Beware of the troll hunters

The Register reports:

A young man was jailed for 12 weeks today, after confessing to posting "grossly offensive" comments on Facebook

He posted some bad taste jokes culled from Sickipedia on a support group for April Jones's family and friends, according to press reports.
...
Woods was handed the three-month jail term for the offence under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003. The sentence meted out in such cases cannot exceed six months.

Trolls like Matthew Woods are loathsome creatures, and it's difficult to feel any sympathy for them.  But I'm more concerned about the troll hunters.  Are we really comfortable living in a country where people can be locked away for six months for being unpleasant?

The VDARE effect

I just traced another recent spike in my blog traffic to VDARE.com.

Patrick Celburne writes:

Sean Gabb’s essay for us last night on the fruits of abolishing Britain’s 800 year old rule prohibiting Double Jeopardy – the extremely dubious Show Trial convictions this month over the 1993 death of a black youth – seemingly coincided with a very long piece on Gabb by a U.K. blog called Suboptimal Planet: Is Sean Gabb a racist?

Suboptimal Planet is a very young blog (started December 2009) and is probably written by a young blogger. The piece is a depressing demonstration of how crude emotionalism – hysteria in fact – has become considered intellectually valid and respectable where the discussion of racial matters is concerned.

...

Maybe Suboptimal Planet will mature. But such trembling deference to conventional opinion to the exclusion of the consideration of facts is unpromising.

Crude emotionalism? Hysteria? Deference to conventional opinion?

Read the article, if you haven't already, and let me know what you think.

In any case, Dr. Gabb is perfectly capable of defending himself.

Gabb on defending the indefensible

Earlier this week, I asked

Is Sean Gabb a racist, or is he just a valiant defender of free speech who's sometimes deliberately provocative. Does he care about race per se, or is he just interested in it as a proxy for cultural issues?

My conclusion was that it didn't matter one way or the other - a libertarian's prejudices may hurt him, but they don't threaten the genuine rights of others.

Today, Gabb has published an article detailing the controversial causes he has taken up over the years as a matter of libertarian principle:

Of course, I have written at greater length about all the usual libertarian things – drugs, guns, porn, kinky sex, taxes, regulations, war, and so on and so forth. But none of this is controversial. What is presently controversial is all that I have written over the years in support of “racists” to have their say and be left alone. I cannot be bothered to link to all the various essays written since 1993. But there was my defence last month of Emma West, and my defences last week of the men convicted of the Stephen Lawrence murder. Miss West has now been charged with assault. I cannot comment on this, but I will say that all she was filmed saying on that tram came under the heading of freedom of speech.

As for the Lawrence convicts, I would never argue that they were nice men. But I do argue that their trial was not fair. Most of the evidence looked fabricated. I suspect the jury was packed – and, however the jury was composed, the men had been so demonised since 1993, that a fair trial would have been impossible. Above all, one of them could only be put on trial by abolishing the ancient and essential rule that no one should be made to stand trial more than once for any one alleged offence. It is a disgrace that the entire “liberal” establishment did not explode with outrage. They would never have put up with this sort of trial for a Sinn Fein/IRA terrorist, or one of the Brixton rioters – and rightly. The long, collective orgasm with which they received news of the convictions will bring them one day into the same universal disrepute as those who cheered the conviction of Oscar Wilde in 1895, or who mobbed people with German names in 1914.

In all this, and much, much more over the past thirty years, there is what ought to be an obvious consistency. I am a libertarian activist, and I see it as my duty to stand up for freedom of speech and freedom of association and due process of law – and for much else – whenever they are denied. And, since I do not have unlimited time or money, I make my biggest noises in those hard cases where other “libertarians” choose to sit on their hands. Sometimes, I have found myself speaking up for people who have become lifelong friends. Sometimes, I have defended people I would normally cross the road to avoid. That is not important. What is important is that, if we do not defend freedom in the hard cases, there will eventually be no freedom at all.

I recommend the whole article.

Is Sean Gabb a racist?

I first read Sean Gabb's Cultural Revolution, Culture War (PDF) in September 2009, shortly before I started blogging.

To a friend who suggested it, I replied:

A very interesting read. There's much in there that I agree with.

Although I despise 'political correctness', and I'm deeply concerned about the steps towards Thought Police, I did detect a whiff of racism at times; perhaps I've been indoctrinated by the multiculturalist hegemonic ideology ;-)

My views are much more firmly libertarian now, and my disgust for the British state and the BBC has grown, so I'm minded to re-read the book and re-evaluate my assumptions.

Gabb despairs at racially biased news coverage:

To take a notorious example, everyone knows that the overwhelming majority of interracial crime in Britain and America is black on white. Yet this is not reflected in the media coverage. When the black teenager, Stephen Lawrence, was killed in South London back in 1992, the story received lavish coverage in the media; and the story continued through failed trials, a public enquiry, and the official and media harassment of the unconvicted suspects. The much larger number of black on white murders—known rather than suspected murders, and containing an obvious racial motivation—are either not reported at all or covered briefly and without comment in the local media.

