Waiting for the Knock 250
Andrew G. Feinberg writes "in this LinuxToday story, Richard Stallman talks about some upcoming laws that could be disasterous for British citizens." Guilty until you prove you're innocent, no right to remain silent, no right to a jury trial, produce your encryption keys or go to jail... At least in the U.S. we have some time off while Congress takes a break.
Scary (Score:1)
I'm probably wrong... (Score:1)
Re:I'm probably wrong... (Score:1)
Heh (Score:2)
Well if it's even possible that any of this stuff could be legal, I would say they don't. That is, even if these don't become law, if they could without being struck down(ours would be in the Supreme Court, I'm assuming there's something at least vaguely similar in the UK), then you do not have more freedoms than we do.
Don't worry, I'm plenty pissed with the guys in Congress, too, but I know if that bill with the Ten Commandments in every classroom passed the Supreme Court would throw it out so fast it would make your head spin. Thank God we have the Bill of Rights, without it, our country would've gone down the tubes long ago.
Glad to see it mentioned (Score:4)
The Brits seem to be facing the same problems as the Americans in that there's no way a Tory (or Republican) government could get away with this sort of shit, but under Labour (or the Democrats), it becomes acceptable.
I was happy to see Blair get in -- and there's no doubt that he's done wonders in Northern Ireland -- but the laws just keep getting worse and worse. Given the closeness of Britain and Ireland, and the (slight) tendency to follow the lead of neighbours, I fear for the laws of Ireland.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act (Score:4)
1. IIRC, the PTA was passed by a Labour government, not a Conservative one.
2. In fact, the PTA would not necessarily linger on after peace in Northern Ireland. It was only passed for the current year, and must be debated, voted on and passed by the Houses of Parliament, or it lapses. Unlikely, I know, but the potential is there.
3. The attack on the right to silence comes from the Criminal Justice Act, which was passed by the last Conservative Government. In effect, it says that if you choose to rely in court on information which you refused (as in, were asked, but refused) to speak to the police about, they can mention this fact. Any infringement of liberty is bad, but this one is quite mild.
4. However, the CJA does not have any sunset provision like the PTA. WOrryingly, nor will the Electronic Communications Act.
jsm
Re:I'm probably wrong... (Score:1)
Yes, I believe that is the case.
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Law in the UK (Score:2)
I find it so funny that all the democracies, or otherwise similar government types were all interlocked into this 30 - 40 or more year 'cold war' because the 'enemy' was supressing the individual rights and choices in that country. As scary as it may be we have entered the flipside of that argument... look at the signs, guns are more moderated then ever thought possible - your first ammendment rights can be waved by the NSA or FBI, not to mention your right to a fair trial is out the door. Instead the government spends the enormous amount of money it collects on taxes on special interest programs and bullshit that nobody cares about one bit.
Isn't it wonderful living in a Socialist country? Wanna change it? Start by electing more people like Jesse Ventura - someone who is not afriad to tell the little groups off, someone who doesn't believe that government is big brother - and shouldn't take a ton of taxes from you. He's a social liberal, so he has no hesitation doing what he believes good for the people.
I will now get off of my soapbox.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:The Prevention of Terrorism Act (Score:1)
True. But it's already been renewed unnecessarily (not just my opinion), and we can expect to see the spectre of 'dissident republicans' justifying its renewal again.
If I'm wrong, I'll write to Jack Straw and apologise. But I don't think that's a letter I'll have to write.
Re:Restoration of Liberty for the masses (Score:1)
What to do is difficult. If they insist on exercising privacy and freedom in all their affairs, they are likely to upset those in power, which is unhealthy. If they do nothing, they pave the way to less freedom for their kids and more abuse in the future. They'll probably do nothing, Tony Blair is popular and a good liar (like his buddy Slick). The problem will not go away unless government goes away -- unlikely, as they'd have to get real jobs.
Re: Key on demand and the IOCA (Score:5)
After a lot of complaints from pro-liberty and pro-cryptography groups (CyberLiberties, for example) it was finally removed from that bill and slotted into the RoIP bill - unchanged. The official slant was that the RoIP bill was a "better vehicle" for this.
The basic problems with it are these:
- You do not need to be even SUSPECTED of a crime - you just need a police officer to be OF THE OPINION that a given file is encrypted.
- If you can't hand over a key (because you don't have it, or the file isn't encrypted) then you are liable to a jail sentence
- If you tell anyone about having been served the warrant, you are liable to a larger jail sentence
- if you tell your solicitor about the warrant for purposes of your defence (and the only defence is to PROVE you don't have the key - an impossible task) HE is also bound by the clause not to tell anyone
- There is only one appeal to the warrant - not to a criminal court, but to a closed panel, not accountable to any judicial body and not required to give an explaination of their decision.
- You are not entitled to compensation unless the warrant was signed personally by the head of the Home Office (a government department). A warrant signed by a police inspector is just as legal, but doesn't carry any compensation.
If anyone has looked at my homepage in the last few months, now they know what my profile means--
Re:yea, ok..but Jesse?!?! (Score:1)
I agree with you totaly up untill the Jesse part. You've got the right message, but the wrong messanger...the right sale, but the wrong salesman.. the right platform, but the wrong candidate.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Suffice to say that anytime I'm in the States I find the culture very oppressive. For instance I was recently in Annapolis at a conference, and I decided to walk from my hotel to the nearby mall. I was stopped by the police on the way, someone had phoned 911 about someone walking along the pavement (sorry, sidewalk) for heaven's sake!
European Court of Human Rights (I guess).
Thank God we have the Bill of Rights, without it, our country would've gone down the tubes long ago.
I think thats the difference between UK (and European) law and the States. Here we have responsibilities under the law, so long as we fufill them we're free to do whatever we like. You guys have rights, your not allowed to do anything other than those things your rights allow you to do.
Al.
