Dear jack
Free Speech needs your help urgently. Please read up on libel pre publication test case for a book that has not been written yet. Do not leave us down jack this case is against all bloggers , writers and journalists and the case is madness

Search terms for information on the test case
The Grocuho Gate Affair – The Grocuho Club – Tyrone D Murphy writer. http://www.g-book.co.uk

On a side note, and something I didn’t mention in the original post – I do feel a little sorry for Eady – pilloried for being too pro-Article 8 by Paul Dacre (and many others), and now back in the eye of the storm for being too anti…

My main concern is the slippery slope opened up by the public policy argument; if it is indeed in the public’s interest to know the identity of a police blogger, what about a magistrate, a lawyer, or a member of one of any number of other professions?

First, the conduct of The Times in publishing this is really quiet astounding. They justified publication as being in the ‘public interest’ insofar as the police officer in question was breaking various contractual obligations of his employment. Given that nearly every leak, lead and anonymous source relied upon by journalists will be in a similar situation this judgment undermines the position of the very sources journalists need to do their job and makes it clear that an attempt to unmask them, simply because they are a source, will not be stopped. This may well be the exemplar case of biting the hand that feeds. Moreover, from an ethical perspective, this makes me wish I actually read the Times so I could now boycott it. The hypocrisy is appalling.

Second, while I agree that granting a gagging injunction to stop the publication of a newspaper article would be a huge step and is inconsistent with prior authority, it probably would have been the most ‘free expression friendly’ outcome.

The free speech interest claimed by the Times was the right to ‘out’ someone for expressing public views, with the inevitable outcome that they would be prevented, or at least restricted, from doing so in the future. In effect, the Times relied on a free speech argument to prevent an individual (and possible rival) speaking freely. The only reason, by their own admission, this is newsworthy, is that someone was expressing views who wasn’t allowed to; the Times sought to assert a right of free speech to silence another.

In such a case, I would suggest that a gag order, as unpleasant as it may be, may have been the appropriate response. A simple analysis as to what course of conduct best protected free speech (and leaving aside chilling effect issues) would seem to compel the injunction. Allowing this one article to be published has probably lead to silencing of dozens, maybe hundreds, of others. If we factor in the chilling effect, we can only speculate as to how much expression will have been curtailed, ex ante, by this judgment.

Someone was going to be silenced in this case, and I’d suggest it should have been the paper, not the blogger.