Category Archives: Civil Liberty

In a major speech on counter-terrorism, he said: “Our definition of terrorism is probably broad enough to cover those who betray our country by supporting terror abroad.

“But if updating the old offence of treason would help us counter hostile state activity, then there is merit in considering that too.”

His proposal follows a report by the think tank Policy Exchange which recommended Parliament legislate to make clear that any British citizen or person settled in the UK would be liable for life imprisonment if he or she helped a group which UK forces are fighting.

It cited Choudary, who was sentenced to five and a half years imprisonment for encouraging support for ISIS but who could have been sentenced to life under a new treason law.

Encouraging support for Isis shouldn’t be a crime in the first place. Incitement to violence should be.

But, think this through. British troops definitely fought the IRA. Jezza should do life for treason? The Navy fights cocaine smugglers, Life for treason for aiding and abetting cocaine smugglers?

It’s giving them a hell of a lot of latitude, isn’t it?

If you want to say “has declared war upon” then maybe….

80,000 Britons on web forum run by neo-Nazis

Jeebus. That’s more than the BNP vote, isn’t it? And we know hot all of them can read let alone log on.

A white nationalist and neo-Nazi online discussion forum received 80,000 responses from people in the UK, Theresa May will reveal today, as she says it is time to confront the growing threat from the far right.

Well, that’s less worrying. It’s a different number, responses to members. for one person might make many responses. Which is actually how web forums work.

The work by the Home Office’s Office for Security and Counter Terrorism shows that a white nationalist and neo-Nazi discussion forum had 12 million posts during its lifetime. In one month it had 800,000 visits, with 80,000 appearing to originate from the UK, according to Downing Street.

Oh, wait, what? 80,000 visits? That’s less than this blog gets in a month. Hmm, well, maybe. But we’re in tat sort of range, a specialised and exotic taste or fashion at least.

Details matter, eh?

Social media trolls are as bad as drink drivers, the Government’s Suicide Prevention Minister has suggested as she called for society to treat them with the same level of revulsion.

Jackie Doyle-Price said some online behaviour would never be “tolerated in the streets” and people needed to make clear “we don’t find that acceptable”.

She compared online trolling to someone 30 years ago driving after drinking four pints – something that was “socially acceptable” at the time but which now most people would take a “very dim view of”.

It’s an entirely useful analogy. But is it a correct one?

Useful in the sense that yes, it used to be socially acceptable and now it isn’t for the booze. And there are those who are trying to make the “abuse” similarly socially unacceptable. But should we be doing so? Is robust free speech something that should be made socially unacceptable. Possibly, possible not.

No, really, just fine with people having any view on that at all. It’s like burping at the dinner table, chacun a son gout.

Meanwhile, she said social media platforms needed to clamp down on internet trolls and harmful content to stop the “Wild West” nature of the internet.

Which is where the analogy breaks down. Because now she’s saying that pubs shouldn’t serve four pints because someone might then drive….

Isil extremists are using Instagram to promote jihad and incite support for terror attacks on the West, an investigation by The Telegraph has found.

They are circumventing the platform’s security checks to post images and text celebrating the killings of “kafir” (unbelievers) accompanied by images of dead soldiers and beheadings as well as threatening terrorist atrocities on the scale of the Sri Lankan suicide bombings that claimed 253 lives.

Some posts brazenly use Isil’s logo or images of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, as their profile pictures and urge followers to join jihad.

The investigation exposes serious flaws in the ability…

People use method of communication to communicate.

And?

Well, actually, we know, don’t we? This is the modern world so we don’t have a Stasi that listens to all telephone calls. That would be using taxpayer money, money that could be better spent upon diversity advisers. No, instead, BT must censor the conversations of callers on its own dime.

Hmm? What? The telephone company, as a common carrier, isn’t held responsible for what people say? And yet Instagram, Facebook, are? A purely historical mistake that, who thinks the prodnoses wouldn’t impost that duty upon BT if they could?

In the messages, the disgraced Essex Police response officer referred to a “pikey killings trial” and said Asians “reproduce like 3/1 compared to us”.

