UK: New law - now illegal to view terrorist material online

[splin]

The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act came into force two days ago with provisions including "create an offence of obtaining or viewing terrorist material over the internet. Incredibly, you only have to do this once!

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/stricter-laws-to-tackle-terrorism-come-into-force

And from https://www.cps.gov.uk/terrorism

Section 3 updates the offence in section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 of obtaining information likely to be useful to a terrorist to cover terrorist material that is just viewed or streamed over the internet, rather than downloaded to form a permanent record;

How far reaching is this? Train timetables may be useful to a terrorist and God help you if you use Google Earth! 

 
There are exemptions for academics and journalists. It seems that there are some defences including where a person "did not know, and had no reason to believe" the material contained terrorist propaganda. That's great but you have to argue that in court, assuming you can afford a lawyer and by that time could have lost your job, marriage, home, run up considerable debts to fight the case and had your children taken into care.

Even if you win you may find yourself unemployable in many professions in these paranoid times. If you managed to prove in court that you were the uwitting victim of a poisoned website or a hacker with malevalent intent or the like then perhaps you could get your police record purged - I don't know I'm not a lawyer. But suppose you stumbled across a prescribed site by accident? You might win your case by persuading the court that you have an impeccable background, are a member of the 'right' golf club, have no motive and suffer from 'old people and technology' ineptitude. But getting off by pleading you made a mistake may well leave you in the position of someone not convicted because the case was not proven - at least in the minds of potential employers.

Of course I doubt that the police have the resources to be chasing (for long) 'respectible middle-class' citizens who happened to hit a website of interest once or even twice with no other suspicious activities but what if you happen to be a young male muslim with a curious mind?

How many even know of this part of the act? I don't recall seeing it in UK news. They did give a fair bit of coverage of another provision - specifically "An individual found to have entered or remained in a designated area, unless for a legitimate reason such as being there involuntarily, could face up to 10 years in prison." Brexit dominates the news of course so much news doesn't get much airing.

This seems to me to be an ill thought out law with significant potential for miscarriages of justice. I assume here's a good chance that most MPs in parliamant, who approved the law, have not had many personnal dealings with the police and legal system and assume that common sense will prevail. Perhaps it does mostly but there have been many reports of cases that leave you speechless or shaking your head and muttering "I just don't believe it!".

[Ampera]

Mmmm, this is why requiring common sense in order to make the line between a law is broken and a law isn't is very much a bad idea. Why have laws at all if all you're gonna do is say, well we can decide on our own opinions if you're guilty or not, don't worry, we're the government, why would we ever take advantage of our populous to do something as crazy as push political and personal agendas?

What is useful to a terrorist? Socks are useful for a terrorist, they stop you getting a rash on your feet and ruining your shoes. Does that mean I go to prison if I want to buy socks? What is especially worrying is that common sense in the UK's judicial and law enforcement system is in woefully short supply. I don't live in the UK, so of course I am going to have the foreigner's perspective, but the pure fact that 2 year old case like Markus Meechan's was allowed to happen says a lot to me, and I've not seen it as an isolated incident.

[james_s]

That seems dangerous to make it illegal to read something, and what counts as "read"? If you click a link and it takes you to some forbidden page are they going to claim you were reading it?

[amyk]

1984 was not an instruction manual...

[Cyberdragon]

1984 was not an instruction manual...

Tell that to China with their mass survaillance and people rating system.

[magic]

Section 3 updates the offence in section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 of obtaining information likely to be useful to a terrorist to cover terrorist material that is just viewed or streamed over the internet, rather than downloaded to form a permanent record;

Well, it seems downloading was already illegal since 2000 so there was like 19 years of forewarning.
I will not pretend to find such things coming from the UK surprising.

[HighVoltage]

Just make sure to use a good VPN all the time.

[soldar]

Just make sure to use a good VPN all the time.

A VPN can be intervened or controlled by the State if in their jurisdiction. In secret so you don't even know it is happening.

VPN connections to other jurisdictions can be made illegal.

Spyware can be installed in target computers.

More alarmingly the public seem to support any and all measures that have the ostensible aim of fighting terrorism.

