Slashdot Mirror
Target Advertising Used to Censor NY Times Article
avtchillsboro writes to tell us The New York Times has adapted technology usually used for targeted advertising to censor a recent article from British viewers in an attempt to comply with local publishing rules. The New York Times explained that this move "arises from the requirement in British law that prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial."
As always with this sort of thing, it's on Cryptome:
http://cryptome.org/nyt-ukterror.htm
If they have to follow the british law, they have to follow it, else get sued like MS is getting sued by the EU.
Nothing to see... move along.
arises from the requirement in British law that prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial.
:)
as much as I love freedom of the press... I could really do without the 24/7 coverage of John Mark Karr.. (But I guess it's worth it to get the other benefits from the 1st Amendment
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Oh big deal. They used an ip to country database and served different content based on country, people do this daily.
CNET version of the article
I can see abuse over this technology. News stories used to rejuvenate Liberals will be viewable only in liberal areas, and they'll put a different twist to the same story and make it interesting & viewable in Conservative areas. That's kinda what happens now, except it comes from different sources, but now with this new technology it could come from the same sourcd!
But they aren't publishing in Britain so the laws aren't local. I don't see what the problem is or why they felt the need to do this.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
All us brits use public proxies anyways. Nothing to see. We can all read about it in the papers tomorrow.
Why UNIX?
Hmmm... the Right Coast?
Our Freedom of Speech trumphs your right to a fair trial and an impartial jury.
Yeah, I encountered the described screen yesterday. I can understand why they did it, I suppose, but it was astonishing at the time. Thank goodness for anonymous browsing, I got to read some juicy speculation that most of my workmates won't have heard. I shall rule the water cooler come teatime!
To try to watch BBC online content outside of the UK. Denied!
Surly there is a source that is less bias than the paper that the issue was with?
``...this was preferable to not having it on the Web at all."
This is nothing but a lame attempt to defend their sloppy censorship.
Looks like they're just using IP-to-geographic mapping to determine whether to show the article or not.
Sure, it's been most widely used for targeted ads, but it's also been used for other forms of content negotiation -- selecting a default language where the browser doesn't request one, for instance, or defaulting to the US or international version of CNN.
If you're been reading the editorial pages, the NY Times would prefer Queen Elizabeth (UK) over King George (USA) any old day.
What's that famous cartoon that came out years ago showing people in NY view of America, basically showing most NYers don't see anything past NY? :)
Anyone have a link to that cartoon?
Thanks
They have fairly strict publication restrictions on cases before and during trials, so I would expect this to happen not just in the UK (which is far more than Britain, as any Scot or Welshman could tell you, and I'm both), but also in Canada.
It's a bit more problematic, in terms of Canada, in that you could have a Canadian surf a wireless site just over the border to get his unfiltered press from a nearby US site, and go around the blockade at the border, but if you're using a fixed cable provider like Rogers Cable in British Columbia, they'll probably block certain news articles from your feed.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Ummm, HTML tags aren't a substitute for having a brain...
maybe slashdot could license this technology to censor stories about Cringely and Dvorak?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The fourth estate! Protecting the interests of the firs^H^H^Hsecon^H^H^Hthir^H^H^Hfourth estate since 1780 BC!
Remember, Our Privilege Helps Secure Your Freedom*.
*May not actually help, assist or otherwise aid securing freedom. The fourth estate is distributed in the hope that it will aid freedom but WITHOUT ANY GUARANTEE; without even the implied guarantee of USEFULNESS IN AIDING FREEDOM or FITNESS FOR CONSUMPTION. Any freedom inducing effects are purely coincidental. May induce totalitarianism in excessive doses.
May the Maths Be with you!
How dare they use an available tool to comply with a british law!
And for what flimsy reason?? To give a CRIMINAL defendant a FAIR TRIAL!
I am sure that John Kerry and the ACLU are behind this.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Well, so would I- it's always better to have a leader who can actually read.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The next logical step in this evolution is custom self-modifying news articles based upon the reader's location, user preferences, user history, etc...
... wait that sounds like FOX News already LOL!
And many people would probably welcome this - they want to read the news they want to believe - ie. Iraq is going great, the economy is dandy, and
Anyways, I'd like to see a website started somewhere that specifically archives news articles in their various forms; Archive.org doesn't do that the last I checked for numerous reasons, such as some news organizations not allowing spidering, etc.
As of now, for one doing on-line news research, they can't be certain that a particular news article they see (assuming it's even available anymore to the public) is the original one; more challenging problem when it comes to validating reposted news articles in other venues.
Ron
Apparently you sir need a lesson in globalization...Recent research has shown that empirical evidence for globalization of corporate innovation is very limited and as a corollary the market for technologies is shrinking. As a world leader, it's important for America to provide systematic research grants for our scientists. I believe strongly there will always be a need for us to have a well articulated innovation policy with emphasis on human resource development. Thank you. .... .... ....
