Confidential recycling

A retired NYPD policeman has been selling his log books on eBay at $30 a lot - thanks to Susan Edelman at the New York Post for this. James Giordonello marketed his log books, Edelman says, as ‘unique NYPD memorabilia’. He claimed they contained ‘the good, the bad, and . . . oh yeah, the ugly’ sides of police work, with everyday details of a cop’s life on the street ‘from shootings to missing children’. Very properly, Edelman bought one of the books to report on its content (a typical notation reads, she says, ‘Visited 886 Home St. - padlocked.’), but could not get hold of Edelman himself for a comment. She did, though, contact NYPD which then demanded eBay stop posting Giordonello’s lots.

Is this right? Surely, recycling should be encouraged. There must be good money to be made from anything confidential, not only by cops for their logbooks, but by doctors for their notes, psychotherapists for their jottings and doodles, solicitors for their briefs, and, of course, politicians for their memo pads.