Slashdot Mirror
British Police Censor the Global Internet
judgecorp writes "A branch of the City of London police seems to be censoring suspected pirates worldwide, using threats. The Police Intellectual Proerty Crime Unit (PIPCU), acts on tip-offs from copyright owners to attempt to close down websites accused of piracy. the process involves cease-and-desist letters, followed by pressure on advertisers not to fund the site, and finally PIPCU uses threats to the domain registrar (not the ISP), all without any sort of court order."
...if the British realize that they don't own the world anymore.
Nor do they have an empire.
People are doing things for the police without a court order. If there's one thing I've learned in my years of dealing with law enforcement: get everything on paper before you do anything.
We do, do the USA realize they will never and do not currently (despite attempts) own the world?
Fun fact: the City of London (as opposed to Greater London and its boroughs outside the square mile) is a dictatorship with a mayor annually appointed by the businesses that operate in the City of London.
Smacks of fascism? Yes. They pride themselves as "business friendly", and never met a plutocrat they didn't like. The City of London police is basically a militia for the rich and powerful. They are also in cahoots with Scientology -- some senior officers are Scientologists, and the City of London Police have been known to do their dirty work for them, as previously reported on Slashdot.
the Queen still owns more land than any other country or nation on the planet...so "technically" we do own a majority share of "The World".
You're the only with no facts. The City of London is not the same as London. The Mayor of the City of London is not the Mayor of London.
all without any sort of court order."
Have you recently read of anything done by anyone WITH a court order? I wonder if the courts still remember how to write one.
The template must have been used for the last time with WordPerfect 4.2.
Civil rights have been under attack in Britain for a long time. Since Thatcher, continued enthusiastically by Blair/Brown and now Cameron's government we have seen a massive assault on traditional freedoms and protections. Judicial oversight, Freedom of speech, free assembly/protest, presumption of innocence, freedom from mass surveillance have all come under massive attack by various bills over the last 20 years. This is has been met with hardly a reaction from the general public, most people don't seem to think it affects them and this has emboldened governments and institutions to act in a more and more authoritarian manner, working under the strong belief that they are doing what the public want for their own good. I fear by the time people start to react, we will be so far down the road; it will take something close to a revolution to change. We are not big on revolutions on Britain.
This is just "how it works" in real life and is the equivalent of them "asking nicely", common approach is to ignore them politely whilst furiously covering ones arse via some means. However things tend to progress quite quickly after that, one of two things tends to happen: ...or they catch you and give your kidneys a little tickle with a truncheon.
...or they pop around your house and confiscate all your kit which you might get back some day in the far flung future, probably without the drives.
1) You have a faster means of transport than they do and a better working knowledge of the local area facilitating a clean get away.
1) a) They pop round your "known associates" and ask them deep and meaningful questions about your whereabouts lately.
2)
So this seems roughly to be a fairly direct translation to the on-line world. I'd expect the equivalent here to be that either...
1) You make sure you have a diverse infrastructure outside their jurisdiction and a better working knowledge of how the internet works.
1) a) They pressure your advertisers.
2)
See http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2013/11/07/feature_what_happens_when_you_arrested_by_computer_police/ for a detailed explanation of what to expect from number 2.
Because it is at the behest of American record and film companies.
Do these people not realize they have zero jurisdiction outside of their own country?
If a police department in a foreign country is trying to exert pressure on you, the response is to tell them to go fuck themselves and come back when they have legal standing.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Ha ha. The irony!
benjfolwer is correct and you Mr high and mightly asshole, with all your fact finding, are WRONG!
The Mayory of the City of London is elected by the 'Livery Companies' not the people. Wrong Mayor of London.
City of London police is like a private security firm working for a postage-stamp size borough of London. They tiny ( and they leave horse shit all over the place ).
the City of London is a square mile business district, the Lord Mayor is the head of the City of London Corporation, and is Fiona Woolf at the moment. Boris is the Mayor of London - that is Greater London, and what Americans think of as London, not the City of London Corporation. It is actually the Livery Companies (like the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists) that elect the Lord Mayor. It is weirder than you think.
