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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."
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.
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.
Can you explain why this paleolithic institution is allowed to survive? Are the British people daft?
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.
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.
IIRC the British monarchy brings in more revenue than it costs. Those most critical of the monarchy put the annual cost of maintaining it at 400 million GBP (more conservative figures peg that as much lower), but the royal family generates 500 million GBP / year in tourism revenue. I'm sure one can poke holes in this argument, but based on these two figures alone, it sounds like the monarchy is worth it.
Citation
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.
Most of us would rather have the Queen as head of state than any recent prime minister.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
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
or to be blunt "We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram"
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Actually, no. The CoLP are very heavily influenced by corporate pressures, but not those ones. They work for a number of British corporations, most of them financial.
So this action is at the behest of the British record and film companies. There is some overlap, with a lot of them being multinational.
IIRC the British monarchy brings in more revenue than it costs. Those most critical of the monarchy put the annual cost of maintaining it at 400 million GBP (more conservative figures peg that as much lower), but the royal family generates 500 million GBP / year in tourism revenue. I'm sure one can poke holes in this argument, but based on these two figures alone, it sounds like the monarchy is worth it.
Citation
The Royal Family certainly doesn't generate £500M/year. The top place given following the reference on your link is the Tower of London, which no longer has anything to do with the Royal Family, except they "own" it.
Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle would bring in much more money if the Queen would fuck off. They could be permanently opened as museums.
http://republic.org.uk/What%20we%20want/In%20depth/Royal%20finances/index.php
Boris Johnson, Mayor of the Greater London Authority is in charge of the Metropolitan Police. He is elected by the people who live in the Greater London Area, a region of England with a population of around 8 million people comprising two cities, London and Westminster, and 31 boroughs such as Camden, Southwark, Croydon and so on.
Fiona Woolf is Lord Mayor of the City of London. The smallest city in England with a population of around 10,000 people. She is in charge of the City of London Police, and is elected by the businesses that are based in the City of London.
Can you explain why this paleolithic institution is allowed to survive? Are the British people daft?
For the same reason /. keeps recycling old news. This tempest in a teapot has already been beaten to death here, months ago I think. At least the original date of the blog from easyDNS is dated back in September.
The summary is: the City of London police cover a small area in London, dealing often with IP and financial issues. They asked a DNS provider to look over their AUP concerning a certain website to see if action was appropriate. They asked the DNS provider, if they thought an AUP issue merited action, to please do certain things that would protect the ability to bring the matter to justice in a court (freeze DNS records to prove ownership, etc.) They left the decision up to the DNS provider. They then dared to ask the DNS provider to respond either way.
This is, of course, on /., an attempt at censoring the global internet. Just as I've attempted to censor the global internet by reporting spam factories to their DNS hosts/ISP to deal with.
Must be a slow news day.
I've lived in the UK for a few years. I also looked up some of the legal issues regarding the monarchy, and watched it in action. The way it currently stands, they have very little actual power beyond that of any other obscenely rich person. On the other hand, they have a lot of influence. So they may not be able to wield the law like a scythe, but there words can and do make things happen. Then again, I've seen the queen try to quell stupidity in the houses, and though they quietly listened, it didn't do a damn bit of good.
The British monarchy is a figurehead.
In the UK, the Royal Family keeps at least three different newspapers alive and is responsible for at least 60% of the content in most popular magazines.
It's not easy being the stars and writers of the world's most popular soap opera.
Trying to compare the Kardashians to the British Royal Family is like trying to compare dog poop to ambergris.
Actually, the homoeopathic nutter also generates wealth through the sale of chutney and biscuits. Granted, that's through the Duchy of Cornwall, which is land essentially stolen from the public through the outdated and unfair law that says if you die in Cornwall without a will, ol' big ears gets everything....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Yes, but the Crown Jewels would still exist as a relic if the monarchy was disbanded.
In fact, the Crown Jewels are one of the monarchies biggest costs historically. They are owned by the realm, not the Crown Estates, and every monarch or two the realm (ie taxpayer) has had to pay to have them replaced, cos the previous king or queen has decided to flog them off to pay a gambling, drink or drug habit. This is technically theft, but no-one's ever prosecuted the royal household for their incredibly huge criminal acts. (To be fair, it would be difficult as it's never been found out until it's time to crown the successor, so the guy who did it was usually dead by then.)
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Anonymous Coward, are you new to Slashdot ?
Nah. He's been saying stupid things since slashdot first opened its doors for business.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_revolution
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