MP Fuels Debate on Privacy Law

LONDON—The debate over whether Britain's controversial privacy laws can survive in the digital age escalated Monday as a politician publicly cited a Manchester United soccer star who thousands of Twitter Inc. users claim has obtained a court order to prevent the media from publishing allegations of an affair.

In Parliament on Monday, Authentic Soccer Jerseys Liberal Democrat politician John Hemming referred to thousands of Twitter users who have used tweets to claim that the soccer star is the unnamed person who obtained a court-ordered injunction barring publication of his name in connection with an alleged affair with a reality-TV star.

"With about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs on Twitter, it is obviously impracticable to imprison them all," Mr. Hemming said. Parliamentary privilege provides legal guarantees of free speech in Parliament.

The case highlights the growing tension in the U.K. as courts, arsenal jersey politicians and the media battle over whether the integrity of the privacy injunctions can be maintained at a time when the Internet and social networking make it easy to violate such orders.

Under U.K. law, which seeks to balance freedom of the press with privacy, celebrities and other individuals can obtain court orders that prevent the press from reporting the details of embarrassing revelations about a person's life. In some instances, the orders are granted in an anonymous form so the media can't reveal the identity of the person who obtained them.

In recent months, chelsea jersey the media have mounted an increasingly vocal campaign claiming that such orders, known as injunctions, impinge on press freedoms. They also argue that the system is unfair, because they are bound by the injunctions in a way that bloggers and tweeters are not.

The injunctions apply to publications generally. However, there is a legal debate about whether they can apply to websites that might be based elsewhere.

But lawyers for the public figures who have obtained injunctions argue that individuals—including famous people—should be entitled to privacy, including from the aggressive British tabloid press.

As the debate rages about whether the current laws are desirable, barcelona jersey there has been increasing criticism from both camps about whether they are actually workable. In recent weeks, users of Twitter and other social-media websites have published the names of several celebrities they claim have obtained injunctions. One widely circulated name is the well-known Manchester United soccer player, Mr. Giggs.

Mr. Hemming, the member of Parliament, couldn't be reached to comment.

A representative for Manchester United couldn't be reached to comment.

In April, a soccer star identified as a married man with a family obtained an injunction against a woman in the U.K. and News Group Newspapers Ltd.

News Corp., which owns The Wall Street Journal,spain soccer jersey also owns News Group Newspapers.

Such injunctions often name just one media outlet as a defendant, but they apply generally to all media.

The order prevents the publication of the name of the soccer player, who is identified only by the anonymous initials CTB, and also of any account of the alleged relationship. His soccer club isn't identified. Solicitors for CTB didn't respond to a request to comment.

News Group Newspapers has asked the court to drop the injunction, on the grounds that there has been such widespread coverage on the Internet.

On Monday, a judge declined to end the injunction, brazil soccer jersey saying the question is whether the reasons to reveal the claimant's identity outweighed "the legitimate interests of himself and his family in maintaining anonymity." Added the judge: "the answer is as yet in the negative."

A spokeswoman for News Group Newspapers declined to comment.

Last week, an action was filed in London's High Court by someone identified as CTB seeking to obtain details of a Twitter user or users. Twitter has declined to comment on the court action.

Digital media has "made a bit of an ass of the law," the U.K.'s culture secretary, argentina soccer jersey Jeremy Hunt, said at a Google Inc. conference in London last week.

He added that the situation in which newspapers weren't able to print information that was freely available on the Internet was "unsustainable."

Also last week, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke said in Parliament that the government is looking into the issue, but was cautious on the idea of new privacy legislation, adding that it would likely be a long and controversial process and that no one appeared to have the "perfect answer" to balancing rights to privacy with a free press. He said there may be other ways to tackle the issue.