Cameron Actually Goes Down The "Thoughtcrime" Route

[Zaune]

The Guardian

A counter-terrorism bill including plans for extremism disruption orders designed to restrict those trying to radicalise young people is to be included in the Queen’s speech, David Cameron will tell the national security council on Wednesday.

The orders, the product of an extremism task force set up by the prime minister, were proposed during the last parliament in March, but were largely vetoed by the Liberal Democrats on the grounds of free speech. They were subsequently revived in the Conservative manifesto.

The measures would give the police powers to apply to the high court for an order to limit the “harmful activities” of an extremist individual. The definition of harmful is to include a risk of public disorder, a risk of harassment, alarm or distress or creating a “threat to the functioning of democracy”.

The aim is to catch not just those who spread or incite hatred on the grounds of gender, race or religion but also those who undertake harmful activities for the “purpose of overthrowing democracy”.

They would include a ban on broadcasting and a requirement to submit to the police in advance any proposed publication on the web and social media or in print. The bill will also contain plans for banning orders for extremist organisations which seek to undermine democracy or use hate speech in public places, but it will fall short of banning on the grounds of provoking hatred.

It will also contain new powers to close premises including mosques where extremists seek to influence others. The powers of the Charity Commission to root out charities that misappropriate funds towards extremism and terrorism will also be strengthened.

Cameron will tell the NSC: “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance.

“This government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach. As the party of one nation, we will govern as one nation and bring our country together. That means actively promoting certain values.

“Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights regardless of race, gender or sexuality.

“We must say to our citizens: this is what defines us as a society.”

The home secretary, Theresa May, will say: “The twisted narrative of extremism cannot be ignored or wished away. This government will challenge those who seek to spread hatred and intolerance by forming a new partnership of every person and organisation in this country that wants to defeat the extremists.”

The proposals arose out of the response to the killing in May 2013 of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south-east London, and the murder of Mohammed Saleem in Birmingham a month earlier.

A separate bill will be introduced later in the parliament to revive and extend the so-called snoopers charter, which would include the retention of records of phone calls, emails and other data.

Jesus tapdancing Christ.

[Darth Nostril]

Only to be expected now that the Lib-Dems are no longer acting as a pathetically ineffectual brake on the worst of the Conservatard fuckwittery.

Only full on no holds barred corporate deep throating from now on. Don't want the majority of the populace who are getting shafted to be able to protest now do we? Lets take the boogeyman of extremism and use it to ban all legal protests.

[Sir Sirius]

The UK has been charging head first towards a police state for a good long while now, sadly I fear they are just leading the pack.

[AniThyng]

Maybe they can learn from the colonies. I'm sure the Singaporean and Malaysian home ministries will be more than happy to assist.

[Ahriman238]

“This government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach. As the party of one nation, we will govern as one nation and bring our country together. That means actively promoting certain values.

Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Fuhrer!

Oh, don't pretend you weren't thinking it. And at some point, I really need to sit down and figure out how to type an umlaut. Though, from what little I understand of British politics, the Conservatives there are hardly universally loved, or a unifying force. Except, perhaps, against them.

Anyways, clearly they have to protect freedom of speech. By controlling speech. They've got the doublethink down.

[Executor32]

Alt+0252 for lowercase ü, Alt+0220 for uppercase Ü.

Also, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

[Grumman]

Doesn't the UK already have a law that makes it illegal to be the recipient of subversive propaganda? That the police can choose when not to use that law against someone doesn't make it any better that it exists.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

It's funny; I was re-doing my signature about a week ago, and it was a tossup between the current quote, or juxtaposing a pair of Churchill quotes about free speech and Islam. Now I'm sad I didn't pick the latter. From what little I understand about British politics (mostly in the form of Maajid Nawaz), this trend in Britain is mostly intended to curb criticism of Islam. Are the other comments in this thread true, though, in that this is intended to be a broader and more far-reaching restriction of speech than that?

[Executor32]

I made a thing:

[K. A. Pital]

Well, I am sure Starglider will now appear and explain how this just underscores the Führer Kammeron's infinite wisdom. After all, the people chose him, they cannot be wrong, can they?