The former Royal Signals soldier even described a waitress working in a London bar as a “hot black chick”, “umbongo” and “coco angel” when out with friends.

Not exactly enlightened.

Mitigation heard that he had never used the language with his police colleagues or shown any prejudice whilst serving the public.

Alston joined the force in 2013 after working as a PCSO and served in the Army Reserve for more than 10 years.

Detective Superintendent Dean Chapple, head of the Essex Police’s professional standards department, said: “PC Alston was a highly respected and capable officer however his conduct, whilst off duty and in the presence of selected friends who were not associated with policing, fell way below the standards we expect of our officers and in no way represents our values.

“All police officers are responsible for their own actions and we cannot just turn off those standards and values in policing when it suits a given environment or group.”

Eh?

Sure, what you do at work is fair game. But nattering over a pint with non-work mates – which is roughly what a WhatsApp group is – gets you canned? Don’t we think that’s delving a little too far into what should be private life?

This is also a tad extreme:

Alston failed to challenge homophobic slurs

You mean, in private life, that’s necessary? When in buggery did this become a requirement for anyone? You’re in a pub, someone says “shirtlifter”, you fail to walk over and tell ’em off and you lose your job as a thief taker? Might we not have made a societal error here?

I was never taught about LGBTQ issues, except when a teacher told a class that anal sex was bad for your health.

Well, arguably and in part it is. So are a lot of other things some people enjoy and others don’t.

The usual answer to such being that we tolerate those who wish to indulge yet don’t quite teach 5 year olds how to do it.

Or at least that’s how liberals approach such issues.

In a letter dated 18 February, seen by the Observer, the society warned the council that the Stop RSE campaign had “promoted material which says the punishment for homosexuality is death. Our research has found that downloadable resources which were available on Stop RSE’s website as recently as last week [since withdrawn] included a book which endorses lashing and killing gay people.” It is understood that the council accepts that the society’s concerns fall within its remit. As a result, it has launched an inquiry, gathering relevant information and judging it against the council’s conduct, performance and ethics standards.

According to the council, if a registrant’s fitness to practise is considered impaired, “it means there are concerns about their conduct, competence, health or character which are serious enough to suggest that the registrant is unfit or unsafe to practise without restriction, or at all”.

A spokesman for the council told the Observer: “We are aware of concerns about Kate Godfrey-Faussett and are looking into what action, if any, we need to take. We have a duty of confidentiality to all parties involved and it would not be appropriate for us to comment further.” Godfrey-Faussett said she had not been informed of the details of the complaint to the council, other than that it had been made by the NSS.

“I have simply tried to warn people of the underlying liberal secular agenda of RSE and the harm that it may cause children – and is, in fact, already causing based on reports I am receiving from parents,” she told the Observer. “It is well known that if you speak out against the secular narrative they will silence you through smear campaigns and getting you struck off professionally.”

NSS chief executive Stephen Evans said efforts to prevent teaching about LGBT people were well coordinated and rooted in bigotry. “Those behind them are undermining legitimate, age-appropriate education which introduces children to issues and people they will inevitably encounter in a healthy, pluralistic society,” he said. “The demand to impose religious conservatism on state schools is unreasonable and must be resisted.”

Islam rather than Leviticus. So, who will win?

The seizure, the second in two wekks, resulted in the delay of the launch of the book titled ‘Democracy Works: Turning Politics To Africa’s Advantage’, co-authored by Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills.

Obasanjo apologized to the audience about the delay in launching the book, saying most people could not get the book after it was seized at the Robert Mugabe International Airport.

Sure the poverty of Zim, but there’s that richness to the story.

A federal jury in San Francisco found Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide was a substantial factor in causing the cancer of a California man, in a landmark verdict that could affect hundreds of other cases.

The same sort of people who will hail this jury’s wisdom – insist that it is proof perfect that glyphosate kills – will be those who also insist that juries aren’t competent to judge rape cases.

Sigh.

Facebook will ban anti-vaccination adverts and suppress anti-vaccine content as part of a broad crackdown against dangerous medical misinformation.

