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Thursday the 'Your Freedom' website, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, to 'identify laws that should be repealed.'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."
Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hope they've got a big server....
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Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a video of Nick Clegg on the front page specifically promising that all the posts will be read.
My first thought was - yeah, it's a great source of material for tracking dissidents.
But it is awesome. I hope it really gets done right.
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You mean like the 10 Downing Street Petitions web site which was totally ignored by the last lot?
Call me a cynic but I can't see any ideas being taken on which were not already being considered anyway. To do so would be political suicide (e.g. remove all speed cameras, regulate CCTV, repeal the fox hunting ban, repeal the smoking ban).
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Funny)
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You are probably right. The post of "Deputy Prime Minister" was introduced to shut Heseltine up. It's a grandiose sounding title but has no real power, not even a portfolio, so Clegg is in charge of exactly nothing. Business secretary and most of the other posts given to Lib Dems are similarly pointless and devoid of influence.
Too late for "innocent until proven guilty" (Score:2, Informative)
Shooter licensing and gun registration, imposing penalties for refusing to divulge passwords, default penalties for people who refuse drug and alcohol testing all go against the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' that has been in place since the Magna Carta.
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Since when is gun registration violating innocent until proven guilty?
Is it the same way as driver and vehicle licensing violates it?
That is... not at all?
Re:Too late for "innocent until proven guilty" (Score:4, Informative)
Since when is gun registration violating innocent until proven guilty?
Is it the same way as driver and vehicle licensing violates it?
That is... not at all?
Just because the courts have ruled that vehicle licensing doesn't violate the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't necessarily make it so. After all, there was plenty of precedent that slavery didn't violate the principle of "all men are created equal" too.
It may have been reasonable to require license tags on vehicles when the only real application was for identifying drivers who have been involved in an accident. But now that cameras are pervasive and the databases linking license tags to owners/drivers are too, license tags of people who have not committed a crime are routinely abused by both the government and private entities. The scope has creeped far beyond the original justification and thus what once was considered a reasonable trade-off between the public good and individual rights is no longer so.
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Apart from ridiculous hyperbole and poor comparisons, do you have anything to substantiate the point.
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How are road cameras abusing people who haven't committed a crime?
They do nothing at all to people who drive within the law, and create the proof of guilt for the people who are guilty.
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How are road cameras abusing people who haven't committed a crime?
They record time and location information that is stored indefinitely.
If you haven't done anything wrong there should be no reason to record where and when you were driving.
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Cute, but utterly ignorant.
This is exactly the problem with modern laws and automated enforcement: everyone slips up momentarily from time to time according to some artificial, precise benchmark. Someone who is generally aware of their vehicle's capabilities and what is going on around them, and who drives at a reasonable speed under those conditions, may still find that they have drifted above the legal limit on occasion, not least because the legal limits in this country are frequently set considerably lo
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I am also a safe driver with a clean license but I tend to prefer the unbiased judgment of a machine to the arbitrary judgment of a human being. I don't like the privacy issues that cameras raise but as far as doling out punishment for breaking the law is concerned, I don't mind having a camera monitoring people's speed. I just disagree with your assessment that common sense ruled when human police officers were doing the ticketing. Ever since municipalities realized that traffic violations are a source
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Huh? That's one twisted way to look at it.
Licensing is the mechanism for regulation. A restaurant owner has to be licensed to operate, and if the quality of the food or sanitary measures falls below a certain level, that license can be revoked and the restaurant has to close. Licenses for cars allows for the regulation of those who have shown themselves competent enough to drive one. If you do something stupid, you get your license revoked and you can no longer drive. I have yet to hear of a credible story
Re:Too late for "innocent until proven guilty" (Score:4, Insightful)
It was put there to address a practical problem - that of the King of England not allowing the citizens to bear arms, making a people's uprising against the military impossible.
Why do Americans have such a twisted view of history? The King of England hasn't had any practical power since a couple of revolutions, the last of which was in 1688 when Parliament kicked the King out for doing things that weren't in the interests of the people, including restricting firearms ownership and raising an Army in times of peace.
It was Parliament, not the King who did everything that the Americans blame on the King.
