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I just don't understand the UK on surveillance and free speech issues. In most ways, the UK seems more sane than the US, but they have these absurd libel laws a

by xaa 9y ago

I just don't understand the UK on surveillance and free speech issues. In most ways, the UK seems more sane than the US, but they have these absurd libel laws and take any and every opportunity to cry "regulate the internet" when anything bad happens involving the internet. Notably, there was no call for "we need to increase our regulation of cars or knives" after this incident. Any UK resident have insight on why the UK is so backwards on these issues? It is pretty obvious to anyone with a cursory knowledge of computers that terrorist "safe spaces" (assuming that big internet companies knowingly provide them, which I find dubious) are kind of impossible to remove or regulate. The ability of the internet to provide encrypted, point-to-point communications is a pretty core feature.

blibble 9y ago
the Defamation Act 2013 fixed a lot of the problems with the libel laws however I really don't understand the surveillance thing
yarper 9y ago
It's unlikely we could have more strict laws on knives in the UK. It's illegal to carry them and illegal to own many types of them (e.g. flick-knives). Essentially if you have a knife on your person, and you've not got a damn good reason (e.g. it's a breadknife and you're on your way to work at a bakery) you're committing a crime. Cars are basically impossible to legislate against. What they did is already illegal. So to answer your question - what's left when everything is already illegal?
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  They could require places with the highest pedestrian traffic have elevated walkways for crossing streets, and reinforced barriers between the roadway and pedestrian traffic. Or ban cars and stick to trolleys, buses, trains. At some point, after we've exhausted all options, we might have to ask ourselves why so many people want to kill random strangers, and then deal with that.
  - zigzigzag 9y ago
    I've never liked May's authoritarian tendencies - no way does that stuff remain restricted to targeting Islamism - but your last paragraph is in fact exactly what they are doing. Having asked the question of "why do they want to kill random strangers", the answer they arrived at is "because they were brainwashed by religious fundamentalism they found on the internet". Obviously nobody knows yet the specifics of this case, but I'm not sure why they think that given that the Ariane Grande event seemed to be radicalisation through family. It wasn't clear the internet played much role. However, the UK Government has made repeated references to plots that were foiled (no details provided). If those plots were investigated and the root cause was frequently identified as "spent too much time surfing jihadi ideology" then I can see why they'd conclude the answer is internet regulation.
    - infodroid 9y ago
      > Having asked the question of "why do they want to kill random strangers", the answer they arrived at is "because they were brainwashed by religious fundamentalism they found on the internet". To a reasonable person, it should be obvious this is just a proximate cause and not the root cause. Browsing the internet and then being exposed to hateful ideas doesn't automatically turn you into a murderer. The deeper cause is surely that "jihadi ideology" is effective at appealing to European youth. But nobody is talking about why this is in fact the case or what are the reasons why it is so attractive to some people. For one thing, the problem of jihadi terrorism isn't going to go away without confronting the ideology head-on. I think we must have a painfully honest discussion about "jihadi ideology" and to debunk it. Radicalization isn't an inevitable outcome of being exposed to these ideas but is rather the result of losing the argument with friends, loved ones, civilization. Banning this stuff isn't going to make it less appealing to some people or to make it disappear from the internet. But it does give government the power to censor ideas they deem to be dangerous and liable to "brainwash" the youth. And you have to ask whether you trust your politicians to use such powers responsibly.
      - Broken_Hippo 9y ago
        Exactly. To me, if the reason why folks kill others is because they were brainwashed (due to religious fundamentalism or not), the correct action would be to solve the issues that cause folks to be drawn to such fundamentalism.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  > what's left when everything is already illegal? Looks like it's enforcement. What, from the looks of it, would be nightmarish enough. No need for any new law.
- snarfy 9y ago
  > what's left when everything is already illegal? When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. There are plenty of other ways to address this that are not legislative. A legislative approach would only be counter productive. When people are breaking the laws, making more laws doesn't help. We would probably get much better reduction in these types of events if we spent the same resources on supporting mental health issues than wire tapping the internet.
  - philipov 9y ago
    Why would they want to solve the mental health issues when they provide so many good excuses for wire tapping the internet? EDIT: People don't understand politics for the same reason they don't understand Facebook. If you're not the big lobby consultant getting these people elected, you are the product.
  - ad_hominem 9y ago
    I don't think better mental health support would have any effect on Islamic terror attacks. These religious zealots are not mentally ill in the traditional sense.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    People with mental illness are not violent. Knowing the mental health status of someone gives you very little predictive power about whether they pose a risk of violence or not - even if we restrict ourselves to severe illness such as psychosis. Even if you were to find that every single terrorist has a mental illness (and we know that most of the killers in the UK didn't) it still gives you no useful information. Violence is prevalent. Mental illness is prevalent. There's obviously going to be some overlap. It's a coincidence, not a cause.
