How much privacy can the everyday person expect in a world where people use social sites like twitter to tell us what they've had for lunch, how much work they have left to do before the end of the day, if their boss is being mean and nasty or even if their bowel movement was normal. Does anyone really care THAT much about what you're doing that they need an almost hourly update on what mundane things you're doing around the office or at home? But what if the privacy you expected was a little more serious than having you twitter or facebook account locked down so only your closest cyber buddies could see what you're up too..... What if it was the information surrounding a terrible tragedy in your life, what then?
Cameron Slater, a New Zealand online blogger was recently convicted on 9 out of the 10 charges of breaching name suppression orders: each of these convictions came with a $750 fine as well as court costs. Most of the people he chose to 'name and shame' were high profile defendants some of whom had been convicted of sexual assault. But one of the people whose name suppression he chose to breach was the victim of a sexual assault, and he did so knowingly and without remorse. In a statement outside the Auckland courts on the 14th of September Slater said he had "no regrets, and was not remorseful". Well im sure the sexual assault victim he happily outed will be pleased as punch to hear that.
In the court transcript the mentioning of the charge (charge number 2, on page 59 if you want to find it in the transcripts) is as follows "The article also identified the victim of the offending in the following way. "He faces a raft of charges including four charges of raping his wife, unlawful sexual connection with his wife and abduction for sex" the blog this was posted in also had an easily decodable pictogram of the accused. This gave the people reading enough information to figure out who the victim of the crime was.
In class everyone seemed to have a differing idea on what privacy is, and indeed most people do. What is private to some isn't to others, so I can't tell you that yes Slater was right or no he was in the wrong, I can only give you my opinion. In the end it is really up to you to decide if Cameron Slater was rightly or wrongly convicted, or even if a $750 fine is enough of a punishment. I just know that if he had outed someone I love and care about in this way..... I'd want more than a $750 fine to be his punishment.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
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I find it incredible that some apparently intelligent people think that because they don't like the current state of the law on name suppression, they should then support a lone operator like Slater acting above the law and pretending to have some kind of special hotline to the "public interest". Just to clarify, though, he got pinged for $750 for EACH count, right (so he's several thousand out of pocket in total)?
ReplyDeleteYep, with court costs he is out of pocket anywhere from $6 to $8000. But I still don't think it's enough. The victim he outed will have to live with that stigma the rest of her life because of his thoughtlessness and desire to "crusade" against what he feels is an unjust law.
ReplyDeleteBut that's just my own personal opinion.
I agree, blogger! Cameron Slater clearly doesn't understand that name supression can be beneficial to victims, or at least curb their negative experience by allowing it to remain largely private and (to some extent) within their control from that point on. This is extremely important in terms of sexual assault, where the poor woman had all control taken from her. The court made a decision, and whether or not Cameron Slater disagrees with it is neither here nor there, and does not give him the right to out anyone. While I do agree with the new law changes stating that people will not be given name suppression just because they think they are famous (because let's be honest, if a crime is bad enough to affect their reputation, it should!), I also think the flip-side is true and that name suppression should definitely be used to protect victims. I'm pleased to hear that this is also integrated into the new law, so child victims especially will be protected.
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