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.
The phrase used in the legislation is "in the course of a business" it doesn't require a direct sale of the infringing work or even for a profit to be made -- distribution or public exhibition of the infringing work is enough. A better analogy would be exhibiting a film without the copyright holders permission in order to drive sales of popcorn.
Almost. You will successfully defend a libel case if you can prove that the defamatory statements are substantially true, regardless of whether privacy was breached. What has changed is that it has become somewhat easier to win a claim for breach of privacy: Human rights law in England recognises both the right to freedom of expression and the right to a private and family life and courts have been left to try to balance these competing rights whilst Parliament dodges the issue.
I don't agree that the choices for parents trying to do their best should be limited to total surveillance of their children or total abstinence from internet use. The Internet is not just a toy for geeks any more, it is an important part of culture and community. Good parenting is as much about setting boundaries and allowing children freedom within those boundaries. The problem is that setting up and managing your own content filters demands skills that most people don't have and, with increasing numbers of internet-connected devices in homes, device-level filtering is becoming impractical. For most parents who want to place boundaries on their children's internet use the only reasonable way to do this is an off-the-peg solution at ISP level. The only burden on those who want an unfiltered connection is an extra click when signing up for a new ISP, which is a very small price to pay for the expansion of choice that this scheme provides. Nobody's pretending these filters are perfect, or that a determined child won't find ways round them, but at least if they do this they know they've crossed the boundary that has been set for them.
The voting system is only one factor favouring the entrenched two party system in the USA; Other countries with plurality systems typically have more than two significant parties. A more important factor in entrenching the two party system in the USA is the idealogical promiscuity of the main parties -- they happily accommodate extreme views and do not impose party discipline on elected representatives.
Green parties have been at the forefront of the fight against software patents and for digital rights in Europe since before the first Pirate Party was founded. It's just that they don't think it's the only important issue.
The number of entries for GCSE ICT has halved in the last five years, and not because the course is insufficiently challenging or technical. The reason is that due to the league tables schools have a powerful incentive to push their students into worthless 'vocational' courses that are even easier and duller than GCSE. Making the GCSE more technically challenging will not improve this state of affairs.
In fact the rural poor do significantly worse than the urban poor in England, and the gap is greater the further you get from the big cities. I can think of at least two reasons for this: rural schools are less well funded than urban schools, and access to pre-school and nursery care is worse in rural areas.
English law is at the other end of the exclusionary-inclusionary scale from the US, with Scotland somewhere in the middle. In general English courts will admit improperly obtained evidence so long as it is relevant and doesn't impact too greatly on the fairness of the proceedings.
It's true that Mr Morris is not acting wisely, but I'd have more sympathy for Techdirt if they were not serving up UK ads to UK readers. Profiting from globally publishing antisemitic comments hardly gives them the moral high ground regardless of the legal issues.
'Conspiracy to defraud' is a catch-all common law offence that is committed when a third party suffers a loss as a result of an agreement between others. It is not necessary to show that the action agreed to by the conspirators would be unlawful, but there does need to be an element of dishonesty. In this case the co-conspirators were the users of the site and the 'victims' were the copyright holders.
Until very recently Legal Aid and no-win no-fee arrangements were not available for libel, so the libel court was inaccessible to all but the wealthiest individuals. The British press exploited this by regularly defaming people without any fear of legal retribution. The law remained claimant-friendly since those cases that made it to court were almost invariably the strongest cases. Whilst it would be personally bad for Simon Singh if he lost this case such an affront to common sense could provide the momentum for the law to be changed.
I think it's just you. One thing of which the Labour governments since 1997 cannot be accused is not taking LGBT rights seriously -- they have pushed through legislation addressing discrimination despite concerted opposition on several occasions. This petition gives the government the opportunity to say something they are happy to say.
