8 ms·

Lunacy. Want your rival out of business? Spoof an email and get them to click on an untoward link. This burden of proof clause will no doubt be abused. What ab

by Libbum 8y ago

Lunacy. Want your rival out of business? Spoof an email and get them to click on an untoward link. This burden of proof clause will no doubt be abused. What about researchers attempting to understand the mechanisms of extremism? Can you get a permit to commit thought crime?

Nasrudith 8y ago
I think cynically it is even worse than an honestly enforced abhorrent law. That one would last up until many people or some very high up gets hit by it. Send it to someone big in the media or the royal family and it would cause fuss and outrage. This looks meant to be applied selectively in a very fascist way of only against those they want to get rid of and discredit or as a "we are making you safe!!!" propaganda point.
- johnisgood 8y ago
  I wonder, do people really buy this "we are making you safe", "think about the children", etc. bullsh!t masked as totalitarian brutality and so on?
  - dingaling 8y ago
    Of course not, but it seems to be an inherent attribute of all politicians of all mainstream persuasions these days. So other than spoiling one's ballot, what to do?
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    Some do, especially on topics they don't know much about. And that would be the majority of the people.
  - bogle 8y ago
    Oh yes, they really do, you only have to look at what the majority of British newspapers are reporting to see what most British people believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_Unit...
  - wsgeorge 8y ago
    Yes, so long as the government's actions ostensibly align with their own values.
- tomp 8y ago
  Exactly. Many laws would be cancelled if they were applied 100% strictly. Including many speeding laws, porn laws, sex laws, ...
- flycaliguy 8y ago
  This law is wrong. That said, it feels more like a way to have a charge against somebody who is suspected of being a terrorist, but who hasn’t violated any laws yet. It could also be designed to limit flow of propaganda by putting a fear into young people who might be tempted to share with peers. It’s wrong, I’m just not convinced it’ll be used as you predict.
orf 8y ago
Yeah, absolutely no doubt that the court systems and judges are so stupid that they would put someone out of business for clicking a link. Absolutely no doubt. Will totally happen. In the UK you follow the spirit of the law, not the exact wording. That means no, clicking a link that redirects you to some shady site does not mean the SWAT team are going to knock down your door and arrest you. Also the burden of proof generally always lies with the prosecution. It being "abused" is called "making a case" and bears no relation to this law at all. If the case is shoddy, the defense will absolutely destroy it.
- netsharc 8y ago
  Well, they did convict that guy who tweeted about b___ing an airp__t once. Article about him overturning the conviction: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-19009344 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-19009344 , but the fact that a court convicted him in the first place means that the first court was convinced he broke some law.
  - orf 8y ago
    He was fined 385 quid. That's a slap on the wrist to say "don't waste our time with jokes about blowing up airports". And yeah these things are a side effect of common law which which is pretty subjective around things of bad taste. And, as your story shows, the courts worked it out.
    - striking 8y ago
      He had to pay nearly £1000 out of pocket, had lost his job, and then had to fight his conviction for a year and a half in three different appeals. For a tweet immediately considered not credible as a threat by the people to whom it was directed, read a week after it was sent. He wasn't just fined, this apparently caused him to not be able to receive work and gain a criminal record. Even the rest of the CPS didn't want to continue along with the case but the director of public prosecution pushed it (https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jul/29/paul-chambers-twitter-joke-airport https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jul/29/paul-chambers-tw...). The courts didn't work it out, he did, after receiving an outpouring of support (social and monetary) from British comedians. I don't understand your sentiment in the slightest.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
More likely it'll be limited in a judicial review, someone is bound to bring one, hopefully fairly soon. UK courts are quite happy to strike government legislation as illegal or outrageous from time to time. Only a pity we'll soon no longer have the ECHR in the chain of appeals.
- tialaramex 8y ago
  Note that the ECHR is not part of the EU, and so a "hard Brexit" doesn't have any direct effect on our membership of the Council of Europe and responsibility to live up to our treaty obligations. Leaving the EU does clear an obstacle to leaving the Council of Europe, but it would likewise clear an obstacle to leaving any number of other international organisations, membership of which is mandatory or implicit for EU nations. Theresa May would indeed like to leave the European Council because she doesn't support Human Rights. Right now she isn't even able to get her own party to stop voting against her, so I suspect that it's premature to say "we'll soon no longer have the ECHR".
- dingaling 8y ago
