【明報專訊】A PRODUCER of the RTHK programme Hong Kong Connection has been arrested presumably because of her investigative report produced with car license information obtained from a publicly accessible database. According to the Road Traffic Ordinance, it is necessary to declare the purpose when enquiring car license information. The government does not list "news reporting" as a declarable purpose. However, in professional journalism, public registry searches are an important tool for finding out the truth. In the past, many investigative reports on important matters of public interest were made possible by public database searches. A normal practice should be viewed as it is. Obtaining car license information from the public database is common investigative procedure employed by journalists. In the past, no journalist was said to have been arrested for "making a false statement about the purpose of obtaining information from the registry". The arrest poses an immediate, direct and consequential challenge to normal investigative journalism. The press is worried that such a precedent will greatly impede investigative journalism and undermine the public's right to know. The police must offer a clear explanation of what is "suspicious" about the producer's action that necessitated the shattering of a long-standing practice.