back to article Terrorism chiefs don't know what they've censored online

Police are shutting websites without keeping any records, hampering government efforts to address online extremism, it's been revealed. The Terrorism Act 2006 granted powers for police to compel web hosts to shut down websites promoting terrorism. But the powers have never been used, and forces have instead persuaded providers …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    UK + IT = bad joke

    As per title

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Yes, the internet is hard

    Seeing how they take the technical contact out of "whois" and assume that's the owner and main perpetrator of visitor comments. Er, yes, very logical. Because on the internet, every word has a different meaning somehow. "Technical contact" equals "owner". Yes.

  3. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
    FAIL

    Rubbish.

    "Finding out who has done something, finding out which server the information is on and where it has come from, is very difficult. It takes very detailed and hard work. I am glad to say that we have some of the best people in the world doing this work, but it is highly complicated."

    Of course it is. It is terribly complicated to pick up a pen and write down somewhere on what grounds a website has been forced to close down. These are the same "best people" I presume, that in all honestly, don't actually know what they are doing.

    Just like Lord Farquar here.

  4. Shakje

    Jolly Good

    Presumably there's the same requirement to log information on three-strike piracy violators?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    Is "Domestic Extremism" Included?

    How much of this "terrorism" is what they like to call "domestic extremism"? As in, you know, democratic action, political activism, and the like?

    And even if the government told us, how would we independently verify their claims?

  6. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    WTF?

    Oh lordy!

    "but it has not really been done"

    Well either it has or it hasn't? Get the old ladies from Mitchell and Webb to ask them why they can't do their jobs properly!

  7. Winkypop Silver badge
    FAIL

    "not really been done"

    Gee, is that like "not done at all"?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why are word feared?

    "But the powers have never been used, and forces have instead persuaded providers to take down websites voluntarily, according to the security minister Lord West."

    So one rozzers opinion is all it takes to get websites removed? Not even a straw poll of a few rozzers? Not even a due process or anything? No proof that this comment can turn people into terrorists or anything like that?

    "We have to deal with them internationally. However, I can assure this House that we are really working hard in this area. We will jolly well get there, and we will jolly well knock them for six finally."

    He's proud of rozzers censoring speech on a whim abroad too? Geez, what a diseased mind. I see he's an admiral, presumably he views opposing views as insubordination? I also assume he was appointed under NuLabour with that attitude.

    "Of course, there are those who do not want us to speak. I suspect, even now, orders are being shouted into telephones and men with guns are racing to this station. But regardless of what weapons they try to use to effect silence, words will always retain their power. Words are the means to meaning, and for some, the annunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country. "

  9. Jerome 0
    WTF?

    Jolly good show

    "We will jolly well get there, and we will jolly well knock them for six finally."

    It's encouraging to know that a realistic approach to the problem is being taken by those in charge. I look forward to the day when the scourge of terrorism has been eradicated once and for all from the face of the internet, and we can all sleep easy in our beds.

  10. dervheid
    Big Brother

    The power of words...

    will, if NuLabour has it's way, be diminished and removed by the introduction of 'NewSpeak'.

    They appear to already be declaring 'ThoughtCrime'.

    Mark my words.

    (Well, George Orwell's actually)

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lions led by donkeys.

    Jolly good show from the old duffer. And I'm sure he'll bally well spank their naughty bots for them too, if he ever catches up with them.

    The disconnection from reality that exists throughout the political class in this country has reduced us to a laughing stock.

    Point of exit: Cape Canaveral

    Destination: Another solar system.

  12. Graham Marsden
    Coat

    Why don't they...

    ... just set up a website where they could put all the details of the sites they've closed down...

  13. Ross 7

    Work on

    "We need to make sure that records are properly kept because we need to have precise facts to work on"

    By work on does he mean to create an evidenced based policy or "work on" as in "we're still working on your car sir - it'll look just how you want it to by the end of the week"?...

  14. asiaseen

    Great guy

    to have as security minister. "In 1986, classified documents about naval cuts West had taken home with him were dropped while he was walking a dog."

    Seriously though, what sort of buffoon talks as though straight from the pages of the Boys' Own Paper, especially as they play a lot of cricket at sea? Jolly well knock them for six, indeed.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wait...

    ...so, the government bring in new legislation for the Police, and the Police fail to operate according to that relevant legislation. Not only that, but it sounds like it was actually pretty straight forward legislation, "Yes, you now have the powers to make ISPs take websites offline, all you have to do is log which websites they are."

    I'm sorry, but I can tell you now that if the civil service department I work for comes even *close* to not operating within one of a thousand bureaucratic, mundane, extraneous and frankly useless pieces of government legislation our CEO personally gets it in the neck, our Director then gets it in the neck, followed by our boss and guess whose desk it on lands on? Bingo! We're hauled over hot coals for hours in endless meetings to make sure this doesn't happen, personally, we know it doesn't happen in the first place because we're careful, it's not hard, being careful.

    Remember people, sh*t only ever flows downhill, so don't forget your hats and brollies!

  16. Martin 6 Silver badge

    @Great guy

    "In 1986, classified documents about naval cuts West had taken home with him were dropped while he was walking a dog."

    More accurately, documents describing how terrible proposed naval cuts would be to the navy were dropped, by a senior navy guy, directly in front of a Mail on Sunday 'journalist' who happened to be walking just behind him.

  17. ShaggyDoggy

    Knock them for six

    "We will jolly well get there, and we will jolly well knock them for six finally."

    Arf Arf

    Fe fer fe ferr

    Arf Arf

    Jolly good show, what

    FFS

  18. Andus McCoatover

    Sounds like one of the last lines in "Raiders of the Lost Ark"

    Jolly Roger: "I am glad to say that we have some of the best people in the world doing this work, but it is highly complicated"

    Raiders: '...top people working on it', as the ark is fork-lifted into storage by a brown-dustcoated old duffer, to be forgotten forever.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Are you guys for real?

    Police shutting down web sites for having politically unpopular words on them? Jesus. This makes taxation without representation look downright demure - I guess we made the right call with that whole declaration of independence thing...

    Given a choice between living in a country with gun nuts and no national health care, and living in a country where the police can quash any speech they don't like without due process or recourse... I think I'll take this one, thanks. And you guys can stay on your high horses ranting about tased college students, and how the fat, dumb hick 'merkins live in a police state, while your government builds the prison walls around you without a peep of protest.

    Or, at least, without a peep that stays up on the internet for long.

  20. Scott 19

    I thought

    The ACPO was an independant bady, cannot we just fine them or something, you would alarge company that was breaking rules. Oh silly me its a part of the boys club, one rule for them, one for us.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    You'd think...

    You'd think that they could recreate a list of which websites were shut down and why simply by printing out another copy of the letters they sent to the hosting providers in the first place.

    ...but of course, as we all know, the Police throw out "evidence" all the time...

  22. dave lawless
    Boffin

    woof!

    @asiaseen

    > "In 1986, classified documents about naval cuts West had taken home with him were dropped while he was walking a dog."

    Not his own dog but "a" dog.

  23. BitBotherer

    @David W

    "Or, at least, without a peep that stays up on the internet for long"

    I think we have now reached the point where taking the p*** out of you guys is no longer justifiable, we don't havethe moral high ground anymore instead we are heading down a quickly steepening slope.

  24. Ted Treen
    Big Brother

    No room to keep records...

    All available record space is tied up with DNA, emails sent, phone calls made and other personal data...

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