The willing censor - Sir Ken MacDonald: former DPP warns British libel laws suppressing free
Note: The answer is a statutory right of reply. Legal action will never be within the reach of the ordinary man because (1) no government is going to grant legal aid for such cases because of the cost and (2) if by some miracle legal aid was provided the courts would not be able to cope. xxxxxxxxxxxxx rh
Telegraph Sir Ken MacDonald: former DPP warns British libel laws suppressing free speech British courts represent a serious threat to freedom of speech, suppressing the spread of information around the world, the former Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Ken MacDonald said.
By Heidi Blake Published: 7:30AM GMT 05 Feb 2010
Sir Ken Macdonald, the country's former chief prosecutor Photo: PA The grip of stringent libel and privacy laws in the UK have even been felt by investigative reporters in countries such as Ukraine, who can face action in British courts if their work is available here, he said. Speaking at a debate on press freedom in London, he called for an overhaul of the law including a ban on companies of more than 10 people suing for libel, to stem a creeping culture of “corporate bullying”.
“Our law should not associate our country with the suppression of free comment or the stifling of information so that it dies out before it can pass around the world," he said. "We don't really want to be discouraging journalists in Ukraine.” He also called on Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to consider introducing libel tribunals offering arbitration between the press and those who claim they have been wronged, in the place of full court hearings. The new panels should place an emphasis on retractions and apologies rather than costly damage settlements, he said. He also called for a change in the law to ensure that newspapers can only be penalised for publishing a libellous article once, rather than each time the piece is viewed online. Sir Ken, 57, has been an outspoken critic of the curtailment of press freedoms in the past. As DPP between 2003 and
2008, he was often a vocal critic of Government policy, in particular attempts to extend pre-charge detention to 42 days, arguing that due process protections should not be undermined. The debate in London, entitled "Gagging the press: will the public suffer?" followed a number of cases in which wealthy and famous individuals had successfully used the Human Rights Act to curtail publications in the media. But a landmark ruling by Mr Justice Tugendhat last week restored the balance in favour of freedom of speech, when he lifted an injunction granted to John Terry, the Chelsea and England captain, which had blocked reporting of his extramarital affair. The decision came two days after the Supreme Court lifted a ban on the naming of terrorist suspects. The Daily Telegraph disclosed that Avram Grant, the Portsmouth FC manager, was the Premier League boss who photographed leaving a brothel near his club’s training ground in December last year. A tabloid newspaper reported in December that a Premier League manager had been caught visiting a brothel, but did not name him or identify the location, blaming “creeping privacy laws” for preventing it from publishing further details. Fellow speakers at the debate in Gray’s Inn, Holborn, included Max Mosley, the former Formula One boss, and Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian. Sir Ken also called for the Press Complaints Commission, the press regulator run by British newspaper editors, to be scrapped and replaced by an independent watchdog. Max Moseley, the former Formula One boss who was awarded damages from the News of the World over reports of what it falsely claimed was a "Nazi orgy" with five women, spoke out in defence of John Terry. "People overlook how major invasions of privacy destroy lives and families," he said. "There should be a heavy onus on newspapers to show that this is something the public need to know, not want to know. "I cannot exaggerate the effect that these invasions have on people. "Take John Terry. Very clearly people are interested but do the public need to know that he's having an affair? Is that something the public need to know? "It's fun to talk about in the pub but it's not something you need to know about. Should his family and his wife be out through this misery?"
Telegraph Dr John Sentamu: Archbishop of York claims tolerance in UK has 'negative virtue' Tolerance has become a “negative virtue” in Britain as important but contentious subjects are no longer discussed, according to the Archbishop of York.
By Martin Beckford Published: 7:30AM GMT 04 Feb 2010
The Archbishop, the second most senior cleric in the Church of England, also echoed Pope Benedict XVI's criticism of the Equality Bill. Photo: PA Dr John Sentamu warned that differences over areas such as immigration and funding of public services are just being “thrust into the margins” where they “fester” rather than being talked about openly. He claimed the Government is trying to “remove religion from public life” in the name of tolerance, and force people to keep their faith behind closed doors.
