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2012 Olympics: Police to enter private homes to remove posters
- pingswept 17y agoUpvoted for thoughtful discussion of Ruby. Edit: sorry, clicked wrong story.
- tome 17y agoYou could just delete the comment!
- jff 17y ago<---- the joke o <---- your head
- mcantor 17y agoI actually found this comment hilarious without the edit.
- pingswept 17y agoI didn't really click the wrong story. But on reflection, I think you're right-- the edit was a little heavy-handed.
- tome 17y agoI don't get it. Was your comment a sarcastic observation that the topic is not hacker news?
- jessriedel 17y agoI also don't get the joke. Care to explain?
- pingswept 17y agoSure. I skimmed the article about the British police and the Olympics in 2012. It did not mention anything that seemed to me like hacker news: not programming, not computers, not electronics, but also not anything clever, like new kind of bicycle or solar panel. However, it was near the top of the HN front page, and the ~10 comments on the article all discussed the the article as if it was interesting (which I presume it was for the commenters). This made me feel sad, because I don't know of another place that I can find thoughtful discussion of news that appeals to people like me. I generally find it sort of irritating when people post comments saying "This is not hacker news," because it's just a complaint. Instead, I thought that pretending to praise the story for its valuable content (I chose to pretend it mentioned Ruby, a popular programming language) would be a funny way to lament the situation while also amusing the other folks who were reading the comments and thinking, "What the hell is going on here? Is mainstream media coverage of future British law enforcement policies interesting for some reason that I don't see?" But, I wanted it still to seem like a plausible comment to the readers who were having a great time discussing the 2012 Olympics, Britain, and media projections of the state of their civil liberties (particularly in regard to posters) in the future. For this reason, I added the "edit."
- jwecker 17y ago"Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog: you understand it better, but the frog dies in the process." —Mark Twain Biggest. Dissection. Ever. (as a ratio to the size of the original joke, including the edit and at least 2 comments). You win ;)
- pingswept 17y agoWell, the edit was technically part of the joke. I may have to wait for 2012 to get my medal, but thank you.
- JohnnyBrown 17y agoFor better or worse, "beware the coming fascism/totalitarianism" seems to be a topic that consistently gets upvoted here. Extra points if it involves IP.
- jcromartie 17y agoWhat do they mean by "posters?" The article doesn't really expound.
- code_duck 17y agoExactly what I was wondering. My guesses are - people posting agitating messages online - unlicensed posters on people's walls - posters or banners hung out of people's windows Whatever it is, I'm sure one would not want the police to enter the house and perform a removal.
- scorciapino 17y agoAnd the news website reports this abuse as if it was an acceptable and respectable decision! Is there any doubt that mass media's role is just social control?
- chaosmachine 17y ago"The atmosphere at the Olympics is gonna be great, a big party, just like Vancouver. Oh, did we mention the police will be enforcing Corporate Fascism? And there will be a really neat stadium, too!"
- danudey 17y agoWell in a sense the security at events in Vancouver were supposed to enforce that. They did, with a thankfully human touch (you could persuade them to let you bring in things like chocolate bars, etc., but nothing overt like a bottle of Dr. Pepper). At most (non-sporting) events in Vancouver, you didn't even get a pat down. Dump your change in a bin, go through a metal detector, get your stuff and leave. Anything non-ferrous in your pockets went unnoticed. I somehow doubt the UK will be similar.
- acg 17y agoIt seems that the regulations have not been properly set and will be set by the Secretary of State: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060012_en_2#pb4-l1g19 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060012_en_2#pb4... I'm hoping that this is just there in case the powers are needed to shut down criminal activity related to the Olympics. Having a law is one thing, how it is enacted is another.
- ErrantX 17y agoGood find on the link. If it were criminal activity, though, whats to stop the police getting a warrant?
- acg 17y agoSome of these articles are alarmist. It remains to be seen how the police or the government will enact any of these powers. It's not clear what the criminal activity would be, the law is often made to allow the police to act quickly. Say the Olympic brand were used in some sort of con, the police would have powers to disassociate that activity from the Olympics. To assume this is to be used to create a monopoly could be cynical at this point.
- ErrantX 17y agoGetting a warrant can be fast under existing laws; there doesn't appear to be any need for them to remove that requirement as far as I can see.
- billybob 17y agoQuote: "Moves to safeguard company trademarks and stamp out ambush marketing, to preserve the monopoly of official advertisers and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) logo, are raising concerns among civil liberty groups. Police will have powers to enter private homes and seize posters, and will be able to stop people carrying non-sponsor items to sporting events." Wow. That's ridiculous.
