News - Police to have powers to shut-down UK websites immediately

[HEXUS]

Measures being put in place to allow UK police to shut down sites without a court order.

Read more.

[tomazk]

There come Orwells future.

[Steve]

Problem is, once the mechanisms for this exists for "serious crime", it's easier to claim it should be done for "less serious" things, to the point where a website can be shutdown just because some company with a lot of money takes a disliking towards it.

Unless the mechanism comes with very clear strings attached as to what it can be used for and what it could EVER be used for (or could never be used for), I don't want it.

[Scribe]

Well I certainly appreciate the limitation of "serious consumer harm", which in my opinion is a fairly rigid term provided the police don't start deciding what is best for consumers.

Reminds me of I, Robot. Just like the supercomputer in the film, the police will evolve to interpret the meaning of the three laws of policeics and subdue the public to prevent them from harming themselves.

[Noxvayl]

Agree with Steve, it's another one of those laws that could easily be exploited by vested interests. I can imagine "unlicensed medicine" to include natural remedies(eg: honey,ginger and lemon for post nasal drip) because they reduce the amount of drug sales for pharmaceutical companies. It's extreme but a similar vague law in America is being used in exactly that way.

I'd rather do without the "benefits" of the law just to be sure the negatives never come into existence.

[Steve]

Well I certainly appreciate the limitation of "serious consumer harm", which in my opinion is a fairly rigid term provided the police don't start deciding what is best for consumers.

Well, an entertainment lobbyist could easily put a case together to argue that increased MP3 download prices due to piracy causes "serious consumer harm", effectively turning the tables of power to say "if you don't do as we say, we will harm consumers".

[crossy]

Well I certainly appreciate the limitation of "serious consumer harm", which in my opinion is a fairly rigid term provided the police don't start deciding what is best for consumers.
Reminds me of I, Robot. Just like the supercomputer in the film, the police will evolve to interpret the meaning of the three laws of policeics and subdue the public to prevent them from harming themselves.

True, true - although I wonder what appeals process exists to prevent genuine sites being taken down in error, e.g. hypothetically some company called "Softwares" being taken down instead of the 3-copies-of-Office-for-10-dollars outfit called "Softwarez".

Love the Asimov allusion though.

Also got to agree strongly with ExHail - are we going to see sites selling homeopathic medicines taken down, because the conventional medicine view is that homeopathy has no basis in evidence and therefore is really a confidence trick? Or sites like Holland & Barretts - which sell a lot of "alternative" medicines online targetted?

[nsymons]

Just a short step to Twitter and Facebook going offline whenever there is and kind of protest or demonstration. In my view this is a step too far. We all know that the police cannot be relied upon to make sensible decisions. This should be for the courts to decide. Speeding up court orders would be a more useful measure.

[aidanjt]

Yay for summery judgements. One step closer to Megacities.

[crossy]

This should be for the courts to decide. Speeding up court orders would be a more useful measure.

"Five offences or less" line in the local courthouse? Eminently preferable to the "self-checkout" system that we have described in the article.

Excuse my ignorance, but I don't see what the big deal is with running these close-down orders past a court/judge is? After all, from what I understand, the burden of proof is similar to that for search warrants and I don't remember many complaints about the length of time these take.

Much as I trust/respect the police (well, some of them) I would have thought they would have preferred the safety net of court approval.

[aidanjt]

Much as I trust/respect the police (well, some of them) I would have thought they would have preferred the safety net of court approval.

Authoritarians have no interest in checks and balances interfering with their projection of authority.

[Output]

I also agree with Steve's comments above, but as it mentions Nominet in the article, it does seem to suggest that it would be trivial for those that this may be intended to target to avoid it anyway - by simply not using a domain name ending in .uk.

[Biscuit]

I also agree with Steve's comments above, but as it mentions Nominet in the article, it does seem to suggest that it would be trivial for those that this may be intended to target to avoid it anyway - by simply not using a domain name ending in .uk.

Exactly, this movement does absolutely nothing but possibly (in a very round about way) begin the evolution to a white list internet. The only way to be safe is to be more educated.