SYDNEY, Australia — The Australian authorities on Tuesday searched the home, computer and cellphone of a journalist who wrote an article last year detailing top-secret correspondence between government ministries over a plan to allow intelligence agencies to surveil Australian citizens. The journalist, Annika Smethurst, the political editor for The Sunday Telegraph of Sydney, which is one of Australia’s most-read newspapers, was in her home in Canberra, the capital, on Tuesday morning when Australian Federal Police officers arrived with a warrant to search her house and belongings. The police said in a statement that the warrant was related “to the alleged publishing of information classified as an official secret, which is an extremely serious matter that has the potential to undermine Australia’s national security.” The police added that no arrests were “expected today as a result of this activity.”It was believed to be the first such action against an Australian journalist in more than a decade. The Australian union for journalists, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, called the raid “an outrageous attack on press freedom.”

Source: New York Times June 04, 2019 09:17 UTC