"Extreme porn" laws tested (This post will make you a criminal)

WARNING!

Viewing this post may make you a criminal!

WARNING!

This will probably not pop up much but it is worth noting that a person is now on trial for possession of so called "Extreme porn". No mention of what the porn is other than that they showed "injury to a person's breast" and "an act which threatens a person's life". Given that this could cover image of a nipple piercing:

By Jess Cruz from San Francisco (The Pain) [CC-BY-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

and strangulation:

 

http://metalkings.ru/mayhem/mayhem-pictures/strangulation.jpg

both of which I'm sure appear in films, TV and now this webpage it's kind of a stupid thing to prosecute over, especially as the making of these images is not illegal: just their viewing (sorry you are now a criminal).

Anyway stupid law is stupid and hopefully this won't go through

I am spartacus

Very quick post; two things of note happening online at the moment. The first thing is the ruling that the following text:

"Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!"

sent via twitter constitutes a menacing and dangerous message to send (Paul Chambers lost his appeal), here's Index on Censorship's post on it and my thoughts at the start of all this. This lead to a lot of people retweeting Paul's original message with the tag "#IamSpartacus' in a show of solidarity and to point out the stupidity of the ruling (BBC coverage here). In essence this ruling could be interpreted as the outlawing of humour in public forums, well certainly the sort of humour that some could misinterpret. In fact there was a second case of this on the same day when Councillor Gareth Compton was arrested under section 128 of the 2003 communications act (I think) for making an ill conceived attempt at humour when asking:

"Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't. It would be a blessing, really"

to put this in context Yasmin Alibhai-Brown had just just complained that politicians (other than the likes of Nelson Mandela) weren't morally allowed to comment on human rights issues. While neither of these jokes are very good it's pretty obvious that they're not serious incitements or threats so quite why they're treated (and apparently tried) as such is beyond me (and worrying me).

Second item is shorter (for my part at least) the Met Police apparently have the "authority" to take down websites, without a court order, or any judgement, if they are found in "contempt of court" (well if they Met think they're in contempt of court at least). Here's there second Spartacus moment: Fitwatch is removed at the request of the Met, so they get reposted everywhere what were they posting? how not to pulled up by the police if you've been in a demo. There's a very good analysis of why this whole story is wrong at Heresy Corner and here's the offending blog post from FitWatch (I don't condone violence etc but posting this is not illegal):

"If you fear you may be arrested as a result of identification by CCTV, FIT or press photography;

DON'T panic. Press photos are not necessarily conclusive evidence, and just because the police have a photo of you doesn't mean they know who you are.

DON'T hand yourself in. The police often use the psychological pressure of knowing they have your picture to persuade you to 'come forward'. Unless you have a very pressing reason to do otherwise, let them come and find you, if they know who you are.

DO get rid of your clothes. There is no chance of suggesting the bloke in the video is not you if the clothes he is wearing have been found in your wardrobe. Get rid of ALL clothes you were wearing at the demo, including YOUR SHOES, your bag, and any distinctive jewellery you were wearing at the time. Yes, this is difficult, especially if it is your only warm coat or decent pair of boots. But it will be harder still if finding these clothes in your flat gets you convicted of violent disorder.

DON'T assume that because you can identify yourself in a video, a judge will be able to as well. "That isn't me" has got many a person off before now.

DO keep away from other demos for a while. The police will be on the look-out at other demos, especially student ones, for people they have put on their 'wanted' list. Keep a low profile.

DO think about changing your appearance. Perhaps now is a good time for a make-over. Get a haircut and colour, grow a beard, wear glasses. It isn't a guarantee, but may help throw them off the scent.

DO keep your house clean. Get rid of spray cans, demo related stuff, and dodgy texts / photos on your phone. Don't make life easy for them by having drugs, weapons or anything illegal in the house.

DO get the name and number of a good lawyer you can call if things go badly. The support group has the names of recommended lawyers on their site. Take a bit of time to read up on your rights in custody, especially the benefits of not commenting in interview.

DO be careful who you speak about this to. Admit your involvement in criminal damage / disorder ONLY to people you really trust.

DO try and control the nerves and panic. Waiting for a knock on the door is stressful in the extreme, but you need to find a way to get on with business as normal. Otherwise you'll be serving the sentence before you are even arrested."

Does the end justify the means: are 'Libel Tourists' a real problem?

