[8][9][10] In 2006, while a student journalist, Kennard accused then Leeds University lecturer Frank Ellis of racism[11] and was interviewed on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.
[14] He also broke the story in the UCLA student paper, the Daily Bruin, of attempts by Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz to suppress the publication of Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah by the University of California Press.
Kennard lodged a request for information under the UK Data Protection Act to see if GCHQ had decided to stop dealing with him because of his report on the schools programme.
Kennard commented: "I find it outrageous that the country's largest intelligence agency—funded by the British public to the tune of over a billion pounds annually—just stops engaging with a journalist because it believes my stories paint GCHQ's operations in a 'negative' light … It's doubly worrying in this case because the programme I wanted some basic information on involves thousands of children.
National Union of Journalists Assistant General Secretary Seamus Dooley supported Declassified UK and said "The NUJ would be extremely concerned at any unilateral ban by a government department on questions from selected news organisations or publications".