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Re:The Prevention of Terrorism Act (Score:1)
the PTA was passed by a Labour government, not a Conservative one.
Stallmann never actually says this, although his wording is admittedly very unclear: What the previous (Conservative) government did do was to begin the removal of a right to jury trials for all criminal offences.
IANAL, but:
That said, it's a bad rule, which is part of an even worse bill. This government is shaping up to be worse than the last one, and Jack Straw is one of the most centralist, controlling, power-crazed and even downright fascist Home Secretaries we've ever had (including Michael Howard). I don't claim to understand it, but a government which is generally spineless seems to regard it as important to impose draconian rules on almost everything.
Why just write to an MP when you can Adopt An MP [stand.org.uk]
?Not all the Bad Bills come from Redmond
Old News! (Score:2)
Another reference (Score:1)
It will never happen (Score:2)
Having said this is was 7 years ago when the single data card idea was proposed in UK government, the card with an electronic chip which would hold all our info (we wouldn't get to know what info it held) and would supposedly have had a chip that could be tracked so the police would always know where we were.
It didn't happen, I don't think these proposals will either.
We *DO* still live in a democracy of sorts, although maybe not for much longer.
Powers of Parliament (Score:1)
I get the impression that the PM can do just about anything he/she wishes as long as it doesn't trigger a vote of "no confidence".
Is there anything in the British system that is similar to the U.S. system of "checks and balances"?
Re:Ugly Colours (Score:1)
Re:Perhaps the US should embargo UK products (Score:1)
"UK Freedom Concerts"
Woooo
iain
Lobby the minister (Score:1)
Dear Ms Hewitt,
I am writing to you in your capacity of "E-Minister" to register my protest at the draft Electronic comminications bill and it's reincarnation in the "Regulation of Investigatory Powers" bill.
In my [somewhat expert] opinion this act would be seriously damaging to citizens rights online and would hence drive away the very business you are trying to foster. I would urge you to find a less draconian method of policing online information.
Please be assured that there are better solutions out there and they are much less frightening to the humble voter,
yours,
[your name here]
[your extremely techie job profession here]
Re:yea, ok..but Jesse?!?! (Score:1)
He's an odd one, that's for sure. But he said it right on the Jay Lenno show (how cool is that? - a governor that goes on Lenno heh) - this was regarding a group of unwed mothers that were protesting at the capital saying that they were not getting enough money from the government - "I went out to the lawn and asked the leader of the rather large group 'Who's choice was it to have that child out of wedlock?'" -- needless to say that did not make him very popular with the group but with the general populous it sure did -- he then went on to say on Lenno "The government is not your Mom or your Dad, and it ain't your big brother"... Hell Jesse even cut taxes and gave a *gasp* refund to the people! Isn't that just nuts.. government being representative of the people.
Where as I live in Washington State where I-695 just passed, a wonderful bill that gives the taxpayers the ability to shoot down a bill that would increase taxes, not to mention it cut the car tabs to 30 dollars instead of hundreds -- even thousands in the case of many new cars. What does the government do... Governor Locke said -- "It would appear that the people have spoken, we will begin cutting the transportation, and health care budget in January" -- what the hell was this? We cut their 48 billion dollar budget bu 125 Million dollars (and that 48 billion is only a third of the overall budget) -- and then they turn around and punish us because we were "bad" oh screw off - I would rather have a governor that would be representative of what *WE* want not what *THEY* want. Are they forgetting that we as voters have the ability and right to FIRE them at will?
That's why I like Jessee
Just what I think
Raising The Costs (Score:4)
Congress ain't asleep at the wheel. Brilliant law coming out that lets the government claim that an encrypted message says anything they want it to, and they have no requirement to disclose how they decoded that message. Their decoding becomes presumptive fact.
Steganography isn't the cure for this; quite the opposite! Under this legal system, you could provide all the keys you've ever touched in your life, you'd be unable to prove that the government didn't actually find incriminating evidence hidden under an alternate passphrase channel.
The general idea being bandied around both legal systems is to insert as much nervousness as possible, taking advantage of people's natural laziness and trustfulness to make them avoid encryption technologies. Then, anyone who isn't lazy and trustful can be selected and monitored--go check out the NSA drowning with info story. Imagine cracking a SSH session only to find some teen chat!
The big stick on both sides is as follows: "You try to hide your messages from us, and we'll manipulate the legal system to give us unlimited power to ruin your life and the lives of those you love."
But I must be fair. Power abhors a vacuum. Data Mining is quickly building comprehensive profiles of many more people much more efficiently than any CoIntelPro could have hoped, but the knowledge is not going into any organization with a mandate to the people.
I have to wonder. Which to prefer? A constitution? Or a stock certificate?
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Jury trials aren't always that fair... (Score:1)
jury trial because a jury trial isn't a guarantee
that you get a fair trial...
Imagine someone very unpopular being trialed,
soemeone with nazi or other tattoos al over his
face, wearing "strange" clothes, etc...
Do you really think the man on the street
(the kind of guys who likes windows because
everyone likes it) is gonna give him a fair trial?
Or imgagine the opposite: someone very popular
being brought to justice. Do you really think all
those nice randomly picked juries are intelligent
enough to have a fair opinion about
him. (Remember the OJ case someone?) Are you
willing to be judged by ten persons picked more or
less at random?
I'm not, thank you...
And what about judges?
Well, at least a judge is a trained, intelligent
person with some serious knowledge of the law, and
not just from what (s)he's seen on TV.
Re: Key on demand and the IOCA (Score:1)
There are express articles that exempt you from this sentence if you can prove or make clear that you, at the time of the question to produce the key, could not do that, as long as you do the moment you can provide it. And that's what scares me the most: apparently a lot of thought hs gone into this bill, to try and be "fair", but those people doing the "thinking" still overlooked the basic unfairness of it all. I mean, there's even a provision to allow you to invalidate the key (which otherwise would be an offence, as well). They think that far, but think not close up, or something.
