Journalist's Surveillance Concerns After Spy Scandal

0:00On March 26, a veteran journalist who covered Northern Ireland's troubles has raised alarms about possible police surveillance on him two decades. After probing a major spy scandal, Brian Rowan, a former BBC reporter, shared concerns on social media after seeing recent correspondence about his articles on Dennis Donaldson. Donaldson was a sin-fine official, exposed as a British agent in the 2002 Stormont Spiring case that collapsed the power-sharing. He was murdered in April 2016 at a remote cottage in County, Donagall by the real IRA. The documents highlight fallout from Rowan's pieces written right after the killing, including details of Donaldson's final meeting with PSNI Special. Branch and mentions of his own phone numbers, suggesting sensitive police info reached him. Rowan links this to broader patterns, like the unlawful spying on fellow journalists, Vincent Carney, Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Bernie by PSNI, MI5, and the Met Police from 2006

1:00to 2014, as ruled by a London Tribunal last year. A recent review found PSNI ran defensive operations on hundreds of journalists between 2011 and 2024. Rowan says he's not surprised and believes the issues run deeper into the conflict era with more details to come soon.