Wednesday 29 June 2011

UK Barred from deporting 2 criminals

I was aware that our legal system had become a cesspit of liberalism, but it turns out the european court of human rights is worse. A couple of Somali crimnals who were to be deported back to Somalia are to allowed to stay in the UK as ordered by ECOHR.

Their crimes? - "burglary, threats to kill, robbery and dealing in class A drugs" according to the BBC. According to a spokesman for the ECOHR, they may face death or serious injury if returned to Somalia. and as such their crimes could not be taken into consideration.

Why the hell not? Did they care about the people they burgled and threatened? Live by the sword, die by the sword.

What kind of message is this sending? Come to the UK, if we don't give you citizenship, just commit a crime and then get the ECOHRs involved to block what should be an automatic deportation. There are 214 similar cases that now have a precedent set by this as well.

I am sick of hearing these liberal morons talking about how we need to protect these kinds of people. These are criminals. They break into peoples homes and threaten people with violence and death. Have you ever been burgled? I have, and frankly there is no limit to the harm and pain that I wish upon the perpetrators.

They have made the concious decision to gain at others expense, and they are entitled to nothing. They have decided they do not wish to be part of society, part of a civilied culture, and thats up to them, but the protections we are affording them are part of civilied culture. This isn't a buffet, you don't take the bits you like and ditch the rest. They are stealing the cake and eating it to. And then we are giving them free chocolate ice cream for afters.

Heres an idea instead. Lets ship every bugger convicted of a violent crime out to somalia, let them see what violent crime is really all about.

Tuesday 28 June 2011

MPA trying to block Newzbins

According to the BBC, the MPA are seeking an injunction to force BT to block access to newzbins, using the same cleanfeed system currently used to block child porn.


Now, lets forget for a moment that this is a HUGE burden on BT (If you think this won't cause them to loose customers to unrestricted providers you are frankly an idiot)
The most important factor here is that they are asking our government to block a site that has not been declared illegal. That's right, there is no law that says that this site cannot be viewed or used in the UK. Yes, the site leave themselves open to civil law suits, but that's absolutely not the same thing. Yet they are seeking to make it impossible to view because they don't like it.


Think about that for a moment. Private entities (American ones at that) dictating what you may view based on whether they like it or not? Am I the only one who finds that incredibly scary?


Also, why are we allowing american interests to request injunctions through our legal system? Shouldn't our civil legal system be reserved for legitimate UK companies? I can understand trying criminal cases for foreign interests in some circumstances, but not civil issues.


Now what about BT? Whilst its true that the cleanfeed is also used by some other ISPs, there are those that have there own system. The upshot of this is that BT would be forced through no fault of their own to block a service that others will still offer, and people will leave them for those other providers. Yes, I'm sure if this does go through, that the other ISPs will be forced to match the block on their own systems eventually, but that will still take time, which will cost one of our bedrock companies customers and money. People will say its won't be many, or that they are big enough to take it, but that is not the point.


Amusingly, the MPA Euro president was quoted as saying "Newzbin has no regard for UK law" - Do you think that might be because when it was a UK owned operation, you sued it into administration, after which it has been bought by an outfit in the Seychelles? Funnily enough, I doubt they do care about UK law over there in Africa. But this brings up a very important point. The site is in Africa, it is not a UK site. Why are our legislators even looking at this? It is a matter for the African government to deal with (And no, I don't imagine they care, but I'm not feeling all that much sympathy for the MPA right now) and nothing whatsoever to do with the UK, other than it having UK users. This is an attempt at censorship of our internet. I cannot begin to describe how bad that is, please stop and think about that for a moment.


The day that one of our largest companies is damaged by the interests of a foreign private entity is an exceedingly black day indeed. The day that an America entity manages to censor a site from the public for their own ends is unimaginable.

Thursday 23 June 2011

"Rights holders" want the right to filter UK Net

One can only hope that this is one of those stories that appears, and the fades never to be seen again, but according to PCPro a group of "rights holders" are proposing that a council and expert body be set up with the intention of blocking web sites that are deemed to be infringing. Call me cynical, but my first thought was "Why do they want 2 bodys to make these decisions". My second thought was "Oh yes, to make the decisions harder to overturn"

Thats right, no oversight, no judicial review, just a group of Joe Publics (which won't consist entirely of industry people and industry shills, I'm sure) deciding what you may view on your internet in the UK. In the past I wouldn't have worried about this, but ever since Mandelson went on an all expenses paid holiday to the south of France with an industry exec and came back with the digital economy bill, I have realised quite how blatantly politicians can sell our freedoms (Do you hear me Mandelson, you treasonous little scrote?) The man to keep your eye on is Communications Minister Ed Vaizey - if this thing does raise its ugly little head again, we will know that he is either a Moron, or a traitor. And no, I don't think thats to strong a word for those who sell our freedom for profit.

So, assuming this all goes through (Big if, but we've seen worse get through in recent years) we will have essentially handed big content the rights to decide what we may not view, on a whim, with the only recourse a  legal battle from the owner of the site in question. So, if for example there was a blog that they did not like, they could block anyone in the UK from viewing it, unless the blog writer had the resources to take it to court, there is nothing anyone can do about it.

If you also take into account that they would use this as a spring board to ask for the same thing in other countries, we have a responsibility to ensure this plan dies. Vaizey - You have a very real responsibly to kick this thing to the curb. Failure on your part will see you ranked in history alongside Mandelson.

Thursday 16 June 2011

Why are we handing over our citizens to the states?

According to the Metro, the owner of TV Shack Richard O'Dwyer is facing extradition to the states over copyright infringement.

I don't know where to start with this - Not only were the servers not hosted in the states, but they also did not host any infringing material. For those of you that don't know, these sites work by providing links to other sites on which TV shows and movies can be found, meaning that the infringement is actually happening on these other hosts servers.

So why aren't they going after these other hosts? Simple. Because they can't. Mostly the videos are uploaded to legitimate video hosting sites (Similar to YouTube) by members of the public. Under Americas DMCA laws, the hosts are not liable so long as they take down this material when properly notified. This means that they would have to go after the up-loaders. Of course this is difficult, time consuming and ineffective because there are many up-loaders (There's a clue there Corporate America - People want to access content this way) so they don't bother - they try to twist the rules to suit themselves, meaning people like Richard getting caught in the middle.

Did I mention that copyright isn't clearly a crime under either American or UK law? There isn't sufficient case law yet, and as it stands its closer to a civil matter than a criminal one. Yet they want to extradite him to the states to face (I assume) criminal charges.

All of this is smack in the middle of his university education, so whatever else happens, "they" will get to see him punished by wrecking the final stage of his education. Look at the stress Gary McKinnon is under - imagine trying to get through uni with that happening to you. Guaranteed victory for some American corporations at the cost of on of our own.

There is something fundamentally wrong here, and it genuinely frightens and angers me that our government does not seem to realize it.