Check out the very funny STAND campaign website (Score:3)
"Dear Mr Straw,
Please find at the end of the letter a confession to a crime, which has been affirmed by Statutory Declaration. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has been informed that you are in possession of this information.
You will not be able to understand the confession, because the words have been scrambled using a strong cryptographic key. This key was created in your name and has been registered on international public key servers..."
STAND is the main campaigning organisation in the UK tackling the issues raised by this bill, and it's a very well done website by some very clueful people. Visit it, everyone!
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Re: Key on demand and the IOCA (Score:1)
Also is the European convention on Human Rights now incorporated into UK law.
Still it's typical of the current govt which has marked authoritarian and nanny statist tendencies...
Ridiculous (Score:1)
Snort. Silly paranoia. And even if the secret police were after you, do you think something like that would help?
It is good that he brings up this issue and makes people aware of it, but remember that it is not a law yet. It is a proposal. Even if the British passes it, you can still go to the European court of human rights and other institutions. Anyway, I have hope for the British. Did you know that they are finally about to get rid of that enourmous undemocratic gerontocratic conservative anchor, the House of Lords?
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Governments aren't becoming stronger... (Score:2)
Senators, representatives and members of parliment are afraid that in 10 or 20 years, terrorism and criminal organizations will be communicating freely over the Internet and will remain beyond prosecution. To combat this they pass legislation (the only way they know how to deal with problems), but in order to get the bad guys(TM), they must stomp on the rights of regular citizens. They don't see another way to deal with it, and trampling the rights of common citizens seems a small price to pay for safety.
As with all reactionary movements throughout time, this will go too far. Some legislation will get passed, some person's rights will be trampled a little too far, and then the protests and media blitz will follow that will end this reactionary era. The government will get over its hangups about encryption and realize that in the long run there is nothing it can do about it and it does not inhibit there standing ability to enforce law and order.
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Open Source Government Wanted (Score:3)
This sort of bad legislation doesn't infringe on our rights because we don't, in principle, have any. We are not merely subjects of a monarch, but are in fact her property - as are all our posessions. The monarch does not currently excercise her power, but instead lets it vest in a bloated civil service and an unprepresentative parliament. Any connection between what is decided at Westminster and the "will of the people" is purely tangential.
There is no assumption in Britain that government is "by the consent of the governed". Instead there is a political class which regards the common people as peasants, there to be taxed to death (approx 48% of GNP goes to tax), but not really good for much else. There is no mechanism in the British constitution for balancing power between different parts of government. There is no mechanism for ensuring that basic rights are upheld. There is no meangful local government. There is basically no way for the average, reasonable person to make a difference to the world of government - unless of course they're prepared to become a part of the machine themselves.
And yet, we are smug. We are intolerably smug. We look with disdain across the Atlantic to the USA, and we sneer at your drive-through churches and yourlow-brow TV. We deride what must be the most free society on Earth, and all the while we don't have the right to go pee except by the consent of the Queen.
Americans reading this - you know you have problems in your government and society. And you rightly complain about them, and work to change things. But you know what? Your politicians have to listen, eventually. And you have a strong judiciary who aren't afraid to say "This law is against the constitution - so I'm striking it out".
Sure, laws are made which go against the constitution every year. But at least you have a written statement of rights and principles - so you know when it is being infringed. And eventually, it is put right.
We have no rights. But hey, who needs rights when you've got that nice Mr Blair and a shedload of apathy?
Re:Law in the UK (Score:1)
Good. One thing I never understood about Americans is their defence of their right to bear arms. Why?
If you tried to give a gun, or the sweeping freedom to own a gun that the Americans have, to a Brit we'd look puzzled and hand it back. You guys don't seem to understand that we don't want guns on our streets.
I remember flying back into the UK to Manchester Airport just after the Manchester bombing a few years back. I hadn't heard anything about it, in fact the bomb had gone off while I was in the air. I landed, got out the plane, and was shocked to see policemen (and women) wandering around in flak jackets with sub-machine guns. The police didn't look too comfortable with their role either. I'd just flown back from South Africa, where everyone had a gun. Heck, the guy I'd been staying with had a gun in his glove box in case he was car jacked on the way to work. When I saw the police carrying guns when I landed at Manchester I almost turned round and tried to book myself on a flight back out of the country.
Al.
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Misleading but worrying ... (Score:5)
Secondly, all these measures were originally mooted by the last (conservative) government. New Labour is not so much attempting to turn England into a police state as it is continuing policies established by Thatcher and her successors.
Why they're doing this is a strange question. It seems to me that the whole of English culture is in the grip of a wave of security-related hysteria that has nothing to do with terrorism (we put up with the IRA for thirty years, after all) and everything to do with accelerating social change. People feel insecure and worried, and respond by looking for some group to blame. New age travellers, gun owners, paedophiles -- they're all identifiable targets who stand out from the herd and give the herd reason to dislike (or hate) them. So it's no surprise that they come in for attack.
What's new and frightening is the introduction of "zero tolerance" measures in law, in a country that doesn't have a strong constitutional foundation. (There's a bill of rights, and there is an unwritten constitution, but it's hard to attack bad laws on the grounds that they violate constitutional rights.) Add half a million CCTV cameras in public places and a willingness to install another sixty thousand cameras a month and you can see why the UK is now the nation to visit if you want to buy neural-network based face-recognition software. Big Brother is alive and well and living in London.
Digging a bit deeper, we may also be seeing a once-in-a-century re-alignment of British politics. Traditionally, the Westminster parliament has been a two-and-a-half party system. Until 1923, it was Conservative/Liberal with a minor Labour presence. Labour replaced the Liberals, ushering in a period of Conservative dominance -- the Tories ran the UK for 40 out of the 60 years leading up to 1996 and Tony Blair's historic landslide victory. But they blew it, the same way the Liberals blew it in the 1920's; corruption scandals cost them the election and are still haunting them, while the Liberal presence in parliament is the highest it's been since the 1920's. Meanwhile, New Labour has lurched so far in the direction of the authoritarian right that they're staking out a claim to be the true right-wing party in British politics!
