On the other hand, they do maintain offices, correspondents and circulation in the UK so UK law DOES actually apply to them.
*sigh* typing what I just typed to someone else in the comments section who did not read what I have stated 5x over now.
nytimes.com is a US site. It is located in the US. It is targeted at US readers. It is owned by a US company. US laws apply. It is not OK therefore to apply foreign laws to it. It would be OK, and expected, for a UK edition or site to be subjected to UK laws.
Yahoo France: can't display or sell Nazi memorabilia under French law, and doesn't. Yahoo US: it is OK in the US under the First Amendment to do so, so it does.
And you'll notice that nytimes.com is a US-located, US-operated, and US-owned site. Thus, US laws apply.
I've said multiple times in the comments to this story that it would be OK to apply UK law to a UK-based Times site, or a UK-targeted edition of the site (like Yahoo France has to not show Nazi items, but the US Yahoo site does not). See!? Corporations can and do have different rights depending on where they are, and look where nytimes.com is!
It would be unfortunate for the police and security services, to say the least, if they can't make the cases stick after all this disruption has been caused.
Simple enough to fix that situation: don't talk about it to the press! The press publishes things. That's what they do. Police, if they have information critical to an investigation which should be withheld from the people and/or defendants and/or juries, need to shut their mouths until the trial(s) is/are over.
So it's the press' fault that the cops couldn't stop yapping? Nice.
Really? Then what about the slippery slope of it now being OK for one nation to push its laws, values, courts, and etc. on another? Are we now legitimizing the arrest and jailing of Slykarov for something he did in Russia that was legal under Russian law? Are we saying that it's OK for the US to force the shutdown of allofmp3, a site that is currently not illegal under Russian law, which is where the site is, even though it may not be legal under US law? (the details are still working through the courts, I think).
I don't want to see that kind of thing legitimized, and instead of allowing it to happen, those who are subjected to such ridiculous and outrageous acts by governments that are increasingly encroaching on the freedoms of their citizens (just look at the increased leanings of the US and the UK toward police states, something that is ranted about everywhere else these days on Slashdot, it seems, just inexplicable not here) need to fight it and say "No more. You don't have authority to do that."
This, to me, isn't just about this case. It's about much, much more, but people are so shortsighted these days that by the time the trap snaps shut and everyone hears the sound, it will be too late.
This isn't about the UK applying it's laws in the US. This is about a newspaper choosing to respect the laws of the UK in relation to it's presence (physical and virtual) in that country.
"On the advice of legal counsel" -- read, "The lawyers told us not to do it because we might get hit with something by a court"... which, if it's a UK law, would be a UK court.
If it were not for that reason, then yes, I'd love to believe it was entirely voluntary, but involve the lawyers and the entire picture changes from being friendly to the UK pushing its laws on the US, which I worry will lead to legitimizing of the US pushing its laws on other nations (Slykarov, allofmp3, etc). Slashdot was outraged then. Why is it kowtowing now?
It may not be possible to enforce in the UK, but if he owns property in the US, or plans to travel there, then the law can be enforced against him in the US. Which of this do you disagree with?
Huh? You're saying a British law can be enforced in the United States? Uh... in a word, no. Not any more than the US can throw a Russian programmer in jail, legally, for something he did IN RUSSIA that was LEGAL under RUSSIAN law.
the only decent way to conduct business in another country is to respect the spirit of their laws as well
It depends on how you look at it. I see something you don't, maybe. I see an arrogant and pushy British government thinking it has business applying its laws to other sovereign nations. I see the weak and pathetic bowing-down of a US newspaper to uncalled-for and illegal attempt to apply foreign laws to a domestic business as something that will only embolden the US government's also-illegal and also-distasteful attempts to apply its own laws to foreign citizens (Slykarov anyone?) now that its own businesses and its own press permits the atrocities to continue. I see bad things for the future. "Our own citizens are allowing this to happen" they may say. "Our own citizens support what we're doing." Do you really want that?
Look beyond the immediate circumstances and maybe then you'll see why I'm so upset.
Movie quotes are not really good supporting evidence for a debate, especially not a superhero movie... that said, the police should not be releasing information that is too sensitive for anyone outside of the police to know. The press will report the information. That's what the press does. If the police thought anything they said to the PRESS would remain a secret, then they are uninformed and delusional about what reporters do.
