Naked Judges, Geriatric Mayors and All of Us

Geoff Smith Portrait

BY Geoff Smith

POSTED ON NOVEMBER 12, 2011

You may have had a bit of a mean laugh at the expense of the Manitoba judge who let her husband take all sorts of exotic pictures of her (Where do you actually buy a whip anyway? OK, never mind.) only to find them posted all over the internet, and herself suddenly unemployed. Or at Tiger Woods’ ‘private’ voicemails, or Brett Favre’s recent electronic idiocy.

But I wasn’t chuckling so much when I read about the inquiry into Mississauga Mayor McCallion’s conflict of interest problems on the media. Everyone’s emails – including purely internal commentary at private firms – were produced and put on the front pages.

Why does anyone think they have any privacy at all? Why do we insist on sending ill considered emails making dumb, emotional accusations and slurs, when they can (and do) end up everywhere and anywhere? Even if you delete them, they don’t get deleted. To me, at this point, it’s just whining. We have no privacy, there is no ‘delete’ key in any facet of your life that you write down or take a picture of.

You know, it’s not all bad, I think. Now, people will be forced to be more professional, more thoughtful, less self centered. Now, more than ever, we need to think and take some reasonable care before we ramble off on some tirade. That ain’t so bad. You still get to stand up strongly for your beliefs (now more than ever, in fact), you just need to think those beliefs through a little more carefully.

But this whole argument that ‘I’m entitled to my privacy’, to me is just plain boring (It’s like saying ‘War is bad’), and even dangerous. Forget it, it’s over, you have none. And if you work at EllisDon (or anywhere else, or nowhere at all), keep that in mind when you pull out your key pad (or your video camera). It’s all on the front page (or some other new media) tomorrow, and you might not really look that good naked, either intellectually or physically.