There is bizarre juxtaposition of stories on the Guardian website this evening.
The third story on the home page is about James Harding’s evidence at the Leveson inquiry, and about the shame brought upon the Times by evidence of the paper’s involvement in email hacking:
Times hacking ‘withheld from court’
Editor James Harding apologises at Leveson inquiry for hacking of email that led to naming of police blogger.
And directly above it, 8mm away, is a piece about Russian politics that revels in its exclusive access to private emails allegedly hacked by a group calling itself the Russian arm of Anonymous:
‘Dirty tricks’ of pro-Putin group
Exclusive: Hacked emails show youth group paid bloggers to praise prime minister, opponents claim.
I’m not assuming that the Guardian was involved in the Russian hacking. But is no-one at the paper thinking about how these two stories relate?
This is a superb example of the double standards we have been exposed to in recent years concerning hacking. I guess we will never have all the answers to the whole issue as those responsible are pretty good at covering their tracks.
Surely this offence is slightly more pardonable when done to help wear down the hegemony Putin has over Russia, and the devastation he is reaping on her already embattled attempts at democracy. This ‘insight’ however questionably gained, cannot be juxtaposed with a want to get the ‘goss’ on Jude Law. Whilst you could vigorously defend such ideals to the extremes of this juxtaposition, there are greater injustices which are more serious and which may require a loosening of such intransigence to overcome.
I’m sure you are right that the context and intentions make a huge moral difference – it was just the lack of critical reflection that struck me (when a main story is about the ethics of email hacking), and the coincidence of stories.