The Pros and Cons of the Libel Defences of Justification and Fair Comment Essay Example for Free

The Pros and Cons of the Libel Defences of Justification and Fair Comment Essay Libel law in England is incredibly tough, so much so, that if found to be liable of a defamatory statement, ‘a statement which lowers someone in the eyes of reasonable people ’ [Quinn 2009: 210] the consequences can be very costly to both the journalist themselves and their newspapers and therefore it is very important for the defences of defamation to be used to full effect an example of this is libel tourism and the case of involving Roman Polanski 2005.The magazine had said that the event had take place before the claimant’s wife’s funeral, but it had in fact taken lace after the funeral, which Mr Polanski completely denied. As it could not be proved, the claimant won ? 50,000 in damages. There are seven different defences for the act of defamation, of which two of these, Justification and Fair comment, we will analyse the advantages and disadvantages below. For the defence of justification to apply, the defendant must prove that what they have written and published is substantially true. If this can be proved by the defendant then they will have a complete defence against the claims of defamation. The defence of justification may only be used where the defendant has published a statement of fact. One of the main disadvantages of the defence of justification is that the burden of proof relies upon the defendant, which means that they must prove what they have published to be true. Furthermore, the claimant does not have to prove that what you have written is false or that any fact found to be false was damaging to their reputation. Another disadvantage of this defence is that ‘A defendant cannot rely on the defence of justification in relation to the publication of the details of spent convictions, as efined by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974’ [1] This Act has been brought in to help with rehabilitation of offenders and prevents journalists from acting in a malicious manner when relating to cases of this nature. An advantage of the defence however is that the journalist does not have to prove that what they have published was in the public’s best interests and furthermore they do not have to prove that they acted in a malicious manner. A further disadvantage to the defendant is that any rumour they chose to publish must be backed up by evidence of the accusation made within the rumour. This means that the defendant cannot base their evidence alone on a previous rumour. However an advantage to the defendant comes by way of a case where the claimant alleges that more than one fact within a publication is untrue. In such a case, the defendant need not prove that all claims within the publication to be true and must only prove that ‘the ‘sting’ of a libel’ [Quinn 2009: 212] to be true. This suggests that only the most important allegations, which are damaging to the claimants reputation, need to be determined to be true. This can be seen in the case of Turcu News Group Newspapers, where the defendant was sued after publishing a number of defamatory statements including some which were found to be untrue. However the statement made that the claimant was a ‘petty criminal with a long list of convictions’ and that ‘he was willing to take part in criminal activities’ were true, and the defence of justification stood on the grounds that the sting of the statement remained true. A further advantage to the defendant is that ‘A claim of justification need not only be based upon facts as were known at the time of publication; if other facts come to ight during the period between a claim and the case coming to court, they can be used to back up the defence. ’ [Quinn 2009: 214]. This appeared in a case in which involved Kate Moss and Channel 5, where a documentary was claiming that Moss had taken cocaine on a photo shoot in Barcelona and fallen into a coma. Kate Moss sued channel 5, but during proceedings she was captured in pictures taking cocaine. Due to such evidence, Moss chose to drop her claim. A final disadvantage to any defendant involves the likely case where, the defendant uses the defence of justification and is unsuccessful. In such a case ‘an unsuccessful defence of justification is likely to increase the level of any damages awarded. ’ [2] In the case of Archer v News of the World (1987) the newspaper was successfully sued by archer after claims were made by the paper which they could not prove, this in turn resulted in a payout to Mr Archer of ? 500,000 damages. It was later discovered that the claims made about Archer were true and he was consequently imprisoned for perjury. This case is a clear example of a situation where the jury are start struck and are therefore biased in favour of the claimant. The defence of fair comment applies to cases where the defendant has been accused of publishing a defamatory comment or opinion. For the defence to apply, the defendant must prove that, the words complained of were a comment or opinion, not a statement of fact, the words were about a matter of public interest, any facts which the comment was based on are true, or subject to privilege and that the comment was made without malice and so was an honest belief of the defendant. The first and main advantage of Fair comment applies to a case where the defendant can prove that the statement made, was one of personal opinion and one hich