h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've just heard a disgusting headline on Channel 4 News.

Maxine Carr (jailed for perverting the course of justice because she gave her boyfriend a false alibi in a double-child-murder case - for those who didn't know) is due to be released from prison and is to be granted an injunction stopping the media from revealing her whereabouts.

The news questioned "is her right to privacy more important than your right to know?" - of course it is! She isn't a violent criminal, isn't a danger. The only reason we'd need a "right to know" is to carry out vigilante activity - and anything that stops that kind of nonsense can only be a good thing.

Does anyone actually think we have a "right to know?"

My personal belief is that there was a 'vacancy' for another Myra Hindley and she was picked.

There are many people out there much more dangerous than her. But the media aren't interested in them of course.

Needless to say, I've just heard that a group of media scumbags are challenging the injunction.

(hope I can call them scumbags. They are though)

"-0-"

I certainly don't believe we have a "right to know".

The ultimate logical extension of this so-called right would be to put some sort of physical mark on all criminals so that they could be identified at all times, and our society has moved away from that (at least I sincerely hope it has).

We have a system of justice which we all depend upon to protect us. Maxine Carr has been assessed and processed by that system. Job done. If I'd made an error of judgement which turned out to have monumental, unforeseen consequences for other people, I hope that having been assessed and processed in respect of this error, society would then let me get on with what was left of my life - and also protect me from those elements of society unable or unwilling to do this.

But then, that's us woolly liberals for you ...

Mol

I think that we need to keep in mind how young, vulnerable, and unhappy she was before she got involved with the dreadful man. I wonder if they didn't start prosecuting her for fibbing just to be able to get the Press to shut up and leave her alone for a few months. Poor little eejit.

No man can hope to bribe or twist
Thank God! the British Journalist.
But seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to.

(With apologies to the author for not being able to remember who they are).

This post has been removed.

I heard somneone from the News of the World on the radio earlier, and he was saying that Carr shouldn't get any mercy and shouldn't be protected due to the "severity of her crimes".

M<axine Carr's convictions to date have been for conspiring to pervert the course of justice, benefit fraud, and submitting a false CV. She didn't kill anyone, in fact there is an argument to be made that she is in fact merely another ictim of her former boyfriend, ian Huntley.

And for this some people apparently want to kill her. Including the people whos ent her death threats in jail. Including the people who took their children along as they screamed horrific abuse and death threats at her when she arrived at court. Like the News of the World apparently.

The NEws of the World wants the right to publish her address so that she can be murdered by vicious, savage vigilantes. Maybe there's something we can charge them with.

As far as I'm aware neither a 'right to privacy' nor a 'right to know' exists in British law; so presumably Channel 4 News was referring (assuming they actually had this clear an idea of what they meant) to natural/moral rights rather than legal ones. The presupposition of the question 'Is her right to privacy more important than your right to know?' -- that both rights exist and that it is merely their relative positions in the hierarchy of rights that has yet to be established -- is not one I can accept as axiomatic; I'd like to know just what sort of rights the headline writers thought they were talking about and on what basis their existence (insofar as a right can 'exist') is assumed.

Several good points there RFJS.

You've inspired the following rant.

The so called right to privacy is a very modern myth created in a closet by Hollywood celebrities and in seedy motel rooms by alcoholic philandering politicians.


FACT: The whole notion of privacy itself is quite modern.
The concept did not exist in the public imagination until the advent of housing that had more than two rooms per family. The motivation in creating the demand was, as always, to encourage increased expenditure on housing construction.

So while people built larger and larger houses to display their success, a kind of social competition developed which resulted in most people spending more than was necessary or even necessarily healthy to the concept of the family unit.

Today, especially in America, every child insists on a private personal space and there is a negative stigma attached to any child forced to share a room with a sibling. By not sharing space they fail to share experiences, emotions or information and develop a defensive, almost hostile, attitude that insists upon their 'right to privacy'.

At least in the sense of respecting their need for quiet reflection and study, something like the notion of 'Privacy' has always been demanded by scholars, artists and royalty, groups also long known to abuse this respect by engaging in secret affairs and undertakings. But for the common man privacy was not an issue even in matters of personal 'hygiene' until the advent of the flush toilet.

In medicine, the curtain which can be drawn round a patient's hospital bed is really to prevent anyone from seeing what the doctor might be doing, or doing wrong, rather than to establish any special status for the patient. And yet, the demand for private rooms has sky rocketed and the extra workload on staff is part of what's crippling health care services.

Lawyers will never let you see their briefs.

Politicians and governments rely on our 'awe' for the 'right of privacy' to seal historic records of their sins for decades beyond their lifetimes.