What happened, I blacked out.
Click to Find Hot Singles in (your town here) Tonight!!!!
You know, the internet is, uhm, this, uhm, large collection of tubes and, uhm, it's global.
You know, this is why one should make restrained posts. I don't expect everyone to know everything, but making an arrogant post like this just makes you look like an idiot when you're corrected.
Specifically, the New York Times publishes an International Edition under a different name. So they've probably had some threats made to them by the UK government. Considering the arrogance of the New York Times, I'm sure they would've told them to pound sand, unless there was money at stake.
(I know, I know, the NY Times would never lower themselves to worry about mere money)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Really? You honestly believe that local laws have no relevance and should have no relevance to the publishers of Internet-based material?
I'm sure the Brits from Bet on Sports currently languishing in a U.S jail for running a gambling Web site accessible in the U.S would agree with you. It seems to me that the NYT is making a good will effort to avoid breaking a law against prejudicing trials in the UK which has widespread support in the UK.
I don't think the NYT needs geography lessons, I think someone else needs lesson in politics.
Courts can exercise judicial power over things that happen in their geographical jurisdiction. If you're publishing something in the UK, whether electronically or in print, you're supposed to follow the laws of that country.
Enough said...
The Times may not be located in Britain, but I'm sure they have readership there. If they have the technical capability to follow the laws of a certain region, then they should. If this were real censorship, they'd be hiding the article from everyone.
As much as I dislike the Times, I think this is a non-issue. If people are upset about the Times doing this, they should contact their politicians in Britain to change the law that the Times was following. If you're not from the UK, then it doesn't affect you anyway, so what are you complaining about?
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
No fish and chips here. Please move along.
"I don't think the NYT needs geography lessons, I think someone else needs lesson in politics."
Their president?
- These characters were randomly selected.
NYT are doing this for one very simple reason: if a British judge finds that material has been published that is prejudicial to the outcome of the trial, the people who tried to murder thousands by blowing up planes mid-flight can get off scott-free. In this respect, I guess it's the British equivalent of not reading someone their Miranda rights -- slip up on it and the whole case goes out of the window (not a brilliant analogy, but you get the picture).
The NYT has been in trouble in the UK courts before as it has published material prejudicial to a trial, albeit in a much less important case. They could receive a huge fine for contempt of court if people had to be released because of publishing prejudicial information.
I'm surprised this is being labelled censorship by some people -- it's complying with the law and ensuring that a very important trail isn't jeopordised.
As for whether NYT has to comply with British law: Firstly, the print edition of the NYT is distributed in the UK. Secondly, publish anything online and you are automatically suspectible to be taken to court in criminal or civil proceedings IN ANY COUNTRY!!! The Australian high court, for example, has ruled that in the case of libel "each time material is downloaded, it will enliven the defamation laws of the place where [downloading] occurs."
This is very obviously utterly disturbing... but it's the way things are at the moment and responsible news organisations, such as the NYT, are compelled to act accordingly.
Conquest's 3rd Law: Every organisation behaves as if it is run by secret agents of its opponents.
It's not the government that threatens people here. It is individual judges presiding over a criminal case. If you publish a story concerning the defendant or details of the case, the judge can get upset that it might influence the jury and so journalists can be prosecuted for contempt of court. I don't think journalists go to jail, they just get fined, but still British newspapers are careful not to discuss details of cases that are sub judice.
Judges do not throw around the contempt of court charges just for fun; I think they only do it if they feel there is a serious risk that a fair trial might be prejudiced by the press coverage. If that happens then generally the criminal trial in progress is abandoned and the defendant is automatically found not guilty.
All this may be completely unnecessary, after all the US and perhaps other countries have jury trials without worrying that press coverage might influence the jury.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Or is it once again an attempt to squelch a report of local muslims being linked to terrorism? We've been getting a lot of that (move along, nothing to see here) act around HERE lately too! Often before the investigation starts. This is NOT just a local (insert crime here) trial. This is not overblown John Karr coverage. This is about a national terror attempt. People should be informed.
Well, since no one appears to have said it yet, I guess this is one reason to support your local proxy server. The people in the UK should be able to just connect through a US based proxy server and see what their law does not allow them to see.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I hate how everyone is assumed to be guilty just because they were arrested. This practice in america has led to sensationalized journalism, like the John Mark Karr thing and the false accusation of that cop who tried to prevent the olympic bombing in Atlanta.
I think Yahoo tried that same excuse against France... didn't work so well.
Actually they start off by sending a threatening letter "to the current occupant" of all properties. And considering that the (newly converted) property I moved into didn't have any furniture let alone a television I think they were just assuming guilty until checked innocent. I suppose it did have an aerial on the roof, but there is no signal coming from it dagnabbit! (after I moved in I transferred my license of course).
I think that's rather on the optomistic side...