EORIGJ
1) some people steal the property of some other people ./ crowd screams...
2) the victims notify the police unit responsible for protecting their property rights
3) the police ask the thiefs to stop stealing
4) if the thiefs refuse to stop stealing the police ask from people helping the criminals by providing funding and/or technical means to stop
5) the usual
The correct response by all companies to a request "without any sort of court order." should be to send t directly to /dev/null - I don't care if it is the NSA, FBI, or the London Police issuing the request, unless it is accompanied by a court order, why are companies bending over backwards to help the government - the government sure is not bending over backwards to help them.
(Yes I realize the problem is larger than this with FISA warrants and secret courts, but I don't think the London Police Department can serve a FISA warrant... yet anyway.)
taxation without representation (or with misrepresentation) is the term
Is now gone? no killings no robberies, All real crime has been taken care of so they have to move to IP enforcement?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...the the Police can actually issue their own warrants.
the city of london major, which is what the op was referring to is not elected by the business's it is elected by the people, the lord major (totally different to the major of the city of london) IS elected by the business's but has NOTHING to do with the policing in london AT ALL. So that guy was not "high and mighty and wrong" you are.
By owning the intellectual property one gains rights but also duties to protect the intellectual property. It is in fact the burden on shoulders of IP holders that is specified by law. :-) This is a very nice example of businesses delegating their duties to people (I mean tax-funded police). Definitely smart way to lower the costs of intellectual property ownership and thus increasing the profit margin.
I am sure that ordinary British will not like it. I am interested to see what will they do about it (to know when our Police will get the same idea ;).
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
Ashamed of our heritage?? instead of what a President who is the exact same thing but without the rich back history and throw away everything that makes us different? Britain is known around the world for our Royal event's, hence the tourism income produced every year by it. If you think we should be ashamed of our past maybe you should stop calling yourself British.
If you want it all summarised (very) nicely, checkout these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ROpIKZe-c
no one is forcing [you people] to use this internet... anyone that doesn't like the new rules, policies, prodecures etc. is free to take their business elsewhere -- or something to that effect -- same lines that Google® , Facebook® . etc. give to people who don't like what they are implementing or their agendii.
...the majority comes from Royal events and the like...the buildings are what cost money. People come to see the Royal family, they care less about the house they live in (although they do come for that too) it is more of a complete package. Get rid of the family and no one cares about the empty house that once had royalty and their belongings inside.
...the Monarchy has very little control or power over decisions of our government ...
we compel them to compete in the commonwealth games every few years, that enough?
That was a response to the first comment attacking Britain for no reason when the topic does not relate to ALL Britains, so the USA response was a retort at his tarnishing everyone with the same brush by doing the very same back to him.
she couldn't because she also has control over the "Launch Nukes" button but if she wanted to use it she wouldn't be allowed without the house of commons deciding she could press it, so no you are a joke if you believe the Queen has any effect on any decision of this country. The meeting is purely a formality she is just a tourist attraction now.
but its more than enough to make the statement "own more than other governments or nations" which is what he said...So Britain does as a single entity vs other single entities own more land.
You know, like any employee: they bring in more money than they cost, ergo hiring them is worth doing.
Maths. Try more than one sum at a time, dear.
Royal Jubilee, google how much tourism it generated, nuff said.
FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE? Never heard of it (why else would the owners of Slashdot LIE frequently by promoting the false controversy of questions about people's religious beliefs on Public Census forms, when in EVERY major nation derived from the UK, the RIGHT to freedom of conscience means that the state has literally ZERO ability to demand any form of statement about a person's current spiritual beliefs).
