Slashdot Mirror
British Court Rules Against Blogger Anonymity
An anonymous reader writes "In a dangerous judgment for British bloggers and whistleblowers, a British court has ruled (absurdly) that because blogging itself is a public activity, bloggers have 'no reasonable expectation of privacy' regarding their identities, and newspapers are allowed to publish their identities if they can find them by fair or foul means. A British police detective who recently won the Orwell Prize for his excellent political writing used his blog to write highly critical accounts of police activities and unethical behavior, making very powerful enemies in the process. A well-funded newspaper with powerful connections quickly heard of his blog and decided it was absolutely vital to expose his identity using an investigative journalist. Like any good newspaper, the blogger anonymized the people and the locations in all the cases he discussed on his blog, but the newspaper alleges these were not sufficiently anonymized and complains that they could work out the identities, though British newspapers don't complain that they are allowed to publish the identities of men who are falsely accused of rape and cleared in court. The newspaper also helpfully contacted the blogger's employer, and his job is now threatened."
Aren't newspapers public? This ruling really makes no sense.
If you live in the EU but also want to live in a police state, look no further. Great(?) Britain is the place to be.
-- Cheers!
The blog is no longer accessible http://nightjack.wordpress.com/ and can not be reached via http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://nightjack.wordpress.com/
So can this be appealed to a higher court, and will the order be stayed until such time as it can be reviewed?
I don't see this as an issue until it sets national precedent, otherwise its much like the other short-sighted and technically incompetent rulings in podunk areas of the US later overturned by more discriminating higher courts.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
First things first: it is hugely unethical to "expose" a blogger who wishes to remain anonymous. The newspaper should be ashamed of itself, and I recommend unsubscribing if you subscribe to it currently. Also, send them a letter telling them why you are unsubscribing.
That said.... what was the court supposed to do? Penalize the newspaper for doing investigative journalism? Throw the editor in jail for finding out the name of a blogger? "Court Rules Against Blogger Anonymity" is a bit overdone, don't you think?
Britain? Monitoring? Censorship?
Surely you jest!
look forward to once more rising up against these tyrants and liberating ourselves from their oppression.
It has worked in the past... Which makes me think people are a LOT stupider than they used to be; because the option is never presented as a viable solution anymore.
You should have the right to privacy if you want it, but I can't really take anyone seriously that doesn't have the balls to put a face behind a post when it comes to criticizing the powers-that-be, corruption or the like. If it's not worth putting yourself on the line, it's not worth reading.
Quite frankly, if you don't have guts, don't bother. AC because I don't have an account and this post, quite frankly, worth the time of making one.
Related, but not the same thing at all.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
newspapers are allowed to publish their identities if they can find them by fair or foul means.
So foul is fair and illegal is legal? Welcome to the 21st century, kids.
I can see why they should be able to out someone if they got the identity by subtrefuge, but if the identity is gained through illagel means, that's different. Or should be, at least.
Free Martian Whores!
The constable has no reason to appeal, he's already been fingered. I'm not sure who else would have standing ...
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
There is no there there in this ruling. All the court said was that if a newspaper can find out who a blogger is, they can publish that information. This was not the court saying that the blog host had to tell the police who it was. There is some questionable logic used by the judge, but this is not a case of government abuse of power. It is a case of a a reporter doing investigative reporting.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Continuously publish on the Internet, become popular, and expect to remain anonymous? Yeah, good luck with that. Even sources that abstract themselves in the process by providing the information to reporters risk exposure in doing so. Eliminating the middle man just means that there are less people to go through when trying to get to the source. I salute the dude for trying to get the word out about immoral police practices but reality doesn't much care about intent.
On a side note, that summary is a mess, even discounting the repeated attempts to slant the crap out of the story.
The linked Wikipedia page for the article summary has no one named Horton as an Orwell Prize recipient (or even anyone who has made the shortlist) in any year, let alone 2008 or 2009.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
It won't be the US that falls into a totalitarian regime masking itself as a democracy. Not for lack of trying, but the UK has a lead on them they'll never catch up.
Hmmm?
In the UK journalists have never had a right to remain anonymous.
In fact there are only a handful of people with a right to remain anonymous when their identiy may be easily found out and these are typically rape victims or minors.
As to the blogger who is certainly breaching his own employment contract and may in fact be breaking the law by disclosing confidential information it is the height of arrogance for them to assume they are somehow above everyone else.
There is an assumption that a persons private life can remain private unless there is a "public interest" that overrides it, but a person's identity is not protected.
In this case there is a clear 'public interest' in the identity of a police officer who thinks confidentiality doesn't apply to them as otherwise how could you ever trust the police not to blogg about whatever you tell them.