And of course the tens of thousands of edlerly who live alone and the millions of singles who live alone are the direct result of our artifically created demand for 'privacy'. And worse than a two edged sword, privacy is more like a three-sided bayonet that has created wounds we cannot heal.

Unhappily, privacy has entwined itself with the sacred American notion of 'independence' and to even suggest it is perhaps a flawed concept is a major taboo.


~jwf~ (for Major Taboo)

Apparently the police have told her to wear bulletproof clothing every time she goes out. She might be out, but she'll never be free.

In the US the right to wear bullet-proof clothing is implied in the Constitutional right to bear arms. But I have to wonder where in the UK a pretty young gal is going to find any fashionable outfits with these properties.

First and foremost these things are designed to deflect heavy slugs with high muzzle velocities. 'Fashion' is at best a secondary consideration, and in a country where guns have never been a fashion accessory, high-fashion bullet-proofing is unlikely.

In the USA of course you can buy clothing such as bras that not only look good while absorbing high velocity impacts, they can shoot back with deadly close-range accuracy.
SEE: Farah Fawcett in 'Dressed To Kill'


~jwf~

Sorry make that 'Angie Dickinson'.
Same era, same big hair, same TV-cop career, but in reality (as opposed to my fading memories of the 70s and 80s where many faces all look the same) she's a completely different bimbo.

~jwf~

RFJS_
This is, to my mind, one of the issues of our current society. The right to privacy, and the right to know have never been explicitly written down in UK law because we, in the UK, have several types of law. We have crown law, we have have crimanal law and we have case law. We also have an assumption law, if you can call it that, whaich is based on perceived social mores. It is assumed when the laws are written.
Y'see, in UK it is assumed that an individual has certain rights. Whereas in US law those right have to be written down.

Unlike the US and Canada where the laws were written from scratch.
There is an assumed personal privacy in UK law. This is why if you installed a webcam in the womens toilets in the UK you would be done for it. But inthe US until just the other week you could get away with it because public loos re 'public'.

*Unlike the US and Canada where the laws were written from scratch.*

Excuse me, the laws of Canada are definitely based on English Common Law as to a lesser extent were the US laws. I suggest you study US law a little more carefully, and most assuredly study Canadian law which is much closer to UK law than you might expect. I am certain that you will be surprised by the fact that our ultimate governmental figure is the Queen, even though we wrote our constitution and *brought it home* only several decades ago. If you want to jump to conclusions, there's no need to use a vaulting pole.

ps, webcams in Canadian women's washrooms are most assuredly illegal.

This kind of vigilantism has become common here in NZ as well, along with the rise of something called the "Sensible Sentencing Trust" a hang-em-high bunch of in my opinion, lunatics.

RE: Prvacy JWF

The body armour that UK police are now ordered to wear when out on patrol are more commonly known as "stab Vests".

The more likely mode of attack if anyone did go after Miss Carr.

I cant imagine her having any sort of life here in the UK as it goes and the hate inspired and propogated by the likes of the Sun is far in excess of what is warranted by her actual crimes.

How can they justify ruining someones life and moving the focus of child protection away from where it is really needed for the sake of schilling more of their sub standard chip wrappers. Bunch of counter-productive greed driven @rse. again.

one love

cl zoomer, I stand, or rather sit, corrected.
I honestly thought the laws of both countries were written from scratch. And you are right, I should have done my usual research before posting that. Still, thankyou for your polite and informative post correcting me.

Your certainty is misplaced, but perhaps you just put that in to highlight your point about polevaulting.

Whilst I agree that Maxine Carr has a right to privicy, more than we have a right to know, I disagree with her being one of Ian Huntleys victims. She deserves full responsibility for her actions, which is why she went to jail. Saying someone was manipulated under those circumstances, is like saying a child steals under peer pressure.
She was not an idiot. When he called her up to say he needed an aliby, alarm bells must have been ringing, so loud I'm surprised the neighbours didn't hear. She may not have had the courage to inform the police but she could have just told him no. She didn't, she fabricated a lie which she was not even comfortable with (there was a news report I forget which, where a passer by had been talking to them about the missing girls, Huntley was described as 'normal', Carr was stand-offish and abrupt.)

She deserved to go to jail. We don't deserve to know when she'll be released and what she'll do after, justice has be served and the criminal has been given due process. That's all we need to know.

Novadog, the alarm bells may not have been the ones you're thinking of. During the trial she said Huntley told her the police were out to get him, and his string of arrests and releases without charge for other crimes would certainly have gone a long way towards making her believe it was true.

I can't help thinking that there must be many people who have given alibis for people later convicted of serious crimes who never get prosecuted for making false statements, even when it's likely they knew at the time that the person in question was suspect at best.