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Italian journalists strike over wiretapping bill

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Most of Italy’s journalists went on strike today. They’re protesting
a bill by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that would tighten rules on
wiretapping and imposes fines on journalists for publishing phone
transcripts. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Sergio Romano, the
political commentator for Corriera della Serra in Milan.

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MARCO WERMAN: Now to another kind of spying. It’s the covert act of wiretapping. And it’s been a useful tool for Italian prosecutors over the years. But now, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi wants to tighten the rules on wiretapping. And he wants to impose fines on reporters who publish transcripts of the phone intercepts. That is not sitting well with Italian journalists. Almost all of them went on strike today. Sergio Romano is the political commentator for the newspaper, Corriera della Serra in Milan. Sergio, were you on strike today?

SERGIO ROMANO:  Yes, we were all on strike whether we liked it or not. Or simply because I have a column, a daily column, and the paper did not appear so there was point in writing for it, although to be true, I really did write, and send the column anyway.

WERMAN:  And was your commentary today that did not get published, did it address this wiretap, proposed wiretap law?

ROMANO: No, it wasn’t of that specific problem, but I already had the opportunity in the past, and I’ve already spoken my mind, so to speak. I feel that the law is very badly drafted and like other laws passed or suggested by Berlusconi, it does smell of a personal grudge, so to speak, because Berlusconi’s has a number of problems with Italian justice and some of the laws look and sound very personal.

WERMAN: What will happen if journalists are found to have taken phone intercepts and published them when they’re not supposed to? Are there fines involved? Is prison time involved?

ROMANO: The fine is definitely there in the law and it is a rather heavy fine. A fine for the journalist and a fine for the publisher.

WERMAN: How much? Do you know?

ROMANO: At first it was in the hundreds of thousands of Euros, but they haven’t really decided yet because the draft is going through Parliament and the number of amendments have been suggested, but not yet voted on.

WERMAN: Italy loves its wiretaps. The judges there use their powers really avidly with a 100,000 authorized phone taps every year and that’s compared to 20,000 in France and just 1,700 in the US. What’s going to happen now?

ROMANO: Well, that is really the positive side of the law in a sense because the prosecutors, they’ve really made an excessive use of the wiretapping and – wiretapping has replaced the inquiries, the old-fashioned police inquiries that really, in a sense, have been superseded by this wiretapping culture.

WERMAN:  So, back to Prime Minister Berlusconi and what you seem to believe is kind of a grudge on his part. Not to sound cynical, but what is in this for Prime Minister Berlusconi?

ROMANO: Well, I think Berlusconi to begin has got a problem with the prosecutors because he has been on trial a number of times for his own personal business. A year and a half ago, the papers published conversations that Berlusconi had with somebody belonging to RAI, that is the radio and television, Italian corporation, during which he was recommending, suggesting the hiring of certain people, suggesting the so-called favorable treatment of people. Now that of course must have irritated Berlusconi a great deal and that is why I suspect a personal grudge in this particular law.

WERMAN: Sergio, have you ever had any worries about your own phone being tapped?

ROMANO: Well, not really in the sense that it may happen. I try not to use the telephone for, how shall I say, speaking about my preferences and passions. And the terms that I would use in a  club or in a coffee bar or around a restaurant table, I mean – when I’m critical of the government, I say so, but I try to say it objectively like I suppose a journalist should do.

WERMAN: Well, thank you for sharing discreetly with us, Sergio. Sergio Romano, a political commentator. He writes a daily column for Corriera della Serra, though it won’t appear today as his newspaper’s on strike. Thank you for your time, Sergio, and enjoy your weekend.

ROMANO: Thank you very much.

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