Internet enemies

Sphere: Related Content

Reporters Without Frontiers yesterday launched their annual Enemies of the Internet report.

None of the countries highlighted in the report are exactly renowned for their tolerance of opposition or their commitment to the free flow of ideas, so its contents will come as no surprise to anyone. Read more...

However, the report still makes sobering reading for those of us fortunate enough to live in a free society who take unregulated access to the internet for granted.

Still, it could never happen here, right?

And talking of splendid ideas....

Sphere: Related Content

One of today's Greatest Living Englishmen, Pat Condell, had an interview published in AD (Netherlands) at the weekend. Read more...

Here is the transcript in full.

I believe the BNP is a racist party, and therefore I don't support them. They're getting more support now because the mainstream parties have consistently ignored people's legitimate concerns about multiculturalism, and many people feel they've been left with no choice but to vote for them. If politicians listened to what people actually want, the BNP would be nothing.

Quite, and while Geert Wilders gets unceremoniously bundled back across the North Sea, Ibrahim Moussawi is given a free pass to spew his hate speech wherever he wishes.

Does Jacqui Smith want to drive people into the warm embrace of the BNP?

Update....

Moussawi will not be given leave to enter the country.

A rather splendid little idea....

Sphere: Related Content

....which we hope may, in the fullness of time, become a big one. Read more...

It seems that disillusionment with the mainstream political parties' (apart from certain worthy individuals - stand up, Messrs. Benn, Davis, Green etc.) refusal to address the steady erosion of fundamental liberties that has characterised the last 11 years of Labour rule, has reached such a pitch that hardly a day goes by without the announcement of a new political party or group, calling for an end to curruption and authoritarianism in public life.

We have been contacted today through Twitter by two such organisations, Jury Team and Popular Alliance.

Excellent. Any action, be it a new political party or a barrage of indignant correspondence to candidates, that keeps the major parties honest in respect of civil liberties is to be welcomed. However, we wonder if such a proliferation of candidates from minor parties doesn't rather defeat the object of the exercise, namely to loosen the big three's grip on the democratic process and force a rethink on their approach to liberty, by diluting the protest vote.

Be that as it may, it's at least heartening to know that there is a growing nationwide animus towards the political inertia and disrespect for Parliament that has allowed such a raft of mean spirited, politically driven legislation that criminalises thousands of ordinary, decent people.

Serious men with serious purpose

Sphere: Related Content

CIF has a clip of former Master of the Rolls and Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham of Cornhill's speech to the Convention on Modern Liberty. Read more...

We commend it to you, dear reader....

The Commons should be a bastion and defender of our freedoms, not an accomplice in their unjustified erosion.

Hear hear.

What makes us hopeful that the COML will be more than just an irrelevant talking shop is the fact that it has attracted support from all shades of opinion, uniting such politically diverse individuals and organisations as the Countryside Alliance, Tony Benn and David Davis in this grand endeavour to restore our treasured personal liberty.

When the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (of which Lord Bingham is a key architect) sits for the first time later this year, its first task must surely be to rule on the constitutionality of the raft of malignant, politically inspired security legislation that has marked this government's time in office, and remove its crushing weight from our shoulders for ever.

Such a shame that the Noble Lord will not be the Court's first president.

A trumpet blast for liberty and truth from a very angry patriot

Sphere: Related Content

A tug of the forelock to Bloggers4UKIP for drawing our attention to this Philip Pullman piece, which was originally published on timesonline, but was, apparently, very hastily pulled. Read more...

We quote in full....

Are such things done on Albion’s shore?

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake’s prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.

We are so fast asleep that we don’t know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation - after all we have an Established Church - or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of?

The new laws whisper:

You don’t know who you are

You’re mistaken about yourself

We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless

We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you

And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised

The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasises about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that:

Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity

Whatever your opinions are, we don’t want to hear them

So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are

And we do not want to hear you arguing about it

So hold your tongue and forget about protesting

What we want from you is acquiescence

The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream.

You are not to be trusted with laws

So we shall put ourselves out of your reach

We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition

You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them

You do not need to hold us to account

You think you will get what you want from an inquiry?

Who do you think you are?

What sort of fools do you think we are?

The nation’s dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth

Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours

We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on

We do not want to hear you talking about innocence

Innocent means guilty of things not yet done

We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence

You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt

We do not want to hear you talking about justice

Justice is whatever we want to do to you

And nothing else

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don’t mind if we are. They don’t think we care about it.

We want to watch you day and night

We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you

We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people

We can see you have abandoned modesty

Some of our friends have seen to that

They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible

In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide

We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural

We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things

One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that:

We know who our friends are

And when our friends want to have words with one of you

We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need

It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law

It is for us to know what your offence is

Angering our friends is an offence

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards

Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms

Freedom is too hard for you

We shall decide what freedom is

Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum

© Philip Pullman 2009

That is all.

Matt's got a little list

Sphere: Related Content

It's here. Read more....

Know anyone who's had their collar felt for snapping Old Bill snappers?

Matt's your guy.

Nothing to disagree with here....

Sphere: Related Content

........move along please. Read more...

On the question of trespass, however, we note that the right to ramble is alive and well in some quarters....