Darragh Mackin and Peter Corrigan of Phoenix Law said privacy is not a price they should have to pay for doing their jobs.

Amnesty International has said the report ‘exposes a disturbing pattern of unlawful covert surveillance of journalists’.

The social media activities of the reporter were subject to surveillance in 2023 as he investigated the death of a Belfast schoolboy.

But the McCullough Review has identified more than 20 attempts made by the police service to identify journalists’ sources.

Both 'categorically refute' Keith O'Brien's allegations of intimidation and harassment

A tribunal was told that police mounted a covert surveillance operation following the arrest of two journalists in a bid to unmask one of their sources