[LINK] grog gamut

[Karl Auer]

On Tue, 2010-10-05 at 07:13 +1100, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
> Yes, but without considering the right to privacy in this circumstance, 
> merely stating that privacy was attacked is a non-sequitur.

The absence of a codified "right to privacy" is, while not irrelevant,
also not a strong point. That is, if there WERE a codified right to
privacy that applied in this case, then the case would perhaps be
clearer, but the absence of a codified right to privacy does not absolve
the journalist concerned of the responsibility to use his judgement.

> Now, I said that a breach of the code is uncertain. Argument could be 
> made on clauses 3, 4, 5 and 8 - but in each of these, regardless of my 
> own opinion, I think that actual breach is uncertain.

But I'm not talking about breaches. There doesn't have to be a law
against something for it to be bad thing to do. I'm talking about a
journalist deliberately doing the wrong thing. This was no snap decision
- he'd known about the situation for months, it seems. Doubly bad in a
profession that should be *especially* mindful of privacy issues, public
interest issues, and the balance between them.

> "No good reason" is an individualistic value judgement. I happen to 
> agree with it, but I also see that merely because I think something is 
> distasteful is an incomplete case for condemning it.

Bollocks. Don't tell me you are one of those nasty relativists, where
everything is relative, nothing is real and everything is "just an
opinion". If you are going to bolt down that rabbit hole you can bolt
down it alone. 

What do you *think*, Richard? Where do you *stand*?

> To me, the key question in this debate is this: what moral force should 
> be given to the blogger's custom of anonymity? On what arguments can we 
> base the assumption that anonymity is a right?

Bollocks again. That twists the position to suggest that "the default is
no rights and we'll work from there". A FAR better key question is "why
should a journalist breach someone's anonymity?" That is, the journalist
concerned should have asked "why should I do this?" rather than "why
should I not do this?"

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer/                   +61-428-957160 (mob)

GPG fingerprint: B386 7819 B227 2961 8301 C5A9 2EBC 754B CD97 0156
Old fingerprint: 07F3 1DF9 9D45 8BCD 7DD5 00CE 4A44 6A03 F43A 7DEF