UK Libel Law Is a Global Threat To Web Free Speech 363
uctpjac writes "London media lawyer Emily MacManus argues that UK libel law has three features which make it the 'defamation tourism' capital of the world and a serious threat to Web free speech. First, there is no free speech presumption in the UK as there is, for example, in the US. Second, every access of a Web page is considered to be a separate act of publication in the UK (unlike the US, where 'original publication' holds). Third, 'no-win-no-fee' libel litigation is now allowed in the UK. If any blog, anywhere, publishes something you'd like taken down, threaten libel action in the UK: no one except the super-rich can afford to even take these cases to court, so media lawyers advise publishers to 'take it down, take it down quickly, take it down again.' There's not much chance that the judges will move the law any time soon because they just aren't seeing the cases that could cause them to set new precedent."
implications (Score:5, Interesting)
Sooooo, what does this mean to a citizen of another country (say the United States) who has no assets in GB? Are they able to reach out and touch you?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Sooooo, what does this mean to a citizen of another country (say the United States) who has no assets in GB? Are they able to reach out and touch you?
Probably not.
Well, in the USA, there legislation in progress to explicitly prohibit US courts from assisting UK libel verdict enforcement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism#Proposed_Federal_legislation [wikipedia.org]
These laws were prompted by rich Saudis linked to terrorism financing suing in UK courts for libel.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Fighting for freedom of speech must be done before it is threathened in your own country.
Why should I care about foreign court orders? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a British citizen. I have no assets in the UK anybody could seize.
Why should I care if you sue me in a UK court? You could get a court order entitling you to a million pound. How would you collect? Ask me to send you a cheque from the US?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why should I care about foreign court orders? (Score:5, Insightful)
Believe it or not, some slashdotters actually live in the UK!
Yes, and it's bad they live under such rules. I hope they'll be able to use the democratic process to change them, or the immigration process to make them inapplicable to them.
But my point is that it is not a global threat to Web free speech as the article said. Of course, UK law can hurt UK residents, just as US law can hurt US residents. That's part of the cost of living in a country, and the reason I switched.
Re:Why should I care about foreign court orders? (Score:5, Informative)
UK judgments, and really those from any country, can be enforced against US citizens, even those that have never been to that country and have no assets anywhere other than in the US. Now a US court will require that the party trying to enforce the foreign judgment demonstrate that you had sufficient contacts with the foreign state to warrant personal jurisdiction, but directing speech to people in that country may be enough to enable the other party to enforce that judgment in the US. Its not just "oh, I don't live in the UK and have never been there, so I can't be sued there." Nothing is further from the truth. That is why is is a global threat to free speech.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, and we expect to be bound by the laws of our country. We're still trying to work out why other people think that they are. Do the UK's truth in advertising laws also apply worldwide? If so, a lot of people in the USA corporations should start hiring more lawyers...
If someone files suit in the UK against you for libel and you don't show up, what happens? The court finds you guilty in absentia and... what? Tells you to stop or they will shout stop again?
Re:Why should I care about foreign court orders? (Score:5, Interesting)
Come and get me, bitches.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why should I care about foreign court orders? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why should I care about foreign court orders? (Score:4, Funny)
>>>The court finds you guilty in absentia and... what? Tells you to stop or they will shout stop again?
Well it would certainly cut-down on UK tourism: "Sorry hon we can't go to England - I have a warrant for my arrest." "For what???" "I called Prince William a drunken embarrassment on my blog, and a judge convicted me of libel." "Oooh." "In fact pretty much the whole of the European Union is off-limits due to extradition laws." "...." "Yeah."
Re: (Score:2)
""In fact pretty much the whole of the European Union is off-limits due to extradition laws." "...." "Yeah.""
Really? I rather like Eastern Europe...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"I called Prince William a drunken embarrassment on my blog, and a judge convicted me of libel."
He is a drunken embarrassment. Truth is an accepted defence for libel in the UK, so you'll have no problem. The crap British newspapers love printing pictures and stories about drunk prince(sses).
Re: (Score:2)
Bah, not like it gets a lot of traffic anyway
Re: (Score:2)
Go right ahead. It's not as if there isn't other midget on horse sex sites that I can visit.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
(repeat from below)
Within the EU, this is relatively straightforward. The Brussels Regime provides a framework for one member state to enforce the judgement of the Courts in another member state.
Within the US, there is also (in most cases) a mechanism for the enforcement of a foreign (i.e. UK) monetary judgements, but this isn't automatic by any means and is dependent on state law.