P The Archbishop, the second most senior cleric in the Church of England, also echoed Pope Benedict XVI’s criticism of the Equality Bill this week as an "unjust" restriction on religious freedom. He said that a clause attempting to define religious workers – in order to exempt them from the anti-discrimination law – would have caused serious problems for churches had it not been removed in the House of Lords, by making it impossible for them to demand that new employees were Christian. In a speech to Newcastle City Council on Wednesday, Dr Sentamu said: “This is symptomatic of a trend which has intensified in Britain over the past fifty years in the name of tolerance. “That is, an attempt to remove religion from public life. And in the process, tolerance, which is supposed to be the tool to help us deal with difference and disagreement has instead, become a negative virtue – a means of diminishment and marginalisation. “Today, many people imagine we are living in an increasingly secular age. At the same time, the Church has taken something of a battering from critics. Some of these are uncomfortable about the church’s role in the public square, preferring to relegate it to the private sphere. “These are the people who would prefer we didn’t talk about ‘Church’ schools and instead talked about ‘faith’ schools where all faiths could be conveniently blended together and kept in a safe place – a process of ghetto-ization at work in a ferocious and insidious way. “They are not all hostile to religions in general or the Christian religion in particular. They simply don’t want it in the public square. “However, the 2001 census figures show us that we should be less fearful of claiming our religious heritage. It will be fascinating to see what happens in the 2011 census. Religion is a core aspect of people’s identity and should not be relegated to the private square.” The archbishop said that Britain should be proud of its recent history in guaranteeing civil liberties and creating equal opportunities for all. However he added that the prized virtue of tolerance is now being used to stifle debate. “Tolerance has become a restricting quality – a grudging ‘putting up - with’ rather that a positive means of building a caring, peaceful society. “The problem with this is that it does not give us the means of voicing and dealing constructively with differences. “We give people private space but do not encourage public discussion and debate on key areas which are seen as ‘difficult’ such as religion, immigration, the optimum funding for public services. In consequence, these areas of difference are thrust into the margins where they do not go away but instead, tend to fester.”
http://www.wildersontrial.com/
The killer of Theo van Gogh and 14 of the other witnesses anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders wanted to call in his defence against charges of discrimination and inciting hatred have been ruled inadmissible by Amsterdam district court.
But three Islam experts proposed by Wilders will be heard behind closed doors, the judges said on Wednesday afternoon. They include American Syrian psychiatrist Wafa Sultan who believes the world is witness to 'a battle between modernity and barbarism which Islam will lose'.
The court also turned down Wilders' request to hear five legal experts on the grounds that the MP will have ample opportunity to say whether or not he agrees with them during the trial. He had wanted to call 18 experts and Muslim radicals.
Truth
Wilders has stated his case not only rests on freedom of speech legislation but on the fact that he is speaking the truth.
'This court is apparently not interested in the truth. I can conclude nothing else other than that the court does not wish me a fair trial,' he was reported as saying by news agency ANP after the judges' statement.
Wilders faces five counts of religious insult and anti-Muslim incitement. In January, the public prosecution department extended the prosecution case to include inciting hatred of Muslims, Moroccans and non-Western immigrants.
Open court
The court also turned down the prosecution's call for Wilders himself to be interviewed by an examining judge behind closed doors because of public order fears. Wilders had said he wanted to be questioned in open court.
The prosecution is not planning to bring any witnesses.
The case will take place at some point between June 1 and October 31, news agency ANP reported.
Telegraph
Lord Glenconner’s dismay at film about Princess Margaret and the gangster After calling last year for Princess Margaret to be allowed to rest in peace, Lord Glenconner, one of her closest friends, is dismayed that Louis Mellis is writing a screenplay which purports to tell the story of her relationship with John Bindon, a notorious gangster and actor.
By Tim Walker Published: 10:00PM GMT 01 Feb 2010
Lord Glenconner says Princess Margaret ?never even met Bindon" Photo: PA “She never even met Bindon,” Glenconner told me, unambiguously. “The whole idea is preposterous.” It is understood that Mellis, who wrote the screenplays to Sexy Beast and 44 Inch Chest, has provisionally entitled his film The Princess & The Gangster.
