The Court of Appeal has quashed convictions against 5 men for "thought crimes".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7242724.stm

Following upon the decision recently by a High Court Judge to release men from "Control Orders" (house detention) - hinting that the allegations were nonsense - what will the government inflict on its citizens next ?

I was hoping you'd pick up on this ITK - a truly disgraceful story, the Thought Police indeed.

Every day we need George Orwell more.

Just not for TV formats.

I'm constantly amazed at the ineptitude of our various bodies - be they police / army / government etc.

ANY right-thinking person would have a natural willingness to help and assist the fight against crime / terrorism etc ... but when faced (constantly) with such things as obvious frame-ups etc, one has to be a little more circumspect.

IF the police were a little more "friendly" towards ordinary people they would achieve more, instead they seem to adopt a stance where they alienate almost everyone they ever come into contact with.

Is the problem the media? Look what happened to Barry George ! After a year, with the police no further forward (and the media breathing down their necks) the simple "solution" is to "bend" the very flimsy circumstancial evidence to "fit" anyone who happened to be passing. Enter - Barry George.

What purpose has this served?

This latest case will no doubt have alienated even more people of Asian descent, and further undermined any hope of the police gathering any useful intelligence.

The Army (both UK and US) have compounded an illegal invasion with abuses and now seem fully intent on trying to convince us that torture is rather a good thing - and a useful tool. (People do tend to tell you whatever you want to hear when having their eyes gauged out, don't they - but there isn't the slightest evidence to suggest that any of it is truth !)

The Pentagon has recently commissioned a report to tell itself what has been going on in Iraq and Afghanistan ... and guess what?
The report says that virtually everything the troops have ever done is counter productive !

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/02/11/ran...urgencies/index.html

Well ... who'd have thought it, eh ?

Prosecuting people for looking at something is very disturbing.
Kind of reminds me of Thatcher's dumb attempts at silencing Sein Fein back in the 80s..pointless,and amunition for Gerry Adams to go to America and show Irish Americans how nationalists were not even allowed free speech.
Better to have this stuff out on an open net,where it can be monitored,than tucked away in hiding.
Even better would be a balanced foreign policy that was less likely to alienate Muslims...we eventually sorted out Ulster with an admittance that there were genuine problems that needed fixing...time to look at the other areas that need the same.

And are we now seeing the return of sanity - and the release of thousands of innocent people who dared look at or think about Child Porn without ever intending to do anything?

Now the biggest problem of CP is one of public perception.
Dirty old men,lining up just waiting for the chance to jump on an innocent virgin.
Well as you know JK this would only fit a small portion of those convicted of these offences...and of those convicted many must be innocent,like yourself.Convicted many years later by a jury drummed into believing that the very fact a charge has been made is enough proof of guilt!
There was research in Scandanavia in the 60s/70s that showed legalising hardcore pornography actually reduced real life sexual offending like rape...so by the same token could those drawn towards this sexual orientation be less likely to physically offend,if they can get their 'fix' off the net,but not in reality?
Not an easy subject,and one that does seem to leave itself open to reasoned argument for both sides...and indeed we must all feel sorry for the victims of real life assults that these images come from.
Strangest thing though is that in many cases 'underage' does very much depend on cultural norms,rather than biology.
Many in the third world marry young..I myself have witnessed a 9 year old married in Iran! But in the UK that would be a prison sentence.
I do have the impression that CP is the new bogeyman,the one everybody wants to hate,we lost the Soviet one,and so something had to take it's place as public enemy no 1...and you could get thrown into jail even for arguing against it.
The whole subject has gone well beyond the origional commonsense objective of protecting the vunerable....McCarthy would have been proud of the results.

Of course I suppose the British Law Lords, inspired by the media, will consider it's OK to look at something when contemplating killing but not when contemplating wanking.

But apart from the obvious Alice In Wonderland connotations, isn't this a very hefty precedent?

The incompetence and ineptitude goes on !

An Algerian pilot mistakenly accused of training the September 11 hijackers has won an appeal against a decision not to compensate him for being wrongly imprisoned.

Lotfi Raissi was never charged with any terrorism offence but spent five months in Belmarsh high security prison.

Although a judge said there was no evidence linking Mr Raissi to terrorism, the Home Office said he was not entitled to compensation.

Welcome to Police State Britain 2008

JK2006 wrote:
Of course I suppose the British Law Lords, inspired by the media, will consider it's OK to look at something when contemplating killing but not when contemplating wanking.