- conover 17y agoI wonder how far non-sponsor items goes. If I bring a Pepsi to the games and Coca Cola is an official sponsor, are they going to make me throw it away? What about clothing?
- danudey 17y agoIf the Vancouver olympics are any indication (and I suspect they are), then you won't be allowed to bring competing products (e.g. pepsi vs. coke), though they can't/shouldn't do anything about clothes (turning you away because you're wearing the wrong shirt seems excessive). We were once told that we couldn't bring in the chocolate bars we had stashed in my girlfriend's purse because they weren't sponsor products, even though there's no official chocolate sponsor of the 2010 Olympics (I suspect it was just a general 'no outside food or drink' rule). The Minute Maid cranberry juice I had, was ok, since it was a coke product. Her Dr. Pepper was not. That said, the security guy was just doing his job, and was human - after a half-hearted plea ('Seriously? Come on man, we'll be done it all in like two minutes.') he let us through regardless. I guess what it comes down to is what kind of people they hire: helpful, courteous people, or power-hungry rule jockeys.
- pyre 17y ago> I guess what it comes down to is what kind of people they hire: helpful, courteous people, or power-hungry rule jockeys. The problem is that reality suggests a distribution of the two, not a dichotomy of one or the other.
- 17y ago
- roboneal 17y agoHmmm - sounds like a real-life backdrop for V for Vendetta.
- Sadranyc 17y agoRemember, remember the Fifth of November, The Gunpowder Treason and Plot, I see no reason Why the Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- ErrantX 17y agoDear god. Whoever came up with that idea and thought it good :(
- nfnaaron 17y agoWhy is IP being allowed to take precedence over civil liberties and cultural inheritance these days? WTF?
- ulf 17y agoBecause nobody makes any money with civil liberties... "Police will have powers to enter private homes and seize posters, and will be able to stop people carrying non-sponsor items to sporting events." The second part is just as scary in my opinion
- ErrantX 17y agoIndeed - do you know if the Olympic grounds are public or private?
- ulf 17y agoI would suspect they are private for the duration of the Games.
- Quarrelsome 17y agoYea but how many policeman are actually going to do that? They already refused changes to enable them to possess guns due to the problems it would cause them. I wonder if they'd refuse to do this or not, or just "pretend" to do it and not actually bother.
- Periodic 17y agoI doubt anyone will be seizing your Pepsi if the games were sponsored by Coke, but they might have a case for not letting you set up your Pepsi-points gear under the coke sign.
- awa 17y agoThis might happen and some sort of the does happen in Cricket. During the Cricket world cup the TV channel showing the event isn't allowed to show competitor's ads. Also, the players are not allowed to be part of any kind of competitor ad for the entire duration of the tournament. And yes, the English are used to this.
- ern 17y agoI would assume that the posters in question would be non-sponsor advertising posters facing sites associated with the games, although the original article doesn't elaborate. Nonetheless, the tendency of governments to violate civil liberties to prevent "ambush marketing" at big sporting events is quite disturbing.
- pavel_lishin 17y agoYeah, at first I thought that maybe "poster" means something completely different in UK English.
- patio11 17y agoWhile I have immense respect for the United Kingdom, in the United States, you could almost certainly put up a poster saying "The government says it has the right to prohibit me from saying 'Go Nike'. The Constitution says I have the right to say 'go suck eggs'." (Even the most ardent defender of the Supreme Court's commercial speech jurisprudence -- which is in my mind largely mistaken -- would have a hard, hard time finding against a private citizen for political commentary of that nature.)
- anamax 17y ago> Even the most ardent defender of the Supreme Court's commercial speech jurisprudence -- which is in my mind largely mistaken -- would have a hard, hard time finding against a private citizen for political commentary of that nature. Huh? The commercial speech argument is that folks who gather together for commercial activity have the same free speech rights as other folks in other circumstances. That argument doesn't imply anything about stopping other people from saying things. Here's the difference. The commercial speech argument says that any company can say "nike sucks", that the govt can not impose anti-disparagment rules. It doesn't say that Nike can insist that other folks not say "nike sucks". I'd like to say that I don't understand how anyone can confuse the two, but we do have lots of folks who think that their free speech rights are being violated when someone else criticizes them. (If you're one of those folks, you're wrong. Your right to speak does not restrict my right to speak.)
- mattmaroon 17y agoFlagging this for altered title, both in words and spirit. IT says police will have that power, not that they will do it, and that's not even remotely what the article is about.
- noarchy 17y ago"Police will have powers to enter private homes and seize posters, and will be able to stop people carrying non-sponsor items to sporting events." Ok, so change the title to "may", not "will". And the article discusses a number of things, one of which happens to be what the rest of us are talking about here.