Definition: By "right" here, I mean what I consider to be somebody's rights, rather than what the law considers. I'm not saying I'm the ultimate judge of everything here, just stating my opinion. With that necessary diversion over:
I never quite get this idea that one right, whatever you may pick, say, "freedom of speech", is a total absolute that overrides all other rights. "Free speech" is one right. "A fair trial" is another right. Sometimes, like in this case, the rights conflict. It's clear if all the papers printed headline stories before a trial asserting that the accused is guilty, they wouldn't receive a fair trial. It's hard enough for terror suspects to get a fair trial anyway, given the number of high-profile arrests (on suspicion of being brown) and subsequent low-profile releases without charge.
So, in these situations, you need to compromise. It's not as if we're secretly being censored in these matters - this evening, one of the stories on PM on BBC Radio Four was the police statement to the effect of "reporters are reminded of their duty not to prejudice the trial". So, we know that the Daily Mail has to hold back from its desired Bring Back Hanging For These Sick Terrorist Traitors opinion piece (but is free to change "terrorist" for "pedophile", "illegal immigrant" or "single mother" as required).
In any case, most people would already accept that certain things cannot be defended under free speech. Few would argue that banning contract killings interfered with the "free speech" of the orderer, as they had to use words to make the contract. Again, I suspect little support for perjury being swept away as a free speech issue. If perjury is wrong because it damages the cause of justice, then printing newspaper stories that ruin somebody's chance of a fair trial is also wrong.
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
The decision to press formal charges followed days of widening public skepticism about the true extent of the suspected plot, first disclosed on Aug. 10, when the police warned that conspirators had planned to commit mass murder on what one officer called an "unimaginable scale." The information disclosed Monday gave a sense of the scope of the investigation... --SNIP--
Do you honestly believe that you have to comply with the law of every country with Internet access in the world if you post something online? Would Chinese law keep you from publishing a story critical of their goverment?
I use http://www.workfriendly.net/ (though not for /.!) when at work, so i could view the article no probs.
http://www.workfriendly.net/browse/Office2003Blue/ http/www.nytimes.com//2006/08/28/world/europe/28pl ot.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
By that logic, lobbing missles at Isreal from within Lebanon is OK since laws against bombing Isreal have exactly zero jurisdiction in Lebanon.
It's absolutely right that you can't state a man is guilty of an offence for which he's been charged until it's proven in a court of law. You can state that you personally think he's guilty; you can state that he allegedly committed the offence; but unless you want to be hauled up in front of the judge and asked for the evidence you apparently have that he definitely did it, saying that he did is libellous.
If the US had a similar system, there might be less "trial by media" and more trial by judge and jury. Not that the UK is perfect, but it's better.
But the NY Times does have an international presence - they have a printing shop in Toronto, Canada and 26 foreign news bureaus. If there were tensions between them and the UK, maybe perhaps the UK would oust their bureau. That would hurt. Preventative maintenance.
And that's been working so well. =) I've had the chance to compare the Canadian and U.S. systems now. The trials in Canada really do seem to be more fair, overall, than those in the U.S. I think the publication bans help with that, to a large extent. That said, publication bans make me extremely nervous - but I recognize their usefulness. In some cases they've been over-used, but I think most judges use them, well, judiciously.
I think that the lack of presumption of innocence in the U.S. is really having a deleterious effect on potential jury members, and perhaps the over-publicising of the events and the trial are responsible for that to some extent. I'm sure it's not the only factor, but I think it's a significant one.
~ Leilah
Anyone else read the headline as if Target the retail chain was censoring advertising?
From what I understand, if you did commit contempt of court in a British (well, England & Wales, Scots, as ever, have to be different ... :) ) court the judge can do damn well what he likes with you, up to and including go straight to jail, do not pass go, etc, etc. They do only tend to use it when someone has really rattled them, if I recall, but most of the paper papers (if you see what I mean) do make a point of checking they're not going to get burned if they're not sure.
Semper en excreta sumus solum profundum
I think the presumption of guilt is a societal issue, not one of news coverage. People seem to think that you must be guilty, why would you be charged otherwise?
Not quite the same; they were taking US citizens money, which makes it fall under international trade and thus subject to some of the laws here.
Wow. This is it folks. The tables have turned. A sizeable number of posters on Slashdot are siding with complying with a foreign law. Now this is aside from the fact that the NYT has a British presence, which is the reason I see that NYT is doing this.
A lot of you are talking about respecting laws of other countries simply because that would be the courteous thing to do. Courtesy has no place in international law. We could almost call it a precedent. Ask your 1998 self if it would be thinking these same thoughts as it does in 2006. What has changed in the last few years? Why was your opinion different? I think we've been brainwashed.
