
Thoughtcrime - panarky
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/05/thoughtcrime.html
======
Lawtonfogle
I've been moving more and more to the notion that freedom of speech is an all
or nothing proposition. On a technical level when dealing with systems that
protect the transfer of information such as encryption, this is an absolute,
because the technology that provides the security (and thus freedom) cares not
the content and any backdoor would destroy all integrity regardless of how it
is used. But there has been a notion that laws, rights, and duties do not have
the same requirement. We can build compromises in the laws, so we should be
able to create a system where only the stuff that should be banned is banned
and all other speech is free, no? But now I doubt that, as any ban sacrifices
the integrity of the entire system. Maybe in theory it is still possible, but
as many of us have seen time and time again, theory and practice differ far
more in practice than in theory.

From this, I've moved to adopting an ever stricter view of all speech as being
free. I will not say it is perfect as it does have flaws. But the flaws are a
small price to pay to ensure one of the axiomatic rights is defended. For
without free speech, we lose the power to criticize, to discuss, to be
democratic.

While I know the author isn't regarded quite as highly in the UK and the US, I
think the following passage captures the importance of the exchange of
information being free.

>The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first
object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether
we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a
government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

~~~
kingmanaz
Rather than freedom being defined as "doing what one wants", Kant defined
freedom as man "rising above his animal instincts" (sp).

In other words, it's perfectly natural and convenient to behave like the
"free" and "extreme" tattooed apes pandered to in modern television
commercials, whereas it takes relative effort be polite and follow the golden
rule.

Ask yourself who is more "free", the chair-throwers on Jerry Springer, or,
Scott's Rob Roy who was shackled for refusing to lie about a stranger.

America, given its near constant prating about freedom, is itself in dire need
of a dialectic on its essence.

~~~
ams6110
_Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly
inadequate to the government of any other._

\-- John Adams

~~~
carussell
You realize this isn't authoritative, right?

------
nodata
I COMPLETELY missed what Cameron said the first time. Like, completely:

"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our
citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'."

Obeying the law is no longer enough. Great.

~~~
scrollaway
I've actually gotten depressed at the results of the election. I was scheduled
to go back to the UK in a few months, but decided to move to another country
instead.

Cameron is on a rampage. I've never feared rapid descent into dictatorship
until now. I'm well and truly afraid of what the UK will look like in 4 years.

~~~
higherpurpose
Can anyone share why exactly the Liberal Democrats, who seem to have been
against this sort of stuff, got crushed at the recent elections? Was it
because of some unpopular positions or were there many "scandals" that
appeared regarding their candidates (perhaps about personal issues?).

~~~
Ygg2
One theory I've heard is the way votes are counted.

I've heard that UKIP had around 3.881.129 votes and got only one seat, Green
party with 1.157.613 won a single seat and Scottish national party had
1.454.436 votes and got 56 seats.

I'm not sure it's plausible, but it could be a valid explanation.

~~~
EliRivers
There was no change to the way votes were counted that I'm aware of. This is a
FPTP political system in action.

There was a referendum to move to a more grown-up voting system, but the
majority voted against it. Depressingly, many of those who voted against were
too stupid and too uninformed to actually know what they were voting against.
I could only weep as someone left the polling station proud to have taken a
stand against proportional representation.

I suppose they could have been balanced by people who voted in favour who were
too stupid and too uninformed to actually know what they were voting _for_ ,
but I suspect that is less likely.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The AV system we voted on wasn't actually PR, any kind of PR got veto'd by the
conservatives, and the Lib-Dems were perhaps foolish to try to continue with
such a meagre reform, as it now gets used as an excuse to not implement PR in
future as "the country voted against it" (except of course they didn't, as it
wasn't one of the two options they were allowed to vote for).

~~~
rmc
> The AV system we voted on wasn't actually PR

Yes it is. It's what Ireland uses (that and multi-seat constituancies) and it
is called PR. (Technically PR-STV).

"PR" covers a lot of voting schemes.

~~~
learnstats2
Alternative Vote is a single member constituency version of STV, that is
therefore not proportional in any way.

It is perhaps the only form of democracy that's typically less proportional
than FPTP.

I support electoral reform wholeheartedly and I voted for AV only reluctantly.

------
thewarrior
Ah the irony of this happening in George Orwell's own country.

I think Orwell intended it as an extreme dystopian vision meant to serve as a
cautionary tale for future generations.

Instead it seems that our leaders are using it as a blue print for a
technological panopticon that could way beyond what even Orwell imagined.

~~~
contingencies
Yes. Fun fact: Orwell lived in a cheap hostel in Whitechapel known as _Tower
House_ , Stalin was another occupant. At the time it was next to a Jewish
synagogue, these days that's closed down and it's behind London's largest
mosque, next to a very well regarded (by Londoners) Indian restaurant. Later
the building was abandoned and gained a reputation for drugs and violence...
people used to throw themselves off the upper storeys to effect a quick
suicide. Later on it was fixed but by a Cypriate real estate investor and
carved up in to cheap units. I had a go at living there, and successfully
sublet a room to a guy on the interest rate committee of the Bank of England.
Hosting this social mobility in a hundred years ... not bad for a building on
a backstreet!

~~~
EthanHeilman
More details on the Stalin, Orwell, Whitechapel connection. Jack London
visited it as well.

Stalin "fetched up in London in 1907, living in a Jubilee Street tenement flat
– the future home of Golda Berk."[0].

"Tower House was immortalised in 1933, when George Orwell, in Down and Out in
Paris and London, praised it as the 'best of all common lodging houses with
excellent bathrooms'."[1]

"Jack London, the author of Call of the Wild and White Fang was first in the
line of anarchists, authors and lost souls to shelter here. He christened it
The Great Monster Doss House in his seminal work of living among the East End
poor, People of the Abyss, in 1902."[1]

[0]: [http://eastlondonhistory.com/2011/06/16/stalin-in-londons-
ea...](http://eastlondonhistory.com/2011/06/16/stalin-in-londons-east-end/)

[1]:
[http://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/oct/24/housingpolicy...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/oct/24/housingpolicy.books)

------
panarky
This is all about unintended consequences.

During a crisis, it seem like a good idea to grant more power to police and
security services. But that power _always_ gets used to subvert democracy and
silence dissenters.

This is not a new problem. There's a bunch of literature about this, starting
with Robert K. Merton's 1936 paper _The Unanticipated Consequences of
Purposeful Social Action_ [1].

Maybe the best way to counteract the perverse outcomes of feel-good social
policy is to acknowledge these mistakes and teach future policy makers how to
anticipate the second- and third-order effects of their actions [2].

Stross shows this in his hypothetical Labour Party communication:

    
    
      The party recognizes that that our own legislative program
      of the late 1990s and early 2000s established the framework
      for repression which is now being used to ruthlessly suppress
      dissent.
    

[1] [PDF]
[http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamlin/4111/2111-home/CD/T...](http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamlin/4111/2111-home/CD/TheoryClass/Readings/MertonSocialAction.pdf)

[2] [PDF] [http://www.au.af.mil/info-
ops/iosphere/iosphere_summer06_mil...](http://www.au.af.mil/info-
ops/iosphere/iosphere_summer06_miller.pdf)

~~~
mercurial
> This is all about unintended consequences.

> During a crisis, it seem like a good idea to grant more power to police and
> security services. But that power always gets used to subvert democracy and
> silence dissenters.

In France, the currently in power socialist party seemed well aware of the
"unintended consequences" when the conservatives were voting their own think-
of-the-terrorists laws. One has to think that they either think this doesn't
apply to them, or that they in fact don't really care.

------
paganel
> I'm afraid you can't buy a copy of the Glorifying Terrorism SF anthology
> (it's out of print, and not going to be reprinted or published as an ebook
> any time soon, because of the ongoing VATMESS headache)

I wonder if in this day and age a 500-year old book like "Vindiciae contra
tyrannos"
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindiciae_contra_tyrannos](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindiciae_contra_tyrannos))
would land his/her author in jail. I suppose it would. And I cannot remember
the exact title, but there were books similar with this one, written at about
the same time, which were advocating for even more drastic measures: i.e. the
assassination of the tyrant/king.

Anyway, in the US it has been illegal for some time to say "I want to kill the
President of the United States of America"
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEQOvyGbBtY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEQOvyGbBtY)),
the UK had remained one of the few countries where a liberty of speech
"loophole" was still in place. Sad to see it gone.

~~~
declan
> Anyway, in the US it has been illegal for some time to say

Note the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this threat against the life of a
sitting president was protected by the First Amendment:

"If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights
is L.B.J."

Here's the text of the opinion; it's a famous 1A case:
[http://laws.findlaw.com/us/394/705.html](http://laws.findlaw.com/us/394/705.html)

------
unwiredben
...and here in the US, a major party candidate for president just said "If I’m
president of the United States and you’re thinking about joining al-Qaeda or
ISIL [Islamic State], I’m not gonna call a judge, I’m gonna call a drone and
we will kill you."

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/18/w...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/18/wonkbook-
lindsey-grahams-comments-on-drones-were-very-blunt/)

Hearing that made me sick to my stomach.

~~~
zimpenfish
Even by Republic standards, Lindsey Graham is on the crazy end of the
spectrum. Luckily, there's almost zero chance anyone would put him anywhere
near any power.

~~~
lhc-
Other than, you know, a position in the US Senate.

------
Tomte
It will be impossible to really discuss free speech issues on a venue that is
predominantly American.

America has a very idiosyncratic view of free speech, embodied in their
constitution. Good for them.

Unfortunately they usually categorically deny that any other variant of free
speech, other than their own specific formulation, can ever be free speech at
all.

That ties in with the general feeling in America that the US constitution is
the best constitution there is and could ever be, to the point where the
Founding Fathers are venerated beyond belief, and changes to the constitution
are next to impossible.

To make a tangential point: America often criticizes Germany for not having
the right flavor of free speech. While having more than just influenced our
constitution.

So basically they approved our constitution (after demanding a few changes),
especially the parts that were designed to counter Nazism. Understandable,
after World War II. Unsurprisingly that ran counter to the American view of
free speech, but that was _intended_ at the time.

Decades later everyone is surprised...

~~~
happyscrappy
Your attempt to pin the blame on the Americans is quite tortured. Absolving
the governments who actually pass the laws leads to much worse laws.

~~~
peterfirefly
No, Tomte just knows more about the German Constitution (Grundgesetz) than you
do.

Insulting your betters is bad form.

------
fweespeech
A second foreign policy adviser to Mr Romney said: “Cameron’s contacts with
Republicans are really quite limited, and have been going back to when [George
W.] Bush was president.” The adviser added: “In many respects Cameron is like
Obama.”

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-
cameron/94274...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-
cameron/9427438/David-Cameron-angered-US-conservatives-with-unprecedented-
election-year-embrace-of-Barack-Obama.html)

I think we need to be honest with ourselves and realize:

A) The US and the UK are basically operating under the same "security at any
cost except raising taxes" mindset.

B) The logical conclusion of that mindset is to take away freedoms, minimize
restrictions on law enforcement, minimize restrictions on espionage, and
maximize government's ability to control the message to avoid "leaks".

The only real difference is the US was attempting to do it domestically under
the radar with tactics like parallel construction that allowed them to bypass
the firewall between domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence.

It seems Cameron has decided to take the opposite approach and say "Fuck it,
we are doing this openly and publicly." We'll hack machines, we'll suppress
speech of anyone we consider a danger, and anything else we have to. The
really sad part is there is a large segment of both country's populations who
will go along with it just because it promises to make them "safer" and
ignores the fact terrorists are as dangerous as lightning strikes with
pre-9/11 procedures and funding.

Is it really worth giving up freedom to reduce the risk of a threat that is
fundamentally less dangerous to the population at-large than lighting strikes
or bee stings? Especially given that to do so we are removing safeguards that
protect the general population from law enforcement whom kill more people
(particularly in the US, in the UK the numbers are much closer) than
terrorists?

[http://www.cato.org/blog/youre-eight-times-more-likely-be-
ki...](http://www.cato.org/blog/youre-eight-times-more-likely-be-killed-
police-officer-terrorist)

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-
uk/9...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-
uk/9359763/Bee-stings-killed-as-many-in-UK-as-terrorists-says-watchdog.html)

~~~
vacri
The flip side of the coin is a voting public who refuse to accept terrorism as
part of life. Demanding that politicians do something when a terrorist act
happens, and blaming them for not stopping it.

Here in Australia we've been ridiculously safe from terrorism. If we get a
serious terrorist event, people here are going to lose their marbles, rather
than accept that 'one got through' the net. You see a similar thing in the US,
where the public quite happily throw hundreds of thousands of US soldiers at
muslim countries, but then complain that they die, and that they aren't
supplied with enough armour and equipment. There's a very weird disconnect
going on there. In general, the voting public _want_ this surveillance, to
protect them from the 'bad guys'.

~~~
mikeash
The flip side of _that_ flip side is that people in "our" camp (against
ubiquitous surveillance, believing terrorism isn't the biggest threat,
accepting "one got through," etc.) seem to have great difficulty accepting
that the public largely disagrees with them.

Look at the discussion over NSA dragnet surveillance. It's almost always
discussed in terms of an abuse of power against an unsuspecting public.
Politicians set it up to further their own ends, or the NSA itself is grabbing
power by blackmailing politicians, or at least implicitly threatening
blackmail if anybody gets out of line.

The reality as far as I can see it is much more mundane. Things like NSA
dragnet surveillance are happening because it's what the people want.
Terrorism is seen as a threat that justifies almost anything required to
counter it. The politicians are just giving their electorate what it wants.

If we want to fight this stuff, we need to win the war of public opinion.
Unless the plan is to subvert the government ourselves and institute some sort
of enlightened dictatorship, the only way to get this stuff to change is to
convince people that our position is actually better, because most of them
don't think that right now.

------
burritofanatic
HBO has a documentary on the so called called Cannibal Cop, who was convicted
for conspiracy, a so called "thought crime". He never really acted out on the
underlying criminal act in question, and it's difficult to say if he
conclusively took a substantial step in furtherance of the crime with someone
else. Though, much of the evidence that did stack instead him included chats
and search queries from Google.

I always thought that the crime of conspiracy was ahead of its time, but I
really don't know how it fits in today's context where everything can be
tracked. Not that conspiracy shouldn't exist, but that the world has finally
caught up to the law.

------
JupiterMoon
I would encourage UK based people to join the various pressure groups and
political organisations (e.g. the Liberal Democrat party, the Open Rights
Group etc) that campaign (and in the case of the LibDems actually vote in the
commons against) against the sort of Stasist legislation that Cameron's
government is trying to push through.

Do remember that the UK's informal version of a constitution does not allow
the Lords a lot of scope to change or reject e.g. the Snoopers charter. (It is
convention that the Lords doesn't oppose things that were in the ruling
party's manifesto..) Therefore there is not a lot of time to act on these
issues.

------
vdaniuk
So, is V for Vendetta still legal in UK?

~~~
dghf
Never mind V for Vendetta, what about Robin Hood? Hard-left propaganda
glorifying armed robbery and violence against public officials under the guise
of wealth redistribution.

In the eighties series Robin of Sherwood, the Sheriff does at one point
describe Robin and his gang as terrorists.

~~~
gadders
That's strange, as Robin Hood is a right-wing hero, fighting against excessive
taxation and oppressive government.

~~~
rmc
Depends on your branch of right wing. Some right wing governments (e.g. Nazis)
have ben very in favour of the government being able and duty-bound to oppress
people.

~~~
gadders
That would be the National _Socialist_ party, right?

~~~
dghf
Socialist in the same way that the German Democratic Republic was democratic.

~~~
gadders
Economically socialist, at least. [1]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program#The_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program#The_25-point_Program_of_the_NSDAP)

~~~
rmc
That was written in 1920, before they even adopted the name
"Nationalsozialistische". It's better to look at what they did while in power.
About a year after getting power in 1934, was the Night of the Long Knives
when the party assinated the more left wing higher ups in the party who wanted
wealth redistribution.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives_(1934)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives_\(1934\))

------
netcan
Absolutes are a powerful thing, in rules, in law, in communication and in all
sorts of other ways. Absolutes make all sorts of things easier. Laws deal with
them easier. Technology too. Compromises and caveats are trickier.

That's kind of what rights and freedoms are supposed to be, some abstract
fundamentals we can all agree on that don't need much detail or
qualifications.

The pursuit of absolutes (or ideals) is a problem though. Trying to stick them
where they don't fit is a problem.

------
mark_l_watson
A friend of mine, a very smart local restaurant owner, had a long talk broadly
on this subject yesterday. We both believe the same thing: 1) the US
government and other major governments have been negotiating and executing for
a long time on a smooth as possible transition from the US dollar being the
world's reserve currency to using special drawing rights (SDRs) as the reserve
currency. 2) This will badly effect the economy of the USA for several years
and the economies of other countries for a much shorter readjustment period of
time. 3) A lot of moves to reduce privacy and rights is an attempt to make
sure that society remains civil during this transition. 4) It is crazy to not
be at least a little prepared by having 3 or 4 weeks of water and food in your
home just in case there are supply disruptions.

We also talked about the normalization bias of most people we know - people
are so uncomfortable talking about this that they simply deny the possibility
of this happening. Best thing: do a little prep work, try not to take on new
debt, and after preparing live life and don't worry about the future.

~~~
tosseraccount
Do you have _any_ evidence for your belief that "Special Drawing Rights" will
replace the the US dollar as reserve currency?

This kind of sounds like ZeroHedge style paranoia.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Sorry, in my other reply I didn't state any hard evidence. Assuming my
theory/prediction/opinion is true, it is unlikely that there would be a public
release of information concerning secret inter-government negotiations.

However, this did happen: 1) three countries (Iran, Venezuela, and North
Korea) in the early 2000s publicly stated their intention of going off of the
US dollar for trading (the first two, Iran and Venezuela are oil producers).
2) shortly afterwards, all three countries were labeled "axis of evil" states.
I am no fan of any of the governments of any of these countries but it seems
like more of a coincidence that strong actions were taken right after the
declarations to go off of the dollar. In addition to sanctions against Iran,
shortly after Venezuela made its announcement, the US Navy had it largest ever
peace time prolonged naval exercise right off of the coast of Venezuela.

So, I admit that I personally don't have any hard evidence, just my own
analysis. That said, I thought that I made it clear in my top level comment
that what I was saying was the shared opinions of my friend and I.

~~~
mikeash
Venezuela was never labeled as part of the "axis of evil," which was the label
for Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Correct, thanks for the correction.

------
Radle
I thought I'm fucked in my country, guess what, this has blown my mind.

------
gadders
I think the main upshot of all this is that drawing the line on freedom of
speech is _hard_.

------
Singletoned
More and more, I'm starting to think that free speech and privacy are opposed
to each other.

~~~
adventured
Quite the opposite, free speech and privacy demand each other and cannot exist
without each other.

Consider these two scenarios, taken to the extreme to elaborate a point.

Unfettered free speech, with zero privacy.

Total privacy, no free speech.

Both examples are impossible in a human society (maybe in a robot society).

In scenario one, there can be no free speech if you have no right to privacy.
The concept of chilling comes into action. If humans were robots, one might
say that zero privacy would encourage and illuminate perfect speech because
there would be greater total information and understanding. However that is
not how people function. When faced with zero privacy, people will always
self-censor, often dramatically. We can see this in practice time and time
again, in numerous countries throughout just the last century.

In scenario two, if you have a government enforcing zero free speech, there's
no chance they're going to simultaneously grant their people complete privacy
(they can't, they have to constantly monitor speech).

The point of these examples, is to show that one can't exist without the
other, not in actuality. As one erodes, the other will go with it.

A government willing to use extreme violence (which is what it would take) to
stop all privacy, is not going to give you free speech. No such contradiction
can exist for long. Any government willing to use violence to stop your
freedom of speech, is not going to respect your privacy because they'll need
to monitor you constantly to check against your speech (not to mention a
violent government in reality simply isn't going to respect individual rights
anyway).

