They hate our freedoms
…as a wise man once said.
Leading on from comments about freedom of speech made by the Prime Minister’s senior policy adviser, his former press secretary and the director of the Press Complaints Commission, we have this: Keith Olbermann (again) on former US Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s musings on the First Amendment.
It’s said from time to time by bloggers prepared to sail close to the wind on matters such as libel, that their blogs can’t be touched under British law because they’re not hosted in the UK. One or two bloggers like to point out that their blogs are hosted on blogspot in the US. Well, they might want to keep an eye on Newt and his own ideas about freedom of speech:
“This is a serious, long-term war,” Gingrich added, “and it will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country. It will lead us to learn how to close down every Web site that is dangerous.”
And now the apposite quote from a significant piece of prescient fiction (it’s 1984’s day off today unfortunately - it’s knackered through overwork):
Goose-stepping morons [...] should try reading books instead of burning them.
Posted on November 30th, 2006 at 10:13 am
| See also • Re-branding the herd • A letter from Hazel • Geese and the sauce of freedom of speech |
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Filed under Civil liberties, Human rights, US Politics |
In years to come I believe we will look back and recognise Henry Jones Sr. as one of the foremost thinkers of the 20th Century.
I wouldn’t bother emailing the PM to tell him this - you’d be as well mailing it to the Marx brothers.
I think a debate between Henry Jones Snr and Hilary Benn would be a thing to see:
Hilary: We are here in Addish Ababa to try to find a sholution to the crishish in Darfur which clearly cannot be allowed to continue.
Henry: My shon, we’re pilgrimsh in an unholy land.
Hilary: With more money we can shave more lives.
Henry: Oh, yeah? And who’sh gonna come to shave you, JUNIOR?
Talking of fatherly love, if my son went out and started behaving like Hilary Benn, I’d drag him back inside, tell him I didn’t like the crowd he was hanging around with these days and give him a clip round the earhole, regardless of age and legislation. Tough love, put him back on the straight and narrow. How about it, Tony?
Isn’t Gingrich rather yesterday’s man? Where’s the *real* best place to run a website from without meddling proto-Nazis getting involved? Iceland? Germany? North Korea? Sealand? Orbiting Yoghurt HQ?
Hey that’s where I live. Will be interesting to see if the local press pics it up
My understanding of libel law is that anywhere the blog is read is considered a place of publication and the law of that place can be used. So, for example, if someone American on an American-hosted blog made defamatory remarks about Angela Merkel (say) that were seen by readers in London, she could sue for libel in England.
As always, given that I’m not even an amateur lawyer, I stand to be corrected…
There’s two separate issues when it comes to “internet libel”, Will (as I understand it, and not being a lawyer myself).
Firstly there’s the issue of the person making the statement; and he or she can be sued under UK law no matter where the site is hosted (as the material has been published in the UK, by virtue of someone in the UK reading it).
Secondly, however, there’s the issue of suing the webhost / ISP that hosts the site on its servers (and by extention legally forcing them to remove the offending content). Demon internet were famously sued and found culpable for something that appeared on one of their web-forums.
However, suing a foreign ISP (particularly in a country where no test case has established their liability in such cases) would be next to impossible and would probably be extremely expensive with little chance of success. I’ve been told that Brazil and South Korea both have a thriving internet sector with plenty of companies offering low-cost hosting space.
So if you wanted to libel someone, then finding a Brazillian webhost might be the way to go. You could still be sued, fined, even jailed… but there would be no legal obligation on the site hosts to take down the libellous statement(s). I guess it depends on just how badly you want to say nasty things about someone.
They can pull the plug at any moment - the google shitdown last evening illustrated that. We have freedom at this moment. Very soon we won’t.