Freedom
If you champion free speech for your citizens you can't pick and choose which bits of speech are allowed to be free and which aren't.
Local US police are deciding whether to charge the friends of a suspect for Facebooking with him during an armed siege. Utah resident Jason Valdez, 38, was reportedly holding a hostage during an 16-hour, overnight stand-off with police and SWAT teams. He took time out, however, to keep his friends and family up to date on …
... you're the British government or one of its myriad agencies, you can (and almost certainly will) dismiss any freedoms, rights or dispensations you fancy at the drop of a hat, for no better reason than that the waft of power impresses that attractive 30-something from the spin department you've had your eye on. You'd sell us out twice as quickly if it was an attractive 30-something lobbyist from Facebook, phorm or Google bearing gifts.
These days we have to rely on Brussels or Strasbourg to fight our corner, so we are truly fucked.
Since when did the Britain claim to support Freedom of speech? It never has. The British have always understood that problems can arrise from people being allowed to say what they wish (inciting racial or religious hatred. Supporting terrorism etc) so Freedom of speech has NEVER been supported in Britain.
Unfortunately, to a degree, you can. Walk into a public place and loudly exercise your right to free speech by yelling your choicest selection of swear words. You'll soon find yourself on the sharp end of a Public Order Offence. Likewise, try preaching Satanism in your local park (actually, I'd be more likely to listen to that than the usual evangelistic claptrap in our park!!).
When Karl Marx was in London he was astonished to see people preaching extreme views on street corners which would have resulted in instant arrest back in Russia.
He was also bemused to note that the locals completely ignored them. That's how free speech works.
I agree (below)that Great Britain never has had a constitutional right to free speech: but, due to the common sense we're rapidly losing, we haven't needed it.
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You are quoting a passage from a letter by one Vladimir Ilich Ulianov to my great grand dad.
The same quote also appears in a few more letters from the same person during the same period (Circa 1902) to a few more people so depending on which source you are looking at the actual quote and addressee differs.
Forgiven on first offense. On the next, a visit from the ghost of Koba may be in attendance.
It is definitely not Marx though. Marx had no freaking interest in Russia at that time of his visits to London and noone in Russia had any interest in Marx either. Interest appeared several years after Marx kicked the bucket.
* I had that posted as 2002, damn... should have been 1902
Facebook has been one legal disaster after another. How stupid do you have to be to still have a facebook account? It is a cyberwarfare false flag platform for those in the USA.
While facebook might work for the Arab revolution where people on facebook don't actually have an address to match their identity for the flash mob, it only goes to prove that in the US facebook has no such protection and will in fact used to harass even the acquaintances of a facebook user, or their activism. Of course the banksters and government officials love it which is why they value it at $50 billion. (An amount of money you couldn't count if you started right now until the end of your life)
While everyone was focused on the government of Egypt cutting their communication lines off, and how nice the twitter revolution. Everyone should have be focusing on what the abusive relationship facebook and twitter have to spooks right here in the US.
my advice is block facebook at the network ip block level, don't let one packet touch their filthy rotten servers.
Is this article crosslinked from the Daily Mail forums or something? Facebook was just used as some form of communication between friends, no matter how misguided. If the guy had used SMS messaging to send the same warnings would you be calling for all mobile phones to be banned as they have been clearly implicated in so much crime?
1. How exactly can Plods ban facebook locally to a specific location? Does not compute.
2. It is difficult to advocate "banning facebook" if the lack of a facebook profile triggers an automatic "this one has something to hide, do exta checks" routine. That is in fact the standard modus operandi of at least several background checking agencies in the UK. So, yeah, you can ban it (or refuse to have anything to do with it like me), but that is already proving to be something not in your favour. Good luck looking for your next job if you do not have a presentable F***book profile.
screws them every time. Undoubtedly it is illegal to obstruct police in carrying out their duties. However, I speculate that by freedom of speech laws his friend is entitled to comment on developing events. The same as if he'd posted it on a blog and Valdez had got the message from there. I wonder which will win out in the end?
Would it protect him if he Shouted on a megaphone to his freind about what swat were doing.
Essentially nothing different here.
Public Shout, regarding police activities, but directed to the suspect.
Should be treated the same way if he was shouting advice phoning advice etc etc etc ....
The medium is not important in this case, as the facebooker clearly intended the news to be delivered to the suspect.
...seeing as the police will shoot passers by, intimidate people who record them (http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/02/v-fullstory/2248396/witnesses-said-they-were-forced.html) and storm random houses killing the innocent occupant (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/25/jose-guerena-arizona-_n_867020.html) then I guess there will be no difference. They will apply whatever measures they see fit, regardless of the actual law.
Of course, the UK police are no better (Charles de Mendez, harassment of photographers etc etc)
I've also noticed (you milage may vary), that some young policemen expect that they can get sufficient co-operation just because they have a gun.
They've never learned the art of old-style in-your-face intimidation that old-style policemen and prison officers do so well, even when unarmed and out of uniform.
Unfortunately, a man with a gun is not automatically scary, and if a kid. comes at you with a knife, your only choice is to shoot him. Or not.
I own several 'guns', yet I haven't killed anyone yet - have had them for years in fact yet I still think. I think about things all the time and have really noticed any interference. Odd, eh?
Besides, with that attitude, you're fucked when the zombie apocalypse comes... yeah, didn't think about that one, did ya?
:)
That's backup stuff - machetes are good too. Problem with your method is that you will have zombie mobs at first, thus the need for rapid fire weapons and lots of bullets. I'm set up to reload too... I have stuff like horse-pulled farm implements that can be pulled by an ATV until the gas runs out too...
Ok maybe I think too much.
Didn't think that post deserved an down-vote either, felt it was pretty light hearted in content. Just disagreed with the blanket statement, any blanket statement in fact. There are always exceptions big and small.
Knowing there was at least one Police marksman outside may have contributed to the relatively peaceful end to the siege....
If he thought there was only local cops outside he may have tried to shoot his way out but knowing there were concealed marksman possibly led to his decision not to fight.
Good intelligence allows one to pick their battles. When outnumbered it is often better to surrender and live to escape/fight another day than go down in a blaze of glory....
...wouldn't you want to warn them about someone in the bushes ready to shoot them?
And yes, we'd all try and talk them out of it just like these people did.
But think about it, what their friend actually did by 'obstructing justice' was to try to avoid someone they knew being shot. And once the police couldn't easily finish it by lethal force the crisis was negotiatied to a bloodless conclusion.
The same argument being advanced by the police could be just as easily applied to the news channel live TV helicopter coverage often seen when incidents occur.
If the 'perp' is watching TV then the same result occurs - he gets fed information about what's going on outside beyond his own vision.
Sounds to me more like the police are just pissed off with his 'friends' and want to extract some 'revenge'.
The friend warned the hostage taker that he was in real danger of ending up in a body bag. Sounds like a fairly reasonable act for any friend to do. How this obstructed the police's work I'm not entirely sure, though if it ever goes to trial the lawyers will make plenty of coin arguing over it.
If the example cited in this article was as far as the "technical" advice went, I fail to see how that's aiding or abetting a crime, unless not getting shot in the head is considered a crime now.
Of course if they were suggesting escape routes, offering to provide a distraction or something like that it would be totally different.