It should be noted that, in both cases, such judgements won't be honoured if the appeal process is still ongoing.
The Brussels Co
Re: (Score:2)
True, but just don't ever travel to Europe. Chances are you'll transfer at Heathrow...
Re: (Score:2)
Not being able to visit the UK would be a problem for me. It's a nice place, and I have friends and family there. But I don't think a civil court order would be enough to get me arrested if I visit there as a tourist.
Jurisdiction? (Score:3, Interesting)
I am pretty sure a UK libel judgement against foreign citizens and servers cannot be enforced. A UK judgement cannot be enforced against servers located in the United States. That would be an abrogation of the rights of the United States to be the sole police of its citizenry. Imagine a world where foreign judgements are enforceable: courts in Nigeria would be issuing summons to Bill Gates for millions of dollars!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
English court judgements, and that is what it would be, can be enforced easily in England and Wales. They can in most cases be enforced in Scotland and Northern Ireland with a bit more difficulty, and similarly across the rest of the EU.
Re: (Score:2)
How? Details please. Civil cases specifically.
Re: (Score:2)
You go to the Sheriff court in Scotland for example and apply for an order to enforce the judgement you got in England. Then all the enforcement mechanisms in Scotland such as seizing assets and selling them at auction, earnings arrestment orders and so on are available to you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
IANAL, but I understand that, at the discretion of the local courts, civil judgements obtained in one common law jurisdiction can be enforced in other common law jurisdictions, so English judgements have been enforced in the US, Australia etc and vice versa, usually involving cases where someone has been judged to owe money in one jurisdiction and has been traced to another.
However, because of the issue of libel tourism from the UK, US states have recently begun to specifically exclude the enforcement of En
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it can. However, you will need to get a US court with proper jurisdiction to enforce the order, and US courts won't do that if there is a constitutional defense available (like free speech).
Re:Jurisdiction? (Score:5, Informative)
Extradition is governed by treaties and only applies to criminal cases. Most extradition treaties require the demanding country to prove a prima facie case of a crime. If the UK suddenly made libel a crime so it could extradite violators, most countries would change their extradition treaties accordingly.
The article is just being sensationalist. It sucks if you are in the UK, or have your servers there, or if you have property within the UK, but the rest of the world is not affected by the UK civil law. The end effect will be that servers will not be hosted in the UK and media companies will avoid it as well.
makes me glad I'm not an English citizen (Score:3, Insightful)
*thinks back to all the times UK posters have bitched and moaned about "rights", not visiting the US, etc*
Always found it amusing in the first place given they've gone completely fucking bonkers with speed cameras, CCTV, "anti social behavior" laws, and of course the UK has much of the same anti-terror bullshit. Meanwhile, Cambridge (mass) just rejected cameras that were going to be installed by Homeland Insecurity over privacy issues. The backlash is gaining; in the UK, it never started.
Our politicians seem to be trying desperately to go the way of England with taxes, but the decision to split from England ~230 years ago appears to have been an excellent one nonetheless.
Submitter is either misleading or mislead (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no idea what the submitter is referring to when he claims that the UK lacks a right to free speech. The article itself makes no such claim, although it does go on to raise other issues that are less easy to argue with.
As a result of the Human Rights Act 1998, any body acting in a public manner, not just in a vertical (governmental) relationship as in the US Bill of Rights, is required to act in accordance with ECHR articles. Article 10 guarantees a right to freedom of expression, limited only in accordance with law, and only where such laws are found to be necessary for a functioning democratic society. As another commenter points out above, neither this, nor the US's first amendment, are apt to shield defamers from litigation.
On another note, I don't appreciate the UK being referred to as a whole in this matter, we in Scotland have a distinct legal system and this is more relevant in regard to defamation than in almost any other area.
If you take issue with our defamation law, that's something you need to raise with the EU, where most of our modern development in this regard, especially electronic correspondence, comes from. However, it's irresponsible and misleading to imply that we lack basic respect for a right to free speech.
I_A_AL, he clearly isn't.
Not entirely true - Judges are getting it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Judges and Appeal judges are starting to get it. In the mean time, make sure you post your opinions of bankers and politicians through a suitable proxy onto US servers.
Australian free speach in action .. (Score:2)
'We are the lawyers for Mr ******* [slashdot.org] who has been the victim of three highly defamatory anonymous postings which you have allowed on your website
A worrying development? (Score:2)
What is worrying is that many ISPs and webhosts around the world may start to block UK IPs from accessing material on sites they host on their servers to avoid UK legal action (if it can't be accessed from the UK then how can it be prosecuted under UK law, right?).
