Tuscon Hospital Fires Three

[OtakuLoki]

For inappropriately accessing records associated with patients from the shooting last week.

I really don't have much to add to this, other than my belief that one reason that these people were so willing to try to look at this information is that there is a belief that the news media will pay for such information, if they consider it to be newsworthy - no matter what the privacy laws might have to say about the matter.

I don't see why the news media should be allowed to wave their hands and say "We didn't do anything wrong. We didn't break any patient confidentiality laws. We're not in medicine." Without providing a perceived market, a lot of this sort of shit wouldn't be happening. Some would still go on, I admit. But it wouldn't clumping so nicely about such a tragedy with national interest, now - if there weren't that perceived market.

[CatInASuit]

I'll agree about the media as and when they all turn around and say that not only were they all contacted but that they all turned any info down.

Someone, somewhere will pay for and print such information. Sad, really.

[Zuul]

I've really wondered about this sort of thing, particularly after WikiLeaks turned into the big story. If information is gained illegally and then made available, why is it okay for the press to print it? If someone steals something and gives it to a store, if that store knows it's stolen they're liable for selling it.

[Marsilia]

If I remember right from my media ethics class, it doesn't actually matter how the source got the information, as long as the news outlet gets it legally. And, in our twenty-four hour news cycle, breaking the story is more important than fact or source checking.

[Zuul]

That sounds about right. It's been a hell of a long time since I took media ethics, though.

[OtakuLoki]

At the risk of sounding like sounding like a bitter old fart: That sure sounds like a rather convenient definition of ethical for the media.



ETA: If people can (and should) be held accountable for violent rhetoric, because it can be seen to be giving legitimacy to loons who want cover for their own desire to indulge in violence, why in the Hell should the media get a bye for behavior that rewards people for breaking privacy laws?

[Marsilia]

That sure sounds like a rather convenient definition of ethical for the media.

Pretty sure the spirit of the law is to protect whistle blowers, similar to the idea that journalists don't identify particular informants. However, as with so many laws and traditions meant to protect, they've been warped in meaning so that they can be invoked for less-than-savory activity.

[OtakuLoki]

Oh, I've got no problem with the spirit of the law. And if push came to shove and I had to choose between allowing for whistleblowing, and totally crimping down on all possibility of leaks to the press... I'd have to admit that the need to allow for whistleblowing is very real.

Which doesn't change that the current practice leaves me with about the same bad taste as my recognition that I have to put up with Phred because I believe in First Amendment rights.

[Zuul]

Which doesn't change that the current practice leaves me with about the same bad taste as my recognition that I have to put up with Phred because I believe in First Amendment rights.

Law is a tricky thing. It'd be nice if we could just have some great big Nation Mommy who would say things like "now, now, now, that isn't very nice" and making things reasonable without there being any abuses, but, alas.

[OtakuLoki]

As long as I can keep thinking of the news media as a buncha willing shills, it's all good.

More seriously, I'm not about to call for the law to be changed. What I do want to do is call for people to hold the media accountable for the shit they're willing to drag up to print, no matter the source. Ideally it would be loverly (and even more of a fantasy) to get the public to think about the implications for their own privacy the next time they flock after some celebrity autopsy or fucktape.

Yes, I'll have better luck keeping the elephants away by wearing a banana in my ear, but I can hope.

[Zuul]

Well, the law has a purpose, but who's to say that it needs to be so broad? Issues of celebrity gossip or private medical details don't need "whistleblowers", do they?

[OtakuLoki]

The problem there is that the moment you try to limit things in the law, you're going to get hit by a corner case.

Just for an example, consider what might have happened if a concerned worker at the VA medical center at Northport, NY had leaked death certificates to the media for several of Michael Swango's patients there? ISTM that had such an action been taken, then, the press to charge Swango would have happened much sooner, and before he could have gone overseas to offer his "help" to third world clinics.

This is, admittedly, an unlikely to repeat corner case. But shows at least one possible scenario where the public would have a legitimate interest in normally private medical records. That I cannot, at this time, imagine any circumstance where somebody's sex tapes would be of similar legitimate public interest does not give me cause to believe that there could never be such a circumstance.

[Zuul]

That I cannot, at this time, imagine any circumstance where somebody's sex tapes would be of similar legitimate public interest does not give me cause to believe that there could never be such a circumstance.

Assuming the activity on the tape was legal? I'm not sure. Revealing illegal activities in the press, even if the person giving the information to the press broke the law, certainly makes sense to me, at least.

I know that some people view "outing" politicians and other public figures as a noble and acceptable practice. If they had a gay sex tape of an anti-gay politician, they would argue it was in the public's interest. I find it fairly problematic, but I see what you mean about possible problems with restricting the law. Which means as long as there's a market for it, they'll push whatever they can.

[OtakuLoki]

Assuming the activity on the tape was legal? I'm not sure. Revealing illegal activities in the press, even if the person giving the information to the press broke the law, certainly makes sense to me, at least.

Well, the test case I used in my mind were the hypothetical: "What if Roman Polanski had made a visual record of his assault of that girl?"

On the one hand, it's a record of a reprehensible crime, and one that I believe calls for serious repercussions - both social and civil. I believe that such evidentiary tapes have been used in criminal trials in the past while at the same time being specifically restricted from general release to the public because of their nature. On the other hand, publicizing the tape would add to the injury done to the victim in this case, and seems to me to be an assault in it's own right.

My initial conclusion was that I wouldn't support seeing such a film being given to the press for publication. But while composing this response, I got to adding another fillip to the hypothetical: Say the authority who was made aware of the film instead conspired to suppress it, and any charges stemming from it? At that point someone interested in justice may believe that only the recourse of going to the press could get the wheels of justice moving again.

In the end, it's damned hard to make the law convince anyone to behave in what I'd consider to be a moral manner. I remember something Rube said in chate a bit back - he was complaining about the the regulations he has to go through, but then said something illuminating: People talk about wanting plain talk laws and regulations, but when they're involved in an actual case they'll weasel word their way to the most favorable and insane interpretations of the law they can manage.

If there is a solution to the situation highlighted in my OP, beyond the current one of punishing the people who do break the existing privacy laws, it is going to be a social solution - adjusting what the public at large is willing to consider acceptable behavior. Which doesn't seem to be going to happen without some voice in the wilderness pointing out the cause and effect relationship between the media's (and the public's) desire for private information, and this sort of casual violation of privacy laws by individuals.

[Inner Stickler]

I have nothing to add, other than I would support sarahfeena in a bid to become nation mommy.

[Zuul]

I have nothing to add, other than I would support sarahfeena in a bid to become nation mommy.

I would second that.