Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted
news.sky.com
news.sky.com
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:
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.
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 ;)
- 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
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.
Moreover, lets say that there is a person with a particularly sophisticated hatred of Jews, Muslims, gays or whoever. In fact, so sophisticated that its hard for you or I to counter his argument. This would be a fantastic situation! Why? Because we would either concede that his unfortunate views are correct, or seek a better understanding of the issue, perhaps by seeking someone who is an expert in philosophy, law or whatever and having a discussion/debate
In that circumstance we all win. You and I win because we have a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the issue, and everyone else wins because they can weigh the arguments themselves and make up their own minds.
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'.
1) you won't get hired in pretty much any company if they know.
2) you will be fired from the police force and/or army if caught having them.
3) government departments are regularly purged of much less controversial opinions.
4) If you talk about this in a cafe or some such someone will report you to the police who'll find a way to correct this.
5) some decisions you may make can be punished if you are known to have these opinions. Something like the human rights commissions example you gave.
If you're smart and have these opinions, you'll bury them deep down.
I find it funny how this works, and I truly wonder what European socialists are trying to achieve by making this happen. They've already succeeded in making the extreme right comparable in size to the moderate left, and far, far larger than extreme left. And they're driving more and more people away because most of their actions are really about jealousy-driven wrongful accusations within their own people. The right, even extreme right, is currently very open to dissenting opinions and cooperate with eachother even when there exist large rifts in ideology between factions. The cynic in me says that's because they have to be. But it's giving them power.
As to why they do this, having lived there, the answer is extremely obvious : because a big class of people enjoy doing this to other people. It shows they're a good person ... yes, really.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
The one big exception that I know of is the Espionage Act, but that doesn't even speak to "classified" information as we understand it from the E.O. but more generically to something along the lines of information harmful to the defense of the U.S. (which can theoretically include unclassified information, I suppose).
Maybe there's other statute law referencing compliance with the E.O.-driven classified information program which would make the E.O. also statutory law, but I'm not aware of any (but then, nor am I a lawyer).
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Which is of course exactly what terror is trying to achieve. I wouldn't say they've succeeded very well, but I doubt we've seen the last of it.
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."
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".
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.
About 15 years ago I turned on the TV one day, zapped to the music channel and was faced, all of a sudden, with the face of Kid Rock.
He was talking to some sort of host on the German channel when the following interchange happened:
Kid Rock: You mean I can say anything?!?
Host: Yes!
Kid Rock: Anything at all?
Host: Yes!
Kid Rock: Ok, here it goes. Pussy-licking finger-fucking ho-ass cunt.
And then he smiles as if it's his fifth birthday. Indeed, in the US, you can't say these things on TV if it is a live transmission and they will be beeped in a recording. Even today, it's always funny to see American celebrities on British panel-comedy shows being startled by the nonchalant usage of coarse language.
That's also a regulation of speech on the airwaves. Granted, it's organized by private entities (or is there a law?) but the effect is the same.
Now contrast that with the limitations of free speech here in Germany: While I'm no friend of hate-speech laws in general, I must say that the one we have in Germany served us very well. The only thing that is banned are the Nazi party symbols and the general patterns connected with it (Holocaust-denialism, preaching against a minority, that sort of thing) and it has been an effective tool to counter any resurgence of "The Nazis 2".
Because, as most non-Germans are most likely unaware, Neo-Nazi groups have been actively trying to gain a foothold in youth culture here for a very long time. I can distinctly remember the knuckleheads that tried to distribute "those" tapes/CDs back in school.
Of course having the "illegal" tapes was enough to radicalize some, but they never could organize on any scale, since any organization or music group that attracted too big a following was rapidly banned.
Weighing the good and the bad consequences of our German law comes IMO very much out on the positive side. And no, there has been no feature creep, even though the law is decades old.
Beeping the potty-mouth on the other hand is just off-balance.
I'd prefer if there were no censorship on TV and there was guaranteed freedom of speech.
I can definitely understand where you're coming from (in as much as any non-German can understand), but I do wonder if it's possible to allow hate speech and to fight it in other ways.
Maybe not, but I do think it's an ideal to strive for.
Also, when it comes to US TV, it depends on the channel and whether it's using public bandwidth. Channels like HBO and Showtime don't have to censor anything. But overall I think you're right, the US does have this strange Puritan culture that seems to be in conflict with its idea of personal freedoms.
You say that you aren't a fan of hate-speech laws in general. May I ask where you think the line is? I feel like it's incredibly difficult to define what's appropriate without leeway for abuse.
I am often envious of how good Germany (as a country/government) is about keeping things within the spirit of the law and being reasonable about how things are implemented. The efficiency of the German bureaucracy is a good example: You tend to see less waste and corruption than in other western countries.
So with that in mind, it's sometimes hard to use Germany as the standard since they set the bar too high for the rest of us!
The key, I think, is that one has to picture "the state" as non-static and plan accordingly. For instance, we have a court system, with the energetic and powerful Federal Court at the top, which is set up in such a way that it inherently favors human rights and freedoms above other concerns. So while the hard core of the Volksverhetzungs-laws remains un-touched, eventual feature creep is rapidly cut back by the court system.
This was designed into the German state, since there was acute awareness at the time that the laws of the Weimar Republic which could be used to curtail freedoms were instrumental in the rapid rise of the Nazi party.
It might well be that, without this process in place, free speech would slowly erode throught this law.
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.)