- xaa 9y ago
  I assumed as much. The question was half-rhetorical, though: such regulations did not and could not prevent what happened. There seems to be a law of diminishing returns on regulation: sure, common-sense things like not allowing weapons to mentally ill people go a long way, but increasing regulation past a certain point doesn't reduce problems and only restricts freedom. So in that case, the question becomes, has the UK already passed that point for internet regulation? I don't know the answer, but I assume that plotting specific attacks or making specific threats online is punishable in the UK just as it is in the US.
- jwdunne 9y ago
  To note, this legislation covers a wider array that may shock our American commenters here. If the police pull you over and find a baseball bat without a ball, you are in violation of the offensive weapons act. Forget about handguns with legislation like that - which are also illegal but under a separate piece of legislation afaik. We are less liberal in a lot of ways, both socially and economically but not consistently. In some areas, the reverse
  - orf 9y ago
    Sure, but those laws are not enforced to the letter of the law, but to the 'spirit' of the law. Which means your not going to get arrested for taking your kid and their bat home from practice just because you forgot the ball.
    - jwdunne 9y ago
      Not at all. I've seen this when police are searching cars owned by young drivers without children. My point was that it can and has been broadly applied. If an officer believes an object is intended to cause harm, you can be arrested for it. In contrast, the US enshrines gun possession as a basic constitutional right so baseball bats and knives are small fry. This was the comparison I was trying to extend.
  - jamessb 9y ago
    An offensive weapon is an article made, adapted or intended for causing injury. Since a baseball bat is not made for causing injury, and is generally not adapted for this purpose (though it might be, e.g. by stacking nails into it), it would be necessary to show that it was possesed with the intention of causing injury. Note that posession for the purpose of 'self-defence' is not a legal defence. Knives are different - it's an offense to possess a 'bladed' (excluding non-locking knives under 7.62 cm / 3 inches) or 'sharply pointed' article in a public place, even if there is no intent to cause harm, with certain exceptions (lawful authority, for use at work, religious reasons, or national costume).
    - jwdunne 9y ago
cjbprime 9y ago
Somewhat flippant answer: you were just imagining the UK being saner. There's been a law since 2000 compelling suspects of crimes to divulge their encryption keys or go to jail, for example. The lack of speech protection isn't new.
- zigzigzag 9y ago
  You're comparing the UK to the USA there and assuming the USA is saner. The origin of the USA's prohibition against self-incrimination was people who were tortured into confessions and other forms of undermining their own freedom. The original logic for this right does not apply to divulging encryption keys. It's not clear what higher purpose is being served by allowing people under investigation to halt those investigations by using encryption: it's not like they can be tortured into revealing incorrect information inside the encrypted files.
exodust 9y ago
I suppose she's talking about websites visited rather than message communication. Terrorists likely have similar website browsing patterns... their hunger for like-minded material, news and propaganda from fellow "soldiers". Website browsing activity can be hidden too, but new recruits like ignorant teenagers looking for a meaningful purpose, they might be careless with their internet anonymity. You'd want to get to them before they hit the streets with murderous intent.
marcoperaza 9y ago
Rights that don't fully exist in the UK anymore: * Free speech (see prohibitions on "hate speech" and "extremism") * The right to remain silent (your silence can be used as evidence of guilt in court) * The right to a jury trial (the UK now allows majority, 10-2, verdicts. The right to a jury trial can also be removed in cases where the government suspects jury tampering.) * Habeas Corpus (up to 14 days detention without charge of terrorism suspects. it was 28 days until 2011) * The right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure (in many situations the standard of evidence has been lowered from "probable cause" to "reasonable suspicion" and is increasingly at the discretion of police/government instead of courts) * The prohibition on double jeopardy (the government can petition for a new trial after acquittal if substantial new evidence comes to light) * The exclusion of illegally gathered evidence from court (the UK never had an exclusionary principle) * The right to self-defense (there is no castle doctrine in the UK. In every US state except Vermont, you can use lethal force with impunity against an intruder to your home. See the UK case of Tony Martin, who was convicted of murder for shooting robbers who were in his home) * The right to assemble * The right to keep arms (I realize this crowd may not be a fan of this right, but nevertheless it used to be a right Englishmen and Americans both enjoyed)
- deleted 9y ago
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- k-mcgrady 9y ago
  Well that's a load of nonsense. How about backing some of it up? We do have a right to a jury trial. Self-defense is an important defence in several laws. There are assemblies/protests in central London every weekend pretty much. Regarding the 'right to remain silent' when arrested in the UK you do not have to say anything. As for the right to keep arms - we don't want it. If our police force believes they can do their job without all carrying firearms (and last night where they tracked down and killed the attackers within 8 mins of the first call to them proves they are right) the general public doesn't need them either.
  - marcoperaza 9y ago