This could be the great UK firewall the government has been fighting hard for, but so far failing to achieve. Except that this would be imposed by everyone OUTSIDE of the UK, leaving us all isolated and we'd have no way to fight it.
free speech presumption (Score:2)
Doesn't exist most places does it?
Remember, when the UN comes in and gets its way of the 'lowest common denominator' ( using the WTO as its persuasion tactic ), your countries sovereignty wont mean much.
Missed the elephant in the living room (Score:5, Interesting)
The basic thing that's wrong with UK libel law is that the burden of proof is on the defendant. The defendant must prove that the published article isn't libelous, whereas in the US the prosecution must prove that the article is libelous. In the UK the defamatory article is assumed to be wrong unless the defendant proves it true, whereas in the US the article is assumed to be true unless the prosecution proves it false. And then the US prosecutor would have to prove that it was maliciously false, that the defendant knew it to be false. Welcome to Soviet Britain, where defendant is guilty until proven innocent!
UK law in libel was designed to protect the powerful against 'false' accusations in the press, where US law was designed to protect the press in publishing accusations. See John Peter Zenger [wikipedia.org]
People don't read certain UK newspapers (Score:3, Insightful)
The Daily Mail does it quite often and I don't see them getting into trouble.
Judges? (Score:2)
There's not much chance that the judges will move the law any time soon because they just aren't seeing the cases that could cause them to set new precedent.
Or more likely because judges don't have authority to "move the law" -- that's the legilature's responsibility, not the judiciary's.
Tabloids (Score:2)
So why do tabloids get away with printing so much bullshit about people for so long? Only a few rich people have managed to successfully sue them recently.
To quote Avy from Snatch: (Score:3, Funny)
- Anything to declare?
- Yeah, don't go to England
I wonder (Score:3, Interesting)
Before "the web", these sorts of problems did not exist. You would have to publish the item as a book or paper and have it physically distributed via the local system, and thereby be subject to local controls. I suppose in some cases, you could pick up a broadcast via satellite, but by and large a country's physical borders provided information borders. Now with the web, you can email, visit web sites etc around the world fairly unobstructed. Even in china, I think you can get past their firewall in some ways. The question is, will countries, even western countries, snip the wires to try to put the genie back in the bottle? I think you could even find solutions to still allowing email. Why not just "delay" all inter-country connections by 30 minutes. This would make browsing impossibly slow, but email would still work fine. I don't think this is going to happen, but I wonder if the original creators of "the web" had any idea that their information sharing would ruffle so many feathers.
Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame (Score:5, Informative)
But the 'no-win-no-fee' will make it a no-cost low-effort to suppress unwanted speech. There is a big difference between libel and things you do not want to hear.
Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately USA will learn that it works and implement those laws too.
Re: (Score:2)
>>>>all they have to do is claim that your criticisms are libelous and you are in a world of hurt if you refuse to back down.
Cowards. Take me to court. I don't care. It will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I won't have to climb some mountain in Chile to get it. It might even be fun! Plus if you really believe in the rights of man, then you should be willing to fight for them, not just let people trample all over you.
Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed.
Now I know Ive posted this before, but there are just so many instances of this nonsense, that I feel it needs to be repeated at every opportunity.
A local company, Caton Commercial [catoncommercial.net], decided to send a threatening letter in an attempt to prevent the publication of the public court schedule of their pending cases. Claims of libel were made, along with copyright, trademark, and CRIMINAL charges. You can read the poorly thought out Cease and Desist Letter here [catoncommercial.net].
It did not seem to matter to them that the ACTUAL COURT was publishing this info that was being linked to. I did not back down, or respond in any way to their threats. Ive never heard another word about it from this company, or their lawyer. It seems that having such asinine claims and accusations published for the world to see, is the best way to respond to such ignorant claims of the self-important.
And while it was not a once in a lifetime experience(although hearing a lawyer try to argue that the courts own publicly published information was libel would have been), it also did NOT leave me in a world of hurt for not backing down. In fact quite the opposite, it gave me a feeling of great confidence that the things that are important to me are worth fighting for, and that I have the integrity to stick to what I believe with my actions, as well as my words.
Needless to say, the actual cowards are the ones who send out letters like this.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think we in the US did learn from Britain's mistakes. It's called the First Amendment and was written by some then-until-very-recently British subjects who were learning from mistakes made.
