UK Gov't Launches 'Your Freedom' Website To Seek Laws Worth Repealing 332
Firefalcon writes "The UK Government launched Thursday the 'Your Freedom' website, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, to 'identify laws that should be repealed.' In a recent tweet, Police State UK pointed out an article in the New Statesman which appeals for people to call on the Government to repeal the ill thought-out Digital Economy Act that was rushed through Parliament without sufficient scrutiny. While part of the Act is regarding the digital TV switchover, other sections allow for users to be restricted or disconnected from the Internet at the behest of copyright owners, which goes against the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' that has been in place since the Magna Carta."
thousand and one laws (Score:3, Interesting)
This should be coupled with a law that states there can only be a thousand laws (not including this law) on the books at any one time.
That means that if they want to add a new law, they would have to get rid of an old one to make space. This would keep the number of laws from getting ridiculous, as well as discourage legislators from passing laws simply to look like they're doing something. Though I suppose they could be cunning and have one of the laws always be a disposable one which would be the one replaced by the new useless law which would then become the disposable one.
Hm. There's gotta be a way to discourage politicians from making new laws. Perhaps just keep it simple and make the price of introducing a new law a finger or thumb. No mp could introduce more than 10 laws, and they might be reluctant to introduce even one.
Sounds great, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:thousand and one laws (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:thousand and one laws (Score:5, Interesting)
Hm. There's gotta be a way to discourage politicians from making new laws.
I've heard it suggested that every law should automatically expire after a fixed period, such as one year or five years. Not only would the legislature be kept busy with votes for the laws that obviously should be kept ("Uh oh, armed robbery is going to become legalized on Wednesday..."), but it would limit the damage from laws that spend frivolously, are poorly thought out, or are motivated by special interests. At worst, lobbyists would have influence legislators over and over again to reap the benefits of a law that favors them.
Not saying it's the best idea, but it's definitely an interesting one, and I feel strongly that we need a way to get laws that were, say, meant to help bring electricity to rural areas 80 years ago off the books.
Re:thousand and one laws (Score:2, Interesting)
Impose a word limit + prohibit abbreviations?
Let's say 150 words apiece so the laws of the land can be published unabridged in a modest paperback format. The perfect gift for every child as they turn 10 and gain criminal responsibility.
I knew things have changed in britain (Score:5, Interesting)
immediately thereafter he apologized to irish for the bloody sunday. then, he come up proposing that queen's funds should be frozen. (11 mil or so a year). now, his partner clegg comes up with this.
it is sorry time for elite bloodsuckers in britain
lots of pot smokers on there (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:thousand and one laws (Score:2, Interesting)
that would help get rid of the laws like this http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=couple+pay+for+church+repairs [google.co.uk]
Re:Seriously? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Libertarian is best (Score:3, Interesting)
Take off the pink colored glasses, will you, it was only good if you were rich, white, straight and male.
Race, gender and sexual orientation equality were not important issues back then. If we were to return to this '19th century libertarianism', we would have all the good parts as well as all of our modern equality. As for being rich, no economic system in the world has solved that particular problem.
Clegg, Illness not cure. (Score:1, Interesting)
It's rather odd that Nick Clegg (having taken to the Conservative-Liberal coalition like a duck to water) has had to set up this consultation with the public. Prior to May's election his party, the Liberal Democrats, had a fairly comprehensive list of laws they'd like to repeal - as well as supposedly stalwart opposition to illiberal laws proposed by the previous authoritarian government. My thinking was that Clegg could simply re-read his manifesto from a whole 3 months ago, and gain a laundry list of repeals from that.
However it isn't that simple; despite his party being a vital component of the coalition most of the LibDem policies haven't been integrated convincingly to the workings of the government. This has become a much-sneered at point here in Britain; those who voted for Clegg at the election believed in his constant optimistic tone. He struck this same tone to a greater or lesser extent at all the TV debates we had; saying that Britain could become a fine nation, recapture its liberal values which it founded so long ago etc etc. He presented himself as a charismatic leader, with his second-in-command Vince Cable present to provide a sound economic policy; Cable had warned multiple times of an impending recession and was ignored. So we liked the combination; supposedly good leader and less-charismatic but wise economy-guru.
Clegg back in 2003 had partly authored a neoliberal tract named 'The Orange Book' - this basically cast aside most of the social-democratic principles which held quite some sway in the Lib Dems, and proposed a shift to the right for continued economic prosperity. Once the election and post-election negotiation ended, Clegg's deal was revealed. Most were surprised that he'd sold himself short, and abandoned a lot of the socially liberal principles native to his party...there are no signs of the Lib Dem proposals to 'recapture the values' of the past; Clegg has thusfar toed the Tory line - dragging his party into a place quite far from their liberal values. This has caused derision amongst LibDem voters; the Guardian recently had an article which claimed half of them would consider voting for another party next time round.