Billions of dollars and thousands of talking heads have been hammering for years at this idea of the separation of laws among countries. Whether respecting international law is "right" or "wrong" is subjective. But think of this. I don't support it because it would be impossible to reconcile among individual countries. Too many conflicting laws. Too many existing global conflicts period.
To put all the world's laws on the table and decide to comply with all of them would seem to be an impossible task. I can only see one possible outcome if that were to happen: A new set of global laws. Enforcable by whom? Nothing short of a world government.
I'll leave the rest of this thought exercise to the reader. Try not to be paranoid. Life is to short. And perhaps this is inevitable.
What is wrong with it is the UK (or any other country) government trying to impose their own laws onto a company in another country just because UK citizens can access that information. If I buy a NYT newspaper in NY and bring it to London, do I have to cut out the pieces that are not legal in UK?
At the same time UK did not see any problem with BBC radio broadcasting programs over the Soviet Union while even listening to those broadcasts was pretty much illegal in Soviet Union.
I think this story is a non-issue, since compliance with local laws is a good thing and it was decent of the New York Times to go to such lengths to respect them.
However, the more important issue here is that now that this technology exists and has been shown to work in situations like this, how long before something like this will be required to be used before you publish anything on the Internet?
I'll bet won't be long before some county government (or other small entity) in the sues a national/international publication for not censoring themselves according to local laws.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Would Chinese law keep you from publishing a story critical of their goverment?
That would depend on how/if my country goes about enforcing any extradition treaties with China, or whether China engages in "extraordinary rendition".
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
And that is different from the NYT taking british folks money in what way ?????
I'd agree, but I think the emphatic news coverage does exacerbate the problem.
~ Leilah
Ann Coulter, get the fuck away from Slashdot. It's already bad enough around here without your type adding to the misery.
To answer your question. I don't "honestly believe that you have to comply with the law of every country with Internet access in the world if you post something online". You see, I'm not a great fan of slippery slope arguments. I'm in favour of judging individual cases on their merits based on my judgement of what seems reasonable, taking into account regional or cultural sensibilities. To paraphrase the IETF, be conservative in what you publish, be liberal in what you accept.
So, the NYT decision seems reasonable - it is a good faith decision that helps a non-controversial aspect of the judicial process in a democratic country.
By contrast, your example regarding China would fail my personal test.
It's hard to believe that so many Americans sincerely want a police state.
Interestingly, the US edge servers for news.bbc.co.uk are apparently in New York...
You can go to prison for contempt of court, but I think it's very rare for it to happen to journalists. Hmm, this Telegraph leading article has more on the subject.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
A good analogy: If I make a UK-banned book in France, I cannot sell it in my bookshop in the UK.
To me, it's more like a person visiting France buying the book and bringing it into the UK. Accessing the server & page is visiting & "buying"/downloading the content. Should the French bookseller/NYT be responsible for determining the origin of the buyer and whether they are meeting their country's legal requirements?
What do we expect other countries to do to meet U.S. legal requirements? Anything? Nothing? I thought governments concerned with that sort of thing limited access on their own, and governments that didn't limit access, by implication, didn't need us to do it for them. But perhaps I'm ignorant of some crucial piece of information.
I understand the good intent of the NYT, but you know what they say paves the road to hell...
We have a perfect example of why the UK has this kind of law in the Karr/Ramsey case here in the US. The press had wall-to-wall coverage of the man's trip back to Colorado, including what he ate for dinner on the airplane. If the DNA evidence hadn't proven his innocense, he would have already been tried and convicted in the press. I don't care who it is or what they're accused of, that sort of thing is neither fair nor just!
This is *not* off topic, it is an example why the NYT was correct to following a very fair law. The First Amendment doesn't give us a license to destroy someone's right to a fair trial, and publishing too many facts prior to a trial threatens to do just that. It's a pity that there aren't laws in the US to give similar protections as the UK does to those who haven't yet had their day in court.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Should be "Targeted Advertising..."
rooooar
All this may be completely unnecessary, after all the US and perhaps other countries have jury trials without worrying that press coverage might influence the jury.
Tell that to that Entwistle guy, the one extradited back to Boston a few months ago. The probability of a jury being selected who know nothing about the case and have not already decided that he's guilty is very slim.
It's good and right that the UK system is the way it is. The OJ trial farce is proof of that if any is needed.
Agree with everything you wrote prior to that BTW.
As a US citizen....
I don't care one bit abut Mark Karr. I certaintly don't have any embarrassment about anything in regards to him, or anything or anyone else that *I* personally am not involved in or with.
But as to who built up the belief that he might be the perpetrator.....Maybe, just MAYBE, it was Mark Karr, through his confession, that started the whole media mess.
It's not just the legal requirements implied. It seems to me that if the NYT behavior becomes accepted precedent, then websites seeking to be accessible internationally may eventually have to require these targeting capabilities, and I would best most don't. Will those without it be censored automatically by some/all foreign countries? (By foreign I mean all countries other than the website's originating country). Surely there are too many websites incapable of this to go through them on a case-by-case basis.
