NZ Judge Bans Online Publishing of Accuseds' Names

The Master Moose writes "A judge in New Zealand has banned the press from reporting online the names of two men accused of murder. The names of the men will be allowed to be reported in print as well as through Television and Radio broadcast. It would seem he has taken this step to prevent someone 'googling' these peoples names in the future and finding them linked to a crime if found innocent."

Comments

What's the point?

[haltenfrauden27]

Ok, so the judge banned the press from doing this. But it's impossible to stop some random person (probably not even in New Zealand) from posting this information online. Sounds like maybe this judge needs to think a little harder about how the Internet works.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

Judge Harvey teaches the Law and Information Technology course at the University of Auckland. The course looks at the way technology impacts on evidence, jurisdiction and freedom of information.
Judge Harvey has also written a textbook on the internet and law called internet.law.nz.

Re:What's the point?

[HungryHobo]

Hah!
unless the NSA or magical imps are after you then complete anonymity can be gained by a few simple steps.

1: Find 3 or more VPN/proxy services located in different countries. Look for ones which claim to not keep any logs.
2: Change your MAC address.
3: Drive out to some random carpark with your laptop and hop on an open network/WEP network.
4: Connect through proxies/VPN's.
5: Do whatever the fuck you want.

Anyone who can trace you at this point has magical powers or already knows who you are and has cameras in your shower.

Re:What's the point?

[florescent_beige]

You can't control Internet by gagging a few editors because the Internet is full of normal people blogging away about the things that interest them.

If I google someone and find only blog gossip that is different from finding an article in the New York Times. 99% of blogs are no more than two ladies with their hair in curlers talking over the back fence.

I believe this will become more and more true in the future when it will become clear that random blogs can and often do contain outright lies.

Let's say I mouth off about totalitarian China. Then some Chinese operative (love that word, so rarely get to use it in a sentence) writes a blog falsely claiming to have read about my child molestation trial in the Sydney Morning Herald. How long before every single person on the planet has their character assassinated that way? Not long I bet.

Having said all that I don't dispute you have a point. I can think of ways around these things, none of them perfect, all of them painful. The alternative is to give up age-old ideas of privacy. Which should we do?

Re:What's the point?

[HungryHobo]

I was assuming that the person involved wasn't retarded.
All bets are off if after doing all this you log into your myspace and update your name and address.

Re:What's the point?

[Swampash]

I happen to know this particular Judge. You know how I met him? Playing Quake deathmatches back in the nineties. He was handy with a rocket launcher, was great base defence in CTF matches, and trash-talked like a motherfucker. Anyway, the point I'm trying to work my way around to is that this particular Judge is probably the most net-savvy online officer of the court you could ever meet. This Judge had a personal hand in the design and implementation of the in-court computer networks used in the NZ court system. Hell, this is a Judge who goes to LAN PARTIES. So I'm going to assume that he knows EXACTLY what the real-world implications of his ruling are, and he is trying to balance some conflicting principles that he cannot ignore.

So yeah, comments insinuating that this Judge doesn't know how the Internet works are off-target. This guy has been part of the online scene since before half the script kiddies here were born.

Should be standard

[matt4077]

In the small part of Europe I live in, it's common practice (even written in a non-binding "codex") not to publish the pictures or names of accused. It's obvious that the "This guy raped a child" headline will stick while "Trial ends, accused absolved" will sometimes not even be published.

Yes, it should be voluntary, but it's the right thing to do.

Re:Should be standard

[vidarh]

The problem is that publishing an equally large headline saying they've been acquitted will NOT equate to reversing the damage done by the original headlines. Show humans a horrible accusation and then immediately show them a claim that the original accusations aren't true and a fair share of us will STILL believe the original accusation, or remember the original accusation but not the retraction later on, or remember both but still be thinking "what if" and treat the person accused as if the accusations were true. And that is even assuming all the same people ready it. In fact, given how humans think, a fair number of people who did NOT read the names in the original accusations might believe the original accusations once they see the retractions.

I don't know what the right answer is, but I do think media does have a responsibility to thread carefully. They can't hide behind the "but people have a right to know" when they know there is a good chance they will be ruining someones life forever even if what they report is written in ways that are factually true - they don't live in a vaccum, and even if they are legally on solid ground, there are ethical and moral issues to take into account.

Often, I question what their motives even are with publishing the names. If the person in question is being kept in custody during the trial there is no compelling public interest in making the name and picture public unless the police is still looking for more information, for example. If the person is free, I can see some interest particularly in the local area, but that wouldn't justify a national newspaper plastering it over the front page for example.