    For self defense, see the case of Tony Martin, who was convicted of murder for shooting intruders in his home. Castle doctrine would have protected his actions in all US states except Vermont. The right to remain silent in the US (and previously in the UK) means that your silence cannot be presented as evidence of guilt in court. In the UK, such evidence may be presented and the the jury is instructed that they may make negative inferences from your refusal to speak with the police. The right to a jury trial has been limited by changes that allow juries to reach majority (10-2) verdicts and by removing the right to a jury trial in cases where the government suspects jury tampering. I'm not trying to get into a debate about guns. But any list of rights no longer enjoyed by Englishmen wouldn't be complete without mentioning it. Whether it's for the better or worse is another issue.
Baeocystin 9y ago
> In most ways, the UK seems more sane than the US Don't make the mistake of comparing another country's highlight reel with the day-to-day living you're familiar with here. I promise you that if you lived there (or just about any other country) for a while, you would start to see the warts along with the successes. This is in no way a knock on the UK.
pj_mukh 9y ago
Also, aren't they already monitoring all international communication lines? I don't remember the last time any of these attacks were actually coordinated by international agents (all are homegrown, most are lone wolf) Short of policing thoughts, at some point, they'll have to admit 'MONITOR EVERYTHING, POLICE EVERYTHING' won't actually solve the problem.
iamben 9y ago
Annecdotaly, most non-tech people I speak to just don't understand the Internet (or how far it extends into their lives). They seem to see the internet as the web browser they use for Facebook, and not how far it extends into what they do every day. As such many seem to think it can be regulated like television, and few seem to understand the implications of backdooring encryption and whatever else. Ultimately it's a 'we trust the government' and 'I have nothing to hide'. It seems difficult for most people to see outside their own bubble, especially when they're frightened of an invisible enemy.
justincormack 9y ago
Both the main parties are in many ways authoritarian, and both have gone along with increased powers for the secret services. The UK has rarely had either a libertarian right (the Tory party are historically a party of the land owners and aristocracy and the broader establishment) or a liberal left (the Labour party was founded by trade unions. The liberalisation on social issues has generally come from social pressure (suffragettes, women working, sexual liberation and gay rights in the 1960s) and the judiciary who sometimes (or juries, eg Lady Chatterly) have acquitted people, changing things.
- xaa 9y ago
  Fascinating and useful explanation. I think, then, the difference compared to the US must be that in the US, the majority of both parties have authoritarian tendencies, but there is a vocal minority of "libertarians" in both parties, whereas in the UK, you seem to be saying that libertarian pressure comes mostly from the outside the traditional political structure. I do wonder, more broadly, whether it is possible for a country to have the benefits of the "European" approach (better social services) and of the "American" approach (more robust civil liberty) all in one, or if they are somehow mutually exclusive. From the standpoint of security, I don't see much of a correlation between the level of surveillance/repression/etc and the level of terrorist activity. It seems to me the biggest determinants of whether a country will suffer terrorist attacks are: 1) immigration policy, 2) perceived level of "colonialist"/"globalist" behavior, and 3) wealth. It is very interesting to me that Poland has virtually no terrorist attacks whereas their neighbors, Germany, France, and UK, have them quite regularly, but I don't know the explanation. It is surely not that Poland regulates the internet more tightly.
  - Silhouette 9y ago
    I suspect the main difference between the US and the UK is simply that in the UK the average citizen is more trusting of their government to do the right thing with any powers it has. That in turn may be because historically the level of abuse in the UK has been lower and abuses that come to light do tend to get challenged and to result in changes in policy. It's obviously not a perfect world and certainly we do still have some problems with discrimination and wrongful use of powers, but perhaps we are culturally a little more pragmatic about these things than our friends across the pond. Whether that tolerance will one day come back to haunt those who supported stronger government powers if we elect our own Trump is a different question.
bostik 9y ago
> absurd libel laws and take any and every opportunity to cry "regulate the internet" You do realise there's a very consistent theme here? It's not about terrorism. It's not about the media. It's not even about internet. The underlying narrative is a systematic need to be able to control the messengers. Why impose hard propaganda when you can have unlimited pressure points available to influence what is being relayed to the public at large? For some reason, the UK government (regardless of parties in power) seems to be fundamentally attracted to autocracy.
- xaa 9y ago
  Yes, I see the connection, but I have difficulty seeing how politicians think that even with such measures, they can actually control discourse (apart from going full China on the matter). I have always found it interesting that the great dystopian fiction is always set in the UK: 1984, V for Vendetta, etc. And yet, UK politicians regularly make statements about surveillance that would immediately invoke those associations in the US, but UK residents, seen from the outside at least, don't bat an eye. In the US, we have a great deal of surveillance as well, but the government at least feels the need to hide it rather than flaunt it. In other words, perhaps those authors also recognized this autocratic tendency (assuming it exists).
  - bostik 9y ago
    I don't think there's anything new about it. The concept and legal framework for D-Notice (essentially: "soft" media gag order)[0] is more than 100 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-Notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-Notice
    - xaa 9y ago