Since I started tracking it in Jan. 2004, my personal, tiny, virtually unknown site has nonetheless had visitors from 46 countries. I've corresponded with people from 13 of those. It's a personal site, and it's not something I want to have to adjust to meet international law because a larger site decided to do so.
A journalist could be sentenced to a prison term. It would depend on how serious and willful the contempt of court was.
In the UK as well as Canada it is believed that the right to a fair and OPEN trial belongs not merely to the accused, but also to the PUBLIC. That this right is so sacrosanct that in certain circumstances it justifies prohibiting people from publishing their own take on the court proceedings before the trial is completed. (if you want the scoop you are free to attend court personally). Publication bans prevent both sides from engaging in a outside the courtroom trial of public opinion. A very wealthy and very popular defendant could easily sway public opinion in FAVOUR of him and yet be as guilty as sin.
In canada at least it is also considered contempt to picket the courthouse in regards to a case currently being heard there. This is as it should be. If you have any material evidence to offer undoubtedly it will be either FOR or AGAINST some position and in the adversarial system (as is used here) certainly you would be permitted to testify (UNDER OATH) about what you have.
For all the others.. heckling and bantering is strictly irrelevant and should be kept as far away from the court room as possible. It doesn't make a fact any more or less true simply because 100 protesters WISH it was.
Even where there is no jury, a publication ban can still be ordered. And the reason is that the public is served best by either getting the raw proceedings first hand (by attending courst) or waiting until the trial is over and all parties have had a full and fair opportunity to present their evidence (under oath) and make their submissions. This way the public also has the benefit of getting the judge's findings at the same time (which is necessarily withheld DURING the trial). This way as well, the personal biases and opinions of the media, politicians or other parties is minimized. Justice must be seen to be done and that means it must be seen ACCURATELY.
If the trial procedure itself is sufficient to destroy a persons life (because of the public spectacle of it) then there will be a number of cases where innocent people will refuse to defend themselves and plead guilty. this brings the entire process into disrepute and begs the question of whether other guilty pleas were in fact sincere (because the person was guilty) or merely convenient (because the spectacle of trial was worse than defending yourself and being aquitted).
Incidentally in Canada it is not even legal to transcribe the court proceedings yourself. You must get the official transcript. this transcript is produced by the court reporter who is an independant party under oath to transcribe as accurately as possible. Other people could easily lie about what they heard under oath and interfere with justice that way.
At the end of the day.... all the public media attention on court cases is purely about entertainment value anyway. It has nothing to do with justice, and where justice is required, justice trumps free speech. In so far as justice is the fundamental protection for ALL rights in a society, the requirements of Justice necessarily trump ALL other rights in society.
If you dont like having your free speech impeded by the process of Justice, imagine how someone who is convicted feels to have their liberty impeded?
If you think Justice has no right against your speech, then you should also hold that justice has no right against the liberty of a person who stands accused.
In any event, these publication bans are merely temporary bans DURING the trial. It is not censorship.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Would this be the same if you could read it without a subscription? Now you could claim that you take a subscribtion and thus that the service is deliverd to the country you live in.
The fact that the company is in the US should not matter.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Interesting article. To my mind, the people at fault are the coppers (and Home Secretaries) who, in a bit of a bind (let too many prisoners go free when they should have been deported, beaten with a stick over the Lawrence thing *again*) think "Let's create a media splash" with a half-assed case so they can look like they're doing their job. I don't expect my local coppers to run screaming to the media every time they nick someone for shoplifting. Even in the case I was (tangentially) involved in, no hoo-ha until the little bugger got sentenced, which is the right and proper way to do these things - confident as I was that the guy was not only guilty, was taking the piss and was guilty, that's not really the point - I could have been wrong (and, normally, I am wrong...)
I would have found it hard to argue if some of the recent cases had been thrown out courtesy of Ian Blair, who does seem better at PR than policing...
Semper en excreta sumus solum profundum
Really people. I'm disappointed in /. editors and posters here. Nerds should know better.
Please tell me how this is different than a NYT UK editor manually editing the printed US version of any given story prior to printing the NYT UK version? I mean, other than the medium in this case allows for an automated editing tool...
And please, tell me how the content provider can ever censor their own content? Hint: If they do omit or include any random bit of info from a piece, it's called "editing prior to publication" and it's done as a matter of daily business. If this editing induces a prejudicial bias, then so be it.
Editorial bias is not censorship. It's often harmful and/or misleading, but NOT NOT NOT censorship.
So they used a geolocation database and displayed a "Sorry, no article for you" message to people in the UK. What's the big deal? An enormous amount of sites do this already. One could write a PHP or Perl script to do the same thing using a simple database in about sixty seconds.
How is this even REMOTELY newsworthy?