But apart from the obvious Alice In Wonderland connotations, isn't this a very hefty precedent?
Considering one has a potential victim, the other has a definite and direct victim it's a little less Alice in Wonderland.

There is the difference between thought and action.

Oh yes I forgot the computer generated virtual image or the Photoshop adapted ones... thank God we live in a world where victims can be imaginary ones.

But how about the imaginary victims in the photos of "How to maim an infidel"?

There are plenty of victims of both terrorism,and CP.
Of course the explicit publication of either could lead to new victims,or as easily if a fantasy is fulfilled in the imagination it could prevent if from happenning in the real world.
This is by no means cut and dried zooloo.
Photoshop as JK mentioned can do amazing things,but consider if images came from societies where the age of consent was lower.
A lot of what is termed CP is actually girls 16-18 yo...yes true,legal in real life,but not on camera...but listed in the same way by governments eager to look tough on this sort of crime.
A consenting person past puberty is not exactly the same as a babe in arms in the commonsense world..except to some western governments again.
Now I may be wrong,but in Holland,and some American states the false allegations thrown at JK would not have been possible.
For example marriage(and hence sex) may still be legal at 13 in some states,and in Holland the effectual age of consent is 13...reflecting what in many cases is a percieved difference of teenage years and puberty as against childhood years.
Remember even in Britain those false accusers of JK could well have been married and having children themselves not much more than a century ago.
Victims..all to often the only victims are the people in the wrong place,at the wrong time.Not the obvious ones the press would have us believe.

JK2006 wrote:
Oh yes I forgot the computer generated virtual image or the Photoshop adapted ones... thank God we live in a world where victims can be imaginary ones.

But how about the imaginary victims in the photos of "How to maim an infidel"?
I have suggested, and discovered how unpopular it is, the notion that actual photographs are harmful but computer generated ones have no "victim" so are not harmful in the way real pictures are.

On an aside it was pointed out to me that my concept of kiddie-porn is very wide of the mark as I haven't thought vile enough thoughts.

And Zoo, can I suggest that's not the point.

We can surely discuss until the cows come home whether this or that is damaging to people or not in pictures... the point is, should someone be punished for owning something, looking at something but not doing anything?

I can see arguments for prevention that say "yes" but it's a very, very slippery slope and I suggest we've slid down it past the point of common sense.

I was interested to see Michael Portillo and Diane Abbott saying how neither of them expected that the laws which they, as MPs, had voted on would result in so many people being caught up in nightmare child porn prosecutions. I got the impression that they thought things had been taken to the extreme, beyond what the legislation had intended.

"should someone be punished for owning something, looking at something but not doing anything?"

Only child porn and terrorist websites it seems.

Neither are particularly palatable to me...but then neither are my mother's homecooked sprouts...but I see no need to jail people for eating them:laugh: ..as I see no reason to jail people for simply looking at something...however repugnant it may be.

Least we forget how silly Britain has become.

www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c...mp;ObjectID=10408417

"Britain will pay the bill, expected to total

I think Zoo's point (and that of others) is that since child porn is illegal, downloading it and owning it is illegal.

This ruling makes it clear that INTENT is vital and if the prosecution cannot prove it is possessed in order to do something, it cannot be criminal.

Mere possession is not enough.

From The Times...

The judgment said:

JC wrote:
I was interested to see Michael Portillo and Diane Abbott saying how neither of them expected that the laws which they, as MPs, had voted on would result in so many people being caught up in nightmare child porn prosecutions. I got the impression that they thought things had been taken to the extreme, beyond what the legislation had intended.

All too often MPs have simply "gone along with" legislation (even accepting government promises / safeguards etc) all for the Police / CPS to use the new law in an entirely different way.

Anyone up for giving up even more of our rights ?

Agree with everything you say, JK. Did you hear (on Six O'Clock News) that the Judge who gave permission for the pilot to claim compensation appears to have been VERY critical of both the CPS and police?

The transcripts, tomorrow, will make interesting reading.

The government's "terror laws" - ie laws to silence ANYONE who criticised THEIR terror tactics - are in complete disarray.

Unfortunately, rulings are not always adhered to in future cases. If Viscount Sankey's famous ruling in Woolmington V DPP "No matter what the charge or where the trial, the principle that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the prisoner is part of the common law of England and no attempt to whittle it down can be entertained." had been enforced in many cases, a large number of people could not have been convicted. Too often the burden of proof is on the defendant, so I suspect that this latest ruling will be conveniently ignored in a similar way.