The internet is just one big fat conduit for pictures and words. Sometimes the pictures move, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the words make sense, sometimes I’m not too sure. And sometimes the words aren’t supposed to be out there.<\/p>\n
The activities of law-firm ACS:Law have been very widely aired in the media, as has the alleged ‘loss of a list of people’ who, it is reported, the law-firm either is or has taken action against.<\/p>\n
And you read that story and you think of ‘a list’. And you might even think ‘good, that kind of information needs to be exposed’.<\/p>\n
But what if ‘the list’ isn’t a list?<\/p>\n
What if the information is actually a total database of every piece of information on ACS:Law’s email-server?<\/p>\n
What if that information was broken down in to mailboxes for each email account, and sub-broken down in to Inbox, SentItems, Drafts and Deleted?<\/p>\n
What if the contents of that database – being the contents of everything on ACS:Law’s email-server – go far beyond being ‘a list’?<\/p>\n
What if these emails included personal communications that included private information such as, for example, hospital appointment information?<\/p>\n
Is there, in the civilian world – as there is in the military one – a phrase like ‘acceptable collateral damage’, an acceptable amount of disclosure of private<\/em> information, which could be made available in the pursuit of exposing the methods and activities of ACS:Law?<\/p>\n How would you feel, if that were your personal information that was put on the internet, just because you emailed your husband or wife who happened to work for ACS:Law?<\/p>\n And finally, how would you feel if you were a mildly interested observer of the whole ACS: Law situation being unfolded, if that database of emails just fetched up in your email inbox?<\/p>\n Well, substitute the words ‘dropbox’ for ’email inbox’ and that’s the place where I was, earlier today.<\/p>\n I didn’t actually rub my hands with glee, once I’d understood the compressed file had ACS:Law written all over it, but I did have a frisson of excitement.<\/p>\n And then, as I began peeling back the layers of data, as the true nature of the information in the database was revealed, I started to feel sick.<\/p>\n I went outside, walked around the house, hissed at a passing cat, came back in, had a cup of tea and a slice of cake and…<\/p>\n Deleted the file.<\/p>\n I think the bounty-hunting activities of ACS:Law are reprehensible. The methods this so-called regulated law firm have employed have been scandalous.<\/p>\n ACS:Law’s financially-motivated ambulance-chasing has damaged lives and harmed reputations. The fact this firm is deemed, by the Law Society, to be operating within acceptable bounds is a clear indicator that the Law Society has fewer moral values than a Public Guardian should have.<\/p>\n I would love ACS:Law to look at my (substantial!) download traffic statistics and come for me; I could hang them out to dry.<\/p>\n But I wouldn’t use a database of emails that included personal information to bury them.<\/p>\n I’d use facts and common sense and then I’d use my media connections to expose ACS:Law and their activities for everyone to see.<\/p>\n But I wouldn’t use the blunt tool that appeared in my dropbox.<\/p>\n It appears I have higher moral values than either ACS:Law or the Law Society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The internet is just one big fat conduit for pictures and words. Sometimes the pictures move, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the words make sense, sometimes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}