Bloggers are screwed
A coupel of days ago, I ranted about the German plan to make promoting, denying or trivialising genocide a criminal offence, EU-wide (as reported by The Telegraph).
Last night, I saw a copy of the Framework Document. And it's time to be afraid, very afraid.
The document—which my contact will not let me release. Yet—is actually a development of a 2003 submission by the Italian government, although it is the German Presidency that is pushing for a resolution.
The document is highly contradictory, the most fundamental being that, whilst it aims to make the voicing of certain opinions a criminal offence through out the EU (punishable by one to three years in prison), it also states that it should not contradict inviolable rights, such as "the right to free expression." This is a nonsense, as the proposed law quite obviously does so.
Furthermore, whilst it requires member states to prosecute violations, as defined in the document, it requires them to do so under the methods of corpus juris; that is the Continental system whereby you must prove your innocence, a concept that goes against one of the most fundamental tenets of the British justice system.
The Framework also deals with what it calls "Legal persons", which includes companies, charities, etc. Under these provisions, if one of your employees, for instance, says something racist that is reported, your company can be banned from "commercial trading", banned from "receiving public funds" or even compulsorily wound-up.
Most worryingly of all for we bloggers, there are Articles, concerned with "information systems", contained within the document that are specifically aimed to cover blogs and websites.
Under the provisions of this framework John Band of Shot By Both Sides, for instance, would not simply have had to shut down his blog: he would be in prison, no matter where his blog was hosted.
As a British citizen, the British government would have been required to prosecute him. Had he fled to another EU country, that country would either be forced to extradite him back to Britain or put him on trial through their system.
Once this law passes, I give the BNP Website about two hours. And, given my rants about certain groups in the past, I wonder if I should start raising funds for my trial now...
Last night, I saw a copy of the Framework Document. And it's time to be afraid, very afraid.
The document—which my contact will not let me release. Yet—is actually a development of a 2003 submission by the Italian government, although it is the German Presidency that is pushing for a resolution.
The document is highly contradictory, the most fundamental being that, whilst it aims to make the voicing of certain opinions a criminal offence through out the EU (punishable by one to three years in prison), it also states that it should not contradict inviolable rights, such as "the right to free expression." This is a nonsense, as the proposed law quite obviously does so.
Furthermore, whilst it requires member states to prosecute violations, as defined in the document, it requires them to do so under the methods of corpus juris; that is the Continental system whereby you must prove your innocence, a concept that goes against one of the most fundamental tenets of the British justice system.
The Framework also deals with what it calls "Legal persons", which includes companies, charities, etc. Under these provisions, if one of your employees, for instance, says something racist that is reported, your company can be banned from "commercial trading", banned from "receiving public funds" or even compulsorily wound-up.
Most worryingly of all for we bloggers, there are Articles, concerned with "information systems", contained within the document that are specifically aimed to cover blogs and websites.
Under the provisions of this framework John Band of Shot By Both Sides, for instance, would not simply have had to shut down his blog: he would be in prison, no matter where his blog was hosted.
As a British citizen, the British government would have been required to prosecute him. Had he fled to another EU country, that country would either be forced to extradite him back to Britain or put him on trial through their system.
Once this law passes, I give the BNP Website about two hours. And, given my rants about certain groups in the past, I wonder if I should start raising funds for my trial now...
Labels: blogging, EU, news, politics, religion, stupidity, t'interweb, totalitarianism
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6 Blogger Comments:
Once you can still call people cunts then I'm not bothered.
Always wondered, why do you have two comments systems?
Way to go with the BNP slur.
The BNP are pretty careful about what they say nowardays, the have lawyers looking stuff over, strange to say. I'd give their website a lot longer than two hours.
Really under corpus juris?
Jury Trial is not allowed under corpus juris - it has to be professional judges - article 26.1.
Right, gonna say this and promise not to follow it up with any more 'batshit'
In my opinion, this shit fits in perfectly with all the conspiracy 'guff'.
I draw the line at the Illuminati etc
Good night.
DK,
You might remember I've been saying for some time that stuff like this would not just happen, but was pretty much inevitable.
I really thought the Americans would be the first to actually try and restrict Internet freedom of speech; but one can always cu-ount in the EU, can't one?
The problem with blogging is that as a means of global personal interconnectivity and means of exchanging information it grew and has grown too fast for the supranational elites, be they political or commercial (more or less the same thing really) to control; it threatens their interests, which are primarily served by keeping the public in the dark and fed shit about how poor and unfree they plan to make us.
They don't like the idea of people in the USA commenting on British news stories; it seems to scare the hell out of them.
Blogging's great structural flaw, the flaw THEY know they can try and break us with, is that it fundamentally individual; lone white male nuts/political freaks/Guatemalan porn fiends with modems and keyborads.
Bloggers qua bloggers, regardless of philosophy, need to organise, to exercise a wee bit of collective muscle; having experienced the empowerment of self-expression, absolutely no wee Belgian bastard sitting in a Brussels office is going to take it away from me.
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