UK Government Crowd-Sourcing Censorship 262
angry tapir writes "The UK public can report 'terrorism-related' Web sites to authorities for removal from the Internet under a new program launched by the British government. The program is a way in which the government is seeking to enforce the Terrorism Acts of 2000 and 2006. These laws make it illegal to have or to share information intended to be useful to terrorists, and ban glorifying terrorism or urging people to commit terrorist acts."
"Removal from the internet"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck with that.
No, seriously, all the best to those making a grand attempt to remove something from the internet without just causing it to be spread around even more. I imagine you'll have many fun years of failure.
I'd like to report New Labour's web site (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they scare the sh*t out of me, and I'm pretty sure they're doing it to influence my vote.
Re:Unclear summary (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course not. These laws are intended to target powerless minorities and put the fear of God into clueless halfwits. The British government isn't actually stupid enough to believe they can control the flow of information, or brave enough to take on those with any real power for that matter.
Wrong URL. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that should be http://ministry_of_love.direct.gov.uk/ [direct.gov.uk] .
(If you've not read Orwell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Love [wikipedia.org] )
Report your friends, family and neighbours... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they out to make everyone a terrorist? (Score:1, Insightful)
H'm, if I go surfing for terrorist websites so I can report them , won't I just get a visit from men dressed in black with machine guns 'cos they think I'm a terrorsist?
I think I'll pass long term incarceration and interrogations aren't really my thing.
Re:Report your friends, family and neighbours... (Score:1, Insightful)
I am a UK citizen and am becoming increasingly worried as my freedoms are being slowly litigated for my 'own good' to combat terrorism.
Finally woken up have you?
Too bad you kept hitting the snooze button for the last decade or so.
New title (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a wonderful idea. Let's call the volunteer participants in this program Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter [wikipedia.org].
Did you read the footnote? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One day they'll have to confront it head on (Score:3, Insightful)
"The British government is going to have to start rounding up the radical clerics and deporting them. Hell, banish them from the United Kingdom altogether. The problem is, they know they'll inflame a lot of anti-British sentiment if they do that. Then they'll have to either start cracking skulls left and right or start en masse rounding up and deporting the Muslims who go to those mosques, deport them and put a marker on them that permanently marks them as a ne'erdoweller who has no business ever setting foot on British soil again."
Yes...yes! Maybe we could make them wear yellow crescents!
"The British National Party is getting support now precisely because the common man in Britain can see what the elites can't: you can't have two nations living inside the same country, especially when one nation is composed of hostile immigrants who won't adapt. The British government has two choices: either solve it now by harshly cutting out any part of the Muslim population that looks even remotely likely it sympathizes with Islamists, or face the prospect that in 20 years as demographics shift, a group like the BNP will stage a coup and take matters into its own hands militarily."
Could we cut them out by some kind of economic sanctions based on religious belief? Maybe just prevent them from owning businesses and stuff. Or deport them! Do you know if this plan has ever been tried before?
You really can't say "beware of slipery slope"... (Score:3, Insightful)
...after you're already slipping, can you?
This will a) provide nothing b) will destroy a lot c) won't cure paranoia
Dear God help us.
Re:One day they'll have to confront it head on (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a very difficult problem, and the response of the three major parties is "Denial". All three say "Immigration and Islamisation are not a problem. We will not even consider them as issues. P.S. You are a racist." I see you have already been called a Nazi for posting this.
Which is ironic, because your post is a warning about the Nazis in their BNP form. The National Socialists recognise and acknowledge the issues that the main parties do not. They are capitalising on the refusal of the main parties to talk about the issues.
I think it is obvious now that the multiculturalism policy of the UK government has been a complete disaster. It's created ghettos. Entire cities like Birmingham and Bradford are divided by ethnic groupings. It's encouraged fear and hatred between the groups, fueling terrorism. It's exactly what should never have happened.
Immigrants should have been welcomed into Britain provided that they were willing to merge into the existing culture and society, as many immigrants are. But instead, they were encouraged to be separate from the existing societies. Ghettos were created, and any concern about the ghettoisation process was dismissed by the UK Establishment as "racism", even though the concerns were well-founded. And it's not just the UK. The same problems exist in France for the same reason.
It is time to abandon cultural relativism, the idea that each culture - each approach to life - is just as valid as any other. It is simply nonsense. Some cultures are inherently better than others. Absolute comparisons are possible and useful.
The UK Establishment tells us that such comparisons are "racist" - but why? What is racist about comparing one society and another? Racism is discrimination based on ethnic grouping, not discrimination based on social structure or cultural values.
It is our duty to discriminate against the values and culture of dark age theocracies. We must not allow the civilisation we have built to be undermined by Sharia and the Middle Eastern dictatorships. The only way to do that is to stick up for what we have, and that means we must all be able to acknowledge that our ways are better.
Re:What is considered "terrorism-related"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Following the links in TFA leads to a goverment web-page listing one-line descriptions of things they consider illegal. But their definitions are broken. They include this:
That would be...news sites? Maybe we should all report news.bbc.co.uk?
