similar orders, An Garda Síochána simply abandoned the requests rather than defending them in court.
To put it plainly: An Garda Síochána went to court, sought and were granted secret court orders but, when faced with even mild resistance, it walked away.
That raises a simple but inevitable question:
If these orders were legitimate, if they were properly grounded in law, if Section 63 was being used as intended, then why did An Garda Síochána immediately fold when challenged?
The likely answer would seem to be that An Garda Siochána suspects it is using these orders in a way that will not withstand scrutiny.
An Garda Síochána Refuses to Answer—But They Also Won’t Deny
When we put these concerns to An Garda Síochána, they refused to answer some of the most fundamental questions:
Has An Garda Síochána ever used a Section 63 order against another media organisation?
Has An Garda Síochána ever used these orders to access the private data of politicians or election candidates?
Not only did they refuse to provide an answer they, more importantly, refused to deny it.
Let’s be very clear about what that means.
A legal instrument originally designed to target drug cartels and terrorist financiers was used against a media outlet—and when questioned about its use against political figures, An Garda Síochána refused to deny that they had used it against people in political positions.
And if you think this is bad now, then you’ll be delighted to know that the Government is currently progressing the Criminal Justice (Protection, Preservation and Access to Data on Information Systems) Bill 2024 – a Bill which it is claimed will allow An Garda Síochána to “swiftly access criminal evidence in digital form.”
Given that a judge was already willing to immediately sign off on an order allowing Gardaí to access a journalist’s private messages—based on nothing more than a hunch from An Garda Síochána—Gript is not entirely convinced that a lack of swiftness is the biggest problem with the current system.
After all, if Gardaí are already willing to secretly spy on journalists today, what are they going to be willing to do tomorrow?
This statement was originally published by Gript on February 18th, 2025, and appears here with kind permission.