[Metahive]

I made a thing:

I would have chosen:
"Thoughtcrime does not entail death; thoughtcrime IS death"

[madd0ct0r]

This is coming from Theresa May, not Camron.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/m ... -colleague

A plan by the home secretary to introduce counter-extremism powers to vet British broadcasters’ programmes before they are transmitted has been attacked in the bluntest terms as a threat to freedom of speech by one of her own Conservative cabinet colleagues, the Guardian has learned.

Sajid Javid wrote to David Cameron to say that, as culture secretary, he was unable to support Theresa May’s proposal to give Ofcom the new powers to take pre-emptive action against programmes that included “extremist content”, in a letter sent just before the start of the general election campaign.

Javid, who moved from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to become business secretary after the election, said the plan would move Ofcom from a regulator “into the role of a censor”. It would involve “a fundamental shift in the way UK broadcasting is regulated”, moving away from the current framework of post-transmission regulation which takes account of freedom of expression, he said.

First page of Sajid Javid's letter to the prime minister Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Second page of Sajid Javid's letter to the prime minister. Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Sajid Javid’s letter to the prime minister.
The leaked memo from the then culture secretary came in response to a request made by May on 6 March to ministers on the cabinet’s home affairs committee and the national security committee. She was seeking clearance for publication of her extremism strategy, which included the broadcasters’ censorship proposal.

It is not clear exactly what the outcome was following Javid’s objection. Next week’s Queen’s speech is expected include loosely specified powers to “strengthen the role of Ofcom to take action against channels which broadcast extremist content” according to a statement released by Downing Street last week.

The home secretary last hinted at her wish to see the introduction of pre-broadcast banning powers in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich two years ago, when Conservative MPs expressed strong criticism of a BBC Newsnight interview with the radical Islamist activist Anjem Choudary.

[Thanas]

Only to be expected now that the Lib-Dems are no longer acting as a pathetically ineffectual brake on the worst of the Conservatard fuckwittery.

Only full on no holds barred corporate deep throating from now on. Don't want the majority of the populace who are getting shafted to be able to protest now do we? Lets take the boogeyman of extremism and use it to ban all legal protests.

Next step: quitting the EU so that one can repudiate things like max work hours.

[Zaune]

Maybe we were too hard on the Liberal Democrats...

[Napoleon the Clown]

Only to be expected now that the Lib-Dems are no longer acting as a pathetically ineffectual brake on the worst of the Conservatard fuckwittery.

Only full on no holds barred corporate deep throating from now on. Don't want the majority of the populace who are getting shafted to be able to protest now do we? Lets take the boogeyman of extremism and use it to ban all legal protests.

Next step: quitting the EU so that one can repudiate things like max work hours.

Well, we've got a noticeable number of conservatives here that want the US to leave the UN, even though being a part of the UN doesn't change a goddamn thing about how the nation does... anything. We go to war at the drop of a hat anyway, and the UN hasn't exactly pressed us on the war crimes we've committed.

So I'm going to just guess that the UK has a noticeable number of very loud individuals who want out of the EU. Even if the UK could run everything exactly as they wanted without regard to the UK. Just sheer xenophobia.

[madd0ct0r]

It's funny; I was re-doing my signature about a week ago, and it was a tossup between the current quote, or juxtaposing a pair of Churchill quotes about free speech and Islam. Now I'm sad I didn't pick the latter. From what little I understand about British politics (mostly in the form of Maajid Nawaz), this trend in Britain is mostly intended to curb criticism of Islam. Are the other comments in this thread true, though, in that this is intended to be a broader and more far-reaching restriction of speech than that?

curb critisicim of Islam? the law change is so they can deport any foreign national who says something the government decides is problematic. Same for stripping the human rights act, as that could be (and was) appealed to over the home office.
where the fuck are you getting this shit from?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

curb critisicim of Islam? the law change is so they can deport any foreign national who says something the government decides is problematic. Same for stripping the human rights act, as that could be (and was) appealed to over the home office.
where the fuck are you getting this shit from?

Well, again, I fully admit I'm largely ignorant of the intricacies of British politics, so I'm probably misunderstanding where this law is coming from. My perception of the political climate, though, is that there's a significant trend toward bending over backward to avoid offending or interfering with Muslim communities. I don't get that from Fox News; I get it from Britons. http://www.centreforum.org/assets/pubs/on-blasphemy.pdf

If this law is coming from a different angle, then my bad; I misunderstood it.

