I was wrongish….. #auscertgate
Ok, I will admit I got it wrong, but as it turns out I was also right. I presumed that Ben wasn’t arrested as in arrested and charged, and that QPSmedia got it right.
This “still” very unfolding saga, which by the time I upload this blog post will have changed completely over the arrest of the journo @bengrubb has to coin a bad phrase been very grubby indeed.
Firstly, and most importantly I am not a lawyer, not trained in law etc,and neither will you find that 99.9% of the people making comments about the legality of the situation are. This kind of stuff is important to realise.
So, was Ben arrested, well yes, but no, but yes, but no, but yes. See depends on how you define arrested. See arrested for questioning,is quite different to arrested and charged. While both do involve him losing liberty, one ends in court the other doesn’t.
Not knowing the whole situation, but listening to the police this morning, this differing kind of arrest seems to be the cause of the confusion to some degree with @qpsmedia first said arrested, then the now infamous ” my bad ” tweet.
Why so many people on Twitter jumped to the conclusion that QPS Media were deliberately hiding information last night is beyond me. Ockham’s razor “simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones”” presents us with A: The police were deliberately covering up, from the arresting officers, to the media unit the events that unfolded, or B: That miscommunication between the force and the media unit on what transpired happened. I’m going with B.
As for the police holding the ipad, now that is a serious issue, it is the modern journalists notebook and may well contain sensitive information, sources etc. This is a major problem for the police, and is what I think people should be concentrating on. That QPSmedia made a mistake and publicly admitted that it did, should not be the story or the focus.
That said, I have to question why publish the photo, the photo sourced from a “hack”. The original story is still online, it is the “hacked” photo that is the problem, so why was it needed. The sourcing of the photo is the problem, and what created the complaint in the first place. ( from my reading of the situation ). Yet, this”fact” that the story is still online, but the photo is removed shows that Fairfax’s legal advice was to remove the photo.
Before people saying about the original hack, but the URL was guessed. Sure, and if someone keeps putting in a password till the get the right one for your bank account, is that guessing as well. (Note:IANAL ! )
This still has a long way to go, the impact on journalists is quite scary, we should be focusing on this and this alone.
