The Last Ditch

Unsubscribe from Human Rights abuse in the "war on terror"

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I know that some libertarians and (even more) some traditional right-wingers are irritated by the way in which Amnesty International has contaminated its human rights campaigning by "bleeding" into other, "right on" issues. Liberty comes under similar (and partly justified) criticism. Amnesty's latest campaign, however, is one which every freedom-lover can and should support. The linked page tells you all about it. I have personally "unsubscribed" and I would ask my readers to set aside their distaste for Amnesty and do likewise. I have added an "unsubscribe" button in the sidebar.

Maxwellian abuse of the defamation laws?

Lawyers acting for Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek businessman of allegedly doubtful repute, have persuaded Tim Ireland's and Craig Murray's webhosting service to take down their sites. This, over allegations about Mr. Usmanov which are allegedly defamatory. Idiotically, the webhost has managed, at the same time, to take down other sites on the same server, including those of Bob Piper and Boris Johnson.

Defamation law needs updating to protect ISP's and webhosting services. This does not need parliamentary intervention. It just needs some sensible decisions (by judges who know how to plug in a computer) to set reasonable precedents.

At present, there is a genuine risk that a web-hosting service or even ISP might be ordered to pay damages for "publishing" defamatory comments over which, by the nature of their businesses, only the most antedilivian judge could imagine they had meaningful control. That is what makes their lawyers so cautious (going on panic-stricken in this case, by the sound of it). They should not be at risk. They should be seen as mere instruments of publication, no more to blame than suppliers of the cables and routers which make up the physical infrastructure of the internet.

If the law were clarified to that extent, this problem would be solved. The lawyers of rich bullies who abuse libel laws to suppress free speech could then take the matter up with individual bloggers, who are of course fully responsible for what they say.

In the interests of illustrating to the courts how ludicrous would be the approach this webhost's lawyers fear, bloggers are everywhere directing their readers to the allegedly offending remarks, which are freely available from cached pages. Some of the ire directed at the hapless web-host is misplaced (although their clumsiness is taking down unrelated sites is a bit pathetic). The issues for freedom of speech, however, are very real.

Britain's libel laws are outcrops of medieval codes of honour and now often have perverse effects. Robert Maxwell abused them mightily to suppress adverse comments about his business methods. As a libertarian, I would abolish them entirely. It would do people good to have to evaluate critically what they read in the papers, saw on the TV or gleaned from the blogs. Libel laws tend to lend spurious credibility to half-truth, rather than to promote truth.

I don't know Mr Usmanov. I don't know whether the allegations against him are true. His use of Maxwellian methods, frankly, is all I will ever need to know about him.

h/t to virtually every respected citizen of the UK blogosphere. Mr Eugenides has a roll of honour.

Is this how the Crown Prosecution Service would treat you?

One of the best things about Britain used to be that the police had no special powers or privileges. Sir Robert Peel's original conception was of people employed to do professionally what any public-spirited citizen might do. The genius of this vision was that citizens need not fear their police. They were just exercising every citizen's rights; fulfilling every citizen's duty. The Jean Charles de Menezes case is clear evidence that we must fear them now. They have been set above us.

If you killed a man on the Tube, believing him (on slight evidence and that contradicted by his being too lightly clad to conceal a bomb)  to be a suicide bomber, you would be prosecuted. The police and the CPS would say that it was "for a jury to decide" whether your defence was a good one. The family of the man you killed would expect a trial. Quite rightly, justice would be done and would be seen to be done.

There is no shadow of justice in today's, all too predictable, news. The stark fact is that one set of the State's agents has protected another. So much so, that we do not even know the killers' names. Compare and contrast that with the coverage of alleged crimes committed by those who are not the State's privileged agents. Their names are bandied about for all to remember long after their acquittal.

I do not know that a jury would convict these policemen. I suspect it wouldn't. I don't think the CPS is protecting the killers for their own good. I suspect the objective is to avoid public discussion of the, probably illegal, instructions given by the the Home Office in the wake of the 7/7 bombings.