The blogger in question left enough clues around in his postings that he could be easily identified. Like he for instance referred to his position in the Force, and then referred to his membership in an athletic club. There only was one office of that rank in that club's membership. He then described cases he had been involved in, without adequately disguising the details, so it was clear that it could only have been that case that the blog referred to as having been one the blogger had been involved in.
He then sought to prevent the Times from publishing his name.
Well, surely, if you want anonymity, make at least some effort to stop people finding out who you are? It does not seem very rational to leave around all the clues anyone needs to identify you, but to focus your efforts on making it legally impossible for them to publish it, once they have made the fairly small effort required to find out.
A case which really touched on the anonymity of bloggers would be one in which it was undiscoverable by ordinary means such as the above, but the courts ordered the ISP or provider to disclose the identity. Now that would be a different and much more serious issue.
Britain is the world's capital of libel tourism. Because of that, the ubiquitous CCTV coverage, and the RIP act, it's on my list of places to never visit, along with, say, the Congo.
If this had been an immigration officer writing negatively about experiences in their job role, there would be dozens of established 'monitoring'/private-investigative "anti-facist" organisations dedicated to tracking them down. In my country, when a holocaust denier came to visit, a union-funded "anti-facist" organisation provably had him followed on the plane.
Given that Europe is essentially blanketed in politically motivated investigation clubs, I fail to see how this action raises any NEW issues. Except for dealing with the identity of a police officer instead of "fascists".
Please do not state strong opinions out of nowhere in parenthesis without backing them up or giving a source in a first sentence of a summary.
I'm of two minds about this.
Firstly I think the cop did act in an unprofessional manner by airing opinions about cases that should only have been brought up in court. IANAL, but I wouldn't be surprised if some lawyer tried to use this blog as a way of getting their client reduced/dismissed charges.
Secondly, this is going to harm whistleblowers in the future. People are going to be less likely to air their thoughts and opinions if they have think its' going to be traced back to them.
We live in an age of spin. And that means controling the message. Whistle blowing bloggers are a loose cannon and have to be stopped at all costs. That means tracking them down, and bringing what ever pressure you can bear to make them shut and sit down. The Times has now justified any future partisan journalist's attempts to discredit whistle blowers.
Perhaps someone's voting preferences will be made public now since it's done in public as well?
Parent is right indeed. Either wikipedia is wrong, or he never got an Orwell Prize. In either case, having the link in the summary is stupid.
Summary fails. Gagging the newspaper from printing newsworthy information it discovered would be outrageous.
so long as all information was obtained legitimately
It wasn't. He claimed to be a police officer. He had no right to comment publicly about ongoing investigations.
The days of journalists keeping the government in check and acting as the 4th estate I am afraid are long gone however.
Possibly. Here's the problem though, I don't know that journalists themselves have the right to write anonymously. They write can write under pseudonyms but they don't have any protection from being "outed" as far as I know. By definition, you can't have any presumption of privacy for things you do in public. They can protect their sources, but if they claim to be their own sources well ...
Okay, let's say I did have a reasonable expectation of privacy when posting anonymously online... I own a restaurant and start spamming nasty (but not libelous) reviews about the competition. Does that make it illegal for my competitor to point out that my reviews come from their business rival (and therefore are biased) if they figure out it's me? Should they be able to use a subpeona to find out? No. But if they figure it out without breaking any laws, or abusing the legal process, why shouldn't they be able to publish what they have figured out?
Now that would be horrible violation of free speech. As anyone with any familiarity of 1st amendment law knows (and yes, I know this case is in the UK), prior restraint is subject to strict scrutiny. This doesn't even come close to meeting that standard. I can't imagine a single lowly district judge that wouldn't slap any such law down without hesitation.
SirWired
I'm not sure if you are aware of what a "free press" is, but that means they are generally allowed to say what they want as long as it is not libelous. One of the only constraints regarding publishing a person's name is that, if they are not public figures, nor done something to get into the public record, they don't get their name published.
Since this guy was a public figure, and was doing things to get himself in the public record, he is not protected. So the court got it right.
What you seem to be saying is that, if I stand on a street corner spouting whatever political drivel I feel like, and I don't put my name on a placard in front of me, NO ONE is allowed to say who I am? So is someone is listening to me and says "Hey, who is this guy?" and someone else says "That's R2.0 - I recognize him from the same drivel on Slashdot", I can sue?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Whichever way this was ruled the paper could release the identity of the blogger - if they ruled against allowing publication of identity then the paper could just release the identity in an anonymous blog and with the new restriction in place noone could release the papers identity either... a catch 22.
Someone should find out.
