Privacy has been on my mind a lot lately. I think this is the natural side effect of the Wikileaks story. But the more I have been thinking about privacy, the more I think we need to give some serious thought to how we are going to address this issue in the age of free information.
L.E. Modesitt Jr. , in his novel Flash, describes a system of laws that prevents the reporting of an individual’s involvement with a crime without a conviction, and where public suggestions, speculations or accusations without proof are the subject of large criminal fines and penalties. While he explores the unrealistic extremes of this kind of law in his novel, I’m not sure that we, as a society, shouldn’t be considering a balanced implementation of similar laws.
Why?
Well, the Wikileaks story is a good place to start. Has anyone noticed that the story of secret diplomatic cables has been eclipsed by the stories about Julian Assange and his legal problems? Legal problems, I might add, that have yet to result in a single charge, much less a conviction for anything. But someone, somewhere, has managed to change the channel on hundreds of thousands of leaked documents to the possible illegal sexual perversions of a website operator.
No matter how much Mr. Assange sought the spot light, can it really be fair that his personal legal issues have come to overshadow what has to be one of his biggest career achievements? Should society stand silently by while unproven suggestions of wrongdoing destroy someone’s life like this?
Fox News is another good example. The “reporting” on Fox is almost never complete, even when it approaches accurate. Yet day after day we, as a society, allow Glen Beck to make wild accusations without proof at public figures (Obama is a Muslim and wasn’t born in America, don’t you know), all in the name of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. But freedom of speech and the press does not mean there shouldn’t be consequences for those actions. I have the freedom to tell the bouncer that he is an idiot, but that freedom won’t protect me from the consequence of being ejected (most likely violently) from the bar. Why then do we allow the “press” the ability to report rumours as fact on the basis of anonymous and unidentified sources? Shouldn’t society insist that those who disseminate information to the public do so factually?
This leads me, once again, to the Harpers.
Stephen Harper has abused our democracy in almost every way imaginable since taking office. He shut down parliament – twice – to avoid a confidence motion and to put a stop to an uncomfortable committee investigation. He broke his own fixed date election law, and has regularly ignored the will of Parliament. His Senate unceremoniously dumped a bill passed by the Commons without so much as a debate, and he has now appointed a prospective candidate for Parliament to the Senate in order to raise the candidate’s political profile in advance of an election.
But what gets the entire nation in an uproar?
The speculation of two columnists that he may be separated from his wife and that he may be engaging in some kind of cover-up of that fact (a cover-up, btw, that would have to involve almost every member of the mainstream political press).
Norman Spector has not offered any evidence for his claims, other than to loosely connect some very circumstantial dots based on some vague (but widely disseminated) rumours. He has offered nothing to the public that could be in anyway labelled as evidence. This is not journalism. Even if there is such evidence to find, a true journalist would have done the investigation, assembled the evidence to back his claim, and then written a story based on facts.
The great freedoms that the Internet brings us in terms of information dissemination are truly wonderful, and powerful. My life – all of our lives – is greatly enhanced by the Internet on a daily basis. But the examples of how the free flow of private information is damaging to society are all around us as well.
We live in the world where the mere hint of an accusation of a crime can destroy someone’s life. Even if Julian Assange is acquitted of the charges against him, he will always be known as a suspected rapist. No matter that President Obama has birth records proving he was born in Hawaii, there will always be doubt in some people’s minds. And, based on one article in the Globe and Mail, even if the Harper’s stay together for the next forty years, there will always be those who insist that they stayed together only for political reasons.
These unproven accusations damage people’s lives. Worse, they damage our society. Someone should be held accountable for that damage. We should insist on it.
P.S.: It has been pointed out to me that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have used personal attacks and half-truths against Mr. Ignatieff with damaging effect. And while that may true – and is, in my mind, despicable – it does not change the fact that attacking a politician’s family for political gain is just plain wrong.