      I consider the occasional need of the government to tell the media "you can't publish this for national security reasons" to be in a different category. This has legitimate use-cases, and with proper oversight can be done correctly. Surely we would not have wanted the media to publish about the Manhattan Project or Ultra during WWII. The US has NSLs which seem much the same thing. Specific, targeted actions like this are a far cry from dragnet responses like the snooper's charter or calls for banning encryption (at least any kind that can't be decrypted by the government). The danger of dragnets is that they pick up incidental thought-crime. It's why warrants exist. Although certainly a case could be made that the media is in a better position than the government to decide what should be made public.
Spooky23 9y ago
The UK doesn't have a fundamental right of free speech in the same way that US has. Attacks on free speech in the US need to be more subtle. The root cause here is more strategic and difficult to fix. The west needs to disengage from meddling in the Middle East and stop shipping boatloads of money there.
Silhouette 9y ago
Any UK resident have insight on why the UK is so backwards on these issues? The UK isn't. Some of our politicians are. Please understand the difference.
- xaa 9y ago
  Believe me, I do. I didn't vote for Donald Trump or GWB. But I have to accept that their actions constitute a big part of what the US is, especially as seen from the outside. To simplify a little, in a democracy, if 51% of voters are "backwards" in some way, I see it as an acceptable shorthand to say that the country as a whole is (in that particuar way). Because that group will be making the decisions for 100% of residents.
  - Silhouette 9y ago
    To simplify a little, in a democracy, if 51% of voters are "backwards" in some way ... that group will be making the decisions for 100% of residents. This is the big problem with a "pure" direct democracy: you automatically get tyranny of the majority. Most of our real world democracies suffer worse problems than this, though. The leadership elected to make the decisions may not even enjoy a majority of popular support. Even having had popular support at an election, there may be no mechanism to compel a government to actually act as it promised to win those votes, other than voting for someone else several years later. The nature of the electoral system may lead to very short-term, populist thinking, particularly towards the end of each electoral cycle. My own view is that in light of these kinds of weaknesses, many of our political systems in the West are simply not fit for purpose, and that once-pragmatic reasons for accepting those limitations mostly expired with the rise of modern transportation and communication infrastructure. Sadly, I have not yet been made supreme ruler of the universe, so I have limited ability to do anything about this unless a lot of other people start to agree...
- sornars 9y ago
  If the people cared about individual liberty they'd vote outside the big two parties (Tories and Labour) and take a look at the Lib Dems who have promised to repeal the Investigatory Powers Act rather than enhance it. The fact that the electrate doesn't care about these issues (and that the Lib Dems are on track to lose vote share) means they'll end up with the politicians they deserve. I appreciate the issues FPTP presents and that people need to assess party platforms as a whole but the truth is most people don't care enough about privacy to make it a priority and so the UK will continue to get a bit more authoritarian every election.
reitanqild 9y ago
Notably, there was no call for "we need to increase our regulation of cars or knives" after this incident. Cars, knives (and guns) has been regulated in UK years ago already...
DanBC 9y ago
> but they have these absurd libel laws If I call you a child rapist I have to be able to prove to a court that on the balance of probabilities you are a child rapist. That seems like a reasonable approach. What's wrong with it?
- xaa 9y ago
  If the laws were the same in the US, and I called Donald Trump an idiot, would I have to furnish an IQ test? If I wrote that Ballmer/Nadella was incompetent and Microsoft products are crap? I guess the problem is that the nature of speech often results in opinion-based insults being interpretable as a literal factual claim, and that the benefits of people being able to express their opinions freely generally outweigh the potential reputational costs to insulted individuals. It is really analogous to the ongoing debate in US universities about whether mere words can cause such a high degree of harm as to be actionable. I think they can cause harm, but that the chilling effects caused by restricting speech are almost always greater.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > If the laws were the same in the US, and I called Donald Trump an idiot, would I have to furnish an IQ test? If I wrote that Ballmer/Nadella was incompetent and Microsoft products are crap? You can say all of that in England. Before someone can take a case of defamation through the courts they have to show there's actual or probable serious harm. (For for-profit companies that would be serious monetary loss). The defences are that the comment is true; or that it's honest opinion, or that it's a matter of public interest, or that it's in a privileged publication (which includes peer reviewed journals). When you say "Trump is an idiot" he can't show any harm at all, let alone serious harm; and it's an opinion that many people have. When you say "Ballmer / Nadella are incompetent" either they personally have to show serious harm (and they can't) or Microsoft has to show serious financial harm (and it can't). And it's an opinion that while strongly held and expressed is expressed by many people. > but that the chilling effects caused by restricting speech are almost always greater. If I take a photograph of you and make a flyer saying "XAA RAPES CHILDREN" and spread that around your workplace and your local community you probably want a few methods to make that stop. One would be harassment law. Another would be defamation law. This is really the only kind of thing stopped by English law. (Are you aware that the English law changed in 2013? Are you talking about the old law? I agree that was terrible.)

