The High Court has refused to preserve the anonymity of an award-winning policeman blogger who has written about the force and government ministers.
Mr Justice Eady refused an injunction to prevent The Times identifying serving officer “Night Jack”, winner of an Orwell prize for blogging.
The judge said said blogging was “essentially a public rather than a private activity”.
Night Jack’s lawyer said preserving his anonymity was in the public interest.
Hugh Tomlinson QC, said the thousands who communicated via the internet under a cloak of anonymity would be “horrified” to think the law would do nothing to protect their identities if someone carried out the necessary detective work to unmask them.
But the judge ruled any right of privacy on the part of the blogger would be likely to be outweighed by a countervailing public interest in revealing that a particular police officer had been making such contributions.
He added: “Those who wish to hold forth to the public by this means often take steps to disguise their authorship, but it is in my judgement a significantly further step to argue, if others are able to deduce their identity, that they should be restrained by law from revealing it.”
The blogger expressed strong opinions on matters of political controversy and had criticised a number of ministers.
The judge said that it had always been apparent that if his employing police authority became aware – as it now had – that one of its officers was communicating to the public in such a way, there would be a significant risk of disciplinary action.
Indeed, this was one of the main reasons why Night Jack was keen to maintain his anonymity.
Rejecting the argument that all the blogger’s readers needed to know was that he was a serving police officer, the judge said that it was often useful, in assessing the value of an opinion or argument, to know its source.
“For so long as there is anonymity, it would obviously be difficult to make any such assessment.
“More generally, when making a judgment as to the value of comments made about police affairs by ‘insiders’, it may sometimes help to know how experienced or senior the commentator is.”
He did not accept that it was part of the court’s function to protect police officers who were, or thought they might be, acting in breach of police discipline regulations from coming to the attention of their superiors.
The public was entitled to know how police officers behaved and the newspaper’s readers were entitled to come to their own conclusions about whether it was desirable for officers to communicate such matters publicly.
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“He added: “Those who wish to hold forth to the public by this means often take steps to disguise their authorship, but it is in my judgement a significantly further step to argue, if others are able to deduce their identity, that they should be restrained by law from revealing it.” ”
I can agree with this sentiment. With his career on the line Night Jack could have done a more thorough job of disguising his identity by giving less away about his cases.
The consequences of Night Jack’s behaviour must be carried on his own shoulders. Yes he was providing a valuable insight into policing* and yes the Times story is niggardly and without merit but he didn’t have to give so many clues as to his identity.
Would readers trust newspapers that carried no names on it’s articles?
* Why do the Police fear serving officers discussing the way Policing is done, for good and ill? They will never regain our trust by trying to clamping down on such things.
Alan,
How do you know that Polly Toynbee’s real name is Polly Toynbee?
Interesting – just checked my spam folder – and apologies to mandyv who has been trapped in there, and who I have just released.
I am being heavily spammed by ‘amateur incest movies’ – are there professional ones???????
Shooting the whistle-blower combines with the envy of a spiteful hack. What NightJack did was in the public interest (in every sense of the phrase).
Now the Times will reveal the names of all its informers – NOT!
You should read the Register comments on this – the Times gets slammed.
OT I know, but I think you might want to publicize this.
http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/2009/06/hacking-iranian-government.html
Richard Dale is trying to help the Iranians crash government websites.
I hope you and your readers will take a look and maybe spread the word.
This is one in the server for Amahdidinnerjacket and his girl-hurting pig-fuckers.
Pardon my Spartan.
I posted a comment on The Times and got the message that they were experiencing large comment volumes but only four comments appear. Perhaps they did not like what I had to say.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6509677.ece
Got the fucker
http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2009/06/patrick-foster-of-times.html
Try Gloria’s pink ointment.
Anna,
If Polly Tonybee were someone else but was crap at covering their tracks should they enjoy the protection of the law in remaining a pseudonym to make up for their mistakes?
Should Guido be able to stop people broadcasting his real name?
Old Holborn said enough on his blog to be identified via messages he had posted elsewhere. Who is most at fault for this: The person who linked to the website where OH said who he was or OH for being careless?
It seems to me The Times set out to spoil things for him but if Night Jack chose to publish details that could identify the cases he was discussing and thereby identify him surely that is his own mistake and he should accept responsibility for it. The risk to his career was present with or without The Times sticking their oar in.
Was it in the public interest? Not sure. All seems very petty. He had made a pseud0-name for himself by publishing what he had and blogging anonymously is bound to arouse curiosity if not suspicion. If his behaviour is contrary to Police regulations should the freedom of the press only apply to plods who are devious, evil bastards?
He was like Icarus and flew too close to the sun.
Anonymity is all well and good if you are just trying to expose something. However, there is always the temptation to reveal your true self, after all, what is the point of achieving recognition (look how great I am) if you can’t bathe in the full glow, in your true identity. That is unless of course you are doing it for the greater good, and quite happy to stay in the shadows. Then you should remain anonymous.
We can suppose that Nightjack wished to retain a certain level of anonimitty because he is dealing with scum who would want to harm him or his family (I am assuming he has one). Similarily Judges go to great lengths to ensure their home addresses are not revealed so that the same scum cannot easily harass them.
Presumably the good judge is OK with the concept of knowledgable people (say a telephone employee) issuing such data to the Times to print. Of course why stop there, lets have all chief constables, MP’s and various do-good agencies CEO’s addresses revealed.
The Times and that lightweight Foster appear to have scored a massive own goal.
They take out a very popular blogger for a few column inches and look what happens – twisting the tiger by the tail is never a clever idea.
Anonybloggers need to be good at covering their tracks. Night Jack’s exposure is a lesson in how not to do it and anonyblogging will be better for it.
Old Holborn and others can request information about our betters and it magically appears.(Though how can they corroborate it?) That is no longer the preserve of the behind-closed-doors media and Night Jack’s case will push things further into our own hands.
Plato June 17, 2009 at 10:21 am
[...] twisting the tiger by the tail is never a clever idea.
***
Riding the tiger neither; you cannot get off anymore …