This post was prompted by something that has been annoying me for a while (since I read this excellent blog it goes into a lot of detail but is well worth the time) and in light of Simon Singh driving off the BCA (see my update earlier today) it seemed a good time to raise it. I fully support the libel reform campaign but I object to their 4th argument:

"4. London has become an international libel tribunal

We recommend: No case should be heard in this jurisdiction unless at least 10 per cent of copies of the relevant publication have been circulated here"

There is nothing inherently wrong with people coming here to settle libel cases; it is a sympton that are libel laws are in someway very attractive to other people but per say there is nothing wrong with them coming here to use them. It is the attractiveness of our libel laws that encourage people to come here to sue others nothing more. As campaign we do ourselves a disservice by falling into the trap of using people's inate xenophobia to promote our cause.

I doubt this is intentional on the part of those who lead the campaign but it does worry me the number of people who will happily repeat it without thinking about how it looks or even if its actually the problem they say it is. Who cares if people want to come here to sue each other

The only logical argument that I can see to reduce the number of people who come from overseas to sue here is if they were preventing residents from having access to the courts by clogging them up but as the number of libel cases in 2008 was 8 the made it to court from 259 that were brought this is obviously not the problem (although the apparent chilling is, even if some of these cases the defendant was obviously wrong I doubt they all were).

If anything all these people coming here with money can only be a good thing, so can we please drop the "libel tourism" and focus on what's important: that our libel laws cost 140 times that of equivalent cases in Europe, that even a successful libel defence will cost you money (to the tune of several thousand) and that more and more publishers are scared to publish here for fear of being sued or just don't publish at all.

Our libel laws are stiffling good journalism, stopping vital scientific debate and ultimately stopping the UK progressing as an educated nation; libel tourism is only a symptom of this and like homeopathy only treating the symptom does stop the problem.

Today's game: don't annoy CPS; why the twitter-bomb-hoax means I can't say much

Well some of you may be pleased to know I can't really talk about much any more. The reason? well, as explained in this excellent article from JackOfKent in his new bad law column the trial (BBC summary) of Paul Chambers is set to close soon. He's being convicted for posting the following on twitter:

"Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week... otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!"

Now the important part of this is that CPS is not prosecuting him for making a false bomb threat (they admit that there isn't enough evidence that he intended to cause a panic by this) so instead they pressing charges of

"Improper use of public electronic communications network"

Which is an offence for anyone who:

sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; 

As the Bad Law column points  out this law was intended to stop nuisance callers and their ilk; not to mop up people that have mentioned the word bomb but aren't making a threat.

Now why this concerns me is that while the tweet concerned is threatening, it is still obviously a joke (which is why Paul is not being prosecuted for making bomb threats), so at what point does something stop being a joke and start being threatening (or 'menacing' as the law states)? The following statements are all the latter but are here as examples:

"It would be so easy to inject heavy metals into the air conditioning units at Heathrow poisoning everyone"

or:

"Anthrax is a terrorist's dream substance, it looks just like talcum powder"

Now using the CPS's logic if I now go to an airport (or other public place such as the university I'm currently sitting in) this constitutes a threat. These two statements could just as easily be from a security discussion as threats and while they would have to be taken out of their current context to constitute threats I think it is fairly obvious that this is what has already happened Paul's case.

In fact this could have happened to me recently: I had a trip to Hamburg for a meeting, running late in I put on the first t-shirt to hand before leaving, this t-shirt in fact:

for most of the day I had a coat and hoody but during the inevitable security check I had take them both off which of course revealed my horribly inflammatory t-shirt to a security guard who promptly told me off and that I could get in trouble if I wasn't careful. I didn't realise how close to real trouble I had come, given how the CPS have treated this case I doubt they'd struggle to find some law that made my t-shirt wearing chargeable.

This is a sad case, its set to make a criminal of someone who was understandably frustrated and said something stupid. It shouldn't have escalated at all, let alone to the point where they may set new precedent that anything said electronically while near a possible bomb target (ie anywhere public) no matter what the intention behind it can be treated and charged as a threat.

Lit-bots and Comp-scripts: how the world is getting faster...

I saw this while on holiday published in the International Herald Tribune I was going to blog about it then decided not to becuase it was an isolated case, well I thought it was then I read this about half way down Ben describes this:

"Professional complaints followed in May, mostly about individual chiropractors’ claims. Then, in June, blogger Simon Perry found the BCA database of 1,029 members online, containing 400 website URLs. He wrote a quick computer program to automatically identify all the chiropractors in the UK claiming to treat colic, locate their local Trading Standards office, and report them (more than 500 in total) automatically, followed up with printed letters."