Since the Glorious Revolution, Parliament has been Supreme (until very recently) with the elected House of Commons holding more and more of the balance of power.
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It's the whole "database of gun owners and what guns they own" thing that are a problem.
Yes, beacuse there's not a database of licensed car drivers, car owners and the cars the own is there... Oh wait... Yes there is.
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The Bill of Rights of 1689 included the right of British subjects and permanent residents to bear arms for self defence as long as they weren't Catholic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689 [wikipedia.org]
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What? How does that violate "innocent until proven guilty"? More like, "dangerously incompetent with deadly force until proven otherwise".
This is a compliance issue. In certain circumstances it is entirely appropriate for people to be required to comply with police. I suppose next you'll be complaining that people have to pull over to the side of the road when a policeman pulls them over.
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This is a compliance issue. In certain circumstances it is entirely appropriate for people to be required to comply with police. I suppose next you'll be complaining that people have to pull over to the side of the road when a policeman pulls them over.
Oh, that's awful. You might as well argue that not confessing to every unsolved murder under interrogation is "a compliance issue". There are very specific circumstances in which people may be reasonably required to comply with police. In particular, the police may detain you for a limited period when there is a reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime. There is your reasonable exception, not proof of any rule.
RIPA makes me guilty of the crime of not speaking in a particular way, regardless of w
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One case is about insuring against deliberately hampering a police investigation, and the other is about forcing false confessions. I simply don't see why allowing one necessarily implies we need to follow the other. Besides, I would say that providing or coercing a false confessions, is an extremely large compliance issue. Compliance is to the state, not to the police officer.
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One case is about insuring against deliberately hampering a police investigation,
Not assisting the police is by no reasonable definition "deliberately hampering a police investigation". Deliberately hampering might include destroying evidence, or lying to the police, or resisting arrest. You cannot deliberately hamper by doing nothing.
Consider for a moment an alternative world in which it is illegal to not actively help the police.
and the other is about forcing false confessions. I simply don't see why allowing one necessarily implies we need to follow the other.
You're asserting that the state should be able to require you to actively cooperate in finding you guilty, using some argument which assumes that the state ha
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imposing penalties for refusing to divulge passwords
This is a compliance issue. In certain circumstances it is entirely appropriate for people to be required to comply with police. I suppose next you'll be complaining that people have to pull over to the side of the road when a policeman pulls them over.
default penalties for people who refuse drug and alcohol testing
Again, a compliance issue. There's no assumption of guilt anywhere.
Privacy is more important than "compliance issues". There's no privacy lost in pulling over, so it's acceptable to require it. Giving up your passwords and submitting to testing, however, are major infringements on privacy, so requiring them is unacceptable. Understand now?
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Gun registration, no. Background checks on the buyer, yes. Actually, to apply for most jobs you have to submit the same papers you need to get a gun (clean criminal record, valid ID) and guns are not "designed to kill", they're designed to shoot bullets. Guns are actually a most inefficient way to kill humans, poison is better and you can make very nasty stuff with commercially available chemicals.
And who said "Average Joe" needs to be "protected"? In the UK, what the population needs is less protection, mo
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Well, I think failing a background check is most likely to be "guilty since proven guilty". Well, depends if the conviction or simply the arrest record is checked. But if for example, a conviction for manslaughter or robbery might qualify as being "proven guilty" and also might be good grounds for not allowing this individual to have a weapon.
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>Guns are actually a most inefficient way to kill humans, poison is better
Home-owner to potential robber: "Stop or I'll ask you to ingest toxic chemicals!"
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What point is there to checking the background of the buyer if no one is keeping track of the guns? If somebody loses (or sells) their gun they must be held to account if the guns were not locked up properly or the theft was not reported.
Re:Too late for "innocent until proven guilty" (Score:4, Insightful)
That's like saying an oven is not designed for cooking food, it's designed to get hot inside.
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Basically, my belief is that anyone who wants to tell others how to live should not be able to vote.