by xaa 9y ago

blibble 9y ago

the Defamation Act 2013 fixed a lot of the problems with the libel laws however I really don't understand the surveillance thing

yarper 9y ago

It's unlikely we could have more strict laws on knives in the UK. It's illegal to carry them and illegal to own many types of them (e.g. flick-knives). Essentially if you have a knife on your person, and you've not got a damn good reason (e.g. it's a breadknife and you're on your way to work at a bakery) you're committing a crime. Cars are basically impossible to legislate against. What they did is already illegal. So to answer your question - what's left when everything is already illegal?

peterwwillis 9y ago
They could require places with the highest pedestrian traffic have elevated walkways for crossing streets, and reinforced barriers between the roadway and pedestrian traffic. Or ban cars and stick to trolleys, buses, trains. At some point, after we've exhausted all options, we might have to ask ourselves why so many people want to kill random strangers, and then deal with that.
- zigzigzag 9y ago
  I've never liked May's authoritarian tendencies - no way does that stuff remain restricted to targeting Islamism - but your last paragraph is in fact exactly what they are doing. Having asked the question of "why do they want to kill random strangers", the answer they arrived at is "because they were brainwashed by religious fundamentalism they found on the internet". Obviously nobody knows yet the specifics of this case, but I'm not sure why they think that given that the Ariane Grande event seemed to be radicalisation through family. It wasn't clear the internet played much role. However, the UK Government has made repeated references to plots that were foiled (no details provided). If those plots were investigated and the root cause was frequently identified as "spent too much time surfing jihadi ideology" then I can see why they'd conclude the answer is internet regulation.
  - infodroid 9y ago
    > Having asked the question of "why do they want to kill random strangers", the answer they arrived at is "because they were brainwashed by religious fundamentalism they found on the internet". To a reasonable person, it should be obvious this is just a proximate cause and not the root cause. Browsing the internet and then being exposed to hateful ideas doesn't automatically turn you into a murderer. The deeper cause is surely that "jihadi ideology" is effective at appealing to European youth. But nobody is talking about why this is in fact the case or what are the reasons why it is so attractive to some people. For one thing, the problem of jihadi terrorism isn't going to go away without confronting the ideology head-on. I think we must have a painfully honest discussion about "jihadi ideology" and to debunk it. Radicalization isn't an inevitable outcome of being exposed to these ideas but is rather the result of losing the argument with friends, loved ones, civilization. Banning this stuff isn't going to make it less appealing to some people or to make it disappear from the internet. But it does give government the power to censor ideas they deem to be dangerous and liable to "brainwash" the youth. And you have to ask whether you trust your politicians to use such powers responsibly.
    - Broken_Hippo 9y ago
      Exactly. To me, if the reason why folks kill others is because they were brainwashed (due to religious fundamentalism or not), the correct action would be to solve the issues that cause folks to be drawn to such fundamentalism.
marcosdumay 9y ago
> what's left when everything is already illegal? Looks like it's enforcement. What, from the looks of it, would be nightmarish enough. No need for any new law.
snarfy 9y ago
> what's left when everything is already illegal? When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. There are plenty of other ways to address this that are not legislative. A legislative approach would only be counter productive. When people are breaking the laws, making more laws doesn't help. We would probably get much better reduction in these types of events if we spent the same resources on supporting mental health issues than wire tapping the internet.
- philipov 9y ago
  Why would they want to solve the mental health issues when they provide so many good excuses for wire tapping the internet? EDIT: People don't understand politics for the same reason they don't understand Facebook. If you're not the big lobby consultant getting these people elected, you are the product.
- ad_hominem 9y ago
  I don't think better mental health support would have any effect on Islamic terror attacks. These religious zealots are not mentally ill in the traditional sense.
- DanBC 9y ago
  People with mental illness are not violent. Knowing the mental health status of someone gives you very little predictive power about whether they pose a risk of violence or not - even if we restrict ourselves to severe illness such as psychosis. Even if you were to find that every single terrorist has a mental illness (and we know that most of the killers in the UK didn't) it still gives you no useful information. Violence is prevalent. Mental illness is prevalent. There's obviously going to be some overlap. It's a coincidence, not a cause.
xaa 9y ago
I assumed as much. The question was half-rhetorical, though: such regulations did not and could not prevent what happened. There seems to be a law of diminishing returns on regulation: sure, common-sense things like not allowing weapons to mentally ill people go a long way, but increasing regulation past a certain point doesn't reduce problems and only restricts freedom. So in that case, the question becomes, has the UK already passed that point for internet regulation? I don't know the answer, but I assume that plotting specific attacks or making specific threats online is punishable in the UK just as it is in the US.
jwdunne 9y ago
To note, this legislation covers a wider array that may shock our American commenters here. If the police pull you over and find a baseball bat without a ball, you are in violation of the offensive weapons act. Forget about handguns with legislation like that - which are also illegal but under a separate piece of legislation afaik. We are less liberal in a lot of ways, both socially and economically but not consistently. In some areas, the reverse
- orf 9y ago
  Sure, but those laws are not enforced to the letter of the law, but to the 'spirit' of the law. Which means your not going to get arrested for taking your kid and their bat home from practice just because you forgot the ball.
  - jwdunne 9y ago
    Not at all. I've seen this when police are searching cars owned by young drivers without children. My point was that it can and has been broadly applied. If an officer believes an object is intended to cause harm, you can be arrested for it. In contrast, the US enshrines gun possession as a basic constitutional right so baseball bats and knives are small fry. This was the comparison I was trying to extend.
- jamessb 9y ago
  An offensive weapon is an article made, adapted or intended for causing injury. Since a baseball bat is not made for causing injury, and is generally not adapted for this purpose (though it might be, e.g. by stacking nails into it), it would be necessary to show that it was possesed with the intention of causing injury. Note that posession for the purpose of 'self-defence' is not a legal defence. Knives are different - it's an offense to possess a 'bladed' (excluding non-locking knives under 7.62 cm / 3 inches) or 'sharply pointed' article in a public place, even if there is no intent to cause harm, with certain exceptions (lawful authority, for use at work, religious reasons, or national costume).
  - jwdunne 9y ago

