Control of Vigilant Groups On the Internet

 

An interesting development happened here in Australia this week with the Arrest of  a suspected arsonist in Victorian Bushfire.  The man arrested first sitting of the local courts in Morwel  and obtained a suppression order for his name and address not to be released. He was then taken to Melbourne lockup for his own protection as angry residents bated the police van as he left the court. By Monday he faced court again and the suppression order was reduced and allowed his name to be released but his photos and address remained suppressed.

The internet soon learned about this fellow and vigilantly groups and angry people stated blogs about him fuelled along with major news feeds providing information. His MY Space account was soon  discovered and his Photo and address suppressed under the order was distributed like wild fire over the internet.  Facebook groups where created and within minutes there where 1000’s of members. By lunchtime there where news reports by main stream media that this had happened and that a request to have them removed as it may jeopardise the case was pleaded.  Police where contacting Facebook to have the groups removed.

 

Facebook

I logged onto Facebook at 11 am and found one group with the full details of the accused with 1667 members. This was within minutes of the suppression order been lifted. At 12.30 pm the group had been deleted along with 6 other groups. By 2pm 4 more groups had formed to replace the 6 that had been deleted. 

2pm 17th Feb 2009  24 hours after the suppression order was lifted.

Brendan Sokaluk is the man who was arrested for arson 2622 members

Yvette Langstaff  Who created the group stated yesterday that she obtained the suspects details form the court list on the internet through the Magistrate  Court. The legal system failed their own orders.

This group had been modified and discussion are taking place to what is a legal standing and whether members of the groups could stand prosecution for contempt of court.

 

It does raise some interesting issues.

1. Can the DPP (Department of Public Prosecutions) track down the Vigilante groups and Prosecute them? If you live in Australia then maybe. But as Facebook owns the data will the DPP need a court order to obtain that data from Facebook and other social network sites? Does that mean that the Privacy Policy of Facebook is invalid in this case? Does the Police have the rights to dictate to Facebook to remove the group?
2. If the Magistrate Court Published the details on the internet then did it become public domain?
3. Can all the blogs written be filtered by the DPP and removed from the Internet? I would suggest this is almost an impossible task.
4. Does this give Senator Conroy more reason to want to introduce Clean Feed Filtering to the Australian Internet? (Scary thought!!!)
5. Can the Legal System in Australia stop this from happening?

Considering the mechanics of the  the internet it is hardly likely that the control of people actions on the Internet will ever be successful but there has been a swing in mood when news broke that it could jeopardize the case and the man could walk free because of these blogs and and social network groups. But its still not hard to find his photo and details through a simple Google search.

 

References

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25067218-661,00.html

 Brendan Sokaluk is the man who was arrested for arson  

Cited

Facebook

Google

My Space

BuzzNet Tags: Sokuluk,Facebook,Bushfires,My Space,Social Networking