It should be easy enough to establish whether Gabb's claim is true, but true or not, few people would be prepared to state it as plainly.

Gabb is perhaps even more concerned about propaganda in state-funded fiction:

look at the BBC Radio 4 soap The Archers. This is supposedly an “every day tale of ordinary country folk”. It was this once. Nowadays, it is almost agitprop street theatre in its propagandising. Every male character is a monster or a weakling, or both. The female characters are pillars of feminist strength. The village pub is run by two homosexuals. The village solicitor is an Asian woman. A few years ago, the daughter of one of the characters brought back her black South African husband. His voice made it plain what he was: not one of the characters commented.

Not having listened to The Archers, I can't comment. From what I know of the BBC, Gabb's assertions seem plausible enough, but once again, it's not the sort of argument you tend to hear in polite company.

Some time later, Gabb took up writing for the American website VDARE.com:

• 12/02/11 - The Persecution Of Emma West
• 04/29/11 - Monarchy, Nation-States, And The Failed Reign of "Elizabeth The Useless"
• 01/19/11 - John Stuart Mill, The BNP, And The U.K.'s Dying Democracy
• 11/09/10 - A Nail in the Fuse Box: The Persecution of the British National Party
• 10/13/10 - News From England: The New Ruling Class And Taxpayer Funded Brainwashing In "Sindia-Lesbianopolis"
• 05/09/10 - Everyone Loses In Britain's Election. Could be A Good Thing.
• 03/14/10 - It Happened There (3): Court Cripples British National Party For Being Too, Well, British
• 01/27/10 - It's Happening There: Britain's Emerging Police State
• 10/24/09 - BBC's Question Time and BNP's Nick Griffin: Stumbling Into The Mainstream, Against A Wall Of Bias
• 08/31/09 - The British State vs. The BNP—The Post-Modern Tyranny of "Human Rights"
• 06/08/09 - England: The Peasants are Revolting

Their FAQ page gives a sense of what VDARE is about:

• Why VDARE.COM / The White Doe?

• Is VDARE.COM "White Nationalist"?

• What is "Immigrant Mass Murder Syndrome?"

• “Why Does VDARE.COM Run All These Weird Ads?”

• What do I do if a link wants me to register to read it

• Reporting Illegal Aliens - 2006 Update

• Reporting Illegal Aliens - 2009 Update

• How can I report an Illegal alien?

• Why is VDARE.COM blocked at my office/ library/ school/ etc? [Note: we're constantly updating this].

• Do you understand what's going on with the Minutemen?

• Why Do We Keep Writing About Intelligence? An IQ FAQ

• What should I read about America's immigration disaster? VDARE.com friend Paul Nachman has written a guide to the literature [PDF] itself a fairly long article. For a brief"introduction to his guide", see here.

For all I know, they make some perfectly valid points, but it's not the sort of site that most British people, even British libertarians, would be prepared to associate themselves with. Alarm bells ring loudly.

Most recently, I was struck by the attention given to race in Gabb's The Churchill Memorandum. One the one hand, the abundance of politically incorrect language seems appropriate to an alternative 1959; its absence would have been anachronistic. On the other, one gets the sense that Gabb is more interested in questions of race than most people alive today. Chapter one gives a taste:

Somebody muttered, from a few places behind me, about the interminable wait. We shuffled forward another eighteen inches. One of my coloured porters strained with his box. Since the others didn’t think it worth the effort of moving theirs, he scraped it an inch or so across the uneven floor, then went back to sitting on it.

“They call me Major Stanhope,” came the reply in a tone that avoided all hint of rebuke. The officer turned the pages of the passport.

“Well, Major Stanhope,” he said, now mockingly, it says here you’re subject to Imperial immigration control. You sure don’t look like no nigger.”

“British bred,” came the now breezy reply, “though born in Cyprus. The law is very strict, you know—doesn’t just apply to Her Majesty’s coloured subjects. One law for all and all that.” The officer continued looking at the much-stamped pages.

“Next,” the clerk grated. It was my turn. Still trembling, I put my passport on her desk and pulled out the paper copy of my exit visa. She ignored the documents and pointed at the five wooden boxes my coloureds were still attending.

“Next,” she cried. I glanced at my coloureds and pointed at the boxes. There were hours still to go till boarding. But I could at least get out of this bloody queue.

You'll find much more of the same in chapters two to six, which are also available online, and throughout the rest of the book. All quite tame, really, but it seems extreme by modern standards.

Is Sean Gabb a racist, or is he just a valiant defender of free speech who's sometimes deliberately provocative. Does he care about race per se, or is he just interested in it as a proxy for cultural issues?