- mattmaroon 17y ago"You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it. I think this qualifies as gratuitous editorial spin. Perhaps not if you changed it to "may", though it's still borderline.
- mortenjorck 17y agoYou are of the opinion that the granting of a police power does not necessarily mean it will be used? I would like to suggest you familiarize yourself with the history of how police powers generally work. As to your second point... If this article instead contained a brief mention of how a tech company had shared personal information of anti-Olympic protesters with the London police, would you still flag it because that was not the main point of the article?
- mattmaroon 17y agoThis is a straw man. I wasn't commenting on whether the power is right or wrong or will or will not be used. I was commenting on the editorialized and misleading title. It says "Police to..." as if they have announced plans to or something. More appropriate would be "Police granted right to..." One's accurate, one is linkbait (or here, commentbait). I'd flag anything that has a title that I feel is baiting.
- bradbeattie 17y agoThe same type of legislation was discussed for the 2010 Olympics here in Vancouver. -- http://www.leg.bc.ca/39th1st/1st_read/gov13-1.htm http://www.leg.bc.ca/39th1st/1st_read/gov13-1.htm -- “specified municipality” means any of the following: (a) the City of Richmond; (b) the City of Vancouver; (c) the Resort Municipality of Whistler. 32 (1) Subject to this section and section 34, an officer or employee of a specified municipality or a person authorized by the council of a specified municipality has the authority to enter on property, and to enter into property, without the consent of the owner or occupier for the purpose of enforcing, in accordance with subsection (4), the specified municipality’s bylaws in relation to signs. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the Council may make by-laws for the purposes of enforcing its by-laws, including establishing one or more of the following penalties to which a person convicted of an offence in a prosecution under the Offence Act is liable: (a) a minimum fine; (b) a maximum fine of up to $10 000; (c) in the case of a continuing offence, for each day that the offence continues either or both of (i) a minimum fine under paragraph (a), or (ii) a maximum fine under paragraph (b); (d) imprisonment for not more than 6 months. --- This conversation occurred despite the The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Fundamental Freedoms section 2b: "Everyone has the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication." My understanding is that said conditions were removed in the revision of the bill.
- run4yourlives 17y agoSection 32(1) is blatantly unconstitutional, not under Section 2 of the Charter that you quote, But Section 8: "Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure." The conversation occurred until a lawyer looked at it and said, "Folks this is going to cost a crapload of money".
- 10ren 17y agoAs written, one thinks of a poster on a person's wall; but it might be about a person with a stock of bootleg posters for sale. Such rules tend to be specific, but we can't know without seeing them. EDIT or they could even be non-sponsor posters, the commercial concern being an organized attempt to cash in on the free publicity of the games. BTW: Non-police search for IP infringement has long been allowed, as an Anton Piller order. I am guessing that the test may also have been lowered - and this is cause for concern. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Piller_order http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Piller_order
- pedalpete 17y agoThis power was also given to police during the Vancouver 2010 games. It isn't about personal posters, more about large banners hung over buildings which are promoting competitors or anti-olympic protests. The 'enter private homes' makes one think they mean 'remove from the interior of private homes', but in Vancouver it meant 'remove from private buildings'. The wording is of course vague enough to be used for purposes other than the intention, but I never actually heard of somebody having a problem in Whistler or Vancouver. At the same time, it is a HUGE civil liberties issue, and I with there was another way to handle this. Nobody should really have the right to take down a massive pepsi flag if I feel compelled to cover my building with it. As far as 'non-sponsored items', I don't recall that being a discussion at Vancouver or Sydney, but you couldn't bring food or drinks into a venue, so that pretty much took care of that 90% of the time. If Omega is the timing sponsor, and I'm wearing a Timex, I can't imagine security is going to take my watch.
- halostatue 17y agoShouldn't they? If your building isn't supposed to have advertising on it in the first place, why wouldn't the municipality have the right to remove the advertising? This is not merely a question related to Olympic powers, but if your Pepsi banner is an illegal advertisement, it should come down. (Frankly, not enough of this is done here in Toronto.) Where I'd have a problem with this is if you had a LEGAL advertisement space in the Olympic area and they prohibited you from showing whatever advertisement would be permitted in your space regardless. If Pepsi were willing to pay your normal rate for a billboard that you legally have on your building, the city should not be able to remove it under any circumstances. It's worth noting that cities DO occasionally enforce outdoor advertising regulations and that some folks (e.g., http://illegalsigns.ca/ http://illegalsigns.ca/) think it's a good thing. I happen to agree. EDIT: Added link to the Illegal Signs blog.