Re:Too late for "innocent until proven guilty" (Score:4, Insightful)
The law is all to cock. Can't have a gun unless it is my job to protect government, but can have flammable gas pipeline into my house. Can't drive over the speed limit down a road I travel everyday for 30 years, but 19 year old cop new to the area can. Can't get gypsy camp moved on, but anti-war protest camp can be evicted. Can't remain silent or withhold evidence under police interrogation, but government can 'forget' details or bury things that are 'not in the public interest'.
Maybe a new law to outlaw double standards?
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Maybe a new law to outlaw double standards?
Please. You know if they do that, the anti-double-standard law will just not apply to the police, either.
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.
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Re:thousand and one laws (Score:4, Insightful)
They'll just make them longer.
Re:thousand and one laws (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
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They'll probably just use Codes [wikipedia.org]. i.e. massive laws that contain everything about an entire field. Then they'll only need to amend the code to add a new piece of legislation.
Requiring a 50% approval vote from the actual population would probably be effective, provided that it was optional to avoid voter fatigue.
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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.
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Except these codes are sometimes necessary. You clearly have no idea what laws do if you think all there is to it is the criminal code, which is a small and relatively simple section of laws. "IANAL" in this case seems to be "and I don't even have a clue what laws do" - a budget is a law, for one.
Re:thousand and one laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Imposing a word limit would force them to remove exceptions, such as self-defense (murder) and fair use (copyright). And do you really want statutes to resemble twitter posts?
Prohibiting abbreviations would make some parts of the law quite painful to read as well, and would also be ineffective as the norm is to use a simple, 1 word term (e.g. officer) and then define its meaning at the beginning of the act (e.g. police officer or member of law enforcement, or as defined by the Police Powers Act 1900)
Your idea of condensing all legislation down into a single book is incredibly naive. 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? Comments would be the first thing to go, and the equivalent of comments in legislation are extremely important to their interpretation. Similarly, even if all legislation were compressed down to a single book, this book would:
a) be incomplete, as in any common law system precedent (i.e. past court cases) are of equal importance to legislation, and
b) be incomprehensible - the average person is as capable of understanding laws as they are of understanding C++, and because of the nature of the content involved they will not be able to do so without education on how to do so. Even when written in plain English, there are many legal tools that define how phrases are to be interpreted. e.g. Ejusdem generis [wikipedia.org]
Trying to limit the quantity of legislation is a poor way to go about your aim, which I presume is to restrict the power of the government. A far better way to do this is to explicitly limit what the government can legislate on. For example:
51 Legislative powers of the Parliament ...
The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to
make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the
Commonwealth with respect to:
(i) trade and commerce with other countries
-s51 of the Australian Constitution
In our case though this is of little significance practically as the states have unlimited legislative power (i.e. they can make laws about whatever they want).
Ultimately, the best way to keep stupid laws of the books is to keep stupid politicians out of parliament. This is largely dependent on keeping stupid people from voting, and consequently rather difficult to achieve.
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Trying to limit the quantity of legislation is a poor way to go about your aim, which I presume is to restrict the power of the government. A far better way to do this is to explicitly limit what the government can legislate on.
Look at how well "Congress shall make no law" has worked in the US.
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.
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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]
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All laws automatically repeal themselves after 25 years and must then be renewed under the same processes as those for passing a new law. That would get rid of all the anachronistic ones.
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Well, if we weren't talking about the UK, I'd suggest the New Texas solution (H. Beam Piper, "Lone Star Planet") - allow "criticism of a practicing politician" to include anything up to and including death. Trial of the killer would be based only on the question of whether the politicians pulbic acts merited the level of criticism (in the story, one such trial was because the accused had hacked the politician up with a machete - it w
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Pure democracy isn't that great of an idea.
The average person isn't well educated on the meaning, purpose and ramification of laws.
The average person is also easilly swayed by emotional appeals and the sway of a charismatic personality.
It wouldn't take long for a pure democracy to turn in on itself and repeal freedom in the name of "think of the children" and impose tyranny on its minorities.
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That's how we have got into the situation we are in now.
Nu-Labour's policies were based pretty much totally on what focus groups had to say, so that the politicians knew they were saying things that were popular with as many people as possible. So they could gain and keep power.