Ultimately, it doesn't matter.

When Gabb makes a factual claim on matters of race, people may be inclined to doubt it, but the claim will either be true or false, and verification is easier now than ever. People may likewise scrutinise his rhetoric, and once distilled down to its essentials, his argument will either be logically sound, or not. In any debate, we must be wary of those who appeal to motive. Arguments stand or fall on their own merits; motives don't matter.

Moving from the academic to the practical, racism in a libertarian, however distasteful and incongruous, is harmless. It is an issue for the racist, his friends, and family, but poses no threat to others. A bigoted libertarian may choose not to hire people of a certain race, or may refuse to serve them. He may say rude things. But nobody has a right to a job. Nobody has a right to be served. And nobody has a right not to be offended. The racist libertarian owes them nothing.

A racist statist, by contrast, can do tremendous damage. She will demand unequal treatment, favouring one group over another. She will interfere with voluntary transactions between individuals, requiring businessmen to act against their instincts and interests. She'll lobby for our speech to be censored, and use the institutions of the state to indoctrinate our children. If we do not at least outwardly conform to her views, the race-obsessed statist will see us arrested, and our children placed in the care of the state. She will create a climate of fear, with legitimate concerns going undiscussed, and tensions steadily rising.

For my part, I think individualism and libertarianism go hand-in-hand. Racists should be free to hold their views, and to go about their business, so long as they don't infringe on the similar rights of others, but I can't understand why they would cut themselves off from so many brilliant individuals.

Aggregates and averages are of little interest to me. The differences within groups tend to be much larger than the differences between them. Even if it's true that blacks, on average, are better lovers, it would be a foolish woman who passed up a promising suitor, simply because he was white. Even if it's true that blacks, on average, are better basketball players, it would be a foolish coach who chose players based on skin colour, rather than ability. And even if it's true that Asians tend to be more intelligent than whites, who in turn are more intelligent than blacks, it would be a foolish employer who hired based on averages, rather than assessing the aptitude of individual candidates.

Racism is stupid, but it shouldn't be illegal.

Is Dianne Abbott a racist?

Toby Young writes:

Diane Abbott is in hot water again. The gaffe-prone Labour MP sent a tweet to a black journalist that read: "White people love playing 'divide & rule'. We should not play their game #tacticasoldascolonialism"
...
in playing the race card, was Diane Abbott herself being racist? According to the OED, racism is defined as "the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races". By that definition, Abbott was being racist. She was attributing a characteristic – loving to play divide and rule – to a race – white people – and it's plainly an unattractive quality, i.e. intended to distinguish the race in question as morally inferior to the people they're guilty of oppressing.

In an update, he added:

Diane Abbott has now tweeted a response to the outrage her original tweet caused: "Tweet taken out of context. Refers to nature of 19th century European colonialism. Bit much to get into 140 characters." That's weak. She wasn't just referring to "19th century European colonialism", but saying that the same tactic is still used today, hence her warning to Bim Adewunmi not to criticise any black community leaders. She didn't say "White people loved playing 'divide and rule'". She said "White people love playing 'divide and rule'".

True. And whether her tweet relates to present-day whites or 19th century whites, it's still a racial generalisation. I don't think there's any wriggling out of this one.

Young's key point is this:

Imagine the uproar if an equally prominent white Conservative MP said something similar about black people on Twitter? The Conservative whip would be immediately withdrawn and he or she would be forced to step down at the next election.

True enough. But to Young, justice demands that

At the very least, Diane Abbott should apologise and resign from her position as a shadow health minister.

I disagree. Abbott should be entitled to her views, however perverse and unhelpful. Neither she nor anyone else should be pressured to apologise or resign over such comments. Everyone needs to lighten up.

Thoughcrime in Britain

1984:

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.

2011:

England captain John Terry will face a criminal charge of using racist language towards footballer Anton Ferdinand during a Premier League game.

Mr Terry is alleged to have used racist language towards the 26-year-old Queens Park Rangers player during Chelsea's 1-0 defeat at Loftus Road on 23 October.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Mr Terry was accused of a racially aggravated public order offence.

What did he say that was so offensive, so disruptive to 'public order'?

The BBC won't say. You have to turn to The Guardian for the grown-up version:

Video footage circulated on the internet of an incident towards the end of QPR's 1-0 victory in which it has been suggested Terry calls the home defender a "fucking black cunt" as he retreats into his own half of the pitch.

Was the charge brought because the victim of Terry's terrible abuse saw no choice but to involve the police? It seems not:

The decision to charge Mr Terry was taken after police received a complaint from a member of the public.

Ah yes. No doubt a white middle-class Guardianista, offended on someone else's behalf.

