Alan Turing Pardoned

First time accepted submitter a.ferrier writes "Today's computing would be unthinkable without the contributions of the British mathematician Alan Turing, who laid down the foundations of computer science, broke Nazi codes that helped win World War II at the famous Bletchley Park, created a secure speech encryption system, made major contributions to logic and philosophy, and even invented the concept of Artificial Intelligence. But he was also an eccentric and troubled man who was persecuted (and prosecuted) for being gay, a tragedy that contributed to his suicide just short of the age of 42 when he died of cyanide poisoning, possibly from a half-eaten apple found by his side. He is hailed today as one of the great originators of our computing age. Today he received a royal pardon."

Comments

Not enough,

[Kenja]

Charges should have been dropped. A pardon implies that he was actually guilty of something worthy of criminalization .

Re:Not enough,

[Highland Deck Box]

That is basically dropping the charges. You can't go back to 1952 and make the case disappear, but they can say that they regret what happened. It's entirely symbolic anyway since he's long since dead, and would be even if he had lived to old age.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

But... at the time it was illegal to be gay, so yeah, at the time he was guilty technically.

Re:Not enough,

[makellan]

To be fair to the Queen, he was guilty of something that was illegal at the time so a pardon is appropriate. The fact that it should never have been an issue, much less a criminal one, is, technically, not her fault. What she should do is pardon everyone who was ever convicted of being gay.

Re:Not enough,

[Etherwalk]

A pardon is within the Queen's power and less politically controversial. I am not sure offhand whether dropping the charges would be within the Queen's power and it would also be more likely to step on toes within the bar or bench.

Re:Not enough,

[MondoGordo]

No. A pardon implies nothing of the sort. He pleaded guilty to a criminal charge. The only way to reverse that under the law is a Pardon. Whether or not homosexuality actually constitutes Gross Indecency (it doesn't btw) or even if Gross Indecency should be a criminal act is another matter entirely.

Re:Not enough,

[magic maverick]

Moreover, it should apply to all those criminalized, and convicted under this awful law. Alan Turing was a great man, sure enough. But he was not the only victim of this sadistic state. The least the state can do is a blanket pardon, apology, and striking from the records of the "crime" of being gay and acting on it.

Re:Not enough,

[icebike]

A pardon removes a conviction.
A conviction defines guilt.
So the pardon removes guilt.

Guilt is not a fact. Guilt is simply a societal pronouncement.

Re:Not enough,

[Pendletoncils]

People are still receiving similar treatment for their sexual preference in probably more than half of the (inhabited) world. They should drop some decent coin on an Alan Turing foundation (which probably already exists) and actually contribute to emancipation. What a farce.

Re:Not enough,

[Immerman]

What do you mean, technically? He committed a crime, there were witnesses, AND he confessed. You don't get any more guilty than that.

Sure the law was completely unjust by modern standards, but that doesn't change anything. You'd be similarly guilty in most of the world today if you decided to marry more than one person. Or consumed particular psychoactive plants. These are the problems you run into when you try to legislate morality rather than restricting your judicial system to making sure people don't hurt or cheat one another.

Re:Not enough,

[WinstonWolfIT]

She should have posthumously censured all the legislators who voted for the act in the first place, as well as the person who lodged the complaint.

Re:Not enough,

[nitehawk214]

"I was just doing my job."

Said by every overzealous prosecutor of every trumped up charge ever. Fuck that.

Re:Not enough,

[Immerman]

>What she should do is pardon everyone who was ever convicted of being gay.

But how would that reinforce the important and long-standing tradition that VIPs should get special treatment? Next you'll tell me that celebrities and politicians should face the same sentences for criminal acts as the commoners.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Just FYI, this is not how it works. The Pardon is issued in the name of the Queen : however, if you look at the bottom of the document you will see that it is signed "C Grayling". That is Chris Grayling MP, the justice secretary in the government who is responsible for the decision. The Queen just signs stuff into law presented to her by the government, she has no official say in the decisions, although she does meet regularly with Prime Ministers to discuss matters of state privately.

Any refusal to sign something by the monarch would lead to an unprecedented constitutional crisis, possibly resulting in the end of the monarchy but in practice this is never going to happen : all the formality, procedure and stuffy language is just a relic of times past for the sake of tradtion, some people love it, others find it seriously outdated and ripe for the history bookshelves.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the British government stuck to their legal system as it is presently defined (which is the right thing to do, if you'd give it some thought), as your definition of what a pardon implies is factually incorrect.

Mr. Turing was convicted of committing an act that was considered a crime at the time.

Hence he WAS found guilty, of committing an act that was considered criminal at the time.

Step forward 60+ years, Mr. Turning was (up until a little while ago) considered a criminal.

Thus, according to their own legal system, as of right now, they are required to pardon Mr. Turing, as a pardon is both a "forgiveness of a past crime" and a "cancellation of the penalty associated with it". Which they have done.

"Dropping the charges" only happens BEFORE a trial finishes and verdict reached.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

danm the queen for pardoning a man who loved to put it up another mans anus and by the grace of God you say...

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair to the Queen, he was guilty of something that was illegal at the time so a pardon is appropriate. The fact that it should never have been an issue, much less a criminal one, is, technically, not her fault.
What she should do is pardon everyone who was ever convicted of being gay.

Why? What's up with this new discovery of pervert love? Why is it so important? Only about 2% of population is bent, not 20 or 30 or 40! Why even care.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

If the system was really set up to prevent cheating.. adultery would be a punishment you piece of hypocritical shit.

Re:Not enough,

[bill_mcgonigle]

Charges should have been dropped. A pardon implies that he was actually guilty of something worthy of criminalization .

The government can charge you with being a turnip, but unless it can convict you of tuberousness, then you are not a turnip.

Even if it does, your are still not a turnip, but legally you must be, because a jury agreed. That's because legality and morality/righteousness are not closely related.

Re:Not enough,

[houghi]

Any refusal to sign something by the monarch would lead to an unprecedented constitutional crisis, possibly resulting in the end of the monarchy but in practice this is never going to happen

It has happened in Belgium where King Boudoujn refused to sign the law about abortion.

So if they wanted, I am sure the UK politicians would be able to find a way around it as well.

Re:Not enough,

[Nerdfest]

Now that that's out of the way, how about a knighthood. I can't think of many that have deserved it more.

Re:Not enough,

[ImdatS]

He pleaded that he "did have an intimate relationship with a man" (to paraphrase). Whether that is guilt and/or criminal is decided by others not him.

The fact that laws at that time defined this action as criminal does not make it criminal per se. Laws are supposed to be as just as possible and not necessarily always reflect current morals. If we accept current morals as the benchmark for laws, we are doomed to never develop as a species... we should aspire to have ethics as the basis for laws, not current morals...

In Germany, e.g., any (even consensual) sexual relationship between a man (over 18) and a male person (under 18, even if it was over 16) was illegal under criminal law. But the same didn't apply for a man over 18 and a woman between 16-18 as long as it was consensual. This was the case until mid 1980's - it wasn't fair, it wasn't just - it was just a law. Laws are there to be changed and adapted to be more just. We learn. This doesn't mean mean that we should not condemn old laws that created so much injustice....

He was not guilty under a just law - he was guilt because the law was unjust... there are too many examples in our history to cite - without even calling on Godwin's Law - for which we should be ashamed as humanity and make sure that they never happen again.

Re:Not enough,

[gallondr00nk]

A pardon implies that he was actually guilty of something worthy of criminalization .

Quite. A pardon for Turing does nothing to condemn the law he was convicted under.

I wonder if the UK government would be so kind as to pardon *everybody* convicted under these laws going back as long as required? Not to dismiss Turing's contributions, but why should it just be for him?

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

You get into a threeway of morality, financial/physical damage and emotional damage with adultery. Was it just sex? Not really a crime IMO. Were they socking away money to run away together? The funds should be taken and awarded, at least a large portion to the non-cheater. Maybe a small criminal sentence or punitive civil award. Were they openly flaunting it to the point of emotional abuse? Same as any other abuse, plus the aforementioned financial facet too possibly.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

I kicked you in the nuts... oops, I pardon you.

They should have APOLOGIZED for the error (crime, really) they've committed.

Re:Not enough,

[Holi]

Yes because the UK Constitution controls Belgium. Your analogy falls entirely flat when comparing two countries based on one countries laws. And the King did not so much refuse to sign, he just abdicated the throne so he would not have to. The law was passed.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

He was a dirty bird faggot and he should have been given the death sentence by the state. It's time to end this touchy-feely bullshit and stand up to these faggots.

Re:Not enough,

[columbus]

Someone mod parent up please.

I recall there was a push to get Allan Turing pardoned a few years back and it got shot down in the House of Commons. I believe the prime minister said something along the lines of "He was convicted of breaking the law of the land at the time. Laws change but we don't roll back time and reverse earlier convictions. We adhere to the laws that are in force at any given time."

So when this came out from the Queen, it appeared to me that one part of the government (the monarchy) was circumventing another part of government (the democracy). I asked myself "is this an instance where democracy cannot summon the courage to do the moral thing and the aristocracy rises to the challenge? How remarkable."

But I do not know much about the relative roles of the monarchy and elected representatives with regards to the power of the pardon in the UK, so I was about to ask for more information. AC has answered my question before I could ask it.

Re:Not enough,

[mysidia]

Any refusal to sign something by the monarch would lead to an unprecedented constitutional crisis, possibly resulting in the end of the monarchy

Or the dissolution of the government, with the monarchy's position prevailing -- depending on what exactly it was they refused to sign, or what proclamation they did choose to sign "without permission"

As long as the government administration in play at the time is corrupt, and the public is truly overwhelmingly in agreement with the monarchy's position.

It is an unlikely event, and it might not happen in the next year, or in the next 100 years, BUT history is very very long, and eventually almost every unlikely event will happen.

It would be silly to expect the current government institution to last forever, or for the monarchy to last forever, in the state that it does today. Ultimately; it will be influenced by the state of the country and the world ---- many different things in the future can happen to influence things.

Never say never.

Re:Not enough,

[mysidia]

What point does a posthumous pardon have?

They can't exactly reverse the sentence or atone for it, now that he's already dead.

Or did I miss the part from the article, where they showed how the government is going to excavate his grave: bring him back to life, and reverse all effects of decay and aging, so he'll be as young and wily as the day before he was charged of a crime?

Re:Not enough,

[Crimey McBiggles]

No, this is definitely not enough. They should have gone back into time before they decided to press charges and altered history. Somebody mod this guy Funny, please. I would if I had the points.

Re:Not enough,

[Bearhouse]

Well wrote.

But are you suggesting that such decisions are not necessary?

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

He was. It was against the law. He broke the law.

Since you want to be technical about it, he absolutely broke the law and confessed to it and was therefore, rightly, found guilty.

You wanting to be super technical about it implies that you think the law was just.

Re:Not enough,

[PopeRatzo]

Now that that's out of the way, how about a knighthood.

That is the most insightful comment so far.

Elton John was granted knighthood and Alan Turing was sent to prison. Maybe societies should learn to think carefully about what they consider "eternal" truths about morality and human behavior. I'm pretty sure there were lots of people, even in the early part of the 20th century, who realized that persecuting gay people for what they do in private was wrong, just as there were people in 18th century America who knew that slavery was wrong.

Re:Not enough,

[hydrofix]

In 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown already apologised for the "inhumane" treatment of Alan Turing on the behalf of his government.

Re:Not enough,

[Seumas]

Commuting a sentence is reducing the penalty for a crime. A pardon is claiming that "this person should not have been convicted of a crime, to begin with".

Anyway, I guess this is supposed to be a feel-good story, but what's to feel good about someone finally getting justice sixty fucking years after they're dead?!

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares. The west would be wise to wake up to the plague being put on its people by these gays. I normally don't agree with religion but Iran has the right idea, hang the faggots. We'd be better off as a society for it.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because being 'gay' is something to be proud of... Did you think that up for yourself? You brainwashed sheep...

"The fact is homosexuals are a tremendous health hazard to the overall population. Sodomy is in reality the act of incubating communicable diseases that can quite easily turn pandemic.

Surveys show about 90 percent of gays engaged in rectal intercourse, and about two thirds do it regularly. In a six month long study of daily sexual diaries(1), gays averaged 110 sex partners and 68 rectal encounters a year. Promiscuity is the key word for homosexuals and it demonstrates incapacity to maintain enduring relationships.

About 80 percent of gays admit to licking and/or inserting their tongues into the anus of partners and thus ingesting medically significant amounts of feces. Those who swallow or wallow in it are at even greater risk.
In the diary study(2), 70 percent of the gays had engaged in this activity–half regularly over six months.

Rectal sex is dangerous. Here's why.

During anal penetration (penis and tongue), the rectum is a dumping ground for artificial lubricants, saliva including oral bacteria and viruses, recipient’s own feces, germs, infections or substances the penis has on it, and seminal fluid of the inserter.

The rectal wall is only 1 cell thick (whereas the vagina is multilayered). Sperm readily penetrates the rectal wall causing immunologic damage, and tearing or bruising of the anal wall is very common during anal/penile sex.
These substances gain almost direct access to the blood stream. Consumption of feces has also been implicated in the transmission of typhoid fever (4). Spreading diseases for the sake of personal pleasure shows callous disregard for the feelings of others and a lack of empathy for them and loved ones.

Homosexuals fellate with almost all of their partners and swallow half the time. Semen comprises many of the same type of germs carried in the blood. Thus, gays are on the verge of consuming human blood, with all its medical risks. It is, in effect, a form of vampirism. A gay’s penis often has tiny lesions, which will harbor bits of feces and may become infected with hepatitis A or gonorrhea (and even HIV and hepatitis B).

70 percent of gays estimate they had sex only once with over half of their partners (5, 6). Gays prefer strangers and average somewhere between 106 and 1105 different partners per year. The potential for infection is considerable. In the largest survey of gays ever conducted (7), 23 percent admitted to urine-sex. In the largest random survey of gays (8), 29 percent reported urine-sex."

I guess you don't want people to talk about what 'gays' actually DO...

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

That is basically dropping the charges. You can't go back to 1952 and make the case disappear, but they can say that they regret what happened. It's entirely symbolic anyway since he's long since dead, and would be even if he had lived to old age.

But they DIDN'T say that they regret. That is the problem. If I were a surviving relative I'd go public and say a pardon is an insult, what is required is an apology.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean, technically? He committed a crime, there were witnesses, AND he confessed. You don't get any more guilty than that.

Sure the law was completely unjust by modern standards, but that doesn't change anything. You'd be similarly guilty in most of the world today if you decided to marry more than one person. Or consumed particular psychoactive plants. These are the problems you run into when you try to legislate morality rather than restricting your judicial system to making sure people don't hurt or cheat one another.

By the same logic the Catholic Church shouldn't have apologized to Galileo.

Re:Not enough,

[modmans2ndcoming]

He was convicted of laws on the books at the time. A Pardon is the best he can get.

Re:Not enough,

[Seumas]

Excuse me?!

Who the hell are *you* to say that Alan Turing deserves a knighthood more than David Beckham? David Beckham kicked a fucking round ball around for a living. How many goaldowns did Alan Turing ever make?!

Re:Not enough,

[modmans2ndcoming]

Gordon Brown apologized already.

Re:Not enough,

[minstrelmike]

As the Dork Dynasty dude said, we need to stop 'em from reproducing somehow.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares. The west would be wise to wake up to the plague being put on its people by these gays. I normally don't agree with religion but Iran has the right idea, hang the faggots. We'd be better off as a society for it.

Hate, intolerance and killing people for being gay ... you have a fucked up idea of a great society. Gays aren't something new. We've always been around. Homosexuality exists in nature. Irrational blind hatred though ... that's something that is unnatural.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't be done posthumously and I'll believe this story when I read it in a reputable news source anyway.

Re:Not enough,

[Seumas]

Meanwhile, President Obama commuted the sentences of eight people this week. All of them convicted of offenses regarding cocaine. Not because they weren't guilty of the crimes they committed at the time they were crimes and sentenced under the law of those times, but because the penalties for those crimes changed since their conviction. So . . . it would seem that you *could* reasonably roll back convictions.

Re:Not enough,

[Dynedain]

The fact that laws at that time defined this action as criminal does not make it criminal per se.

Actually, that's exactly what it does. Lawbreaking (and conviction) is what makes an act criminal.

Whether or not a law is just, morally right, or ethical (all different things, by the way) has no bearing on whether violation of the law makes you a criminal.

He was convicted of a crime. Ego, by definition, he was a criminal. He was unjustly convicted of an crime against the moral standards of the time as defined in law. Today we see that law as unethical, and pardoning him posthumously is the only just action we can take. However, we should extend the same pardon to anyone convicted under the same crime. His patriotism and contributions to computing shouldn't be the driving argument for his individual pardon.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2017 we can expect the next PM to retroactively drop charges and build a statue in his honor.

Re:Not enough,

[newcastlejon]

What point does a posthumous pardon have?

PR. What more did you expect?

Perhaps it's another attempt to persuade the public to forgive the tories for Section 28 (not that labour are blameless for not repealing it the minute they took power).

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Give the next PM something to do to honor him.

After he gets a knighthood, then the next PM can build statues in his honor.

Then the next PM can pick a day to be Turing Was Gay day.

Re:Not enough,

[AC-x]

Apparently a knighthood is a living title; Anyone holding a knighthood loses it on death so I don't think it can be awarded posthumously (according to the Cabinet Office)

Re:Not enough,

[ImdatS]

Actually, he is an OBE (Officer of the Order of Most Excellence of the British Empire - wow, what a title) - (or was it an MBE?)

As I understand, OBE is the fourth-level. The highest level is something like Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (GBE). According to Wikipedia, this is the order:

1. Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (GBE)
2. Knight Commander or Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE or DBE)
3. Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE)
4. Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE)
5. Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_British_Empire

Once he reaches Level 2 or 1, we can then finally call him "Sir Alan Turing", which he more than deserves...

