As many of you may know, there has recently been a leak of a "memberlist" for the BNP- 12,000 names, phone numbers, addresses, e-mails and occupations. For those of you who don't know, the BNP is the British Nationalist Party also lovingly known as the British Nazi Party (although they are extreme right and not extreme left). There is a lot to be said about them, including that they told the BBC they would be using the Human Rights Act to try to protect the identities of its members, despite the BNP being against the European legislation. They are very anti-immigration, and pro Keeping Britain For Britons. They are the party who hired a black DJ for their Christmas party, and were surprised when he got there because "He didn't sound black on the phone"

They are a bunch of racist idiots. (I wasn't going to post my own views, but I can't help but be bias)

So details of current members and, according to the BNP leader Nick Griffin, 7 people who don't belong to the BNP are being leaked across the intertubes despite a court injunction against publishing the details last year, including on blogs, 4chan and websites set up for the occasion (www.bnpnearme.co.uk).
As many members of other political parties, including Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, have pointed out- why should they be ashamed? Jacqui Smith mentioned that she is not ashamed to be part of the Labour party, so why should anyone who has paid money to be a member of the BNP be ashamed. Well, obviously because the rest of the UK's population think they are racist idiots, and they get intimidating phonecalls, stones thrown through windows, death threats and the like.

Enough of the preamble! Is it right for their details to be available to everyone? If you are a member of a political party (and many of the people on the list are put down as being "activists"), should you have the same right to privacy as everyone else? As I mentioned previously, the list also contains data on the occupations of the members. Many are nurses, teachers, policemen, a vicar and there is even a prison officer:


The people named could possibly be at risk of losing their jobs over this, but was it right for them to with hold the information in the first place?

Discuss!

To me it seems silly that people should lose their jobs over this list. Are they bigoted morons? Sure. Should they lose their job over it? Probably not. That's along the lines of booting somebody due to their religion, and speaking from recent experience with the mailing list at work - politics and the work environment don't mix anyway so it shouldn't be coming up regardless!

Is it right that the list was released? Probably not. Is it necessary to keep the hush-hush top seceret? Again - probably not... Because (granted they are bigoted morons) political stance shouldn't determine how you are treated in the work place (or anywhere else).

That's not to say I support them or any other close minded group.