cjbprime 9y ago

Somewhat flippant answer: you were just imagining the UK being saner. There's been a law since 2000 compelling suspects of crimes to divulge their encryption keys or go to jail, for example. The lack of speech protection isn't new.

zigzigzag 9y ago
You're comparing the UK to the USA there and assuming the USA is saner. The origin of the USA's prohibition against self-incrimination was people who were tortured into confessions and other forms of undermining their own freedom. The original logic for this right does not apply to divulging encryption keys. It's not clear what higher purpose is being served by allowing people under investigation to halt those investigations by using encryption: it's not like they can be tortured into revealing incorrect information inside the encrypted files.

exodust 9y ago

I suppose she's talking about websites visited rather than message communication. Terrorists likely have similar website browsing patterns... their hunger for like-minded material, news and propaganda from fellow "soldiers". Website browsing activity can be hidden too, but new recruits like ignorant teenagers looking for a meaningful purpose, they might be careless with their internet anonymity. You'd want to get to them before they hit the streets with murderous intent.

marcoperaza 9y ago

Rights that don't fully exist in the UK anymore: * Free speech (see prohibitions on "hate speech" and "extremism") * The right to remain silent (your silence can be used as evidence of guilt in court) * The right to a jury trial (the UK now allows majority, 10-2, verdicts. The right to a jury trial can also be removed in cases where the government suspects jury tampering.) * Habeas Corpus (up to 14 days detention without charge of terrorism suspects. it was 28 days until 2011) * The right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure (in many situations the standard of evidence has been lowered from "probable cause" to "reasonable suspicion" and is increasingly at the discretion of police/government instead of courts) * The prohibition on double jeopardy (the government can petition for a new trial after acquittal if substantial new evidence comes to light) * The exclusion of illegally gathered evidence from court (the UK never had an exclusionary principle) * The right to self-defense (there is no castle doctrine in the UK. In every US state except Vermont, you can use lethal force with impunity against an intruder to your home. See the UK case of Tony Martin, who was convicted of murder for shooting robbers who were in his home) * The right to assemble * The right to keep arms (I realize this crowd may not be a fan of this right, but nevertheless it used to be a right Englishmen and Americans both enjoyed)

deleted 9y ago
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k-mcgrady 9y ago
Well that's a load of nonsense. How about backing some of it up? We do have a right to a jury trial. Self-defense is an important defence in several laws. There are assemblies/protests in central London every weekend pretty much. Regarding the 'right to remain silent' when arrested in the UK you do not have to say anything. As for the right to keep arms - we don't want it. If our police force believes they can do their job without all carrying firearms (and last night where they tracked down and killed the attackers within 8 mins of the first call to them proves they are right) the general public doesn't need them either.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  For self defense, see the case of Tony Martin, who was convicted of murder for shooting intruders in his home. Castle doctrine would have protected his actions in all US states except Vermont. The right to remain silent in the US (and previously in the UK) means that your silence cannot be presented as evidence of guilt in court. In the UK, such evidence may be presented and the the jury is instructed that they may make negative inferences from your refusal to speak with the police. The right to a jury trial has been limited by changes that allow juries to reach majority (10-2) verdicts and by removing the right to a jury trial in cases where the government suspects jury tampering. I'm not trying to get into a debate about guns. But any list of rights no longer enjoyed by Englishmen wouldn't be complete without mentioning it. Whether it's for the better or worse is another issue.

