TELEPHONE-TAPPING
SIR,—May I draw attention to a point not brought out in your leading article (Spectator, December 4. 1959) The Tappers Return?
The Birkett Committee, on whose findings the writer of the article laid much stress, dealt with the case where the authorities, without the knowledge (much less the consent) of X or Y, intercept a tele- phone message from the one to the other by tapping the line at a point between the two terminals. They did not deal with the case where Y hands the re- ceiver (as it were) to the authorities, fully consenting that they should listen to the message at his end of the line.
Anyone who knows English will appreciate that the latter case does not involve 'tapping' the line or `interception' of the message. Nor is the distinction merely verbal : common sense tells one that the two cases are different.
I do not pretend to say whether the Birkett Com- mittee ought to have dealt with the latter type of case, or how (if so) they ought to have dealt with it; the fact is that they did not deal with it at all.
Your leader-writer launched a violent (some would say a vicious) attack on the authorities ('the police- men who indulged in the practice . . . should he severely punished') for contravening the ruling of the Birkett Committee (`Every single main recom- mendation of the Birkctt Committee . . . has been flagrantly violated in this case'). To render plausible this condemnation he (a) throughout his article re- ferred to what was done as 'tapping' and 'intercep- tion'; and (b) suppressed all mention of the circumstances which differentiated this case from the type of case covered by the Birkett Committee's report. There was no hint, from end to end of his article, that X's message was received by the police at Y's terminal, on Y's instrument, with Y's full consent.
To adroit these facts and base a criticism upon them would have been fair enough; but to omit all mention of them, and then proceed to a savage attack on this false basis, argues, surely, a lack either of competence or of candour which is not in line with the best traditions of the Spectator.—Yours faith- fully,
All Souls College, Oxford
JOHN SPARROW
[The Birkett Committee did not discuss different kinds or methods of telephone-tapping; it discussed merely what it (and its terms of reference) called 'the interception of communications' If, when one person is telephoning to another, a third person is listening on the line, that communication is being intercepted. Whether the person at one end of the line is agreeable to this procedure is neither here nor there. Mr. Spar- row's parenthesis '(as it were)' has charm, but rather weakens his case. The Birkctt Committee laid down three rules for telephone-tapping; the first was that it should never be done without express warrant from the Secretary of State; the second, that it should only be done in cases of serious crime or where national security was involved, and the third, that evidence obtained from it should never be communicated to private individuals outside the public service or domestic tribunals. We repeat : every one of those rules was flagrantly violated in this case. While Mr. Sparrow is on the subject of omissions which reflect on the competence or candour of other people, he might reflect on the complete omission from his letter of any mention of the disclosure of the evidence in this case to the General Medical Council.—Editor, Spectator.]
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