  The EHCR is not part of the EU, it's part of the Council of Europe which is unaffected by Brexit. Trivium: the EU stole the CofE's forty-year-old flag when they needed an emblem.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    I know, yet the Conservatives have made plain they intend to leave ECHR too. It was not mentioned as part of the campaign until the idiocy of "hard brexit" came out to play. I find it particularly absurd for the Tories to do this as it was Churchill who was a big advocate for its creation, and the 51 Tory govt that signed us up to it. Atlee's Labour, surprisingly, was against it at the time. Isn't CofE flag just Saint George's Cross? I know next to nothing of matters religious.
    - OscarCunningham 8y ago
      > Isn't CofE flag just Saint George's Cross? I know next to nothing of matters religious. In this case "CofE" is Council of Europe, not Church of England.
Voloskaya 8y ago
Pretty sure the goal is to strengthen their cases against known radicalized individuals, not to send in jail someone that clicked a bad link...
- benj111 8y ago
  The goal of the Article 50 legislation was to start the ball rolling with regard to Brexit. Its now being used as a stick to get parliament to accept a withdrawal agreement that 3/4s of them have already rejected. Don't look at the goal, look at how it can be used.
- orf 8y ago
  I think that nuance escapes people across the pond.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    It's hard to assume nuance after stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial As someone on your side of the pound, though a bit closer to the equator, count me as one who wouldn't trust that kind of selective enforcement from the UK justice system.
    - striking 8y ago
      I didn't expect much from the link, but the person implicated had to pay nearly £1000 out of pocket, had lost his job, and then had to fight his conviction for a year and a half in three different appeals. For a tweet immediately considered not credible as a threat by the people to whom it was directed. Read a week after it was sent. Not sure what amount of nuance can be had after something like this.
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  Whose goal? Once a law is published, anybody can use it for any action it allows.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>What about researchers attempting to understand the mechanisms of extremism? Can you get a permit to commit thought crime? My cousin had a university professor who taught an elective about modern terrorism or something like that. He allegedly told the class on day 1 that they would all wind up getting "randomly" selected for pat downs as a result of the research they would have to do. I suspect in the UK that you would be flagged similarly and they'd stop looking into it if it looked like legitimate research or keep looking into it and possibly make an arrest if you seem to be the kind of person they don't like. Regardless, this law sets up a hell of a lot of (completely innocent) people to be harassed by the state.
- DanBC 8y ago
  Research is specifically mentioned in the law, as is journalism and unknowing download. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacte...
nerflad 8y ago
You are right. The first thing I thought about when see the headline was Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi). It will literally be impossible for people like her to work in the UK. I can see this dramatically affecting the kind of reporting the BBC/Guardian etc is able to do, unless they are able to get exemptions or just ignore the law and risk the consequences.
- tzs 8y ago
  It has a journalism exception. See the excerpt linked to in this other comment [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19153152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19153152
  - nerflad 8y ago
    Thank you
cabalamat 8y ago
> What about researchers attempting to understand the mechanisms of extremism? Academic research and journalism are specifically exempt, see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacted http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacted
- Libbum 8y ago
  That's good to know. Thanks. Would be interesting to know the extent of the definitions here. If I am an academic in a non-related field, but am interested in the sociology of a terrorist group purely intellectually, I wonder if 3 b ii is extended to me in that situation.
DanBC 8y ago
This is specifically exempted in the law: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacted http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacted > The cases in which a person has a reasonable excuse for the purposes of subsection (3) include (but are not limited to) those in which— > (a)at the time of the person’s action or possession the person did not know, and had no reason to believe, that the document or record in question contained, or was likely to contain, information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or tl;dr this is precisely why the register is fucking shit. THey use stupid clickbait titles and they choose to mangle the truth

by Libbum 8y ago

Nasrudith 8y ago

I think cynically it is even worse than an honestly enforced abhorrent law. That one would last up until many people or some very high up gets hit by it. Send it to someone big in the media or the royal family and it would cause fuss and outrage. This looks meant to be applied selectively in a very fascist way of only against those they want to get rid of and discredit or as a "we are making you safe!!!" propaganda point.