"BREAKING NEWS: New York Times discovers geolocation, claims the well known technology will revolutionize the media!"
Mod the parent up and the grandparent down (a little).
There are only 2 (two) ways to be arrested by a foreign country: (1) visiting that country or (2) being in a country that will extradite you for the crime. The Brits who are in US jail had to be in the US or had to be extradited from the country they were in at the time of arrest.
It is extremely unlikely that the US (or most Western democratic countries) would extradite a citizen to China because we celebrate those freedoms which China supresses. You can post all you want on your blog (or comment on Slashdot) about your criticizms of the Chinese government, but I would think long and hard before visiting Bejing on vacation afterwords.
It would be extremely unlikely that any person in any country could abide by all laws of all countries. If you are not in a particular jurisdiction, you are not subject to that jurisdiction's laws, but you can be prosecuted if you are ever in that jurisdiction (by your own volition or by extradition).
"If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates." - Jay Leno
LOVE your sig.
"arises from the requirement in British law that prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial."..does that mean they will, by using "advertising technology" censor stories about Blair?? Aren't most of them prejudicial for the eventual warcrimes and corruption trials?
Or is working out age from DOB not allowed for legal reasons?
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
The UK could just block the paper - like the Chinese.
We can all read newspaper articles, decide on guilt/innocence based on the bias of a writer, get called for jury duty and have the case thrown out.
Or we could ask them nicely to restrict the article until a fair trial is under way - and they could do so.
News International owns shit-loads of media sources - and each one is sold with it's one special flavour to a particular target demographic.
Compare and contrast Fox News and Sky News.
In the UK we NI owns both The Times (old respected paper) and The Sun (biggest and most typical editorial-ridden British tabloid) - the politics behind both papers are similar (i.e. which way does Rupert want you to vote - but one will have article on mis-handling of NHS IT contracts and the other will say the government is letting 'paedos' roam the streets.
You've missed the point - this is the outraged clamour of a somewhat myopic American public just falling over themselves to spread their (obviously superior) laws to the rest of the world.
I'm doubly locking my door tonight in-case a passing US platoon decides to liberate me from this tyranny and give me 'democracy'
I've seen half a dozen documentaries about the case, and the parents always seemed creepy
(alright maybe there was some ominous music whenever they spoke and a good previous 30 minutes of child-pageant/paedofest comparisons made etc etc - but hey, free speech)
If you have a suable Chinese branch with arrestable employees located in China, then yes.
The UK certainly has detector vans. They use other methods too, but I don't see how you could possibly declare the vans a myth.
So why can't a US resident pay (part of) a UK TV license in order to subscribe to the BBC's online videos?
The Unabubba. Thanks for the memories!
If I already have the ability to target content for a specific country, and use this to provide them with specific content (for ads in the case of NYT), then yes, I would feel obliged to use the same technology to avoid breaking their local laws when possible.
If I were to publish it on a website that is completely agnostic with regards to the location of the readers (and has no specific advertisement contracts with companies from country X or Y), that would be a different thing.
The New York Times knows its place, and knows where America stands in relation to Great Britain. Ever since The Betrayal of 1776, America has smugly seen itself as superior--morally and physically. It has deceived itself, and the writers of the New York Times know this. They accept that their newspaper is inferior to the British-born "Times" and accept the British Crown as sovereign and governor of its dealings.
Soon England will prevail over the rogue colonists and the glorious empire shall be reborn. This is the America's first cry to return to the crown's protection. More will follow.
England Prevails
China is an inferior country repressed by an inferior government crippled by its arrogant self-abuse and denial of British rule. If China were half the country England is, it would have stopped the offensive NYT article from having reached its citizens at the source--just as England did.
Britain is a superior country peopled by a race of superior morals and superior intellects. If you were British, you would already know this.
England Prevails
But that would not have mitigated the underlying issue which made the OJ case difficult to prosecute: The LAPD has too many officers who are cowboys, and believe that it is righteous for them to practise antinomianism.
They are not above the law, and they most certainly do not have the right to lie under oath giving testimony in a criminal case.
Reasonable doubt was hurled into the trial the moment Van Adder, a principle investigative officer at the murder scene, swore that the reason they had gone over the wall at OJ's residence warrantless was because they were worried about his well-being, and that he wasn't a suspect in the double murder.
When an estranged wife and male companion are brutally murdered in the wife's residence, the separated husband is number one on the suspect list. How long does it take to wake up the on-call judge and get him to OK a warrant for the estranged husband's house in a double-murder case anyway? Less than 1/2 hour would be my guess. OJ could have been on the moon at the time of the murder, and they would have been looking for evidence of a contract hit. He callously disregarded the Fourth Amendment, and then lied at the criminal case to keep the evidence from being dismissed.