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

"Next you'll tell me that celebrities and politicians should face the same sentences for criminal acts as the commoners."

      Actually they should get worse sentences as the price of their higher responsibilities. Oops, price of neglecting their higher responsibilities.

Re:Not enough,

[Hatta]

You can call him Sir Alan Turing right now if you want.

Re:Not enough,

[Nerdfest]

I am a person making comments in English on a Computer.

Re:Not enough,

[Hamsterdan]

Not the same. Getting a Pardon won't allow someone to work in sensitive jobs or Law Enforcement as the criminal record is only removed from public records, not erased. Try crossing into the US with only your Canadian pardon. you won't be able to.

But I agree it doesn't change anything as he's been dead for long...

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that that's out of the way, how about a knighthood. I can't think of many that have deserved it more.

And I suppose we can roll out his coffin and touch the sword to both sides?

I think it's one thing to recognize a person for their achievements, and quite another to worship them after their death.

Re: Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

But they did say that. One of them wept openly about it and cut himself. Are you happy now?

Re:Not enough,

[Immerman]

Ahh, but that's a different situation. The Church didn't condemn Galileo for violating a Law of Man, but for blaspheming against the Inviolable Law of God. Once they finally admitted that the Earth does in fact go around the sun it follows that in their ignorance it was *they* who were the blasphemers, and as such an apology to the man who they condemned for being a herald of truth is completely fitting.

Re:Not enough,

[RDW]

In 2017 we can expect the next PM to retroactively drop charges and build a statue in his honor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing_Memorial

Re:Not enough,

[ColdWetDog]

In Oklahoma it is illegal to get a fish drunk. Now, work on the morality aspect of that one if you will.

Re:Not enough,

[Immerman]

How exactly is adultery cheating, aside from the common vernacular? I'll admit I haven't read the exact terminology of a marriage contract - if the parties explicitly promise not to have sex with anyone else then yes, it is a contract violation and should be punished as such, which is to say typically via reparations or dissolving the contract in favor of the aggrieved party. And hey, look at that, that tends to be exactly what happens! To the point that dishonorable people will try to drum up false adultery accusations when divorcing for other reasons.

Oh, wait. You said adultery would *be* a punishment. How would that work?

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely right. The "Royal" family are pretenders to the rule of others, and not fit to judge or pardon anyone. To claim a mandate from God simply because their ancestors escaped the block while others did not (often by their orders), is ludicrous.

Re:Not enough,

[GateGuy]

Will he answer?

Re:Not enough,

[TheCarp]

Exactly. The government should have pardoned itself and expunged his record. Or Pardon the Queen herself if you want to express the appropriate level of shame.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

He was a faggot and he should have been executed for his crimes against humanity.

Re:Not enough,

[William Baric]

Making sure people don't hurt or cheat one another? Very few people want that. We value our "freedom" a lot more than whatever the consequences of our actions may have upon others. If our freedom means we will hurt others and if it means we must lie to others, so be it! Sure, we will agree to limit a bit our freedom to avoid falling into anarchy, but we all acknowledge that hurting some people in order to be "free" is perfectly acceptable.

Personally, because I'm a bit asocial and don't see the need to lie, I'm in favor of a society where there is no privacy. That's why I post under my real name and that's why I don't fear cameras and things like Google Glass. But how many people are like me?

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

What point does a posthumous pardon have?

It ends demands that he be pardoned. Did it really cost you so much?

Re: Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point?

A horrible injustice happened, but the perpetrators (judge, jury and those who passed the law) are all dead. How can a current member of parliament apologise for something they had no part in?

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Elton John did not help win a war.

Turing should definetely get a knighthood.

Nothing says more S.O.R.R.Y than an O.B.E

Re:Not enough,

[ApplePy]

Except, and I hate to be a wet blanket, but the people who did the things that need apologizing for are long dead, too.

Re:Not enough,

[geminidomino]

Yes, they did. Three or four years ago.

The response on /. then was pretty much "fuck the apology, where's the pardon?"

Re:Not enough,

[ApplePy]

Gordon Brown might have a lot to apologize for, but I'm reasonably certain that persecuting Turing isn't one of them.

Re:Not enough,

[guises]

Sure the law was completely unjust by modern standards

The law was unjust. Standards can change, but when you criminalize existing it is always unjust.

Re:Not enough,

[Ossifer]

> He was not guilty under a just law - he was guilt because the law was unjust...

Well said.

Re:Not enough,

[Obfuscant]

In Oklahoma it is illegal to get a fish drunk. Now, work on the morality aspect of that one if you will.

Easy. If fish are people, too, and have feelings and thought, as some would argue, then getting a fish drunk against it's will is just as unethical as dropping a roofie in some girl's drink.

Since your link doesn't say when the law was passed, we can just assume that Oklahoma is at the very forefront of animal rights issues since they've had laws regarding them for so long.

Re:Not enough,

[Christian Smith]

A pardon implies that he was actually guilty of something worthy of criminalization .

Quite. A pardon for Turing does nothing to condemn the law he was convicted under.

Repealling the law in the first place condemned the law surely?

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

No, irrational blind hatred also exists in nature. Whether or not something something exists in nature has pretty much no bearing on whether it's right or wrong, good or bad, so could we just stop using the terms "natural" and "unnatural".

Re:Not enough,

[Smauler]

We had this conversation when the government apologised to him, and then people said that was not enough. Now they pardoned him... where are the pardons for people who are living in the UK today who have been convicted under these laws, and still are living with a criminal record?

One question we could have now, with the advent of same sex marriage, is why incest laws should be followed with same sex marriages. There's no logical reason why I should not be able to marry my son, brother, or father, except for people thinking it's weird.

Note : I do _not_ want to marry my father (I don't have a son or brother, and doubt I would want to marry them if I did, besides, he's still married to my mother).

Re:Not enough,

[damnbunni]

Usually these 'weird laws' turn out to be not so weird.

When you investigate them, generally the 'weird law' is an overly specific interpretation of a law that's perfectly sensible. For example, one list had a town in Montana where it's illegal to tie a whale to a fire hydrant. When you track down the law, it bans tying any animal to a fire hydrant - so yes, tying a whale to one WOULD be illegal, but the law wasn't written that way.

I'm willing to bet the Oklahoma issue is much the same - a ban on feeding animals alcohol. I bet it was done because of health issues with pigs being fed brewery leftovers, or something like that.

Re:Not enough,

[Ol Olsoc]

One question we could have now, with the advent of same sex marriage, is why incest laws should be followed with same sex marriages. There's no logical reason why I should not be able to marry my son, brother, or father, except for people thinking it's weird.

Note : I do _not_ want to marry my father (I don't have a son or brother, and doubt I would want to marry them if I did, besides, he's still married to my mother).

It's people like you that remind me that the Lend-Lease program was a huge mistake.

Re:Not enough,

[Goose In Orbit]

Unfortunately impossible I believe:
a) on the grounds that they are never awarded posthumously in any case (there are cases where the award is offered, accepted, but the person dies before the ceremony where it is conferred);
b) if I recall correctly - the title is lost at the moment of death as the person ceases to be a member of the order (though the public still, technically wrongly, use the title when referring to the person)

(That said... if the law is changed... I'd agree that there are few more deserving recipients - along with many others who worked at Bletchley Park)

Re:Not enough,

[Ol Olsoc]

He was a faggot and he should have been executed for his crimes against humanity.

Before or after he saved your country's sorry ass?

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

In Oklahoma it is illegal to get a fish drunk. Now, work on the morality aspect of that one if you will.

That's not what the laws says. It was hard as hell to find any original source for this urban legend, but it turns out, it's illegal in most states to use drugs to catch fish. So it's not really illegal to get fish drunk, but it's illegal to use alcohol to catch fish. Actually, the Ohio law doesn't even say drugs or alcohol, it only says what you can use. It's only someone else way of stating the same thing by specifically listing one way to fish that isn't allowed to make it seem like the law is crazy.

Re:Not enough,

[Goose In Orbit]

These good enough?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10536246/Alan-Turing-granted-Royal-pardon-by-the-Queen.html

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Charges should have been dropped. A pardon implies that he was actually guilty of something worthy of criminalization .

While I'm in no way qualified to speak on the legal minutiae, it seems to me that he probably was guilty according to the laws of his day and country. Granted, these kinds of laws are laughable at best, and savage and inhumane at worst, but it is my understanding that he was prosecuted lawfully and given the due process. Which means than his conviction makes him a criminal.

That being said, I like nothing more than to be shown wrong in this matter. I don't think you can find many nerds to whom Alan Turing is not a hero.

Re:Not enough,

[Ol Olsoc]

Ahh, but that's a different situation. The Church didn't condemn Galileo for violating a Law of Man, but for blaspheming against the Inviolable Law of God.

Useless distinction, because at that time, and in that place, the law of Gad and the law of man was the same.

Once they finally admitted that the Earth does in fact go around the sun it follows that in their ignorance it was *they* who were the blasphemers, and as such an apology to the man who they condemned for being a herald of truth is completely fitting.

Certainly there was a bit of hysteresis lag there.

Re:Not enough,

[Goose In Orbit]

I think it's one thing to recognize a person for their achievements, and quite another to worship them after their death

Tell that to the followers of the Cult of Jobs...

Re: Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you planning on raping the fish after getting it drunk?

Re:Not enough,

[Obfuscant]

I am a person making comments in English on a Computer.

And by implication a non-person not making comments in Swahili on a bit of parchment doesn't have any right to an opinion, huh?

Well, I'm a non-person not making comments in Swahili on a bit of parchment, you insensitive clod.

Re:Not enough,

[Immerman]

Hardly. There is definitely a segment of the population that would love to be free to do as they will with no restraints, sociopaths mostly, and businessmen (but I repeat myself). Most people though want to be protected from other people hurting or cheating them, and are willing to surrender their right to do so to others in exchange. Making that explicit will shut up almost anyone who claims they should have a right to do X, "So then we should all have the right to do X to you?".

I should be permitted to have unsupervised bonfires in national forests. So, the public should likewise have the right to have unsupervised bonfires in your yard?
I should be allowed to sell tap water as a magical healing elixir. So, every pharmacy in the country should be allowed to sell you tapwater and sugar pills instead of your needed medication?

I challenge you to present an example that doesn't break down under those considerations. Of course it only applies to laws about hurting/cheating/etc. and breaks down rapidly for more esoteric and moralistic laws, but then the value of those laws tends to be in much greater debate.

Personally I tend to be an honorable but extremely private person, but I'm leaning towards agreeing with you about a society with no privacy, provided we make sure we *completely* eliminate privacy. Because if *anyone* still has privacy in such a world they will possess an immense tactical advantage over the rest of us, and human nature being what it is it will only be a matter of time until that gets abused horribly. For example a government that can operate in secret while it's citizens have no privacy will be virtually impossible to overthrow - any potential rebellion can be crushed or subverted before it attracts more than a handful of people. And a government that can't be overthrown has very little reason to be concerned with the desires of it's citizens. So long as it moderates itself just enough to avoid spontaneous mass riots it can be as abusive as it likes.

I fear surveillance cameras and things like Google Glass primarily because without legislation to the contrary they have *huge* blind spots in which the authorities can operate. Even with such legislation there's the constant threat of groups within the government lobbying for special privacy privileges - after all you don't want the doomsday launch codes live streamed do you? Or the tactical war rooms discussions, how can you win a war if the enemy knows your every move beforehand? And once you have created a place where the elite can operate without oversight, exactly how long do you think it will be before they start plotting against the populace? There's a long and consistent trend that repeats throughout recorded history - a government grows tyrannical and abusive, rebels eventually overthrow it and establish a new more just and righteous government, and the new government almost immediately starts slipping back towards tyranny. Most every society on the planet performs that dance, only the pacing ever seems to change. The trend toward personal liberty and government accountability is almost entirely due to idealists shaping the outcome of the rebellions with lessons learned from the past, and as such they tend to be mostly concentrated in the formative period of the new government. As such I'm *extremely* wary of anything that will tend to render the rebellions toothless, especially since we still seem to have no idea how to effectively slow the slide towards tyranny.

Re:Not enough,

[Nerdfest]

Without Turing, it's very possible many of us would neither be speaking English nor using a computer.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

"I swear it's not my fault, officer-- she drank like a... she drank a LOT."

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like a fag.

Re:Not enough,

[rubycodez]

you're confused. "guilt" under the law has nothing to do with right or wrong or morality.

plenty of good things are illegal. plenty of very evil things are perfectly legal.

nothing will change the fact that "sodomy" at the time was illegal. and that definition of "sodomy" at the time even included good fun acts that heterosexual slashdotters enjoy (or wish they could enjoy) all the time.

don't dignify the law and government with your mistaken notion that it somehow creates or enforces morality.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

I do love the irony of someone ranting about homosexuals who is so clearly talking out of their ass. What you have listed is a lot of unsubstantiated bullshit probably taken straight from the website of nutters like westboro. I've flushed things closer to facts down the toilet than what you posted.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

He WAS

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me in nature where it exists. And it is relevant in terms of showing homosexuality is common across species and not a plague as the poster claimed.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you fucking stupid?

Seriously this is both ignorant and stupid.

Never mind, this is /. carry on.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

You officially lose your knighthood on death.
There are no graveyards for knights, because they are no longer knights.

Re:Not enough,

[Immerman]

But they're not criminalizing existing, they're criminalizing certain actions. A certain percentage of people are apparently born without the capacity for empathy, and often draw pleasure from harming others. Is it unjust to deny them that pleasure? It's as natural to them as being gay is to homosexuals. How exactly is criminalizing their pleasure any more or less just, by objective standards, than denying a homosexual the right to sleep with their preferred partner? Short of falling back on the old "harming others is wrong, everything else is up for grabs" that so few people seem to care for.

Nowadays we believe that homosexuality is an inherent condition, and the only people who can be "infected" by it are those who are already gay but living in denial. But even those are an unacceptable loss to the stability of a medieval society where only men have rights, they can only have one wife, and adultery is demonized. If the ~10% of the men who are gay marry each other (by law or de-facto) then that means 10% of the women have no husband, and thus no rights or property. Pretty unjust to them, and since it's typicaly the men who do the choosing it won't even be the lesbians who might especially appreciate not having to regularly bed their husband who end up on the street. Dollars to doughnuts they're going to feed themselves somehow, and that's an awful lot of whores destabilizing heterosexual marriages, and those poor women are going to have to sell themselves really cheap considering that the competition is fierce and the customer base is mostly all dirt-poor to begin with. Add in a belief that homosexuality is contagious and there's no reason to believe the epidemic will stop at something even as unmanageable as 10%.

Hopefully that makes it clear that, historically, demonizing homosexuality was the only reliable way to preserve the stability of a monogamous, heavily patriarchal society. Was it unjust? perhaps, but so were the alternatives. Today, with much more equitable gender rights and a better understanding of homosexuality we have the latitude to be far more tolerant without destabilizing our society, and are doing so. More slowly than one might hope, but we are progressing.

Consider this as well - long-term monogamous relationships are a medieval holdover with no more biological justification than gay-bashing, and in today's world could readily be replaced with a far more permissive child-rearing contract while leaving our romantic pursuits free to be as passing and polyamorous as we like. Also consider that there is compelling evidence that the vast majority of people are actually bisexual and polyamorous, and it's only cultural conditioning that restricts us to engaging in relationships with a only single member of our preferred gender. Think on that for a while. Try to imagine the world that would result if we embraced our natural selves rather than trying to force ourselves to conform to societal norms. Think about the fact that simians almost all fall into the pattern of having a small percentage of alpha males who monopolize most of the females (often by their choice), and what it would mean to have most of the male population lacking mates of their own. Do you like what you see? Would you be willing to advocate for such a world? Do you think anything close to a majority of the population would support it? Is it unjust to force people conditioned to the status quo to deal with that world? Is it unjust to force the population to NOT explore that world, as we are doing today with for example anti-polygamy laws?

The question of justice is not quite so simple as you would like to believe

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

You like that thought, don't you? Scared of your own feelings aren't you?

Re:Not enough,

[AmiMoJo]

The general policy is not to pardon people when a law is removed from the books because there would be so many going back hundreds of years. Witches, blasphemers, members of banned religions and groups... Turing is an exception because his case is relatively recent and he is an important historical figure, and because we are finally treating homosexuals with respect and dignity.

Re:Not enough,

[Immerman]

>the law of Gad and the law of man was the same.
Not hardly. The King decreed the law of Man as he saw fit, while The Church revealed the law of God, which was presumed to be composed by God and only transcribed by Man - that was the whole basis of their claim to authority after all. Certainly their was considerable collaboration, but by and large each Authority did as it saw fit, provided they didn't step on each others' toes, and handled violators to their laws themselves, though I'm sure

And yeah, a little lag there. But then the Church has never been good about admitting they were wrong. Perfectly understandable when you consider that their whole claim to authority rests on their claim of being the final human authority on Truth.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair to the Queen, he was guilty of something that was illegal at the time so a pardon is appropriate.

I see what you did there!

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm falling into the same kind of trap that so many religious nutters do when they equate "same-sex marriage" with "sexual intercourse", but doesn't incest require sexual intercourse? There is a very good biological reason to forbid incest (though there are also very good biological reasons to forbid other things that I support, so I am not necessarily against banning incest).

Re: Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

How can a current member of parliament apologise for something they had no part in?

"I am ashamed of what my government has done, and will work to ensure that it does not happen again."

That is how.

And to everyone else, I do not know how that apology went down. For all I know, it did go down exactly as I described. All I'm doing it answering the other AC's question. Nothing more, nothing less.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wikipedia has a whole article on the subject of homosexual behavior in nature.

Re:Not enough,

[Mateorabi]

How do we know you aren't just a cleverly written perl script?