I don't see why he should expect a right to privacy. If you are going to make public accusations and attacks, then the other parties have a right to defend. If he was merely debating a matter of principle (purely philosophical) then his person would be irrelevant to the argument and yes it would be at a minimum very bad form to name him. But he was pointing figures about specific organisations.
The right of free speech does not confer any kind of right to anonymity. That is a specific right only granted where it is in the public interest. Indeed it is the reverse: with rights comes responsibility; if you want to say things then be prepared to defend it. There is no question over free speech here, the newspaper is not restricting what he is saying on his blog, they are merely calling it to account (whether you agree with their argument or not).
That does not at all mean newspapers etc should have an automatic right to discover his information. But if they are able to discover the name via legitimate means, that's his fault for not covering himself.
Note he is the one actively publishing, publicising and promoting his allegations. This is important. It is only those whom publish allegations that should be held responsible for them. One issue with UK Law* is that it considers any comment posted online without restricted access to be publishing, failing to distinguish between what is really publishing and what is merely chit chat.
* (by UK law I mean the various laws in the UK member states, there is no such thing as "UK Law").
The court has not ruled that anonymity is illegal. The court has simply ruled that should a newspaper have some information that it considers newsworthy, it is entitled to publish.
Personally, I think it was rather reprehensible of a newspaper not to respect confidentiality as a matter of policy but it's their legal right and it's up to the blogger to protect his own anonymity.
Whistleblowers are usually protected by the law, and get support from the press and friendly politicians into the bargain.
This guys breached his employment contract and doesn't want to take the consequences. Incidentally, all he got was a reprimand. AND he wrote an article (therefore got paid) for the very same publication that outed him!
I piss off bigots.
in the U.S. we're supposed to have a free press, not government owned. Unfortunately, consolidation of ownership of media outlets have reduced the "free press" to mouth pieces of the agendas they're trying to push. Blogs like Nightjack's are the last true free press now.
IANAL, but I thought that *one* essential reason laws waive the expectation of privacy in "public places" is because by the *nature* of that place, it is essentially not private. For example, there is too much of a practical burden of enforcing privacy when I go walk outside, because that's actually *me* walking outside. There's only so much identity-hiding I can do.
But for a blog, by its very *nature* it works the other way around. Anonymity happens by the fact that the blog posting doesn't see who is actually sitting at the keyboard, so identity has to be proactively required by settling for something that substitutes, such as using a valid email for login registration. Here, regarding the enforcement burden, it's the other way around: there is more effort required to identify someone than not identify someone (e.g. you could allow anonymous posts, etc.).
The point:
Although I am sharing *data* that becomes public, *I* am not personally in a public place, so I should reasonably assume I can have anonymity.
The real story here, is that the UK government is trying to censor the opinions of its employees. This is totally unacceptable. The officer should be free to express whatever political opinions he wants, including being critical of his superiors, as long as he does it when he is off-duty. This really makes me angry. Everyone seem to be ignoring just how bad this type of censorship is, instead focusing on the fact that they "outed" him. The real issue is the fact that he needed to be anonymous in the first place...
The right to privacy is pretty much limited to things you do inside your own home. Once you put something in a public space, it's not longer private. There has never been any right to publish anonymously, or be quoted anonymously. Think of all those investigative reporters who spent years trying to uncover Deep Throat. (Yes this is a US example, but law in the US and the UK are based on the same common law principles.)
Let me rewrite that headline and put the opposite spin on it.
"In an encouraging move affirming freedom of the press in Britain, a British judge has ruled against newspaper censorship, saying that a newspaper has the right to publish the name of a blogger if they are able to find it. In a landmark decision, Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an injunction to stop The Times from printing the name of Richard Horton, a blogger who anonymously revealed confidential details of police cases on his blog. "
Does that sound better? Same facts, just reversing the spin.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Several reasons.
1) If there were no protection, you would get no witnesses in dangerous cases like, say, terrorism or organised crime cases.
2) If your witness dies because someone found out who they were, you have no case
Then again, you're probably plod and don't like the boat rocked...
Just show that it's wrong.
And why are you not worried about spies for your country remaining anonymous? After all, they could lie about what's going on and ruin the country!!! OUT ALL SPIES!!!
Exactly, he won the prize under his pen name. Somebody please update wikipedia.
All's fair in love and war. Let's turn the tables and every time that newspaper mentions a "Government Source" or "A Source close to..." or "An anonymous source", we as bloggers unite and do everything we can to find out who their source is and spill the beans. Tit for tat.
Well, duh. That's because until now he was *anonymous*.
Try looking under 'Winners', '2009', 'Blogs' - NightJack - that's him.