Thoughtcrime in France

I haven't been following the news very closely lately, but it sounds like the French have decided to outlaw some more Bad Thoughts. Daniel Hannan has said all I'd want to say on the matter:

I am not competent to pronounce definitively about 1915. Where I do feel competent is in condemning the French decision that, from now on, even to question one side of the argument is a criminal offence. In any free society, the right to say what you believe surely trumps the right not to be offended. This, though, is not even one of those ludicrous ‘hate crime’ issues. What is being proscribed here is intellectual enquiry.

Turkey is right to react as it has. French lawmakers would never dream of legislating to restrict a free discussion of, say, Stalin’s deportations, or the Belgian atrocities in the Congo – or, indeed, France’s own abuses in the Algerian war. Turks are being picked on because French politicians believe that there are votes in Turcophobia, just as Nicolas Sarkozy calculates that there are votes in Anglophobia.

A racially-aggravated offence

BBC News reports:

A woman has been arrested after an online video apparently showed a woman abusing ethnic minority passengers on a packed south London tram.

The clip, viewed more than 10,600 times since being uploaded to YouTube on Sunday, shows a woman sitting with a child, shouting at fellow passengers.

British Transport Police said a woman, 34, had been arrested on suspicion of a racially-aggravated offence.

The BBC article doesn't link to the YouTube video, but the Huffington Post article they link to does. By now it has been watched 1,854,507 times.



She seems like a very unpleasant woman, and quite probably drunk or on drugs. She shouts foul language and generally makes a nuisance of herself. There is a sense in which she can be said to violating the rights of her fellow passengers — their right to peace and quiet. If this were private transport, you might expect her to be banned, possibly for life, for harassing customers.

But does it matter that her tirade was "racially aggravated"? Does she deserve a harsher sentence than someone who shouts similar abuse at rival sports fans, fat people, rich people or smokers? If she had restricted her rant to Polish people, would it have been any better? Should the law really consider skin colour more important than hair colour, height, physical attractiveness, or intelligence?

I think not, and I find it very disturbing that the notion of racially-aggravated crimes exists.

Fight SOPA

My Firefox Start Page greeted me with this today:

The link leads to the following text:

The internet we know and love is at risk. Help save it.

Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could profoundly affect the future of the internet. It's called the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The fact is that this legislation as written won't stop piracy. But it would pose a serious threat to social media and user generated content sites (like YouTube) across the internet. It could also undermine some of the core technical systems underlying the internet, creating new cybersecurity risks.

As a non-profit committed to keeping the web open and accessible to all, Mozilla wants to ensure that this legislation does not jeopardize the foundational structure of the Internet.

I hope American readers will take the time to investigate further.

Toby Young on Ricky Gervais

Toby Young's latest blog post is worth quoting in full:

I'm torn over the Ricky Gervais story. On the one hand, I'm delighted he's getting it in the neck. He's a conceited, vainglorious, self-aggrandising little tick whose carapace of ego is so thick it could take a direct hit from an Exocet missile and still remain intact. Yet, at the same time, I cannot join the hordes of hand-wringers who are tut-tutting over his use of the word "mong" on Twitter. Yes, it's offensive and, no, I don't buy for a minute his excuse that he was just using it as a synonym for "dopey" or "stupid" and had absolutely no idea it was short for mongoloid.

But as a libertarian Tory I don't think any group should be out of bounds when it comes to making jokes, however innocent or vulnerable. If we ring-fence people with Downs as a protected species on the ground that they've done nothing to deserve their disadvantages shouldn't we also ring-fence the stupid and the ignorant and the Welsh? (Okay, I added that last category to be provocative, but you get the idea.) If we confined those we made jokes about to just those who deserved to be the object of ridicule, life would be pretty dull. The best jokes are unfair, cruel, offensive … you name it. That's what makes them funny.

So carry on Ricky. You're an odious little man, but you're entitled to make jokes about whomever you like.

I couldn't put it better.

Toby Young on the Malicious Communications Act

A good post from Toby Young:

As a blogger, my first reaction on learning about the jailing of Sean Duffy, an Internet "troll", was jubilation. "Next time some Left-wing critic of free schools posts an anonymous comment beneath one of my posts accusing me of raping a 14-year-old schoolgirl I can report him to the police," I thought.

But on further reflection, I've come to the conclusion that Sean Duffy should not have been jailed, no matter how stomach-churning his comments. Duffy was prosecuted under the Malicious Communications Act, legislation first passed in 1988 that made it illegal for someone to send a letter which was indecent and/or grossly offensive. As it stands, the legislation is an affront to free speech, not least because people have a perfect right to be offensive. But to broaden it to include anonymous comments left on Facebook pages or beneath blog posts is completely unacceptable.