Re:Not enough,

[Mateorabi]

The Queen (or rather, her representative) did have to dissolve Australian parliament in the 70s using the crown's reserve powers to resolve a political deadlock. Of course we fought a war or two so she can't pull that stunt here...for better or worse.

Re:Not enough,

[fyngyrz]

Oh, wait. You said adultery would *be* a punishment. How would that work?

Maybe it's like this:

Question: What's the penalty for bigamy?

..Answer: Two spouses.

Re: Not enough,

[fyngyrz]

I always ask the fish before I get it drunk.

Re:Not enough,

[Pseudonym]

The people are long dead, but the institution is still around.

Re:Not enough,

[macson_g]

This, and the statue in Bletchley Park museum.

Re:Not enough,

[bongomanaic]

The problem with issuing a blanket pardon for anyone convicted of the same offence as Alan Turing is that 'indecency' was applied broadly to a range of sexual behaviours, some of which remain illegal (e.g. sex with a person under the age of 16). When the crimes of indecency between men and buggery were abolished a procedure was put in place to remove legal disadvantages from those with convictions for behaviour that was no longer illegal. Speaking as a gay man I don't think it would be a worthwhile use of government resources to re-examine all previous convictions to determine which are worthy of a pardon -- the apology and pardon for Alan Turing makes the point well enough.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Harming others isn't illegal, as long as it's consensual. The sadist just has to find a masochist to be their partner and they can both be happy - just like in a homosexual has to find a homosexual partner. Or a heterosexual has to find a heterosexual partner.

Re:Not enough,

[madprof]

Oh bless your little cotton socks. I bet you were campaigning to marry your sister as well weren't you? :)
I can imagine the placard said "Why can't I marry my sister if I am allowed to marry any random woman I meet on the street?"

Re: Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Privately he was called Anal Turing for that very reason.

Re:Not enough,

[shutdown -p now]

The problem with making such exceptions is that it ignores the other victims whose cases are also "relatively recent", who have living relatives etc, but who are not important to merit such attention. I can see how it would be a very bitter pill to taste from such a perspective.

GP is right; if we want to symbolically declare that we're righting the old wrongs against LGBT, the Queen should just sign a blanket pardon for everyone convicted under that law. They don't need to compile an exact list for that.

Re:Not enough,

[Joce640k]

Ummmm ... hate to bring up Pesky Facts but he was guilty.

They can't come out and say he wasn't guilty, because he was. That was the law at the time. A very injust law, but very real.

There's still many countries where it's illegal to be gay, and many others who still don't give full legal rights to homosexuals.

It's idiocy, but religion isn't logical (and let's face it, it's religion that drives this...)

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

to legislate morality rather than restricting your judicial system to making sure people don't hurt or cheat one another.

I'm sorry, how is that not morality?

Re:Not enough,

[dbIII]

Getting a Pardon won't allow someone to work in sensitive jobs

Oliver North and all those others didn't seem to have trouble. You'd think selling weapons to terrorists or outing an active CIA agent would leave a bit more of a mark on a record

Re:Not enough,

[dbIII]

the law of Gad and the law of man was the same.

That's not Canon :)

Jokes aside there was civil law and canon law - very different.

Re:Not enough,

[hydrofix]

Ummmm ... hate to bring up Pesky Facts but he was guilty.

What's your point? Has someone claimed that he was not guilty of breaking the law of the time? Of course no one can change the fact that it was back then illegal and Turing was obviously guilty. Pardon does not mean pretending a law wasn't broken; it just means that for whatever reason people of high power have concluded, that the person's conviction should be undone. Yet, lack of conviction is not the same as not being illegal — jaywalking clearly is illegal in most jurisdictions, yet very few people are ever convicted of it. Since no one can change the past, a pardon and an apology are pretty much the best the government can do.

Re:Not enough,

[dbIII]

Cromwell made a few changes some time back so Queen Elizabeth doesn't get to sign off on laws.

Re:Not enough,

[squiggleslash]

A pardon can mean whatever you want. Homosexuality was a crime in the 1950s. It shouldn't have been. A pardon merely says "You were "guilty", but we don't think you should have been punished."

Sometimes pardons are issued because such-and-such is otherwise considered to be a good person or whatever, and that certainly applies here, but it's reasonable to also pardon when you feel a law shouldn't have existed. In that respect, a blanket pardon for anyone ever convicted under these laws would also be appropriate and would send the right message.

Re:Not enough,

[mcvos]

Maybe sometime in the future someone will apologize for Gordon Brown.

Re:Not enough,

[TapeCutter]

The politicians were way too late with the apology and were more than willing to let Bletchley park rot less than a decade ago. Arseholes are just jumping on a grass roots bandwagon, desperately trying to convince people they were in the drivers seat the whole time..

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just about it 'being weird' or genetics (which weren't really understood when incest became taboo), but about the inequality of power in such a relationship and the coercion that's likely to result.

  You might get the odd couple where it's an entirely normal and consensual relationship (in which case, I don't care personally), but in a lot of these relationships it's one party (normally the parent or the older sibling) abusing their position to force themselves on the more vulnerable half. Child abuse is sadly a huge issue, and the anti-incest laws across most of the world act as a fallback so that when such relationships are discovered, there's an ability to break it up even if the authorities can't prove abuse.

There are places in the world were incest is legal, and a genuine couple in a healthy (if stigmatised) relationship could theoretically relocate to these locations to avoid prosecution. For example, incest is legal in France, Argentina or Brazil assuming there's no abuse or coercion going on. The couple wouldn't be able to wed, but they wouldn't be prosecuted either.

Re:Not enough,

[aeranvar]

The argument against this is that, to be guilty, one must have committed a crime. While Turing did break a law, breaking laws doesn't and shouldn't equate with committing crimes. People break laws all the time doing things that should not be considered a crime. There are all sorts of mitigating factors, including the mental state of the individual breaking the law and the justness of the law itself.

Imagine that you see a disoriented, elderly person in the street with a large truck inbound. You can break the law and save the elderly person by not making use of a cross walk, or you could let the elderly person get hit by a truck. What are you going to do? Probably save the person. Should you receive a ticket from the officer far enough away to see what happened but not to save the person himself? No, of course not. Despite the fact that you broke the law by not using a cross walk, you didn't commit any crime.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

How is "morally right" different from "ethical?"

Re:Not enough,

[Ash Vince]

Charges should have been dropped. A pardon implies that he was actually guilty of something worthy of criminalization .

At the time what he did was a crime and recognised as such by the society he lived in (the prudish British public). Being that by being a practicing homosexual he was actually breaking the law the best we can do 70 odd years after the fact is a pardon.

If you declare copyright theft legal tomorrow someone who downloaded a blag copy of a movie today would still technically be guilty of a crime even though they would never be prosecuted for it.

Re:Not enough,

[Ash Vince]

Try crossing into the US with only your Canadian pardon. you won't be able to.

That is because the US wants to weed out trouble makers at the border.

Re: Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Privately he was called Anal Touring for that very reason.

FTFY

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

He was guilty of the laws that were on the books at the time.

Re:Not enough,

[operagost]

One question we could have now, with the advent of same sex marriage, is why incest laws should be followed with same sex marriages.

Because the activists are not concerned with "marriage equality"-- they're just concerned about same-sex marriage. If they wanted "marriage equality", they'd call for the maximum practical exclusion of government involvement in matrimony. But they find things like incest and polygamy distasteful. They are prejudiced-- they're just differently prejudiced from their opponents.

Re:Not enough,

[operagost]

Consider this as well - long-term monogamous relationships are a medieval holdover with no more biological justification than gay-bashing

Um, monogamous marriages go back a lot longer than that. An historian, you are not. You should probably spend less time typing and more time researching.

Re:Not enough,

[operagost]

If he did, it would sound something like, "UNGHHHHH BRAINNNNNNNNNNSSSSSS"

Re:Not enough,

[ultranova]

There's no logical reason why I should not be able to marry my son, brother, or father, except for people thinking it's weird.

The relationship between children and their parents is unlikely to be equal even when they're grown up. And since its the parent who's the biggest influence during said upbringing, there's additional baggage in the form of potential for wife husbandry.

Sibling incest, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have anything except the ick factor going against it.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree that we will almost certainly embarrass our descendants too. If I were to guess, I suspect our treatment of animals, and each other (i.e. the inequity of our society), and probably our abuse of the environment -- will all cause our descendants to gasp with horror. And there are almost certainly other issues to which I'm blinded by the time in which I've lived, just as people of the 50's were to homosexuality.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

All hail Sir Anal Intruder!

Re:Not enough,

[jedidiah]

> Except, and I hate to be a wet blanket, but the people who did the things that need apologizing for are long dead, too.

You mean like the British head of state?

She's the one that pardoned him.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Surveys show about 90 percent of gays engaged in rectal intercourse, and about two thirds do it regularly.

And what are the numbers, pray tell, on heterosexuals who engage in rectal intercourse? And are we talking about "gays" as in "homosexual men", or "all homosexuals"?

Re:Not enough,

[ultranova]

The general policy is not to pardon people when a law is removed from the books because there would be so many going back hundreds of years.

The cynic in me points out that pardoning victims of unjust laws by default would also promote people thinking about whether current laws are just - and by extension, the current social system. The Powers that Be are heavily invested in status quo, so the last thing they want is anyone questioning it.

Re:Not enough,

[rjstanford]

No, you did commit a crime (unless there's a statute specifically allowing certain activities in emergency situations, which there may be). You just won't likely be charged with one. The former is a matter of fact, the second is a matter of judgement.

Re:Not enough,

[Optali]

Because he was a War Hero , one of the most important contributors to the fact that we Europeans aren't all making the Hilter salute right now (well, the ones who wouldn't be in the concentration camps at least).

Re:Not enough,

[Optali]

Heterosexuals and rectal intercourse? Do you know that chicks have butt's too? And awesome ones to boot!

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

This post is funny if read in Sheldon Cooper's voice!

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Since we're talking Canada here, an apology is certain!

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

You contradicted your own logical nitpickings. You claim the law was the law and he broke it, therefore he was a criminal. Agreed. But then you follow that up with the conviction being unjust. If it was the law at the time (it was), there is no doubt about the guilt (which there wasn't), then the conviction CANNOT be unjust. Unjust is being convicted of something you did not do. Alan was convicted of something he did, in fact, do. The law was immoral, sure, but convicting a guilty party for something that is illegal is not "unjust".

Don't come here playing pedantic know-it-all. You'll end up drowning in hypocrisy.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, proper grammar and spelling go back a lot longer than that. A writing expert, you are not. You should probably spend less time being a pretentious know it all and more time writing clear, concise, & correct messages.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to obfuscate the topic, Mr Obfuscant.

Re:Not enough,

[Anonymous Coward]

You're slipping in your old age Seamus. Obama isn't a king. This story is about the UK which has a Queen and could have a King eventually as well. Perhaps our system of kingless government allows us to rollback but the monarchy in Britain cannot. Also he commuted EIGHT cocaine convictions. Eight of how many? Several hundred thousand I'd suspect. Commuting 8 people is about as symbolic as the Queen pardoning this one homosexual (out of millions). Basically a token gesture.

Re:Not enough,

[M1FCJ]

You mean we could have banged up Dickie Nixon into a prison cell for war crimes after he was pardoned by his best mate? Damn! That was a missed opportunity.

I think you'll find pardons don't work the way you think they do.

Re:Not enough,

[epine]

He committed a crime, there were witnesses, AND he confessed. You don't get any more guilty than that.

Not true. You're a hell of a lot more guilty if a victim harmed by your crime steps forward and presses charges. Meanwhile, back at the office, he did as much to protect the safety of his fellow countryman and soldiers as any venerated war hero known to the public.

Technically, just about every person in Russia sent to the gulags first signed a confession for crimes against the state, if only committed inside their heads.

If that's the standard of guilt, guilt can go fuck itself.

Re:Not enough,

[Dynedain]

Morals are internal to the perceiving individual. Ethics are applied by an external force.

Please do some research before assuming they're synonymous. We have different words for a reason.

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals

Re:Not enough,

[Dynedain]

Unjust is not just false conviction.

Unjust can be unfair or inappropriate conviction and/or punishment.

For example, if a person is convicted, and applied a sentence, but mitigating factors were not considered in either their conviction or sentencing, that could be an unjust conviction or an unjust punishment.

In Turing's case, his self-confession in the process of reporting a crime against him, his patriotism, his position of responsibility, and his unique contributions could all have been mitigating factors that were not reflected in his sentencing or conviction. Hence, a possibly unjust conviction.

Pardon? A Pardon?

[Anonymous Coward]

They can take their pardon and shove it up the queen's ass.

An abject apology would be a good start.

Re:Pardon? A Pardon?

[Anonymous Coward]

They can take their pardon and shove it up the queen's ass.
  An abject apology would be a good start.

An apology is literally the LEAST they can do, a Pardon carries much greater weight. At this point the only thing they could do more than a pardon would be to pay damages to his Estate.

Your statement is like saying "So what if they gave me a gold medal, I wanted that Participation ribbon!"

Re:Pardon? A Pardon?

[newcastlejon]

An abject apology would be a good start.

The then prime minister made one four years ago. I remember at the time that people were complaining that it wasn't enough and a pardon should be issued.

24th?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how come it's dated for tomorrow, and wonky, and badly spelled?

Re:24th?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's English?

Re:24th?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really?

Re:24th?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because in all likelyhood, you're an American, and are technically behind in time compared to the rest of the world

Re:24th?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it will be "official" on the 24th. Do you think that they just think this up in one day, produce a poorly written document. and then send out a press release? No. Government takes a lot longer for something like that.

Re:24th?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's BRITISH, you retard. BRITISH.

Re:24th?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you tit, it's English. Only people from outside England would ever call the language anything else.

Re:24th?

[pspahn]

I'm not sure, but I do believe it has something to do with divers.

Re:24th?

[AdamColley]

Because you inadvertently read the Grauniad instead

That's great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now he can start enjoying life, oh wait, we're just trying to make people feel good. move along, there is nothing here

Re:That's great!

[AK Marc]

And why is it a bad thing to make people feel good?

A lot of good it does him now...

[Darth Twon]

Just like all politics, worried about nothing more than the image. Nothing to see here.

An utter disgrace. Should be a full apology

[bazmail]

This is a travesty. The charges and conviction still stand. Conviction should be quashed and a full "royal" apology from the inbred German layabouts in Buckingham palace.

Re:An utter disgrace. Should be a full apology

[mysidia]

The charges and conviction still stand. Conviction should be quashed and a full "royal" apology

That is what in effect the pardon amounts to.

There is no such thing as "quashing" a conviction that was valid and proper under the law.

Today we may feel the law is unjust -- but the courts and legislators aren't entitled to nullify convictions on laws that existed at the time they were violated. 1000 years from now; they may well say the same thing about Disorderly conduct felons, felony Curfew violators, Public drunkenness laws, etc.

Re:An utter disgrace. Should be a full apology

[AK Marc]

There has already been a full apology.

Like it does HIM any good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Charges should have been dropped. A pardon implies that he was actually guilty of something worthy of criminalization .

The poor bastard had to deal with the horseshit while he was alive. This pardoning and whatever long after he's dead accomplished nothing.

It's just PR for little political people that want to pander to the Gay and Lesbian community.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant.. man shit

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[phantomfive]

It's just PR for little political people that want to pander to the Gay and Lesbian community.

And it works.

And why not? Any time you can do a little thing that makes people happy, why not? Even if it's a silly thing.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Wootery]

It's just PR for little political people that want to pander to the Gay and Lesbian community.

It's symbolic, sure, but that doesn't warrant your cynicism.

The question is whether it's a worthwhile symbolism. Personally I'm all for government apologies and pardons. If anything I'd like them to go further, and not just apologise and pardon only Turing himself.

It would also be good if they'd cut out this kind of shit (one could blame the ISP, but the whole bullshit censorship initiative was the UK government's idea).

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[n1ywb]

Charges should have been dropped. A pardon implies that he was actually guilty of something worthy of criminalization .

The poor bastard had to deal with the horseshit while he was alive. This pardoning and whatever long after he's dead accomplished nothing.

It's just PR for little political people that want to pander to the Gay and Lesbian community.

Of course it's accomplished something. It's sent two powerful signals. One, that the government admits it fucked up; nobody likes to admit they were wrong ESPECIALLY governments so lets give credit where credit is due. Second and more importantly, it signals that the government is serious about supporting LGBT rights. Thirdly it vindicates Turing's important legacy, his family, friends, supporters, and those like me who have always looked up to him. It would have been nice if it came 61 years ago, but better late than never.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[dnavid]

Charges should have been dropped. A pardon implies that he was actually guilty of something worthy of criminalization .

The poor bastard had to deal with the horseshit while he was alive. This pardoning and whatever long after he's dead accomplished nothing.

It's just PR for little political people that want to pander to the Gay and Lesbian community.

That's pretty harsh considering that's tantamount to accusing the members of the gay and lesbian community that advocated a pardon as merely seeking a little PR and pandering.

In any case, in the UK a pardon implies the person in question was technically guilty according to the letter of the law, but deserves to escape the legal consequences of the conviction because of a belief they are not "morally guilty." It says nothing about "worthy of criminalization." And the legal issue here seems to be that at one time the power of the pardon in the UK was reserved for people that were "morally and technically innocent" of the crime they were convicted of, but in modern times that distinction is split. The constitutional government has the power to pardon criminals under exceptional circumstances but almost never does because if a strong case can be made for "technical innocence" there's an appeals court designated to handle such cases. But the legal process is essentially to invoke an appeal of the case and a new trial which would be nonsensical for Turing. The alternative rests with the constitutional monarch who can pardon for "moral innocence" which doesn't involve being technically innocent under the law.

Its unclear if the government has the legal option to drop Turing's charges or vacate them because there exists no legal evidence he was innocent of the crime he freely confessed to commiting at the time of the conviction.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Anonymous Coward]

In that case, it's very bad PR. They already said no twice.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a gay man myself, this does not such thing. I look at this in disgust.

