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."

Comments

Police state

[tsa]

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.

Re:Police state

[Frosty Piss]

The parent has been modded "flaimbait", and perhaps it is, but it is also not far from the truth. Limmited privacy laws, CCTV everywhere, GB is the "poster child" for government intrusivness.

Re:Police state

[CopaceticOpus]

But at least you can feel... secure? This looks like satire, but scarily enough, it is real:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/toasty/2171185463/sizes/l/

No wayback archive copy available.

[auric_dude]

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 the government stayed out of it... good.

[dan_sdot]

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?

Re:So the government stayed out of it... good.

[Romancer]

More to the point of double standards...

What has this newspaper done in the last ten years where they have cited anonymous sources? Would they like another newspaper or perhaps a blogger to helpfully find out their sources and out them to their employers?

I'm pretty confident that they would have something to say on behalf of anonymity when it comes to their "service".

Re:So the government stayed out of it... good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, no, the government didn't "stay out of it". That's the problem in this case, you see. He upset lots of very senior politicians with his acerbic writing. Two of them in particular - including one extremely wealthy guy who serves in a senior role in the government - were so pissed off about it, they wanted to know who the author was and silence him. They pulled strings with their great friend(s) at the very well-funded British newspaper empire who were persuaded it was so important, urgent and "in the public interest anyway" that immediately approval was given to throw a large part of that financial year's remaining contingency account funds at an investigative journalism team with orders to "get answers 'yesterday'". This case is all about people in positions of power abusing their positions by asking friends in other positions of power to do a little backscratching for them. Call it the old boys' network. It's an absolute disgrace that this sort of thing is still going on and it is an affront to democracy. The timing is very suspicious, as the blogger was just about to blog about a corruption case, not yet exposed, involving some very senior politicians. What a coincidence his blog stopped just then. Maybe time for somebody else should take up the cudgel... Anon for a damn good reason.

Re:So the government stayed out of it... good.

[Opportunist]

...but since he dared to cut the middle man and publish himself he should be punished?

Are you working for some record label or what?

Shocked

[sexconker]

Britain? Monitoring? Censorship?

Surely you jest!

He expected to remain anonymous?

[Deosyne]

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.

Not quite what it seems

[Budenny]

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.

British Courts are Insane

[QuoteMstr]

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.

PARIS -- You're an investment bank in Iceland with a complaint about a tabloid newspaper in Denmark that published critical articles in Danish. Whom do you call?

A pricey London libel lawyer.

That is called libel tourism by lawyers in the media trade. And Britain remains a comfortable destination for the rich in search of friendly courts, which have already weighed complaints from people who consider themselves unfairly tarred with labels like tax dodger, terrorist financier or murky Qaeda operative.

And the alternative is...?

[sirwired]

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

Not the government

[R2.0]

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?

Re:Common sense ruling.

[FourthAge]

I read his blog, all of it, and I can assure you that he didn't reveal any confidential details, no matter what Sunday Times hacks might claim. His exposure was not in the public interest. It was in the Government's interest.

In any case, politics was a very minor aspect of Nightjack's blog. He started off writing just about his work; both positive and negative aspects of being a detective. Some of the best stories on the blog (e.g. his "24 hours to crack the case" series) dealt with successful work that he had been involved with. Some were not about policing at all.

However, the UK Government is always interfering with the police. Their social policies cause a lot of problems which the police are required to solve. The UK is not a socialist paradise, it is a complete mess, and this is because of the malice and incompetence of our "elected" rulers. In a minority of posts, Nightjack told the public exactly what he had to deal with, and after the Orwell Prize raised his profile, he became an embarrassment to the police and to the Government. That was his "crime" and that's why he was shut down. It doesn't help the public, it helps the Government, because that's one fewer dissenting voice.

This is a ruling in favour of free speech!

[91degrees]

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.

Re:Orwell Prize?

[arkhan_jg]

He won the 2009 Orwell special prize for blogs - under the pseudonym he used on the blog, Jack Night.

Wikipedia doesn't say much about the special prizes, only the Journalism and Book prizes.

Headline Spin

[Geoffrey.landis]

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.

Re:Headline Spin

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Indeed. That was one of the most loaded Slashdot summaries I've seen in a long time. For example, contrary to the direct claim in the summary, the officer's career is not in danger. He appears to have received a formal, written warning about behaviour in violation of professional standards he knew he was violating when he wrote the blog.

In any case, I'm not sure this ruling is a bad thing. As the judge pointed out, if someone is being critical of essential public institutions and claiming a certain authority, there is a public interest argument that the people reading the blog should not be prevented through legal restraint from finding out how qualified and experienced the person actually is. After all, if The Times could identify the blogger, they obviously weren't really anonymous in the first place, were they? And as the parent points out, upholding anonymity here would in turn violate the freedom of the press, also not something to be done without a very good reason.

In any case, if something being announced or discussed on a blog is serious enough to threaten the blogger's career prospects, shouldn't that blogger already be questioning the ethics of continuing to work for that employer anyway? There's a long-standing tradition that when senior military or political figures wish to criticise something they truly believe to be unethical or inappropriate behaviour, they do so in their resignation speech.

Re:Reversing the spin

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

How about the truth, then?

"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."

Oh, wait. That's the same as the anti-spin to TFA. My bad.

The only thing worse, historically, than newspapers ferreting out and publishing information is the legal ability of a government to prevent that. Yes, it's bad for this particular whistle blower. But not as bad as direct censorship.

Re:Appeal? Unlikely

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

So many people are missing the point.

A. Revealing a whistleblower bad.

B. Government censorship bad.

C. B >> A in importance, so says history.

Just because one thinks one is more important doesn't imply one thinks the other is wrong. You can think both are important and then do a value-judgement on which should take precedence. Personally, I think history shows the latter over the former. "Legally anonymous" whistleblowers are a good, but woefully inadequate, watchdog on a government with the legal ability to censor.