Should there be limits on the freedom of the press?

[Rum]

Some non-Brits might not be aware of the phone hacking scandal here which threatens to bring down the Murdoch empire a notch or two. The scandal surrounds one of the Murdoch papers - a Sunday scandal rag called the News of the World, which routinely hacked into people's mobile phone messages to gain intimate and sometimes sensitive material about their private lives.

For more detail if you want it see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Inter ... ng_scandal

The most insensitive of these concerned the hacking of a murdered young woman's phone which led, temporarily to her parents believing she was still alive. But there are numerous other cases and also concerns that it may well have been widespread in the industry.

We are having a series of hearings in the UK which will look at the freedom of the press in terms of personal privacy. It seems likely that laws will be passed to limit the degree to which the press can delve into people's private lives.

Given some of the unforgivable things our famously lowbrow gutter press have got up to over the years something needs to be done, however one also fears the thin end of the wedge!

Thoughts?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

The press should certainly not be free to break the law in order to sell their papers. That is the worst of what is coming out in the enquiry. They shouldn't be allowed to print outright lies without recrimination either.

[Rum]

The press should certainly not be free to break the law in order to sell their papers. That is the worst of what is coming out in the enquiry. They shouldn't be allowed to print outright lies without recrimination either.

But they sometimes do when there is a 'public interest' right? With few consequences. The MPs expenses scandal info was obtained by at the very least 'shady' dealings..

[Clinton Huxley]

As long as the lower orders have such an insatiable appetite for sordid crap, the papers will supply it.

[Atheist-Lite]

The press are not free. They are hostage to their owners, their advertisers and their readers expectations.

[Audley Strange]

Newspapers should have a specific legal definition which excludes gossip or lies. Any group found to consistently being taken to court for libel and of misrepresentation and retraction should lose the right to use the word "news" anywhere and should be classified as a magazine. AND any retraction should legally have to take up the same space in column inches and page numbers.

[Schneibster]

I don't quite get why you guys need a law about that. I would have expected "reasonable expectation of privacy" to make it tortious to hack someone's phonemail and open the paper's owners to a lawsuit. How different is UK privacy law in this area?

[Rum]

As far as i am aware we don't actually have many laws specifically concerning privacy.

[Audley Strange]

I don't quite get why you guys need a law about that. I would have expected "reasonable expectation of privacy" to make it tortious to hack someone's phonemail and open the paper's owners to a lawsuit. How different is UK privacy law in this area?

Its not really just about the lack of decent privacy laws either though. The Murdoch's have been merciless in the courts, often prolonging and delaying any lawsuits against them in an attempt to financially break those who would accuse them into settling out of court. They've had their fingers in a lot of pies, the courts, the police and our politicians specifically. At least Fox is overtly corrupt, here they've been insidious.

[Schneibster]

"Reasonable expectation of privacy" is a doctrine, not a law; that is, a matter of precedent rather than statute. It generally extends to one's own enclosed private property, for example inside one's home, and to public places shielded deliberately, for example restrooms.

Got me interested and I went looking, and whoa! Privacy law and doctrine in the UK is sixty to a hundred years behind the US. Privacy as a right is barely established in UK laws; cases forming precedent are limited to the 1990s and this century.

You're definitely going to have to figure out exactly how you want to fix this. I'm not convinced right now that NOTW did anything actually illegal in the UK (though it certainly was despicable). That being the case you might want to make it illegal; there is data privacy to consider, if nothing else.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I'm not convinced right now that NOTW did anything actually illegal in the UK (though it certainly was despicable).

They paid a private investigator to hack into hundreds of people's voice mail - his actions were illegal and by extension so were theirs, as accessory before the fact.

[Schneibster]

Under the new data security laws, I guess?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Under the new data security laws, I guess?

Under this legislation I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_ ... ed_Kingdom

[Schneibster]

Wow, the oldest law there is from 1998. And yeah, there's the Data Protection Act.

Are they holding the private eye? There's some possibility, looking at that section, that he committed a tort, not a crime.

ETA: I'm guessing a lot because I don't have a feel for your privacy laws. This is an area that's quite detailed in the US and rather sparse for you folks so I have to check everything to have the least idea what I'm talking about.

Very interesting stuff.

[Seth]

The press should certainly not be free to break the law in order to sell their papers. That is the worst of what is coming out in the enquiry. They shouldn't be allowed to print outright lies without recrimination either.

But they sometimes do when there is a 'public interest' right? With few consequences. The MPs expenses scandal info was obtained by at the very least 'shady' dealings..

The difference is, as I see it, that public officials should be basically "open season" targets for the press under (our) Freedom of Information Act (and they pretty much are...see the Pentagon Papers case). Absent a compelling need for information to be classified as a military or diplomatic secret (not that it stopped Wikileaks) anything and everything a public official, and especially an elected official says that relates to their job or position AT ALL should be not just fair game, but should be available to anyone and everyone at any time.

Politicans and government employees should have NO expectation of privacy in anything they do while on the People's dime.

The phone hacking scandal on the other hand was reprehensible and criminal because it involved private persons.