They ended up pandering to the self-righteous, even when (at the start) Blair et. al might actually have wanted to make the country fairer in some ways (haha, yeah, I know).
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Is that any worse than the average politician?
Sounds great, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sounds great, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, that still allows a lot of idiocy to be on display.
But there is also plenty of good highlighting of idiotic laws and regs. Have a read - you might enjoy it.
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The interent is a powerful tool, but having access to unlimited and unmediated information is not always the best thing possible when you need specific ideas.
There's been some good stuff going on wikiversity [wikiversity.org] since way before the election. What gets posted to the government website, likely 99% junk.
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There is a big flaw in the 'highest rated' suggestions system; it sorts first on star rating. That means that an idea with an average 5 star rating and 3 votes trumps an idea with an average 4.8 rating and 100 votes. This is dumb and needs to be changed pronto.
I've already e-mailed and tweeted them about this, I suggest others do the same.
This Is Good (Score:5, Funny)
I am writing this from within the maximum security wing of the New British National Defence Forces detention island.
I was absolutely delighted to share all of my views about laws I felt needed repealing in the UK. My IP address was in no way used to trace my identity and when my new friends from the NBNDF came to talk to me I felt I was completely fulfilled by their probing and vigorous questions.
I have not been added to any lists of registered subversives.
My stay at the security wing has been fulfilling. I feel refreshed, invigorated and entirely supportive of the NBNDF. No electro-pain equipment was used upon me at all during this week.
Signed,
Mr Bottles.
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On behalf of the government department concerned, I thank Mr Tottles for his cooperation.
We need one of these in the U.S. (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus a new law that states all new laws must have a sunset (five years max) and must be voted into renewal each sunset.
(save for actual amendments)
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Good point.
Exploits and loopholes ruined our government. Guess Windows isn't the only thing vulnerable.
Note to America (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what can happen in the rest of the civilised world if you vote for the third party.
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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
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Erm, they are a pair of former public-schoolboy toffs with millions of pounds in personal wealth. Don't fall for their "men of the people" propaganda, they are even more entrenched with the ruling elite than the previous government.
(For the USians, "public schools" in the UK are actually elite private schools for the extremely rich)
lots of pot smokers on there (Score:2, Interesting)
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We did have a suggestion forum but it was deemed invalid because most of what people asked for was legalizing pot, proving that Obama isn't an american citizen and repeal of warrantless war powers by the secret agencies.
Already trolled (Score:2)
There's already a campaign on there to repeal the laws of thermodynamics. It's been spotted and locked but not deleted (at least, when I saw it).
bah (Score:2)
'Identify free thinkers and malcontents' more like. Although I fail to see how a british government and rail infrastructure will organise the cattle cars to take us to the british equivalent of the god-forsaken fly-blown taiga (Norwich).
I, for one, will not submit any complaints about the laws but will continue to pay cash for my tinfoil millinery.
Hilariously, lots of NEW laws are being suggested (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's be clear on this: the majority just love their tyranny. For the small minded (you don't have to look far to find them) it's just so much fun to think up things that other people shouldn't be allowed to do.
A Freedom/Repeal bill is great in principle, but it'll never happen in practice. Quite apart from the problem that any repeals will pilloried as Soft On Something, the coalition have very different ideas on what the little people should be free to do: Cons tend to be pro freedom to smoke tobacco and anti freedom to smoke cannabis, and the Dems are t'other way around, for example.
The Digital Economy Bill isn't going anywhere (Score:4, Informative)
Thank you for your email of the 8th April about the Digital Economy Act. I share your concern about this piece of legislation and I want to make clear the approach that my Party has taken.
As you will be aware the Bill received Royal Assent yesterday.
Britain has been made to wait too long for legislation updating the regulatory environment for the digital and creative industries. I regret that once the Government got around to considering these issues, it did not allocate sufficient time in the House of Commons for proper legislative scrutiny. It says a great deal about the Government's support for the creative industries that despite considering many of these issues as far back as 2006 they only just brought this piece of legislation forward.
My Party took the decision to seek to remove those clauses of the Digital Economy Bill that we did not support or feel received proper legislative scrutiny, while supporting the Bill as a whole. Rejecting the Bill would have been an unacceptable set-back for the important measures it contains.