As others have said, a pardon implies he did something wrong. He did not.

As others have said, you can't change the past.

This PR stunt just makes the government look pathetic, and certainly not worthy of any recognition of any kind - if anything it's just further insult. Not only that, they believe they have the right or moral ground to absolve themselves of their tainted history; that's quite rich, and completely unacceptable in my opinion.

The apology was fine, but don't try to pretend it didn't happen, don't try to undo the wrongs of the past. Accept it, own it, deal with it.

What kind of a government thinks they can waive away the consequences of their actions? What does this say for such a government, that they can't take responsibility for them?

Pathetic.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apologise if you want by all means. But that has to be for all the people charged for homosexual acts in recorded history. A pardon is for when a specific conviction was wrong, not just because you want to re-write history to fit modern values and win votes.

Homosexuality was a crime, the law made was passed by parliament, upheld by the courts as valid and used to prosecute many people. There is no doubt that Turing committed a criminal act, and he treated the same as anyone else in was in that situation.

We may consider the law wrong now, but to pretend that things were or could have been different in Turing's case in the past is just cynical denial.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[fyngyrz]

What kind of a government thinks they can waive away the consequences of their actions?

All of them.

Pathetic.

Precisely.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It does serve a purpose in the long run, just as the Vatican's pardon of Galileo not so long ago did, too.

It teaches future leaders to be a little more careful in what they do in the name of preserving their power.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Bite The Pillow]

He's dead - nothing is going to do him good. Perhaps there are legalities which will positively affect his estate, perhaps not, I don't care to know.

Even if it is pandering, it is pandering that would not have happened 50 years ago. Or 25 years ago.

This is just a part of the slow generational change in acceptance of people who were persecuted against for no apparent reason. It is hugely significant even if you are completely disconnected from the Gay and Lesbian community, because it is obvious that at government levels, acceptance of homosexuality has crossed the hump. It may not be accepted as normal, but it is no longer inherently deviance nor immorality.

Think of it as pandering if that helps you sleep - but it is a reflection of people, as they grow up in an environment that has no need to vilify gayness, realizing there is nothing to hate. And next generation they may make no note of it at all.

Each generation learns what to hate from the ones previous - but unless there is good reason to keep up the hate, it eventually dies out. When your neighbor kills your father and you kill his brother and he kills your son - that will rage for centuries. But we are gradually learning, "I might find it personally repulsive, but gays don't seem to be causing me or society actual harm".

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because for a long time the official line was "Yeah it was wrong but he broke the law at the time", this is exceptional action... and obviously quite deserved. Most people only sort of know about turing anyhow so it's not like this was just about votes.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with posthumous apologies is that they're all carefully timed until after everyone at fault is both out of power and dead. That is fucking unacceptable. They deserve to be shamed for their lethal bad decisions!

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[shutdown -p now]

Most importantly, it signals that you will only get a posthumous pardon for a crime that didn't ever make sense only when you're a prominent person, and preferably a non-controversial one at that (where's the pardon for Oscar Wilde?).

Really, a pardon sends an altogether wrong message. Imagine if, say, Germany would "pardon" the executed White Rose members - would that be well received?

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for this, as a really confused person trying to find their way in the world, having other's out there that are ok with me in it is just awesome. I really look up to Mr. A. Turing as being a really remarkable person and can only hope to be halfways as cool. I got my kerbal space program, solid freelance programming whatnots, and all the other fun stuff of why, why, why (and how). Yeah, so what, I may be gay, really, it is hard to say because frankly, atm, I can only be considederd as asexual. I try and have some good old fashioned 'alone time' and I can't which of the '7' genders I like best, because, it's people. really. I am totally attracted to some and definitely not some others. Those somepeople might be my own sex, so fucking what, right? .. not really, it is a lot of self-hating - I percieve to be mostly by societies rejection of the kind of me. This pardon for Turing, even in the midst of stupid UK ISP filtering, NSA snooping, and Canadians rushing to match, means a lot to me. I am glad for it. Regardless of his demise.. (Murder most foul! - or suicide - he's too smart for that kind of acciedent - unless he happenchance be like moi and dues the 6am drunk science fest anthology - which, well, ha, loved him anyways all the more) Turing was very smart, and I only wish he could have made it a bit longer to impart a tad more brilliance upon my generation.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Anonymous Coward]

One, that the government admits it fucked up; nobody likes to admit they were wrong ESPECIALLY governments so lets give credit where credit is due.

Pardoned != quashed. Pardoning someone just means the pardoned doesn't have to face punishment, it doesn't wash away the criminal conviction. In other words they still think he's guilty but they are letting him off out of the goodness of their hearts.

Second and more importantly, it signals that the government is serious about supporting LGBT rights. Thirdly it vindicates Turing's important legacy, his family, friends, supporters, and those like me who have always looked up to him. It would have been nice if it came 61 years ago, but better late than never.

It really doesn't. The government are doing the very least they can possibly do in order to make themselves look good. They should have quashed his conviction but can't as it would alienate the conservative religious rump and more importantly a lot of the people caught up in this bullshit back in the day are still very much alive and would take a very vocal and litigious attitude towards compensation.

Basically Q-Tip read out some bullshit designed to make politicians look magnanimous. Nothing has changed.

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Bugamn]

No one expects the English pardon. Our biggest sign is we were wrong and we support LGBT rights. I mean, our two biggest signs are we were wrong, we support LGBT rights and we vindicate Turing's legacy...

Re:Like it does HIM any good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's manipulation coming from a corrupt government trying to get people to look the other way. They should have done it when they didn't need people to look the other way, then I'd believe they actually meant it.

59 years too late

[kruach aum]

Fuck the British government of Christmas past for what they did to him. Here you have a genius, a war hero, one of the greatest people of the twentieth century, and your fucking idiocy runs him straight into the ground. Fuck you forever.

Re:59 years too late

[Hognoxious]

Agreed! Other countries like America, Russia or Nigeria would never persecute people just for preferring to drive up chocolate lane.

Re:59 years too late

[kruach aum]

If only "being retarded" wasn't a property that could be shared by more than one entity at a time, your post would have actual relevance.

Re:59 years too late

[gnasher719]

Fuck the British government of Christmas past for what they did to him. Here you have a genius, a war hero, one of the greatest people of the twentieth century, and your fucking idiocy runs him straight into the ground. Fuck you forever.

He was convicted for something that was a crime when he was convicted. The judge didn't know that he was a war hero, and nobody who knew could tell him because it was top secret at the time. What you are complaining about, nobody knew about that until it was thirty years too late to do anything about it.

Now some questions: If something becomes illegal after you do it, should you be convicted retroactively? And if something becomes legal after you do it, should you be "unconvicted" retroactively? And consider that things change all the time; what you do today might be a crime in twenty years time. For example, it's not unthinkable that you would get convicted for assault for smoking in a pub in twenty years time. And that everyone talking about it would say that you fully deserve it.

The other: If you are a war hero and commit a crime, should you be convicted, or should the law not be applied because you are a war hero? Is that answer simply yes or no, or is it "depends on what kind of war hero and what kind of crime"? In that case, does it apply to war heroes only? Or to football heroes? Or entertainment heroes?

Re:59 years too late

[ImdatS]

Actually, laws can be declared "illegal" retroactively. I don't know what are the circumstances in each country, but in Germany during the last 10-20 years, a lot of laws were declared "illegal" retroactively, including e.g. some tax laws. The government had to pay compensation to the effected people retroactively.

And no, I'm not talking about laws from the time of 1933-1945. These were new laws (e.g. one from 2003 that was declared illegal in, if I remember correctly, 2008 or so).

Now, admittedly, this was because these laws were declared "unconstitutional" and I don't know all the circumstances under which laws can be declared illegal retroactively, but it seems it is possible...

Re:59 years too late

[AK Marc]

Now some questions: If something becomes illegal after you do it, should you be convicted retroactively?

No, That's bad, and banned by the Constituion

And if something becomes legal after you do it, should you be "unconvicted" retroactively?

That's how all Supreme Court decisions work. If you are arrested for sodomy at the time, and the Supreme Court overturns the law you were convicted under, you are retroactively "unconvicted". It's happened many times in the US. Ex post facto release isn't a bad thing, and there's nothing that requires that if you can unconvict ex post facto, that you must also allow convictions ex post facto.

Re:59 years too late

[mysidia]

Fuck the British government of Christmas past for what they did to him. Here you have a genius, a war hero, one of the greatest people of the twentieth century, and your fucking idiocy runs him straight into the ground. Fuck you forever.

He isn't the first great person to have fallen, and he won't be the last. One thing to keep in mind is.... not everyone gets the message about such things. He may have been a genius, and a great war hero: but the legislators don't know about it; heros are often modest and unlikely to boast about it, and the courts at the time weren't even allowed to consider it, anyways.... at the end of the day, all the heros are just average people that have to live by the same rules as everyone else, or their future will be wrecked.

Think of the government, and the justice system like a "machine"; the courts operate in a mechanized fashion to implement the law and standards that have been put to them. Only the highly influential and powerful people can bend the machine, adjust the cogs, or cause it to act differently; Usually by AVOIDing the "Input" chute of the criminal justice machine altogether (Alan and partner were arrested after he and his mate were the victims of a robbery, and he reported the robbery - and admitted the relationship) - if the officers recognized him as a hero, and he had a powerful family, he could have probably escaped arrest, or at least gotten charges withdrawn --- Alan was neither well-known nor powerful at the time.

He just had a reward for military service. The criminal conviction also made Alan immediately stripped of his security clearance and ineligible for any further government/ top-secret work --- his consultancy with the GCHQ on signals intelligence and cryptography was terminated (probably to their great detriment); he was also Denied Entry to the United States based on the criminal record --- so you can't fault the UK alone; there, see, you have a conspiracy ----- the US customs will mechanically treat a UK conviction as a fact, and not doubt that justice has been done.

Take Hypatia --- killed by a mob of christians.
Petrus Ramus -- executed in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre Giordano Bruno --- burnt alive due to the roman inquisition for heresy; cosmological theories going beyond the copernican model, the sun as one of many stars, and inhabited alien worlds

Siger of Brabant, Socrates, Anaxarchus, Seneca, Boethius, Judah Halevi, Jan Hus, Thomas More, Galileo,

The pages of history are written in blood ---- people that could have done so many more great things for humanity, but whose work got redirected to the industry of war, or their lives got cut short by violent acts or lawful abuses and miscarriages of justice of the government.

For every time a major new level of enlightenment is reached ---- the pattern seems to be someone has to suffer and die at the hands of unjust suppression or unjust laws deemed just at the time the events transpired

Re:59 years too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is your daily Grammar Nazi response:

retroactively, including e.g. some tax laws.

The Latin you were looking for is i.e.
When deciding which one to use, you can generally replace i.e. with "such as" and e.g. with "therefore" and if the sentence doesn't make sense, you chose incorrectly. "including therefore some tax laws" does not make sense.

That is all. Good day!

Re:59 years too late

[Hognoxious]

It was more a dig at the smug herp-derpers who think all those amendments mean they have more freedom than anyone else, and feel qualified to comment on English legal matters when they don't know shit. But thanks for playing.

They really ducked the issue......

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what Phil Robertson would think of this if he was literate and able to use a computer?

Re:They really ducked the issue......

[Anonymous Coward]

Phil has a master's degree in education, you bigoted fucktard.

Re:They really ducked the issue......

[Anonymous Coward]

A whole lot of good that education did him. And please learn to use the term "bigoted" correctly. If you dont know what the word means, look it up so you can apply it in the correct context. Fucktard.

Re:They really ducked the issue......

[HornWumpus]

It's an education degree. Not a real one.

Alan Turing

[MindPrison]

Alan is one of the smartest people on this planet. The way he was treated is a direct display of our inhumanity. He is on my wall now, framed in gold, hanging on my silk-spun wall of fame (not that it matters to anyone), but I will forever remember him as one of the most important mathematicians of his time and even our time. I've placed him next to Benoit Mandelbrot for a reason (can you figure out why?).

We as a species are very different when it comes to our mind, our culture, our background. People will always be treated according to the common public's belief, religion or politics no matter what science tells us.

I know this, because just as Alan, I am as different as the rest of you. But you would hate me for who I am, and if you knew, you would love me, as would you love your next of kin, and everyone around you...if you grew a little...kind of like Alan, but there is a time for everything, and hopefully...we're nearing that time...when you can discern between science and religion, and understand that the world is so much more.

Re:Alan Turing

[Anonymous Coward]

I've placed him next to Benoit Mandelbrot

Did they have an affair?

Re:Alan Turing

[Anonymous Coward]

"MindPrison"... you meant Kool-aid but it was taken?

Re:Alan Turing

[bluefoxlucid]

Pedophile identified.

Re:Alan Turing

[Anonymous Coward]

I sort of hate you for that font...

Re:Alan Turing

[Anonymous Coward]

Assumptions make you an ass.
They could be someone who has undergone gender reassignment for all you know.

Re:Alan Turing

[Anonymous Coward]

"Pedophile identified. "

      Na, he probably does women up the ass. An ancient time honored way to prevent children before modern contraception.

Re:Alan Turing

[Smauler]

Or a whole load of other things that are against the law.

The law is an ass - two 15 year olds in the UK having sex are both guilty of paedophilia. I personally don't think they deserve to get locked up for 15 years each, I don't know what you think.

A 50 year old man can have sex with a 16 year old girl, but cannot draw an imagined version of her naked. The law is an ass.

Re:Alan Turing

[bluefoxlucid]

It's not the "against the law" part. It's the way he said it, like if we knew, we'd find him and hang him, Internet anonymity not providing any protection. He's not afraid of the police; he's afraid of everyone.

In Europe, people who are attracted to children are counseled and given therapy to enable them to more strongly select for adult relationships. People who cannot, or who aren't attracted to adults, are given drugs (like Alan) to neuter their libido.

In the US, they're beaten--sometimes to death--and the perpetrators get minimal sentencing. They're beaten by the police, dragged off to jail, mistreated, raped and beaten in the holding cells, then mocked in court by the judges and demonized by the prosecution, then thrown in jail where they're again beaten and raped. If they're found innocent, the whole thing is a permanent blot; they need to pack up and find a new life, because no one will ever forgive them for ... a crime they never committed.

I can't imagine that happening if you screw your sister. Or your dog. Or get a sex change. Plenty of people will be grossed out, some might react harshly, maybe even with violence; but the whole of society will not turn against you in such an extreme. I can't think of anything that does that, nor any reason why someone would act so guarded.

Re:Alan Turing

[MindPrison]

What? No!

But people can basically judge you for anything they please, as long as they believe in it. In certain countries you can get arrested just because someone think it is wrong.

Re:Alan Turing

[MindPrison]

No, nothing like that. (Not that I know of anyway).
Think oscillating chemistry.

Re:Alan Turing

[ultranova]

It's the way he said it, like if we knew, we'd find him and hang him, Internet anonymity not providing any protection. He's not afraid of the police; he's afraid of everyone.

And if he believed that, why would he post on an Internet board about the matter, and even use a pseudonym (which means someone so determined could cross-reference his posts and likely deduce his offline identity)?

That, and the rambling nature of the rest of his post, suggest an emo teen on a "nobody understands me" trip possibly aided by beer or pot, rather than a pedophile.

Re:Alan Turing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry bro, but I just can't love someone who in 2013 refuses to make his posts in a non-fixed-width font. Courier is the debil's work and all who use it should be imprisoned and possibly executed just to make a point. If that isn't legal as of now, I propose we enact an unjust law and prosecute you ex post facto. Don't worry though, the Queen will pardon you in 50 years!

Re:Alan Turing

[Anonymous Coward]

rambling nature of the rest of his post, suggest an emo teen

You mean like a person who would be attracted to someone who is a teen? Remember, pedophilia is something that is an anomaly. Most people won't consider it and find it deplorable. The small percentage of folks who do suffer from this condition are often suffering from other psychological conditions like perhaps rambling, bad communication in general, or even a maturity level below their actual age. There are many factors involved. Why would they post on the Internet pseudo anonymously? Maybe it's a cry for help. Responses and attitudes you show in your response however are exactly the reason many people with all sorts of conditions refuse to seek any treatment at all. They don't want the ridicule and judgment.

Re:Alan Turing

[Anonymous Coward]

Heterosexual buttsecks has not been a time honored form of contraception. Some may use it for that, but generally it is a sign of submissiveness that many males find more pleasurable than the physical act itself. Male prison rape typically fall under the same category. Big D will tell you he isn't gay, he just fucked JDog in the ass to show him he was his bitch. It's all about power and control. Add in the humiliation and physical pain and you've got a whole lot of sadists getting their egos stroked, among other things :)

Who will pardon the ungrateful UK?

[rsborg]

Who literally owe their current non-occupied existence to the work performed by heroes like Mr. Turing?

Re:Who will pardon the ungrateful UK?

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-sequitur. Would you feel the same way if Turing had admitted, and been convicted of, rape or murder or robbery? It's the law that was wrong, not the conviction.

Quite literally millions of Britons contributed to the war effort - arguably, just about everyone in the country did something, and without all of them, the outcome might have been different. Does that mean they should all be forever immune to prosecution for anything?

Turing should never have been prosecuted, but there's really no justice or logic in pardoning him and not pardoning thousands of others, some of them still living, who were prosecuted under the same law. The wrongness of the law has literally no relation to the magnitude of Turing's service.

Symbolic

[Antony T Curtis]

A gesture that the UK Govt did wrong at the time ...

We must never forget that sometimes, the laws are wrong and cause great people to suffer or die.

Why him?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't the law apply to everyone in an equal manner? Why should he be exempted from the same treatment others got?

Re:Why him?

[mysidia]

Shouldn't the law apply to everyone in an equal manner? Why should he be exempted from the same treatment others got?

Because the war would be lost without the benefit of his work. Britain would be German-occupied, and a great many of innocent people would have died.