- Silhouette 17y ago> If your building isn't supposed to have advertising on it in the first place, why wouldn't the municipality have the right to remove the advertising? That's a dangerous argument for any political party in the UK to make, given that they run huge campaigns before every election to get supporters to put up posters advertising their party in home windows or on boards outside supporters' private property. Hypocrisy, much?
- fnid2 17y agoIn Vancouver, people "associated" with the olympics and such could not bring Pepsi products to the office, only the officially sponsored drinks. They had to put tape on gear to hide logos from nonsponsoring companies -- including laptops from HP, IBM, or Dell. Because much of the funding comes from the tax payers, hundreds of millions of dollars as it turns out, the people are subsidizing the erosion of their freedoms.
- callahad 17y agoI'm starting to wonder if it would be prudent to pursue a law degree in the interest of defending my own civil liberties.
- alexl 17y agoYou know what I think is hillarious? Let's say Nike is an official sponsor for whatever event. Let's say I go there with a different brand of sneakers, underwear, pants...everything! What are they going to do? Strip down! You are wearing a non-Nike pair of undies! REMOVE THEM AT ONCE! Your shoes are staying with us! They are NOT NIKE! And then comes the other hilllarious part. The mobile phone. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Apple, Motorola and such are probably always sponsors everywhere. What if I get some obscure brand of mobile phone - Alcatel and Sagem are two easy examples, but think REALLY obscure: BenQ, Sharp, NEC, Sendo, Pantech, Innostream, VK Mobile, Xcute, Haier, Bird, Eten, Qtek, iMate, WND or Mitac... Actually, I think people will make a purpose out of going there with the wrong items. Saying loud and clear that people are supposed to "preserve the monopoly" and "stop people carrying non-sponsor items" will really top people's bull!@#$ meters. They might organize groups of such people. After all, no matter how private it is and how much money sponsors put into it, the audience paid for the ticket. That means they have the same rights before the check-in gate and after it. This is probably long past the old purpose of the Olympics. It's probably about luring people into forceful submission to corporate fascism. I might be wrong, though. I mean maybe the police won't "police" people into obedience toward corporate interests. I wouldn't know.
- brown9-2 17y agoTalk about burying the lead - I can't understand how this part of the story doesn't merit it's own article.
- Mankhool 17y agoThe comments about Vancouver 2010 are all valid. I had to laugh during the closing ceremonies when I noticed that one of the bands had been forced to cover the logos on their Marshall amps with black tape. Marshall obviously did not pay any money to have their brand seen by 3 billion viewers.
- mmphosis 17y agohttp://no2010.com/ http://no2010.com/
- sailormoon 17y agoI love a good freedom of speech rant as much as anyone else, but I think the reaction here is completely overblown. The idea is not, of course, to remove posters from inside walls of people's homes. It is to remove advertising on the outside of those homes, and presumably the only reason the police would go inside is to effect the removal of that advertising upon the owner's refusal or absence. Advertising on houses and buildings is not a matter of free speech; it is a matter of neighbourhood amenity and dominated by local by-laws. I am not allowed to put huge advertising posters on my balcony right now, of course. To do so would enrich me while depriving my neighbours, be an eyesore, push down property values, etc. I can't play super loud music at 3am, either, which doesn't really seem like a breach of my right to free speech either. My guess is that the planning committee in London thinks that during the Olympics certain people might consider the fines they get for illegal advertising insufficient to deter the act, so they're temporarily allowing the cops to tear them down, and if that requires property access, fine. Probably accompanied by a temporary regulation adjusting the aforementioned advertising controls. Free speech? Give me a break. Either you consider all anti-eyesore visual appearance regulations to be "against free speech", or you are probably able to concede that a temporary upgrade of enforcement is pretty reasonable considering the stakes.
- Silhouette 17y agoGiven that to many locals, the entire Olympics is causing vast amounts of disruption, inconvenience, eyesores and so on, I have absolutely no sympathy if the organisers of the Olympics don't like people putting up whatever the hell they want on their own property for the duration of the games. If you don't like it, go hold your Games somewhere where the people do not have such freedoms, and see how much advertising revenue you can bring in there.
- sailormoon 17y agoBah. I'm sure if you held a fair vote over the whole affected population, a clear majority would favour the games going ahead. There will always be some who are inconvenienced but that's just a fact of life. It's a numbers game - the greatest good for the greatest number. And the simple fact is that the appearance of your home, especially regarding commercial advertising, is and always has been regulated by local government. Why would anyone think the rules have suddenly changed, just when the media of the world is focussed on the area? There's legitimate criticism and then there's just whining. For me, the attitude you're describing falls pretty squarely into the second column. The Powers That Be have decided that the Olympics will be great for London, a decision with which I tend to agree, so stiff upper lip, eh?