[madd0ct0r]

I sincerely doubt you had read that doc before you needed to go looking for the source (Lib Dem think tanks are not known for their power of publicity)

That said, it's an interesting document and a good read. Sidewinder should have a look too, as someone who lives in that area. For me, the telling part of the opening is:

There is a great betrayal of minorities-within minorities afoot. The price of this betrayal in modern Britain is monocultural ghettos that stifle minority opportunities by acquiescing to the silencing of innovative voices, in the name of this assumed cultural authenticity.

There is a long, and ongoing conversation in the UK as one generation of immigrants give way to their children. There was a great documentry series on it a few months back http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvan ... eview.html

Unfortunately, the entirety of your document deals with challenges of culture and frictive interaction, but not actual British law which is the subject of this thread and the centre of your earlier claim.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

That document specifically, no; but I follow the author and read much of his other material, and that bit was a good summary of his general position.

Anyway, I wasn't 'claiming' anything, I was curious if I was understanding the situation and clearly I wasn't. So, thank you.

[jwl]

Can we stop with this tabloid-esque editing of headlines? The headline in the original article was perfectly sufficient; and what we are looking at is not, in fact, thought crime laws.

Only to be expected now that the Lib-Dems are no longer acting as a pathetically ineffectual brake on the worst of the Conservatard fuckwittery.

Only full on no holds barred corporate deep throating from now on. Don't want the majority of the populace who are getting shafted to be able to protest now do we? Lets take the boogeyman of extremism and use it to ban all legal protests.

Next step: quitting the EU so that one can repudiate things like max work hours.

Well, we've got a noticeable number of conservatives here that want the US to leave the UN, even though being a part of the UN doesn't change a goddamn thing about how the nation does... anything. We go to war at the drop of a hat anyway, and the UN hasn't exactly pressed us on the war crimes we've committed.

So I'm going to just guess that the UK has a noticeable number of very loud individuals who want out of the EU. Even if the UK could run everything exactly as they wanted without regard to the EU. Just sheer xenophobia.

Except the UK can't do whatever it likes without the EU. There are ways around some of the EU's laws and regulations (like the tories are trying to do now with human rights laws), but there are some that the UK are at least supposed to follow. Some of these laws are good ones and ones that the UK will probably want to continue with anyway; and the benefits of the EU probably outweigh the restrictions. But the fact still remains that no, the UK can't do whatever it likes without regard to the EU.

It's funny; I was re-doing my signature about a week ago, and it was a tossup between the current quote, or juxtaposing a pair of Churchill quotes about free speech and Islam. Now I'm sad I didn't pick the latter. From what little I understand about British politics (mostly in the form of Maajid Nawaz), this trend in Britain is mostly intended to curb criticism of Islam. Are the other comments in this thread true, though, in that this is intended to be a broader and more far-reaching restriction of speech than that?

If someone says that they are introducing laws for counter-terrorism purposes, they are probably introducing the laws for counter-terrorism purposes, unless you can find a good reason why not. "General trends" are not sufficient evidence.

[madd0ct0r]

As far back as Blair 'anti terrorist' laws were used to drain a heckler at the labour conference.

Laws can be and are misapplied. The cost of those 'unintended' consequences should not be higher then the benefit to society. Since I don't see a benefit to society of forcing broadcasters to submit everything they do, and I can see a very obvious way it could be misapplied it's a bad law

[jwl]

Of course it's a bad law. For one thing, good luck restricting what people post on social media sites. That just sounds completely unenforceable to me. But I don't see why you can't just take someone's word at face value unless you have reason to believe otherwise.

[Dartzap]

I was talking to a political activist the other day about this, his view was that due to the pisspoor connotations of profiling suspects, the last few governments have basically decided that they don't mind being branded Big Brother totalitarians, but they are horrified at the idea of being deemed racist.

We are doomed by our instinct to be fair to all, it would appear.

[Simon_Jester]

In that case, the government is choosing whether to punish people for speaking and thinking, or to punish them for their race.

Both those options are seriously wrong and can readily lead to horrors.

[Zaune]

Of course, there's a world of difference between the wording of a law and its actual implementation. The Crown Prosecution Service has considerable leeway in deciding when it is or is not "in the public interest" to press charges on a case-by-case basis; that can be a good thing, but how much do you want to bet that respectable middle-class white men will be allowed to get away with considerably more than not-so-respectable working class Arabic men?