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,

[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,

[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,

[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,

[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,

[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: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

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.