Legislative abuse
Paul Tavener, 05 Jun 2006 23:40:19
I seems obvious at first sight that the intention of the Government is to use the new extreme porn bill just to put people in prison, but on second thoughts perhaps that is not their main aim.
The whole prosecution issue would be very difficult, because as we know the proposals are nonsense and will prove to be very hard to enforce in practice and could lead to a number of embarrassing legal failures in a sensitive areas.
There would undoubtedly be at least a few prosecutions, but the main focus might simply be to encourage censorship. The IWF have been very successful at persuading ISP’s to use Cleanfeed which blocks simple access to “illegal” content. If the extreme porn proposals become law the scope and breadth of what constitutes “illegal” content will be greatly extended and the IWF will be able to censor anything which is “illegal” - no doubt advised by some Government lawyers.
Perhaps one way forward would be to make use of this concern - who is going to decide what is or is not illegal? What safe guards will be put in place to ensure that legal sites are not censored? Who will watch the watchmen and how transparent will the censorship of the Internet be?
zak, 07 Jun 2006 14:41:10
Original Message:
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admin@ofwatch.org.uk, 07 Jun 2006 14:41:10
Perhaps one way forward would be to make use of this concern - who is going
to decide what is or is not illegal? What safe guards will be put in place
to ensure that legal sites are not censored? Who will watch the watchmen
and how transparent will the censorship of the Internet be?
More kicking of the IWF would appear a good idea. A lot of people seem to
think that they are some kind of expert, official body, rather than a bunch
of unelected numpties acting on nothing more than their own prejudices.
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Teddy, 07 Jun 2006 23:12:03
I would strongly agree with some of these points.
It seems there is a trend of proposing and then imposing ever more draconian laws in order to address perceived problems, in the hope you can legislate away society's "ills"; the feral attitude of the tabloid press does nothing to help. Where this approach fails is that the criminal justice system is not just about deterence, but must also prescribe punishments encompassing natural justice and which are proportionate to the crime. To suggest that viewing simulated "extreme" porn, where nobody has been harmed, can be treated in the same way as viewing child porn, involving real harm, fails to understand these principles.
T.
Author wrote:
> I seems obvious at first sight that the intention of the Government is to use the new extreme porn bill just to put people in prison, but on second thoughts perhaps that is not their main aim.
> The whole prosecution issue would be very difficult, because as we know the proposals are nonsense and will prove to be very hard to enforce in practice and could lead to a number of embarrassing legal failures in a sensitive areas.
> There would undoubtedly be at least a few prosecutions, but the main focus might simply be to encourage censorship. The IWF have been very successful at persuading ISP’s to use Cleanfeed which blocks simple access to “illegal” content. If the extreme porn proposals become law the scope and breadth of what constitutes “illegal” content will be greatly extended and the IWF will be able to censor anything which is “illegal” - no doubt advised by some Government lawyers.
> Perhaps one way forward would be to make use of this concern - who is going to decide what is or is not illegal? What safe guards will be put in place to ensure that legal sites are not censored? Who will watch the watchmen and how transparent will the censorship of the Internet be?
>
>