Recent Civil liberties Articles
Nick Griffin’s tweets and the limits of free speech
BNP Chairman Nick Griffin MEP has just caused a bit of a Twitter storm by publishing the address of a gay couple who sued a Christian B&B couple who refused them board.
I spend a lot of time on this blog defending the right of bigots and racists to say horrible things, online and in person. However, I think this superficially anodyne tweet might actually cross the line into territory I would not defend.
Why? Well, first, there is an invasion of privacy. Griffin is a public figure with a large Twitter following. The couple in question have a reasonable expectation that their address will not be broadcast.
More importantly, the tweet could be considered inciting violence and harassment. In a followup, Griffin said a ‘British Justice Team’ (whatever that is) should visit to give them ‘a bit of drama’. If it were my address that had been published, I would feel harassed and terrorised and probably go and stay elsewhere for a few days.
This is the sort of ‘direct’ incitement I have spoken of previously when considering the boundaries of free speech.
Regardless of whether people visit this house or not, this controversy will unfold in a particularly frustrating manner. Griffin has already begun to complain that he is a free speech martyr, the victim of hypocrisy, denied free speech yet again.
But that is not what is going on here. The tweets are unacceptable not because he is a misguided racist, but because they directly incite violence and invade privacy. It is entirely consistent to say that these tweets are beyond the pale, while simultaneously defending the right of people to make sick jokes and the celebrate the death of British soldiers.
This distinction may well be lost in the 140 character world of Twitter. Doubtless the subtlties outlined above will be lost. And if someone tries to prosecute Nick Griffin for this, it will be a huge headache for those of us who think that the convictions of Matthew Woods, Azhar Ahmed and Liam Stacy were excessive, and who are planning to respond to the DPP consultation on social media.
On the issue of gays and Christian B&B owners, I have written previously about why I think the owners have no right to discriminate. Regardless of whether the B&B is someone’s house, the owners are running a business, which is a public act, subject to the public laws.
The police want a word about the names you call me
Here’s something that really hasn’t been stressed enough: as deserved as the worldwide outcry was against the 2-year jail sentences for three members of Pussy Riot, that’s nothing compared to the 4-year stretches handed down to two young men in another authoritarian nation – namely our own.
These two men didn’t supposedly offend Orthodox sensibilities by performing their anti-Putin song in a church; all they did was set up pages on Facebook for events that didn’t take place. This was enough for the judge to describe what they did as an “evil act”.
Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan will now be over a quarter of the way through their sentences, and will hopefully be released before too much longer. As acts of stupidity go, theirs was fairly spectacular: setting up pages on Facebook advertising meeting places for riots during the hysteria of last year clearly was asking for trouble.
Nonetheless, no one turned up at either, and in Sutcliffe-Keenan’s case he always maintained it had been a joke that had badly backfired. For the two to be sentenced to terms far in excess of what others who actually took part in the riots received was an overreaction of quite staggering proportions. That their appeal against the length of their sentences was also rejected is a stain on the justice system.
Yet this week has seen two more such cases prosecuted, neither of which should have ever reached a court. Azhar Ahmed was more fortunate than Matthew Woods, although not by much. Earlier in the year Ahmed was moved in the aftermath of the deaths of four servicemen in Afghanistan to post an angry Facebook status update in which he said that “all soldiers should die and go to hell”.
Ahmed did not say that soldiers should be killed; and as the court presumably accepted, Ahmed afterwards apologised to those who responded to his update, saying that he hadn’t meant for anyone to be upset by it.
Despite all of this, Ahmed was convicted of sending a “grossly offensive” message, and was told by district judge Jane Goodwin that he had gone beyond the bounds of freedom of speech. He was ordered to perform 240 hours of community service over two years; by comparison, the TV presenter Justin Lee Collins was ordered this week to perform 140 hours of community service after he was found guilty of a prolonged campaign of harassment against his ex-girlfriend.
Undoubtedly worthy of less sympathy is Matthew Woods. Woods pleaded guilty earlier this week to sending a grossly offensive message after he was arrested “for his own safety”. Woods’ crime was to post jokes on his Facebook page about both April Jones and Madeleine McCann, one of which was described by magistrate Bill Hudson as “abhorrent”. This seems to be a reference to Woods’ show-stopping gag:
What’s the difference between Mark Bridger and Santa Claus? Mark Bridger comes in April.