That is an utterly ridiculous claim. The reason why the WTO ruled against the USA is because it is clearly in breach of its obligations under the treaties. The WTO has held that the USA has the right within the treaties to ban remote gambling, but that they haven't completely banned remote gambling, instead they have restrictions that unfairly discriminate in favour of US-based operators. The USA can resolve the problem either by completely banning remote gambling or by ending the discrimination. There are apparently domestic political difficulties that prevent the USA from following either course, but that is irrelevant in determining whether the USA has adhered to the rules it agreed to be bound by.
There's probably about half a dozen sites in my whitelist, and they are those that I value and that have politely requested that I disable ABP on their site. My motivation for blocking by default is that I don't like ads. On the rare occasions that I watch commercial TV, visit the cinema or read a print magazine I find the ads intrusive and irritating, but the amount and type of advertising in these media is predictable in advance and I can make an informed choice about whether I want to expose myself to it. The WWW is different -- it is a mixture of commercial and non-commercial content and generally there is no way of predicting in advance whether a site is saturated with annoying ads, has a few discreet text ads or is ad-free. ABP gives me the same ability to control how much advertising I am exposed to as with other media. If ABP decide to subvert this by adding nag banners or popups at the behest of websites then the first fork that removes this will get my donation.
This already happens - the UN observes US federal elections indirectly through a mandate to the OSCE (http://www.osce.org/odihr-elections/14676.html). Each time they report that US elections are generally free and fair, and each time report the same defects that need to be addressed: Lack of transparency in electronic voting, inconsistent registration procedures, disenfranchisement of felons and DC residents, gerrymandering, burdensome ballot access requirements, conflicts of interests for election officials, and that in some areas voters party affiliation is made public.
Firearms have no particular cultural or constitutional significance in Great Britain. US law may be based on English common law, but the reverse isn't true. The right to bear arms in English Law has always been restricted to those weapons that were suitable for the purpose of self-defence. In a society where the probability of encountering a gun-wielding assailant is very small there are few individuals for whom a handgun is a suitable defensive weapon. Gun ownership has never been widespread in Britain and most people would prefer to keep it that way, regardless of constitutional controversies in foreign lands.
So where on Earth did these guys get their agenda from? Why the fuck are they pushing for stuff like that? What's wrong with these people? That's not how being a liberal is supposed to be.
The Labour party isn't a liberal party, it's a populist pro-business centre right (by European standards) party. It's platform since the early 1990s has been "the third way", i.e. the pursuit of egalitarian aims such as reducing poverty and improving education coupled with traditionally right-wing concerns such as the promotion of market capitalism and reduction in crime. Individual liberty is low on their agenda. They promised a fairer and more prosperous society, not a freer society.
The UK government's position is easy to understand when you consider that, unlike most EU countries, the UK is a net exporter of cultural goods. The short-term interests of an important sector of the UK economy would be threatened by the introduction of net neutrality.
In the UK the amount of TV watched by children has fallen to an average of 2.7 hours per day (much of which is non-commercial), and time spent on computers and consoles has risen to 2.8 hours per day. If you want to remind parents that a sedentary lifestyle is associated with future poor health for their children then it makes sense to focus on those sedentary activities that are increasing in popularity rather than those that are already in decline.
It's not a lack of resources that's the problem - IT in state schools is often as well provisioned as in independent schools. It's the tyranny of the league tables that leads state schools into subjecting students to any number of highly prescriptive "vocational" courses that are not valued by employers but score highly in the league tables.
The difference between now and then is that in the 1950s 'O' levels were taken by about 20% of school children and were designed by the universities to prepare students for further study. GCSEs serve a different purpose: They are designed to be accessible to all students and to measure a broader range of skills and knowledge. GCSEs are certainly easier than 'O' levels, but they do the job they are designed to do well.
The problem is not with the exams; there's no good educational reason why bright students shouldn't study more advanced courses than GCSE before the end of Year 11. The problem is with the league tables that put schools under enormous pressure to raise their headline figures. This has all sorts of unfortunate consequences such as the concentration of resources on borderline students to the detriment of the strongest and weakest students.
Slashdot Mirror
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.