Patrick Milling Smith, the producer, said Bindon was a huge personality. “He could break your legs, but he was also a mini-celebrity, a force of nature. He was a real raconteur and full-on entertainer.” Glenconner, as the owner of the island of Mustique, was to all intents and purposes Princess Margaret’s entertainments manager every time she visited the island in the 1970s. He said Bindon, who died in 1993 aged 50, had once been brought to the island by Vicki Hodge, a baronet’s daughter who had befriended the actor. “Princess Margaret had her set, but Bindon was never a member of it.. He was simply not the kind of man who would have had any appeal for her whatsover. "He may well have hung around her when she was holidaying on Mustique, but that is not the same thing as having an affair with her.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5741566/censorship-by-intimida tion.thtml
Censorship by intimidation
Saturday, 30th January 2010
http://www.spectator.co.uk/blogs/media//Image/Censorship.png A study by the University of Exeter’s European Muslim Research Centre claims that a rise in the number of hate crimes against Muslims in London is being encouraged by mainstream politicians and sections of the media. In the Guardian Vikram Dodd has written:
The study mentions no newspapers or writers by name, but alleges that the book Londonistan, by the Mail writer Melanie Phillips, played a part in triggering hate crimes.
The text of this study, Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hate Crime by Dr Jonathan Githens-Mazer and Dr Robert Lambert, does not in fact mention my book Londonistan (although it is cited in the bibliography). What it says is this:
Islamophobic, negative and unwarranted portrayals of Muslim London as Londonistan and Muslim Londoners as terrorists, terrorist sympathisers and subversives in sections of the media appear to provide the motivation for a significant number of anti-Muslim hate crimes.
For Dodd (and if they did mean my book, the authors of this study) to single me out in this way is a crude smear which bears no relation to the facts. In my book -- as in everything I write about this subject – I go to considerable lengths to stress that many Muslims in Britain and elsewhere have no truck with, and indeed are amongst the principal victims of, Islamic extremism and terrorism.
My argument in Londonistan – which is not about London -- is that the British state first turned a blind eye to, and ever since has chosen to appease, Islamist extremism, allowing the radicalisation of British Muslims to gather pace, tolerating the preaching of hatred and doing nothing to stop Islamist subversion through the spread of sharia law. I have repeatedly said that this compromises the safety and security not only of society in general but of those many British Muslims who are desperate for the government to stop the radicalisation and intimidation of their community, and who are horrified by the way in which the British establishment has embraced extremist Islamist bodies and individuals as responsible interlocutors.
This study claims effectively that such commentary incites violence against British Muslims. There is not one shred of evidence for this. Remarkably, the authors make no acknowledgement of what is overwhelmingly likely to be the biggest reason for animosity against Muslims -- the repeated acts of terror and the 2000-4000 potential terrorists within the British Muslim community as reported by the intelligence service, not to mention the refusal by community leaders to take any responsibility for this state of affairs.
Indeed, given the scale of this threat it is remarkable that there has thankfully been so little violence against British Muslims. Where it has occurred, as in the appalling attack upon Muslim students at City University, the report claims the motivation was the perceived association of Muslims with terror. But that perception has not been created or fabricated by the media. There is a significant terrorism problem among British Muslims. No reporting I can recall has ever said that all or most Muslims are implicated in terrorism. The media have merely provided the facts as given, which are alarming enough. So the authors’ implication therefore seems to be (as Muslim community leaders themselves argue) that no reference at all should be made to Islamic terrorism. The self-acknowledged motivation for such terrorism should apparently be censored.
Targeting the media in this way is not just to shoot the messenger. It is also to downplay the role of ideology in fomenting violence, and thus not merely to trivialise and downgrade the motivation for anti-Muslim attacks but also to negate by implication the very concept of the Islamic jihad as the cause of terrorism.
Conversely, the authors make no acknowledgement of where truly false and irresponsible reporting has indeed inflamed violence against a vulnerable British minority. The way the British media reports the Middle East incites irrational hatred not just of Israel but also Jews in general. This reporting takes the form of false claims about Israel’s aggressive and illegal behaviour, medieval-style blood libels that Israel deliberately kills Palestinian children, and conspiracies between Israel and America to put the world’s security at risk.
The result has been a frightening rise in anti-Jewish attacks in Britain to record levels. Unlike attacks on Muslims, which unfortunately rise after actual Islamic terrorist incidents, attacks on British Jews rise after the demonisation of Israel’s self- defence against terrorism as aggression. Many of these attacks are not reported because Jews are too frightened or fatalistic to do so. And contrary to the claim in this study, white racists have not stopped targeting orthodox Jews or Jewish institutions. The attacks on British Jews, which mean that every single Jewish communal event has to be guarded and Jewish schools now shelter behind razor wire, are coming from both white racists and Muslims. But there’s no mention of that in this study.