The social network announced a multi-step plan to tackle “anti-vaxxer” content after widespread outcry about the way its algorithms amplified vaccine conspiracy theorists and quack medicine peddlers.

The company will set its algorithms to demote pages and groups that spread known hoaxes, and prevent such groups and pages from being recommended to users or from appearing in search predictions.

Vaccines? Higher minimum wages cause job losses? Socialism ain’t all sweet things and no puppy god tails? Rape’s not that common on campus? Dicks are things possessed by men?

what is a hoax that must be suppressed?

Iranian “morality police” were forced to fire warning shots when a crowd intervened to prevent them from arresting two women for not wearing a hijab.

The incident occurred in Tehran’s northeastern Narmak neighbourhood on Friday night, and ended with a mob tearing the door off a police vehicle, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported.

“Morality patrol police members had warned two young women who did not have proper hijab. Within a few minutes, a group of citizens gathered around to prevent the transfer of the two women [into custody],” a police official told the agency.

And:

برخی درب کنده شده ون #گشت_ارشاد را خشونت می نامند. دفاع از کرامت انسانی دو #زن با بوق زدن ماشینها، #مقاومت مردم #نارمک ودرنهایت رفتارتهاجمی گشت: #شلیک_هوایی، منجر به عمل #دفاعی مردم وکندن درب ماشین که باپول مردم برعلیه مردم تهیه شده،می شود. #خشونت ۴۰سال است که ازحکومت برمردم است pic.twitter.com/fhzhVZzwZs

— Nazila (@nazilagolestan) 19 February 2019

The crowd physically preventing them, yes, that’s stage two. Stage three, and victory, is when everyone simply laughs at the presumption that the Guardians do, or should, have any authority at all.

Companies could use Facebook pictures to discriminate against employees with genetic diseases using AI, scientists fear, after showing that algorithms can spot rare conditions.

Developers at US biotech company FDNA have developed a programme which outperforms humans at diagnosing genetic syndromes by looking at slight variations in face shape.

The face analysis programme, known as DeepGestalt, could in future assist the diagnosis of rare disorders such as Fragile X which brings a long narrow face and prominent ears, or angelman syndrome which is characterised by a prominent chin, deep set eyes, wide mouth.

And?

If it’s rational for people to so discriminate then they should. If it’s irrational, mere taste discrimination, then that’s costly to those who do it.

And? We all have to gouge our eyeballs out so that we don’t discriminate on the basis of melanin?

NO PLATFORM, NO PROBLEM

Hmm.

To borrow from Oscar Wilde, it would take a heart of stone to read about the fall of Milo without laughing.

Milo, if you’re lucky enough to be unaware of him, is a vicious right-wing troll (and former Telegraph journalist) who managed to build a very lucrative empire by saying and doing hateful things. “Feminism is cancer” was one of his hits.

Milo discovered that the more hateful your views, the bigger your profile becomes – and the bigger your profile, the more money you can make.

His rise demonstrated that despite what people in the media may have you believe, terrible views don’t die when you expose them; the people with those views just gain some more followers and make the world a slightly worse place. The same trick is working for the stupid man’s philosopher Jordan Peterson, and for former Trump strategist and human bin fire Steve Bannon.

Milo was kicked off Twitter, the no platforming worked.

Well, yes. And to take an example which isn’t personal here. It really wasn’t all that long ago that society said that the promotion of homosexuality was something that shouldn’t have a platform. Not long before that the act itself was a crime. And it was only two centuries ago – a blink in real terms – that this country executed more men in one year for buggery than murder.

A reasonable lesson from this being that no, we don’t want to no platform. Because if that power is around then it might well be us subject to it.

We’ve seen this case before:

Dutch officials are set to prosecute a nursing home doctor for euthanising an elderly woman with dementia, the first time a doctor has been charged since the Netherlands legalised euthanasia in 2002.

Dutch prosecutors claimed in a statement the doctor “had not acted carefully” and “overstepped a line” when she performed euthanasia. Officials first began probing the case in September, when they allegedly found the doctor had drugged the patient’s coffee and then had family members hold her down while delivering the fatal injection.