This made me look up. If you haven't read the links here is my main interest in these reasonable disparate stories: they both use simple bots within a legal framework to spam requests. Respectivly one spams buy orders (buy for 1cent more and get a lot of money) the other spams legal letters requests for investigation. This has been online for a while in the form of trawling take down letters, these are simple bots that look for things that may be copyrighted material posted illegally and then spam the ISP of the concerned website with cease and disist letters. My main interest in this is that this sort of thing will produce an arms race, already this is the case on the stock exchange where groups are trying to out do each other with faster systems and smarter algorithms, legally similar systems are likely to evolve: clouds of company bots that exist to absorb the flak of other's take down bots and simlar...

for more ideas read accelerando by charles stross

anyway just thought I'd flag that up as it interests me

DNA databases, Charlie and Ben

This is going to be a pretty short post as there isn't much to add to this discussion other than what is said in these two reports: first Ben Goldacre on the bad evidence used to justify long term retention (ie 24 years retetion) of DNA data taken from those who are arrested but not convicted or cautioned. Second is this article by Charles Stross on the odds of being a false positive in a government database check (in this case CRB check and why he doesn't give school readings of his books).

The only thing really that I want to add to the debate on a database of our DNA etc run by the government is that the risk in terms of security of a database that will ultimately link ALL your information in one place if breached is pretty horrible. I'll briefly expand this: the DNA database would be likely allowed to expand (through ID cards etc) to cover everyone and be multi-use, ie your medical history would be there you NI number what ever. Even if this doesn't happen a single source of information would make identity theft a utterly crippling crime, especially as it would be most likely a random person who would be used to act as a patsy for someone else. Although this is less likely given the current technological state it is likely only a matter of time before the current DNA system starts leaking.

Sex, drugs and rock n' roll.

Well one out of three isn't bad. Here is a summary of some interesting reports on drug use. These interest me for a couple of reasons: I have tried various chemicals and enjoyed them; I have read (well skimmed) various government reports most of which go against the accepted wisdom that 'drugs are bad'; finally I have always wondered why people are so blind to the affects of alcohol/tobacco and so vocal on the affects of everything else.

While this is the age old argument there is VERY little reason why alcohol should be acceptable while cannabis or MDMA isn't. There are two reasons for my confusion; firstly while none of these drugs are safe (don't believe me look up liver failure from alcohol and permanent psychosis for cannabis) secondly I fail to see how most people don't realise this. I would expect it's from the propaganda that says drugs are bad you are hooked the instant one touches your lips (or vein or what ever) and that they will kill you in seconds.

It is this second point that depresses me the most; the double standards I can understand to a degree: people are comfortable with booze but the rest is strange and scary, fine. The second point though raises a much more dangerous truth: that we should lie utterly to children and ourselves. This isn't the science "this is mostly true but not everything" lying this is out right driving fear in to people's hearts to the point where those people who genuinely need help (ie addicts) cannot admit it most of the time because of the stigma and hence are denied what should be an avenue out for them. It also raises the worrying question of what else we let ourselves be feared into (ID cards anyone, net monitoring?)

This is a wonderful highlight of an endemic problem in our society: that expertise is no longer trusted, in any way. I'm not saying we shouldn't question what we are told be experts or anyone, but they are experts for a reason. The number of government policies that are created despite experts turning round and saying "what you planning is rubbish" is a sad indicator of something found at all levels of society.

I hope it ends soon...

New news on old news I missed

This (yes one day I'll come up with a better start to these but until the bite me) is a worrying story. The reasoning behind a trial without jury is sound, the case had been seen three times previously and fallen through each time due to jury tampering. It still makes trial by judge alone a worrying situation especially in criminal cases.

While our current government (incompetent and rubbish as it is) probably wont start black bagging and trying without jury its the sort of law that means if someone is an arse at a future point there is worrying precedent, especially when combined with some of the other more interesting laws that have been passed in recent years.

More worrying news from the gov, this sort of stuff will most likely bite them in the arse as public backlash. Ironic though that a nominally left leaning centrist party has introduced so many laws and policies that look like they should be in 1984...

More joy from YouTube and the Discovery Institute

Two related videos today, both by the same person highlighting what will become an interesting problem online: the use of cease and desist notices to take down and censor content. This is nicely tied to another irritant of mine which is creationism (now going by the name of intelligent design). This is the sort of insidious anti-science that could set us back years if it gets accepted. Firstly ID explicitly relies on a none testable hypothesis: that at some point all of life was designed at a deep level. This can only be tested if they can prove that a biological is irreducible, that is that there is no way in which it could have been produced naturally, this in itself is the definition of supernatural.

Moving away from my loathing of ID the second part that is interesting is the use of law to smash websites; especially hosting sites like youtube. These sites have to comply quickly (I expect they use automated services) as failure to do so makes them liable BUT it does mean there is an easy was to remove content that you don't like.

Luckily the internet does not forgive and it does not forget.

Here are the vids, the first is the vid that was taken down the second is a vid about that act.

This, sign it, NOW

This is a petition on the Simon singh case - sign it.