Let's not bad mouth the Congo.
Reversed spin is still spin.
Does that sound better? no.
Now is the Blogger "anonymously revealing confidential details" or reporting unethical or illegal deed by a corrupt police department (or other powerful entity)?
By the way, Does Britain even have "free speech"?
Too bad you don't have individual rights in Britain. No wonder the people who wanted the government out of their lives crossed the pond and eventually founded America. This is an open invitation to break the laws regarding privacy without consequences, which just goes to show you how far Britain has really fallen. Even America isn't this bad yet.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If this is the way newspapers act, then the death of them cannot come too soon.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If authors who write publically are allowed to remain anonymous then how can there be any accountability for their actions? Suppose the contents of this blog were complete fabrication - why should someone be allowed to get away with libel? There is something to be said for the source+journalist approach. The journalist is responsible for ensuring that the source's story is verifiable and true and can be held accountable for that without having to expose the source.
I totally agree. Like, just because voting is a public process doesn't mean you have a right to privacy about who you voted for.
The blog is no longer accessible http://nightjack.wordpress.com/ and can not be reached via http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://nightjack.wordpress.com/
It finally happened. This is the first recorded instance of a site being slashdotted not only in the present but also in the past and the future. Be very afraid. Your personal web page, not updated since the 90s, might be next.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I hope you are being sarcastic...
If I'm looking for a place to eat, I'm likely to avoid places with a slew of negative reviews outright. I'm not going to say to myself "Hmmm... let me go and blow my evening to find out if the food really is as horrible and the service as bad as the last twelve reviews said?" All else being equal, I'm going to go to the place with fewer negative reviews.
If I own the victimized restaurant, how am I supposed to counter the reviews without revealing I know they were written by my rival? Just post up: "No really, our food is tasty and the service great!" Who's going to take a risk and believe self-serving crap like that?
SirWired
"Anonymized!" Surely you meant "concealed"?
Newspapers and News outlets in general want that "special treatment" as a news outlet. They have stated that bloggers are not real news people yet now they want them treated as such seems like a double standard they are trying to achieve here.
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
I'm against government, law and ISP collusion against Internet privacy. If the ISP sold his identity the blogger should sue his ISP, if the newspaper hacked the ISP the ISP should sue the newspaper. If a Judge orders the ISP to betray the user, law must change.
If the newspaper found out his identity merely by reading his blog I'd say he never was so anonymous to begin with. The newspaper simply completed a job anyone could do on its own.
But... the future refused to change.
I wouldn't call Britain a police state over this particular law. But it is the combination of this law and for example Britain's outrageous libel laws (search for e.g. Simon Singh) that make me worried. The problem is that instead of a just balance between goverment and citizen where citizen's rights are guaranteed while enabling the government to erm... govern, Britain's laws all work in the same direction, strenghtening the goverment and more and more putting the citizens at its mercy. And this is especially problematic in a country like Britain where the goverment appears to be on the wrong side more often than not.
The least credible source about the quality of the food at a restaurant is going to be the restaurant itself. All else being equal, I'd rank it even below that of an anonymous source; wouldn't you?
In any case, if I claim that the anonymous postings come from a rival, and I'm actually right, haven't I just "outed" the rival? Me saying it is, and should be, fine to "out" a rival was the whole point of my post!
SirWired
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Ben Franklin warned about when he said: "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security".
The biggest problem is that historically, people who give up civil liberties for security don't get either liberty or security, though you may not hear a lot of complaints about this problem once it happens because they no longer feel safe in speaking of it.
That said, I wouldn't take for granted that the IP addresses in blog server logs are accurate. Mine said a few seconds ago that I was accessing the Net from a German IP. I've never been to Germany. (tor / privoxy are your friends)
Tech Public Policy stuff
"newspapers are allowed to publish their identities if they can find them by fair or foul means."
So newspapers are allowed to hack peoples computers as long as they are going to publish their names? The internet is designed for freedom and ever more we are seeing governments trying to control and tax it. The justice system is a joke and should be abolished.
Almost everyone cleared of rape in court is guilty as hell. There's no getting away from the fact.
UK is turning into soviet russia. Revolt and take back your freedom, you limey serfs!
You are quite right that there are only two comments, and that's because the Times are not publishing responses to their article: I submitted one as soon as I learned about their involvement, decrying their actions, and calling on others to do so too. It is yet to be published.
IMO, newspapers feel threatened by good bloggers because there's no space for the interpretation of opinions when you can read the primary source yourself. And this was a self-serving action to fight back against bloggers. It was not in the public interest. The result is that a source of citizen journalism that exposed what policemen thought has been shut down.
I am appalled by the Times' actions.