Add to that Furhman, the complete absence of any chain of evidence exercised over OJ's Bronco, less than fully qualified crime-techs at the scene, the fact that many minority groups in LA view the LAPD as mercenary enforcers, not community protectors, as well as the high-end attorneys working for the defense, and reasonable doubt had crept into the prosecution of the case.
It is a great pity there is a high probability that OJ got away with murder. It is an outrage that LAPD never shouldered their responsibility in the trial process' souring. There was no application of a painful clue-stick to aid in behaviour modification, so there is also a high probability that many on the force still consciously engage in constitutional violations and the subsequent giving of dishonest fourth amendment related testimony. They may pay a little more attention to wealthy suspects' rights these days though.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
The short answer is yes. If you plan to do business with China or any Chinese company then you would have to comply with thier laws. Hard to believe but many companies (even in the US) do. For example just putting "Taiwan" into the country line in a document can get you in trouble.
But the US has similar laws that it uses the same system to enforce them. Lets say your country passes a law condemming the actions of Isreal for (pick a topic) and hearby embaros the country. You would not be allowed to follow that law and still do business with the US.
how the hell do you yanks think you can have a fair legal system with such information in the public domain before the trial is beond me.
Nations have established their respective bodies of law, based on the assumption that there is such a thing as a well-defined area of national jurisdiction. In the past, that was (mostly) true. Thus a given act could be legal in some nations, and illegal in others. Anyone was entitled to form an opinion of the rightness or wrongness of such acts, regardless of their legal status. So there were three separate issues: whether a given act is legal or illegal in any nation's view; whether that act is considered right or wrong; and whether the person committing the act can, in practice, be brought to book.
Today, the Internet is available worldwide, so the idea of a nation's physical jurisdiction has become obsolete - at least as regards crimes that can be committed remotely, such as gambling, looking at pornography, Holocaust denial, blasphemy, reading news reports, or political discussion. (Remember all of these are crimes somewhere, though probably none of them is a crime everywhere).
This state of affairs is obviously unstable. Many of the contributors to this thread seem to believe that some laws are right, while others are wrong; and that it is only those laws that they consider right that need to be obeyed. Unfortunately this takes a giant step from the (more or less) objective domain of law to the (almost entirely) subjective domain of morality. For a largely American group of people, that does not necessarily pose a serious problem: the default assumption is that US laws are right, whereas other nations' laws are right to the extent that they coincide (or at least are compatible) with US laws. Based on this assumption, the US government often asserts a right to judge people living anywhere in the world, regardless of their nationality, and if necessary to seize them and transport them to the USA for trial under US law.
But the US government can do that only because it has the power to make almost everyone else comply. ("Might is right"). Imagine for a moment that China - or for that matter Cuba - suddenly acquired a magical superweapon that could defeat all known weapons, and destroy any enemy. Suddenly, US law would be put back into its box, while the Chinese or Cuban or whatever government would be able to extend its writ worldwide. How would we like that?
In the long run, and sooner rather than later, national governments are going to have to find some way of reconciling their legal systems with the existence of a single, seamless global communication space. It's going to be interesting.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Do you honestly believe that you have to comply with the law of every country with Internet access in the world if you post something online? Would Chinese law keep you from publishing a story critical of their goverment?
Yes, and yes.
What we are talking about here is not what people post in their blogs, but the pursuit of commercial activities on the internet. If you want to make money from people in a country, then IMO you're obliged to respect the laws and customs of that country. And in the case of a newspaper like NYT, I think it is not just prudent, but morally correct to make an effort to think through the consequences of what they do, even in other countries. They are read by many people in the world, so they have great influence, and it is right that they try not to tumble around blindly, possibly hurting somebody in the process.
As for your second question, yes, if I was the editor of a major newspaper, I would indeed think about the consequences of publishing articles critical of any government. I would ask myself questions like 'Is there a risk that this article will endanger somebody's life (eg. one of my own journalists)?' or 'Will this article hurt the diplomatic relations at a very bad moment in time?' etc etc.
It's called being responsible.
This is no different to not letting someone view a website because they're not using Internet Explorer. Once you put something up on the 'net it should be available to everyone or available to no-one. A website should not care (content wise) where their visitors are coming from and no matter how you may consider this being self-censorship, it flies directly in the face of free information flow on the Internet. This is another reason why networks like http://tor.eff.org/ Tor exist. The less you know about who is coming to your site and how, the less effect your freaky censorship will have on me.
As an aside I recently started seeding a Linux based Tor Virtual Appliance. You can find it linked in the Tor wiki http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter if you're interested.
The threat of contempt of court chills freedom of speech in Britain. Restriction orders are often issued verbally by the judge, and prosecutions are pretty arbitrary. What areas of reporting are allowed or disallowed is a very grey area, so the media errs on the side of silence, encouraged by threats from the police and prosecutors.
The contempt law also denies the defendent the right to make their side of the case heard in the media, which allows miscarriages of justice to be covered up.
