Y Safle

“An Avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”

Thomas Paine

If anyone was ever tempted to buy the ugly Amazon Kindle, then they might like to think again. Among other sources, The Guardian Reports that in a move laced with unintended irony, Amazon deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984 from customer’s devices! Clearly the books had become doubleplusungood.

So how was it that Amazon broke into people’s private property and censored a book that is itself about the evils of such things?

It seems that Amazon had distributed books for which the producer of the book did not have appropriate permission in the United States of America, where (like Europe) copyright law is several degrees beyond sensible. Whereas many people in many countries have freedom to read 1984 for free, as it has entered the public domain, in the USA many more years will pass before the book will be deemed to be in the public domain.

The upshot of this is that even though you can download a copy of 1984 from sites in such enlightened countries as Australia, you may not make that work available in the USA. Or rather, you may not *sell* that work in the USA. As Amazon only sells their ugly e-reader in the USA to date (leaving the rest of the world with the much better offerings from Bookeen, Irex and others), all books downloaded to the Kindle were deemed to be sold into the USA and thus the work was not in the public domain.

Thus there was a clear legal issue. Amazon were liable for selling works to customers over which they had not secured the rights. This book and others were produced by third parties who merely used Amazon as a distributor.

Amazon on discovering they had sold these books in contravention of the law then went into people’s private property and deleted the items – sometimes when customers were in the middle of reading them. They provided a refund, but that is really not the point!

Suppose someone did this with a paper book. I can upload a copy of 1984 and self publish through a service such as lulu.com, who will distribute to Amazon and thus I can sell the book through Amazon. Suppose I do this, and people buy the book, and then the evil deed is discovered. What should Amazon do? Do they send in thugs to break into your home and destroy every last copy of the book?

Of course not! Copyright theft is only theft inasmuch as it deprives someone of legitimate income from their work. The estate of George Orwell, assuming we accept their continued income is completely legitimate, is deprived of money if I do this, because buyers of my book would presumably have paid for the legitimate work instead.

Thus I would clearly be liable to the estate for damages. I can be prosecuted for my criminal actions and sued for damages. I should, of course, pay reparations for the loss by the legitimate rights holder. Amazon likewise have some liability here, and should make reparation. But the books that were sold were sold. No one will attempt to recover them – after all, what is the point? Once reparation is made, there is now no loss and thus the theft is rectified.

So why would Amazon think they can break into someone’s private property and delete their digital books? Oh – because they are digital! And that means people have signed their rights away when they clicked “I agree” on their setup screens. They gave Amazon the right to invade their property at any time and to remove anything that is doubleplusungood.

So if you are tempted to buy an Amazon kindle, think in this carefully. Do you want to buy a device that is not really your own, and that is forever at the mercy of a company who could delete all your books without even asking you? Amazon are late into this game anyway. There are plenty of book readers that have no such restrictions. Or you can use dead trees. But I for one don’t now want anything to do with the Kindle. And not *just* because it is so terribly ugly.

I didn’t write this, but the author gave me permission to repost it here, saving me the trouble of gathering similar data. He declined to be named.

Just look at the climate of fear and anxiety that is being cynically exploited by this government to brow-beat us into exchanging our liberty for security. Some examples of laws/policies created, extended or under consideration include:

RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act)

This extends powers to allow up to 600 public bodies to snoop on phone/internet/email and other personal records. This allows the information to be shared indiscriminately across government and some non-government bodies.

ASBOs & control orders

These allow authorities to restrict movement of individuals or groups if they are deemed to be causing alarm or distress to other individuals or groups. In the case of control orders, further restrictions can be implemented including house arrest even if no crime has been committed but there is suspicion that a crime may be committed. It can be issued based on hearsay evidence: this is not the standard for proper criminal proceedings. Violating an ASBO automatically results in jail-time of up to 5years even if the original cause of the ASBO is not a prosecutable offence

Biometric passports and ID cards

In the case of ID cards, it starts voluntarily in 2008 and then compulsorily in 2010. Once compulsory, the individual has to immediately inform the authorities of every change in status (name, address, marital status) with hefty fines up to £2500 imposed for each separate contravention.

ID cards will have an identifications registration number (IRN). This will be basically a unique number for every man, woman & child that will be tied in to other databases like the DVLA, local council, travel databases, banks, ISPs, medical records, and the like. The card will be required for bank transactions, accessing local services, jobs applications, cross-border travel and so on.

