In a rather desperate attempt to improve my blogs ratings, I'm going to write a blog about a current news story, after it seems my last blogged bombed a bit for presumably not making much sense and also being a bit racist...In the news this week was the News of the World and the various tapping shenanigans (I'm talking about phone tapping not "i'd tap that"). A host of celebrities over the last month have reportedly been hacked, then last week a rather more sickly affair in the tapping of Milly Dowler, a then kidnapped or missing or deceased 12 year old girl. Yesterday it emerged that Gordon Brown, ex. UK Prime Minister had been hacked.
For those who know me, i have been throwing around a quote around for a few weeks, never quite retelling it with the same Va-Va-Voom as Rob Lowe did in the West Wing where it is plucked from. Thanks to the Internet and Google here it is in all it's glory:
In the '20s and '30s it was the role of government. '50s and '60s it was civil rights. The next two decades are going to be privacy. I'm talking about the Internet. I'm talking about cell phones. I'm talking about health records and who's gay and who's not. And moreover, in a country born on the will to be free, what could be more fundamental than this?Interesting indeed. Even more so considering it will have been recorded into film in roughly 1998 perhaps even sooner, it's age however doesn't make it any less true.
In the West Wing he was referring to the scoop that White House officials were or are substance abuses. Compare this to a similar private information scoop in the real world and i'm thinking of the expenses scandal. Supposedly private information blown into public view as a result of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 coming into effect in '05. It is in the best interests, it is our right to know as a general public group, to know this information. Fine.
However i don't need to tell you this is different.
In an interview i watched this morning with Gordon Brown, he said that imagine that this personal information of his has been gained whilst in an office of Government, with the relatively tight security that comes with the job, and thus imagine what kind of information could be obtained about the regular citizen. He makes a good point. Just who might have been targeted?
Mother and my Great-Uncle were discussing yesterday that perhaps the various naughties played by the now defunct News of the World is just the start. Playing the role of scape-goat. Mother suggest it goes deeper. Newspapers have hacked more people. MPs and Celebs, Civilians and Civil Servants are not safe. How then do the Papers get their scoops and have an idea of who to "tap"?
A bent police force and crooked intelligence service might be the answer. I wont say much more in fear of being found on here and being tapped myself. It is an interesting point though. Hopefully an enquiry within Government will reveal some kind of underground or shady group of public officials supplying the media with this kind of scoop. A dodgy copper accepting a few hundred quid in return for personal information of a crook, public or public service-person. Intelligence officers giving tapes of private conversations in return for access to media and business barons? To be honest, things have seemed less far-fetched than this...especially so now. As suggested, it does go deeper than the NOTW.
Coming back to Rob Low again. The age of privacy. I have also called this the age of "green" but in the socio-economic-politics world we'll call this the age of privacy. Anything you say, do and think isnt secret nor safe. What you do is often broadcast on Facebook or what you do on you computer recorded into the vast wilderness that is the world wide web. I'll leave you with a final thought: be careful with the kind of Porn you watch, i can think of a few genres that are a bit taboo and might just come back to haunt you when you're the emperor or the king...because you know the News of the World Mk II will publish what kind of smut Prime Minister Organ/Graham watched when a horny young buck back in 2011....