Weighing in (feather weight stylee) on Simon Singh..

For those of you haven't heard of this story click here otherwise keep reading (a copy of Simon's piece can be found here).

This is going to be pretty quick as I expect what I'm about to say has been said before by people much better at it that myself but here is my take.

Firstly Simon did say something a bit dumb.

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.

That is not a statement to win friends. Equally though it doesn't deserve to be labeled libel. The piece is clearly comment/opinion to begin with and within the realms of comment/opinion the claim that there "is not a jot of evidence" should be reasonably permissible - the argument should be clearly that within the author's opinion there is no reputable evidence that supports the BCA's claims.

This isn't how the court has seen it.

In fact the court didn't even hear the case as the judge read a pre-written judgment as soon as the parties had said their piece.

This judgment was impressive in taking the case far beyond what was expected (even I expect by the BCA) in that by using the word "bogus" Simon supposedly meant that BCA made its claims with fore-knowledge that they were harmful (some of them are but I don't think many chiropractors believe this). That the BCA practices maliciously is clearly far more than Simon meant through the use of the word "bogus" (in fact I've never known it to have the connotation that something was maliciously false just false).

This case is terrible on two fronts - firstly it highlights some of the problems with libel rules, secondly it shows just how important good scientific reporting is and how hard it is to produce.

In terms of libel like a lot of the grayer areas of law its a very difficult thing to balance - too much on the side of the plaintiff and it becomes to write anything without either filling it with 'apparently's and 'maybe's or being sued. Too far the other way and you can say what you want with impunity.

Whats interesting about this in terms of the law though is it highlights the problem of online blogging. If Simon had initially published his piece as a blog would the reaction have been the same? whats going to happen when blogs start getting picked up and published by papers? Will it be libel in the country posted from? from the country its hosted? In the US blogs are protected speech and cannot be sued for libel. As more of our journalism is done from the net these sorts of problems will arise.

Moving on from the legal aspects (which I can only question as my law knowledge is pretty poor) the journalism aspect is even more interesting. This sort of case is a huge problem for scientific reporting. The bottom line is that this case represents a large group suing someone for being critical of their methods.

Scientifically Simon is reasonably well supported - there isn't much good evidence that chiropractic treats much other than bad backs. Saying that shouldn't get you sued. Even in a national paper - if there is a genuine scientific basis for a statement saying so shouldn't land you in trouble.

If we're being fair so long as you set it as opinion you should be allowed to say pretty much what you want. It doesn't work but it might encourage people to be a little more critical in their assessment of claims made by people. Libel laws are their to protect people from unfounded claims - unfortunately a lot of organisations know how to avoid them and a lot of individuals don't.

The anarchistic social experiment that is the internet

There's an interesting story here of a family in America who were very upset to find that photos of their daughter's death were available online. The girl had died in a car crash and some cops had taken photos as a cautionary tale which then escaped online.

I think there are a lot of interesting aspects to this story: firstly the wonderful way that pretty much all censorship attempts online eventually fail (google search for the images they're trying to ban they're still readily available), secondly how pretty much all legal systems fail online and finally how depressing how anarchistic (and deprived) the internet can be.

The first point I think is most simply shown here, a very daft woman on LBC radio said some very poorly thought out things about how taking MMR jab was optional because no one ever got those diseases any more. Ben Goldacre responded by posting the radio debate online as an example of truly poor science and got asked to removed it. Soon after the radio clip was available and talked about on more than 150 other blogs either in bits or as a whole. The internet doesn't like censorship - stop trying it on.

The legal aspect is interesting. Privacy is a right, but online you only have as much privacy as you protect yourself and that's not easy. This is especially true when something like /b/ decides to come after you (I won't link there its easy enough to find). Well I say 'decides'....

This comes down to something that pretty much all governments, people and organisations don't seem to have realised: the internet is anarchy. There is no law in any way, not yet and so sites like /b/ proliferate, not because people are suddenly worse online - just that they can relax and these sites become the ultimate games of dare - you can do what ever you can think of and type. Just every now and then someone is stupid and actually does it. The internet has brought out some truly nasty sides of people; but I hope this will fade.

The internet is still socially very young - people are still adapting to it in a social way and the anarchy is to be expected - sooner or later some form of law will emerge as will more of a social ethos, and no just because Facebook is a social site doesn't mean the internet has a social code or ethic - this will take a while to evolve.

Anyway moral of the story: nothing is private online so think before you upload other people's personal information (I think that the cops involved should face charges).

It's truly terrible what some people have done to the family. Emailing them with pictures from the crash scene is vile but I think their time would be better spent ignoring it.

Hopefully stories like this will be few and far between and hopefully people will learn from them.