Moreover, the examples it provides of anti-Muslim attacks don’t even bear out its own hypothesis that these are incited by media reports. The dreadful attack on student Yasir Abdelmouttalib and the murder of pensioner Ikram Syed ul-Haqal by gangs of teenagers were without doubt inspired by hatred of Muslims. But as the study itself goes on to make clear, this hatred was not in turn inspired by media reports, nor even by perceptions of terrorism. The reasons were cultural, as an interviewee explains:
Muslims are now understood to oppose everything these kids aspire to. Flash cars, nightclubs, expensive clothes, jewellery, drugs, alcohol, casual sex, glamour, dancing, music, you name it! One kid [member of London street gang] said after the ...those attacks on the nightclubs [reference to failed terrorist attack on London nightclubs in June 2007] ... that he hated Muslims because they wanted to take all the fun out of life. I said this was not a Muslim attack and he said it doesn’t matter they either bomb the nightclubs or they tell you not to go there.
The second reason arises from the role of convert Muslims with their own backgrounds who condemn their anti-social gang behaviour and drug oriented lifestyles: Often they know someone who has left their scene and become a devout Muslim. That is like a defection. And whether they do or don’t they say they know this or that terrorist who used to be a great person till he joined the Muslims.
Most importantly, thirdly, street gangs like the ones that attacked Yasir and the City University students are increasingly coming into violent conflict with rival gangs who purport to be Muslim or who adopt aspects of Muslim dress for the sake of a new ‘street’ image ... As an interviewee, a local youth worker explains: On the one hand you have gangs like the Muslim Boys who have become attracted to what they like about being or rather looking Muslim. Looking like a terrorist you might say. That's how they see it. They like to rob the kind of gangs they used to belong to. Take their drugs. Take their guns. Say look we used to deal drugs now we confiscate them. Money goes to a new cause. Then you get a response from the gangs they are attacking. They hate Muslims even more and maybe are afraid to attack the Muslim gangs directly so they attack soft Muslims, real Muslims, elderly Muslims instead. Big issue. Just like a handful of terrorists give Muslims a bad name, now these new so called Muslim gangs are causing the same problem, well, on the streets they are, in the gang scene they are. Big fights. Stabbings, guns....
In other words, the motivation for such attacks is, to put it mildly, complicated. But not, it appears, to the authors of this study. In another attack on an imam at the London Central Mosque the assailant, Brian Dougan, was found to be clinically insane. But for the authors, this was irrelevant: he had still been inspired by the general anti-Muslim prejudice all around him. Another arson attack on a mosque was said to have been inspired by the BNP victory in the European Parliament election. But lo and behold, the authors even blame the media for BNP thuggery:
Similarly, an experienced BNP activist in London, explains that he believes that most BNP supporters simply followed the lead set by their favourite tabloid commentators that they read every day. When these commentators singled out Muslims as threats to security and social cohesion, he says that it was perfectly natural for BNP supporters to adopt the same thinking.
Interesting how the authors of this study regard BNP thinking that fits their own prejudices as axiomatically true. The fact is that the BNP and all neo-fascist groups seize opportunistically upon anything in mainstream discourse that suits their ends. They are not becoming anti-Muslim because of what they read in the media; they are anti-Muslim because they are anti-Pakistani, anti-Hindu, anti-Asian, anti-black, anti-Jew -- prejudiced in other words against anyone who is not what they describe as ethnically white Anglo-Saxon. But because of the concern about Islamic extremism in Britain, they have cynically jumped onto that particular bandwagon and played down the rest of their agenda, in order to pose as a mainstream organisation rather than the unreconstructed thugs and bigots that they are.
In any event, to say that because thugs or madmen may be inspired to acts of violence by reports of Islamic extremism such reports should be suppressed is a bit like saying that since paedophilia regularly inspires people to try to attack paedophiles (and in once notorious instance where thuggery was exceeded only by illiteracy, a paediatrician) there should be no media coverage of paedophilia.
The real agenda of this study is censorship by intimidation – to defame and smear all those who comment, however responsibly, on a matter of such intense public importance as Islamic extremism and terrorism. The authors' agenda shows through their threadbare arguments. Take this passage about death threats against certain ‘responsible’ Muslims – threats which it says arise from a false premise:
To explain: from the perspective of most activists in the violent extremist nationalist milieu Muslim organisations that are linked directly or indirectly to the al-Qaida terrorist threat to the UK are considered worthy targets for attack and intimidation, and death threats are part of their panoply of tactical options. Like their counterparts in non violent extremist nationalist politics (most notably the BNP) these street activists have spent the last decade getting their instruction on who al-Qaida’s active and tacit supporters are in London from highly visible, obvious yet problematic sources. Thus violent extremist nationalist tabloid readers have become convinced that Londonistan is home to several national Muslim organisations that purport to condemn al-Qaida but are in fact part and parcel of the same threat.
