Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted

http://news.sky.com/story/1230743/radical-islam-website-readers-may-be-prosecuted

by cgtyoder • 12 years ago

39 35 12 years ago

news.sky.com

jevinskie• 12 years ago

"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.

pessimizer2• 12 years ago

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.

scarmig• 12 years ago

Is it illegal, or some kind of code violation?

CWuestefeld• 12 years ago

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.

BuildTheRobots• 12 years ago

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.

pessimizer2• 12 years ago

Since Greenwald, Miranda, Poitras, and Snowden are officially terrorists that can be detained under terrorist legislation in the UK, is there any legal reason to think (if this is successfully sustained) that reading The Intercept wouldn't fall under the same rubric?

hubtree• 12 years ago

The comments on the article are much more interesting than the article itself.

zorse3• 12 years ago

Censorship 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 all come out on top

ChrisNorstrom• 12 years ago

How do you feel about hate speech (anti-Islam, anti-semetic ) being banned and punishable by jail and fines in European countries?

Crito2• 12 years ago

<strike>Because they disagree with zorse. That does not mean that they are wrong, nor does it mean that zorse is wrong. It just means that they disagree.</strike> (Sorry, misread your comment.)

Personally, I agree with zorse. One of the best ways to combat extremism is to give extremist groups enough rope to hang themselves. Nail them when they actually solicit or request specific illegal actions (calling for hits on people, calling for somebodies home or business to be vandalized, etc) but otherwise allow them to make fools of themselves in public. See how the WBC or the KKK marginalize themselves in the US by being permitted to publicly say what they think.

Radical Islam does not seem to be a sizable threat in the US (because of, or despite of, the US's loose hate speech laws... you decide) and domestic "homegrown" terrorism is a wildly overblown threat. People like "sovereign citizen" are widely mocked using material that they upload to social media. Would sovereign citizens still be widely recognized as nutters if they were not allowed to upload youtube videos of them making fools of themselves? Despite (or because of) the US's lax speech laws, we don't have a Golden Dawn equivalent political party that is actually winning elections.

csense• 12 years ago

Who gets to define hate speech?

If you're interested in freedom of speech, the Popehat law blog makes excellent reading. Ken White had an insightful post about this very issue earlier this year:

"In Europe, Tom Perkins might face official sanctions for saying the wrong thing about the Holocaust; here, he faces late-night jokes and insulting cartoons and the contempt of many. I like our way better." [1]

[1] http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/30/your-criticism-of-my-holoc...

zorse3• 12 years ago

It might be the most foolish law on the books. Does anyone think that someone who hates a racial, ethnic or religious group will all of a change their mind because its against the law?

Laws against anti-semitism lend credibility to proponents of conspiracy theories. "If what I am saying isn't true, they why is the government out to stop me from speaking about it?"

If you look at France in particular the attempt to shut down the comedic routine of dieudonne m'bala m'bala who has a routine that makes fun of the holocaust has likely done orders of magnitude more to stir up anti-semitic sentiment in France than his routine

regarding the anti-islam stuff, its a similar situation, with some important distinctions that I won't get into at the moment. Regardless, silencing anti-islamic sentiment, just as with silencing anti-Semitic sentiment, will only make the situation worse

P.s. its not just in Europe. In Canada we have 'human rights commissions' that can force you to apologize and pay enormous fines and legal fees for 'hate speech'.

MrZongle2• 12 years ago

Orwell wept.

jeremysmyth3• 12 years ago

IANAL, 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 transmitting electronically)

- Causing someone else to do so

However, it is a defence to show that the material is not consistent with your own personal views, so while viewing something could in theory be a form of electronic transmission, they'd need to prove you intended to disseminate it.

The defence part is useful too (if you can show that you don't agree with their politics), but I don't like that it's on the accused to prove they have differing politics.

Here are the relevant sections of UK law:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/11/section/1

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/11/section/2

Crito2• 12 years ago

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.

jeremysmyth3• 12 years ago

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 ;)

qwerta2• 12 years ago

Someone asked me recently on Hacker News, what is wrong with free speech in Europe. Well...

hga2• 12 years ago

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."

jeremysmyth3• 12 years ago

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".

jmct2• 12 years ago

Yes, we get it. 'Europe' and countries within Europe are not the same thing. You are missing the point. Yes, this article only talks about the UK, but Europe generally has a problem with free speech.

The following countries have laws against hate speech:

Belgium@: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Anti-Racism_Law

Denmark: http://www.inach.net/content/denmark.html

Finland: (sorry, could only find PDF) http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Expression/ICCPR/State...

France@: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_France

Germany@: http://www.iuscomp.org/gla/statutes/StGB.htm#130

Iceland: (Art 233) http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=190914#LinkT...

Netherlands: http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001854/TweedeBoek/TitelV/Arti...

Norway: (135 a) http://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1902-05-22-10/KAPITTEL_2-6...

Sweden: (PDF Ch. 16 sec. 8) http://www.government.se/content/1/c4/15/36/d74ceabc.pdf In case you don't want to read that far "sentenced for agitation against a national or ethnic group to imprisonment for at most two years"

UK: See article.

The countries with an '@' are ones that also ban certain kinds of denial (usually Holocaust denial).

Note it is very likely that more countries in Europe have bans on free speech, these are just the ones I know of and could get sources for quickly.

On top of that, your point "Europe (as a political entity) has only generally positive things to say about freedom of speech" is only accurate if you don't take freedom of speech seriously. The European Convention on Human Rights AND the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union says it is up to the countries whether hate speech counts as free speech! Which misses the entire point of free speech, that no one is able to say what is and is not okay speech!

I live in the UK and the things that upsets me most is the lack of free speech here. There seem to be far too few countries that take it seriously.

So yes, I think it is fair to say Europe has a problem with free speech.

qwerta2• 12 years ago

I meant Europe as set of states in EU and as a continent.

AnimalMuppet• 12 years ago

The thing is, free speech in Europe that contained effective propaganda got a whole lot of people killed within the memory of Europeans now living (i.e., Hitler's "big lie"). So Europe is less likely to view free speech as an unmitigated, absolute good.

sentenza3• 12 years ago

Also, this story has nothing to do with Europe. This is the UK. Many in the English-speaking world assume that things in the UK are representative of what happens in Europe or the EU, but reality is that the UK is in many cases an odd outlier.

For instance, the freedom of the press is much weaker in the UK than in continental Europe, surveillance is _a lot_ more commonplace in the UK and the UK is not part of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. (Btw. the UK and Poland are the only EU countries that aren't a part of it.)

Houshalter2• 12 years ago

That was done by the state, not a small minority. Those regimes also had pretty strict censorship policies.

logfromblammo• 12 years ago

Crimestop! 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.

Houshalter2• 12 years ago

Censorship is nothing new at all.

falconfunction• 12 years ago

Well as long as they start to focus on sites promoting extreme chav behavior

FredericJ• 12 years ago

And for watching FoxNews?

Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted

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