News - PM mulls suspending social media access for baddies

[HEXUS]

Civil liberties under threat following looting spree.

Read more.

[ik9000]

It is indeed a dangerous game to restrict civil liberty and start a process of selective censorship - Germany 1933 saw the introduction of some laws in this respect. An exploitative government can use them for ill. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the current government are equivalent to the NSDAP of 1933, but if you're going to go down this route a clear, and independent, appeals mechanism with ability to overrule the government decision is essential.

Not that I think these hooligans deserve any dispensation or right to appeal. If the justice system in this country actually worked there would be no need for discussions of restricting free speech/web access. They would be free to debate whatever they wanted, banged-up inside a cell, and without any creature comforts of mobile phones and twitter/messenger. The government would perhaps best be focussing on actually making prison a deterrant and sentences proper in magnitude and (lack-of) comfort. And for those who will say they need rehabilitation this should be a second step, after the full prison sentence is served, and only if they have behaved themselves and continue to do so. Step out of line, and it should be back in the slammer. A soft justice system permits just the kind of mass lawlessness we have all just witnessed.

If the government isn't willing to do that either then let's just cut out the middle-man: How about suspending their oxygen access? Oh no wait, that's 1930s Germany again...

[jim]

How exactly do they intend to do this?

[funke_munke]

This is idiotic on so many levels. No doubt something bad will come of it.

[ik9000]

How exactly do they intend to do this?

by invasion of privacy no doubt. The law abiding masses suffer for the deviance of a minority. Again.

This Police Statement is bang on IMO http://www.metfed.org.uk/support/upl...hn%20Tully.pdf. The Police need to be told by the government, with the exception of being thugs yourselves and picking on innocent people who are doing nothing wrong (including newspaper vendors walking home from work), do whatever needs to be done to keep the streets safe, the innocent protected and the rule of law intact. Use of force is fine provided the situation merits it, and it should be appropriate to the event.

[jim]

by invasion of privacy no doubt.

Well I don't doubt that, but I can't even conceive of a technical solution that would work.

In fact the only one I can think of is locking someone in a room, perhaps in a big building where they could prevent other people get in, and prevent that person getting out. It'd never work though.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well,there is a very easy way.

[Fraz]

Ah, I do love a bit of reactionism.

Just ignore all the good reasons that something exists, and ban it on the basis of a bad reason! Yes!

Let's think of what else probably needs to go:

Ban shops - that'll stop them getting looted and robbed.
Ban painkillers, sleeping pills and bridges - that's sure to stop those suicidal freaks!
Ban sexual intercourse - that'll put an end to rape, not to mention those filthy gays!



Oh, and did anyone see the (add sarcasm now) amazing article from Mellanie Phillips of the Daily Fail today?:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...ial-value.html

I just love the response from the Daily Mash: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/s...-201108114183/

[Unique]

nick clegg said he was going to send them all to bed early without any dinner

[crossy]

And as I said yesterday, no phoney human rights concerns about publishing these photographs will get in the way of bringing these criminals to justice.

Darn, I'm going to have to agree with the chinless wonder - too much focus on the "rights" of these ar**holes, not enough on the rights of the victims. There's already been some rumblings from the "civil liberties" folks that publishing the CCTV stills will mean that the photographee's won't get a fair shake when they get into court - ah diddums!. I was pretty against the idea of vigilante "justice" - now I'm not so sure.

And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them.

How? The only way I can see is if you monitor all communications - cue 1984! And I would suggest that it's not really feasible anyway - after all, if it was then surely the Chinese govt would have done it already. Furthermore the social media was merely a convenient way to organise the looting. If this wasn't available, then SMS would probably have been used. If that wasn't available, then plain old voicecalls. And so on, or is the Cameron 'vision' that we all go back to medieval style villages? There was some suggestion of a "blacklist" that mobile companies, Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc would be forced to check - but what's to stop Joe Thuggo from just giving false details? I suppose we could consider cutting off both hands from the looters - but I'm sure that pretty much everyone (apart from Daily Telegraph readers) would regard this step as a little on the extreme side.

Rather than this rubbish, surely far better to give the judges the sentencing guidelines they need to put some harsh penalties in place; build the extra prison space needed; and scrap the dumb idea of firing members of the police forces. I see (reported on the BBC News site) that there's a petition afoot to cut convicted rioters from benefits - knee-jerk reaction is that this is good idea. ACPO were on the other day saying that they don't need extra powers - the current crop is good enough - in fact some simplification of the current laws (i.e. fewer!) would be welcomed.

[Saracen]

....

In fact the only one I can think of is locking someone in a room, perhaps in a big building where they could prevent other people get in, and prevent that person getting out. It'd never work though.

It's a radical idea and has some appeal, but you'd never get it past crimi .... sorry, human rights lawyers. Unless, of course, human rights lawyers are the first to be 'offered' several years free tenancy.

[Saracen]

At a practical level, how do you stop illegal use of, for instance, Blackberry messaging, without adversely affecting legal use of it? And it has widespread business use.

Either you have to examine every message (and there goes personal privacy and business confidentiality, so good luck getting Blackberry to agree to it) in order to block selectively, or you have to shut down the whole service, or you have to shut down cellular access in affected areas, and if you do that, what happens when someone dies because they couldn't get through to 999 to call am ambulance for a heart attack victim (or whatever)?

Maybe Cameron and others have some method in mind that I haven't thought about, but while I support the theory of withdrawing services facilitating mass violence, I'll withhold opinion until they say quite how they'll actually do it, in the real world, without spending several years in court facing lawyers from Blackberry, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

[usxhe190]

Yes, let's shoot the messenger (BB Messenger in fact)! haha

Might as well ban the post office, the horse and cart and even the common pigeon for the baddies while they are at it

[Noxvayl]

If the government goes through with more restrictive laws they're only setting themselves up for more upheaval. I wonder if anyone has even bothered to investigate prisons and their impact on society rather than blindly promoting them as a solution for all problems. If prison was a solution for anything you wouldn't have to build more... the evidence clearly suggests we are going about things in the wrong way.

The continued disconnection between government and society puts us in a challenging predicament. As citizens of a country we want to be able to influence decisions, but the government is constantly reducing that ability in order to maintain the status quo. At the moment there is very little feedback incorporated in what governments do. We share this country and it's about time we shared the responsibility as well.

This would be a good start: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g

[HalloweenJack]

the entire concept of ` stopping benefits for covicted rioters` wont actually work - since in UK law minimum standard of living , ergo , money is enshrined (yeah for a welfare state) - what they can do and legally , is make these convicted rioters ,do community service for there benefits from now on.

[BobF64]

the entire concept of ` stopping benefits for covicted rioters` wont actually work - since in UK law minimum standard of living , ergo , money is enshrined (yeah for a welfare state) - what they can do and legally , is make these convicted rioters ,do community service for there benefits from now on.

Youre forgetting one thing there, youre only considering what they can do legally as it stands currently.

Laws can be changed, and to comply with their human rights, all they need is food, water and shelter, nothing says you get to pay for it with pecuniary handouts.