He uses a series of statutes to show that if you have public wifi you exist in a legal gray are between subscriber and service provider, and therefore you can't be monitored by your ISP or held accountable for copyright infringement. Good luck with that.
I would like to fill the House of Commons with all those who voted for the bill and have someone read out said thought exercise to see how many of them remotely understand it.
Freudian, or just cretinous? let's hope the Lib Dems get their way and repeal the bloody thing. http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/08/minister-for-digital.ht...
Many of them don't understand it and don't care - they were told to vote for it by the party whip and so they did. Bought and sold.
And then there's the potential personal guilt of having facilitated someone committing a crime (I guess that is an individual thing but some would feel it)
Depressing, isn't it?
This is a good thing. Imagine a "Don't murder anyone" law. Without a court to decide what that actually means, I could argue that if I put a timer on a bomb, I didn't murder anyone - the bomb did the killing, and I didn't even trigger it directly. How is a bullet any different except that the delay is shorter? Dumbass didn't get out of the way, I say. No different than someone standing in the middle of a highway. The english language isn't like a programming language - its remarkably open to interpretation as to meaning, hence the need for courts to define what the law means through actual examples.
IANAL
The courts have made the definition even stricter, by allowing things like the death penalty and abortion. Although the individuals involved in those acts deliberately caused the death of someone, it doesn't count as murder.
How can anyone be expected to obey the law if it is not absolutely clear about what your obligations are? Overly general laws that the courts can deal with "later" are a grave danger to society.