Rick's b.log - entry 2011/05/24

The most EPICest FAIL ever!

You see, this is bound to spark discussion regarding privacy vs abuse of the legal system, and all the way through, it will be his name associated with this.
For what? For maybe or maybe not getting off with some girl I've never heard of who isn't his wife? The sad thing is, if he simply replied "no comment", the story would eventually fizzle out. Because, frankly, apart from screaming nonsense in the trash-rags for a week or two, few people are likely to care that much. Instead, Ryan my friend, let me introduce you to the Streisand effect.

Imogen... I just Google'd her, switched to images search, yeah, I think I can see why a football player would be interested. How many picture pages will it take before I find one where she's actually dressed? ☺

But people? They might care more about him obtaining an injunction to prevent it being published.
And they will probably care even more about him obtaining a "super injunction" to prevent it even being mentioned that there is an injunction. [there is a massive logic fail here, for surely everybody would need to be informed, or otherwise somebody could print being completely unaware of said injunction?]

Of course, those of us outside of Britain have known for a while. And for the record: I'm living in France, my site is hosted in the US, and it's on his bloody Wiki entry! The injunction nonsense is a joke. Everybody knows... except the British. How is this possible in a modern democracy?
Who else is pulling the wool over your eyes?
Consider this quote from Wiki: "Every taxpayer has a direct public interest in the events leading up to the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, so how can it be right for a super-injunction to hide the alleged relationship between Sir Fred Goodwin and a senior colleague.". [quote here]

The way I see it, fame and fortune comes at a price. You can't be famous and/or loaded, and expect privacy on demand. You certainly can't be famous, loaded, and expect to get away with weilding the law to cover indiscretions. You should be smart enough to realise that you shouldn't be making such indiscretions in the first place.
The solution is pretty easy. If you don't like it, give up the cushy life and go stack shelves in Tesco. Then few people will give a damn who you are and what you do...

I believe an injunction should only be granted in cases where reporting the events could put the person concerned in danger, or damage their liklihood of a fair trial. It should never be used to preserve somebody's propriety.
I believe a super-injunction should only ever be issued if the knowledge of the event in question could damage public order or otherwise threaten the nation. It should never be used to hide corporate wrongdoing.
Furthermore, injunctions should be granted upon unanimous agreement of a panel of judges, no less than 9, preferably chosen at random by some reliably random method. This would, I hope, assure that such injunctions are applied for the right reasons.

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