Instead of blaming the Times, maybe the lawyers should have threatened the police with violating the laws. But, as I've said previously, UK law doesn't have any business threatening people who did what they did in the US!
I see it, but given what legal counsel is used for and given hundreds of other cases I've seen when it's invoked, I believe it a very strong one. Sometimes, assumptions are necessary, and the best ones are based on known past facts.
I hereby challenge the Times to explain the whole thing, in full detail, from beginning to end, so that this debate can be put to rest.
How, again, did you come to believe that UK law applies in the US?
How, again, did you come to believe that? If you really believe that UK law doesn't apply here, then why are you supporting this bullshit?
If it's really voluntary, then why was legal counsel ever involved at all? You invoke your legal counsel when you're afraid of getting hit with charges for something you're about to do. If you're in one country, you shouldn't be afraid of another country's laws, due to that whole sovereignty thing.
You're applying your national bias to another country, where things don't work exactly the same way.
I'm applying US law to a US-based site. Last time I checked, I couldn't be prosecuted for anything that's a crime in another country while I am here in the US. The same is true for anything else that takes place in the US. So I expect to be able to do so, but this is Slashdot, where all kinds of crap is passed off as perfectly sensible, after all.
Could be. I'd really like to see the Times give every detail about this because otherwise, it really does look like somebody over-reaching their national boundaries to boss other sovereign nations around. However, it really does look like that's what happened, although I'd like to think it really was for a more benign reason:
You're criticizing a newspaper's website for editing the content they provide you. Their content is, in fact, their content to manipulate as they wish.
I'm actually criticizing them for bowing to the ridiculous idea that another nation has jurisdiction over another because of the slippery slope that yields to that I have detailed in other posts.
According to your logic, it's perfectly fine to abuse human rights. After all, human rights laws have exactly zero jurisdiction in totalitarian states.
Seems that way, doesn't it? My actual opinion is that businesses in a given country should obey that country's laws.
Therefore, in that specific case I believe that Google and other companies that claim to support human rights should refuse to contribute to such atrocities as what China does should say "We will not do business with you and effective now our divisions in your country are closed. We respect local laws when operating in any country, but because we feel your laws are unjust, we will no longer operate in yours and therefore will not be forced to do unpalatable things."
Yahoo stood up for its right to publish whatever it wants Nazi-stuff-wise on its US site, when the French tried to force it to stop. Yahoo also operates in France, and follows the law there.
So you do care about foreign laws, but only when they actually apply to you. Foreign laws don't apply to US-based websites.
a law to help defendants get a fair trial gets turned into something straight out of Stalinist Russia.
So I guess talking about cases where country X thinks its laws should be applied to websites in country Y isn't appropriate?
Yeah. Thanks, Slashdot, for completely writing off anyone you disagree with as wacko.
And, I guess you haven't seen all the cases where "on advice of counsel" means "someone will try to accuse us of something, so we're trying to be polite about it".
And by the way, all that stuff on illegal wiretapping? The government here thought that shouldn't be publicly known, too, and the NYT published it anyway and now the government is in all kinds of hot water and other shit for what they've done. The NYT at this point looks rather damn hypocritical.
Actually, I think the fault lies with the people who told the paper what the investigation was doing when apparently they should not have. The paper has a duty to the people, and it believes that duty served by duly reporting information it is given, and that is what news organiations should do.
Why haven't we seen any mention of the "legal counsel" going after THEM? The paper did its duty. The police, apparently, didn't.
Which of course would be expected. It's the censorship "on advice from legal counsel" that I disagree with. One shouldn't be having to use legal counsel regarding laws that don't even apply to you. That's a hell of a slippery slope that we need to stay off.
Why is Slashdot seeming to justify this crap when it was all outraged when Slykarov was hauled into prison (a loss of freedom is a hell of a lot more severe, too) for an act that wasn't illegal because of where he committed it? It's all right if the UK does it, but not OK if the US does? WTF?
Funny how Americans say that, but then bitch and moan to countries like Russia and Sweeden when they break US copyright laws, hell they even threaten them with sanctions.
