by Sven Triloqvist
Fri May 20th, 2011 at 10:12:07 AM EST
Grauniad: Superinjunctions: Modern technology out of control, says lord chief justice
M'Luddite has some further shocks awaiting him down the line. (The wigs will go, for one). It's like having a judge who only rides horses and knows nothing about cars - deciding traffic cases.
It's worth pointing out that a great deal of social destruction is done completely within the law. Yes, we can change those laws, but it is my sense that UK government is as much in the pocket of the justices and their lobbyists, as it is with corporate largesse. So the fact that the Law is an Ass, is not going to change at the ballot box.
There is no mention in the report of the impact of Twitter or the internet on the enforcement of court orders, but the lord chief justice said readers placed greater trust in the contents of traditional media than in those "who peddle lies" on websites. The internet had "by no means the same degree of intrusion into privacy as the story being emblazoned on the front pages of newspapers", which "people trust more", he said.
Where there is transparency, there is trust. This is the great ungraspable for a lot of people. Nothing should be secret except one's own thoughts - which can be displayed or withheld at will by the mind in question.
"People who peddle lies"? And he's not talking about the traditional media? It seems clear to me that the below-the-belt half of all traditional media (which would include politicians, ministers, redtops, Fox et al) should not be trusted by anyone. And if the elite stopped exclusively reading the top half of traditional media, and came to ET, they might learn something about the trust in which they are meant to be held. The actual word in which they are held is 'contempt'.
The names of those people who had taken out anonymity orders have been circulating, sometimes inaccurately, on Twitter. "Anybody can put anything on [such sites]," he said.
Yes? And?
Lord Judge said he believed that ways would be found to curtail the "misuse of modern technology" in the same way that those involved with online child pornography were pursued by the police. "Are you really going to say that someone who has a true claim for protection perfectly well made has to be at the mercy of modern technology?" he asked.
If the Lord Judge tries to find ways to curtail the misuse of technology (it's called innovation, M'Lud), I for one, will renounce my renunciation of violence - though it will only be in words, not weapons.
If the Law is an Ass - and I mean no disrespect to the hardworking beast of burden - then the Law must be ridiculed. The release of names from Superinjuncts on Twitter is part of that ridicule, as is Wikipedia in its own way. The mission statement of Wikipedia is a document that should be read once each year, at least.
There are, of course, complex arguments concerning the regulation of any territory - and online is a territory. And we are one tribe encamped on that territory.