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."
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.
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.
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.
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