Quite apart from the question of whether offensiveness should be unlawful – and I don't think it should – there's the issue of who should judge whether a particular comment is grossly offensive. Is it sufficient for one person to claim they're offended? That's too broad since virtually everything is offensive to someone. But if we don't rely on wholly subjective criteria, how should offensiveness be defined? It seems far too open-ended and woolly to be the grounds for curtailing free speech. If we condone it in the case of Sean Duffy – whose remarks were unambiguously offensive – we make it harder to object in more ambiguous cases

He concludes:

I've often complained about being abused by trolls, particularly on Twitter. Nevertheless, I don't wish to see any of them sent to prison... Their existence is a price worth paying for unrestricted free speech.

I quite agree. And I couldn't resist adding a comment from a technical angle:

There's plenty that the grieving family could have done to prevent this abuse, without resorting to the police. For example, they didn't need to allow random people to post to the page.

Sure, they shouldn't have had to do this, but I shouldn't have to lock my front door. I do it anyway, because I must.

Steyn: Gagging us softly

Via Daniel Hannan, I discovered this excellent article by Mark Steyn:

There were funky Chinamen from funky Chinatown” is legal or illegal according to whosoever happens to hear it. Indeed, in my very favorite example of this kind of thinking, the very same words can be proof of two entirely different hate crimes. Iqbal Sacranie is a Muslim of such exemplary moderation he’s been knighted by the Queen. The head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal was interviewed on the BBC and expressed the view that homosexuality was “immoral,” was “not acceptable,” “spreads disease,” and “damaged the very foundations of society.” A gay group complained and Sir Iqbal was investigated by Scotland Yard’s “community safety unit” for “hate crimes” and “homophobia.”

Independently but simultaneously, the magazine of GALHA (the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association) called Islam a “barmy doctrine” growing “like a canker” and deeply “homophobic.” In return, the London Race Hate Crime Forum asked Scotland Yard to investigate GALHA for “Islamophobia.”

Got that? If a Muslim says that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, Scotland Yard will investigate him for homophobia; but if a gay says that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, Scotland Yard will investigate him for Islamophobia.

Two men say exactly the same thing and they’re investigated for different hate crimes. On the other hand, they could have sung “Kung Fu Fighting” back and forth to each other all day long and it wouldn’t have been a crime unless a couple of Chinese passersby walked in the room.

Staggering.

Other episodes that Steyn relates beggar belief:

Fourteen-year-old Codie Stott asked her teacher at Harrop Fold High School whether she could sit with another group to do her science project as in hers the other five pupils spoke Urdu and she didn’t understand what they were saying. The teacher called the police, who took her to the station, photographed her, fingerprinted her, took DNA samples, removed her jewelry and shoelaces, put her in a cell for three and a half hours, and questioned her on suspicion of committing a Section Five “racial public-order offence.” “An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark,” declared the headmaster, Antony Edkins. The school would “not stand for racism in any form.” In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said they took “hate crime” very seriously, and their treatment of Miss Stott was in line with “normal procedure.”

The BBC's coverage of the event (from 13 October 2006), is here. We're not told what Codie Stott actually said, but even if it had been "I don't want to sit with no stinking Pakis", the reaction would still have been frighteningly over the top. Why is it not a matter of national outrage?

Steyn's article is worth reading in full.

Trinity Mirror vs News International

Via Tom Paine, I discovered this useful bit of context from Archbishop Cranmer:

His Grace was interested to learn that the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and (Sunday) People are all stabled together under the Trinity Mirror Group, and that the 2006 table of crimes and misdemeanours establishes beyond doubt that Trinity Mirror are actually more corrupt than either News International or the Mail Group. Adding up the total number of incidents of illegally-acquired data by journalists, we arrive at:

Trinity Mirror: 1663 incidents by 139 journalists
Mail Group: 1248 incidents by 95 journalists
News International: 182 incidents by 19 journalists

...
So, while not excusing the illicit activities of a few News International journalists and possibly their editors, it is important to reflect calmly on the facts and introduce a little sense of proportion into the furore. If Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks are not considered by David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband to be a ‘fit and proper’ people to own and run BSkyB, why is Viscount Rothermere fit to own the Mail Group? Why is Paul Dacre fit to edit the Daily Mail? Why is Ian Gibson fit to be Chairman of Trinity Mirror? And why is the ‘violent and dishonest’ pornographer Richard Desmond deemed sufficiently ‘fit and proper’ to own the Express Group and Channel 5?

Quite (though unlike Cranmer, I don't think there's anything wrong with pornography per se).

As I write, taxpayer-funded Newsnight merrily continues its 'fit and proper' witch hunt.

Free press and free markets

Tom Paine is back to blogging with a vengeance, and continues to write great stuff on the News of the World saga.

Earlier this morning, he noted:

News International's share price is falling. But so is that of BSkyB, its acquisition target. The market says - in effect - that the takeover adds value; that BSkyB is better fully owned by Murdoch. That the politicians are about to exact vengeance for years of having to crawl to a man who could only be ethically superior to the likes of them is destroying economic value. That, gentle reader, is what governments do. What the "eevil" Murdoch does is create it. Neither can be trusted, of course, because they are human. But a society that trusts those who destroy more than those who create deserves its fate.