Re: (Score:2)
If you are an actual lawyer, then can you please explain why you don't do it like the US does, REQUIRE THE PROSECUTION TO PROVE GUILT, NOT REQUIRE THE DEFENDANT TO PROVE INNOCENCE?
It seems to me the UK system treats the original article of defamation as being of equal weight as a legal accusation, such that it must be proven in court like a prosecutor's case.
Why do you have a system that places the burden of proof on the defendant?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you are an actual lawyer, then can you please explain why you don't do it like the US does, REQUIRE THE PROSECUTION TO PROVE GUILT, NOT REQUIRE THE DEFENDANT TO PROVE INNOCENCE?
Libel and slander require proving the accusation for exactly the same reason that other laws are innocent until proven guilty. If you slander someone, you are bringing an allegation against them. The lawsuit is basically saying 'put up or shut up'. The person bringing the suit is equivalent to the defendant in any other lawsuit; they are defending themselves against allegations that have been made and are innocent until proven guilty. I am not sure why you would want it to be the other way around.
Contingency fee for defence? (Score:2)
But are lawyers also allowed to defend libel suits in England and Wales on a contingency fee arrangement, and do they tend to offer such arrangements? Otherwise, a party can silence speech by threatening to bankrupt the speaker with the cost of litigation.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame (Score:5, Insightful)
So, in summary, UK law prevents a poster from making libelous claims on the web. I didn't think the right to free speech came with the right to defame; even in the US.
You might think that, you [insert crazy libel here]. But think it through.
In the US, you have an absolute right to state your honest opinion, or your honestly believed facts. So, if I believed that, oh, the local priest molested little boys, I could stand out and say that without being sued. If I thought he'd molested a friend of mine, I could picket in front of his house, until the police finally came and did something about it.
But in the UK?
As soon as I started picketing, I could be charged with slander*. (Or libel, if I did so through publication.) The church would take me to court, where I would have to prove my claims. If I can't -- because, for example, my friend isn't allowed to testify -- then I could lose my car, house, and the $20 in my pocket.
The bad part that the summary went into -- the really, REALLY bad part -- is that if I put up a website in the USA, talking about how a priest in Mexico molests children, that priest can go to the United Kingdom and sue me there.
And there's no way in hell I can afford to fly to the UK just to defend the rights my forefathers fought to give me. Nor should I.
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't live in the UK, and don't have any assets there, you can probably ignore any claims in the English courts.
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't live in the UK, and don't have any assets there, you can probably ignore any claims in the English courts.
Sure. Until said mexican priest takes his UK court-ordered judgment and comes to the USA, and sues me for collection of said debt.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You might think that, you [insert crazy libel here]. But think it through.
In the US, you have an absolute right to state your honest opinion, or your honestly believed facts. So, if I believed that, oh, the local priest molested little boys, I could stand out and say that without being sued. *snip*
Unfortunately with how the civil court system works that is not 100% true, as you can be sued by anyone for almost anything, at any time.
The question will be if can you afford to fight to prove you are right or will you be forced to roll over?
Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, in the UK, truth is a strict defense against libel. Holocaust Denier David Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt over the UK edition of her book, Denying the Holocaust, in which she called Irving
Irving lost after a trial in which his scholarship on the Holocaust was shown to be fraudulent and he was demonstrated to be a bigot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Libel_suit [wikipedia.org]
In the U.S., truth is not a strict defense against libel [wikipedia.org]:
Your belief above that honestly believing something is sufficient, is not strictly true: It depends upon the jurisdiction you're in.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, if I believed that, oh, the local priest molested little boys, I could stand out and say that without being sued.
Funny. I was under the impression that, in the good old USA, anybody could sue you for anything and, even if their case got laughed out of court, you'd still have to re-mortgage your home to pay your legal fees - whereas in most of the rest of the world anyone bringing a frivolous lawsuit risks having to pay for the entire cost of the process.
Even no-win-no-fee relies on the lawyers (or their insurance company) seeing a case as a "good risk".
Its probably true that the UK libel laws are worse than the US
Re: (Score:2)
Thus this sets a global trap to take down from the Internet anything one does not want to be posted about themselves or their organization or company. Just sue in the UK, and tell the owner of the blog or web page to either delete the offending speech or they will continue the case against you in the UK.
This is really bad for fiction writers, which happen to have characters with fictitious names that resemble real people. If someone thinks the fictitious character is based on them or resembles them, they ca
Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame (Score:5, Informative)
It is not that you made false and/or misleading claims, the way the law is written you can face libel even if your claims are true as a way for the person, organization, or company you are making the claims against files a case against you in the UK and you cannot afford to defend yourself or you cannot prove the claims are true because the person who told you them refuses to fly to the UK to defend you because it costs too much to do so.