There's a general consensus in UK politics about the need for broadly free-market economics, but the traditional proponents of the market in the UK are strongly associated with the authoritarian right. The Liberal Democrats are beginning to reassert liberal values -- civil libertarianism mixed with moderate economics -- and may be staking out a claim to be the new party of the left in the UK, but for now neither of the main parties has any truck with civil liberties.Worse, the current right-wing authoritarian party of government is dominated by ex-Trotskyites. If there's one thing more zealously conservative than a hard-core Tory, it's an ex-Trot who has repented, seen the light, and bought an Armani suit and a BMW. (They're born control-freaks with no sense of humour, and you can't trust 'em either -- they know they've gone over to the Dark Side, and they just don't are about anything other than Power any more.)
Me, I'm just glad that after the last Conservative election victory I resolved to move to another country! (I made good on that promise -- and came to Scotland.)
Re:I'm probably wrong... (Score:2)
It seems to me that if I was British I would be quite upset about this just from a historical basis. After all, wasn't that part of the Magna Carta?
This was SCRAPPED last week (link + quotes) (Score:2)
This was scrapped last week. See:
www.theregister.co.uk/991122-000008 .html [theregister.co.uk]
"The controversial Part III, which dealt with police seizure powers for encryption keys, has been shifted into a separate Home Office bill"
ie. they're reviewing it after www.stand.org.uk [stand.org.uk] pointed out Part III was bollocks.
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Labour and bad laws (Score:4)
The sad thing is that the government will keep trying until this gets passed. This is the second attempt at this. It will probably get thrown out, but it will surface again under a different name in 6 months or so. They may end up passing it very quietly, and not telling anyone about it.
This law is the prevention of terrorism act revised. They seem to have fixed all the things that the courts found flaws with, eg letting solictors have publicity (those nasty terrorists would have never been found innocent if Gareth Pierce had been gagged), giving people appeals, and the right to a trial.
The law even allows the minister responsible to alter the legislation later if something isn't working.
When they passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act, a South African minister was said to have retorted "I wish we had laws like that". This law is something from the text book of a dictator, "give us what we want or else we lock you away and there is nothing you can do." I'm sure there are a few people in Chinese government looking at this saying "Oooh... Thats nice. Think we can get away with do that to our people?"
I think I'll start renaming the various ministers as characters from "Animal Farm".
Re:Law in the UK (Score:2)
In the US government is by the consent of the people; in the UK it's by the will of the monarch. Your government is bottom-up, ours is top down. And that flaw extends into every area of the law and politics.
YOur country is established on good principles (maybe not perfect, but certainly good) whereas our country is established on no principles at all. Yours was designed as a "land of the free" - ours just happened and has never been revised.
OK, your good principles are not always followed - but at least they are there.
Re:Powers of Parliament (Score:3)
Re:The Prevention of Terrorism Act (Score:1)
One, next time, don't forget to turn off those *!!@@**!!! italics
Two, IIRC (IANAL etc.) Brits (of whom I am/was one - now expat) do always have a right to trial by jury, but they can waive this if the case is trivial and within the jurisdiction of a magistrate. This is usually done as these are petty crime and the defendant trusts the magistrate's discretion or is guilty and knows there is no defence. In the latter case, a higher court (where the case would be tried by jury) would almost certainly impose a stiffer penalty than the magistrate would/could.
Re:Law in the UK (Score:1)
The authors of the US contitution were proto-libertarians (I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong in that). To a libertarian, "the government" is just another bunch of people. Sure, they're people with guns. But they shouldn't be allowed to impose their will unopposed; if they can have guns, everyone should have guns.
So why should the government be able to tell you you can't have a gun? For that matter, why should *anyone*?
That's why we told them to fuck off, and they did. (Score:2)
That'll be why we looked down our noses at our government and politely told them to fuck off [stand.org.uk] whereupon they promptly did [theregister.co.uk].
The UK government scrapped the whole mad keys idea last week. This story is very old, very out of date, and very not valid anymore.
Isn't it about time Slashdot got a European correspondent to stop this kind of confusion?
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On Juries (Score:3)
Juries can be corrupted by the crown by exploiting popular prejudice against the defendant. The defendant, on the other hand, can attempt what's known as jury nullification: seeking a mistrial by finding at least one juror sympathetic enough to disregard the letter of the judge's charge. If there are enough sympathetic jurors, you may even get an acquittal.
On the other hand, juries keep the court in touch with the local population. Most of the world, unlike the US, has an appointed, independent, and professional judiciary. This can let a judge drift into the clouds, knowing his job is secure; on the other hand the judge is not necessarily subject to mob appeal.
I would not be overly secure in the competence of trial judges. A recent review by the law society of upper canada revealed that of 100 warrants, 60-odd contained some kind of technical error but only 7 of those were rejected.
The existence of appellate courts, on the other hand, at least allows judicial errors to be put right. A trial judge can set aside a wrongful conviction (or a wrongful civil decision) by jury in some jurisdictions; that, at least, allows errors in the favour of the crown to be put right.
Which, although unpopular, is how it should be.
