I may be in a minority on this, but I don't think anyone has any kind of a "right" to anonymity. Surely in a free society, one is entirely free to "unmask" anyone attempting to hide their identity. Everyone has a right to try to conceal it, but not a "positive right" that the state should support that attempt via the legal system and state force. The other side of the coin to that of course is that the legal system should not be forced to compel somebody to reveal their identity- but presumably if somebody can be taken to court and forced to do so, then in fact it is already known.
Nobody on the web has any right to anonymity. They are free to attempt to conceal their identity, but that's all.
The grounds given for considering him a bad blogger were, curiously, "Some of the blog’s best-read sections, which on occasion attracted half a million readers a week, were anecdotes about cases on which Mr Horton [NightJack] had worked. The people and places were made anonymous and details changed, but they could still be traced back to real prosecutions."
The prosecution process is more secret here than in many places, but rules on officers' revealing information outside their public duties are elastic. I have yet to hear of an officer being disciplined for giving information to the press allowing them to come and film a celebrity being arrested, or for private briefing in order to get out the police establishment view of a notorious case. Maybe I'm unobservant or such cases get little publicity.
Ian,
I don't think many people are contesting the legal aspect of his 'outing' so much as criticising the Times' reasons for doing so. It all looks like so much vindictive headline grabbing, serving to pointlessly tarnish a man's career for no good reason other than because they could.
SaltedSlug, I entirely agree. I think anyone who seeks to be a thorn in the side of the establishment needs to recognise though that that makes them a target. A sad indictment of our polity.
And another thing. Just try asking the Times to reveal their sources. Oh sorry - that's a vital safeguard to a free press in a democracy.
Completely different kettle of fish.
NightJack is lucky to have not ended up in the Tower of London because his crime was one that is TRULY unforgivable.
He told the unvarnished truth.
I followed the link to the Orwell Prize and then links to the blog-posts which were the basis for the award.
ALL GONE. The entire blog has been deleted 'by the owner'. So we know one part of the disciplinary process the NightJack suffered.
Even more interesting, I get the following from Wayback:
We're sorry, access to http://nightjack.wordpress.com has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt.
So we cannot even go back at look at what was posted....
I'm looking forward to reading Sunfish's thoughts on the Survival Guide.
As to the issue of blogger anonymity, I have to agree with Ian B on this. From what I have read there is no indication that the government was in any way involved in the identification of NightJack (which would give me a problem), but rather that the Times' reporter deduced it through the use of publicly available information. I see nothing wrong with that.
Seems to me that NightJack forgot his own advice- he should have lodged a claim for slander against him by suggesting that naming him and his position was in the public interest. What has he done against the public that should give them cause to be interested in his identity? He has certainly caused public interest in the insights he has provided, but that is for the public, not against them. Therefore outing him was a de facto accusation of mal-intent, and a dramatic assault on his character with potentially disastrous results. Therefore NightJack should not have sought an injunction, he should have sued. He still should imo.
Laird-
I like a few points, and disagree with others. But bear in mind that all of my answers pertain to US law, not UK.
WRT not saying anything: I'm mixed but favorable to this one. Unless you know full well why you're being questioned and what about, it's best to be cagey. But also be aware that there are sometimes very good reasons for police to ask questions before answering any.
If you're in custody or are the defendant in an active case, and the police try to interview you, lawyer the hell up.
Don't consent to searches. Don't try to physically obstruct them if the officer searches anyway. If he overrules your consent, then he (most likely) has an independent legal justification for the search.
Don't try to argue with the cop about what the law actually is. I get that roughly weekly and have yet to be wrong even once.
Unlike in the UK, if you fail to present an exculpatory statement at the side of the road or when initially arrested, the prosecutor can't make an issue of you having something to hide or trying to cook up a story. There is no "Well, why didn't you tell the nice officer about this when he asked before?" in front of the jury.
If you claim suicidal thoughts, all that you'll accomplish is a few extra days in a facility that a lawyer or bondsman won't get you out of. And then the possibility of a commitment order from a psychiatrist that can have long-term consequences, that a judge is unlikely to countermand.
As for the 'show no respect' thing...that may make you look like Billy Badass in the UK. Here, we have a saying, that "If he wants to play fuck-fuck games, we can play fuck-fuck games." We work with the assumption that people do what they do for some reason or another. If someone acts like a hood rat, then we'll assume that it's because in some way he's a hood rat. Not to mention, you're probably on tape because of the CYA moves we need to make because of all of the other bullshit complaints submitted previously about us. Whatever you say can easily be played for the judge.