Re:Unclear summary (Score:4, Insightful)
The British government isn't actually stupid enough to...
There is no true sentence which starts this way.
Please, for the love of Dog (Score:3, Insightful)
Could everyone stop it with the "ooh, X is useful to Terrorists, let's ban that!!1!" comments?
I'm as uncomfortable about some of the ramifications of this law as anyone else here, but the key phrase you're all ignoring is intended to be.
Wikipedia, the Tube, etc - all useful to terrorists, not intended to be useful to terrorists, not illegal.
A site enabling people to donate money, time, etc to terrorist causes - useful to terrorists, intended to be useful to terrorists, illegal.
Now please, by all means rail against the possible civil liberties violations, potential for misuse and abuse, etc, but let's not rewrite the law so it says something other than what it does. Doing so, and complaining about things that are not covered by it only harms otherwise legitimate complaints and concerns and makes those working against it look foolish and thus easier to dismiss.
One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter (Score:3, Insightful)
"Intended" (Score:1, Insightful)
At least in the US the "Patriot Act" was "Intended" to be used against terrorists. Instead I believe it has been estimated that 50%-80% of its use is against everyday crime. It has even been used against "dissidents" who's only "crime" was questioning the actions of the government (Professors being harrassed at airports anyone). "Child Porn" laws were "Intended" to be used against people abusing children. Instead we have case after case where they are used against teenagers for "sexting", ruining their lives just as surely as being abused would have. History has shown (at least hear in the U.S.) that laws that can be abused, WILL BE.
Re:What is considered "terrorism-related"? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but you're potentially advocating committing a crime under the Computer Misuse Act by encouraging people to launch a DDoS attack against the site...
Re:One day they'll have to confront it head on (Score:1, Insightful)
Your post was going fine right up until this point :P
I would hazard to guess based on the media reports that Britain's radical Muslim problem is only topped by the Netherlands...
Sure if you use the Daily Mail or other even less reputable sources then you might wind up believing the FUD spouted by the BNP. I hate to Godwin myself so early on, but I do hope you realise that blatant propaganda against unpopular minorities is how the BNP's historical heroes got themselves into a position of power as well.
If you're on the ground and speaking to actual member of the Muslim community (our local mosque does a great curry kitchen before services that anyone can attend) you find an extremely different story - although I do believe the examples of extremism from both Muslims and Nationalist Scum are less frequent in Scotland than they are in say Birmingham.
You don't seem to understand that the British Government is extremely far away from political correctness, and the only reason it keeps coming up as a news story is that they are desperately trying to find ways carry out blatantly prejudice policies without coming across as a bunch of prejudiced cowards, all the while dealing with the vocal minority of right-wing media groups that think everything up to and including equal rights for anyone that isn't a white protestant is political correctness.
We're constantly deporting extremist clerics whenever we can get enough evidence - evidence that they have 'said' bad things about us, evidence of their thought-crimes basically - and occasionally we apply the law in a fair manner and exclude extremists of other nationalities as long as they appear nutty enough (racists Danish MP's spring to mind). however we haven't quite figured out what to do when British Nationals (as in citizen not party member) start spouting hate-filled generalisations and rhetoric - other than to give them air-time on Question Time Live.
There is only one way forward for the Government is this country - to enshrine the basic humans rights (speech, movement, belief etc. - the same ones the US enshrined effectively) in some form of binding document, in the process of ditching the bloated EU version - and to properly and fully* separate church and state (*unlike the US in this case where you said you would but seem to have done in name only and forgotten to actually enforce it). At this point the British public can be informed that no amount of Democratic process will allow them to bully or victimise any group of people based on nationality, race, religion or sex, no matter how many of them apparently believe that being British gives them the right to do this.
As a member of Great Britain I am truly sick of being told that I'm either capitalist pig or socialist devil; at being told that I'm not British unless I carry Union Jack, shave my head and kick in any brown-skins I see on the weekends and evenings; utterly disgusted at being told that I am sympathising with extremist sexist clerics just because I don't want to see my law-abiding, friendly as could be, neighbours evicted and deported just because part of their religion involves wearing some funny clothes; But most of all I am sick of being told what to think, what to wear, who to be friends with, which nutty imaginary friend is ok to believe in by the citizens of this and other countries no less - I'm not even talking about my Government who I have come to expect this shite from - No, I'm talking about arseholes like you! The idiots who will no doubt go their graves honestly beleiving they are better than the dickless suicide bombers and hate-filled clerics because they work in the name of a white God, or even worse so-called Democracy. Hate begets Hate, and your hatred of them is just as sick and evil as the minority-extremists hate for us.
Find some other country to do this with - all you go to one piece of rock in the sea, and all your enemies can to a piece of rock about 2 miles away from it and you can blow the ever-living tar out of each other all you fucking like. The rest of us want to get on with our lives and would like to be able to do it as we please, with who we please.