The name will mean nothing to most people until it's been hammered into their heads by the media. But afterwards that person is effectively screwed whether or not they're found guilty.

since it's impossible to delete stuff from the net

[petes_PoV]

... that seems entirely reasonable.

Until people such as employers, potential girl/boy-friends realise that:

1.) there are more than one person with each name

2.) almost nothing on the internet is corroborated, valdated or authenticated, it's mostly rumour - so far as individuals go

3.) old information never dies and bad new travels much faster than good news

Then it's a hopelessly unreliable medium for information to make judgements about someone.

Privacy of Courts

[mcelrath]

I've always thought withholding names of the accused was a damn good idea. An innocent person should not have his life, reputation, or finances ruined, and the fact of the matter is, an accusation (even if false) can be damning for life.

However, this runs counter to the "openness" requirement of democracies: that the public should be able to discover what their public officials are doing. In this case, court cases must be a matter of public record so that transparency of the judicial branch can be maintained. You wouldn't want the judges/DA's/police doing secret prosecutions.

So, does some happy medium exist? Can we withhold the names of the accused in print/internet and maintain judicial transparency? This could fall under defamation or slander laws if the person is later found innocent. There are mechanisms in place to recover costs for innocent people, but none to recover the damage done to reputations.

The judge actually has a lot of IT experience

[jesterzog]

Bets that this judge is some OAP who was shown by his grandson how you could "google" someone...

Actually what's particularly interesting about this case is that the judge also teaches Information Technology and has written a text-book on cyber law in New Zealand, and he's made a submission to the NZ government about spam legislation which I haven't read, but you could probably look at if you want some guideline idea of his IT competence.

One of New Zealand's media commentators with a lot of IT experience (Russell Brown, for whom I have a lot of respect) threw in a few comments over here, and wasn't immediately condemning of the actions of the judge. Brown commented that he thinks this judge probably has more technical knowledge of the Internet than any other judge in the country, and coming from him it's either quite compelling or very detrimental to every other judge.

New Zealand's had problems in the past with courts trying to suppress names, particularly in cases when there's been international interest in the case, because the suppression orders only apply in New Zealand. I don't understand what he expects to achieve except possibly hoping that jurors won't be able to hide at home and google the names as easily during critical points in the trial, especially since the details of this trial are unlikely to gather much interest outside NZ. I think Brown's theory that this is an experimental act from the judge to see what happens sounds fairly feasible.

Re:Good job that a judge has raised this problem

[robfoo]

Yes, but 'anyone at all' doesn't have the weight of a newspaper or other 'reputable' source behind them.
I think the Judge has a pretty interesting idea here - of course the names will end up on the internet, but only in blog posts and such..

For instance, if I was to google 'HungryHobo' and saw within the results a blog post saying "HungryHobo's mom is a crack whore", I'd probably disregard it.
However, if I saw an article in the online version of an established dead-tree newspaper headlined "HungryHobo's mother implicated in drugs-for-sex scandal" then I'd be more inclined to believe it.

However I'm not sure what would happen if a number of blog posts or other websites published the names along with links to articles about the case - google's page rank may effectively tie the names to the articles!

Re:Good job that a judge has raised this problem

[inzy]

But he hasn't banned their names from appearing in traditional media and anyone at all who sees those other forms of media can post things on the net.

having seen this on the news today, it appears that no they can't post it on the net. from what i understand, anyone can be prosecuted for breaching this order, not just the 'press' (whatever that may mean).

his intention was to stop the spread of 'viral' videos that refer to the killing, and possibly prejudicing the trial

the killing was allegedly gang-related, and gangs in nz have a habit of recording stuff (either at the time or later) and making videos glorifying some act, that they then post to youtube or wherever. if the judge issues a court order, they can wave that at google or whoever, and get the video taken down/blocked

It doesn't matter if others post the info online.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here, in Florida, in Hillsborough County, the sheriff's office has on their website an arrest inquiry page, which lists all people who've been arrested along with their photo. Now, my brother has been arrested, and never convicted of anything, and in spite of this, it's now nearly impossible for him to get a low-wage job. People, employers, they equate being arrested for something with guilt, not with a false accusation or an amateur cop. It doesn't really matter if other people post the info online, its the official record employers will look at. Arrest and charge records OUGHT NOT be public, they harm the innocent and have no effect on the guilty (because their conviction record would be there anyway). Our system is ruined.