It is not innocent until proven guilty, you are considered guilty and have to prove yourself innocent. It can be abused to take away free speech by claiming said speech on the Internet is libel in the UK.
Everywhere else in the world it can be considered the truth, but in the UK it is libel unless you can prove it is true.
Re: (Score:2)
So are negative product reviews now illegal?
I guess now everything is instantly "awesome" in England.
You have to love how the ruling class imposes such limitations on communications. They fear what exactly? The truth?
Re: (Score:2)
Most TV adverts will just have "Brand X" as their competitor, they won't bash the competition like adverts in the USA. Magazine reviews will complement the good features, but will say things like "the user interface could do with more polish" or "processing time would benefit from one or two additional CPU's".
Hate speech *should be* free speech (Score:3, Insightful)
In the immortal words of Eminem: "How much damage can you do with a pen?"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you mean it should be given to another, separate, international entity, you are absolutely right. But I get the feeling that you'd rather maintain the status quo, and I can't see how that would help in matters like these...
Re: (Score:2)
If you get sued in the UK, fail to show-up, and lose, then the UK could petition the UN to drag you into their International Court. Or revoke your website DNS lookup. Or both.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Yup. Giving DNS control to any body outside of the USA would be FAIL. The only country I trust to keep DNS poison free is the USA. Let's face it, the only place in the world where /everyone/ has a voice on such matters is the USA.
(OK, OK, you might argue that the communists and fascists don't have a voice, but they are the ones that want to censor, thereby eliminating other voices.)
Re: (Score:2)
>>>OK, you might argue that the communists and fascists don't have a voice
Bzzz. Even assholes have the right to free speech in the United States - http://www.americanfascistmovement.com/ [americanfa...vement.com] - http://www.kkk.com/ [kkk.com]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think giving more control of the Internet to a country that in the last decade has suspended habeas corpus, wiretapped the conversations of its own citizens without warrant, proclaimed that the protections of liberty enshrined in its founding document apply only to its own citizens (and what does it matter since it's "just a goddamned piece of paper" anyway), created a copyrigh
Not quite... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not just give a `right of reply' and be done with it?
Unless by "right of reply", you mean the existing free speech rights that everyone already has, I'd rather have libel suits than some "right of reply".
Any reasonable enactment of "right of reply" will include provisions which make it mandatory to publish the reply in the same forum where the defamatory statement was originally made. That means if I ever make a statement on my website considered defamatory by anyone, then, by law, I would have to print, on my own website, at my own cost, a statement which wo
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, and USians brag and boast about living in a democracy, where everyone has equal chance to be president, and many other imagined "virtues", despite none of those things being true. On the other side of the coin, they'll happily bemoan the corruption and poor human rights in China, or the lack of free speech, whilst being in denial about the very same things happening under their own noses.
The sad fact is that many western citizens consider t
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
as to your claims of these alleged none existent virtues- what is imagined? could you elaborate on these fairy tales of freedom?
the true beauty of the United States is that you don't know what you can get away with
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I was unaware that the University of Southern Indiana Association of Nursing Students spent so much time bragging about living in a democracy. Oh, you meant Americans how droll you are.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My only argument to this (as a USian) is that we cost more to bribe/propagandize than those in the other nations, and as a result have a higher quality of life in general. It's not really much of a defense, but it is the truth. We know we are being lied to, we are not blind to the corruption, we simply know that everyone has a price, and for better or for worse, our price leaves us living fairly comfortably. It's sad, it's selfish, but it's the way it is. We are not entirely hypocritical - we criticize
Re: (Score:2)
The terrible things their governments do make it possible for them to have jobs there.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:lol (Score:4, Insightful)
if someone is mature enough at 15 to commit a crime in the mind-set of an adult, why shouldn't they face adult consequences?
Because we wanted to pick a hard number that can be applied to everyone, without having to give a fuzzy profile to every criminal.
We picked 18. At 18 you can vote, you can marry, and you are liable for the entirety of your own actions. We could have picked 16, or 25, or 30, but we picked 18.
Oh, and punnishment IS based on mind-set and maturity. Even if you're a minor, you can be tried as an adult for especially henious crimes. And if you're over 18 and mentally undeveloped, well, then you're essentially treated like a child.