In his latest post, he writes:

I am concerned by the current threat to our free press and glad that the question is being raised in the mainstream media. I am not surprised Andrew Gilligan is prominent among the warning voices. As he points out in the Daily Telegraph;

In my career as a journalist I have lied, I have received stolen goods and for these things I have won two of the top awards in the profession.

Quite. And the Daily Telegraph committed at least one crime to expose the rampant expenses fraud in Westminster. When the hysteria dies down, let it please be remembered that no-one cared about the News of the World hacks hacking phones until they crossed not a legal but a moral boundary. The real danger now is that "the great and the good" (not to mention the self-serving slebs) will screen their wrongdoings for ever from the people's gaze, using the weapon of a sentimental indignation that cannot safely or properly be translated into law.

I recommend the whole article.

No more News of the World

Yesterday I tweeted about a disturbing interview on the morning news programme I love to hate:

@BBCBreakfast media commenter says "*if* you have a free (unregulated) press, that comes with responsibility". Only to obey the law, surely!

I didn't have time to follow it up with a blog post, and there was precious little room to express my surprise and horror in 140 characters, so I was glad to see the story picked up by Tom Paine over at The Last Ditch:

Crimes have been committed here, as have civil wrongs. There must be prosecutions and I am sure there will be civil suits. Those who are liable (whether personally or vicariously) should be held to criminal and financial account. But I sincerely hope there will be no new laws to limit the freedom of the press and no wasteful public enquiries. What was done was already illegal. The "something" that everyone is baying "must be done" is already provided by law. A public enquiry (which the PM sadly seemed to concede today) will be yet another waste of public funds. Now is one of those recurring times to remember that laws are evils in themselves. New ones should only be made when they are lesser evils.
...
As to the ethical question, of course journalists should have standards. Of course they should be prepared to stand by them, even at the risk of not being able to pay their mortgages. I make no excuses for the conduct of the News of the World's journalists and editors in this case. I merely observe (as is equally true of The Guardian's readers who are defending a self-confessed liar because he lied to make their heroes look good) that the morals of a newspaper are those of its readers. You simply don't sell newspapers by telling your readers what they don't want to hear. Of the professional media outlets, only the BBC, compulsorily funded even by those who despise it, has the privilege to set its own line.

Lord Tebbit had similarly sensible things to say in his post yesterday evening:

There can be no excuses for what was done by investigators or journalists in the pay of editorial executives at The News Of The World. However, it would take a strong stomach not to be revolted at the smug, self satisfied journalists of the Left, who were ready with excuses for one of their kind recently uncovered as having regularly stolen the work of other writers and made a living by passing it off as his own, but are writhing with delight at the exposure, humiliation and possible downfall of their enemies in the far more popular and successful Murdoch press.

Even if there were to be no more revelations, enough is now known to be pretty sure that criminal offences have been committed. Those responsible should be prosecuted wherever there is sufficient evidence to do so. That includes those who procured the offences as well as they who actually committed them. And it might include police officers who assisted in the commission of offences.

It was great to see both Tebbit and Paine make the connection with Johann Hari, whose shamelessness beggars belief.

Tom Paine returned to the News of the World story in a subsequent post

A 'public inquiry' or even (God help us) 'inquiries', as mooted by the Prime Minister, will just provide opportunities for politicians to score points off each other. It will further infantalise a debate that is already being conducted, not least by Milliband Minor at PMQs today, at the level of an afternoon TV chat show.

Worst of all, the distinguished member of 'the Great and the Good" who chairs the inquiry will feel the need to immortalise him/herself by coming up with "deliverables" to be implemented by government. The most likely deliverables are bad laws that will interfere with press freedom.

But it was his original post that proved prescient:

Tony Blair's best mate Rupert Murdoch has it in his own hands to cleanse his tabloid stables and he is well hard enough to do it quickly and well. Having followed his career for many years, I imagine he is waiting only to be sure that when he strikes, he does not need to strike again, thus dragging the story out.

Sure enough, I heard on the radio after work that Murdoch has pulled the plug on The News of the World.

The good chaps at The Register win the prize for best headline:

UPDATE

Daniel Hannan sums things up nicely:

In the end, the News of the World was brought down by consumer pressure: a combination of the withdrawal of advertising and the likelihood of a popular boycott. Where lawsuits, libel actions, PCC rulings, government regulations and commercial rivals had failed, Adam Smith’s invisible hand succeeded.

Geert Wilders cleared of hate charges by Dutch court

Excellent news from the BBC yesterday:

Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders, who described Islam as "fascist", has been acquitted of inciting hatred against Muslims.

Amsterdam judge Marcel van Oosten accepted the Freedom Party leader's statements were directed at Islam and not at Muslim believers.

They were, the judge ruled, "acceptable within the context of public debate".

