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Injunctions, the Streisand Effect and Spycatcher

There is no sense me writing much about The Streisand Effect. It suffices to read the wikipedia article I have linked to and note that as with Ryan Giggs taken legal action to prevent something being publicised can actually draw attention to it. We have that now with an injunction that has been sustained by the Court of Appeal on privacy.

It always seems a bit odd that such relatively minor things are made state secrets ... for those with enough money to spend on the lawyers. What would be a one or two day story at the most then becomes a running sore that gets far more attention than just having the one day story.

The House of Lords decision in Spycatcher was clearly right. I have linked to the judgment.

" If Mr. Wright were to publish a second book in America or Australia or both and it were to become readily available in this country, as has happened in regard to his first book, newspapers which published its contents would have as good a defence as the respondents in the present case." In essence what is in the public domain in Australia cannot be seen as being secret in the UK. (or more precisely England and Wales)

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