In consequence, for activists in groups like the English Defence League
(EDL), a leading member of a mainstream national Muslim organisation will be understood to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, every bit as much as an enemy target Anjem Choudary, a well known London based extremist al-Qaida apologist. This conflation of mainstream Muslim figures with extremists like Choudary is problematic for many reasons but in this current context it results in death threats being made to responsible London citizens because of false and often malicious assertions that they pose a security threat to the UK.
All death threats, against whomever they are directed, are a serious crime and should be treated as such. But the authors’ argument here is that certain national Muslim organisations do not pose a security threat because they have nothing to do with al Qaeda. Because this whole passage is referring to anonymous individuals and organisations it’s hard to be specific. Nevertheless, it is the case that a number of national Muslim organisations such as the Muslim Association of Britain, the Muslim Council of Britain or the Islamic Human Rights Commission, which have no involvement with al Qaeda or terrorism in general, do subscribe to Islamist positions which are extreme by aiming, for example, to supplant Britain’s core values by those of Islam, or by supporting foreign terrorist regimes such as Hamas or Iran.
To repeat – anyone who issues death threats against anyone else, whatever organisations they belong to, should be prosecuted. But such threats should not be used as a pretext to prevent the troubling extremism of such organisations from being reported. What this passage is actually doing is intimidating commentators from exposing such extremism through the pernicious tactic of associating such commentary with attempted murder.
The view that Islamists who, for tactical reasons alone, oppose al Qaeda are not a threat to Britain -- and should indeed be treated as allies against al Qaeda -- is one of the most lethal mistakes that has been made by the British counter-terror world. One example of such egregious establishment wrong-headedness that I cite in Londonistan is in fact one of the authors of this report, Robert Lambert. A former officer in the Metropolitan Police Counter-Terror Command, who until 2008 ran the Metropolitan Police Muslim Contact Unit, Lambert told a conference organised by the Danish police that terrorism could not be fought by contact with moderate Muslims but through partnerships with the Salafists
(radical Islamists) – two of whom were at one stage at least actually officers in his own police department. I wrote:
Lambert believed that this would enable the police to understand the way extremists thought before they committed any acts of terror. But it surely goes without saying that a Salafist officer, who is committed to the overthrow of the west and its replacement by an Islamic society, poses a security risk of the first order. For a police counter-terrorism specialist to be promoting this situation beggars belief.
Now Lambert has co-authored this study which claims that identifying such Islamists as extremists is to incite attacks upon British Muslims. But just look at the organisation behind this study, the European Muslim Research Centre. On its advisory board sit Anas Altikriti of the Muslim Association of Britain, which supports Hamas, and Mohamed Abdul Bari of the Muslim Council of Britain, which supports the Islamisation of Britain and which has a number of Islamist affiliates. The study also says it drew its information from, amongst others, the Muslim Safety Forum, Islamic Human Rights Commission, Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) UK, the Federation of Islamic Student Societies and the Muslim Council of Britain – all of which are Islamist fronts.
The idea that this report is objective is thus demonstrably absurd. It is merely a piece of tendentious Islamist-promoting propaganda.
Telegraph Former Welsh spending watchdog head quits as police investigate computer material The former head of Wales's public spending watchdog, Jeremy Colman, has resigned after suspect material was found on his computer, it has been claimed..