It is of course shocking that the charges were brought in the first place. Had his statements been directed at "Muslim believers" rather than Islam, he still shouldn't have faced prosecution. Causing offence should not be a criminal act. Judges shouldn't be ruling on what kind of speech is "acceptable within the context of public debate".

Those who can't stand the notion of free speech are undaunted:

It is believed the plaintiffs may attempt to make their case before a European court or the UN.

Their lawyer, Ties Prakken, was quoted by Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf as saying they were "deeply disappointed" and believed the right of minorities to be protected against hate speech had been violated.

Protected against 'hate speech'? Even if Wilders had explicitly encouraged violence against Muslims (in the style of "behead those who insult Islam"), responsibility for any violent acts would rest with those who undertook them. Tom Paine wrote a good article about this back in February 2009:

The very concept of "incitement" is a flawed one. And it is a flawed concept which is in course of being rapidly and dangerously extended. Our legal system believes there are people so dumb that they will hate whole races if "incited" to do so. What tosh. They have the choice to hate or not hate. And if they hate, then they have the choice whether or not to harm the objects of their hatred. I hate Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman and David Blunkett with a veritable passion, but until I act upon it there's no crime involved.

I happen to think that Mr Wilders has a perfectly valid point, but even if I disagreed with him, I'd want him to be free to speak his mind.

Mr Wilders has compared the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf.
...

Outside the courtroom, the 47-year-old politician said he was "incredibly happy" with the verdict.

"It's not only an acquittal for me, but a victory for freedom of expression in the Netherlands," he said.

"Now the good news is that it's also legal to be critical about Islam, to speak publicly in a critical way about Islam and this is something that we need because the Islamisation of our societies is a major problem and a threat to our freedom and I'm allowed to say so."

Trial for racism

This morning a story was reported on BBC Breakfast casually and without comment. Though noteworthy, they must have seen it as the most natural thing in the world: John Galliano will stand trial in Paris today on charges of racism.

Had he been burning crosses in the gardens of Parisian suburbs? Had he been desecrating graves? Had he been walking about, face covered, violently attacking those he disapproves of? Had he even been inciting others to violence?

No, it's nothing you might traditionally think of as a crime. As CBC reports,

Prosecutors have said Galliano could face up to six months in prison and $31,000 US in fines if convicted of "public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity."

Six months in prison for public insults. Six months in prison for causing offence.

Perhaps he will be let off, but the frightening thing here is that the law exists and prosecutors are prepared to use it.

Couldn't happen here? Consider this, as reported in The Guardian:

[Nick] Griffin was given a suspended prison sentence in 1998 after being convicted of "publishing or distributing racially ­inflammatory written material", an offence under the 1986 Public Order Act

In 2005, as BNP leader, he was charged again

accused of using words or behaviour intended or likely to stir up racial hatred.

The trial opened in 2006, as reported by The Guardian:

Opening the prosecution's case, Rodney Jameson QC said that both of the accused had tried to win BNP votes by creating a "nightmare vision" of Asians carrying out attacks on white people.

Mr Jameson said: "The prosecution allege that each of the six speeches ... included words which were threatening, abusive and insulting towards, in particular, people of Asian ethnicity. Such words were used with the intention of stirring up racial hatred."

I hate the Labour party. I hate the trade unions. I hate the EU. There are plenty on the Left who openly declare their hatred for Margaret Thatcher, Tories, toffs, and bankers. Some even chanted "off with their heads" to Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. Unlike Galliano and Griffin, they backed up their words with actual acts of violence.

But should 'hate' itself be illegal? What is 'hate', on its own, but a poisonous emotion that affects the one who holds it? Is 'racial hatred' really so different that it deserves special treatment by the law.

As Tom Paine wrote recently

A Jew, a German and two Poles are among the ten best people I have ever met. There are two Jews, three Germans and a Pole among the ten worst. From this, admittedly anecdotal, evidence I have concluded that peoples of all nations, tribes and religions come in all ethical flavours. That's why racism is so stupid as to be not worth worrying about. People who have no better criteria than ethnicity for ranking themselves against the rest of humanity are cretins.

I couldn't agree more. We should pity racists, not prosecute them.

Do we really want to live in a society where holding certain opinions, or expressing them, is punishable by prison. Can we call such a society free?

Government removal request

No, unfortunately this isn't a new feature of YouTube that allows you to remove your government ...


According to YouTube, the UK government doesn't want people to see this video.


I received the link by email, and I can't say for sure what was there. Was it a matter of national security? How much do you trust your government?

Google helpfully keep track of these take-down requests:



They provide a table showing both data requests and removal requests for various countries, while their FAQ includes links to Chilling Effects and the OpenNet Initiative.

Now seems like a good time for a wget backup of my blog (should set up a cron job, really...)