For instance, the vast majority of organised Jewish groups across the planet actively support the appalling crimes against Humanity carried out daily by the vile, evil, racist State of Israel- a state that PROUDLY twins itself with Saudi Arabia, and a state that PROUDLY provided the White neo-Nazi racists of South Africa with Nuclear weapons, when those racists still had Nelson Mandela under lock and key. But say anything against current forms of organised Judaism on Slashdot, and you all know what the result will be.
And yet the Modern Christian church (or Christian zionists as they should be more correctly called- original Christianity did NOT incorporate the Jewish Old Testament by design and intent) is even worse, with organised Catholics and Protestants not only supporting the crimes of Israel, but actively promoting the war mongering agenda of people like Blair and Obama across our planet.
What do the Scientologists (whose religious beliefs are every bit as VALID as Christians and Jews) do in comparison? A little bit of low level, localised corruption. This is like being in Chicago at the height of Capone, and spending ALL your time attacking people who spit in the street, while singing the praises of the mobsters.
Don't get me wrong. Only morons support organised religions. Organised religions exist purely to manage and control the sheeple. The ultimate consequence of organised religions will always be genocide (Man's first organised religions, before the time of written records, ensured that Man would be the ONLY intelligent species on the planet- be in no doubt of this). But while organised religions flourish, we MUST ensure people understand what 'freedom of conscience' means , and why THIS right was the most hard won.
Did you know it is OFFICIAL policy to REFUSE to teach the basics of 'freedom of conscience' in ordinary British and American schools? No US child has to swear the oath of allegiance at school, and it would be fundamentally IMPOSSIBLE for any state to attempt to adjust its laws to change this- and yet over and over American teachers tell their kids that they have no choice. British schools, sickeningly, have compulsory Christian (actually zionist) 'assemblies' where no child is every told that THEY have the right not to participate in the hymns or prayers (parents can withdraw their kids, but the right to freedom of conscience applies to young people as well).
If you have EVER attacked Scientology, you are as bad as a klansman, or an Indian mob burning a shop owned by people with the 'wrong' religion. And this is not because objecting to organised religion is wrong - it is actually a moral duty of enlightened thinkers - but because every attack against Scientology is on behalf of vastly more powerful, vastly more evil established organised religions. .
Court orders are so 21st century.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
...how has voting Tory been for you all? Enjoy it much?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_revolution
js
How is shutting down pirating sites censorship? Free speech in no way protects illegal activity. A cease-and-desist is a legal request that can quickly turn into a court order. It's the copyright holder's responsibility to defend it's property, and their actions don't really seem overreaching.
Consider actual speech instead of software: If a site plagiarized someone else's story, book, etc., shutting them down would completely be the copyright holders right.
>Many of these sites have no content filters and contain material that is unsuitable for children,” Sharp said.
>contain material that is unsuitable for children
>children
Oh, if only there was something parents could do to stop their children looking at unsuitable materials online! Something ending in -ing...
Sarcasm aside, I'm guessing this finally means porn will now be illegal in the UK?
(W)TFA is so crazy knee-jerk extreme. For some reason it thinks ICANN’s Registrar Accreditation Agreement is somehow outdated, of which it is not.
3.7.7.9 The Registered Name Holder shall represent that, to the best of the Registered Name Holder's knowledge and belief, neither the registration of the Registered Name nor the manner in which it is directly or indirectly used infringes the legal rights of any third party.
That's not a pun, it's the origin of the word.
I never recall the US using tactical nukes as part of the operation
When you have companies above them?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Isn't PIPCU a kind of Pokemon?
The registers actually are not allowed to take down the sites, the request by these corrupted police force isn't legal. By taking it down, the registers are violating very policy they are suppose to follow. A court order is actually required. Any registers that comply with the request are the ones doing illegal actions by the very contract they are suppose to follow. These requests should be ignored and rightfully so. Shame on any registers that fold in and more so, should be reviewed and sites put back into place. This police force is non-sense and have no legal bases for what they are doing.