Baeocystin 9y ago

> In most ways, the UK seems more sane than the US Don't make the mistake of comparing another country's highlight reel with the day-to-day living you're familiar with here. I promise you that if you lived there (or just about any other country) for a while, you would start to see the warts along with the successes. This is in no way a knock on the UK.

pj_mukh 9y ago

Also, aren't they already monitoring all international communication lines? I don't remember the last time any of these attacks were actually coordinated by international agents (all are homegrown, most are lone wolf) Short of policing thoughts, at some point, they'll have to admit 'MONITOR EVERYTHING, POLICE EVERYTHING' won't actually solve the problem.

iamben 9y ago

Annecdotaly, most non-tech people I speak to just don't understand the Internet (or how far it extends into their lives). They seem to see the internet as the web browser they use for Facebook, and not how far it extends into what they do every day. As such many seem to think it can be regulated like television, and few seem to understand the implications of backdooring encryption and whatever else. Ultimately it's a 'we trust the government' and 'I have nothing to hide'. It seems difficult for most people to see outside their own bubble, especially when they're frightened of an invisible enemy.

justincormack 9y ago

Both the main parties are in many ways authoritarian, and both have gone along with increased powers for the secret services. The UK has rarely had either a libertarian right (the Tory party are historically a party of the land owners and aristocracy and the broader establishment) or a liberal left (the Labour party was founded by trade unions. The liberalisation on social issues has generally come from social pressure (suffragettes, women working, sexual liberation and gay rights in the 1960s) and the judiciary who sometimes (or juries, eg Lady Chatterly) have acquitted people, changing things.

xaa 9y ago
Fascinating and useful explanation. I think, then, the difference compared to the US must be that in the US, the majority of both parties have authoritarian tendencies, but there is a vocal minority of "libertarians" in both parties, whereas in the UK, you seem to be saying that libertarian pressure comes mostly from the outside the traditional political structure. I do wonder, more broadly, whether it is possible for a country to have the benefits of the "European" approach (better social services) and of the "American" approach (more robust civil liberty) all in one, or if they are somehow mutually exclusive. From the standpoint of security, I don't see much of a correlation between the level of surveillance/repression/etc and the level of terrorist activity. It seems to me the biggest determinants of whether a country will suffer terrorist attacks are: 1) immigration policy, 2) perceived level of "colonialist"/"globalist" behavior, and 3) wealth. It is very interesting to me that Poland has virtually no terrorist attacks whereas their neighbors, Germany, France, and UK, have them quite regularly, but I don't know the explanation. It is surely not that Poland regulates the internet more tightly.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  I suspect the main difference between the US and the UK is simply that in the UK the average citizen is more trusting of their government to do the right thing with any powers it has. That in turn may be because historically the level of abuse in the UK has been lower and abuses that come to light do tend to get challenged and to result in changes in policy. It's obviously not a perfect world and certainly we do still have some problems with discrimination and wrongful use of powers, but perhaps we are culturally a little more pragmatic about these things than our friends across the pond. Whether that tolerance will one day come back to haunt those who supported stronger government powers if we elect our own Trump is a different question.

bostik 9y ago

> absurd libel laws and take any and every opportunity to cry "regulate the internet" You do realise there's a very consistent theme here? It's not about terrorism. It's not about the media. It's not even about internet. The underlying narrative is a systematic need to be able to control the messengers. Why impose hard propaganda when you can have unlimited pressure points available to influence what is being relayed to the public at large? For some reason, the UK government (regardless of parties in power) seems to be fundamentally attracted to autocracy.

xaa 9y ago
Yes, I see the connection, but I have difficulty seeing how politicians think that even with such measures, they can actually control discourse (apart from going full China on the matter). I have always found it interesting that the great dystopian fiction is always set in the UK: 1984, V for Vendetta, etc. And yet, UK politicians regularly make statements about surveillance that would immediately invoke those associations in the US, but UK residents, seen from the outside at least, don't bat an eye. In the US, we have a great deal of surveillance as well, but the government at least feels the need to hide it rather than flaunt it. In other words, perhaps those authors also recognized this autocratic tendency (assuming it exists).
- bostik 9y ago
  I don't think there's anything new about it. The concept and legal framework for D-Notice (essentially: "soft" media gag order)[0] is more than 100 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-Notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-Notice
  - xaa 9y ago
    I consider the occasional need of the government to tell the media "you can't publish this for national security reasons" to be in a different category. This has legitimate use-cases, and with proper oversight can be done correctly. Surely we would not have wanted the media to publish about the Manhattan Project or Ultra during WWII. The US has NSLs which seem much the same thing. Specific, targeted actions like this are a far cry from dragnet responses like the snooper's charter or calls for banning encryption (at least any kind that can't be decrypted by the government). The danger of dragnets is that they pick up incidental thought-crime. It's why warrants exist. Although certainly a case could be made that the media is in a better position than the government to decide what should be made public.

