British Men Jailed For Online Hate Crimes

chrb writes "Two British men have become the first to be jailed for inciting racial hatred online. The men believed that material they published on web servers based in the United States did not fall under the jurisdiction of UK law and was protected under the First Amendment. This argument was rejected by the British trial judge. After being found guilty, the men fled to Los Angeles, where they attempted to claim political asylum, again arguing that they were being persecuted by the British government for speech that was protected under the First Amendment. The asylum bid was rejected and the two were deported back to the UK after spending over a year in a US jail."

Comments

Re:whats the crime in hate crime?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

These guys had no such protections, and they knew it.

I wouldn't say that they knew it - it's been pretty widely held (for about the last 10 years - since these for of question started cropping up), at least amongst the technological community, that the only practical way of determining jurisdiction on the internet was to go by the location of the server.
What Mr Justice McMoron has done here is actually strike a blow against the rule of law. In this case the servers were located in the US - the accused lived in the UK so that's apparently enough for jurisdiction, but that leaves us only one step away from the chaotic nightmare of courts deciding that they have jurisidction on the sole basis that the material is accessible from their country. At that point, the proverbial will hit the fan - there will be so little material which isn't illegal somewhere that one will be able to put nothing on line.

Justice McMoron has simply made a mindless and irrational power-grab, and taken a pretty big step towards wrecking the internet in the process.