they fully believe ‘to have been made honestly’ [Quinn 2009: 216]. This was shown in the case of Branson v Bower (No. 1) where the claimant tried to sue on the grounds that the comment made could be taken as statement of fact. The court of appeal disagreed, stating that it was clear that the statement published by the defendant was an opinion. Another advantage of this defence is that much like that of justification, the defendant must not prove that each of the facts in the publication to be true, as long as they can prove that those facts commented on were true. In the case of Galloway v Telegraph Group Ltd (2006) the defendants claimed that they had based opinions upon facts they believed to be true about the claimant. The defendants pleaded fair comment but this was refused by the court stating that ‘the stories were allegations of fact’ [Quinn 2009: 217]. Again, a disadvantage of this defence, much like that of justification, is that it is the defendant’s responsibility to prove that ‘the underlying facts are true. If he or she is unable to do so, then the defence will fail. ’ [3] This appeared in a case involving Gordon Ramsey, where the defendant during a review complained that some scenes within the show were staged. The defendant could not back up these claims and consequently had to pay ? 75,000 in damages. Another advantage to the defence of fair comment is that any person may be entitled to comment, when the subject in matter is of interest to the public, due to either interest or concern at a matter which could affect them or another. A disadvantage to the defence of fair comment is where the claimant can show that what has been published against them has been done so with malicious intent. In such cases the defendant will not be able to use the defence of fair comment. This was shown in the case of David Soul v Matthew Wright, where the defendant criticized the claimants acting without having been to see the show. As he had not been to see Mr Soul’s play he had no facts to base his criticism on and consequently had to pay damages. A final advantage of this defence is the definition of fair comment. It is stated that ‘even very rude and critical reviews can be covered by the defence of fair comment, so long as the facts on which they are based are true. [Quinn 2009: 220] this basically means that it must only be proved that the facts upon which the opinion is based upon must be true for the defence to be used. This was seen in the case of Tse Wai Chun Paul v Albert Chang, the courts stated that ‘even where a writer is motivated by ‘spite, animosity, intent to injure, intent to arouse controversy or other motivation’ they can be covered by fair comment’. [Quinn 2009: 219] In conclusion, I’d say that in both of the defences the claimant has the advantage. The first of these reasons is due to the burden of proof, which the defendant holds, nd in turn puts the claimant in a no lose situation. The second of these reasons is the possibility for further damage to the defendant in a case where they cannot prove their innocence. This leaves the defendant in a position where they must risk further detriment to prove their case. Also, and finally, where a defence fails, this can prevent the public from knowing information which may be within their [the public’s] best interests, which could subsequently harm the good of the public. Due to the many implications and faults of the law, it is soon to be changed.

Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Essay: A Beautifully Complicated Maste

The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock : A Beautifully Complicated Masterpiece The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot is a beautifully complicated masterpiece. The poem rises above all standards of poetry and completely blows your mind. The poem consists of twenty stanzas, each telling a different part of the story of J. Alfred Prufrock's life. Eliot uses many poetic devices to add a hint of magic to the sound of the poem. The diction he uses turns what seems to be a normal poetic work of art into a dream where everything flows together like magic. An example of his diction would be Eliot's powerful use of metaphor in lines 15 - 25 of the poem. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;... In your mind, you can just picture a yellowish fog floating around a house, through a fence, or over the trees. His diction gives you a perfect image of the yellow fog. I believe that the 'yellow fog' is a metaphor symbolizing love. Love is slow, like the yellow fog it touches everything, it invades everything around it. There will always be time for love. There's time for everything. Another poetic device that El... ...ces dying with a dying fall beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?"; confusion in others, "Then how should I begin to spit out all the butt- ends of my days and ways'? And how should I presume?"; fear in others, "And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid."; and still loneliness in others, "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me." The entire poem is sad. He feels lost. He is not understood, he feels old, he wishes he made more of a splash before the 'Footman' comes to get him. He wishes he lived more, loved more, laughed more. The Love Story of J. Alfied Prufrock emphasizes a man who has loved and lost someone he deeply cared about. But as the saying goes, "'Tis better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all."