Spooky23 9y ago

The UK doesn't have a fundamental right of free speech in the same way that US has. Attacks on free speech in the US need to be more subtle. The root cause here is more strategic and difficult to fix. The west needs to disengage from meddling in the Middle East and stop shipping boatloads of money there.

Silhouette 9y ago

Any UK resident have insight on why the UK is so backwards on these issues? The UK isn't. Some of our politicians are. Please understand the difference.

xaa 9y ago
Believe me, I do. I didn't vote for Donald Trump or GWB. But I have to accept that their actions constitute a big part of what the US is, especially as seen from the outside. To simplify a little, in a democracy, if 51% of voters are "backwards" in some way, I see it as an acceptable shorthand to say that the country as a whole is (in that particuar way). Because that group will be making the decisions for 100% of residents.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  To simplify a little, in a democracy, if 51% of voters are "backwards" in some way ... that group will be making the decisions for 100% of residents. This is the big problem with a "pure" direct democracy: you automatically get tyranny of the majority. Most of our real world democracies suffer worse problems than this, though. The leadership elected to make the decisions may not even enjoy a majority of popular support. Even having had popular support at an election, there may be no mechanism to compel a government to actually act as it promised to win those votes, other than voting for someone else several years later. The nature of the electoral system may lead to very short-term, populist thinking, particularly towards the end of each electoral cycle. My own view is that in light of these kinds of weaknesses, many of our political systems in the West are simply not fit for purpose, and that once-pragmatic reasons for accepting those limitations mostly expired with the rise of modern transportation and communication infrastructure. Sadly, I have not yet been made supreme ruler of the universe, so I have limited ability to do anything about this unless a lot of other people start to agree...
sornars 9y ago
If the people cared about individual liberty they'd vote outside the big two parties (Tories and Labour) and take a look at the Lib Dems who have promised to repeal the Investigatory Powers Act rather than enhance it. The fact that the electrate doesn't care about these issues (and that the Lib Dems are on track to lose vote share) means they'll end up with the politicians they deserve. I appreciate the issues FPTP presents and that people need to assess party platforms as a whole but the truth is most people don't care enough about privacy to make it a priority and so the UK will continue to get a bit more authoritarian every election.

reitanqild 9y ago

Notably, there was no call for "we need to increase our regulation of cars or knives" after this incident. Cars, knives (and guns) has been regulated in UK years ago already...

DanBC 9y ago

> but they have these absurd libel laws If I call you a child rapist I have to be able to prove to a court that on the balance of probabilities you are a child rapist. That seems like a reasonable approach. What's wrong with it?

xaa 9y ago
If the laws were the same in the US, and I called Donald Trump an idiot, would I have to furnish an IQ test? If I wrote that Ballmer/Nadella was incompetent and Microsoft products are crap? I guess the problem is that the nature of speech often results in opinion-based insults being interpretable as a literal factual claim, and that the benefits of people being able to express their opinions freely generally outweigh the potential reputational costs to insulted individuals. It is really analogous to the ongoing debate in US universities about whether mere words can cause such a high degree of harm as to be actionable. I think they can cause harm, but that the chilling effects caused by restricting speech are almost always greater.
- DanBC 9y ago
  > If the laws were the same in the US, and I called Donald Trump an idiot, would I have to furnish an IQ test? If I wrote that Ballmer/Nadella was incompetent and Microsoft products are crap? You can say all of that in England. Before someone can take a case of defamation through the courts they have to show there's actual or probable serious harm. (For for-profit companies that would be serious monetary loss). The defences are that the comment is true; or that it's honest opinion, or that it's a matter of public interest, or that it's in a privileged publication (which includes peer reviewed journals). When you say "Trump is an idiot" he can't show any harm at all, let alone serious harm; and it's an opinion that many people have. When you say "Ballmer / Nadella are incompetent" either they personally have to show serious harm (and they can't) or Microsoft has to show serious financial harm (and it can't). And it's an opinion that while strongly held and expressed is expressed by many people. > but that the chilling effects caused by restricting speech are almost always greater. If I take a photograph of you and make a flyer saying "XAA RAPES CHILDREN" and spread that around your workplace and your local community you probably want a few methods to make that stop. One would be harassment law. Another would be defamation law. This is really the only kind of thing stopped by English law. (Are you aware that the English law changed in 2013? Are you talking about the old law? I agree that was terrible.)