We supported the Bill's efforts to tackle online copyright infringement. This is an extremely serious issue that costs the creative industries hundreds of millions of pounds each year. We want to make sure that Britain has the most favourable intellectual property framework in the world for innovators, digital content creators and high tech businesses.
The measures in the Bill aimed at tackling online copyright infringement received robust scrutiny in the House of Lords. My Party was concerned about the lack of Parliamentary oversight of the original clauses and as such the Act now has a super-affirmative resolution in it. This means Parliament will debate any order that the Secretary of State lays that would allow people to be disconnected. These measures can also not be introduced for 12 months [ie 12 months after it became law]. This means that we are by no means rushing in to these decisions and that the next Parliament will be able to consider them beforehand.
The measures in the Act designed to tackle illegal peer to peer file sharing set up a proportionate regime that would, only following public consultation, repeated warnings and due process, lead to people having their internet connection temporarily suspended. It will not, as many have suggested, lead to people being disconnected without an appeal. Even if people are disconnected they will be able to sign up to another ISP immediately without penalty.
While I have no doubt that these measures could have been improved if the Government had allocated time for this Bill to be debated in Committee, blocking these measures in their entirety would have risked hundreds of thousands of jobs in the TV, film, music and sports industries and was therefore not something we were willing to do.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact me.
Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Soames
Fun fact: Nick Soames is Winston Churchill's grandson.
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When exactly was that written and received? It sounds like you got it before the Tories were forced to compromise into a coalition government and compromise they must to keep it afloat.
It's a different game now, the Tories didn't get the majority they wanted, they don't have sole control of the countries law books, they have to accept the Lib Dems viewpoint too.
So the real question isn't whether the Tories will keep the DEA- we know they would have, it's whether the coalition government which is a very diff
The law I'd like to see repealed (Score:2)
I should not be penalised for having pictures of a simulated act between two consenting adults.
I also think the 'anti-lolicon' law should be scrapped. I disliked lolicon but it's utterly wrong that I could draw two stick people having sex, label one of them as being 17 and end up in jail (with all the fun treatment you get for being labelled a nonce).
The perfect time to repeal three onerous treaties (Score:2)
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How about it being illegal to crack DRM?
http://yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk/restoring-civil-liberties/copyright-law-restrictions-on-fair-use-circumventing-drm [hmg.gov.uk]
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.
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And it is indeed possible Stop and search laws were successfully challenged in the European court.
By the way, does the UK has jury nullification?
Yes, and no. Jury nullification isn't actually an explicit legal right as such in the UK or the US. It's a de facto power. The Jury has a duty to make a judgement on the law and the facts of the case. The thing is they don't need to give a reason and if they don't there'
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By the way, does the UK has jury nullification?
Yes it does, and happens relatively regularly. Judges will sometimes direct the jury to find a certain way, but the jury are under no obligation to do so. When being sworn in, jurors swear to find by the facts presented, ie. they swear to uphold the law, but what happens in the jury room stays in there, so there can be no recriminations to someone not doing so.
Re:Anything about "racially motivated" (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, sure. Now are you going to the job they did or are you "too proud" and will just keep claiming benefits instead?
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It seems Britain would like to return to it's libertarian laissez faire ways. Kudos.
No, it's just a God (well, government) given opportunity for libertarians to have a rant, which let's face it, they're very good at.
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LOL.
How so. Homosexuals were hanged until the 1860s, then imprisoned. You had to be a member of the Church of England to reach any position of importance in the empire. Britain was an empire stretching over a quarter of the globe, built through these megacorps, and violently repressing people by tens and hundreds of millions. Women had no right to property, or vote, or anything. Blacks were just barely out of slavery: it was abolished in the 1830s. Male suffrage was not even universal before that, even for
Re: (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.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Feminist started in the 18th century.
Frederick Douglas would likely be to classy to vomit on your boots, but I wouldn't.
And sexual orientation was most certainly not an issue FOR THE PEOPLE WHO WERE JUDICIALLY MURDERED ABOUT IT.