The doctor said she was fulfilling the patient’s earlier euthanasia request and that since the patient was not competent, nothing the woman said during her euthanasia procedure was relevant.

But Dutch prosecutors argued that the patient’s written euthanasia request was “unclear and contradictory.”

“In her living will, the woman wrote that she wanted to be euthanised ‘whenever I think the time is right.’ But after being asked several times in the nursing home whether she wanted to die, she said, ‘Not just now, it’s not so bad yet,'” according to an earlier report by one of the Netherlands’ euthanasia review committees.

Murdering someone is “overstepping the line” these days.

Ecuador’s former president Rafael Correa, who is wanted in his homeland on suspicion of kidnapping, has requested political asylum in Belgium, two well-placed sources told AFP.

Correa has lived near Brussels with his family since 2017, and requested asylum on 25 June this year. The request has been under consideration since August by Belgium’s CGRA refugee agency, one source said.

A leftwing former economist, Correa was president of his Andean nation between 2007 and 2017. On Wednesday, an Ecuadoran judge demanded he return home to face charges related to the 2012 kidnapping of an opponent.

Correa insists he is innocent, and on Thursday in an interview with AFP he accused the new authorities in his homeland of “political persecution”, and his successor Lenín Moreno of a plot against him.

Do recall that absolutely every right on leftie was demanding that Moreno should win.His opponent being someone who would plunge Ecuador into a violation of civil liberties.

Five men have been arrested after a video showed a group of people laughing, cheering and mocking residents of Grenfell Tower while burning a cardboard effigy of the block of flats.

The “sickening” video, which was described by the Prime Minister as “utterly unacceptable”, was shared on the instant messaging service Whatsapp and appears to have been taken over the weekend.

Scotland Yard said on Monday they were investigating the video. The force said early on Tuesday that five men, aged 49, 19, 46, 55 and 49, had been arrested on suspicion of a public order offence.

The group handed themselves in to a south London police station at 10pm on Monday, police said.

Posting on Twitter, Theresa May said: “To disrespect those who lost their lives at Grenfell Tower, as well as their families and loved ones, is utterly unacceptable.”

It may well be socially unacceptable. Even rude, crude, disgusting and lots of other things.

But should it be illegal?

Free people possibly having the right to be unacceptable, rude, crude and disgusting?

A user with the name Bowers was active on Gab, a social media platform popular with free speech advocates and white supremacists.

Because the two go together, don’t they?

Shock, horror, disaster:

A leading businessman has been granted an injunction against The Telegraph to prevent this newspaper revealing alleged sexual harassment and racial abuse of staff.

The accusations against the businessman, who cannot be identified, would be sure to reignite the #MeToo movement against the mistreatment of women, minorities and others by powerful employers.

Yes, terrible behaviour. Undoubtedly.

It’s an interim injunction until the matter has gone to full trial. Back to sleep everyone.

Domestic abusers and stalkers should be forced to sign a national register like sex offenders, a cross-party parliamentary report has said.

They should be monitored under the same arrangements as rapists and paedophiles, giving greater protection to victims who live in fear of their tormentors.

The Commons Home Affairs Committee backed calls for a register of serial stalkers and domestic violence perpetrators to be introduced “as a matter of urgency”.

The perpetrators would have to register with the police within 72 hours of being convicted or cautioned and have to notify officers if they intend to move house or travel abroad.

A domestic abuser – the clue’s in the description – is going to be such a threat to all those foreigners on her hols, isn’t she?

But on the other hand if we expand the surveillance and monitoring powers of the state then we’ll have expanded the powers of the state, won’t we? Which is why politicians propose it.

On a more technical point, do we actually have a list of rimes by incidence of recidivism? Logically we might assume that such registers start with those crimes most likely to be done again. Do they?

When people are roused in their hundreds of thousands to give up their time for peaceful protest, they are never wrong.

Quite apart from that snark consider the fatuity of the statement itself. The toothbrush moustache gained vast crowds – they were not wrong?