The phrase used in the legislation is "in the course of a business" it doesn't require a direct sale of the infringing work or even for a profit to be made -- distribution or public exhibition of the infringing work is enough. A better analogy would be exhibiting a film without the copyright holders permission in order to drive sales of popcorn.
That was concerned with breach of privacy rather than defamation.
You understanding is faulty. Justification (truth) is a complete defence in English law.
Almost. You will successfully defend a libel case if you can prove that the defamatory statements are substantially true, regardless of whether privacy was breached. What has changed is that it has become somewhat easier to win a claim for breach of privacy: Human rights law in England recognises both the right to freedom of expression and the right to a private and family life and courts have been left to try to balance these competing rights whilst Parliament dodges the issue.
I don't agree that the choices for parents trying to do their best should be limited to total surveillance of their children or total abstinence from internet use. The Internet is not just a toy for geeks any more, it is an important part of culture and community. Good parenting is as much about setting boundaries and allowing children freedom within those boundaries. The problem is that setting up and managing your own content filters demands skills that most people don't have and, with increasing numbers of internet-connected devices in homes, device-level filtering is becoming impractical. For most parents who want to place boundaries on their children's internet use the only reasonable way to do this is an off-the-peg solution at ISP level. The only burden on those who want an unfiltered connection is an extra click when signing up for a new ISP, which is a very small price to pay for the expansion of choice that this scheme provides. Nobody's pretending these filters are perfect, or that a determined child won't find ways round them, but at least if they do this they know they've crossed the boundary that has been set for them.
The voting system is only one factor favouring the entrenched two party system in the USA; Other countries with plurality systems typically have more than two significant parties. A more important factor in entrenching the two party system in the USA is the idealogical promiscuity of the main parties -- they happily accommodate extreme views and do not impose party discipline on elected representatives.
This is false. In England and Wales it is a complete defence to show that the defamatory imputation is substantially true.
Green parties have been at the forefront of the fight against software patents and for digital rights in Europe since before the first Pirate Party was founded. It's just that they don't think it's the only important issue.
The number of entries for GCSE ICT has halved in the last five years, and not because the course is insufficiently challenging or technical. The reason is that due to the league tables schools have a powerful incentive to push their students into worthless 'vocational' courses that are even easier and duller than GCSE. Making the GCSE more technically challenging will not improve this state of affairs.
In fact the rural poor do significantly worse than the urban poor in England, and the gap is greater the further you get from the big cities. I can think of at least two reasons for this: rural schools are less well funded than urban schools, and access to pre-school and nursery care is worse in rural areas.
English law is at the other end of the exclusionary-inclusionary scale from the US, with Scotland somewhere in the middle. In general English courts will admit improperly obtained evidence so long as it is relevant and doesn't impact too greatly on the fairness of the proceedings.
It's true that Mr Morris is not acting wisely, but I'd have more sympathy for Techdirt if they were not serving up UK ads to UK readers. Profiting from globally publishing antisemitic comments hardly gives them the moral high ground regardless of the legal issues.
Since your core policies are very similar to those of the Green Party on these issues, will you be supporting the Green Party in their target seats?
'Conspiracy to defraud' is a catch-all common law offence that is committed when a third party suffers a loss as a result of an agreement between others. It is not necessary to show that the action agreed to by the conspirators would be unlawful, but there does need to be an element of dishonesty. In this case the co-conspirators were the users of the site and the 'victims' were the copyright holders.
Until very recently Legal Aid and no-win no-fee arrangements were not available for libel, so the libel court was inaccessible to all but the wealthiest individuals. The British press exploited this by regularly defaming people without any fear of legal retribution. The law remained claimant-friendly since those cases that made it to court were almost invariably the strongest cases. Whilst it would be personally bad for Simon Singh if he lost this case such an affront to common sense could provide the momentum for the law to be changed.
I think it's just you. One thing of which the Labour governments since 1997 cannot be accused is not taking LGBT rights seriously -- they have pushed through legislation addressing discrimination despite concerted opposition on several occasions. This petition gives the government the opportunity to say something they are happy to say.