Chapter 2 Exercises & Case Exercises Essay

1. Consider the statement: an individual threat agent, like a hacker, can be a factor in more than one threat category. If a hacker hacks into a network, copies a few files, defaces the Web page, and steals credit card numbers, how many different threat categories does this attack fall into? a. Overall, I believe this attack falls into four major threat categories: deliberate acts of trespass, compromises to intellectual property, technical failures, and managerial failure. Furthermore, I believe this attack would be categorized as a deliberate act of theft/trespass which compromises intellectual property due to technical and managerial failures. b. It seems as this hacker was deliberately causing harm (i.e. copying files, vandalizing the web page, and theft of credit card numbers); due to their method of entry – hacking into a network – it leaves me to believe there were some technical failures, such as software vulnerabilities or a trap door. However, that is just one possibility as to what could have occurred. This could have also been a managerial failure; say the unknown hacker used social engineering to obtain the information to gain access to the network – proper planning and procedure execution could have potentially thwarted this hacker†™s attack. 2. Using the Web, research Mafiaboy’s exploits. When and how did he compromise sites? How was he caught? c. Michael Demon Calce, also known as Mafiaboy, was a high school student from West Island, Quebec, who launched a series of highly publicized DDoS (denial-of-service) attacks in February 2000 against large commercial websites including: Yahoo!, Fifa.com, Amazon.com, Dell, Inc., E*Trade, eBay, and CNN. Calce also attempted to launch a series of simultaneous attacks against nine of the thirteen root name servers. d. On February 7th, 2000, Calce targeted Yahoo! With a project he named â€Å"Rivolta† – meaning riot in Italian. This project utilized a denial of service cyber-attack in which servers become overloaded with different types of communications, to the point in which they completely shut down. Calce managed to shut down the multibillion dollar company and the web’s top search engine for almost an hour. His goal was to establish dominance for himself and TNT – his cybergroup. Over the next week, Calce also brought down eBay, CNN, Amazon and Dell via the same DDoS attack. e. Calce’s actions were under suspicion when the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police noticed posts in an IRC chatroom which bragged/claimed responsibility for the attacks. He became the chief suspect when he claimed to have brought down Dell’s website, an attack not yet publicized at the time. Information on the source of the attacks was initially discovered and reported to the press by Michael Lyle, chief technology officer of Recourse Technologies. Calce initially denied responsibility but later pled guilty to most of the charges brought against him – the Montreal Youth Court sentenced him on September 12, 2001 to eight months of â€Å"open custody,† one year of probation, restricted use of the Internet, and a small fine. It is estimated that these attacks caused $1.2 billion dollars in global economic damages. 3. Search the Web for the â€Å"The Official Phreaker’s Manual.† What information contained in this manual might help a security administrator to protect a communications system? f. A security administrator is a specialist in computer and network security, including the administration of security devices such as firewalls, as well as consulting on general security measures. g. Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. Since telephone networks have become computerized, phreaking has become closely linked with computer hacking. i. Example of Phreaking: Using various audio frequencies to manipulate a phone system. h. Overall, a security administrator could use this manual to gain knowledge of terms associated with phreaking and the in’s & outs of the process (i.e. how it is executed). However, the security administrator should focus on Chapter 10 – â€Å"War on Phreaking† – this section (pg 71-73) deals with concepts such as access, â€Å"doom,† tracing, and security. An administrator could reverse engineer this information to protect his/her systems from such attacks. 4. The chapter discussed many threats and vulnerabilities to information security. Using the Web, find at least two other sources of information on threat and vulnerabilities. Begin with www.securityfocus.com and use a keyword search on â€Å"threats.