The PSNI and MI5 illegally spied on a journalist for years, building profiles on his family and mining thousands of phone records — all to expose his sources. This ruling makes clear that law enforcement agencies cannot operate above the law they're sworn to uphold. Other journalists in Northern Ireland were almost certainly targeted the same way, and an apology without accountability means nothing.
The surveillance of Vincent Kearney wasn't a minor overstep — it was a years-long, systematic campaign that destroyed source relationships and chilled public interest journalism. Authorities treated journalists' confidential communications as a routine investigative tool rather than a last resort. A broader independent investigation is the only way to expose how deep this surveillance culture actually runs.
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