I’m not going to go over it in fine detail, although I recommend the posts and comments at Pickled Politics, Liberal Conspiracy and these two at the Wardman Wire. The second one deals with legal implications for blogs; look, listen and take heed. I commented on the subject at PP, and it pretty much sums up my opinions on ‘knuckledraggergate’:
OK, we don’t like the BNP. They are pernicious. I still think it’s wrong to publish the list. It should be possible to be a member of an organisation without having that advertised to the world. If nothing else, it sets a dangerous precedent.
Firstly, there should be an assumption of privacy of data unless there is compelling reason to the contrary; why should my membership of the RSPB be published?
Secondly, if the proof of concept of damaging an organisation by releasing its internal details to a waiting media and internet is shown, more people will want to do it. Leaking my membership of the RSPB is unlikely to be a problem, it’s not hard to see how an association with a trades union or the ANL could cause problems for some people if published.
Thirdly, this has damaged the BNP, which is a good thing. We can retain the moral high ground; there is no need – even if it is interesting – to rub their noses in it.
There’s more on the story courtesy of the BBC; it originally came from Lancaster UAF.
Normal blogging service will resume shortly.
xD.
PS Truly, an epic fail.
The problem isn’t about the rights and wrongs of publishing. That time has passed, the list is out and widely distributed despite no real public publishing.
The question now becomes what should be done with the information.
Enjoyed the KnuckleDraggerGate quip. Note your point that quite a few Knuckleheads on the left are coming out in the open too. Don’t worry about your being in the RSPB going any further, I know how to keep schtum …
Leon,
Perhaps I haven’t expressed myself properly. There will doubtlessly be members of organisations that are sufficiently discontented to release the membership list, as in knuckledraggergate. How ‘we’ react to it affects the likelihood of someone doing that.
Equally, not everyone has easy access to the list and, given that the list is apparently a plain text file, it is not that easy to use.
Martin,
Such as?
xD.
I’d say it’s fairly knuckleheaded to believe that data protection laws don’t apply to people you don’t like. I don’t mind people expressing glee that the BNP comes out of this badly, but to go around suggesting that the lists be trawled for “useful” information suggests to me a fairly weak commitment to other peoples privacy.