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Re:This was SCRAPPED last week (link + quotes) (Score:3)
"The controversial Part III, which dealt with police seizure powers for encryption keys, has been shifted into a separate Home Office bill "
its not been scrapped - just delayed a little - It will return
Re:I'm probably wrong... (Score:1)
Encrypt what? (Score:1)
Remember back in the good old days when there was no secret information to exchange and everybody got along on the Internet? You know, the world from which rsh, etc. came from? Well I don't. Today everybody is so concerned about protecting their information that the opposite is happening: they are revealing their information, under penalty of law. The problem with most encryption methods is that it is theoretically possible to get almost anything out of the encrypted text, given a suitable input (there are exceptions). It is not necessary to find out what that input is, but only to prove that it exists. The same thing applies to stenography: given almost any stegotext and a suitable algorithm, you can get any content you want out of a harmless-looking file (of course length matters here; under most circumstances you couldn't extract a 5-page document from a bullet graphic). But in any case, it's your information, whether you legally own it or not, and it shouldn't be somebody else's business to go tampering around with it, especially not to incriminate you!
I have to ask if the people who run the British government are mentally stable, benevolent, and fit for positions of power. Maybe they are, maybe not. Anyway, I'm glad I live in America (for now).
Ken
PS - That's just my opinion.
Re:Law in the UK (Score:1)
Interesting angle, I hadn't looked at it like that before. I can see the point, however it still seems to me that the entire point of government is to make these decisions. Its the responsibilities vs. rights thing again. In the UK we have responsibilities under the law (and are free to do what we please otherwise), while in the US they have rights (but can't do anything that isn't definined as one of their rights). I guess thats why they're so fierce when it comes to protecting them.
Before anyone jumps me in a back alley, I'd like to point out that I've never said I believe the UK to be a free country, it isn't. But then I don't believe the US is a free country either. Nor do I particularly believe either are true representative democracies.
Al.
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Re: Jury trials aren't always that fair... (Score:1)
Having recently served on a jury in a first-degree murder case (luckily not capital, although that'd not have affected my decision one bit), I can say conclusively that we did our utmost to be fair and impartial. At the end of the trial, when we were allowed to discuss the matter, we all agreed right away that, although we disliked the boy intensely, we had to do right by him and be unbiased. We went over each line of the charges, sometimes debating for four hours on one point. You might be surprised at the common man; I know I was.
I do not believe in democracy. I am not a great fan of the American system. But I have always approved of the jury system, and am now more convinced than ever. If we, who each on our own mighthave sent the boy to the block, could be fair and impartial, just about anyone can.
Ps.: For the curious, the boy had helped his best friend kill his (the best friend's) mother, clean up their flat and acquire supplies to dispose of the body. We found him guilty of conspiracy to commit first degree murder, first degree murder (as a complicitor, which means that he did not actually kill her, but is legally guilty for her death) and accessory after the fact to first degree murder. Due to his age at the time of the crime (17 years old), he was not executed but rather given life without possibility of parole. At times I feel sorry for him; his life is now an utter waste--why was he even born? But he did do it to himself.
Oh dear (Score:1)
EU Human Rights (Score:2)
In case this law was passed (which remains to be seen -- we may even have a rare Labour/Tory bipartisan front against this law) and a British citizen lands in prison because of it, I guess there would two major consequences: (a) an outcry all over Europe against the UK and (b) an appeal by said British citizen to the EU Human rights court, whose decision would be binding on both British judicial institutions and (in general) other European courts.
Not to mention Amnesty International, which would probably throw up a ruckus over it. Interesting times to be a Britsih citizen, for sure. First BSE, then this. Hmmmm... Are these related?
=)
Re:That's why we told them to fuck off, and they d (Score:1)
Moderate the above up, it is true.
I was at the RMS talk (in the UK) where he pointed out the new laws being introduced. This was several weeks ago, he did the whole works, etc, and I have a tonne of GNU protected stickers now.
Slashdot should be renamed U.S.Dot or SlowDot, they are really behind. Where is my Karma shield...? Argh... The pain... On the other hand, at least they put the article up, it is not RMS's fault that the peoples will worked in the UK. Anyway, I thought that they had just offloaded the controversial bits to another bill...
Makes the processor ID look lame, doesn't it?
Re: Key on demand and the IOCA (Score:2)
There are express articles that exempt you from this sentence if you can prove or make clear that you, at the time of the question to produce the key, could not do that, as long as you do the moment you can provide it.
Yes, that's a wonderful option. I think a recent open letter to Jack Straw put the best slant on this (I don't have the URL to hand, but I am sure someone here on
- Basically, a group of hackers did the following:
- Created a key in the name of Jack Straw
- Uploaded that key to the keyservers
- had a criminal make a signed confession of a currently unsolved crime
- Scanned and encrypted that with the JackStraw key
- Destroyed all intermediate work - the key, the original (paper document) and the unencrypted disk file)
- posted the encrypted file to a website, along with a description of what they had done
So, here is the situation - any police officer can find a file that blatently contains information useful to clear up a crime. According to the file, the key is held by one Jack Straw, Home Secretary. How is Mr Straw to PROVE he does't have that key, and in fact has never had it? it has his name on it, after all.....BTW, can you point out the clause that allows you merely to "make clear" that you don't have the key, not prove the negative?
And that's what scares me the most: apparently a lot of thought hs gone into this bill, to try and be "fair", but those people doing the "thinking" still overlooked the basic unfairness of it all. I mean, there's even a provision to allow you to invalidate the key (which otherwise would be an offence, as well). They think that far, but think not close up, or something.
Hmm. it has obviously been "tweeked" a little more since the last draft I saw (which does't have that provision, and indeed, now even allows you to chose to decode the document yourself (the previous draft didn't even allow you to see the document claimed to be encrypted by your key)
I must admit though, in a quick scan, I couldn't find a option to revoke; any chance of a section number? I am not doubting you, just trying to locate these loopholes without having to re-read the entire thing again....
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Re:Law in the UK (Score:1)
Perhaps, perhaps not - it is all speculation. I simply know that most armed societies are happier and crime is waay lower than it is in places where the common person is not given the right to protect him/herself.
It's a sad thing to think about, but we are just animals still - we aren't so advanced as to be able to abolish weapons yet. I long for that day but - it is not yet.