Of all the dark stories of the New Labour years, this is perhaps the most sinister. I cannot understand why the public is unmoved.

Let's be tough on the real causes of crime

Link: The Home Counties boys who planned murder | Uk News | News | Telegraph.

This gentleman speaks directly to Toynbee, Blair and all those other Guardianistas who seek to excuse crime and terrorism by reference to its "social causes"

Omar Khyam's uncle told the Daily Telegraph: "You read in the papers, 'Ah, well it's because of lack of opportunities.' "Rubbish, what part don't you understand? What lack of opportunities? They had a reasonable education, they come from reasonable families, with very stable backgrounds, financially sound.

Thank you, sir. The twin "causes of crime" in Britain are (a) criminals and (b) Guardianistas who hold "society," not criminals responsible. As Theodore Dalrymple says (writing of an emerging Indian underclass in Britain)

In fact, they have assimilated to the local cultural and intellectual climate: a climate in which the public explanation of behavior, including their own, is completely at variance with all human experience. This is the lie that is at the heart of our society, the lie that encourages every form of destructive self-indulgence to flourish: for while we ascribe our conduct to pressures from without, we obey the whims that well up from within, thereby awarding ourselves carte blanche to behave as we choose. Thus we feel good about behaving badly.

The politicians cannot make people feel responsible for their own actions. All they can do is consistently treat them as if they are. Doing the opposite for decades has created the lie that Dalrymple describes. It will take decades of truth to reverse the damage done.

Yesterday, a British jury and a British judge ignored the excuses and special pleading. They held criminals responsible for their choices. Is it too much to hope for the politicians to do the same - and not just for those whose crimes are political?

Don't be smug about V-Tech killings

Link: BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US university killer was S Korean.

Britain's anti-American media were all over the sad story of the V-Tech killings. They tore gleefully into America's "gun culture" and its people in general. Let's get this straight. This horror didn't happen because the killer was American. It didn't happen because he was ethnically Korean. It happened because the poor young man was mad.

"Ah, but he had such easy access to guns." Yes, he did. Unfortunately, since the university authorities had made the campus "gun-free," his victims did not. There was no-one there to return fire. Most of the victims would be alive today if the university had not banned guns.

Some Britons seem to enjoy it when something like this happens in America, but Britain has no moral standing to judge America harshly.  Violent crime is declining in America and rising in Britain. The risk of being violently attacked in England & Wales is already higher than in America and rising. In Scotland, the situation is worse. Many killed or injured with knives or other weapons in Britain, would be alive and unharmed if their assailants had feared they might have a gun.

The main disadvantage of widespread gun ownership in America is that suicide is easier. 58% of America's gun deaths are self-inflicted, which is one reason you have to be careful when gun control advocates choose to compare "gun deaths" rather than homicides. Only 38% of America's "gun deaths" are homicides and some of those are justifiable (e.g. self-defence).

Britain's only statistical advantage in the field of crime is that our homicide rate is lower. America counts all reported offences. We remove homicides from the statistics if all suspects are acquitted (although the victim remains dead). We might not show the V-Tech killings in our statistics at all, if they were found to have been committed by a mentally-disturbed person (see Home Office Statistical Bulletin 02/07). America's statistics more accurately reflect the total number of victims.

It's hard to say what the statistical difference would be if comparable figures were available, but it seems reasonable to suspect that some of Britain's advantage would be lost.

Burglaries are twice as common in Britain as in America and 53% of them (because of improved household security) now take place when the homeowner is present. In America only 13% of burglaries take place while an occupant is home. American burglars do not have the benefit of a government guarantee that all properties are undefended. Would anyone in America have frightened my wife like these guys? I don't think so. They would have been afraid that she or some kindly neighbour  would have shot them. That fear would have neutralised all their advantages of youth, strength and disregard for reputation.