johnisgood 8y ago
I wonder, do people really buy this "we are making you safe", "think about the children", etc. bullsh!t masked as totalitarian brutality and so on?
- dingaling 8y ago
  Of course not, but it seems to be an inherent attribute of all politicians of all mainstream persuasions these days. So other than spoiling one's ballot, what to do?
- Mirioron 8y ago
  Some do, especially on topics they don't know much about. And that would be the majority of the people.
- bogle 8y ago
  Oh yes, they really do, you only have to look at what the majority of British newspapers are reporting to see what most British people believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_Unit...
- wsgeorge 8y ago
  Yes, so long as the government's actions ostensibly align with their own values.
tomp 8y ago
Exactly. Many laws would be cancelled if they were applied 100% strictly. Including many speeding laws, porn laws, sex laws, ...
flycaliguy 8y ago
This law is wrong. That said, it feels more like a way to have a charge against somebody who is suspected of being a terrorist, but who hasn’t violated any laws yet. It could also be designed to limit flow of propaganda by putting a fear into young people who might be tempted to share with peers. It’s wrong, I’m just not convinced it’ll be used as you predict.

orf 8y ago

Yeah, absolutely no doubt that the court systems and judges are so stupid that they would put someone out of business for clicking a link. Absolutely no doubt. Will totally happen. In the UK you follow the spirit of the law, not the exact wording. That means no, clicking a link that redirects you to some shady site does not mean the SWAT team are going to knock down your door and arrest you. Also the burden of proof generally always lies with the prosecution. It being "abused" is called "making a case" and bears no relation to this law at all. If the case is shoddy, the defense will absolutely destroy it.

netsharc 8y ago
Well, they did convict that guy who tweeted about b___ing an airp__t once. Article about him overturning the conviction: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-19009344 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-19009344 , but the fact that a court convicted him in the first place means that the first court was convinced he broke some law.
- orf 8y ago
  He was fined 385 quid. That's a slap on the wrist to say "don't waste our time with jokes about blowing up airports". And yeah these things are a side effect of common law which which is pretty subjective around things of bad taste. And, as your story shows, the courts worked it out.
  - striking 8y ago
    He had to pay nearly £1000 out of pocket, had lost his job, and then had to fight his conviction for a year and a half in three different appeals. For a tweet immediately considered not credible as a threat by the people to whom it was directed, read a week after it was sent. He wasn't just fined, this apparently caused him to not be able to receive work and gain a criminal record. Even the rest of the CPS didn't want to continue along with the case but the director of public prosecution pushed it (https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jul/29/paul-chambers-twitter-joke-airport https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jul/29/paul-chambers-tw...). The courts didn't work it out, he did, after receiving an outpouring of support (social and monetary) from British comedians. I don't understand your sentiment in the slightest.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

More likely it'll be limited in a judicial review, someone is bound to bring one, hopefully fairly soon. UK courts are quite happy to strike government legislation as illegal or outrageous from time to time. Only a pity we'll soon no longer have the ECHR in the chain of appeals.