And if you're arrested, your goal is not to go home that night. Your goal is to make a jury say 'not guilty' somewhere down the road. The best way to manage that is to answer booking questions (name, DOB, address, next of kin, religious preference, any medical conditions that the jail staff need to know in order to ensure your safety while in custody, etc.) but let your lawyer do the rest of the talking.
re: threats of IA complaints and lawsuits: Look up 'qualified immunity.' That's what you'll need to overcome to sue an officer. And a false IA complaint can be prosecuted as a false police report. If the officer suffers damages as a result of a false IA, then you can also be civilly liable to him for libel.
How to act on traffic stops is a very long post in itself. I'll write it if an editor tells me that it's wanted either in this thread or on the front page.
Llamas? Thoughts?
(Laird...by 'you' I don't mean you personally. More a 'you' as a short version of 'gentle reader' or some such.)
It took just six weeks, including a court-case, to reveal his identity. The blog has now been deleted, and the DC formerly known as NightJack has been disciplined in some unspecified way.
I'm pretty sure The Blog has been deleted for a couple of months at least.
Night Jack has written a piece in The Times.(Apologies if the link doesn't work. The Times gives me many error messages for some reason)
He has no 'right' to anonymity. Were there credible risks against his person or career he should have exercised more caution in who he was in contact with and what he published on his blog.
Would the blogosphere be as exorcised if he had been trying to injunct a fellow blogger?
Much of NighhtJack's blog is still Google-cached. Anyone who wants to check it out can do so by typing "site:nightjack.wordpress.com" into Google Search.
Cheers.
This is The Times acting monopolistic. The Times wanted all that blog information for them instead of being free in the Blog.
Btw. I have read that linked text before and some messages critical of The Times disapeared.
To add to what Sunfish says, do note the context of NightJack's guide.
He's talking about practice, not law, and although some of his points have general application, he is clearly talking about the case (law abiding folk who have fallen foul of the “entitled poor” and those who have learned how to use us to score points and exact revenge) where you have been or think you may be falsely accused of something by a third party.
The repeat customers have developed a style of dealing with the institutions that is efficient and based on exploitation of organisational behaviour as much as law. Hence the focus on engaging the hate-crime mechanisms to get yourself treated as a victim and on minimising any contribution to a factual picture.
(In parallel, repeat customers in the civil courts are less likely to be shocked by procedural manoeuvres, insane counterclaims, and judicial focus on things that didn't seem important at the time.)
The one time I was interviewed by the police as a suspect, I broke all those rules. Had I been in when they called and been arrested I might have behaved differently, but they politely left a card and asked me to call them: so I called and explained over the phone, and they were satisfied.
But there were two massive differences from NightJack's template case: 1. No vengeful third party, the critical element of that alleged crime being dishonesty, it was advantageous to be a transparently decent person. 2. It was more than 15 years ago. There have been massive changes in the way the police operate in England since. I suspect there would be a lot more pressure on them to arrest and charge, a different mechanism employed than two detectives driving down from Oxford, and a different institutional attitude to nice middle-class people from Chelsea.
PS - England and Wales now is the most important bit of context.
As far as I know none of what Sunfish says about IA complaints in the 'States is true of complaints against the police in this country. But equally a justified complaint is likely to be treated with the blizzard of routine ones from low-lifes that are part of the victimhood strategy and whose function is not to punish officers but to hinder prosecution and diminish sentence.
I don't ever go to a cop for help with anything, and I always try to avoid them if I can. That is what their reputation means to me. I act on the assumption that they have absolutely no interest in doing the right thing (and often, quite the opposite). That may not be true of all cops, but it is certainly true of some and I have no way of knowing what kind of cop I either am or will be dealing with prior to contact with them. I therefore assume the worst and simply avoid them altogether whenever it is possible - even when I am ostensibly in a position to benefit from their 'help'.
The Times has form on this kind of thing.
True to form, here's Anna Mikhailova wittering on about how "Unmasking an anonymous blogger can ruin your reputation and threaten your career."
Her invocation of the public interest is unmatched with any explanation of how unmasking either Nightjack or Girl With a One Track Mind is in the public interest.