Re: Key on demand and the IOCA (Score:1)
Also the EU legislation may prove problematic towards proposed rules, since the UK businesses could claim that the rules are in breach of common market's equal competition rules. This is a long shot, though..
-mjpk
The Essential Problem (Score:1)
If we are outraged over things like this, what assumptions are we making?
Bottom line: Until the British make the same decision as the early Americans that they are no longer willing to be subjects, it's pointless to argue on their behalf.
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Stand in the place where you live (Score:1)
Re:Heh (Score:1)
Um.. I'm not sure where you got this idea, but that's not how it works in the United States. The 'Bill of Rights' isn't actually a list of rights that the people have, but a list of limitations on government power. In the United States we are allowed to do anything not prohibited.
Not really... (Score:1)
Rights under U.S. law are restrictions on the government, not on the citizens. Those rights allow us to do anything not specifically prohibited by law, and there are strong restictions on the law itself.
In other words, you have it backwards. You folks across the Pond can only do what your government lets you do, unless told otherwise. Over here, we can do pretty much what we want, unless the government comes up with a specific restriction that says other wise, and even those restrictions have very specific and strong limits.
Re:Law in the UK (Score:1)
The Second Amendment is talking about "a well-regulated militia." Koresh and crew were not part of a well-regulated militia. The Columbine killers were not part of a well-regulated militia. We require people to practice before they are allowed to drive a car on their own, and to show that they can do it safely -- and cars aren't DESIGNED to kill people (even though I know they do it a lot). Why can't we, at the least, do the same with guns?
Re:Law in the UK (Score:1)
Re:Law in the UK (Score:2)
Could someone pro-guns please explain to me what use Americans' personal firearms have been against their governments' continuous erosion of the American constitution?
Hamish
Re:Law in the UK (Score:1)
At any rate, it's just my opinion.
Re:Law in the UK (Score:1)
Re:Oh dear (Score:3)
Reversing the Burden of Proof isn't unknown - for example, you are forced to PROVE you have car insurance / a licence if stopped by a policeman, or are liable for not doing so (the crimes you are guilty until proven innocent for here are driving without a licence, and driving without insurance)
That isn't the problem. what IS the problem is that it is impossible to prove that you don't have a key - or, worse yet, that you HAD the key, but have forgotten the secret password you used to access it. Normally, reversing the Burden of Proof is reserved for cases where producing such proof is easy for the accused (if you HAVE a driving licence and / or insurance, even if you have lost your original documents you can obtain at least a letter proving you had them) and awkward / impossible for the government (imagine if the Police had to contact every insurance company in the uk after a road accident, to ask "is person xxx insured to drive with you, or covered by anyone you DO insure?" - now imagine what hoops the insurance company would have to go through to handle several dozen calls per office per day of this nature, and who would end up paying for it).
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Trial by Jury (Score:4)
Although, I disagree with the proposal, it is incredibly hypocrtical of Americans to attack them, as they have always had this system - the vast majority of offences in the US are not and cannot be tried by juries.
Nick
Re:Ridiculous (Score:1)
With the proposals not yet in place for how they are to replaced! The Lower House (Commons) has been manipulating the Upper (Lords) for years, to the point where everybody recognises that the whole thing was pointless.
Britain needs:
Re:Open Source Government Wanted (Score:1)
And remember these laws are pretty much the same ones that currently apply to the Customs and Excise.
Re:Glad to see it mentioned (Score:2)
Worse still, the Conservatives were so badly smashed to bits in the last election that they are unlikely to recover in time to fight the next election effectively. William Hague is an ineffective "second-tier" leader, and all the old Tory talent has either retired, been kicked out of office or relegated to the back benches because their views on European Union and the Single Currency don't fit with the standard party line.
Worse, the repercussions from old scandals are still resounding (al-Fayed denouncing Neil Hamilton in court the other day, Jeffrey Archer being dropped from the Mayor of London Candidacy because of a lie he told years ago).
With no effective opposition we are little better than a one-party state. And this very Government has shown repeatedly since they came to office that they are not to be a government of consensus nor a protector of minority rights. Witness their offhand treatment of widows, pensioners, the disabled and even one-man companies in the Welfare Reform Bill. Despite massive representations from the public to their MPs and plenty of opposition in the Lords, the Government showed their teeth and the Lords had no legal right to refuse.
A few days later the hereditary peers (the ones who didn't get there via party political sponsorship) were all kicked out forever. That's an unprecedented constitutional change.
So not only do we presently lack an effective opposition party, we no longer even have any effective upper house. The government is now planning monstrous legislation and there is no-one to stop them.
The British are notoriously apolitical, especially about abstract priciples like freedom; there will be no uprising as long as the people are fed.
I'd emigrate, but where to?
Bugger.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:Ridiculous (Score:1)
Re:Law in the UK (Score:1)
Not that you're not going to get twenty million other posts telling you this, but socialism is an economic system, not a political system. It's also a damned good idea, as long as it's implemented at the same time as massive (civil) libertarian reforms. It is such a pity that the capital-L Libertarians in this country have tied civil libertarianism, which is really the only sane point of view, in my opinion, to laissez-faire economic policies, which just about everyone has realized are totally dain-bramaged.
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"HORSE."
Re:Jury trials aren't always that fair... (Score:2)
that you get a fair trial...
But this is totally backwards. The defendant has a right to a jury trial, not a requirement for one - in the U.S., the defendant can choose either a jury trial or a trial with only a judge, depending on which he thinks is in his better interests. This gives the defendant the best shot at a fair trial available - if the government is screwing him, he can take the case to the people. If he's afraid he'll lose because the people will dislike him, he can rely on the judge who will presumably adhere strictly to the law.
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Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Re:That's why we told them to fuck off, and they d (Score:2)
Sorry - but no. The bill it WAS part of (the eCommerce one) will go ahead without it, but the provisions have been moved to a "more appropriate vehicle" - in this case, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers bill, and as far as I can tell, without even a cursory edit.