That is an utterly ridiculous claim. The reason why the WTO ruled against the USA is because it is clearly in breach of its obligations under the treaties. The WTO has held that the USA has the right within the treaties to ban remote gambling, but that they haven't completely banned remote gambling, instead they have restrictions that unfairly discriminate in favour of US-based operators. The USA can resolve the problem either by completely banning remote gambling or by ending the discrimination. There are apparently domestic political difficulties that prevent the USA from following either course, but that is irrelevant in determining whether the USA has adhered to the rules it agreed to be bound by.
There's probably about half a dozen sites in my whitelist, and they are those that I value and that have politely requested that I disable ABP on their site. My motivation for blocking by default is that I don't like ads. On the rare occasions that I watch commercial TV, visit the cinema or read a print magazine I find the ads intrusive and irritating, but the amount and type of advertising in these media is predictable in advance and I can make an informed choice about whether I want to expose myself to it. The WWW is different -- it is a mixture of commercial and non-commercial content and generally there is no way of predicting in advance whether a site is saturated with annoying ads, has a few discreet text ads or is ad-free. ABP gives me the same ability to control how much advertising I am exposed to as with other media. If ABP decide to subvert this by adding nag banners or popups at the behest of websites then the first fork that removes this will get my donation.
This already happens - the UN observes US federal elections indirectly through a mandate to the OSCE (http://www.osce.org/odihr-elections/14676.html). Each time they report that US elections are generally free and fair, and each time report the same defects that need to be addressed: Lack of transparency in electronic voting, inconsistent registration procedures, disenfranchisement of felons and DC residents, gerrymandering, burdensome ballot access requirements, conflicts of interests for election officials, and that in some areas voters party affiliation is made public.
Firearms have no particular cultural or constitutional significance in Great Britain. US law may be based on English common law, but the reverse isn't true. The right to bear arms in English Law has always been restricted to those weapons that were suitable for the purpose of self-defence. In a society where the probability of encountering a gun-wielding assailant is very small there are few individuals for whom a handgun is a suitable defensive weapon. Gun ownership has never been widespread in Britain and most people would prefer to keep it that way, regardless of constitutional controversies in foreign lands.
The Labour party isn't a liberal party, it's a populist pro-business centre right (by European standards) party. It's platform since the early 1990s has been "the third way", i.e. the pursuit of egalitarian aims such as reducing poverty and improving education coupled with traditionally right-wing concerns such as the promotion of market capitalism and reduction in crime. Individual liberty is low on their agenda. They promised a fairer and more prosperous society, not a freer society. The UK government's position is easy to understand when you consider that, unlike most EU countries, the UK is a net exporter of cultural goods. The short-term interests of an important sector of the UK economy would be threatened by the introduction of net neutrality.
In the UK the amount of TV watched by children has fallen to an average of 2.7 hours per day (much of which is non-commercial), and time spent on computers and consoles has risen to 2.8 hours per day. If you want to remind parents that a sedentary lifestyle is associated with future poor health for their children then it makes sense to focus on those sedentary activities that are increasing in popularity rather than those that are already in decline.
It's not a lack of resources that's the problem - IT in state schools is often as well provisioned as in independent schools. It's the tyranny of the league tables that leads state schools into subjecting students to any number of highly prescriptive "vocational" courses that are not valued by employers but score highly in the league tables.
The difference between now and then is that in the 1950s 'O' levels were taken by about 20% of school children and were designed by the universities to prepare students for further study. GCSEs serve a different purpose: They are designed to be accessible to all students and to measure a broader range of skills and knowledge. GCSEs are certainly easier than 'O' levels, but they do the job they are designed to do well. The problem is not with the exams; there's no good educational reason why bright students shouldn't study more advanced courses than GCSE before the end of Year 11. The problem is with the league tables that put schools under enormous pressure to raise their headline figures. This has all sorts of unfortunate consequences such as the concentration of resources on borderline students to the detriment of the strongest and weakest students.