Sometimes: applying the law to every person in an equal matter is inherently unfair.

Equal Treatment != Justice

Re:Why him?

[mtthwbrnd]

What you describe is the beginning of tyranny. So who is it who is to decide which persons get better treatment than others? Cameron? The Sun newspaper? Equal treatment under the law is the cornerstone of our "way of life". If they want to pardon Turing for committing the crime of Homosexuality then they have to pardon everybody of the same crime.

Re:Why him?

[mysidia]

So who is it who is to decide which persons get better treatment than others?

Politicians, the courts, or public opinion.

Equal treatment under the law is the cornerstone of our "way of life".

No it's not. Unicorns and fairies are more real than "equal treatment under the law" ever was. There is, has always been, and always will be inequal treatment under the law; the rich and powerful almost always get better treatment (or worse treatment) depending on the circumstances.

The inequality is just more cleverly disguised in some places, than others --- "Equality" is purely illusory, and not required for justice, anyways.

If they want to pardon Turing for committing the crime of Homosexuality then they have to pardon everybody of the same crime.

They are free to pardon Turing for that crime, and they absolutely are not required to pardon everybody.

Re:Why him?

[mtthwbrnd]

What a load of rubbish! ""Equality" is purely illusory, and not required for justice, anyways." - No. That is completely untrue. Equality is exactly required for justice. "They are free to pardon Turing for that crime, and they absolutely are not required to pardon everybody." Rubbish. On what do you base this claim? Other than "they can do whatever they please".

Justice

[smagruder]

If this man's life provided the full rationale for gay rights, it would be enough.

Re:Justice

[fermion]

If we had reached a point where human rights were considered basic, where a person could succeed without other looking at how they lived, then the pardon might be meaningful. But the church still controls so much of what we can and can't do. People are judged how they relate to the random dictates of old white men like Pope Francis and Phil Robertson rather than what they contribute to society. Only when they contribute something undeniable unique is their eccentricity accepted.

It is like an old episode of the Simpson: Homer, I won your respect, and all I had to do was save your life. Now, if every gay man could just do the same, you'd be set.. If only every person who the religious nuts found offensive could do something great so they are accepted.

If I may quote another show, Yes, Prime Minister, It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it: I have an independent mind; you are an eccentric; he is round the twist. We should consider the nutters that like to deny basic human rights 'around the twist' but instead we give them a pass while those that do an honest days work gets the shaft.

Long overdue

[mseeger]

This should have happened decades ago. Since the 70s his contribution to winning the WWII are known and there are very, very few humans that can rival his impact.

Re:Long overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Joseph Desch?

He took Turing's work on the Enigma bombe and made it faster and reprogrammable. (This all happened when the Germans swapped out 3-wheel Enigmas for 4-wheel ones, which defeated Turing's bombe.) He had to invent RAM to make it work.

There's a PBS documentary about all of this, mostly focused on the NCR Dayton crew. Turing comes off looking like a total whiny bitch about the whole thing, complaining about how the Americans wouldn't put up with his jackass personality. It seems that nobody here cared if he was gay, they just wanted him to stop being a douchebag. Maybe that was the Brits' reason too, but they had this convenient anti-gay law they could use to make it stick.

If he was a genius, his peers shouldn't have seen the need to work around him. Far too many people are terrible at life, both geniuses and non-geniuses.

Re:Long overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have stayed under your bridge, Troll. The British bombe was made under very restricted manufacturing capabilities in wartime England. And Turing conveniently showed Desch and his team, how to solve the problem using only 1/4th of the number of decryption machines that they were planning. I doubt they were calling him a whiny bitch after his trip enlightened them...

Re:Long overdue

[blue trane]

I think it's the peers that are terrible at life.

Re:Long overdue

[iMadeGhostzilla]

I must ask, what exactly are Turing's contributions to computers as a practical discipline? I have been trying to find out but couldn't find specific things. I would not consider the "Turing Test" a practical contribution, and I do not understand how the "Turing Machine" helps practical issues either -- actual computing starting in the 50s and 60s until today. In other words, what specific good in the field came out of his theories? Is it cryptography? I am not saying there aren't any, just that they aren't obvious (to me).

I understand his contribution to winning WWII, but I don't consider that to fall in the above category.

Re:Long overdue

[mseeger]

He has made a lot of contribtion to the basic theories, especially on the topic of computability,

A basic test for any programming language is (even today) if it is Turing complete. If you can implement a Turing machine (a theoretical universal computer) in a language, you can implement any problem that is computeable in that language and therefor the language is Turing complete.

Re:Long overdue

[iMadeGhostzilla]

Thanks for the reply. I looked up whether C is Turing complete. The answer on one page is "sometimes yes, sometimes no." So I don't understand what the value of Turing completeness is (and everyone understand the value of C). Specifically, did creators of C take into account Turing completeness and do something differently when designing the language? Or, was the practice of language design they used at the time based on Turing's work?

I tried looking up other basic theories but what I found seemed pretty obscure, so still not sure what exactly the contribution was.

Btw as for my motivation -- there is always one -- I have all the respect for the man himself, but have heard an argument recently that the value of academic theory behind most practical disciplines and discoveries is overblown. I'm trying to see if this case supports that argument or not.

Re:Long overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Turing is one of the many names associated with theories of computation that were becoming popular in the mathematics of the early 20th century. Since his theory is closer to being a physical machine than the other models, it is vastly more popular with engineers.

And thus, "Turing invented the computer".

(He died from eating an apple that he appeared to have accidentally poisoned in his unsafe basement chemistry experiments. The story of a gay man committing suicide due to gay is of course much more popular with everyone; his gayness became the most salient point about him by at least the late '90s. And because he invented the computer...)

Re:Long overdue

[iMadeGhostzilla]

As for the poisoned apple, whether it's accident or suicide we'll never know, but after being forced to undergo castration over what he saw then and we see now as an inhuman and unjust law, it's not hard to imagine that he may have subconsciously wanted to end such life.

Re:Long overdue

[mseeger]

C is Turing complete for all practical purposes.

The idea behind Turing complete is more complicated. It's about what kind of ideas you can formulate.

a) If you can do everything in C you can do with a Turing machine and vices versa and
b) you do the same thing for an exotic language (let's thay Haskell)

you have proven that C and Haskell can solve the same kind of problems (there is no problem you can solve in C but not in Haskell).

That is why the idea of quantum computing is so interesting. It would be the first kind of programming that may achieve solving a problem that may not be solved with a Turing machine. Until now, Turing has de facto established an upper boundary for computability until know.

The next thing is that Turing proved that there is no Turing machine that could determine for any other Turing machine if it ever comes to a stop in finite time.

Combining with the statement above says: There is no C program that could analyse every C program completely in finite time.

It's a simplified version of what Turing called the "halting problem".

The astounding thing is: he found out a lot of things about modern computers without ever having seen one. The theories came first. It's like Newton discovering gravitation without seeing apples falling first.

Re:Long overdue

[iMadeGhostzilla]

Again, I have all the respect for Alan Turing and sympathy for him having suffered unjustly, but I have reasons to believe that theories don't come first, rather that it's the opposite: in almost all fields, practical discoveries come first, some of them later formulated into theories, some useful, some not, some actually harmful.

In the case of Turing Completeness, I can't see from the explanation above what the practical value of it is, for C designers and/or for programmers in C. I've written a lot of code and I never once needed to check if it's Turing Complete, I don't know anyone who did, and I never needed to compare it with Haskell or anything else -- whenever I chose C, that was because I liked it or because of the hardware requirements or the libraries available. I guess most people are in the same boat, so unless Turing Completeness was a big factor in the design of C, I can't see how that concept has helped software and system designers (who are coding in C) for decades now.

Re:Long overdue

[mseeger]

I cannot blame you for not seeing it. I studied the theories for five years and thought them dull and boring. Then, after decades of having to work on real world problems, it hit me. Nowadays i can e.g. look at code or database designs and easily recognise coders who have understood the theories and those who didn't.

Not understanding the theoretical background will put and upper limit to anyones capabilities as a coder. This is like being restricted in World of Warcraft to Level 20: some skills in the skill tree will remain out of reach no matter the grinding.

The best way to illustrate the genius of Turing is: he saw computers coming before the first one ever being built. He developed a trivial "assembler language" (Turing machine) that is so powerfull that no computer and no programming language built today can compute something his machine could not.

When he was finished with that, he thought not about calculations (as the opposite German genius Konrad Zuse did) but of processing symbols. He thought of computer code being processed by computer code and thereby inventing compilers and interpreters without having a name for it yet.

Then he interpolated the capabilities of those (not yet existing) machines and recognised that they would appear to have some kind of artificial intelligence and started thinking about how to tell computers and humans apart (60 years before the first SPAM was sent).

Looking back, having all the tools already on your fingertips, all this may sound trivial. But to achieve only 1% of his visionary power, i would have to grow by several orders of magnitude.

Re:Long overdue

[iMadeGhostzilla]

I'm sorry but that doesn't answer the question: did the designers of C look at Turing Completeness when they designed the language? From what I've read, it doesn't look like it. Were they using procedures and tools developed by people before them based on Turing Completeness? I can't say, not having studied theory (enough). But if K&R didn't use TC, if their formal tools and procedures were not based on TC, and surely most coders never look at TC when designing software, then what good is TC?

As for the Turing AI test, this is so far only hypothetical, we do not know that the test is valid because nothing ever passed it, and in fact you may have some examples of AI that may pass the Turing Test in a short conversation (like a handful of lines with Eliza) but not in other contexts, eg. AI characters in a game that make a very stupid action like going back and forth between two points that no intelligent creature would do.

Again I'm not attacking Alan Turing, he gave his best, I'd rather use someone else as an example (maybe Norbert Wiener and his "cybernetics" that I learned in school he invented but that turned out to be BS), I'm going after the belief that theory comes first and I'm not seeing good examples in the defense of that belief.

Re:Long overdue

[mseeger]

Kernighan and Ritchie were well aware of Turing completeness. Dennis Ritchie started with Theoretical Computer Science before he wrote his first software (see http://www.gotw.ca/publications/c_family_interview.htm). You can be sure that designing C without Turing Completeness would have been for them like designing a car without tires.

Languages without Turing Completeness only make sense only in special applications because they are so limited (e.g. the C PreProcessor is not Turing Complete unless you use it recursively).

One of the marvels of the Turing machine is that it is so simple (you can describe what a Turing machine does on 2-3 pages) but it is as powefull in expression as modern languages with specification of thousands of pages are.

A lot of coders have no idea about the theories behind it. That is why a lot of code sucks. It's not the lack of Turing machines but on the theories that are connected to it (e.g automata theory, complexity theory).

What you are saying is like: I am tiler, i never check the foundation when i am building the roof, so it can't be important ;-).

You can make a living as a coder without all that knowledge. More than half of the coders do. But if you look at the people who shape the world of software (like Dennis Ritchie, Linus Torvalds, James Gosling, etc), you will notice they all are well versed in the area of computer science theories.

P.S. Concerning AI and Turing Test: computer games have no AI. The producers of computer games call their software opponents AI, but they are a collection heuristical algorithms cobbled together.

When you are playing agains an opponent, you can usually tell easily wether this is a computer or not. In fact, you are conducting a Turing Test then and the other side fails usually miserably.

Re:Long overdue

[iMadeGhostzilla]

They were aware of Turing Completeness, as was I since I had it in school, but it doesn't say anywhere that they actually applied the concept. I never once actually applied it in any design either. Did you?

The Turing Test doesn't take into account time -- in up to 10 seconds a chatbot can fool you, in up to 2 minutes Eliza can fool you and so on. It talks about the kind of AI that has so far proven to be generally useless, i.e. conversational AI. So the test, nice as it may sound, doesn't seem to have been of any practical value so far either.

Biography

[Anonymous Coward]

His blography very subtly suggests there was more to his suicide than meets the eye

Re:Biography

[SternisheFan]

...Turing was arrested for violation of British homosexuality statutes in 1952 when he reported to the police details of a homosexual affair. He had gone to the police because he had been threatened with blackmail. He was tried as a homosexual on 31 March 1952, offering no defence other than that he saw nothing wrong in his actions. Found guilty he was given the alternatives of prison or oestrogen injections for a year. He accepted the latter and returned to a wide range of academic pursuits....

The decoding operation at Bletchley Park became the basis for the new decoding and intelligence work at GCHQ. With the cold war this became an important operation and Turing continued to work for GCHQ, although his Manchester colleagues were totally unaware of this. After his conviction, his security clearance was withdrawn. Worse than that, security officers were now extremely worried that someone with complete knowledge of the work going on at GCHQ was now labelled a security risk. He had many foreign colleagues, as any academic would, but the police began to investigate his foreign visitors. A holiday which Turing took in Greece in 1953 caused consternation among the security officers.

Turing died of potassium cyanide poisoning while conducting electrolysis experiments. The cyanide was found on a half eaten apple beside him. An inquest concluded that it was self-administered but his mother always maintained that it was an accident.

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Turing.html

http://www.turing.org.uk/bio/part1.html

Re:Biography

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Worse than that, security officers were now extremely worried that someone with complete knowledge of the work going on at GCHQ was now labelled a security risk.

The irony is palpable. They treat him like shit and then they are worried he's going to be mad at them for it.

Re:Biography

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy had become a liability, makes you wonder about how he died. Similar to what happened to Oppenheimer after WW2, ostracized for having a commie girlfriend at the time.

Re:Biography

[jools33]

Also Turing was known to frequently conduct experiments involving cyanide, and it is suspected that his death was more an accident than intentional.

Re:Biography

[jools33]

see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092

Such Bullshit Speculation

[Khyber]

"a tragedy that contributed to his suicide just short of the age of 42 when he died of cyanide poisoning, possibly from a half-eaten apple found by his side"

That myth has been disproven hundreds of times. The tons of sugar in an apple beats out the miniscule amount of cyanide present in the seeds. Sugar is the natural antidote to cyanide poisoning. I eat the entire apple, core and all. 30 years, not one bit of cyanide poisoning.

Re:Such Bullshit Speculation

[Anonymous Coward]

It is established as fact that he died of cyanide poisoning. It is also established that there was a half eaten apple next time him when he was found dead. The theory is that he poisoned the apple himself, not that the seeds killed him or whatever nonsense you are on about.

Re:Such Bullshit Speculation

[Immerman]

Are you sure? You've never suffered from confusion, chest tightness, headache, shortness of breath, or nausea? Those are the classic symptoms of low-grade cyanide poisoning, and cyanide is one of those poisons where chronic low grade exposure can accumulate until it becomes lethal.

Of course as long as you don't chew the seeds you'll be fine, the outer shell is undigestible - that's the deal apple trees (and most other fruit-bearing plants) offer - they provide animals with a calorie-rich food source in order to lure them into swallowing the seeds and depositing them far and wide in piles of fertilizer. The poison is only intended for those parasites that would digest the seeds themselves.

If you decide to become such a parasite and chew the seeds... well about half a cup worth is probably enough to kill you, depending on the specific concentrations. So yeah, not much chance that a half-eaten apple could kill someone. A half-eaten *bushel*, maybe. Sounds like either urban myth, or possibly speculation by an incompetent, lazy, or corrupt medical examiner. I mean if you committed suicide by cyanide poisoning it seems reasonable to expect that you would leave behind a container that still contains traces of the poison, and possibly a note. In their absence it suddenly looks a lot less like suicide (were they absent?)

Re:Such Bullshit Speculation

[Khyber]

Glucose binds to cyanide, as does sugar, to form other compounds that are far less toxic, and even harmless.

He would have needed more cyanide than there was Apple to off himself via injecting the Apple with cyanide and then ingesting it.

Re:Such Bullshit Speculation

[Khyber]

"Are you sure? You've never suffered from confusion, chest tightness, headache, shortness of breath, or nausea?"

Only when I smoke a good joint and cough too much.

Also, cyanide plus sugar = instant other compounds that are not very toxic at all.

Chewing seeds along with apple flesh negates the entire thing.

Re:Such Bullshit Speculation

[ggpauly]

You misunderstand. The inference is that the apple was spiked with cyanide. IIRC the apple was reportedly discarded untested by the investigating authorities.

The posting is misleading too. Intentional suicide is the canonical explanation for his death by cyanide poisoning, however it is really only one hypothesis of several and is not particularly well supported by publicly known evidence. Curiously, the posting also omits Turing's contributions to chemistry. He developed cyclic reactions based on reaction-diffusion patterns, and had a lab for his chemistry research at the time of his death. Articles mentioning his name in chemistry were published in Science this past year. I do not believe that a chemist would choose cyanide for suicide. I would not. Turing was a polymath much smarter than I am. His supposed depression is likewise supported by no actual evidence.

Other hypotheses, such as murder by British authorities, make at least as much sense given publicly available information. Accidental poisoning is also possible. The recent book on this topic uses twisted logic to conclude that he committed suicide. The Turing situation puts the British government in the uncomfortable ethical position of having to prove their innocence. However they put themselves in this moral situation, so I have no sympathy for them. They have done precious little effort to address this matter. They seem to want it to fade into history.

A pardon is overdue, and completely beside the main moral question they face.

Turing is one of the greatest polymaths of our age. He saved Britain several times with his cryptography genius and leadership. He made many useful contributions to mankind, many ahead of his time. He was repaid by persecution and humiliation.

Re:Such Bullshit Speculation

[Anonymous Coward]

> Glucose binds to cyanide, as does sugar, to form other compounds that are far less toxic, and even harmless.

Yeah, right... tell all those Kool-aid drinkers in Jonestown they can get up and go home now.

Re:Such Bullshit Speculation

[mysidia]

That myth has been disproven hundreds of times. The tons of sugar in an apple beats out the miniscule amount of cyanide present in the seeds.

They didn't say anything about the seeds. It's possible the apple had been exposed to additional poison.