Whoever said politicians were smart? And they certainly don't do a good job of acting in the best interests of the public, which believes the MPAA/RIAA are way out of line. (My "representatives" don't represent me; they vote against just about anything I write to them to tell them I don't approve of).
Don't blame the general population for the stupidity of a government that wasn't even actually elected by the people, and which continually commits illegal acts with tenuous or no legal justification, never mind the fact that the previous leader was impeached for lying about who he was and wasn't screwing but the current leader has done far worse and no one's lifted a finger to stop him.
We're very much looking forward to these idiots being run out of town on a rail.
Did you even read the article? The law is to prevent the press from basically convicting a defendant in the public's eye before the trial even begins, so as to help ensure a defendant gets a fair trial. And yet here you are talking about dictators and the Falun Gong, as if it were Google in China all over again.
Yes. I did. And if the information released by the officials shouldn't be publicly known, that's the officials' problem, not the paper's. Maybe the lawyers should be threatening them, not foreign news organizations.
I know this is Slashdot and all but the "did you read the article?" accusation when somebody posts something you don't agree with is getting rather tiring. You disagree with me, fine, but don't go flinging accusations.
So why, then, aren't US-based bloggers who live and work in the US and have never been to China, not in jail or dead? Why can I put a picture of a model aircraft I build that has the swastika on the tail on my website and not be prosecuted by the French? Why can FineScale Modeler publish photos of the same and expect to "get away with it"?
Contempt of court for not obeying a court assumes the court in question has jurisdiction over you in the first place.
Publishing a view on someone's guilt or innocence before it's been proven either way is NOT good journalism.
I'm confused (genuinely) about where in the article the NYT said anything about that. The paper presented information about the investigation thus far, details that the UK police themselves, among others, have revealed. Why did they do so if the information doesn't belong in public view?
I don't see any problem censoring any UK website the NYT has. If they want to have a website that obeys UK law, then they can start up nytimes.co.uk. But I do have a problem with foreign laws suddenly applying to US-based, US-domained, and US-owned sites.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, they do maintain offices, correspondents and circulation in the UK so UK law DOES actually apply to them.
*sigh* typing what I just typed to someone else in the comments section who did not read what I have stated 5x over now.
nytimes.com is a US site. It is located in the US. It is targeted at US readers. It is owned by a US company. US laws apply. It is not OK therefore to apply foreign laws to it. It would be OK, and expected, for a UK edition or site to be subjected to UK laws.
Yahoo France: can't display or sell Nazi memorabilia under French law, and doesn't.
Yahoo US: it is OK in the US under the First Amendment to do so, so it does.
And you'll notice that nytimes.com is a US-located, US-operated, and US-owned site. Thus, US laws apply.
I've said multiple times in the comments to this story that it would be OK to apply UK law to a UK-based Times site, or a UK-targeted edition of the site (like Yahoo France has to not show Nazi items, but the US Yahoo site does not). See!? Corporations can and do have different rights depending on where they are, and look where nytimes.com is!
It would be unfortunate for the police and security services, to say the least, if they can't make the cases stick after all this disruption has been caused.
Simple enough to fix that situation: don't talk about it to the press! The press publishes things. That's what they do. Police, if they have information critical to an investigation which should be withheld from the people and/or defendants and/or juries, need to shut their mouths until the trial(s) is/are over.
So it's the press' fault that the cops couldn't stop yapping? Nice.
Really? Then what about the slippery slope of it now being OK for one nation to push its laws, values, courts, and etc. on another? Are we now legitimizing the arrest and jailing of Slykarov for something he did in Russia that was legal under Russian law? Are we saying that it's OK for the US to force the shutdown of allofmp3, a site that is currently not illegal under Russian law, which is where the site is, even though it may not be legal under US law? (the details are still working through the courts, I think).
I don't want to see that kind of thing legitimized, and instead of allowing it to happen, those who are subjected to such ridiculous and outrageous acts by governments that are increasingly encroaching on the freedoms of their citizens (just look at the increased leanings of the US and the UK toward police states, something that is ranted about everywhere else these days on Slashdot, it seems, just inexplicable not here) need to fight it and say "No more. You don't have authority to do that."
This, to me, isn't just about this case. It's about much, much more, but people are so shortsighted these days that by the time the trap snaps shut and everyone hears the sound, it will be too late.
