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Comment by peteretep | Hacker News Reader

If I am ever arrested for anything, I hope to make it in to the British, Australian, NZ, or Canadian legal systems.

Britain? Our 'justice' system will extradite anyone (to the US) without blinking an eyelid. To our legal system & government staying on good terms with the US is FAR more important than the rights of the people. The tvshack case is a perfect example of this, and it's terribly sad.

Hurrah for NZ though - excellent comments from the judge regarding the flakey-ness of the FBI's case. I expect this might me a major turning point if, as Dotcom has previously stated, the FBI do in fact have very little evidence (and, as I expect, are simply working for their hollywood based overlords).

You can always find cases of stupid judicial decisions in the UK, like someone convicted for a tweet, or the very harsh punitative sentances given out after the recent riots.

Harsh sentences for rioters is stupid? I know people who live and work in those areas.

I'd argue for the tweeting conviction too. It sent a valuable message about personal responsibility. With the advent of cyber-bullying (awful term) it's a lesson people need to learn.

Disagree wholeheartedly. Anyone who is bothered by a tweet has the option of blocking that person and never hearing from them on that medium ever again.

That right there is why I'm mostly convinced that the entire concept of "cyber bullying" is silly. When you have complete control over who you do and don't have interaction with, if someone says something untoward and disturbing to you, and you just continue to let it happen, the blame is at least partially on you.

In the Twitter case, there's nothing stopping the bully starting a new account and tweeting from that instead, post block. You might have complete control, but a lot of the time it's only after the fact.

There's no way for someone to know if they're blocked or not, though. It's not like Facebook where if you block someone, you are prohibited from interacting with them in any way. You can still send @messages, but the target won't see them. DMs can't be sent unless you're friends.

It's not sentencing that's the problem with the response to the riots. It's people being punished (e.g. losing council houses) who were not convicted of anything.

Some of the sentencing was also a problem, like the guy who was jailed for the crime of stealing Argos catalogues. (for those who are unaware, like the judge apparently was in that case, Argos catalogues are freely given away)

Harsh sentences for rioters is stupid? I know people who live and work in those areas.

• 4 years conviction for (while drunk) creating a Facebook group calling for a riot in your home town, and then no-body turning up and no riot happening ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/16/facebook-riot-calls... ) is stupid (2 different people were convicted of this).

• 6 months for stealing £3.50 worth of water ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8695988/London-... ) is stupid.

• Several months conviction (later overturned) for accepting a pair of shorts your housemate looted when you were asleep ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/19/riots-mother-looted... ) is stupid.

I'd argue for the tweeting conviction too

I'm talking about the Twitter Joke Trial ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Paul_Chambers ) where Paul Chambers tweeted "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!". He has a criminal conviction and had to pay £1,000. That's silly.

I'm not saying it's all bad, but neither is it all good. As I said, "You can always find cases of stupid judicial decisions in the UK"

An alternative view on sentence stupidity (non riots). Compare to above...

A chapter from my family's life:

£300 fine (no custodial sentence) for a piece of shit punching the shit out of my 25 week pregnant wife and leaving her in hospital for a month, all for a £30 Nokia phone...

In Canada, a number of illiberal statues, legal precedents and common-law practices have been struck down over the past 30 years, thanks to our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Britain has no such fundamental touchstone of liberty, so your legal rights there are rather murkier.

If you do end up having to wrestle with the law I think you're still better off having it happen in the states. For as many horror stories as you hear there is far more fairly doled out justice. This kind of stuff is shocking to hear about because it's not the norm.

With that line of argument you could only establish that the US has a decent legal system. But how do you go from there to say that the US system is a better deal than those other countries, who might be even better for you?

LOL not Britain.

The legal system here is corrupt as anything.

Berlusconi looks like Jesus compared to most of our political and legal elite.

I don't think so. Just look at the Leveson enquiry holding everyone's feet to the fire.

That's a farce. Cameron would be locked up by now if they were being I...

Leveson is just a rare occasion for political lightweights to get back at the real wheelers & dealers who actually run the country. A few scapegoats will pay (Brooks, Coulson), but the Big Beasts (Murdoch, Cameron's chums and Blair's friends) will remain firmly in charge. It's all a self-serving show for media hacks, the masses don't care one bit -- LibDems, who were less friendly to Murdoch and come out from the enquiry as quite a honest bunch, are being routed at the polls anyway (as they should be, but let's not digress).

You will back transferred to U.S. anyway, many countries has extradition agreement with the states.

Unless it's a racist tweet.

On the flipside, the US isn't too fond of tweets about digging up Madonna and partying in LA. ;)

GOD BLESS THE QUEEN

Our germanic aristocratic overlord has done nothing but agree with the government and watch our rights get removed piecemeal over the last 20 years. I know she's a constitutional monarch but that takes the piss.

I could almost see the glee in here eyes as she ushered in the CCDP at the last speech.

Let's not forget that she is a traitor herself [1].

Edit: if you're going to downvote, tell me why.

[1] She has committed five acts of treason by signing EU treaties that abolish autonomous control of the UK. She is also the only monarch to have broken her Coronation oath for doing so, the irony is that we're now bound to celebrate the Jubillee of a lying monarch.

The queen is not the overlord of the UK, Parliament which is elected by the people, has supreme power, and has the ability to depose the monarch (cf. Glorious Revolution).

Although she "signs laws", it's a rubberstamp approval at that point. The monarch has to sign any law that Parliament makes (there have been wars over this).

The UK/England has been party to international treaties for thousands of years. The EU is not something new and different and there is no reason to call it "treasonous" or "breaking the coronation oath", unless you just don't like the EU and you want to pretend the whole thing doesn't apply.

It was a slightly sarcastic point.

I'd have more respect for her if she was disposed of after standing up for people of her country.

The CCDP is the sort of thing she should have said "screw you hippies" to:

http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Communications_Capabili...

The EU is falling to bits and was destined to from the start. The populous didn't vote it in either, despite the referrendum results. The referrendum was as unfair and biased as every election is.

I'd have more respect for her if she was disposed of after standing up for people of her country.

The Monarch of the UK does not take an oath to defend the people of the UK per se. They only swear to govern the people.

However the monarch must swear to maintain the offical state religion, the Church of England. Would you like if the Queen, upon reading her coronation oath again, were to be strict about that? Goodbye equality law, all other religions are now banned (this used to be the case), no Catholics or Jews allowed to be MPs (this used to be the case), etc. No sane person wants that. Forget about the Queen, she has no power.

Well lets get rid of her then!

I live in a country that did just that (Ireland). :)

There are groups in the UK campaigning for a republic ( http://www.republic.org.uk/)

Good for you :) Thanks for the link!

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