† i. http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerability-threats ii. Dark Reading’s Vulnerabilities and Threats Tech Center is your resource for breaking news and information on the latest potential threats and technical vulnerabilities affecting today’s IT environment. Written for security and IT professionals, the Vulnerabilities and Threats Tech Center is designed to provide in-depth information on newly-discovered network and application vulnerabilities, potential cybersecurity exploits, and security research results j. http://www.symantec.com/security_response/ iii. Our security research centers around the world provide unparalleled analysis of and protection from IT security threats that include malware, security risks, vulnerabilities, and spam. 5. Using the categories of threats mentioned in this chapter, as well as the various attacks described, review several current media sources and identify examples of each. k. Acts of human error or failure: iv. Students and staff were told in February that some 350,000 of them could have had their social security numbers and financial information exposed on the internet. v. â€Å"It happened during an upgrade of some of our IT systems. We were upgrading a server and through human error there was a misconfiguration in the setting up of that server,† said UNCC spokesman, Stephen Ward. l. Compromises to intellectual property: vi. Today we bring news of action against a site that supplied links to films, music and games hosted on file-hosters all around the world. Authorities say they have charged three individuals said to be the administrators of a very large file-sharing site. vii. To get an idea of the gravity local police are putting on the case, we can compare some recent stats. According to US authorities Megaupload, one of the world’s largest websites at the time, cost rightsholders $500m. GreekDDL (according to Alexa Greece’s 63rd largest site) allegedly cost rightsholders $85.4m. m. Deliberate acts of espionage or trespass: viii. The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell. ix. Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organization – the NSA. x. Additional, interesting, read: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57600000/edward-snowdens-digital-maneuvers-still-stumping-u.s-government/ 1. The government’s forensic investigation is wrestling with Snowden’s apparent ability to defeat safeguards established to monitor and deter people looking at information without proper permission. n. Deliberate acts of information extortion: xi. Hackers claimed to have breached the systems of the Belgian credit provider Elantis and threatened to publish confidential customer information if the bank does not pay $197,000 before Friday, they said in a statement posted to Pastebin. Elantis confirmed the data breach Thursday, but the bank said it will not give in to extortion threats. xii. The hackers claim to have captured login credentials and tables with online loan applications which hold data such as full names, job descriptions, contact information, ID card numbers and income figures. xiii. According to the hackers the data was stored unprotected and unencrypted on the servers. To prove the hack, parts of what they claimed to be captured customer data were published. o. Deliberate acts of sabotage or vandalism: xiv. Fired Contractor Kisses Off Fannie Mae With Logic Bomb xv. Rajendrasinh Babubha Makwana, a former IT contractor at Fannie Mae who was fired for making a coding mistake, was charged this week with placing a â€Å"logic bomb† within the company’s Urbana, Md., data center in late October of last year. The malware was set to go into effect at 9 a.m. EST Saturday and would have disabled internal monitoring systems as it did its damage. Anyone logging on to Fannie Mae’s Unix server network after that would have seen the words â€Å"Server Graveyard† appear on their workstation screens. p. Deliberate acts of theft: xvi. Four Russian nationals and a Ukrainian have been charged with running a sophisticated hacking organization that penetrated computer networks of more than a dozen major American and international corporations over seven years, stealing and selling at least 160 million credit and debit card numbers, resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. q. Deliberate software attacks: xvii. China Mafia-Style Hack Attack Drives California Firm to Brink xviii. A group of hackers from China waged a relentless campaign of cyber harassment against Solid Oak Software Inc., Milburn’s family-owned, eight-person firm in Santa Barbara, California. The attack began less than two weeks after Milburn publicly accused China of appropriating his company’s parental filtering software, CYBERsitter, for a national Internet censoring project. And it ended shortly after he settled a $2.2 billion lawsuit against the Chinese government and a string of computer companies last April. xix. In between, the hackers assailed Solid Oak’s computer systems, shutting down web and e-mail servers, spying on an employee with her webcam, and gaining access to sensitive files in a battle that caused company revenues to tumble and brought it within a hair’s breadth of collapse. r. Forces of nature: xx. Websites Scramble As Hurricane Sandy Floods Data Centers xxi. The freak storm flooded data centers in New York City, taking down several major websites and services — including