To carry a licensed gun in America, you must - in every State - have a clean criminal record. Am I naive enough to expect American criminals to obey America's gun control laws? No. The naive ones are those who expect British criminals to abide by Britain's. They simply don't. While, by definition, no law-abiding citizen in Britain is armed; one-third of young criminals own or have access to a gun. There may be as many as four million illegal firearms in Britain.

For most of my life, I shared the common British view that America's attitude to gun control was crazy. However, disarming the law-abiding has proved to be disastrous. The British State can't or won't protect us. We were stupid to let it disarm us.

Can we please just shut up about V-Tech? We have no leg to stand on.

Blair aides ‘plotted’ to foil police

Link: Blair aides ‘plotted’ to foil police-News-Politics-TimesOnline.

I am beginning to feel sorry for these people. Who in their right minds would write down a conversation like this?

'Lord Levy, Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser, allegedly asked the prime minister’s most senior advisers to lie to police by telling detectives he had no involvement in the honours system. A written record of the discussion reveals his suggestion was overruled by Ruth Turner, a senior No 10 aide, who drew up what she believed was a more “credible” strategy.'

The sub-editor at the Times must have put quotation marks around 'plotted' in his headline, not to mark it as an allegation, but to signal that this childish effort was unworthy of the word. Inspector Yates must feel that someone shot his fox. Actually, for the first time in hunting history, the fox shot itself.

Another conspiracy to pervert the course of justice?

Link: News of the World - Online Edition.

I apologise to Guido for thinking his theory about the injuncted email contrived. It seems that police sources have alleged to the News of the World that Number 10 did leak the email itself, presumably so as to try to engineer a mistrial.

I am no expert on current criminal law, but it seems to me that if true this would, in itself, be another attempt to pervert the course of justice. It could form the basis of a completely separate charge.

The "cash for peerages" story is really now irrelevant. If, as some allege, the Prime Minister's team has destroyed evidence, lied to the police and now deliberately leaked an email to the press to compromise a criminal trial, these are much more serious offences. Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice carries a theoretical maximum sentence of life imprisonment, although 10 years has been the longest sentence to date.

Frankly, if the office of our head of Government had really been involved in such a crime (which I am reluctant to believe) it would be time for the judges to break that record. The culture of "spin" which has grown up around Tony Blair is utterly despicable. There is no question that he and his staff are habitual deceivers.

Let us hope that habit has not been carried over into the world of criminal justice.

H/T Dizzy Thinks

What Price Justice?

Link: Law Society of England and Wales - Hot topics.

The Law Society of England & Wales is to be relieved by Parliament of its regulatory functions, so English solicitors will no longer, in my view, be a profession. An independent legal profession is a key element of a free society. If an agency of the State can strike you off, you are not independent.

The Law Society is effectively becoming a trade union and I am no trade unionist. I have watched my wife's former profession descend into ignominy via trade unionism and the members of the so-called medical "profession" are little more than State lackeys. It is clear to me where my own lot are now headed. After 25 years I am therefore cancelling my membership, before my brothers and sisters at law declare a closed shop.

The Amalgamated Union of Cavillers and Pettifoggers fully supported this emasculation. Now it is clearly taking its new role to heart. It has launched a campaign to improve "legal aid" (State subsidies to litigants), complete with blogging solicitors calling each other "comrade," albeit (I hope) ironically. Many a true word, alas, is said in jest.

Ritzy Justice

An Irish judge in the 19th century, Sir James Mathew (1830-1908) is supposed to have said

"In England, justice is open to all - like the Ritz Hotel."

Learning from our mistakes, the French have done their best to improve their own access to justice, as these pictures demonstrate.

Terror alert

Link: Terror alert - Comment - Times Online.

Much as I sympathise with the Brigadier's annoyance, I have to say he was foolish to accept a caution. He now has a criminal record for carrying an offensive weapon. If caught in such a situation, you should insist on being charged or released and have - if charged - your day in court. And you should also insist, as this over-confident retired officer did not, on having your solicitor present for your interview.

By the way, his fingerprints and DNA are now permanently stored by the police.