By Andrew Hough Published: 7:30AM GMT 05 Feb 2010
Jeremy Colman stood down from the office of Auditor General for Wales Photo: WALES NEWS Mr Colman's sudden resignation the Auditor General for Wales caused surprise around Cardiff Bay when it was announced by the Welsh Assembly's authorities. The Wales Audit Office (WAO), the organisation he led, said there had been internal investigation into his personal conduct, but refused to confirm the specific reasons for his resignation. The WAO confirmed it had referred the matter to the police. "Following an internal review at the Wales Audit Office, matters regarding Jeremy Colman's personal conduct were referred to the police," a spokesman said. "Jeremy Colman stood down from the office of Auditor General for Wales following an internal review around matters of personal conduct. "We cannot comment any further but are co-operating fully with South Wales Police inquiries. Reports have suggested he resigned from his £170,000-a-year post following the discovery of suspect material on a laptop. A South Wales Police spokeswoman said: ''South Wales Police is investigating an allegation regarding computer material. ''Inquiries are ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.'' He was appointed for a five-year term in 2005, extended for a further three years last May. An interim appointment is likely to be made as finding a permanent replacement will take several months. The Assembly's cross-party Public Accounts Committee will handle the selection process. The WAO's day-to-day running will be taken up by its executive committee. Created in 2005, it is responsible for auditing and inspecting a wide range of public services. The Auditor General is independent of the Assembly and of the Welsh Assembly Government. His statutory powers and responsibilities include auditing the accounts of the Assembly Government and other public bodies, including within the NHS. A report into the WAO last year said a small number of staff grievances alleged bullying and harassment. The International Peer Review, published in October, criticised a "lack of trust" within the organisation. It said the Auditor General was accessible and willing to speak to any member of staff, but there were "clearly wider issues of trust and confidence in decision-making and the wider senior management team". Leaked staff surveys and other sensitive information was damaging the WAO's reputation, it added. Unhealthy tensions between bosses were highlighted, as were perceptions of nepotism in the way staff were chosen for projects. Information obtained by an AM also revealed that five WAO managers were subject to disciplinary action or investigations between April 2005 and last October following complaints by staff. All managers were given advice or asked to attend courses on workplace bullying. Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood called for an investigation into the organisation after the disclosure. Mr Colman could not be reached for comment.
http://www.ejc.net/magazine/article/broadcasting_regulations_to_govern_on line_video/
Time Magazine Pushes Draconian Internet Licensing Plan
by DefendUSx February 03, 2010 13:34
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Wednesday, February 3, 2010 Image removed by sender. Time Magazine Pushes Draconian Internet Licensing Plan 030210top
Time Magazine has enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon to back Microsoft executive Craig Mundie's call for Internet licensing, as authorities push for a system even more stifling than in Communist China, where only people with government permission would be allowed to express free speech.
As we reported earlier this week, during a recent conference at the Davos Economic Forum, Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, told fellow globalists at the summit that the Internet needed to be policed by means of introducing licenses similar to drivers licenses - in other words government permission to use the web.
His proposal was almost instantly advocated by Time Magazine, who published an article by Barbara Kiviat - one of Mundie's fellow attendees at the elitist confab. It's sadistically ironic that Kiviat's columns run under the moniker "The Curious Capitalist," since the ideas expressed in her piece go further than even the free-speech hating Communist Chinese have dared venture in terms of Internet censorship.
"Now, there are, of course, a number of obstacles to making such a scheme be reality," writes Kiviat. "Even here in the mountains of Switzerland I can hear the worldwide scream go up: "But we're entitled to anonymity on the Internet!" Really? Are you? Why do you think that?"
Kiviat ludicrously compares the necessity to show identification when entering a bank vault to the apparent need for authorities to know who you are when you set up a website to take credit card payments.
"The truth of the matter is, the Internet is still in its Wild West phase. To a large extent, the law hasn't yet shown up. Yet as more and more people move to town, that lawlessness is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. As human societies grow over time they develop more rigid standards for themselves in order to handle their increased size. There is no reason to think the Internet shouldn't follow the same pattern," she writes.
"The people in charge-as much as anyone can be in charge when it comes to the Internet-are thinking about it," Kiviat barks in her conclusion, seemingly comfortable with the notion that shadowy individuals and not the Constitution itself are "in charge" of deciding who is allowed free speech.
Despite Kiviat's mealy-mouthed authoritarianism and feigned reasonableness in advocating such a system, Mundie's proposal is little different to a similar system already considered by officials in Communist China to force bloggers to register their identities before they could post. At the time the idea was attacked by human rights advocates as an obvious ploy "by which the government could control information" and crack down on dissent.
Indeed, the proposal was deemed too severe and the Chinese government eventually backed down. So a system considered too authoritarian and too much of a threat to freedom in Communist China is seemingly just fine and dandy in the "land of the free," according to Kiviat and her ilk.
Unfortunately for her, Kiviat was immediately reminded about what makes the Internet such a threat to the ruling elite for whom she is a well-trained apologist - almost every comment below her article disagreed with her.
"No. A thousand times no. This benefits no one but "the people in charge," wrote one respondent.
