Archive for Law
Bloggers behind the rocks
I was a little upset, mildly speaking, when a twitter user @pickledpolitics, who appears to write for The Guardian posed the question,
How does blog hosting impact your legal situation?
and quoted a so called ‘important’ political blogger on UK politics, who goes by the name of Guido Fawkes.
These two people set themselves up as relevant and important bloggers in the UK. Pickledpolitics – Sunny – has, to his credit actually got off his arse and attended a climate camp demo. But as far as I am aware that consisted of the Greenwich, happy clap demo in September, where even the Police got bored.
Paul Staines- Guido Fawkes – who knows what he has done apart from set up a barrier against prosecution, apart from this possible relationship
I digress a little…..
Pickledpolitics posed the question, should bloggers be worried about legal consequence and he was impressed that Mr. Staines had a convoluted legal set-up which protects him from legal action.
Unfortunately the convoluted process is too difficult for Mr. Staines to follow.
‘…Factual correction: I am not legally the publisher. I also mispoke in that interview, the publisher is actually in Nevis, which is not that far from the Caymans. Got offshore entities muddled.
Nor am I “always mostly in the UK” as, so far, unsuccessful plaintiffs have discovered.
Incidentally, I have a mirror site on standby in a fourth jurisdiction. The URL itself is registered in a fifth jurisdiction after the Merrills / Northern Rock memorandum domain registrant based legal attack. I live and learn.
At the end of the day, you have to have the resources and be prepared to fight….‘
Mr. Staines has to retract, he isn’t even the publisher of his articles, so can be absolutely discredited as a blogger and he doesn’t quite understand Geography, but sees fit to pontificate on the UK.
Far beyond this, a genuine blogger stand by his/her posts, many have died or ended up in jail for their beliefs and comments. The whole post that Bloggers need legal protection stinks of tails up the arse, that is not blogging, that is a corporate gig.
They pretend they are important individuals, but eventually the truth comes out, they don’t publish their own articles, they don’t know where the website is based and they really are not too sure about anything, other than their arses are safe.
Anarchy in the UK is published in the UK, by a UK national who is prepared to take any libel action thrown at it.
With absolute disdain and contempt for bloggers on the corporate gig and more interested in their own tails than actually standing by what they write.
This post is filed under bureaucrats, as in arrogant tossers who are not spending their own money.
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UK Police licensed to Kill
The decision by the British Courts today that the Police Officers involved in the death of De Menezes in London should face no further action, have far wider implications than just on the activity of these police officers.
Killing innocent members of the public by British Police officers in the ‘line of duty’ have now effectively been ruled as acceptable. There is little doubt from the information available, regarding communication failures and incompetence that there should be culpability. Yet the officers involved in the incident are being provided with a defence that the Nuremberg Trials deemedinadmissible, ‘following orders’.
- Image by abux_77 via Flickr
The Police Officers have been able to defend their actions by passing the buck to higher authority, justifying their actions that they were only doing what they had been told. There can be no doubt that DeMenezes was killed on that fateful day by officers who pulled the triggers. They should be tried in open court.
It may well be that their actions were defensible against a murder charge, I would not pre-judge the verdict in such a trial, but to decide they should not be tried, simply because it isn’t expedient and the officers involved were only following orders, is unacceptable.
We have a police force which is under fire from the General Public and a State apparatus which increasingly appears determined to defend them against any open investigation.
While the UK witters on about other countries across the world, where murder by state clandestine operations is endemic, we are in danger of slipping in to that position ourselves.
Where is the result of the Tomlinson G20 death? WHy is it taking so long to actually bring this case to a conclusion.
One only has to look at investigations carried out by the IPCC into police actions in connection to the death of members of the public, to see there is no accountability. The De Menezes case may be a high profile incident, but it is far from isolated. Prosecutions over deaths of members of the public at the hands of the police are few and far between, this can not be a healthy position.
The purpose of an open trial with Judge and Jury, is meant to be the bedrock of the British Justice System. This Labour Government has already started to erode the concept, justifying it by attempting to re-write history. Now the Judiciary are also culpable in the erosion of the very Justice System they are meant to defend.
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Does the Geneva Convention hold any value?
In World War one, one civilian was killed for every service personnel, these figures how now been reversed with ten civilians dying for every one service personnel. Does the Geneva Convention still hold value?
Sixty years ago this week, the Geneva Convention was agreed, with the objective of ensuring civilians were protected in war time, but things seem to have become far worse.
Conflicts around the globe continue and the field of military operation has changed, it may not be that the Geneva Convention is meaningless, or without teeth.
Countries such as the UK, which permit war criminals free reign, if their crimes were committed before 2001 they can not be prosecuted here and only people who are resident in the UK, can be prosecuted here, regardless of the date of the war crime, do not help with their implementation of International Law.
The British Government has just in the past month decided to consider pushing this date back to 1991.
It is perhaps time to look once again at the Geneva Convention and ways to protect civilians from military conflict. The areas of concern, do not just include the US alliance in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but areas such as Darfur, Rwanda and Sri Lanka.
On the anniversary of the Geneva convention and the year in which the last survivor of fighting in the trenches in WW1 has died, it may be that the Convention needs re-assessment in light of the disturbing numbers of civilian who are being killed as a direct result of military intervention.
It would also be of value if Countries operated a parallel implementation of International Law, surrounding war crimes, in support of the Geneva Convention and its intentions.
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