Catless Trixy hosts this week’s round up, and does the job briskly.

She has some good links to people unhappy with the outing of police blogger Night Jack. Including this one from Letters From a Tory:

I’m sure some anonymous bloggers would indeed be worried about being unmasked, and my fierce support of everyone’s right to privacy means that 9 times out of 10 I think anonymity should be protected.  Mr Justice Eady said that the mere fact that the blogger wanted to remain anonymous did not mean that he had a “reasonable expectation” of doing so, but I disagree with this.  Even if a blogger’s identity is known, privacy laws should protect them.

Why should they?

The problem is that if you give someone the right to speak out anonymously, you deny someone else the right to say in reply, "I know who you are … you’re X!" Not exactly fair either?

What if the anonymous blogger is behaving badly or wildly and repeatedly attacking someone else? Why should not that blogger’s name be revealed as and when someone finds out who he/she is?

It makes no sense to have a privacy or any other law which says only that each case is decided on its merits if it gets to court. The current law as articulated in this case defaults in favour of openness and against ‘anonymity’. That brings about unhappy outcomes on the margins as in this case, but there are going to be unhappy outcomes on the margins whatever the law says. That’s life, folks.

Trixy links too to our friend Craig Murray who is dismayed to discover that he does not exist. It’s probably better that way.