The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed and Gawker — that depended on them to run their businesses. xxii. Several websites stored their data at a lower Manhattan data center run by Datagram, whose basement was inundated with water during the storm, flooding generators that were intended to keep the power on. s. Deviations in quality of service from service providers: xxiii. China’s Internet hit by biggest cyberattack in its history xxiv. Internet users in China were met with sluggish response times early Sunday as the country’s domain extension came under a â€Å"denial of service† attack. xxv. The attack was the largest of its kind ever in China, according to the China Internet Network Information Center, a state agency that manages the .cn country domain. xxvi. The double-barreled attacks took place at around 2 a.m. Sunday, and then again at 4 a.m. The second attack was â€Å"long-lasting and large-scale,† according to state media, which said that service was slowly being restored. t. Technical hardware failures or errors: xxvii. A hardware failure in a Scottish RBS Group technology center caused a NatWest bank outage. xxviii. It prevented customers from using online banking services or doing debit card transactions. u. Technical software failure or errors: xxix. RBS boss blames software upgrade for account problems xxx. The boss of RBS has confirmed that a software change was responsible for the widespread computer problems affecting millions of customers’ bank accounts. v. Technological obsolescence: xxxi. SIM Cards Have Finally Been Hacked, And The Flaw Could Affect Millions Of Phones xxxii. After three years of research, German cryptographer Karsten Nohl claims to have finally found encryption and software flaws that could affect millions of SIM cards, and open up another route on mobile phones for surveillance and fraud. Case Exercises Soon after the board of directors meeting, Charlie was promoted to Chief Information Security Officer, a new position that reports to the CIO, Gladys Williams, and that was created to provide leadership for SLS’s efforts to improve its security profile. Questions: 1. How do Fred, Gladys, and Charlie perceive the scope and scale of the new information security effort? a. Charlie’s proposed information security plan aims at securing business software, data, the networks, and computers which store information. The scope of the information security effort is quite vast, aiming at securing each vulnerability – in addition to the aforementioned, the new information security plan also focuses on the company’s staff. Since extra effort will be required to implement the new managerial plan and install new security software and tools, the scale of this operation is quite large. 2. How will Fred measure success when he evaluates Gladys’ performance for this project? How will he evaluate Charlie’s performance? b. Gladys is appointed as CIO of the team, which is gathered to improve the security of the company due to virus attack that caused a loss in the company; I believe Fred will measure Gladys success by her ability t o lead, keep the plan on track (i.e. time management) and successfully sticking to the proposed budget. Charlie was promoted to chief information security officer, a new position that reports to the CIO; I believe Fred will measure Charlie’s success by his ability to implement the new plan, report his/their progress and the overall success of the new system. 3. Which of the threats discussed in this chapter should receive Charlie’s attention early in his planning process? c. Portable Media Management (Ex. USB, DVD-R/W) should receive Charlie’s attention early in his planning process

Social Policy Child Support - 1735 Words

Social Policy: Child Support Caroline Nguyen California State University, Long Beach CDDS 408 Individual Child Study Guidance November 7, 2016 Introduction The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight into a current legislation and conduct background research, and inform the legislator of my own views on this issue. This paper will also provide the effect of the Family and Consumer Sciences mission, through social policy and legislative channels, in regards to children and families tied to concerns surrounding them and their communities. Through this paper, I will be conducting research on California Family Code Section 3900: Duty of Parent to Support Child as well as the subsections that follows under this chapter (3901 3902). I will provide an insight on how unemployment and poverty affect non-custodial parents as well as the role strain of child support on fatherhood. Social Policy: Child Support Summary: Family Code Section 3900-3902 (Leginfo.ca.gov) Under Family Code Section 3900, the legislation states that the father and mother of a minor child have an equal responsibility to support their child in the manner suitable to the child’s circumstances as well as the parent’s circumstances and station in life. 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