'Constable iPlod' mistweets journalist in Facebook hacking debacle

Unfortunately, this whole sorry episode has reflected badly on the Queensland Police Service because of the heavy handed treatment of the journalist.

It's also a wakeup call to journalists to be very careful of what sensitive information they put on their Ipads and electronic devices, in case police impound them.

Ben Grubb himself wrote: "I believed that, as a journalist, I had protections. But it seems not. And to lose a device that contains not only private but work-related information is also another seriously alarming development for a journalist".

In past years journalists would bluntly refuse to hand over their paper notebooks to police without a legal fight.

There is a tradition of shields in place to protect journalists'

sources, but given that police have signalled a move to confiscate devices such as Ipads, then today's journalists need to re-define those protections, and quickly.