Someone asked me recently on Hacker News, what is wrong with free speech in Europe. Well...
Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted
11–20 of 41 posts
Re: Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted
#12"The public is reminded that viewing downloading or disseminating extremist material within the UK may constitute an offence under Section 1 and 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006." Wow. They really are saying that it can be illegal to read something! Is there any similar law in the US? I'm guessing classified information can get you in trouble somehow.
>I'm guessing classified information can get you in trouble somehow. It can't. It's not illegal to read classified material in the US unless you work for the government. Leaking it is a different story.
Is it illegal, or some kind of code violation?
Re: Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted
#13Someone asked me recently on Hacker News, what is wrong with free speech in Europe. Well...
I read quite some time ago, would be in the '80s, that if you wanted to start a print magazine in Austria you had to get government permission.
Don't know if it was true, and now somewhat irrelevant depending on how much of the population has switched to the web, but....
Anyway, I'll close with a relevant 1976 quote from Tom Wolfe:
"He sounded like Jean-François Revel, a French socialist writer who talks about one of the great unexplained phenomena of modern astronomy: namely, that the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe."
Re: Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted
#14[deleted]
Re: Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted
#15Crimestop! Only you can prevent tripleplusungood thoughtcrime, citizen!
How can I recognize and avoid having potentially incriminating ideas?
Your viewscreens are there to help. All content broadcast through the viewscreen is pre-approved and certified to produce no dangerous thoughts in most citizens. If you still find yourself having doubts about your own mind, proceed immediately to the nearest MiniTrue psychological health assessment station for evaluation. Time is critical! Do your best to not think or speak to other citizens while en route!
Big Brother loves you, and wants you to be happy.
Re: Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted
#16Someone asked me recently on Hacker News, what is wrong with free speech in Europe. Well...
It's important to recognise that Europe (as a political entity) has only generally positive things to say about freedom of speech. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Ri... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Rights_o... are the main legal structures that deal with freedom of speech at the European level.
The vast majority of "federal" laws (i.e. laws passed centrally) are to do with the mechanisms of the central government; there are very few social or fiscal laws passed centrally. The European Parliament simply does not claim competence or authority over such matters.
Pretty much all laws dealing with freedoms (or removal thereof) are handled at the state level. This is very different to the U.S. where there are many Federal and state laws that limit a person's freedoms. In this case, the law is entirely that of the UK, and has little to do with whatever you might call "Europe".
Re: Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted
#17"The public is reminded that viewing downloading or disseminating extremist material within the UK may constitute an offence under Section 1 and 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006." Wow. They really are saying that it can be illegal to read something! Is there any similar law in the US? I'm guessing classified information can get you in trouble somehow.
It really is troubling. Is there any similar law in the US? I think a conclusion you'd have to draw from the Pentagon Papers controversy is that if the gov't want to keep something secret, it's their own responsibility to do so. Once the information leaked, it was then legal to print the documents. And if that's true, then it must also be legal to read them.
Actually, I'm relatively certain that within current legal frameworks, public, published documents can be retroactively classified making you a criminal if you refuse to hand back your copy.
Re: Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted
#18Censorship is the worst way to fight an idea - It lays credence to that point of view ("why would the government censor it if didn't have some truth to it?") - It undermines the importance of having discussions about challenging issues - It makes those who hold the aforementioned views even more sure that they are correct, and that someone is unjustly out to get them let people freely discuss these issues and we will…
How do you feel about hate speech (anti-Islam, anti-semetic ) being banned and punishable by jail and fines in European countries?
Re: Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted
#19IANAL, but it seems like the wording in the article ("viewing downloading or disseminating... may constitute an offence") is being very deliberately broad and careful to cover its behind. The laws in question cover: - Material that encourages directly or reasonably (or recklessly) the commission of terrorism - Dissemination and publishing, or possession of such information with intent to do so (this includes transmit…
Is differing personal politics a defense against just viewing it, or is it also a valid defense for dissemination?
For example, suppose I write a rationalwiki.org article on some specific brand of radical Islam which includes a large amount of citations and links to the relevant source material. I think that linking could reasonably be called "disseminating" (at least in the modern legal climate..), but I would be doing that with the intent of dissuading people.
Re: Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted
#20IANAL, but it seems like the wording in the article ("viewing downloading or disseminating... may constitute an offence") is being very deliberately broad and careful to cover its behind. The laws in question cover: - Material that encourages directly or reasonably (or recklessly) the commission of terrorism - Dissemination and publishing, or possession of such information with intent to do so (this includes transmit…
Is differing personal politics a defense against just viewing it, or is it also a valid defense for dissemination? For example, suppose I write a rationalwiki.org article on some specific brand of radical Islam which includes a large amount of citations and links to the relevant source material. I think that linking could reasonably be called "disseminating" (at least in the modern legal climate..) , but I would be d…
viewing isn't an explicit offence under those laws. I expect the reason the website suggests is may be is because the act of viewing on the Internet is itself transmitting (or causing another to so transmit) the document electronically, which is an offence under the legislation (with additional considerations, such as whether it was done with intent to carry out or encourage someone else to carry out terrorism; it's quite hard to prove—or disprove for that matter—intent without supporting evidence, which may or may not include an overwhelming quantity of similar documents).
The legislation provides that the accused can offer their politics as a defence against any charges under those sections, by proving that the document "neither expressed his views nor had his endorsement". What bothers me is that it's not the other way around: I'd prefer if it was up to the court to prove that the documents expressed one's views or had one's endorsement rather than placing the burden of such proof on the accused.
Of course these are my interpretations and IANAL ;)