Additionally, with the possible creation of a dedicated swipe-able machine for ID cards, its use may be extended in the very near future to shopping, using public transportation and any other conceivably everyday activity possible. The home office minister will have the power to withdraw your ID card; effectively rendering you persona non grata.

Note this one: passports issued as from October 2006 will be biometric and will have their details automatically and compulsorily added to the ID card database. To get around this, a number of people who have ‘lost’ their passports are applying for new ones before this date to avoid getting on the database.

Civil Contingencies bill

How similar to Hitler’s (Godwin’s Law exemption requested) Enabling Act and the constitution-shredding US Patriot Act.

It allows ministers to obtain absolute power by declaring an emergency. They don’t have to release any information to anyone including parliament for 7 days about the nature of the emergency. Even at the end of the initial period, the powers can be automatically renewed, for as long as the emergency exists. The minister is absolved from any penalties if the reason for the emergency is found to be non-existent or is in fact not an emergency.

Amendment to Mental health laws

These allow compulsory detention and treatment of mentally-ill patient who refuses medication. It removes the somewhat impartial “treatability test” for personality disorders thus widening the scope of definition and treatment of personality disorders to include controversial behavioral disorders and equally controversial treatments. The problem is who does the defining, and what ideologies, biases and beliefs inform their definitions?

SOCPA Act

All offences are now arrestable. Anyone arrested can be put on the police DNA database, by force if necessary, even if they are not charged or cautioned following the arrest.

Vehicle tracking database

A ’24×7 national vehicle movement database’ that will log every car on UK roads and retain the data for at least two years is being built using a network of road cameras and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology.

Legislative and Regulatory Reform bill

(Despite the lack of publicity, this must be a concern) – surely a tyrannical dictator’s dream come true because it can be used to amend or repeal or introduce legislation without parliamentary scrutiny. It can be used to delegate legislative power to anyone without any apparent limit. Further, it can be used ultimately, to alter or abolish almost any rule of law.

Various anti-terrorism laws

Under which two innocent men have been shot, one losing his life. Numerous publicised police anti-terror raids which culminate in the terrorised victims of the raid being released without charge. An old man manhandled & detained for heckling Blair at a political meeting.

600+ peaceful protesters detained during the 2005 Labour conference freedom of speech curtailed via unreasonable exclusion zones particularly around Westminster where no one is allowed to protest without express permission from the police commissioner. A woman questioned for sitting down to read an article critical of Blair on the public pavement outside Downing street gates.

A woman arrested, charged and convicted for reading aloud, at the Cenotaph, the names of dead British soldiers in Iraq. A man arrested for carrying a placard in Whitehall corridors with a quote from George Orwell about the nature of deceit and truth, and a long list of innocent people similarly victimised.

How close is Britain to a police state? While there is a relatively low manifestation of this possibility, what must be clear is that a “war on freedom” has been declared on the innocent population of this country by a few elite and that a control grid is largely in place. The seeds of our eventual enslavement have been sown… or what?

Ministers must wait to hear whether an unfavourable High Court ruling on the use of control orders for terror suspects will be overturned.

One would think, listening to Tony Blair and his cronies, that the problem of terrorism is something new to this country, and that never before have we faced the problem of dangerous people willing to cause harm in the name of some idealism that masks the wickedness of their actions.

I suppose Blair has never been to a Guy Fawkes party. Although being a politician, you would think he had some understanding of the gunpowder plot.

There is nothing new under the sun, and Islamic terrorism is not really anything new. So why then are we subjected by attack after attack on hundreds of years of civil liberties that have accrued to the people on the grounds that the political government is itself less a terrorist than an essential means to govern a free people.

Why is their any debate over whether due process should be denied to people suspected of terrorism. If there is evidence of a crime, let them be prosecuted. If there is no evidence, then they are innocent until proven guilty, and should have their liberty.

If we do not accept this principle, how long until we start locking up some other part of our society in similar circumstances? We could start with paedophile suspects. The public will accept it, even if we cannolt prove that these people have done anything wrong. Then it could be animal rights activists, and then we could turn on Scots, say – or postmen. Maybe with a few more steps between, but once we compromise on due process we no longer have a safeguard against facism.

And that too is not a new problem

Get rid of the control orders. Innocent until proven guilty.