You've however happily told me the core bit: you're an idiotic straight white male who thinks if things are good for him they're good for everyone.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Congratulations, you've attacked me with an ad hominem while completely bypassing my main point. So let me reiterate it for you:
Race, gender and sexual orientation equality were not the cultural norm in the 19th century. They are in the 21st century. So if we were to go back to the 19th century way of government, we would not have to take back the inequality found in 19th century life. We can have the best of both worlds.
Re: (Score:2)
No, you completely missed the point: the fight was on for the people involved. Racism was very much alive and led to fighting and revolutions, sexism led to violent manifestations for basic rights as property and vote. Sexual Orientation: the first attempts at gay liberation in Europe were mostly in Germany.
It's only not relevant because you have the luxury that it would not have been relevant to you. The people who were crushed under the weight and fighting because of it would beg to differ and would gladl
Re: (Score:2)
All you're doing is taking my ambiguously phrased words "not important issues" and wedging yourself in there to ridiculous extremes. You clearly have no arguments against my main point, which your last post didn't reply to at all, so you're trying to misdirect me.
Re: (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
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and sodomy laws were imposed by the UK on India, meaning that it was relevant enough to be made illegal where it wasn't.
Re: (Score:2)
As for the good parts: what good parts? The Bloody Code? The inexistence of the Human Rights act? The limitation of the electoral franchise? The lack of worker protections? Blasphemy laws by the ton?
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The relative lack of government intrusion into every part of people's lives.
Re: (Score:2)
Which I already pointed out was a myth. It was only limited by the technical means available, not by a lack of willingness to do so. Otherwise britain wouldn't have had anti-sodomoy, anti-blasphemy and other such laws.
Re: (Score:2)
You're right, it was only limited by technical means. But we are not talking about 19th century government, we are talking about 19th century freedom. It doesn't matter how the freedom arose, we are talking about the result. Obviously, if we're going to return to this freedom we'll have to figure out a way of doing so that does not involve abandoning all technological progress since the telephone, but it's the result that matters.
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You can't talk about 19th century politics and ignore 19th century governments.
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Corporate towns a great symbol of the political freedom of the people?
You must be kidding...
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Re: (Score:2)
Lazy Daily Haters would, accurately or otherwise, regard themselves as much defenders of freedom and the middle class as GROLIES.
But yes, that comes under (3), the abolition of the red tape that is Human Rights. Note that the Act also formally absolutely abolishes the death penalty, which AIUI was technically legal in the UK for certain military offences before 1998. Other-pond-siders may wish to note that it was an application of the European Convention on Human Rights, the thirteenth protocol of which als
Re: (Score:2)
The piece has a valid point, if hurriedly written, but it's not really covering the topic of "Repealing unnecessary laws". It's not even answering the provided question, "Which offences do you think we should remove or change, and why?"
Rewrite it in terms of identifying laws which cover police misconduct, giving examples of abuse by police which would be better tackled under your proposals. Incorporate a summary of relevant reports from well-known organisations or other commissions. Compare with police comp
Re:Clegg, Illness not cure. (Score:4, Insightful)
With all due respect, you're talking out of your arse.
If you think Clegg could've gotten a better deal out of the Conservatives despite being by far the smaller coalition partner and having a Labour party not really serious about coalition talks, you're in dreamland. Clegg got the best possible deal he could squeeze out of the Tories, and given that or another immediate general election, I'll take that. The Lib Dems still stand for what they did before, but they were realistic enough to know that in a coalition, they couldn't get everything. They did get a referendum on AV, which is a massive concession considering we've NEVER in our history had a change to our antiquated voting system. But, the Tories presumably wouldn't budge an inch on bullshit like the Digital Economy Act. To get movement on that, The People need to make it very clear how much they hate it... to the Tories. They're the problem here really.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're a noble, your heir cannot be of someone of lower social class.
If you're a widow, you can't re-marry without permission from the crown.
Rules regarding debt (specifically) to Jews.
Nobility can only be punished by their equals
Women cannot accuse anyone of murder unless the victim was t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They are actually very much revocable: they were revoked within a decade and had to be forced into being reinstated.