"Drivers' licenses ensure a basic level of driving competency, so that
13-year-olds don't get drunk and drive into a schoolbus. That kind of stupidity doesn't happen on the Internet. Enough security theater! Focus on actual security. Truly awful idea, Barbara." "I, for one, welcome our new internet overlords. It will be a comforting time when "the law" comes along to protect people from themselves on the net, because gosh darn it, freedom is dangerous," quips another. "Not to mention, standards only ever come about through coercive government action, and never through private parties responding to their own incentives." I think bloggers ought to be fingerprinted, DNA tested for abnormalities and have the information safely stored in a government vault. That way when some authoritarian ruler of pit, decides you have broken his self made tyrannic law he can prosecute you," jokes another respondent. "For being a journalist you sure are s--d, anonymity protects the right of free speech especially when the scary internet is most dangerous in a nation that prosecutes freedom of speech and opinion. The biggest thugs and criminals you mentioned are corrupt governments. I bet you love China's safe internet measures huh? But there are worse than China." "The internet is the only thing preventing total tyranny right now, and they are trying everything they can to chill free speech. There is NO grass roots movement anywhere calling for government intervention in the internet. It is not broken. It works too well, that is a problem for tyrants," points out another.
Shortly after Time Magazine started peddling the proposal, the New York Times soon followed suit with a blog this morning entitled Driver's Licenses for the Internet? which merely parrots Kiviat's talking points.
Of course there's a very good reason for Time Magazine and the New York Times to be pushing for measures that would undoubtedly lead to a chilling effect on free speech which would in turn eviscerate the blogosphere.
Like the rest of the mainstream print dinosaurs, physical sales of Time Magazine have been plummeting, partly as a result of more people getting their news for free on the web from independent sources that don't feed at the trough of the military-industrial complex. Ad sales for the New York Times sunk by no less than 28 per cent last year with subscriptions and street sales also falling.
"The Internet, where newspapers are generally free, has siphoned off circulation and advertising," conceded an October 2009 NY Times article, which is precisely why establishment publications like the Old Gray Lady and Time are pushing proposals that would strangle the blogosphere and in turn eliminate their competition - while devastating free speech all in one foul swoop.
Research related links
1.Enemies Of Free Speech Call For Internet Licensing
2.Is FCC Declaring 'Open Season' on Internet Freedom?
Note: This story is of interest because I suspect that the next criminal censorship action our pc masters will take will be against written works which will of course not merely be paedophile fantasies (how would Lolita fare?), but anything else they deem beyond the pale including of course political opinions they cannot abide. RH
Telegraph
Family doctor who downloaded 'abhorrent' child sex fantasy stories 'can still work' A family doctor, Nicholas Spicer, who downloaded ''abhorrent'' and "deviant" child sex stories from the internet has escaped being struck off.
By Andrew Hough Published: 7:30AM GMT 04 Feb 2010
The 55 year-old read the paedophile fantasies on his home computer between
2003 and 2007 while working closely with children as a trusted GP, the General Medical Council heard. Despite the father of two being described at the disciplinary hearing in Manchester as ''a sexual deviant with an interest in children'' he was cleared of misconduct and banned from practicing for just six months ''on grounds of health''.