Isn't it about time Slashdot got a European correspondent to stop this kind of confusion? /., but then, the majority of web users are still merkins. I think what you are actually asking is for a european story reviewer, which is a different matter :+)
There IS a strong Merkin leaning on
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Re:That's why we told them to fuck off, and they d (Score:2)
I pay fairly close attention to the UK situation and though it's possible that I would post something out of date, in this case at least, I'm more up to date than you are...
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Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Re:Powers of Parliament (Score:3)
Maybe this explains why so many hereditary peerages (those that aren't gifts from the government currently in power) seem to be losing their right to vote [itn.co.uk].....
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Re:What is steganography? (Score:2)
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Re:Law in the UK (Score:1)
But as always - this is just my opinion.
Jack Straw Links (Score:2)
letter [stand.org.uk] and the photo essay [stand.org.uk].
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Re:Law in the UK (Score:3)
Democracy and socialism are not mutually exculsive. You can have a democratic socialist country (like Sweden) or a totalitarian socialist country (like Red China). The US is a democratic republic where we vote for representatives to govern us. If our representatives have socialist tendencies then we end up with socialist public policy initatives. Of course, if the people did not want socialistic governmental policies they can always defeat the incumbents who voted in those policies.
While you may decry socialism there have been some positive results because of it. For example, take social security. Isn't it better to that old people have shelter and health care made available to them or would you rather have a bunch of homeless elderly people dying of illnesses that can be easily treated by doctors? Or take welfare. Is it truly better to feed the poor or to have a lot of hungry indigent people running about? That sounds like a recipe for revolution to me.
Another example is the interstate highway system. Isn't it better that you can hop on a freeway and travel unimpeded all the way from the east to the west coast? Or would you rather have to go a couple of miles on a private toll road, stop, pay a toll, go a few more miles, stop, pay another toll, start moving again, repeating the cycle for the next 2000 miles?
I suggest you study up more on political and economic theory. The solution to most problems is not unbridled capitalism, as that is what causes a lot of the problems in the first place. The best way seems to be the system we have currently -- a relatively open market where capitalism can flourish to the benefit of those on the upper end of the economic spectrum mixed with socialist policies that can ameliorate the negative effects pure capitalism can have on those on the bottom.
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Re:Libertarians --- correction. (Score:2)
Businesses just want your money; some governments want {\it everything}, including your life.
Re:Law in the UK (Score:2)
'tho you might have to examine your civil service system. I don't know enough about your government to know how often the civil servants rotate, or whether members tend to survive, say, a parliamentary vote of no-confidence.
Re:Restoration of Liberty for the masses (Score:2)
Otherwise, the creative people are just going to move somewhere with very limited government which does what they tell it rather than try to tell them what to do... at which point you have one area full of creative productive people and the rest of the world a bunch of decaying welfare states full of the unproductive dummies who used to leech off them.
So make a choice: do you support big government or do you oppose it? And when the majority of creative people choose freedom, big government will end.
Re:Libertarians --- correction. (Score:2)
It is my understanding that to the libertarians, "the government" is the most evil bunch of people, as opposed to big corporations, who are always a good bunch of people, no matter of hard they hit your privacy and freedom of speech.
Bravo!!! I have never heard libertarianism defined so well before. After reading all the pro-libertarian propaganda that passes for "political discussion" here on slashdot, it is nice to see that there are a few souls here who have actually thought about politics, rather than mindlessly parroting something that they learned but have never really thought about...
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Re:Law in the UK (Score:2)
Both welfare and social security don't solve the problems they were intended to solve, and they actually cause major problems themselves.
Do you know how many forms you have to fill out , and how many qualifications you have to have to get your own money back from the government under social security? Let me tell you - it's absurd. Out of 100 people who put 15% of their wages into social security, mabie 12 actually get some money back.
The way that the laws are written, someone supported by eithor program can't re-enter the workforce. If someone on social security earns more than 2000 or so working, they loose their social security money - and have to completely re-submit all their forms from scratch.
Welfare is even worse - If someone's living fine off of government money, and can't get a job that would pay much more anyway - why would they ever bother to try to get a job?
If people could spend their own money how they want to spend it, poverty would be much less of an issue than it is now.
Don't make the problem worse - help solve the problem. Vote Libertarian - http://www.lp.org/ [lp.org]
Re:Libertarians --- correction. (Score:2)
As someone famous and important said:
"A lot of misinformation gets said when people put words in the mouth of those that they disagree with".
We libertarians believe that burocracy in a republic tends to be ineffective and inefficient. (Did you know that for every federal tax dollar earmarked for public schools, only 0.35 gets to a school - the other 0.65 is spent in collecting, processing, and distributing the money).
We tend to believe that corporations will be more efficient simply because if they aren't, they'll be driven out of buisnuess by the mechanics of the free market.
Do you really trust the government more than you trust yourself?
Re:Heh (Score:3)
It's certainly not against the law to walk in the U.S. However, it is against the law to walk while thinking about physics. This is for your own safety. Next time you visit the States, be safe and legal and use one of the designated Physics Contemplation Areas.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Some would say the USA (the land of guns in the hands of youths) has already gone down the tubes, or on its way there.
I wouldn't call the USA a model country. Or maybe I would, as a model not to follow.
Re:Law in the UK (Score:3)
The government is required to be subservient to the people. It's power derives solely from us. When this is no longer the case, the government needs to be overthrown by the people and a new one installed instead.
While I agree that your examples were hardly members of a well-regulated militia, the power of the militia derives from the people and not from the government. Ergo, it has to be self-regulating, so as to not give the government a loophole (e.g. all militiamen must be supporters of the present government). This basically requires people to not be crazies who go around shooting other people, and is all a part of members of society generally acting in a moral fashion.
