To the UK spokesman: What does "remit" actually mean over there? We use the word most commonly as in, "Please remit $10 as full payment for product, handling and shipping charges." I do understand the British and Australian English languages are very different from that used in this former colony.
Being trained by police definitely does not carry the same confidence here as it apparently does in your country. Here most police understand their job as arresting people, while avoiding being sued for false arrest as much of the time as possible, and letting the courts sort out the guilt. And even then guilt is recognized as not the same as simple truth. But you are clear that the goal is censorship on the basis of what one group decides is unwanted whenever that is feasible regardless of what other(s) may have chosen. I am reminded of a law in Virginia (when it was yet under control of a foreign power) that made it "illegal to bring up your child in an unChristianlike manner" even if you were not a member of a Christian religious sect; that is, unless you studied and followed the child rearing practices of a Christian religious sect, even if you had never hear of Christianity. Perhaps that was the justification for killing American Indians and Australian aboriginal. Ah, well, freedom does have to be known before it can be fought for. > [Original Message] > From: Jim Dixon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: 6/6/2004 5:33:19 PM > Subject: Re: [freenet-support] British Telecom starting mass censorship ofWeb sites > > On Sun, 6 Jun 2004, Nomen Nescio wrote: > > > First they came for the child porn sites ... > > http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1232422,00.html > > Discussion on http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/06/06/132200.shtml > > > > Blocking connections to Freenet nodes will be only a matter of time, > > so what should we do to prevent them from getting on the blacklists? > > This is an Internet Watch Foundation (http://www.iwf.org.uk) project. The > IWF was set up around eight years ago. They have a very clearly defined > remit: identifying Internet sites that are in violation of UK laws > relating to child pornography. Their staff are trained by the police, so > presumably if they say that a Web site is breaking the law, there is a > very high probability that it is. > > In the lifetime of the IWF, there have been many attempts to widen its > remit and change its role. This represents the second major change. The > first was to add criminally racist material to the range of content which > the IWF concerns itself with. BT seems to have maintained the original > focus. That is, they are censoring child porn but not racist sites. > > When IWF was established, there was a lot of pressure on industry to > censor such Web sites. The only reason that censorship was not imposed > was that it was technically impossible. It is now techncally possible to > censor specific Web sites, so it is being done. It is _not_ technically > possible to censor Usenet news, so that isn't being done. > > The point is that it has taken eight years to take this step, despite > often very strong agitation in this direction from the press and in > Parliament. It is well worth noting that the Observer was one of the > main agitators for muzzling of the Internet in the early days -- the > IWF was founded in direct reaction to a front page article in the Observer > about child pornography on the Internet. > > There is no reason to believe that Freenet and similar activities are > at any risk of being censored any time in the near future. Freenet is > much too small, and the machinery of government in the UK is much too > cumbersome. > > -- > Jim Dixon [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel +44 117 982 0786 mobile +44 797 373 7881 > http://jxcl.sourceforge.net Java unit test coverage > http://xlattice.sourceforge.net p2p communications infrastructure > _______________________________________________ > Support mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support > Unsubscribe at http://dodo.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support > Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Support mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support Unsubscribe at http://dodo.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