tialaramex 8y ago
Note that the ECHR is not part of the EU, and so a "hard Brexit" doesn't have any direct effect on our membership of the Council of Europe and responsibility to live up to our treaty obligations. Leaving the EU does clear an obstacle to leaving the Council of Europe, but it would likewise clear an obstacle to leaving any number of other international organisations, membership of which is mandatory or implicit for EU nations. Theresa May would indeed like to leave the European Council because she doesn't support Human Rights. Right now she isn't even able to get her own party to stop voting against her, so I suspect that it's premature to say "we'll soon no longer have the ECHR".
dingaling 8y ago
The EHCR is not part of the EU, it's part of the Council of Europe which is unaffected by Brexit. Trivium: the EU stole the CofE's forty-year-old flag when they needed an emblem.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  I know, yet the Conservatives have made plain they intend to leave ECHR too. It was not mentioned as part of the campaign until the idiocy of "hard brexit" came out to play. I find it particularly absurd for the Tories to do this as it was Churchill who was a big advocate for its creation, and the 51 Tory govt that signed us up to it. Atlee's Labour, surprisingly, was against it at the time. Isn't CofE flag just Saint George's Cross? I know next to nothing of matters religious.
  - OscarCunningham 8y ago
    > Isn't CofE flag just Saint George's Cross? I know next to nothing of matters religious. In this case "CofE" is Council of Europe, not Church of England.

Voloskaya 8y ago

Pretty sure the goal is to strengthen their cases against known radicalized individuals, not to send in jail someone that clicked a bad link...

benj111 8y ago
The goal of the Article 50 legislation was to start the ball rolling with regard to Brexit. Its now being used as a stick to get parliament to accept a withdrawal agreement that 3/4s of them have already rejected. Don't look at the goal, look at how it can be used.
orf 8y ago
I think that nuance escapes people across the pond.
- icebraining 8y ago
  It's hard to assume nuance after stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial As someone on your side of the pound, though a bit closer to the equator, count me as one who wouldn't trust that kind of selective enforcement from the UK justice system.
  - striking 8y ago
    I didn't expect much from the link, but the person implicated had to pay nearly £1000 out of pocket, had lost his job, and then had to fight his conviction for a year and a half in three different appeals. For a tweet immediately considered not credible as a threat by the people to whom it was directed. Read a week after it was sent. Not sure what amount of nuance can be had after something like this.
marcosdumay 8y ago
Whose goal? Once a law is published, anybody can use it for any action it allows.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

>What about researchers attempting to understand the mechanisms of extremism? Can you get a permit to commit thought crime? My cousin had a university professor who taught an elective about modern terrorism or something like that. He allegedly told the class on day 1 that they would all wind up getting "randomly" selected for pat downs as a result of the research they would have to do. I suspect in the UK that you would be flagged similarly and they'd stop looking into it if it looked like legitimate research or keep looking into it and possibly make an arrest if you seem to be the kind of person they don't like. Regardless, this law sets up a hell of a lot of (completely innocent) people to be harassed by the state.

DanBC 8y ago
Research is specifically mentioned in the law, as is journalism and unknowing download. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacte...

nerflad 8y ago

You are right. The first thing I thought about when see the headline was Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi). It will literally be impossible for people like her to work in the UK. I can see this dramatically affecting the kind of reporting the BBC/Guardian etc is able to do, unless they are able to get exemptions or just ignore the law and risk the consequences.

tzs 8y ago
It has a journalism exception. See the excerpt linked to in this other comment [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19153152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19153152
- nerflad 8y ago
  Thank you

cabalamat 8y ago

> What about researchers attempting to understand the mechanisms of extremism? Academic research and journalism are specifically exempt, see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacted http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacted

Libbum 8y ago
That's good to know. Thanks. Would be interesting to know the extent of the definitions here. If I am an academic in a non-related field, but am interested in the sociology of a terrorist group purely intellectually, I wonder if 3 b ii is extended to me in that situation.

DanBC 8y ago

This is specifically exempted in the law: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacted http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/3/enacted > The cases in which a person has a reasonable excuse for the purposes of subsection (3) include (but are not limited to) those in which— > (a)at the time of the person’s action or possession the person did not know, and had no reason to believe, that the document or record in question contained, or was likely to contain, information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or tl;dr this is precisely why the register is fucking shit. THey use stupid clickbait titles and they choose to mangle the truth