Studies on jury behaviour in New Zealand and the US have shown that juries are actually unlikely to be swayed by prejudicial reports that they might have been exposed to. Of course, such a study would be impossible in Britain, as jurors are banned from revealing the details of their deliberations.
When it comes to justice, there ain't much freedom of speech in Britain.
People in the UK have successfully claimed that they could not have a fair trial after news reports, and away with it. We don't want that to happen here
Who said the Brits were paying? The most I've ever had to do to read a NYT article was fill in some registration crap.
If I had a business in China, or ever intend to visit the country, you'd better believe it. I'm eager to never see the inside of a Chinese jail. My beliefs are my beliefs, but burning martyr stinks worse than anything, especially when your martyrdom is about as effective as throwing a brick through a window is at bringing down a building.
What's extraordinary here is that the a number of UK officials give statements to the press that can't be shown in their own country.
..
.. The ominous language of seven recovered martyrdom videotapes is among new details that emerged from interviews with high-ranking British, European and American officials last week,
.. five senior British officials said, the suspects were not prepared to strike immediately .. The suspects had been working for months out of an apartment that investigators called the "bomb factory," where the police watched as the suspects experimented with chemicals, according to British officials and others briefed on the evidence, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, citing British rules on confidentiality regarding criminal prosecutions.
..
.. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described the suspected plot as "getting really quite close to the execution stage."
..
..
..
.. One former British counterterrorism official .. said several people .. alerted the police in July 2005 about the intentions of a small group of angry young Muslim men.
..
- quote -
Details Emerge in British Terror Case
John Reid, Britain's home secretary, took questions on Aug. 10 in London during a news conference about the suspected plot by terrorists to blow up passenger planes flying from Britain to the United States.
By DON VAN NATTA Jr., ELAINE SCIOLINO and STEPHEN GREY
Published: August 28, 2006
LONDON, Aug. 27 -- On Aug. 9, in a small second-floor apartment in East London, two young Muslim men recorded a video justifying what the police say was their suicide plot to blow up trans-Atlantic planes: revenge against the United States and its "accomplices," Britain and the Jews.
As it happened, the police had been monitoring the apartment with hidden video and audio equipment
Investigators say they believe that one of the leaders of the group, an unemployed man in his 20's who was living in a modest apartment on government benefits, kept the key to the alleged "bomb factory" and helped others record martyrdom videos, the officials said.
But British officials said the suspects still had a lot of work to do. Two of the suspects did not have passports, but had applied for expedited approval. One official said the people suspected of leading the plot were still recruiting and radicalizing would-be bombers.
Another British official stressed that martyrdom videos were often made well in advance of an attack. In fact, two and a half weeks since the inquiry became public, British investigators have still not determined whether there was a target date for the attacks or how many planes were to be involved. They say the estimate of 10 planes was speculative and exaggerated.
In his first public statement after the arrests, Peter Clarke, chief of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police, acknowledged that the police were still investigating the basics: "the number, destination and timing of the flights that might be attacked."
"In retrospect,'' said Michael A. Sheehan, the former deputy commissioner of counterterrorism in the New York Police Department, "there may have been too much hyperventilating going on."
Armed with the tips, MI5, Britain's domestic security services, began an around-the-clock surveillance operation of a dozen young men living in Walthamstow -- bugging their apartments, tapping their phones, monitoring their bank transactions, eavesdropping on their Internet traffic and e-mail messages, even watching where they traveled, shopped and took their laundry, according to senior British officials.
davecb5620@gmail.com
or whether China engages in "extraordinary rendition".
What, like Jack Bauer?
Ah, the subtleties of the British Isles!
Myths:
The major source of the confusion is the definition of Great Britain. Great Britain is the largest of the British Isles, an archipelago off the northwest coast of continental Europe. Ireland is also one of the British Isles, though the term isn't used much in Ireland due to associations between 'British Isles' and 'Great Britain'. The United Kingdom is the union of Great Britain with Northern Ireland. A slighlty unusual case is the Isle of Man which is one of the British Isles (though not part of Great Britain!), but isn't technically part of the UK — it is a Crown dependency.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
How to they prevent people using Tor and Vidallia from reading the article? The ip address could be anywhere in the world?
Actually there is a 3rd (third) way: visit some other country that may cooperate with the one in question.
It's not illegal to publish the article in the UK. Those people who are whining about UK laws being imposed on an American company miss the point. However, if the defence can assert that because of media attention, no fair-minded jury can be found, it can be ruled that no fair trial can occur and the guys walk away scot-free. If a media outlet can be shown to have prejudiced enough people against the defendents, it doesn't matter if they're guilty or not - they walk. The NYT are just making sure they don't end up being blamed for that happening. It's not that it's "illegal" at all. It's just publishing it can have consequences that the NYT publishers don't want to have to deal with. They can publish anything they want after the trial, it's just not a great idea to do so right now.