Headline
The following is from a January 16, 2007 New York Times online article about a judge's efforts to enjoin further distribution of documents online. The documents had been "sealed" in connection with a lawsuit; but, had made their way to several people and organizations (including the NY Times) who published them. The judge's order told the people who got them to tell the people who got them from them to destroy them and tell the people getting them from them to..... You get the idea.
"On his TortsProf blog (snipurl.com/Torts), William G. Childs, an assistant professor at Western New England School of Law in Springfield, Mass., put it this way in a headline: 'Judge Tries to Unring Bell Hanging Around Neck of Horse Already Out of Barn Being Carried on Ship That Has Sailed.'”
Well put.
3 comments:
Where is that handy little Men in Black flash pen when you need it?
This brings up an interesting point. How practical is it to even keep secrets? One could argue that this fact of information dispersion helped to topple the USSR.
Just curious...is this judge a republican or a democrat? The republicans seem to be hung up on secrets these days.
My own view is that keeping "secrets" are almost always counterproductive...except for those secrets that involve purely private aspects of people's lives (we don't need to know who sucks toes, as long as everyone is an adult).
For example, at my large corporation I championed (emulating Don Quixote) posting the payroll register where people wait for the elevators - to support the "pay for performance" program. And I was serious.
On the other hand, if someone initially got the documents from "sealed" lawsuit records, that person should be prosecuted. Right or wrong, our legal system must be respected.
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