Alan Turing's favorite fairy tale was reportedly the Walt Disney Film: "Snow White"

Hodges suggested that Alan was re-enacting a seen from the show, and:

(in Leavitt's words) he took "an especially keen pleasure in the scene where the Wicked Queen immerses her apple in the poisonous brew"

It's also possible, that Alan had been exposed to cyanide fumes, due to accidental inhalation.

Re:Such Bullshit Speculation

[Khyber]

Right from the Wiki on Cyanide Poisoning:

"Glucose is itself an effective counteragent to cyanide, reacting with it to form less toxic compounds that can be eliminated by the body. One theory on the apparent immunity of Grigory Rasputin to cyanide was that his killers put the poison in sweet pastries and madeira wine, both of which are rich in sugar; thus, Rasputin would have been administered the poison together with massive quantities of antidote. One study found a reduction in cyanide toxicity in mice when the cyanide was first mixed with glucose."

I think your Jonestown brothers are wondering where you are and how you managed to get the better stuff they never got to try.

Maybe!

[Anonymous Coward]

MAYBE committed suicide.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I really hope this is real.. but it's a random(ish) website. The language seems rather odd even by royal proclomation standards. Are we sure this isn't a fake? I'd want to see a few serious sources ratify this.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Would have liked to see it sourced at a *.gov.uk domain instead. Also, the document could use real scanned signatures instead of just that fancy "hand-written" font.

Re:Really?

[ImdatS]

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Government_apology_and_pardon (and The Times of London), he will be pardoned tomorrow, Dec 24th, 2013, UK time...

An apology was expressed in 2009 by the British Government.

But, alas, that doesn't make a past wrong right - the only we can do now is to learn from the past mistakes and wrongs and do whatever we can that it doesn't happen again in the future...

What about everyone else?

[hsmith]

Lots of men were charged with these insane laws. Why aren't they all pardoned? I see it as nothing more than a cute gesture. Everyone persecuted under these bullshit laws should be given full pardons.

Re:What about everyone else?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, every faggot should be beaten to death and we'd hear the end of their faggot fantasies.
 
And I don't give a fuck about whatever god or bullshit you're into. There's no mercy here. There's no "don't be judgmental and just get along."
 
Faggots have no place in modern society.

Re:What about everyone else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't all of them be pardoned as part of the process when they repeal the original law?

Re:What about everyone else?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, every faggot should be beaten to death and we'd hear the end of their faggot fantasies.

And I don't give a fuck about whatever god or bullshit you're into. There's no mercy here. There's no "don't be judgmental and just get along."

Faggots have no place in modern society.

Tough luck. We're here. We exist. We aren't going anywhere. Oh and we've also been around for a long time and homosexuality also exists in nature. It doesn't impact you or your life. And with the ugliness of your attitude you wouldn't need to worry about any gays even hitting on you.

Re:What about everyone else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of men were charged with these insane laws. Why aren't they all pardoned? I see it as nothing more than a cute gesture. Everyone persecuted under these bullshit laws should be given full pardons.

One reason is that because no type of homosexual sex was legal, the same law was used to prosecute rapists and paedophiles (although they got significantly greater sentences, typically). Would you want to do a blanket pardon and live with that? Or instead effectively re-try people who are dead?

There is also the point of view that we can't fix the mistakes of the past, and there have been much greater ones than that. British legal history has many worse things in it, but I don't want to see a long list of judicial/royal proclamations 'rectifying' the mistakes of the past, as though it means anything or fixes anything. I try to learn about and learn from the past instead.

Re:What about everyone else?

[Smauler]

Just to let you know.... we know you're here, and we know you exist. Lots of us are willing to fight for your ability to be what you are. There are just some wayward slow people who don't get it, and get a lot of press, but do not represent most people.

Internet trolls will always be there, though.

Re:What about everyone else?

[Noxal]

Faggots occupy every place in modern society.

Don't. Fuck. With. Us.

Re:What about everyone else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully people with your viewpoint are in the majority. Or at least I hope they are.

Re:What about everyone else?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It's rolling over in the US right now. With each election the past 2 or 3 cycles, people are voting to legalize gay marriage in various states. Not because a judge decided so (which can't happen without the bulk of the population thinking that way anyway) but because of popular vote.

Re:What about everyone else?

[T.E.D.]

Lots of men were charged with these insane laws. Why aren't they all pardoned?

That would be an awesome next step. What they did to the man who saved their country was about as unforgivable as it comes. Certainly far more than a couple of "whoops, our bad." gestures is called for. A great start would be making the same gestures to the scores of powerless non-famous people hit by the same hammer, people they don't have to make any gestures for. Show some true contrition, beyond the meer "Wow, that story looks kinda bad on this famous guy's Wikipedia entry, doesn't it? What can we do to fix that?" level.

To be fair, the passing of same-sex marriage legislation in England this year was a great step.

Re:What about everyone else?

[Anonymous Coward]

nothing worse than a fag-enabler. i'd rather live with faggots than smarmy leftist scumbags. i hope you get raped to death by niggers, but more realistically, i'll have to kill you myself.

ex post facto

[Hognoxious]

If you can quash a conviction even though it was perfectly correct by the law at the time it happened then you can prosecute someone for something they do today if it's made illegal next year.

Retroactive law is a dangerous box to open.

Re:ex post facto

[DM9290]

If you can quash a conviction even though it was perfectly correct by the law at the time it happened then you can prosecute someone for something they do today if it's made illegal next year.

Retroactive law is a dangerous box to open.

It is a determination that the previous conviction was in fact NOT perfectly correct by the law.

There is no specific reason why humanity has to worship the stupid choices of past generations and pretend our ancestors knew everything. We can abolish old laws and declare that they were always unjust from the start. That isn't the same thing as punishing people for past technically legal actions.

Re:ex post facto

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can quash a conviction even though it was perfectly correct by the law at the time it happened then you can prosecute someone for something they do today if it's made illegal next year.

Retroactive law is a dangerous box to open.

It is a determination that the previous conviction was in fact NOT perfectly correct by the law.

There is no specific reason why humanity has to worship the stupid choices of past generations and pretend our ancestors knew everything. We can abolish old laws and declare that they were always unjust from the start. That isn't the same thing as punishing people for past technically legal actions.

It was correct by the law as passed by Parliament in the nineteenth century, still extant and active in the 1950's. Maybe you are referring to some sort of 'natural law' concept in moral philosophy. Fine - but that is not the same concept as the statute law that we are discussing.

Yes we can abolish old laws and declare that we think them unjust. That doesn't mean that they didn't exist or that we can re-write history by decree. For QEII to delve back in history and issue decrees 'undoing' things she had no control over and that happened hundreds of years before she was born would be meaningless tokenism.

Re:ex post facto

[AK Marc]

Nobody can be convicted under ex post facto, but people can be cleared under ex post facto. That isn't a dangerous box. It's been opened many times, and never had the slippery slope you claim happen.

Re:ex post facto

[Anonymous Coward]

In the civilised world, laws that expunge crimes or reduce sentences are retroactive, and laws that create new crimes or increase sentences are not.

Re:ex post facto

[Anonymous Coward]

But but but but....Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Ratified by The Independent

[Anonymous Coward]

Other sources have ratified it: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/alan-turing-gets-his-royal-pardon-for-gross-indecency--61-years-after-he-poisoned-himself-9023116.html

The travesty is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the queen did not also pardon everyone else who was every convicted for being gay.

Not a crime

[the eric conspiracy]

What Mr Turing pled guilty to is not a crime. That he and any one else should have been treated as criminals, and how they were treated is the crime.

Anyone ever treated this way deserves a pardon and more, our most humble apologies.

Re:Not a crime

[wonkey_monkey]

What Mr Turing pled guilty to is not a crime.

No, it's not. But it was back then. Rightly or wrongly, it was a criminal act.

Come back in fifty years and see what's legal by then.

Anyone ever treated this way deserves a pardon and more, our most humble apologies.

It's all very well saying that, but morality is relative. You might well find our ancestors look back on us with much the same disgust.

Re:Not a crime

[Immerman]

As long as "disobeying the law" has absolutely no place in your definition of what constitutes a crime, you are correct.

Unfortunately that's not how societies governed by the rule of law operate. So long as we have laws that try to legislate morality rather than just protecting people from each other we will continue to incarcerate such victimless "criminals". Be they polygamists, responsible users of illegal drugs, or just people who want to cross the Boston Common without carrying a shotgun in case of bears.

Re:Not a crime

[the eric conspiracy]

The word crime has several meanings of which only one is "an illegal act".

Another definition is "a grave offense against morality".

It is possible, and in fact sometimes useful to create sentence that places multiple meanings in play at once. It's one of the devices that makes the English language and literature interesting.

Too bad you missed all that.

I would have hated to be your English teacher.

Re:Not a crime

[blue trane]

Did he even plead guilty? The accounts I've looked at indicate he maintained he'd done nothing wrong.

Re:Not a crime

[Somebody Is Using My]

Indeed. By only pardoning Turing, what the government is implying that they were not wrong about persecuting people - including Turing - for their sexual beliefs. Rather, they are saying that they were wrong to persecute Turing because he happened to be useful to the government.

I would have been more impressed if the government had issued a blanket pardon to any and all who were caught out by this miscarriage of justice and named the act after Turing. As it stands, it is just a bit of blatant PR intended to appease a small but vocal segment of the population.

Re:Not a crime

[Anonymous Coward]

And given that you must have been one of those annoying teenagers who insist that 'No, I'm actually right, because the word can also mean this' while ignoring the entire point of the argument, I would have hated to be any teacher of yours.

Re:Not a crime

[Immerman]

Yes and if you say "He has committed a crime" then you can pick and choose amongst those definitions to find one that fits. But you did not say such a thing. You said "He did NOT commit a crime" which without further clarification logically implies that NONE of the definitions apply. Which in fact I alluded to with my opening line

As long as "disobeying the law" has absolutely no place in your definition

And in a society governed by the rule of law "a grave offense against morality" is immaterial to criminal culpability, therefore has no place in a discussion of crime within a legal context. If there is no law against it then your pastor, shaman, or divinely animated tuna casserole may have harsh words for you, but it is presumed legally acceptable. Likewise you can be a bastion of morality, but perform an act that is in violation of the law and you become a criminal, despite having the blessing of your religious leaders.

Re:Not a crime

[AK Marc]

No, it's not. But it was back then. Rightly or wrongly, it was a criminal act.

He plead guilty to sodomy, which was not a crime. Indecency is a separate crime which was used to convict homosexuals. He did not plead guilty to the crime, in the sense of the US legal system, but other systems have different nuances.

Re:Not a crime

[Noxal]

morality is relative

Bullshit. Locking people up for doing something that harms nobody, or even just having DESIRES to do such things without acting on them is objectively wrong because it harms people and serves no purpose.

Re:Not a crime

[the eric conspiracy]

Here is something for your education, from:

http://literarydevices.net/ambiguity/

Examples of Ambiguity in Literature

Although ambiguity is considered a flaw in writing, many writers use this technique to allow readers to understand their works in a variety of ways giving them depth and complexity. Let us analyze some examples in literature.

1. Read the following excerpt from âoeThe Catcher in the Ryeâ by J. D. Salinger:

âoeI ran all the way to the main gate, and then I waited a second till I got my breath. I have no wind, if you want to know the truth. Iâ(TM)m quite a heavy smoker, for one thingâ"that is, I used to be. They made me cut it out. Another thing, I grew six and a half inches last year. Thatâ(TM)s also how I practically got t.b. and came out here for all these goddam checkups and stuff. Iâ(TM)m pretty healthy though.â

The words âoetheyâ and âoehereâ used by a character âoeHolden Caulfieldâ are ambiguous. But the readers are allowed to presume from the context that âoetheyâ might be the professionals helping out Holden and âoehereâ might be a rehabilitation center.

2. A short lyric âoeThe Sick Roseâ written by William Blake is full of ambiguities:

âoeHas found out thy bed
Of crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroyâ

Many of the words in above lines show ambiguity. We cannot say for sure what âoecrimson bed of joyâ means neither can we be exact about the interpretation of âoedark secret loveâ. The ambiguous nature of such phrases allows readers to explore for deeper meanings of the poem. Here âoewormâ spoils chastity of âoeroseâ in her âoecrimson bed of joyâ a reference to making love.

3. On a larger scale ambiguity may develop in a character or in an entire story. For instance, Hamlet is a morally ambiguous character. He kills to avenge his fatherâ(TM)s murder. He is good because he wants to protect his mother but he is bad because he is willing to kill whom he must to achieve this end. The ambiguity in Hamletâ(TM)s character is seen when he is hurt by the death of âoeOpheliaâ which is his personal loss, but he does not feel for the effect of his actions is going to have on others.

4. We find ambiguity in the first line of Keatsâ(TM)s âoeOde to a Grecian Urnâ:

âoeThou still unravishâ(TM)d bride of quietness,â

The use of word âoestillâ is ambiguous in nature. âoeStillâ here may mean âoean inanimate objectâ or it may be interpreted as âoeyet unchangedâ.

Re:Not a crime

[wonkey_monkey]

He plead guilty to sodomy, which was not a crime.

He may have confessed to it, but how can he plead guilty to something which isn't a crime?

Besides which, his plea has no bearing on whether or not he committed a crime under the law at that time.

Re:Not a crime

[ultranova]

It's all very well saying that, but morality is relative. You might well find our ancestors look back on us with much the same disgust.

Morality is relative, but it isn't random. Should our ancestors look on us with disgust due to any differences in our morality, we can show a record of the debate and arguments that led to those changes. They'd need to come up with novel arguments to have any justification for their disgust.

Why did it take so long?

[Anonymous Coward]

You would think that someone referred to as “the queen” for more than 60 years would be more sympathetic to the gay population.

Re:Why did it take so long?

[Immerman]

Really? How do you suppose you would feel if your God-given title was being besmirched by a bunch of transvestites?

Re:Why did it take so long?

[ebno-10db]

You would think that someone referred to as “the queen” for more than 60 years would be more sympathetic to the gay population.

That was modded down to -1? Has anybody ever heard of a "joke"?

Re:Why did it take so long?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're familiar with the concept of "bad jokes", yes? Jokes that just aren't funny?

That was one.

If you really need an explanation of why: (1) the queen doesn't decide these things, her 'sympathy' has nothing to do with anything, (2) the title is a serious one with a long history, and she didn't ask to have it conflated with a certain type of sexuality, (3) nobody who has the faintest idea who the queen is or what she does would ever think of making that conflation.

TL;DR: *whoosh*

Re:Why did it take so long?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jokes actually need to be funny, rather than pathetic

was persecuted (and prosecuted) for being happy?

[Anonymous Coward]

He was a pervert, lusting for other men and that was not cool in those days. Not sure, why it's OK now and wtf is this pardon all about.
Yes he was a smart guy but so what. He was still considered a perv.

She should have posthumously...

[UberDude]

She's still alive!

Re:She should have posthumously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame.

Re:She should have posthumously...

[Zynder]

No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.

Moral Ambiguity

[EricCordian2855]

Alan Turing, like Oscar Wilde, had some sexual partners who were working class youth. Back in those days, homosexuality was homosexuality, all homosexuality was illegal, and age wasn't much of an issue. While the Gay Movement celebrates the unjust persecution of Alan Turing for "Homosexuality," they gloss over the fact that today, we would lock him up, throw away the key, and denounce him as a pedophile for consensual sex with teenagers. It's lovely that he's been pardoned, but it's a bit hypocritical how today's Gay Activists grandfather in for Historical Gay Icons, behavior they would be the first to loudly condemn in their contemporaries.

Re:Moral Ambiguity

[DM9290]

Alan Turing, like Oscar Wilde, had some sexual partners who were working class youth.

Back in those days, homosexuality was homosexuality, all homosexuality was illegal, and age wasn't much of an issue.

While the Gay Movement celebrates the unjust persecution of Alan Turing for "Homosexuality," they gloss over the fact that today, we would lock him up, throw away the key, and denounce him as a pedophile for consensual sex with teenagers.

It's lovely that he's been pardoned, but it's a bit hypocritical how today's Gay Activists grandfather in for Historical Gay Icons, behavior they would be the first to loudly condemn in their contemporaries.

I think at the time the age of consent was 14. Are you sure he was having with sex with anyone below the age of consent?

Re:Moral Ambiguity

[floobedy]

I'm an amateur student of history, but I'm not very familiar with this episode. However, a quick internet search indicates that Oscar Wilde's famous lovers (Robbie Ross and Alfred Lord Douglas) were 18 and 21, respectively, when they began their romantic affairs with Wilde, who was also young at the time. Alan Turing's lover was 19 when they met.

Wilde apparently also slept with a succession of gay prostitutes, but their identities are unknown now.

Re:Moral Ambiguity

[EricCordian2855]

At one time, the age of consent was 10. Failure to prosecute something doesn't mean it's "OK", either then, or today. Although Turing's conviction was based on his affair with a 19-year-old, I recall reading that he befriended quite a few working class youth aged 15-17, although it's not well-documented what, if anything, they did in private. Certainly, such behavior would make him the third rail of gay politics if it occurred today. Now I certainly don't think Alan Turing did anything wrong, but my point was that we gloss over things historically, which we would be very unforgiving about in the present time, and perhaps that's a bit hypocritical.

Re:Moral Ambiguity

[ebno-10db]

working class youth

The guy he was convicted of fooling around with was 19. The age of consent in the UK is 16. If you know of instances where his partner was below that age, please cite the evidence.

Re:Moral Ambiguity

[Anonymous Coward]

If you love faggots so much why don't you just go eat the shit out of this faggots asshole? Come on and show us how the faggots live.

Re:Moral Ambiguity

[Anonymous Coward]

by todays laws, most certainly. Since we're now judging him by todays standards then surely our standard of the "age of consent" should also apply?

Um - how about an apology?