However, this is a very tricky thing to get into writing in a way that will still make clear that the right to bear arms is an inalienable right and cannot be taken away at all. That's what the Bill of Rights is, you know: a list of natural rights, not a list of rights granted by the government. We're lost if we start to think that the government grants us those rights.
The programs aren't bad, the implementation is. (Score:3)
Welfare should have incentives to get people back to work. One incentive would be to pay much less cash, and issue the rent money directly to landlords (in the form of a check) and crack down on landlords who split these checks with the welfare client, who doesn't actually live there.
And incentives to get a job by adding the wages to the welfare for a few months. Switching jobs is a costly process and it's often impractical to buy a bus pass, work clothes, etc, out of what's barely enough money to live on in a normal month.
I'm always disgusted at how in Canada (dunno about the USA) it's easier to apply for welfare (one form, instant check) than UI (unemployment relief) which is multiple forms, a dismissal notice from your work, and three to five weeks...
The system is insane. But, if you reward people for paying out less benefits, you can't be suprised when they complicate the system to make it harder to collect.
A lot of the problems come from rewarding the wrong behaviour.
I see no reason why a government run agency can't be as efficient as a private one, if you're allowed to be as ruthless as a corporation would in cutting out useless jobs and firing people for incompotence.
But, I don't see much happening as long as we live in a representative democracy where we have to pick the least corrupt person to 'represent' us. When electronic voting becomes possible, if used right, it could remove a lot of corruption simply by removing the politicians who hire incompotent relatives, etc.
Re:yea, ok..but Jesse?!?! (Score:2)
Even if you only judge him by how corrupt he is, he's had a lot less time to be corrupted by big money advocates. He'll have just as many biases as the next person, but until he's in office for as many years as most politicians, he won't be bought on as many issues.
It's partly because he just got into politics (well, fairly recently) and partly because he's not from a rich family that would already have a lot of these connections.
And, I also think that having been a SEAL, he's less likely to support pointless wars and military operations, knowing what it's like to risk your life for some moron politician who's just vote pandering. Finally, a politician who didn't get a cushy National Guard position, or go straight into officer school and sit behind a desk during the war.
Re:Law in the UK (Score:2)
Re:Bible code? (Score:2)
Now, that makes God a criminal right?
Everything makes much more sense now; such strangeness, here in a rather protestant nation with a distaste for catholicism which spawned from the country that created a new religion so its king could get a divorce...
Makes ya proud to be a Jew
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Re: Key on demand and the IOCA (Score:2)
Is it legal? I mean, will this get through the European Court of Human Rights?
Greg
Re: Key on demand and the IOCA (Score:2)
This legislation will not stand up to judicial scrutiny if the system for handling human rights cases actually works properly. Given the slightly flakey nature of the British legal system outside of Scotland it may not. The Court of Session in Edinburgh has recently upheld two complaints on human rights grounds, one of which has forced the Scottish Government to stop employing temporary sherriffs. There will be more such cases, and probably a lot of ensuing chaos - getting the crypto stuff heard might be hard.
Re:Glad to see it mentioned (Score:2)
You hit the nail on the head in saying that with no effective opposition we're little better than a one party state. Unfortunately with effective opposition parliament is paralysed and the government doesn't work at all.
One of the good things that can be said about the current government is that their constitutional changes might make constructive opposition both more common and more popular.
Re:Law in the UK (Score:2)
legal metaphysics? The things that matter are what the people's,
corporation's and state's powers are, and how conflicts between them
are resolved.
They've already sworn off key escrow... (Score:2)
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Re:Libertarians --- correction. (Score:2)
No, but I trust the government more than Exxon, Southwestern Bell, Microsoft, etc. And I certainly trust the government more than most of my fellow "citizens" (yourself included)!
(Did you know that for every federal tax dollar earmarked for public schools, only 0.35 gets to a school - the other 0.65 is spent in collecting, processing, and distributing the money).
So corporations do not have any costs when it comes to sending out bills and collecting money? If schools were privatized probably only
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Re:Law in the UK (Score:2)
Hmmm... where did you get those numbers? Have you adjusted for inflation? Can you provide a link or book reference? You are right about the Republicans though. They have had the presidency for 20 of the last 35 years and they have controlled Congress for the last decade. I'll wager that the rise in the number of homeless has accelerated since the Reagan years, when the Republicans gutted welfare.
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Re:The Prevention of Terrorism Act (Score:2)
I don't see how it is an infringement of liberty at all - all it says, AFAIK, is that the jury can take into account the fact that you didn't mention something before the trial. In other words, if you act like you have something to hide, the jury is allowed to consider that fact when deciding if you're guilty or not. You still have every right to remain silent.
If somebody could explain to me how this results in wrongful convictions, or reduces freedom, then I will change my views - but from where I'm sitting it just looks like common sense.
Re:Trial by Jury (Score:2)
Yes, we all know that a white judge will automatically be biased against black defendants. And of course, it's no good having male judges, as they will always have a deep-seated hatred of women. And while we're at it, let's have religious quotas for the judiciary, as trials will never be fair if the judge and defendant have different beliefs. Perhaps we could filter on political views (like hunting) as well.
If you want to say that white, male judges will automatically be racist and sexist, come out and say it. I fail to see how the colour of a judge's skin makes any difference, nor the judge's sex. If you are alleging that there is some conspiracy to appoint only members of a select group to the judiciary, let's see some evidence.
Re:Glad to see it mentioned (Score:2)
What I was getting at is that without procedural changes at Westminster (I don't know precisely what) other constitutional changes won't help much. We'll end up with an eternity of Callaghans and Majors, which is worse than an eternity of Blairs and Thatchers (IMHO). With Westminsters current procedures, governments need big majorities to govern at all.
I think any appearance of radical political change in Britain since WWII is generally an illusion. Thatcher did not change nearly as much as she gave the impression of thinking she changed.