If delivered on a stage, it would have been worthy of boos. Posted online during a search for a child, with all the emotions surrounding such a disappearance, Hudson decided it was worthy of three months in prison.
Only Woods’ early guilty plea prevented it from being for the full six months available under the law. Earlier the same day the court fined a man £100 and ordered him to pay £100 in compensation after he called a woman who had pulled up alongside him in her car a “fucking black cunt”.
No amount of seminars between Keir Starmer, lawyers and the social networks are going to make a difference when the law was drafted at a time when the closest thing to Facebook and Twitter were Friendster and Friends Reunited. It’s also ridiculous that the onus should be placed on the social networks themselves to police what is and isn’t “grossly offensive” or “menacing” when it should be down to users to not outrage themselves.
Judges now seem to believe that prison sentences are an appropriate punishment for saying or writing things that clearly do not incite hatred of any variety but which do hurt feelings is a sad indictment of what a petty, pathetic bunch many of us appear to have become.
Convicted for a Facebook rant: where is free speech now?
Teenager Azhar Ahmed has been found guilty of posting an offensive Facebook message following the deaths of six British soldiers in Afghanistan.
The message he posted on his Facebook wall is reproduced below:
The judge called this “derogatory, disrespectful and inflammatory”.
Although Ahmed’s message is deeply unpleasant, I do not think that updates of this nature should qualify for a criminal conviction. Much political speech is “derogatory, disrespectful and inflammatory” and the first part of his message reads very much like a politcal opinion.
In the latter part of the update, he says that the soldiers “should die” and “go to hell”. Wishing for someone to die is also unpleasant, but it is not the same as a death threat. If it were, then thousands of Trades Unionists would surely have been prosecuted for wishing death and Hell upon Margaret Thatcher!
No-one was specifically mentioned or targeted in Ahmed’s message. Moreover, it was broadcast to those in his Social Network – not towards the soldiers’ families. Social opprobrium, and even Facebook’s ‘Report’ function for T&C violations are all means of discouraging this kind of speech, without resorting to criminal sanctions.
There’s another aspect to this, related to the other big free expression story of the moment: the “Innocence of Muslims” film which has been cited as the cause of rioting in Libya that led to the death of the US Ambassador.
Blaspheming Christianity is hardly controversial these days. But it occurs to me that soldiers who have died in the line of duty fulfil a similar ‘sacred’ role for the secular British as the Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) serves for practicing Muslims.
Any denigration of either is seen as “derogatory, disrespectful and inflammatory” and worthy of punishment. I am reminded of Charlie Gilmour, imprisoned for swinging on the Cenotaph.
I do think that soldiers killed in the line of duty should be revered. Their sacrifices should be memorialised, and society has a duty of care to the families they leave behind. However, saying unpleasant things about them should not be a criminal offence, because sometimes their actions may be in need of scrutiny and criticism. Moreover, criminalising derogatory comments about one sacred thing opens the door to criminalisation of other sacred things too.
And before you know it, we will be confronted with a pantheon of plastic Gods and tacky idols, protected from criticism, staring mutely at us, as we stare mutely back.
Without Ron Paul, American Libertarianism is likely to die
contribution by Henry Steinberg
Until recently American libertarianism appealed solely to a certain type of radical, modern bourgeois youth. Without a large class of people to appeal to it languished in obscurity. Since it’s inception in 1972 The American Libertarian Party has passed the 1% mark at a presidential election only once.
However, in the last two Republican primaries Ron Paul, a former Libertarian Party candidate for president, managed to attract national attention and not an insignificant degree of support as a Republican candidate.
Will libertarianism finally become a permanent part of mainstream America politics, or fade back into obscurity now that Paul has announced his retirement?
The composition of Paul’s support does not suggest permanency. The slightly cultish dedication Ron Paul’s supporters had to their candidate masked deep, unspoken divisions. Polls taken before the Iowa primary showed that only half of the people who voted for him considered themselves Republicans, and more Democrats were prepared to support him than any other GOP candidate.
This reveals a fragmented and disunited base, which we can split into three distinct factions: There were of course libertarians, who largely shared Paul’s Austrian Economics and minarchism.
