Maybe it’s time for a Hager apology, too

What happened to Nicky Hager was inexcusable, possibly even criminal. He was subjected to a search based on an improperly obtained warrant. His bank handed over personal details to the police without his consent, or judicial authority. Police obtained information from other agencies, including Jetstar and PayPal, and now acknowledge they should not have done so.

His personal emails were looked at and, during the search of his home, login details for various internet accounts were recorded and attempts made to utilise them.

It does not matter what you think of Hager, and I am not a fan of his conspiracy theories, even if they subsequently prove correct.

Yet my views of him mean nothing. He is entitled to his privacy. He is entitled to due process. What happened to him was appalling and a perfect example of a grievous abuse of state power.

In his long career exposing and holding the state to account, his success on this issue could prove to be his most important work.

It would be nice, however, if Hager could reflect back on his own endeavours in light of these events and acknowledge that Don Brash, Cameron Slater, Jordan Williams, Jason Ede, Judith Collins, Carrick Graham, Katherine Rich and a cast of many others were also entitled to their privacy.

Hager’s second book, Secrets and Lies, published in 1998, was based on a tranche of emails obtained from a staff member of PR firm Shandwick. Here, at least, the emails were leaked by someone inside the firm, but in subsequent books, Hollow Men and Dirty Politics, Hager used material almost certainly hacked.

Hager had a choice: he could have valued the privacy of those emails, or he could use them to write a book. Hager considers himself a journalist and felt that the value of the story was greater than the subjects’ privacy, but the police used that same rationale when searching his home.

They were both wrong.

If you are willing to use stolen private emails to write a book then you have no moral basis to cry foul when the very principles that you have failed to uphold are subsequently not upheld by others.

Privacy matters. Hager was owed an apology and he has received one. It is time he issued a few of his own.