It's OK, Only Smart People Deserve Privacy

It's not often I read a post on BoingBoing that makes me so angry I want to punch someone, but then I saw this.

The post is bad enough. The comments are appalling.

I've refrained from commenting myself because until I calm down I don't think I could craft the sufficiently articulate dissection and rebuttal this calls for. But honestly, I haven't seen such a stream of knee-jerk excuses for invasion of privacy since, oh, the last time I read something from New Labour. And frankly, feeble and wrong though it is, 'invading your privacy is OK if it's good for society' is a better excuse than 'invading your privacy is OK if it's funny, huh huh'.

As for the person at comment #9 who apparently runs this site (and so, I infer, is also quoted in the main post), it is grossly dishonest to explain how these audio files were found through users being "careless" and now provide "voyeuristic" entertainment (his words) and then plead that it's OK to post them because they were shared, with the implications of intent and consent that goes with it.

I really wonder at times. What on earth is the point of me paying my No2ID subs, blogging on e-privacy or spending literally days of pro-bono time writing legal opinions for people like the ORG when even supposedly pro-privacy sites like BoingBoing think that this sort of thing is, in the words of the site owner who posted it, "awesome"?

They've saved us. Now it's our turn to save them!

Via themiddleblog, Middleman is coming to DVD later this year. No word on what region, but that's why we have region-free DVD players, isn't it?

As show creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach notes, buying this DVD is the best shot at GETTING MORE MIDDLEMAN, which is currently in the limbo of 'apparently lots of people loved season 1 but our marketing gurus can't understand the jokes so we've shelved it'.