[LINK] grog gamut

[Richard Chirgwin]

  On 5/10/10 3:12 PM, Roger Clarke wrote:
>>    On 5/10/10 11:35 AM, Roger Clarke wrote:
>>>   I wasn't talking about legal rights.  I was answering this question:
>>>   At 7:13 +1100 5/10/10, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>>>>   To me, the key question in this debate is this: what moral force should
>>>>   be given to the blogger's custom of anonymity? ...
> At 14:59 +1100 5/10/10, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>> However, Roger, that leaves us not much advanced. I'm grappling with
>> whether News actually did something "wrong", as distinct from something
>> we find distasteful or mean-spirited.
> There's a quite tenable argument, based on any and all of the
> documents quoted earlier, that News did wrong.
>
> They may not have breached any laws.
>
> But the protections for human rights of these kinds are so utterly
> deficient that it would be a very bad mistake to equate 'wrong' with
> 'illegal'.
>
>
Thanks. Please tolerate my muddiness a little longer; the fog is 
starting to thin.

What's nagging at the back of my mind is this: the Grog's Gamut case 
will not be the last; and in my opinion, the arguments against such acts 
need to be as objective as possible.

Here's some hypothetical positions to work from.

1. Naming an anonymous blogger is wrong.
The problem with this position is that it elevates the blogger's rights 
too far above all others.

2. Under some conditions, it's okay to name an anonymous blogger.
What are the conditions, and who decides?

3. It's always okay to name.
The Oz's justifications seem to be close to this position.

My opinion is that (2) is closest to a workable ethic - but only if "who 
decides" can be settled. Otherwise, it's just popularity: the unpopular 
writer will be 'outed' with no defenders, while the popular will be 
defended even if they're in the wrong.

Cheers,
RC