[Anonymous Coward]

They drove a singular genius to suicide - deprived him of his life and the world of his genius and the best they can do is decades later pardon him FOR BEING GAY.

"by his conviction for homosexual activity"

[evanh]

Wow! Using the word conviction suggests Justice Secretary Chris Grayling is of the opinion that Alan Turing was just playing a belief game.

Clearly still a further apology to come yet.

Re:"by his conviction for homosexual activity"

[evanh]

Doh!, misread it. "Conviction" here meant the legal sentence, of course, not the personal attitude. Disregard my previous fopar.

Rejoice faggots

[Anonymous Coward]

Continue to live your life of awful sin. You'll pay for it eventually, an eternity in Hell sounds good enough.

Re:Rejoice faggots

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad it's apparently real hard to turn gay; otherwise, I'd apparently have an easy ticket to the opposite region of the afterlife from where brave crusaders against homosexuality like Hitler, Falwell, and Putin end up.

Re:Rejoice faggots

[Immerman]

Don't worry, I believe the rules are very specific that it's your actions that condemn you - after all your desires were put there by God (or was it the Devil? Folks can never seem to agree). So by acting without lust you should get a free pass into Hell, without having to worry about any annoying last-minute reprieves due to supernatural influences.

Of course there are other paths as well, for example eating a nice shrimp dinner while wearing a wool suit and cotton undergarments. IIRC the Bible condemns both the eating of shellfish and the simultaneous wearing of clothing made of different fibers even more strongly than it does homosexuality. Odd that you never hear of the brave crusaders attacking such filthy degenerates, there's certainly enough of them.

Re:Rejoice faggots

[Anonymous Coward]

Continue to live your life of awful sin. You'll pay for it eventually, an eternity in Hell sounds good enough.

I'd rather be in hell than in heaven if it's going to be filled with assholes like you. If all the gays are in hell then our parties are going to be *fabulous*.

about damned time

[roc97007]

...but should have been an apology instead of a pardon.

Re:about damned time

[wonkey_monkey]

There already was an apology, several years ago.

Re:about damned time

[Anonymous Coward]

apology already happened

retroactive knighthood to be applied by the next PM

Re:about damned time

[Anonymous Coward]

"..but should have been an apology instead of a pardon"

        It should be both and a knighthood for saving his countries ass more than once.

Re:about damned time

[roc97007]

But as has been pointed out by others. a pardon means "you did something wrong and we forgive you". Does this really apply?

Re:about damned time

[Anonymous Coward]

w00sh

What a coincidence so were the pussy riot

[Anonymous Coward]

Amnestied Russian punk band pair criticize Putin after release
http://news.yahoo.com/russian-punk-band-member-alyokhina-released-jail-russia-054642530.html

Re:What a coincidence so were the pussy riot

[Virtucon]

There were three women in Pussy Riot and if you listen to Putin the other day when discussing it his reaction was that what they did was "degrading to women." Yekaterina Samutsevich was just released a few hours ago.

was this redacted by Yoda?

[Punto]

by the grace of god, of the united kindom, the queen, pardoned Alan Turing has, hmmm?

hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing that bugs me about this is that all you fuckers on the band wagon saying he should be pardoned in 2013 would be the first to call for his castration if you had been living in the UK in 1950. Seriously people are just as prejudiced now as they were 50, 100, or 1000 years ago.

The boogey man just changes. Today it is (Nazi|pedophiles|Muslims) , before that it was homos, before that it was commies, before that it was Jews, a long time ago being a Canaanite could get you killed. I think the apology / pardon is utter bullshit, when people are treating others like shit and continue to treat each other like shit, and apology is just a way to make people feel better about themselves, and say hey 'We are better than those assholes living 50 years ago.' Well you aren't. Sure you would not castrate someone today for being a homo, but you would surely say that pedophiles need to be castrated. Yes that is right an 18 year old man having sex with, or even seeing a naked 17 year old girl has committed a sex crime and is considered by law to be a pedo. Most people would have no problem whatsoever killing / locking up pedos.

Human nature does not change. It cracks me up when every generation thinks they are better more tolerant than those racist thugs who polluted society 20 - 30 years in the past. Those racist thugs that you hate so much are yourselves.

Re:hypocrisy

[Fwipp]

"Yes that is right an 18 year old man having sex with, or even seeing a naked 17 year old girl has committed a sex crime"
Nearly all jurisdictions have a "close in age" exemption to cover exactly this scenario.

And, cool, glad you're not a homo, commie, Jew, or Canaanite. If you were, you might be a little glad that you weren't being killed for it. It's kind of like saying "Look! This box of apples has 1 rotten apple in it! This is exactly the same as last week, when 90% of the apples were rotten."

But, y'know, this is slashdot, where an adult's "freedom to associate" trumps a minor's right to not be exploited. So I guess saying that rapists should be jailed and that Nazis are bad is on the same level as lynching people for their skin color.

Re:hypocrisy

[Kiuas]

We are better than those assholes living 50 years ago.' Well you aren't. Sure you would not castrate someone today for being a homo, but you would surely say that pedophiles need to be castrated.

Except that I wouldn't. I don't believe it's right for anyone to castrate anyone against their will, criminal or not.

Human nature does not change. It cracks me up when every generation thinks they are better more tolerant than those racist thugs who polluted society 20 - 30 years in the past.

Who said we need to change human nature? Human nature may not change, but societies certainly do. A few hundred years back we were still burning women as witches. Human nature did not change but we got rid of that. A hundred years ago we didn't burn witches anymore but it was illegal in most of western democracies for women to vote. Again human nature did not change but society did.

Yes, people are tribal by nature and are easily lured into harshly opposing whatever it is their tribe deems wrong. But the mistake of your argument is assuming that we need to change human nature to change our morals. We don't. Only an ignorant person would be able to claim that societies nowadays are not more tolerant and open than they were hundreds of years ago - or even half a century ago as this story proves. Progress has been made, and is being made; a hundred years from now, being gay (or bisexual or transgendered) will hopefully be seen just as normal as interracial couples or being a woman who votes nowadays

Those racist thugs that you hate so much are yourselves.

No, they're not. Don't get me wrong, I dislike a great many groups. I could even go so far as to say I hate some fundamentalist religious groups. But the difference between me and the racist is very clear: I do not advocate for the use of force in to silence/punish the people and groups I dislike, no matter how much I may not like them.

This is why I am more tolerant than those people.

Re:hypocrisy

[Bite The Pillow]

I'm pretty sure you have your statistics really fucked up there.

I see you are trying to make a point about people generally finding reasons to hate people who are different. This is well known, as society is well defined between "us" and "them" due to basic human nature. It is how we identify friend vs. foe beyond people we know personally. Sociology introductory texts discuss this at length, so I'm not sure why you brought it up.

The same people would most likely not be calling for castration. A statistically similar number probably, but that is only because societal norms have changed. There are still people claiming fire and brimstone awaits the gays, and I think they are most likely to be the ones calling for castration. More so, given their repetition of baseless information fed to them, than the folks who are accepting a long-vilified condition.

About the part where we feel more civilized - I think that is justified. A small part of the world hated Jews, a small part hated Commies, a small part hated Canaanites. But given your timeline, the fate of those people seems to be getting better. In your example, pedos go to jail. You have the rare parent who murders a suspect, but it is atypical.

And finally the "projection" accusation - that's so far out on a limb I won't try to explain how mixed up you are. There might be a place for such a profound statement, but in the middle of confirmation that tolerance is now the best approach, and should have been, is pitifully misplaced. In your entire tone, holistically, it seems much more an admission of your own nature, both the poster and the people who moderated it positively, to equate people calling for tolerance with those who hated commies, jews, and pedos.

If you read that last sentence again, and hopefully it does not exceed the amount of punctuation you can comprehend, it's actually quite disturbing. Off-topic, flame-bait, internally inconsistent, and just plain disturbing.

Re:hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree. We are not more morally enlightened than they were. We just have different opinions as to which forms of sexuality we want to criminalize.

Re:hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

You're kind of right about current Muslim hate being awful - but not sure where you're getting so hyped up about pedophiles. Generally isn't there a 2 or 4 year gap for pedo / statutory rape charges ? Ie. your 18yr/17yr example is fine, whereas 18/13 is "wrong" as well as 22/17.

Which, honestly, I agree with. Kids don't know what the fuck they're doing and shouldn't be preyed upon by the fucked up young men that can't pull anything their own age. Or even worse, actual children playing out sick phantasies of whoever likes to diddle actual preteens.

There's a lot of 18yr old + fish in the sea. It's really not that hard, you sick fuck.

Re:hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I wouldn't. I don't support prosecution of anyone who hasn't harmed another person, weather it is a nazi, a (real) terrorist or a pedophile. No, not even if that person condones burning jews, crashing airplanes in skyscrapers, or fucking infants. I'm dead serious about this. There is no such thing as a thought crime. So no, not all of "us fuckers" are prejudiced.

I think the apology / pardon is utter bullshit

Making up for past mistakes because you keep making mistakes in the present is far from meaningless. It shows willingless to admit your mistakes and overcome them, which is an important step in the right direction.

Yes that is right an 18 year old man having sex with, or even seeing a naked 17 year old girl has committed a sex crime and is considered by law to be a pedo.

This situation is not really what most people would consider wrong. Arguing that people are prejudiced by bringing up absurdities of the law is a poor point.

Human nature does not change.

Maybe not, but enlightenment does change human mentality a lot. Human society does have the capability to change.

It cracks me up when every generation thinks they are better more tolerant than those racist thugs who polluted society 20 - 30 years in the past.

500 years ago you would have been killed for saying there is no god. Today, you'd be considered an obnoxious asshole at worst, even if you aren't being one. How is that not an improvement?

tl;dr:
Blatant perfect solution fallacy.

Re:hypocrisy

[twocows]

I have no idea how this reached +5 insightful. What a gigantic load of shit. Are you somehow implying that being more tolerant isn't a good thing? That letting people live without persecuting them for every slight is somehow not better than the converse? And you're not even implying this, you're outright saying that we're "racist thugs" for things we didn't do or even think about. Unbelievable! And people agreed with you! Ugh!

Yes, maybe some (or even most) of us would have, after years of environmental influence leading us to that conclusion, also been among those who persecuted them. But we haven't, and we're not those people. Your entire post is a justification of something even worse than thoughtcirme: that people should be considered evil for things they didn't even think of doing. Un-fucking-believable that people modded you up. I'm extremely disappointed in the mods. And yes, we are "better" for not going discriminating against people for whatever thing happens to set them apart. The fact that we could theoretically be on the other end is utterly meaningless; that's not who we are, and trying to paint us as that does a disservice to a lot of good people who work hard to help others.

In summary: fuck you, and fuck everyone who modded you up. It's attitudes like yours, ones that suggest that any sort of positive social change is irrelevant because people are still "bad at heart," that prevent us from ever moving forward.

Re:hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

Today it is (Nazi|pedophiles|Muslims)

Of those three, two of them have a real, tangible threat to society, with the remainder only being a threat because extremists try wrapping themselves under their label.

Said threat may be small or overblown, but its still a threat.

Re:hypocrisy

[StormReaver]

The thing that bugs me about this is that all you fuckers on the band wagon saying he should be pardoned in 2013 would be the first to call for his castration if you had been living in the UK in 1950.

This is what Psychology calls, "Projection."

Re:hypocrisy

[T.E.D.]

The thing that bugs me about this is that all you fuckers on the band wagon saying he should be pardoned in 2013 would be the first to call for his castration if you had been living in the UK in 1950.

Well, I wasn't around in 1950. But it happens I'm old enough that I was around in the 1970's, which was also an appallingly sexist, racist, and homophobic time. I can remember a time when the "N-word" was a common word in conversation amongst white folk, even when addressing black people. Having slowly watched things evolve since, there's no doubt in my mind things are much better now. If you think things aren't far better today, I kind of envy you your ignorance. You just have no idea what things were like, and that's a good thing.

You are quite correct that there are still folks out there who are aggressively intolerant and authoritarian (the "Archie Bunkers"), but there are also still the poor schleps clumsily fighting for a better world (the "Meatheads"). Having the privilege of watching these two groups over the last 40 years, I know which evolved into which, and I can assure you the Archie Bunkers by and large can be found enjoying themselves ranting on talk radio and Fox News, and the Meatheads can now be found in places like here complaining in whiny voices about the treatment of folks like Alan Turing. So the folks who were "first to call for his castration" can still be found, but if you are looking here, you are looking in the wrong place.

Re:hypocrisy

[T.E.D.]

Except that I wouldn't. I don't believe it's right for anyone to castrate anyone against their will, criminal or not.

That's just you. Not everyone is like that. For instance, it appears that a majority of the voters in Oklahoma have no big problem with sterilizing people against their will, since that's exactly what their junior Senator admitted doing regularly, and not only is he not in jail or had his license revoked, but they've reelected him twice.

Re:hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

Why pardon him? He should not receive a pardon because he actually was guilty. Instead, he should serve as a marker of history.

If I'm a black man and I drink from a whites only fountain and I'm arrested I shouldn't get pardoned 70 years later just because it's no longer illegal. Instead let me serve as a reminder of what life was 70 years ago.

If the state felt an injustice had been done then issuing an apology was the right thing to do. That's why the U.S. apologizes to certain people groups at particular times and gives reparations. That's the way it should be handled.

Next step: No royalty.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's time for Britain to get rid of the concept of "royalty", in my opinion.

Re:Next step: No royalty.

[Immerman]

Eh, everybody needs some random gratuitous celebrities mucking about in politics. Is royalty really any worse than pop stars?

Besides, if the royal family were stripped of their figurehead position then all their private holdings that are currently being managed by Parliament as part of an old negotiated concession would revert back to the family itself, and that would really hurt the UK government. IIRC the total income paid to the royal family by parliament is only a tiny percentage(like single digits or less) of the income generated by the royal holdings. And of course you can't just appropriate those private holdings into the government coffers without establishing a precedent that would have every major banker and CEO in the country fleeing for the borders.

Whatever royal negotiated those concessions did a brilliant job of making sure their descendants would live in comfortable pomp and circumstance for as long as Parliament exists. Not too bad considering their alternative was probably a bloody revolution that would likely end with the royalty all dead or dispossessed.

Pardon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should he receive a pardon? Rather the government should have received a penalty for playing God.
Black people were "governmentized" into being human with the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, where the SCOTUS should have
been deposed for ruling one human being could own another. As written the U.S. Constitution applied to all men and woman.

These same crimes of the state continue to play out now that government has chosen to social engineer being queer including
the destruction of free speech for the opposition through phony hate speech and crime laws. When will high school cliques stop?
The only function of government is to govern!

Juxtaposition is striking

[Anonymous Coward]

The inventor of the AK-47 was treated as a hero in Russia during his lifetime, and was promoted to general.

Meanwhile the inventor of much of computer science was convicted for moral crimes in the UK, and possibly hounded into suicide.

Re:was persecuted (and prosecuted) for being happy

[Immerman]

You know what's *really* perverted? All those disgusting heterosexual couples having sex for reasons other than procreation. We should lock them all up, along with everyone involved in the birth-control industry who are responsible for promoting such perversions and undermining God's will.

That's the problem with attempting to legislate morality - who gets to decide *whose* morality makes the cut? Even in a democracy, who defends the morality of the minority who don't have enough votes to defend themselves from the tyranny of the majority?

Post Dated...

[jacerie]

Anyone notice the fact that it is post dated for 12-24-13? Hope this doesn't turn out to be a hoax.

Re:Post Dated...

[Anonymous Coward]

24-12-2013 is today.

So I guess now he's...

[davidbrit2]

...Turing complete?

'bout 'ing time...

[Anonymous Coward]

'nuff said.

Who are we doing things like this to NOW?

[canuck_spud]

As previous commenters have noted, this is no help to Turing himself. But it's useful as a reminder for us to look around at the legal systems we have now, and try to imagine who we are currently terrorizing and prosecuting and shaming and bullying in ways that, in fifty years, a government is going to have to issue another pardon or another apology for. What's the current equivalent of the vicious homophobia we're now finally becoming collectively ashamed of?

This Is The Most They'll Every Do

[enter to exit]

The reason they can't just drop the charges and offer regret is mainly political.

Turing was in violation of the law at the time. The law was definitely unjust, but he was in violation of it.

Dropping the charges or showing remorse would open up a can of worms regarding liability. Doing so would create precedent and a mechanism for descendants to air grievances over historical wrong doings - it will never end and may be costly.

Practically, this is the best they will ever dare do.

Re:This Is The Most They'll Every Do

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it would be costly.
Sounds about right. That's what it should be.

Re:This Is The Most They'll Every Do

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Dropping the charges or showing remorse would open up a can of worms regarding liability. Doing so would create precedent and a mechanism for descendants to air grievances over historical wrong doings - it will never end and may be costly.

This is the mentality that allows unjust laws to exist. Governments know that there is no accountability, and that they are not exposed to any liability for creating and enforcing unjust laws. The expediency of government ignoring past offenses is more valuable than the ethical justice that would follow from owning up to gross fuck-ups. No, clearly it would be too costly for us to demand a moral government. Until our priorities change and we're ready to pay a very real price, government will never have any meaningful incentive to truly consider the ethical ramifications of its actions.

Entirely stupid

[loufoque]

Regardless of what you think about homosexuality, he behaved against the law that was in place at the time.
It's a shame we lost a great man because of this, but law is arbitrary, and sometimes it destroys some people.

He wasn't wrongly accused or anything. This is only being done out of pressure to make a statement. It is legally entirely stupid.

Here's some better text for your pardon

[Anonymous Coward]

WHEREAS the definitions of Gross Indecency under the laws of the United Kingdom to which Alan Turing plead guilty on the 31st day of March 1952 were perverse, unjust, inhumane and a violation of the human rights and dignity which are due to every person;

WHERAS Alan Turing was unjustly treated despite his exemplary service to the people of the United Kingdom;

AND WHEREAS the passing of time has illuminated these injustices to a now more grateful nation,

NOW KNOW YE that we renounce, regret and apologize for those injustices, pardon all persons harmed by the application of this law and clear the records of Alan Turing and all others similarly harmed.