DR Spicer has also evaded any criminal charges because the stories are legally available on the internet. Child safety groups and even Spicer's own wife criticised the GMC's failure to strike him off the medical register as ''shameful''. But the doctor remains unrepentant and claims his behaviour was down to ''mild, well capsulated medical condition'' he was suffering from at the time. ''I have never been accused of being a paedophile, but it is obvious that people might wonder," he said at his home in Hereford. ''I was examined by seven experts in the field of child sex offences and six out of seven concluded that I'm not a paedophile or a threat to children. ''They concluded that I was suffering from a mild, well capsulated medical condition, exacerbated by domestic problems I was having at the time." He added: "'We were having domestic problems; people can make of that what they will, but that is why I took to browsing these legal texts online. ''The GMC decided that it was not misconduct, but that my fitness to practice is impaired on health grounds, and I have been suspended from the register for six-months. ''The GMC had no choice but to investigate me and I am happy with its decision.'' Spicer pored over the sick stories - which involved adults sexually abusing children - while he worked at the Nunwell surgery in Bromyard, Herefordshire., between December 2003 and November 2007. He told the GMC hearing he downloaded the texts onto his personal computer which he kept at home. Spicer denied misconduct and was cleared of the charge by a panel of three professionals at the hearing. But he was removed from NHS Herefordshire's list of GPs - but is free to return to work in another area of the country from as early as July this year.. At the hearing held in Manchester on January 15, Jason Macadam, solicitor for the GMC, branded Spicer ''a sexual deviant'' and said the material was ''abhorrent and repugnant''. A statement by the GMC stated: ''The panel found the material that you viewed to be abhorrent. ''Though consisting of text rather than images and, as such, fruits of the imagination, the stories embody a perverse distortion in their portrayal of children and children with adults. ''It is shocking that such material was accessed regularly over a number of years by a medical practitioner. We wish to make this clear at the outset without reservation or qualification.'' West Mercia Police told the GMC that no criminal charges could be brought as paedophilic stories are legal but they said there were ''concerns'' about child protection. Spicer added: ''I have been told by the GMC that I am a good and useful doctor with a 25 year unblemished record. ''What I did never had anything to do with patients or the practice, it occurred solely in the privacy of my home. ''I have kept silent for the last two years but I feel I owe it to my patients to say something. I do have regrets over what has happened and I am sorry.'' Spicer's wife Patricia has now started divorce proceedings and said that the GMC's decision undermines public trust in doctors. "People and professionals that I have spoken to are mystified about the decision and cannot understand why they did not strike him off," she said. ''I think this decision undermines public trust in the GMC and doctors in general. It was a very bad decision. ''The GMC's mission statement is 'protecting doctors, protecting people' but they are not living up to it with this decision.'' Michael May, spokesman for Sexual abuse charity Survivors UK, added: ''I'm appalled by both the actions of the GP and the response of the GMC. ''I find it extremely concerning that an educated professional, with intimate access to the most helpless and vulnerable members of our community, has been able to exploit a shameful loophole in the law. ''This is further evidence of the on-going minimisation of sexual abuse of children in our society. I call for the law to be changed to criminalise accessing and trading in these repugnant images and stories in any form.''
Subject: IHR News & Comment February 3, 2010
At California University, A New Campaign to Remove Prof. MacDonald Daily 49er -- California State University - Long Beach http://www.daily49er.com/news/students-call-for-removal-of-psychology-pro fessor-1.2156180 In the past week, psychology professor Kevin MacDonald had his class interrupted by an organization claiming his views and recent involvement in political organization the American Third Option party are seen as racist and anti-Semitic. MacDonald, a tenured professor at Cal State Long Beach, has been making headlines on the matter since he was investigated by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2006. The SPLC tracks hate crimes and groups across America .. .. Both Kauffman and Cabral are students at CSULB and members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a Marxist and Leninist organization that advocates revolutionary change and progressive reform.
The Persecution of Prof. MacDonald Gregory Johnson -- The Occidental Quarterly http://www.toqonline.com/2010/02/the-persecution-of-kevin-macdonald/ On January 26, 2010, a new campaign of intellectual and political persecution was launched against Kevin MacDonald, Professor of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach. The express goal of this campaign is to get Professor MacDonald fired from his job because of his research and political convictions. Professor MacDonald's research threatens the cultural and political hegemony of the organized Jewish community by exposing their ongoing subversion of Western civilization. This research has made Professor MacDonald a target of persecution by Jewish individuals, organizations, front groups, and their dupes for nearly a decade.
In California, Prof. MacDonald Under New Attack Southern Poverty Law Center http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2010/01/29/student-activists-confront-anti- semitic-california-prof/ Students at California State University - Long Beach are launching a campaign against a faculty member known for his anti-Semitic writings and, most recently, for his leadership of a white supremacist political party. Aiming to force Kevin MacDonald's departure from the university, student activists this week began urging their peers to boycott classes taught by the longtime psychology professor.
In England, 'Heretical Two' Lose Appeal on Internet Racism Case BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/8486884.stm Two men have lost their appeals against the UK's first conviction for inciting racial hatred via a foreign website. Simon Sheppard, 51, was sentenced to four years and 10 months, and Stephen Whittle, 42, to two years and four months at Leeds Crown Court in July. However, the Court of Appeal has reduced Sheppard's sentence by one year and Whittle's jail term by six months. Sheppard, from Selby, North Yorks, and Whittle, of Preston, Lancs, controlled US websites featuring racist material. During their first trial in 2008, they skipped bail and fled to California, where they sought asylum claiming they were being persecuted for their right-wing views, but were deported.
Posts