This isn't about the UK applying it's laws in the US. This is about a newspaper choosing to respect the laws of the UK in relation to it's presence (physical and virtual) in that country.
... which, if it's a UK law, would be a UK court.
"On the advice of legal counsel" -- read, "The lawyers told us not to do it because we might get hit with something by a court"
If it were not for that reason, then yes, I'd love to believe it was entirely voluntary, but involve the lawyers and the entire picture changes from being friendly to the UK pushing its laws on the US, which I worry will lead to legitimizing of the US pushing its laws on other nations (Slykarov, allofmp3, etc). Slashdot was outraged then. Why is it kowtowing now?
It may not be possible to enforce in the UK, but if he owns property in the US, or plans to travel there, then the law can be enforced against him in the US. Which of this do you disagree with?
... in a word, no. Not any more than the US can throw a Russian programmer in jail, legally, for something he did IN RUSSIA that was LEGAL under RUSSIAN law.
Huh? You're saying a British law can be enforced in the United States? Uh
the only decent way to conduct business in another country is to respect the spirit of their laws as well
It depends on how you look at it. I see something you don't, maybe. I see an arrogant and pushy British government thinking it has business applying its laws to other sovereign nations. I see the weak and pathetic bowing-down of a US newspaper to uncalled-for and illegal attempt to apply foreign laws to a domestic business as something that will only embolden the US government's also-illegal and also-distasteful attempts to apply its own laws to foreign citizens (Slykarov anyone?) now that its own businesses and its own press permits the atrocities to continue. I see bad things for the future. "Our own citizens are allowing this to happen" they may say. "Our own citizens support what we're doing." Do you really want that?
Look beyond the immediate circumstances and maybe then you'll see why I'm so upset.
Movie quotes are not really good supporting evidence for a debate, especially not a superhero movie ... that said, the police should not be releasing information that is too sensitive for anyone outside of the police to know. The press will report the information. That's what the press does. If the police thought anything they said to the PRESS would remain a secret, then they are uninformed and delusional about what reporters do.
Instead of blaming the Times, maybe the lawyers should have threatened the police with violating the laws. But, as I've said previously, UK law doesn't have any business threatening people who did what they did in the US!
Seems to me like they were exercising the right of a free press to tell the truth when the truth needs to get out when there is public interest.
Feel free to have your opinions. I have mine!
I see it, but given what legal counsel is used for and given hundreds of other cases I've seen when it's invoked, I believe it a very strong one. Sometimes, assumptions are necessary, and the best ones are based on known past facts.
I hereby challenge the Times to explain the whole thing, in full detail, from beginning to end, so that this debate can be put to rest.
How, again, did you come to believe that UK law applies in the US?
How, again, did you come to believe that? If you really believe that UK law doesn't apply here, then why are you supporting this bullshit?
If it's really voluntary, then why was legal counsel ever involved at all? You invoke your legal counsel when you're afraid of getting hit with charges for something you're about to do. If you're in one country, you shouldn't be afraid of another country's laws, due to that whole sovereignty thing.
You're applying your national bias to another country, where things don't work exactly the same way.
I'm applying US law to a US-based site. Last time I checked, I couldn't be prosecuted for anything that's a crime in another country while I am here in the US. The same is true for anything else that takes place in the US. So I expect to be able to do so, but this is Slashdot, where all kinds of crap is passed off as perfectly sensible, after all.
Could be. I'd really like to see the Times give every detail about this because otherwise, it really does look like somebody over-reaching their national boundaries to boss other sovereign nations around. However, it really does look like that's what happened, although I'd like to think it really was for a more benign reason:
ABC News: Times Blocks Article to U.K. Web Readers
You're criticizing a newspaper's website for editing the content they provide you. Their content is, in fact, their content to manipulate as they wish.
I'm actually criticizing them for bowing to the ridiculous idea that another nation has jurisdiction over another because of the slippery slope that yields to that I have detailed in other posts.
According to your logic, it's perfectly fine to abuse human rights. After all, human rights laws have exactly zero jurisdiction in totalitarian states.
Seems that way, doesn't it? My actual opinion is that businesses in a given country should obey that country's laws.