Assange arrested in London

On Saturday, Tom Paine wrote about the charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange:

The most interesting thing about the Wikileaks story is not the information published (was anyone really naieve enough to be surprised?) but the responses of state power everywhere. Totalitarians, kleptocrats, democrats; their angry reactions barely differ. The criminal charges brought against Julian Assange in Sweden, for example, are not so much stitched up as haute couture. All the casual observer will recall is that he was accused of rape. So much for the benevolence of states.

Today, the BBC reports that Assange was arrested and refused bail:

Mr Assange was arrested by appointment at a London police station at 0930 GMT.

Police contacted Mr Stephens on Monday night after receiving a European arrest warrant from the Swedish authorities.
...

Gerard Batten, a UKIP MEP, said the Assange case highlighted the dangers of the European arrest warrant.

He said: "I don't know of the quality of the evidence in Mr Assange's case but it does seem that he is involved in political turmoil and intrigue and there are a lot of people keen to shut him up and there is nothing a court in the UK can do to look at the evidence before they extradite him."

Mr Assange is an Australian citizen and his supporters have written an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, asking her to protect him.

Mr Pilger, who appeared in court to support Mr Assange, said Ms Gillard's threat to remove his passport smacked of "totalitarianism".

The charges against Assange are deeply suspicious, but whatever their veracity, it is concerning that British politicians can't be held to account for allowing the extradition. Not our choice, gov.

We've come a long way since the European Economic Community. When will the people rise up and demand a referendum?

I fear that unlike the students who have recently been calling for a revolution, horrified at the prospect of paying for a greater proportion of their own education, the ordinary decent hard-working taxpayer is too busy trying to make ends meet.

No laughing matter

A recent article on The Register drew my attention to a bizarre and concerning incident in France:

Glamourous MEP Rachida Dati complained to the police after an unnamed 40-year-old wrote to her asking for an "inflation", the Telegraph reports.

The request was a reference to a recent, widely-reported Freudian slip by Dati, who confused the French words for inflation and fellatio in a radio interview.

Talking about overseas investment funds she said: "I see some of them looking for returns of 20 or 25 per cent, at a time when fellatio is almost non-existent."

In response to his rather clever joke,

Lyon's Judicial Police raided [the man's] home and arrested him. Following 48 hours in custody, he faces a prison sentence of up to a month and a fine of up to €10,000 on charges of "displaying contempt towards a public servant".

Eh bien, les Français sont fous. It does makes you wonder what sort of treatment we can expect as the EU assumes greater policing powers, but the truth is that our own police, politicians, and courts have already lost their sense of humour.

Trainee accountant Paul Chambers lost his job, and faces thousands of pounds worth of fines, for an off-the-cuff remark on Twitter. Following closures due to snow, he declared:

"Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week... otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!"
...
[Defence counsel Stephen Ferguson] said the prosecution had failed to prove his client had any intention to threaten anyone or that he thought there was any risk someone would interpret the tweet in this way.

Quite.

The latest victim of Twitter trouble is Gareth Compton, who tweeted

Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't. It would be a blessing, really.

In bad taste, perhaps, but could anyone seriously interpret this as anything other than a joke? It's a far cry from "Behead those who insult Islam".

Sean Gabb's article on the subject is well worth reading. Recalling his youth, he writes

there was never any question that jokes in poor taste might be illegal. I remember reading an article once in The Spectator where Auberon Waugh called on a television producer to be put up against a wall and shot. Some people laughed. Others scowled. There was never any question that the police might be involved.

England is now a country where virtually any words uttered in public can be treated as a criminal offence. Without thinking very hard, I can remember how Nick Griffin of the British National Party stood trial for having called Islam “a wicked vicious faith”. I can remember how a drunken student was arrested and fined for telling a policeman that his horse looked “gay”. I can remember how a man was arrested and charged and fined for standing beside the Cenotaph and reading out the names of the British war dead in Iraq. I remember a case from this year where a pacifist unfurled a banner outside an army cadet training base. “Stop training murderers”, it said. His home was promptly raided by police with dogs, while a helicopter hovered overhead. He was arrested and cautioned.

After noting the many laws that should be repealed, Gabb makes an important point about those who enforce the law:

Even if police powers could be rolled back to where they were in about 1960, these traditional powers would still be used oppressively. Power is restrained in part by law. Beyond that, it is restrained by common sense and common decency. These are qualities now absent from the police in England, and no changes in law or exhortations from the top can bring them back. Anyone who wants all the policing our taxes buy needs his head examined.

There is no doubt that all those High Tory critics of Robert Peel were right about the dangers of setting up a state police force. It took over a hundred and fifty years to show how right they were. But, when someone is arrested for making jokes about Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, we can see that the line has been crossed that separates a state with police from a police state.

No doubt there are still many good police officers, but I'm sure Gabb is right that there are also many bad ones, and that police culture has shifted. Long gone is the historic tradition,

that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence