The Fourth Place

I’m groaning again - being constructive is just so much work - but again its something highly emotive and in this case something very very important indeed.

A leaked “options analysis” is doing the rounds of UK blogs, I picked it up at Samizdata, where seconds poster Ed says:

Once again, the Government decide what the next authoritarian measure is and then try to find convincing arguments to back it up. That document is truly scary.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Read the document, and notice how it lays out options according to how popular they will be and how likely they are to encourage “rejection”. If enough people read this docuement, the country won’t be fooled, I hope we all reject the card with equal violence.

The document “Northern Rock Summary” has been removed from Scribd

This content was removed at the request of copyright agent J. Afia of Schillings o/b/o Northern Rock, plc

For more information, please send questions to support@scribd.com

I said I didn’t want to use this blog to moan, but having moaned once on the topic of censorship, libel and Schillings the above quote (source) demonstrating the chilling effect of copyright on free speech seems entirely justified.

Guido explains the importance of the document concerned in his post “Northen Rock Nationalised“.

UPDATE: No they didn’t, it was an associate of Murray’s trying to keep the site up. See comments for full story.

Holy mother of God, the Fasthost’s censorship debacle worsens:

On my article about Alisher Usmanov which so incensed his lawyers Schillings, let me ask this question. Has anybody seen an argument posted or published from any credible source to argue that what I say about Usmanov is untrue?

I ask the question because one of the edits to this log my webhost made at Schillings’ behest was to say that my claim was “regarded as false by many people”. I have altered that edit, because there is no justification for such a claim. I have yet to see evidence of anybody, not one solitary person, arguing that I am wrong about Usmanov, other than his lawyers. Who are these “Many people”, and why are they peculiarly silent?

I am very sympathetic to my webhost having to change things for Schillings, but not to the extent of altering things to become defamatory of me!!!

Posted by craig on 3:14 PM 14/09/07 under Uzbekistan

Source

Winston Smith is alive and well and living in Gloucester. Utterly irresponsible.

Fasthosts, that bastion of the web hosting industry and pillar of the Gloucestershire community has pulled the plug on a web server hosting several important (and some less important) political blogs, including that of Boris Johnson. They say its because accusations made by Craig Murray and Tim Ireland at bloggerheads defamed a certain controvertial Russian, and mention a lawyers letter.

“In this case, we examined a website for potentially defamatory material and communicated to the customer that they had indeed breached the terms and conditions for Fasthosts Internet hosting.”

Would someone please pull the plug on this pathetic institution?

More on Fasthosts at the Register.

Links and quotes added 22/09/2007.

Easy:

No Government shall be permitted to initiate any action or pass any
rule whatsoever in relation to the Internet, except to permit
communication by a Government to the public according to the Internet’s
normal protocols or to clarify how the rules of the land will apply to
Internet communication and commerce affecting those within the
Government’s jurisdiction.

I posted the above, half jokingly and half seriously to the ORG discuss list in response to a post on the Dialogue Forum on Internet Rights’ forthcoming meeting. It is obvious that no Government could agree to such a statement because so many groups out there see the Internet as some unique and special evil and there are votes in promises to do something about it.