

British Discuss Limiting Social Media to Fight Crime - warmfuzzykitten
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/world/europe/26social.html?hp

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sambe
This was in the news almost as soon as the riots started, with the media
lapping it up as an opportunity to get some buzzwords in. I think they are
also considering, or have already used, some mass phone record crawling.

The British government - either party - just doesn't seem to "get it" with
respect to civil liberties. Poor logic comes up time and time again, the
public don't really care much unless they read The Guardian. It makes me glad
I left to a liberal cheese-eating European country ;)

At university a law student defended (regurgitated a professor's opinion) our
lack of constitution by saying that all the important parts end up enshrined
in law anyway and that the constitution's lack of flexibility causes problems
as society/technology changes. I think there's more to it than that - the
_mindset_ that accompanies having a constitution (particularly in the general
population). At least in the US encroachment tends to happen with extreme
events and is duly challenged as unconstitutional.

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nodata
afaik the contents of several days messages from the bbm was handed over to
police to hunt for evidence.

"To look for evidence". This is frightening. Searching through something to
look for incriminating evidence. It's the reverse of how the system is
supposed to work.

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stoney
Is this all that different than the police entering your house (with a
warrant) to look for evidence?

I'd say they have reasonable cause to believe that they will find evidence in
the messages.

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nodata
That's a bad comparison. It's more like entering _everyone's_ homes to look
for evidence.

(and I think I'm right in saying that the courts were't even involved, so the
warrant part doesn't work either)

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stoney
It's not a perfect comparison, I agree. Probably I shouldn't have mentioned
your house. It's more like the police getting a warrant to search a company's
premises.

My thought process went a little like this...

Presumably the police could apply for a warrant to search RIM's premises for
something along the lines of "records of messages used to organise a riot"? If
they got that warrant, then they could go to the physical servers and search
for the relevant data on site? AFAIK that's a perfectly feasible scenario and
completely within the law - even though RIM haven't committed any crimes, I
think they can still be the subject of a warrant. I'd guess something similar
would happen in cases of fraud.

And if they can do that, then they could also ask RIM for permission to do it
without a warrant. Which RIM might agree to if they believe that the police
would get the warrant anyway.

And if they can do that, then it doesn't sound much worse to give the records
to the police for them to search through using their own computer systems
instead of going and searching directly on RIM's servers.

~~~
nodata
My worry is we aren't many steps from "and if they can do that, then why not
host the data with the police anyway" and.. you can see where this goes.

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noonespecial
They could ban shoes as well. That will teach those punk kids. Lets see how
well they riot barefoot.

It would be about as relevant.

~~~
shabble
also other criminal types of clothing!
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article521620.ece>

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Zak
The idea that restricting the freedom of law-abiding people is an acceptable
way to fight crime seems to be trending lately. I find this deeply disturbing.
To quote Benjamin Franklin:

 _Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety._

~~~
sliverstorm
If you want to make an effective argument, I'd suggest you find a new quote. I
can't speak for everyone, but I swear that I see that quote invoked at least
every other week, and usually incorrectly.

I personally haven't figured out how best to interpret the quote, but I
believe there is a line somewhere, an understanding I have not reached... For
example, would you argue that acquiescing to the ban on assault weapons falls
under this quote? There are already a number of restrictions imposed on our
Liberty- even on First Amendment rights- that most people seem to think
entirely reasonable.

(Not expressing an opinion on the article, merely protesting what seems to be,
though I can't put my finger on it, a constant misuse of Franklin's quote)

~~~
Zak
_For example, would you argue that acquiescing to the ban on assault weapons
falls under this quote?_

Yes. I believe in the right to keep and bear arms, and I believe that right
(reasonably) extends at least to infantry rifles and the like[0]. Aside from
being the check of last resort on government power, military-style rifles are
the most effective thing available to civilians for home defense and the like.
While I will concede that those situations are rare, the use of weapons
covered by assault weapons bans in crime is also exceedingly rare; criminals
tend to use inexpensive, concealable pistols.