Therefore, in that specific case I believe that Google and other companies that claim to support human rights should refuse to contribute to such atrocities as what China does should say "We will not do business with you and effective now our divisions in your country are closed. We respect local laws when operating in any country, but because we feel your laws are unjust, we will no longer operate in yours and therefore will not be forced to do unpalatable things."
Not really.
Yahoo stood up for its right to publish whatever it wants Nazi-stuff-wise on its US site, when the French tried to force it to stop. Yahoo also operates in France, and follows the law there.
So you do care about foreign laws, but only when they actually apply to you. Foreign laws don't apply to US-based websites.
a law to help defendants get a fair trial gets turned into something straight out of Stalinist Russia.
So I guess talking about cases where country X thinks its laws should be applied to websites in country Y isn't appropriate?
Yeah. Thanks, Slashdot, for completely writing off anyone you disagree with as wacko.
And, I guess you haven't seen all the cases where "on advice of counsel" means "someone will try to accuse us of something, so we're trying to be polite about it".
And by the way, all that stuff on illegal wiretapping? The government here thought that shouldn't be publicly known, too, and the NYT published it anyway and now the government is in all kinds of hot water and other shit for what they've done. The NYT at this point looks rather damn hypocritical.
Actually, I think the fault lies with the people who told the paper what the investigation was doing when apparently they should not have. The paper has a duty to the people, and it believes that duty served by duly reporting information it is given, and that is what news organiations should do.
Why haven't we seen any mention of the "legal counsel" going after THEM? The paper did its duty. The police, apparently, didn't.
Which of course would be expected. It's the censorship "on advice from legal counsel" that I disagree with. One shouldn't be having to use legal counsel regarding laws that don't even apply to you. That's a hell of a slippery slope that we need to stay off.
Why is Slashdot seeming to justify this crap when it was all outraged when Slykarov was hauled into prison (a loss of freedom is a hell of a lot more severe, too) for an act that wasn't illegal because of where he committed it? It's all right if the UK does it, but not OK if the US does? WTF?
Funny how Americans say that, but then bitch and moan to countries like Russia and Sweeden when they break US copyright laws, hell they even threaten them with sanctions.
Whoever said politicians were smart? And they certainly don't do a good job of acting in the best interests of the public, which believes the MPAA/RIAA are way out of line. (My "representatives" don't represent me; they vote against just about anything I write to them to tell them I don't approve of).
Don't blame the general population for the stupidity of a government that wasn't even actually elected by the people, and which continually commits illegal acts with tenuous or no legal justification, never mind the fact that the previous leader was impeached for lying about who he was and wasn't screwing but the current leader has done far worse and no one's lifted a finger to stop him.
We're very much looking forward to these idiots being run out of town on a rail.
"Sounds French" = intended specifically for French audiences, owned by the French division of Yahoo. It's French.
Did you even read the article? The law is to prevent the press from basically convicting a defendant in the public's eye before the trial even begins, so as to help ensure a defendant gets a fair trial. And yet here you are talking about dictators and the Falun Gong, as if it were Google in China all over again.
Yes. I did. And if the information released by the officials shouldn't be publicly known, that's the officials' problem, not the paper's. Maybe the lawyers should be threatening them, not foreign news organizations.
I know this is Slashdot and all but the "did you read the article?" accusation when somebody posts something you don't agree with is getting rather tiring. You disagree with me, fine, but don't go flinging accusations.
So why, then, aren't US-based bloggers who live and work in the US and have never been to China, not in jail or dead? Why can I put a picture of a model aircraft I build that has the swastika on the tail on my website and not be prosecuted by the French? Why can FineScale Modeler publish photos of the same and expect to "get away with it"?
Contempt of court for not obeying a court assumes the court in question has jurisdiction over you in the first place.
Publishing a view on someone's guilt or innocence before it's been proven either way is NOT good journalism.
I'm confused (genuinely) about where in the article the NYT said anything about that. The paper presented information about the investigation thus far, details that the UK police themselves, among others, have revealed. Why did they do so if the information doesn't belong in public view?
I don't see any problem censoring any UK website the NYT has. If they want to have a website that obeys UK law, then they can start up nytimes.co.uk. But I do have a problem with foreign laws suddenly applying to US-based, US-domained, and US-owned sites.