My Monday evening viewing has, for many years, often included Questions and Answers on RTE1, but this is the first time I’ve blogged one of the episodes (which should appear here soon). Among the guests were Ger Colleran, Editor of the Irish Daily Star, and Andrea Martin, solicitor and consultant on media law. So I assumed that there would be a privacy question related to the case to which I referred in a previous post.
I wasn’t disappointed. …
This is a question I have had occasion to ask already on this blog. And a few searches with the words “why” and “blog” brought back a wealth of self-reflection. As always, the vast BBC website had something thoughtful to say; I rather liked this post on Sandhill Trek (the hill seems to have run into the sand in April 2006, which may or may not be a metaphor for the transience of bloggers); and the comments and trackback on this post on molly.com were very enlightening.
That little excursion around the blogosphere (wikipedia | technorati) was prompted after I came across an interesting post on darrenbarefoot.com. He wants to gather information and spark a discussion, because he has to talk about it at a conference February, so he has put together a very simple (I know it’s simple; I was able to do it!) 16-question survey, and accompanying discussion forum. So go on, do the survey, post to the forum, blog about it on your own blogs, pass it on, and start another cyber-meme. Oh, and he’s offering cool prizes for participation (though I took the survey out of genuine thirst for knowledge, and not because I want to win an iPod, one of two travel books, or a gift certificate.…
Rebecca MacKinnon on RConversation reports that Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Vodaphone display some cojones, referring to a press release from Business for Social Responsibiity which says that a
diverse group of companies, academics, investors, technology leaders and human rights organizations announced today its intention to seek solutions to the free expression and privacy challenges faced by technology and communications companies doing business internationally
As MacKinnon puts it, this “is not only the right thing to do, but these [companies] all recognize that in the long run ethical business is smart business”. More to the point, an agreed platform will not only make it more difficult for countries which fail to protect human rights to pick off companies one by one but it will also make it easier for companies to resist country-based censorship.
The great test will, of course, be China (wkipedia | Global Voices). Even the longest journey must begin with a single step; and this very important development is an excellent first step. …
It had to happen. After lots of dancing around the subject, a court finally has to face a submission that there is no common law cause of action for invasion of privacy at Irish law. Mary Carolan reports in today’s Irish Times that, in a case currently before Mr Justice Budd in the High Court, the Carlow Nationalist is appealing against an award of €6,500 to Richard Sinnott in the Circuit Court in Carlow last June. The Nationalist published photographs of him playing in a gaelic football match. Although in the ordinary run of things, this would be entirely unexceptionable, Mr Sinnott took exception this time because, in one of the photographs, his private parts were exposed.
The Circuit Court held that this infringed Mr Sinnott’s right to privacy. The Nationalist is appealing. On this ground at least, they should succeed. …
Following on the success of the Berkman Symposium on blogs and legal scholarship (on which I have already commented on this site), there comes the welcome news of advance plans for a Legal Blogging Conference in London, currently pencilled in for late April/early May. In the meantime, lawyer/bloggers should watch that space. Maybe somebody there will be able to tell me why I’m doing this? …
A Dublin family, the Grays, who moved to Ballybunion, Co Kerry, under the Rural Resettlement Programme, discovered the hard way just how confidential garda (police) records can be (or not). After their nephew had been released from prison, having served a sentence for rape, they took him in for a while. The local gardaà leaked this to the local media, and the wonderful welcoming people of Kerry not only shunned the family, but the public mood turned so nastily against the family that they suffered mental distress, anxiety and personal injury, and eventually had to leave their rural idyll. The Irish Times website reports that, in the High Court today, the family succeeded in their action for invasion of privacy against the state.
As TJ McIntyre points out, this is not the first time that the gardai have leaked information to the press and been found to have invaded privacy as a result. This raises a great number of issues, not only about privacy, but also about freedom of expression, and journalists’ sources.…
Less than 24 hours after yesterday’s entry “We, the People” was written, all seems changed. The morning news cycle is dominated by the headline in the Irish Independent that “Rabbitte leaves door open for Ahern pact“. Now, there may not be as much to the story as the headline makes out, as it wasn’t until he had been “pressed repeatedly on the issue” that Rabbittee acknowledged that he “may” (not would) have to “rethink his strategy if the only likely alternative is to call a second election”.
This seems a terribly grudging concession to incessant questioning.…
.. will soon cost more. Not only are the ongoing hearings on the Broadcasting Bill (mentioned here on Wednesday) likely to result in a broadened definition of television requiring a tv licence fee (even if not so broad that it will catch mobile phones – though it will be interesting to see how effectively this is achieved), but the fee itself is soon to to go up.
Oh joy. …
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