But there were also many paleo-conservatives, Christian militiamen from the deep south, who were enticed by Paul’s paranoid speeches about a looming police state, his creationism, his extreme isolationism, and cultural backwardness. There was a significant liberal contingent, who appreciated his fiery attacks on American foreign policy.
If this rickety coalition is to be turned into a permanent section of the Republican party, a new candidate will need to emerge from high-government who has the ability to appeal to these sections. And due to the lack of an organization that wasn’t centred around Paul, this new man will need to appear soon.
Libertarians, long suspicious of the Republican Party and conscious of the divisions within Paul’s support, have nominated the Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, as the heir to Paul. However, it seems unlikely he can transfer over that support.
Johnson is purely a libertarian candidate, and lacks the strange mosaic of positions that allowed Paul to canvass so widely. He will fail to attract Paul’s liberals because he is fiscally a double of Paul, and on foreign policy he is quite conventional, and often appears barely interested. He will also not attract the paleo-conservatives, as he is pro-immigration, socially liberal, and isn’t interested in conspiracy theories.
The only other candidate proposed is Ron Paul’s son Rand Paul, and the question of whether he could lead his father’s movement is irrelevant, as he clearly doesn’t want to. His senate campaign was centred around the Tea Party, and all of his manoeuvres since taking office suggest a career politician.
The contemporary libertarian movement, in that it existed only to support Ron Paul. is as likely to sustain itself as a united socialist Yugoslavia.
The curious case of Ken Clarke and the awful Justice Bill
contribution by Donald Campbell
Perhaps the clearest indication yet of the toxic nature of the Justice and Security Bill – and the Government’s awareness of that fact – came with a little-reported anomaly in Tuesdays’ Cabinet reshuffle.
Ken Clarke, despite leaving the Ministry of Justice, is still going to be responsible for taking what is supposedly a justice Bill through the House of Commons.
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Why we welcome govt exploring porn filter options
contribution by Holly Dustin
Liberal Conspiracy’s discussion of the Government’s consultation on introducing ‘porn filters’ has included a tirade against some of those who have lead the argument for new controls and a polemic about the state.
The mainstream media has sadly also framed the debate as moral majority versus libertarians, while underlining the likely futility of any technological attempt at a fix.
In an ironically prudish way there has been little reference to the nature and content of the material we’re all so concerned about.
The ‘porn-block’ plans are being pushed through: tell the govt you’re opposed
Liberal Conspiracy has been tracking the “opt out” government porn filters campaign.
It started with Mary Whitehouse’s Safer Media, then Christian groups, Claire Perry and the Daily Mail; but now the policy has well and truly arrived at the heart of government.
A few months ago, the idea moved from Jeremy Hunt’s office at DCMS, which is responsible for Internet policy, to the Department for Education.
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Why the UK’s actions against Julian Assange now make me uncomfortable
The vigour with which the British government is pursuing Julian Assange makes me think his paranoia about being extradited to the United States may be somewhat justified.
There are countless examples of the authorities ignoring cases around rape. In fact I’m about to get involved in a campaign on how badly the police handles rape, and the stories I’ve heard would horrify any right-thinking person.
So this latest kerfuffle raises some uncomfortable questions for me.
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How the Olympics Pwned the Terrorists
A final thought on the Olympics – it was a giant middle-finger towards the terrorists, wasn’t it?
I remember that week in 2005 very well. As well as the announcement confirming we had won the Olympic bid, that week in July also saw the G8 protests at Gleneagles and Edinburgh, and the Make Poverty History events, also centred in Scotland, that culminated in the Live 8 concerts.
There was a real sense of political momentum, a feeling of people power, and for once, and absence of the usual cynicism associated with politics. And then four idiots spoiled everything. The constructive political ‘moment’ around G8 was destroyed by their actions, and the country and the government fell back into fear and reactionary politics.
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A different view on the Ian Tomlinson case
Hearing of the verdict in the Ian Tomlinson case, it was difficult not to be reminded of William Blackstone’s formulation: it was better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.
This is not to say that PC Simon Harwood was guilty of anything more on the 1st of April 2009 than common assault.
The jury more than understandably decided that it was not proven beyond reasonable doubt that Harwood caused the manslaughter of Tomlinson, and we have to respect that decision.
continue reading… »
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