Re: (Score:2)
But you can't buy a beer.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Mothers against drunk driving is the party that is responsible for that. Before they got the law changed you could drink at 18.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and punnishment IS based on mind-set and maturity. Even if you're a minor, you can be tried as an adult for especially henious crimes.
Like having sex with someone older than you?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Because Texas has a different standard for "mentally retarded" than the rest of the USA.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:lol (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you behave like a lun
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Doesn't matter if they were "combatants" or not - torture is still against the Geneva Convention.
Re:There should be something scary under the hood (Score:4, Insightful)
"Liberals" seek government surveilence to "protect" people from themselves. "Conservatives" seek government surveilence to "protect" people from terrorists.
"Libertarians" seek citizen surveilence to protect people from their government.
Say what you will about the "craziness" of this or that Libertarian idea... they correctly understand that no matter who's in power, they're always trying to screw you.
Re: (Score:2)
Say what you will about the "craziness" of this or that Libertarian idea... they correctly understand that no matter who's in power, they're always trying to screw you.
No they don't, they think whoever is in government is always trying to screw you. The fact that seems to escape most libertarians is that their ideas just move power away from government other organisations that are even less accountable. For some reason, however, it's only evil when people are oppressed by a government. When it's a non-governmental power structure doing the oppression, libertarians are fine with it.
Just don't fly over the EU (Score:2)
Remember the Union Carbide execs who evaded responsibility for the Bhopal disaster - they dare not travel to or over the Indian subcontinent.
By the way, by the stupid people in dumb countries I assume you include the many, many US citizens and legislators who think US law applies to the entire world? As for the UK i
Re:God save the Queen!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Ultimately Brits are STILL Subjects and not citizens.
They are only allowed to speak in public at the pleasure of the crown (although the Crown tries to exercise restraint)... and that's still legal precedent for many things regarding "individual" rights. Brits have only the rights the Magna Carta and other documents SAY they have... the Crown reserves the right to keep all the others. Versus the US where States and individuals have all the rights unless the government has a good reason to take them away.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
UK = Deny by default
US = Allow by default
I'm missing a geek security/political parallel there somewhere, though the UK has the correct stance from a security point of view. "Bad for citizens, good for networks"?
Meh, needs dome refining.
Re:God save the Queen!! (Score:5, Funny)
The UK functions almost entirely on unspoken agreements. We don't have an official constitution- but we do have an unspoken agreement that one is there, and that you're not allowed to change it (although political parties have wanted to do so plenty of times). We don't have protected constitutional rights- but we do have unspoken agreement that governments aren't allowed to repeal those rights that aren't there or else something bad might happen (and curiously enough, that one's always seemed to work).
The Queen very much exists in a state of perpetual unspoken agreement. Although technically we're all her property, we all agree not to make a fuss as long as she never tries to exert her ownership in any way (and she doesn't). Although technically she has supreme power of governance, we're all happy to ignore that fact for as long as no-one mentions it too loudly. Technically we can't oust her without violent revolution, but in actuality we all know that we can (as have many of her subjects in ex-Empire countries); both we and her pretend that we can't for as long as she behaves like we can (but equally, as she's only around for the image of the thing, she's not allowed to mention it either so as not to wreck the illusion).
The upshot of all this is no-one is actually terribly sure what will happen if, for example, the government tries to take away an important right. Maybe they'll be allowed to. Maybe the Queen (who technically has to sign off every single law personally) might refuse to pass it in to law (for her own self-preservation if nothing else). Maybe that bloody revolution everyone seems to have had might finally happen in Britain (we're only a couple of centuries late to the party). Maybe the Scots and the Welsh might get together and liberate the English. Maybe option D. It's anyone's guess.
Britain can be confusing.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The British Constitution is widely misunderstood by those who come from countries with explicit constitutions -- in particular the USA.
Basically, more than any modern democracy, Britain's constitution is underwritten by revolution. There have been several revolutions and civil wars, as well as the odd tense standoff, in English history which settled various points of constitutional practice.
One of these events -- the Glorious Revolution -- established with some finality that Parliament, and not Crown, is th
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but the villain has the right to bear arms. So, who's laughing n... Oh, wait
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Note, the European Convention applied in the UK since 1950 - but to take advantage of it, you had to take a case to the European Court of Human Rights directly. With the Human Rights Act, UK courts have to take into account ECHR judgements, and it makes it illegal for any UK public body to act contrary to the Convention, which can then be judged in the UK courts. There's still the option of taking a case to the ECHR though, if UK courts don't give satisfaction, and the ECHR is a higher jurisdiction than any