Kill the Gay Nazis!

[Baldrson]

It is not widely publicized nowadays but one of the chief propaganda items leading to the US entering WW II against Germany was the assertion that the Nazis were gay.

Who gives a flying fuck...

[Anonymous Coward]

...what that old hag, Elizabeth and her sycophants think. A pardon from them is an insult to anyone with any sense of objectivity.

Would anyone place value on a pardon from Don Corleone?

Truly officious and proclamational

[tchdab1]

Thanks for linking to the Royal Pardon - just the wording of that made my day.

A bit one-sided

[Zanadou]

And, I'm sure it means a lot to Turning, as of right now. Oh, wait - he's dead. Like, a fat lot of good it will do him.

This really seams to be more an action to appease the living rather than the dead; by which, I mean it seems rather reactionary, not revolutionary.

Now time for Hollywood to apologise

[Anonymous Coward]

For U-571 where the heroic Americans capture the Enigma machine (rather than the British who really did), and Enigma, where the code is cracked by a team of boffins at Bletchley Park where a character called "Tom Jericho" is the genius responsible for decoding the encryption.

A movie called "We're really really sorry for infecting the world with fictitious history that ignored the truth and mislead people for no good fucking reason other than the fact that the executives at the studio said that it wouldn't make as much money and Americans want to see Americans being the heroes and what's that you say, the hero of this story was gay, that's box office poison, change it and his name, or go take a job someplace else smartguy" might just go someway to alleviating the historical injustice done over the Atlantic more recently as well.

Re:Now time for Hollywood to apologise

[Anonymous Coward]

Does somebody need a hug?

Royal pardon?

[manu0601]

A pardon looks like Turing is still guilty of something, but well, considering his accomplishment, he deserve pardon.

If you consider he was unfairly convicted using laws that contradict human rights, then what he deserves are royal excuses.

Re:Royal pardon?

[wonkey_monkey]

but well, considering his accomplishment, he deserve pardon.

Why? Should a person's accomplishments mitigate their punishment for a crime?

If Turing is worthy of a pardon, anyone convicted under similar circumstances should be worthy of a pardon. If a pardon is even the right thing to issue, which is still a matter of some debate.

Re:Royal pardon?

[manu0601]

If a pardon is even the right thing to issue, which is still a matter of some debate.

This was precisely my point, if you read me carefuly.

Re:Royal pardon?

[wonkey_monkey]

Oh, I see how you meant it to be read now - apologies.

Fat Load of Good it Does him Now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fat Load of Good it Does him Now.

Pardons are for the guilty.

[jcr]

Turing was innocent. The appropriate action would be to exonerate him, not pardon him. The British government should admit that Turning was persecuted unjustly.

-jcr

Re:Pardons are for the guilty.

[wonkey_monkey]

Turing was innocent.

"Innocent" in the sense of guilty of a criminal act?

You may not like the way the law was back then, but he was guilty.

Re:Pardons are for the guilty.

[jcr]

When a government decides to commit violent crimes against an individual, that aggression does not make their victim guilty. The criminals in the case of Alan Turing were the various government minions who kidnapped, imprisoned, and poisoned him.

-jcr

Re:Pardons are for the guilty.

[wonkey_monkey]

The criminals in the case of Alan Turing were the various government minions who kidnapped, imprisoned, and poisoned him.

You can disagree as vehemently as you like with the way he was treated, but none of the authorities' actions were illegal at the time. It's all very well us looking back at the horrible things our ancestors did with repugnance, but our descendants will probably do exactly the same to us.

Re:Pardons are for the guilty.

[ledow]

He pleaded guilty.

Bear in mind that I've posted about Turing several times and posted this to my Facebook page for my friends to see when I read it this morning - I cannot *be* more grateful for his work, being a computer scientist who lives in the UK (and doesn't speak German!) - but he plead guilty.

When you plead guilty in court, the court doesn't need to do anything else. Thus it's a pardon - we forgive you committing the crime - not an exoneration - you should never have been charged in the first place.

Although in a few decades, it will appear an abomination - at the time he was charged, it was illegal and he knew it and he pleaded guilty. The problem was really the punishment - castration and, because of the conviction, expulsion from the place of his greatest works.

Same as Oscar Wilde, in a way. It was illegal at the time, he did the same kinds of things, he was convicted in the same way. Nobody's saying "he should have been allowed to ignore the laws laid down at the time" (that's stupid and dangerous), what we're saying is "the laws were wrong and shouldn't have existed in the first place, the punishment was unjustly harsh, and why does being 'convicted' as gay prevent you from working on mathematics for the government?".

But, most importantly, why has it taken so damn long to realise this? If you want to realise what a dark age we're still living in, just look at what's happened in the last 50 years or so, and where we are today in terms of sexual (and sexuality) equality. We like to laugh and point fingers at centuries of human history where stupid things were illegal - and yet in the future we'll still be lumped into the "1900's" where Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing were both convicted of having consensual sex with a man in private, and received what amounts to slave labour / castration as punishment. We're literally only 14 years away from being in the "1900's" and future history will see today as no different to then (especially when we STILL have countries saying you can't be gay).

Want to make a REAL statement?

[Rone]

Issue more pardons.

How many more?

Well, how about every single soul ever convicted under "Turing's Law"?

Few other acts would express the appropriate level of "fuck you" to the mindset responsible for Turing's persecution, and reserving pardons for only the most notable implies that only the greatest have repaid their supposed "debt to society".

Re:Want to make a REAL statement?

[PC_THE_GREAT]

:) Soon in Britain, Turing Machines walking down the streets and shouting "kill all humans - Not turing compatible they are"

Incest

[fyngyrz]

One question we could have now, with the advent of same sex marriage, is why incest laws should be followed with same sex marriages. There's no logical reason why I should not be able to marry my son, brother, or father, except for people thinking it's weird.

Marriage pretty much implies consummation. Heterosexual consummation, barring 100% effective birth control, with someone that closely related can (very likely will) produce offspring with significant genetic anomalies. Incest laws are really pretty well established as worthy; people with these kinds of genetic anomalies tend to not benefit from the differences. Heterosexual incest (and I'm talking blood relationship here, not step-anything) isn't a good idea and it won't become reasonable until or unless we can develop absolutely certain remediation for the genetic problems it causes.

Almost all the other ideas stigmatizing consenting, informed human relationships that have been codified into legislation -- anti-gay, anti-polygamy, anti-polyandry, anti-flirting, etc. -- are the result of superstitious and/or repressive thinking and should go away ASAP. Further, formal contracts should be enforced by the state, and other than that, the state should entirely butt out of personal relationships.

Re:Incest

[Pseudonym]

Heterosexual consummation, barring 100% effective birth control, with someone that closely related can (very likely will) produce offspring with significant genetic anomalies.

No, it's not "very likely". It's just "more likely". This is a common mistake.

There are a squillion genetic disorders in the human gene pool. You have never heard of most of them because they are rare and recessive. The chances of someone receiving two copies of the broken gene are vanishingly small under normal circumstances. The risk of consanguinity is that if there is a sufficiently recent common ancestor who carried the broken gene, and if that ancestor passed it on to both parents, that gives their offspring a 25% chance of developing the rare disorder.

That is a lot of "if"s piled on top of each other. The vast majority of close relatives could have children with essentially no risk of genetic abnormalities. That doesn't mean it's a good idea, of course.

Re:Incest

[Pseudonym]

essentially no risk of genetic abnormalities

Errr... what I meant to say was no greater risk of genetic abnormalities than in the general population.

Re:Incest

[shutdown -p now]

Heterosexual consummation, barring 100% effective birth control, with someone that closely related can (very likely will) produce offspring with significant genetic anomalies.

First of all, 99% effective birth control (which we have in abundance) means that the likelihood of producing offspring is extremely unlikely to begin with. And then there are morning pills and abortions. And there is, in fact, such a thing as 100% effective birth control, if desired. And then there are same-sex incestuous relationships which can never result in children.

Re:Incest

[Luckyo]

Indeed. The reality is however that every one of us carries many, many recessive genetic diseases. Chance of inheriting a ONE specific disorder if fairly low. Cumulative chance of inheriting at least a few is high. Chance of inheriting at least one is close to 100%.

Then there's another major problem, that being immune system. It's known that one of the major factors of attraction is difference in immune systems, and kissing is one of the forms in which humans chemically "test" each others immune system and the more different it is, the more attractive other person is.

Children of incestuous unions are typically born with much weaker immune systems than their peers because of this.

Re:Incest

[operagost]

I don't see how government gets to decide who gets married based on biological issues. We used to let the government force people to take blood tests. We know that is wrong.

Please stop participating in fascism.

Re:Incest

[Luckyo]

Fascism is when corporations control the government.

You'll have to explain the link between that and preventing births of very sick children.

Re:Incest

[operagost]

Fascism is when corporations control the government.

Ah, another internet expert. Most historians agree that Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy were models for fascist states; do you agree? If so, then please explain to me which corporations controlled the government.

Oh, BTW, here's my original statement that was censored by another internet expert:

I don't see how government gets to decide who gets married based on biological issues. We used to let the government force people to take blood tests. We know that is wrong.

Re:Incest

[Luckyo]

I may be an "internet expert" whereas you appear to be "ignorant about everything".

Such as the fact that fascist aspect of Nazi Germany came in actions completely different and separate from their Nazi aspirations. Attempting to somehow pretend that ethnic cleansing driven by Nazi ideology had something to do with fascist part of ideology shows an astounding depth of ignorance of history.

And I'm not seeing any problem at all with government preventing incestuous marriages. I believe this is an opinion shared by vast majority of population worldwide. You have to be pants on the head kind of crazy to think that government has no right to think of common good just because it happens to place restrictions on your personal freedom, which is fact central to good governance.

Re:Incest

[Optali]

Consumation does however not imply "offspring".
Sex is done for the sake of sex not specifically to have children, that's part of being human. Sex is a cultural matter not merely a reproductive one and this is specially true in the developed countries were an increasing amount of people decide not to have children, even married heterosexual couples.

I know quite a lot of them here in Holland, me and my wife included.

Your argument regarding incest is thus not quite sound.

And in any case; if a non related couple can decide to bear children with abnormalities even knowing it beforehand (many Christians for instance), what is the logic behind not allowing consanguineous couples to bear children? It's stupid, two persons with a hereditary disfunction such as Down syndrome have no legal problems to have children that will be born with Down syndrome too, but a perfectly healthy brother and his sister aren't allowed even if the possible outcome may be perfectly healthy offspring. It makes no sense.

But please consider my first argument: Sex != reproduction

 

hypocrites

[PC_THE_GREAT]

Hypocrites, they used him for his brains, but couldn't allow him his sexuality. Turing was a true computer scientist :), in all the sense, even when it comes to being used by people in power and then ending up frustrated that no due respect is earned from the work done.

Whatever "pardon" or "distinction" one could give him now, is nothing but hypocrisy, the guy is long dead, we do not care about the pardon now, what has been done has been done, and the grudge must always be present against people in power that keep on doing such things over and over.

My opinion is that the government wants the vote of gays and the support of computer scientist (:p No clue why computer scientists :p) .

So...

[JockTroll]

What's next? Germany pardoning the Holocaust victims for being Jews?

He broke the law.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rules are rules.

No one will pardon the royal family...

[SlovakWakko]

...for not doing this before he was driven to kill himself.

He's already dead, remember?

[Anonymous Coward]

This Royal PR thing should not confuse you. Please note: Alan Turing is already dead. It's bloody too late to be sorry!

Well done!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if they cared to work a bit on response times...

Almighty

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks God. Very sweet of you.

LGBT Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

With the outrage at some countries stance on LGBT rights, this is Britain reiterating that it will not stand for intolerance. This won't do anything for Turing, as nobody in modern times with any sense held his conviction against him, but may help rights both nationally and internationally.

It was "respect my authority" instead

[dbIII]

Actually it was really all about publicly making fun of his old schoolmate the current Pope for not understanding what Copernicus wrote but I get the analogy. It was most definitely politics and not religion.
It's a very interesting story eclipsed by all the "they tired to stop Galileo from telling the truth just like scientists are trying to stop confidence trickers like me" bullshit. Since most of us have been raised on the distorted version it's a widespread misconception, like the flat earth myth that didn't emerge until just over a century ago to make fun of historical figures.

Re:It was "respect my authority" instead

[Immerman]

For all I know that may be the psychological reality, but once the Pope invoked the authority of the Church to back his play it acquired all sorts of political implications.

Re:It was "respect my authority" instead

[dbIII]

He needed more than half the Cardinals to back him up on it to "invoke the authority of the church" and barely got that. As I said above, interesting stuff very different to the throw away line it inspired. It's still relevant today because it's an object lesson in poor management more than anything else.

Different branches of government

[dbIII]

The Queen didn't have a choice about the law that sent Turing to prison but she did have a choice about Elton John. It's not a Presidential system.

Re:Different branches of government

[PopeRatzo]

The Queen didn't have a choice about the law that sent Turing to prison

No, but she could have pardoned Turing a long time ago.

When was Elton John made a knight? Was it before or after Prince Charles wanted to be Camilla's tampon?

She's the bloody monarch. Who would have stopped her if she'd done the right thing?

Re:Different branches of government

[dbIII]

She's the bloody monarch. Who would have stopped her if she'd done the right thing?

Reality is a bit different to a fantasy novel. Who stopped her? Cromwell did some centuries before she was born.

Thank you for giving me some insight into the "why doesn't the President click his fingers and solve it by magic" mindset that is a symptom of a decaying US education system.

Re:Different branches of government

[Anonymous Coward]

you don't know much about the British Monarchy do you?

At last

[Pec]

Thank you, Your Majesty.

They made a big deal for being gay, atthat time. Now is almost irrelevant.

Kudos belongs to John Graham-Cumming

[TapeCutter]

Governments as an organisation should reflect on the decisions made by people sitting in the same seats around the time they were born. The "right thing to do" is often diametrically opposed to the "popular thing to do". An official apology is a good thing, it's much more important to a large proportion of victims than you seem to think. Especially when the "problem" is something innate to the individual such as skin colour, sex or sexual preference. An apology is akin to official acceptance (back) into society. I know for a fact that the nationally broadcast apology to the native population here in Oz meant a lot to my aboriginal friends from the NW, particularly those in my age bracket (50-something).

So here's the thing, Turing's was an extraordinary man and their is no dodging the fact he was betrayed by society and his government. So my question is was the previous (Gordon Brown) apology addressed to Turing or did it include the other 100,000 anonymous victims of that barbaric policy, has anyone said sorry to the survivors? - Yes I've googled it to confirm my recollection, and you should too.

John Graham-Cumming: On behalf of all decent slashdotter's I wish you a very merry xmas.

Re:Kudos belongs to John Graham-Cumming

[Anonymous Coward]

One cannot apologise for another person and have it mean a damn thing. It just doesn't work that way.

Re:Kudos belongs to John Graham-Cumming

[TapeCutter]

If you really think that's what is happening with a government apology then I can't be bothered trying to educate you. Step away from the computer screen and go talk to the victims of such abuse, as I said elsewhere it's very important to them (and the health of society) that society formally acknowledges they were treated badly. To do otherwise is universally seen by victims as tacit approval of the notion that "they deserved it".

Next you'll tell me that celebrities and politicia

[Anonymous Coward]

That's crazy talk. The State must send you to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation of undefined duration. Even when charged and convicted in a court of law the VIP always returns to the same social and employment status they had prior to conviction. Commoners are forced into a life of menial jobs at best with no hope of rebuilding their life to the level prior to conviction. Most of the actors in Hollywood should be serving federal prison time yet get repeatedly sent to rehab.

Re:was persecuted (and prosecuted) for being happy

[Anonymous Coward]

He was a pervert, lusting for other men and that was not cool in those days. Not sure, why it's OK now and wtf is this pardon all about.

Political Correctness, which of course will destroy mankind in a few years.

Child molester by modern US standards

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC he was caught with a minor. (17 yr old male). In the US that would make him a child predator (even if it were a similarly willing female).

Just saying.

Turing Cyanide Apple = Apple logo

[Latinhypercube]

Turing committed suicide by a cyanide Apple, rumor has it that is where Apple logo came from...

Re:Turing Cyanide Apple = Apple logo

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where that stupid rumor came from. Apple's logo has everything to do with Isaac Newton and absolutely nothing to do with Turing.

Turing doesn't need a pardon

[Anonymous Coward]

Alan Turing does not need ANYBODY's pardon for whatever deluded administrative fiats masquerading as law he was deemed to have broken, least of all from these self-proclaimed parasites with single digit IQ who call themselves "royals".

Changing history benefits anybody.

[pigsycyberbully]

I don't think changing history benefits anybody it just makes people look stupid much the same as the black inventors that never were. Biuro Szyfrów "Cipher Bureau" codebreakers Polish long before the mathematician Alan Turing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biuro_Szyfrów Cryptanalysis of the Enigma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma Tommy Flowers, Flowers was born at 160 Abbot Road, Poplar in London's East End on 22 December 1905, the son of a bricklayer. Thomas "Tommy" Harold Flowers, MBE (22 December 1905 – 28 October 1998) was a British engineer. During World War II, Flowers designed Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer, to help solve encrypted German messages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers Died 28 October 1998 (aged 92) Mill Hill, London, England Nationality British Occupation Engineer Spouse(s) Eileen Margeret Green Children 2

Ugh

[forrie]

The wording of the pardon makes me want to vomit. Though, it's better than nothing -- it falls short of giving him the respect he's entitled to.

Ridiculous!

[mtthwbrnd]

Completely pointless act and a waste of resources. I want the government to focus on real issues which actually affect people alive today not waste my money on "feel good factor" stories.