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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."
Charges should have been dropped. A pardon implies that he was actually guilty of something worthy of criminalization .
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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.
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.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
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 After his conviction, his security clearance was withdrawn.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
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.
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.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
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.