The Wall Street Journal has a chilling piece this morning on a relatively new phenomenon. Anti-abortion fanatics are increasingly staking out abortion clinics, taking photographs of those going in, getting some rudimentary details about them and posting them on the web. The objective is an ancient one: stigma. “Shame enough women into realizing that eternal damnation awaits them if they murder their baby and the abortionists won’t have any work to do,” explains one of the pro-life photographers. the women who have such abortions are in a public place when they are photographed and, under current law, probably have very little recourse. Privacy, in the sense that our parents and grand-parents understood it, is over. I’m working on a big essay on this subject, especially the way in which technology has transformed the context in which privacy can exist in a liberal society. This knows no ideological bent. The far left uses this tactic – in the smearing of journalists or politicians on the right. And the far right uses it – in reverse. Some truly enterprising smear artists – David Brock, anyone? – have managed to target both left and right in exactly the same privacy-trashing fashion. Even someone’s private medical records are under siege. All of these privacy-trashers are moralists of a sort – shaming sinners, outing alleged hypocrites, uncovering the seamy side of political enemies. But the web means that literally anyone can do this to anyone else. This is the age of the Scarlet Email. Just get the evidence on an ex-lover, bad boss, loathesome co-worker, etc. – a private letter, a digital photo, a stray email, a taped phone conversation – and post it pronto. If the evidence is true, libel laws are useless. And privacy laws are almost always trumped by the First Amendment. I don’t see any solution to this in a free society. But I do think this attack on privacy is essentially an attack on a freedom essential to the health of a liberal society. I hope to make the case more thoroughly some time this summer.
LAW OR TYSON: The PR trade journal, The Holmes Report, had an interesting poll today. When PR professionals were asked whom they’d least like to represent in the current climate, Mike Tyson came in first with 51.6 percent. But close behind came Cardinal Law, with 34.5 percent. He’s less redeemable than – wait for it – Kenneth Lay, who came in with a paltry 13.8 percent.
The Dish 