Visit from the organised crime unit of Budapest Police

We expected that sooner or later our practices about the anonymity of the source of information will draw attention from the authorities. What we did not expect that it happens in a week from the start of the website.

On Thursday afternoon Tamas Bodoky, editor-in-chief of atlatszo.hu was approached by the Budapest Police Headquarters (BRFK) organised crime department without announcement. He was summoned in a hearing on Monday as a witness because of the report on the hacker attack on Brokernet’s database.

Once again, we will not reveal our sources!

According paragraph (1) Article 6 of the Act CIV of 2010 on the fundamental rules of the freedom of the press and media contents “the media content provider shall have the right to keep the identity of its informant confidential.” Meanwhile paragraph (3) states that “in exceptionally justified cases, courts or authorities may – in the interest of protecting national security and public order or uncovering or preventing criminal acts – require the media content provider to reveal the identity of the informant.”

As to ourselves we believe that paragraph (3) is unconstitutional. Even than we do not see why would be this case “exceptionally justified”. However if the police fines the editor in chief or the site for failing to reveal the sources of information, we will pass round the hat on the internet.

At least now it turns out, how much is the investigative journalism is protected and limited by last year’s “media constitution”.

>>> The summons can be downloaded here (Hungarian, PDF)