Bravo! Greg.

You should FedEx a copy of this to Mirko Bagaric. (“If you've nothing to hide”, published 14/8/2008)

"It is time the right to privacy was taken as seriously here as it is in the UK." Yuk! Personally, I find the UK's idea of privacy repulsive.

On the one hand, Greg Barns presents us with several cases where the press is being muzzled. Its hard to defend the gutter press in the UK, but in this case they were doing something uncharacteristic - publishing the truth. Often they publish utter rubbish on celebrities and the Royals. Actually, utter rubbish is too kind. Bald faced lies designed purely to sell newspapers would be a better description. Publishing the truth, even a grubby truth like the ones described here is a noble endeavour in comparison. Even for a grubby truth like this, I have trouble deciding whether on the balance publishing it caused more harm than good. Yes, it must of caused great distress to the people involved, yet we get to see the Nazi leadership was rotten to the core.

So the UK government stamps on it in the name of privacy. But when it comes to keeping its own nose out of private affairs the UK government shows no such compulsion. London has more camera in public places watching what people do that any other place on earth. The some of the worst restraining laws I have seen in the west - with the press automatically gagged for months while they quietly burrow through someones private life. You must hand over the keys to encrypted material, or go to jail until you do. And here UNCRC's link shows how the UK citizens are encouraged to dob on what each others private life:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2511121/University-tutor-asked-to-photograph-semi-naked-children-convicted-of-pornography.html

Honestly, is this a road anyone would want us to go down? Clamping down on the private sectors ability to publish what is true, while at the same time giving the government carte blanche to do what they like with our private lives?

This may seem at odds with what I said elsewhere today, but privacy is about balance - ensuring everyone has equal access to information. The UK's approach is anything but balanced.

The right to privacy is becoming more and more tenuous while selling copy and advertising space by fair means or foul maintains newsprint distribution. The market for paper copies rests in the demographic that does not have a high level of access to the internet. This demographic is also defined as having lower education outcomes, lower incomes, more dysfunctional families and in general a more marginalised population.

Frankly I don’t care if any of our politicians (or anyone, really) are of ambiguous sexuality, have carnal thoughts about innocent architecture or enjoy intimately themed evenings with raunchy salad items. We are seeing a frightening trend where easily available information becomes an awful game of ‘Chinese Whisper’, more awful when it gets whipped into a frenzy of moral outrage by zealots whose agendas should be the real subject of scrutiny in the public interest.

Salaciousness sells and privacy is the sacrificial lamb.

Absolutely, Greg good thinking for a lib.

On almost every level the reduction of people’s lives to a commodity for commercial exploitation is an obscenity of our making. We all complain when commercially motivated telemarketers and their ilk uninvited contact us. (See us as a source for their products which we most often don’t want). Yet we sanction if not advocate intrusions (on steroids) on profile lives. As for the lies, distortions of the truth well...! All people and entitled to a life without some sleazy voyeur or business invading their privacy.

The (particularly privately owned) media is a business more interested in profit or power than genuine public issues. Yet they blow smoke claiming these salacious intrusions are in the public interest or news worthy no less? Strewth if it was a govt agency we would all be up in arms screaming big brother.

So where is the line? That’s hardly rocket science. Intrusion is only justified when and only pertaining to crime or the acts which will have demonstrable adverse effects on the wider public as determined by the “reasonable man” test.

If the plaintiffs especially if they're a corporation or an elected, publicly employed person need to prove a prima facie case befre an independent tribunal before lodging. This should be such as to minimumize heavy handed suits designed to silence legitimate criticism by virtue of superior wealth.

It seems to me media corporations and journalists (sic) should face real sanctions… front page apologies worded by the victim or being unable to print/distribute for periods of time.

Businesses are there to serve people not the other way arround.

I just wonder how long it will be before people start blaming 'The Church' for this secular legal systems approach to such things.....

Isn't it funny and ironic...how, in the absense of anything remotely resembling a 'Theocracy'.. we have secular Theocrats proclaiming from the holy Mount of political correctness and dispensing their 10,000 commandments and imposing them on their secular voters.....

Maybe we DO need a 'Theocracy' based on 'Love God first' .. "Love your neighbour as yourself"

Unfortunately, in the absense of such liberating 'principles' we are left with the Pharisees of secularism, enacting law after law after law.. until we won't be able to step to the left or right without their legislated and fully researched permission.

Such is the outcome of an unprincipled society, an anchorless vessel tossed this way then that...lost.. aimless, disintergrating, degenerating, out of control, praying to no one to preserve them from a catastrophic encounter with a reef.... not even a lighthouse in sight.

How depressing.

"I am the light of the world.. he who follows me will never walk in darkness"

Most debates about 'privacy' seem to ignore the difference between the private and the public sphere, in that what is done 'in private' should be protected from invasion, with some exceptions, and what is done 'in public' is public.

For instance, citizens, ie voters, when considering their elected representatives, have the right to know, in general terms, what those representatives are up to. If a politician takes a public stance against brothels and sex work, and a journalist, in a public place, gets a photo of that politician entering a brothel, then the public has a right to know. They do not have the right to know what actually happened in the establishment, as that is a 'private space'.

Under much of the privacy provisions being pushed by people like Barnes the public would never know about this hypocrisy.

People who place themselves 'in the public eye' should not complain about 'invasions of their privacy' when in public. If you make your fortune from being a celebrity you really shouldn't complain about being treated like one. As much as I decry the paparazzi, who I consider to be vultures, I consider that they, when in public, are simply doing what the rest of this twisted society wants them to do. (I mean how many million$$ for photos of the Brangelina children, why?).

"Privacy", btw, used to be one of the ways that this society ignored domestic violence: that is, if it happened at home, then it was private and the rest of society should butt out - thankfully those days of privacy protection are over.

Essentially it comes down to this: if you want privacy, don't enter the public sphere and expect your life to remain private.