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.

Hamlet,
I suspect your personal moral choices are getting the way of logic. A trifle arrogant/patriarchal/intolerant don’t you think?
You’re saying that anyone in public the public’s eye forgo their RIGHT to a private life/ security by virtue of their job. Just because the ‘need a life brigade’ likes titillation from salacious ‘revelations’ with their dinner. This doesn’t sanction creating unwilling victims (there are enough individuals who are happy to expose themselves in reality shows) much less be encouraged.

I wonder how sanguine the editors, journalists’ would be if it was private lives were being trashed. Well, they are willingly in the public eye. Likewise by your reasoning I have the right to invade your privacy because you publish your views (in the public eye).

Explain to me logically how if an action is legal under the law then why shouldn’t an MP have the same rights?
• Explain to me how this stops him/her from doing their jobs? Does their brain/ability stop because they have sex out of wedlock?
• Who amongst us hasn’t been hypocritical at some time?
• Political parties offer collective stances… which may not reflect the personal view of all their MPs. (welcome to politics)
I advocate the criteria for public intrusion being a breach of the law, one that adversely compromises theirjob performance .

Our legal structure is based on the legal presumption of innocence until proven otherwise and deploring vigilantism. Once the damage is done like ‘feathers released on a windy hill’ no amount of compensation will get them all back. Therefore rights to personal privacy need to be proactive therefore codified and breaches Crimes (Police actions). In reality they are assaults in all but name. As the law stands only the rich have practical access to the courts.

examinator, there is nothing controversial in what Hamlet said. Its generally understood in our society becoming a public face involves making a Faustian bargain with the media. They will publicise your views, but in return they get to pick them and your reasons for publicising them apart. That necessarily requires you to give up some privacy.

This Wikipedia article describes US law:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure

The same views are held here:

http://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/apcnews/may94/public.html

examinator: "Explain to me logically how if an action is legal under the law then why shouldn’t an MP have the same rights?"

The logic is very simple. If you attempt to manipulate the public's views, the public gets to have a long hard look at you.

Examinator, what a person does in private, where legal, and involving the informed consent of participants should indeed remain private.

However, a democratic society is based on the idea of people being informed, particularly where it comes to any alleged hypocrisy or corruption on behalf of public figures, whether they be elected representatives, or non-elected 'community leaders' or people who claim to speak on behalf of the community, such as media commentators.

A politician who has, using my previous example, taken a public stand against prostitution, but then indulges in consensual paid sex, is really showing that their public stand is just a front, and whilst they should have a right of rebuttal, it is in the public interest to know what that person's real attitude is. The same goes for the anti-drug campaigner who abuses alcohol.

Or are you saying that we should accept everything at face value, and that no behaviour should be questioned?

Regarding the individual citizen's privacy: a basic example - if a woman exposes her breasts on a public beach, she is doing so in a public place, and therefore should have no expectation of privacy. If she does it in her own backyard, not visible from a public space, then she has an expectation of privacy.

Someone, anyone, celebrity or not, walking on a public street is doing so in public, not private, so they should have no expectation of privacy. There are some examples that can be questioned however, such as privately owned shopping malls, or places such as railway stations and airports, which whilst conditionally open to the public, may also be considered to be, at least in some respects, private spaces, with the conditions of privacy being set by the owners, and not by the people utilising those spaces.

In terms of virtual public space, when someone gets up on television (ie, a ‘virtual’ public space) and tells a lie that brings a benefit to them, does that person really have an expectation of privacy if someone else knows the truth and exposes them?

Is that concept too difficult?

Hamlet,
Not at all, I understand your concept but it’s logically inconsistent.
Perhaps you can explain the rationale for stalking laws?

By definition if a party member supports party policy even if he/she personally disagree. Are then a hypocrite?
Your criteria of hypocrisy is unrealistic please point to any leading politician who hasn’t indulged in that regularly?

Do I understand that if a MP doesn’t have public views on prostitution then he’s entitled to partake because he’s not a hypocrite? Prostitution in Qld is s legal in brothels it doesn’t exclude hypocrites and politicians. Then there's the unitended vitims their families (children).

Apart from which I think your expectation and understanding of parliamentary representation are unrealistic/flawed. Neither is it a matter of taking them at face value nor how well they suit my personal philosophy. If I did I’d never vote for anyone. There are better ways to assess their suitability.

I expect MPs to put forward the views of the electorate. That’s the point of elections. I don’t vote for politicians on their legal private lives. I vote for them on their ABILITIES to represent the electorate.

MP Heffernan well out of line when he attacked High Court Justice Michael Kirby publicly protected in “coward’s castle”. Kirby is/was one of this country’s best Jurists ever and I don’t give “a rats…” as to his personal private leanings. They are irrelevant it’s his extraordinary, unique ability and achievements I respect. Where was his justice? Likewise I don’t care if my cancer Surgeon legally frequents brothels either only that he sterilises properly before operating.
My point is such salacious intrusions are irrelevant.

The idea that public people aren’t entitled to a normal life in public places is ridiculous. You are saying that they aren’t entitled to go to the beach, walk in the park etc with their family (who didn’t agree to be public) in peace that borders on the obscene.

Privacy is a fundamental right. Google Street announced that they had filmed the major urban areas of Australia just prior to the Olympic. Imagine my disgust when I Google Streeted my street and could clearly see my car [and perhaps its number plate] and my good self [spying on the neighbours improvements]. The next time I looked I had disappeared.

Billie, that is sooo funny - privacy as a right and you were caught out SPYING on your neighbours improvements! ROFLAO!!

Meanwhile, when are people going to learn that nothing done 'in public' is private? There is no expectation of privacy in a public place - so don't do anything IN PUBLIC that you are not prepared for the whole world to know about! It is as simple as that.

Challenges to that principle can lead to public figures being able to hide wrongdoing and corruption, take the so-called democracies of SE Asia as an example: corruption is exposed, and the corrupted have the exposers imprisoned for libel - yes Examinator, that is the next step to your desired process.

Examinator: so what you are saying is that any politician can be as two faced / lying / corrupt / hypocritical as they like and no-one has the right to know that they are two faced / lying / hypocritical?

Next thing you will be demanding that all court cases should be closed to the public and the press, so that an accused privacy is protected, even if they are guilty. That we, the public, should never learn what happens in Courts, all in the name of privacy.

There has to be a balance between privacy and openness. The vote that I cast in an election is individually private, however the results, in terms of who won the election, and what the results in the various electorates, and booths, are not.

If a public figure wants their privacy, so be it, just don't pretend to be open to public scrutiny. It sounds like you are close to someone who has been caught out in ways that they would prefer not to have become known.