[0] Bans on "assault weapons" tend to list features like pistol grips and
flash suppressors commonly found on military weapons and rare on
target/hunting rifles. Incidentally, the only provision of any assault weapons
ban I am aware of that actually affected the lethality of the weapons is the
limitation on magazine capacity.

~~~
sliverstorm
I knew a lot of major gun enthusiasts back in California, and from what they
talked about, you are allowed to own just about any gun with pistol grips or
whatever you please, so long as you follow a certain set of rules which
basically revolve around removal of full-auto and the limitation on magazine
capacity you mentioned.

You mention military rifles- is now a good time to point out that old stock of
the M1 Garand, with full-auto removed, is available to citizens at many gun
stores?

~~~
Zak
_rules which basically revolve around removal of full-auto_

That's not quite right. Full-auto means that the gun can shoot more than one
shot per pull of the trigger. These have been severely restricted by Federal
law since 1934, requiring a $200 tax and registration. New registrations have
been banned since 1986, driving prices in to the five-figure range for weapons
that would otherwise be worth less than $1000.

What does enable you to have all the scary-looking features you want in
California is not having a detachable magazine. A detachable magazine does
actually have an impact on a gun's combat effectiveness (it makes reloading
faster), but there are alternatives to that as well: guns like the SKS and M1
Garand have fixed magazines that can be quickly reloaded from an external
clip. So in CA, you can have say... a Mini-14, which doesn't look scary, but
is semi-automatic and equipped with a detachable magazine just like the AR-15
(a semi-automatic-only version of the US military's M-16) and just as deadly,
or you can have a very military-looking SKS that takes a little bit more
practice to reload quickly but is otherwise functionally similar to an AK-47.
What, exactly has this law accomplished aside from making legal gun owners
learn a bunch of very detailed regulations to ensure they're not committing a
felony?

The M1 Garand is actually sold to civilians through the Civilian Marksmanship
Program, sponsored by the Federal government. They also appear in gun stores
on occasion. These guns were never full-auto, and removing full auto doesn't
satisfy the ATF as far as the aforementioned registration requirement; that's
the reason the CMP doesn't sell the later M14 and M16 rifles to civilians.

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code177
Nothing highlights a generation gap like government policy makers failing to
understand the world they now live in.

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highriseo
If legislation like this passed, I wonder how it would effect relations with
the US and the US tech industry. Its all fine and good to try and subvert the
Egyptian government during a revolution, but what happens if the tech
companies try to subvert another first world country?

~~~
sambe
Ah, you noticed that too? I thought it was unusually clever: only if you
attack civilians, we will bomb you; the civilians are rising up against you
with tanks and guns; you fight back; we bomb you!

Media have tagged along as usual: massive glorification of the rebels without
discussing many of the issues or history; implicit support as if treating
events as a football match with the rebels being England.

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qF
In this paper they make a pretty compelling case as to why limiting/censoring
media would actually be counter-productive and make the riots worse.
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1909467>

I have yet to find any research that shows that censoring would have the
desired effect, which to me shows how dangerous politicians can be. Proposing
such extreme measures based on gut feelings rather than sound research could
seriously blow up in their face.

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4ensic
How quirky that the British would consider even further erosion of what's left
of civil liberties, but only allowed the police to use clubs and shields
against looters. Being better armed than the mob one is seeking to contain
would seem like a more focused way to deal with riots than by further
marginalizing their citizens.

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EGreg
The British have had a problem with their teenagers for a very long time. I
saw YouTube videos back in 2008 where a girl was like, "why do people cross to
the other side of the street when they see young people? we don't all carry
knives, we aren't ALL criminals. Why do they look at you like a criminal?" But
the truth is, this problem hasn't really gone away.

And Britain taking a page from the egypt/libya/tunisia playbook of limiting
social nets isn't gonna help matters.

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bluedanieru
It's too bad that at no point does it cross anyone's mind in the ruling class
that there may be a _reason_ for this unrest. It is the same in any regime,
totalitarian or otherwise, that they have a mental block where it is
inconceivable to them that anyone would have a legitimate reason to protest,
that anyone would be disenfranchised enough to riot, that anyone would be
disconnected from society to the point where they find it acceptable to loot.
Just about every nation-state on Earth from Iran to Britain to the US is equal
in this regard. Frankly I'm surprised this sort of thing doesn't happen more
often, where 99.9% of humans have virtually no sovereignty at all.

Instead, all you get are law-and-order type responses. You can't have law or
order when the law doesn't apply to everyone equally.

