The End Result Of Superinjunctions: The Count The 'Can't Be Nameds' Game

from the drink! dept

Mon, May 23rd 2011 3:15pm — Mike Masnick

Following on the Giggs Effect, it appears there have been some interesting developments. First, the BBC now feels comfortable naming Ryan Giggs after MP John Hemming used Parliamentary privilege to name Giggs while discussing this whole mess:

"Mr Speaker, with about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs it is obviously impracticable to imprison them all."

Gotta love the understatement of the word "impracticable."

Meanwhile, a different footballer (not Giggs apparently) who has a similar injunction is causing some additional interest after asking the Attorney General (who I'm sure has better things to do) to go after a famous unnamed journalist for a famous unnamed publication who posted an unlinked-to Tweet that mentions the unnamed footballer during an unnamed match. Seriously. Read the story and count what can't be named. Just don't take a drink each time, because you might not make it to the end:

The England footballer, known only by his court codename of TSE, instructed lawyers to ask the judge to pass the case on to the Attorney General�s office. And he agreed.

Due to the extraordinary restrictions surrounding the reporting of cases such as this, The Mail on Sunday cannot identify the journalist involved nor even provide readers with edited versions of his tweets.

It is believed that the messages were written about the player during a recent high-profile football match, which again The Mail on Sunday cannot identify due to court restrictions.

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Filed Under: free speech, giggs effect, ryan giggs, superinjunctions, uk

18 Comments

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Vic, 23 May 2011 @ 3:27pm

I believe they have slipped in that citation by Mail on Sunday, though.

1. They did reveal that the game played was FOOTBALL!
2. They also revealed that the case would be forwarded to the ATTORNEY GENERAL!

Ahhh! Idiots, What are they thinking? Do they want to get sued?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2011 @ 3:40pm

And the names have already been leaked on Twitter. The footballer's widely believed to be Gareth Barry and the journalist is almost certainly Giles Coren (though according to his Twitter, he didn't know himself.)

The irony is that unlike Giggs, Barry is not a footballer many people had heard of - well, they have now - and Giles Coren is hardly a household name.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 23 May 2011 @ 4:21pm

Initials?
Is there any sort of rhyme or reason with the initials? Is it supposed to be random, or is there a clerk coming up with things like "That Soccer Eunuch?"
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A Dan (profile), 23 May 2011 @ 4:24pm

Are you chicken?
"Just don't take a drink each time, because you might not make it to the end"

That sounds like a challenge.
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Jesse (profile), 23 May 2011 @ 4:53pm

An appropriate response:
Assuming this superinjunction nonsense continues, here's what British media should do. Rather than refer to the subject, just call them, "He who should not be named as of May 3, 2011" (or whatever date they bought their superinjunction).

Someone else could keep a superinjunction superlist, preferably hosted outside the UK. Even in the UK, one would imagine it be acceptable to report on who actually has a superinjunction (otherwise how would you know who you couldn't write about???)
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DCL, 23 May 2011 @ 5:15pm

Re:
I don't know of any English born NFL players.
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Difster, 23 May 2011 @ 9:26pm

Is it just me or does the whole thing seem like a reverse version of telephone tag where everyone is repeating the correct message but the originator is denying any knowledge of it?
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mike allen (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 12:06am

I a few ago couldn't care less about what this soccer moron did in bed. The moment a judge said i am not allowed to see his name it then became must have information. As soon as I and everyone else in the country were told you cant talk about this it became main topic. If Giggs had not bothered to waist his money he would be in the papers for about a day and forgotten. Now he enshrined himself in history great work.
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FuzzyDuck, 24 May 2011 @ 12:45am

The shoking thing
The most shocking thing is of course that Ryan Giggs was allowed to publicly name and accuse Imogen Thomas, dragging her through the mud, while he was hiding behind the safety of a super injunction that didn't allow Imogen to fight back.

Either everybody's privacy is respected or nobody's, but it can't be one-sided like that.

Ryan Giggs has rightfully earned his place in history as one major a*hole taken down by the Internet. It couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.

Don't fuck with the Internet.
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mike allen (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 1:13am

Re: An appropriate response:
In fact you cant even mention there is a injunction or even that there was a court case.
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Capitalist Lion Tamer (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 2:53am

Impracticable?
Perfectly cromulent.
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Robert, 24 May 2011 @ 4:13am

The footballer is only the tip of the iceberg. The MP who named him as also cited examples of injunctions that claim to prohibit people from talking to their MPs, under threat of prison, which attacks one of the foundations of democracy. The judge involved, Justice Eady, has also talked the MP being in contempt of court, which is constitutional dynamite.

The whole affair is likely to end with the judges getting a harsh lesson in the realities of politics and the internet. Challenging the authority of Parliament is suicidal, almost as foolish as trying to control the internet.
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Pickle Monger (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 7:32am

Other thning that can't be named
Next up on the list: convicting the the "offenders" of a crime that they cannot be made aware of, and sentencing them to the term that cannot be specified, in a penitentiary that cannot be named...
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Pickle Monger (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 7:33am

Re: Other thning that can't be named
Oh wait, didn't CIA already do that?
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Hephaestus (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 7:52am

Re: Other thning that can't be named
My question is, when they make file sharing a jailable offense in england. Will this same politician come forward and say its impracticle to put 50 plus percent of our population in jail?
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Pickle Monger (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 8:09am

Re: Re: Other thning that can't be named
Aww, jeez... What is it with my spelling... :(
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Mike Raffety (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 12:05pm

Re: An appropriate response:
Absolutely, surely someone is keeping a list of the superinjunctions, hosted outside the UK?
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Jay (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 4:31pm

This wasnt a superinjunction
Can someone please try to correct the title on this. The Giggs issue was NOT a superinjunction. It was just a normal injunction preventing disclosure of information about a person pending a full trial.

Injunctions sometimes serve a useful purpose, especially in defamation or privacy cases. Although they should be used sparingly they do protect the ideals that you are innocent until proven guilty and mud sticks.

Superinjunctions are normally really, really bad things. They actual prevent the reporting the fact an injunction has even been granted. Normally you can report a "footballer" has an injunction which allows the Giggs effect to work its magic. If this was a superinjunction we'd never even know it existed...

Please dont confuse the two. We should have the debate on superinjunctions but calling normal ones super makes the debate meaningless!
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