ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING JEOPARDISES JOURNALISTS' WORK AND SOURCES

IFEX
The illegal wiretapping of prominent Colombian journalists endangers their work and compromises their confidential sources, say IFEX members the Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Colombia's leading newsweekly "Semana" revealed last week that agents of Colombia's national intelligence service (DAS) had been wiretapping the communications of prominent Colombian journalists, judges, opposition politicians and even officials in President Álvaro Uribe's administration.

Citing five unnamed DAS agents, the magazine said that intelligence officials had monitored and intercepted thousands of emails and telephone calls at the end of 2008 - some of them even selling the info on to armed groups and drug traffickers.

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