Even more privacy stuff …

It’s over a month since I first wrote about superinjuctions, and of course everything’s got much hotter since then.

Much of the printed press – and the BBC – seem to be toeing the line at the moment, and the most insightful article (i.e. – the one which most reflects my sensibilities 😉 ) I’ve found was on the Wired site. One link follows through to Roy Greenslade’s blog – also informative.

These provide the answer to the question – Who Makes the Law? Now, to remind you, the options previously available were:

1. Parliament – a popular answer with MPs, although they seem to be reluctant to actually do anything about it.
2. The Courts – who don’t really want to be involved – especially if it means their majesty is mocked by a bunch of oiks on Twitter
3. Europe – it’s actually nothing to do with the European Union, but it still winds up Nigel Farage and the Daily Mail, so lets leave it in 😀

Now we find out that the answer is … the Press Complaints Commission. Here’s the quote from Dave, as reported in the Wired article:

“there’s still more to be done to recognise that actually the Press Complaints Commission has come on a lot in recent years”

Nobody else seems to have noticed. The adjective routinely applied to the PCC is “toothless” (check Google if you don’t believe me). It has consistently failed to provide any protection for those who want to keep their private lives private. And despite the protestations from the reptiles of Her Majesty’s Press that they take complaints “very seriously” (see Fraser Wood being viewed with incredulity after about 4 minutes of this BBC Newsnight clip) , it’s hard to think of a situation where real sanctions have been applied. There may be a 3-line apology on page 94, but that’s yer lot, mate.

Wired looks on this as a “coded warning” to the PCC. I hope so, ‘cos most of us would say “what has he been smoking ?”

Or else we might suspect that – after thinking a bit harder about it – the MPs don’t want to regulate their mates in the press, but they can see that the judges will keep passing them the hot potato …

[Edit]

I seem to recall from this interview with Dave that he said something on the lines of … the right to a private life expressed in the European Convention was intended to protect us from the state, not the press. Total b*ll*cks of course.

[Edit #2]

Almost forgot. My solution (to the Twitter outing) would have been for the courts to order The Sun’s articles to be made available in the public domain – and to their competitors – 24 hours before The Sun could publish them. This goes against my instincts on copyright, but – as with heroin – remove the profit and remove the problem…

More privacy stuff …

Our PM says that he’s “uneasy” about judges granting privacy injunctions to protect powerful individuals.

Now, I’ve no sympathy with Slebs who sell their lives (and weddings … and their children’s births … and everything else) to the gossip mags, then want to cut out when it doesn’t suit their image.

But I do think those who are looking to do a job, and who haven’t courted the limelight for their public life, should be allowed their privacy.

I also hate hypocrisy, and wouldn’t be happy if abuse of our legal system meant that someone holding themselves as a role model could use it to (for example) protect a lucrative sponsorship deal.

But, really, maybe the courts are making law because Parliament has signally failed – and at the very time that the News of the World (for one) has been hacking into mobile phones. Apparently it would have been “inappropriate” with an election looming.

And because it looks as though our police forces may well also have turned a blind eye to this gross abuse of civil rights – as it might have “jeopardised their relationship with the press”.

FFS – How absolutely dim can you be ? The courts are apparently the only arm of governance which is giving any of us a slim chance of privacy. Sorry if it doesn’t suit your pals at News International though, Dave.