Basically the Clegg phenomena should have been seen a mile away, and was seen by a minority of individuals. The press went along with "Cleggmania", and the more vitriolic gutter press went with smear campaigns. It all seemed rather refreshing at the time; this liberal guy enraging all the nanny-state, corporate Murdoch press etc. But the truth wasn't investigated in the flurry, perhaps wilfully cast aside - the truth that Clegg, economically and socially, had a heck of a lot in common with our now-Prime Minister Dave Cameron. As I said in a topic on British laws against photographing police a couple of days ago...the new coalition government will not tackle the majority of New Labour's authority intensive legislation. That the Terrorism Act is so broad and vague means its use amongst rank-and-file constables doesn't belong in any democratic nation. The best we can hope for is a moderating of the law, with the formerly positive Clegg now a stooge (or be it, lapdog) of one of our most negative governments in quite some time. Clegg never put up much hardball negotiation, because he saw little worth bargaining for in keeping with his ideology.
Re:Top of my list would be... (Score:4, Interesting)
They are repealing the games industry tax relief, it was announced in the budget.
Top of my list would be drug laws, mainly because they don't work, and end up criminalising a very large proportion of the populace. There are an estimated one million _regular_ cocaine users in the country. There are over 3 million regular cannabis users. I'd personally guess that over half the population have at some point tried something illegal. The most idiotic of recent laws is the one outlawing mephedrone (which despite the newspaper hysteria has not been verifiably linked to any deaths yet), because it also outlaws many other drugs that have not ever been used by anyone. Basically, what I do in my own free time, as long as I don't inconvenience anyone else, should be for me to decide. If I decide to take something that might kill me, that is my decision - I don't need the government nannying me. The government currently is outlawing drugs for people's protection supposedly, and then locking up those same people.... if the goal is to protect people from the harmful effects, the solution is not to lock them up at the taxpayer's expense. Up to 4 billion pounds could be raised in revenue if drugs that are currently being used were taxed.
In no particular order, some others may be :
DRM circumvention illegality, as mentioned elseware.
Public disorder offences - I'm not against them per se, but recent laws are incredibly vague and make loads of things illegal.
Drunk and disorderly - Either enforce it or get rid of it... there are millions of drunk disorderly people on the streets every weekend.
All laws allowing detention without charge... 28 days is too long, which brings me on to...
All anti-terror laws. They are all shit and worthless (as far as I was aware, blowing people up was arleady illegal prior to anti-terror legislation), and infringe upon everone's rights. Glorifying terrorism is now an offense, which we seem to have been for ages when the terrorists are on our side (ANC, French Resistance, etc).
Some child protection laws - Two policewomen were recently found to be breaking the law by looking after each other's children, without being registered.
Some "eco" laws such as the illegality of incandescent light bulbs
Laws censoring the internet (currently being overseen by a non-governmental unnaccountable body, the Internet Watch Foundation) - They don't work, get over it.
Laws requiring people to reveal passwords to encrypted devices, which criminalise people who have forgotten their password
Some sex offences which require people to be put on the sex offenders register and not be allowed to work with children for the rest of their lives, like peeing against a lamppost, or somone on their 16th birthday having sex with someone a day younger than them.
Distribution of child pornography laws that apply to yourself - a 17 year old girl who sends a picture of her tits to her boyfriend is guilty of this.
Incitement to racial/religious hatred laws. I'm an atheist who really hates some religions, and tries to convince others to hate them too, ergo I am a criminal.
What depresses me is that I could go on - these are just some of the more important ones IMO. The last Labour government introduced almost 5000 new laws, so I am not convinced knocking off one or two will actually make a difference. Fortunately for us they have outlawed setting off a nuclear device, so we can all rest easy now... or perhaps that may have been covered by existing laws. Better safe than sorry, I guess.
Re:Libertarian is best (Score:2, Interesting)
The economic system of 19th century Britain was made possible by the fact that minorities were oppressed? I fail to see how that's an integral part of the economy, and why, if we have to have some group serve as an underclass, we can't decide who the underclass is based on the people's merits (ie. high school dropouts working in McDonalds, like what we have now) rather than their race.
As for worker protections, finally we're getting into actual arguments here. I, however, would argue that worker protections, in general, are a bad thing. They deny workers the right to work at wages low enough to compete with third world countries, so we're stuck relying on manufacturing in China while our workers are unemployed. What situation would you rather be in, unemployment or a choice between a $4/hour job and unemployment?
Re:thousand and one laws (Score:5, Interesting)
The cost of that still becomes prohibative over a long period.
How about this: after a law is passed it expires 5 years later.
If it is re-passed it takes 10 years to expire.
If after 10 more years it gets passed again then it lasts 20 years.
then 40
etc etc
that way laws like "no stabbing people" wouldn't have to be reviewed too often.
Laws which often fail would have to be reviewed a lot(as they should since that would imply they're not popular).
Re:thousand and one laws (Score:1, Interesting)
Law has many similarities to programming - can you imagine the issues associated with limiting the no. of lines of code that a program's source may consist of, while still requiring the same functionality?
Well in that case maybe laws should be written in Haskell rather than C++. It takes 10x fewer lines and is much easier to read once you get the hang of it.
(Interesting thought. What if you did design your legislature like a programming team. Unit testing, integration testing, QA team, customer acceptance testing ... what would those mean in the creation of law.)