I also find it amusing that measures used in China are always condemned and shortly later the same measures are justified when used by a western country. If they do it is because they are evil but if we do it it is justified. 

[HighVoltage]

All true.
But better to use a VPN than nothing.

[apis]

Terrorism and child porn makes people see red and agree to anything.

The Swedish police used to have an anti child porn blacklist that ISPs could use voluntarily to block certain domain names. Didn't take long before someone tried adding websites like thepiratebay.org but after that ISPs thankfully dropped it. The list also leaked, so to the extent there were any child porn on those sites the police effectively provided all the pedos with a map of where to find it. Anyone who knows anything about the internet realise that you can't get rid of child porn by blocking certain websites. Rather than censoring they should hunt down the people who commit the crimes and put them in jail, the abuse won't stop just because it becomes censored. Even so, they tried to do the same thing in EU, one of the Swedish EU commissioners even got the nickname Cencilia in Germany.  Thankfully it got shot down, and none of it has taken root yet (in the EU), but these kind of dangerous proposals keep popping up everywhere.

It's been going on for a long time. This was an Australian anti censorship campaign from 10 years ago:

[Rick Law]

This is where how the citizenry treat The Constitution of a nation matters.

Constitution of the USA, First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Elsewhere, their Constitution or their Basic law (as the name may differ) may have similar clauses, but unless it is respected as The Constitution of that nation, it may as well be toilet paper.

So far in the USA, while the Constitution is certainly under attack by some, but we in the USA is holding if only weakly.  Isn't there something similar in UK law that some can appeal to so as to overturn such government overreach?

[MrMobodies]

That's worrying.

I have seen footage of all sorts of things in the past but I don't know whether they are real or not.
They might as well include drama as well and video games.

If someone was to talk to me about starting a new society and it involves murder (like that ChristChurch shooting) then I know better to ignore it and walk away.

[Monkeh]

obtaining information likely to be useful to a terrorist

I know how to operate just about any firearm I may come across.

Crap, I'm a terrorist.

It would appear the contents of my brain are illegal. Gotta love this country. We'll gloss over the instructions for making firearms from scratch, they're just icing..

[maginnovision]

Just think happy thoughts and only watch BBC and on the radio stick to the BBC. You won't unintentionally break any laws and if you do at least you won't be the only one.

Also stop using the internet, it's probably going to get you in trouble.

[apis]

Elsewhere, their Constitution or their Basic law (as the name may differ) may have similar clauses, but unless it is respected as The Constitution of that nation, it may as well be toilet paper.

So far in the USA, while the Constitution is certainly under attack by some, but we in the USA is holding if only weakly.  Isn't there something similar in UK law that some can appeal to so as to overturn such government overreach?

The UK doesn't have a constitution iirc but the European Court of Human Rights have jurisdiction in all European countries, with the exception of Belarus, the Vatican and Kazakhstan. While the European Convention on Human Rights covers freedom of speech it doesn't mention the Internet. I doubt the US constitution does either. I'm sure that if internet existed when those documents were written they would have covered net neutrality and a free internet.

[soldar]

Every time in history has had its hysteria and its ghosts and the demons of today might be the angels of tomorrow.

Witches, black magic, being Catholic, being Jewish, Being Muslim, being communist, being capitalist, being homosexual, being against homosexuals, child sex, wife beating, ... every time in history had its hysteria and everyone tried to be more against whatever it was than the next guy because that was the only way to signal your virtue and escape suspicion. Everybody expects the Spanish Inquisition and wants to be ready.

- I think those people should spend the rest of their lives in prison

- Oh, you are too soft, I think they should be put too death

- Only that? I would torture them and then put them to death.

- Well I would torture them and put them to death and then put them in jail...

And so on.

A few generations later everybody agrees it was a gross overreaction and sometimes it is recognized that the issue was totally made up.

Every generation knows it is 100% right in how it sees things and all previous generations were wrong.

Behind every shadow and every curtain we look to discover the demons that torment our thoughts but they are only in our heads.

[Marco]

This makes China's great firewall look sane, you just don't get to see what they don't want you to see ... instead of playing a guessing game and getting into trouble when you make the wrong choice.

Lets get to the brass tacks here, if you read the NZ nutter manifesto in Britain will the cops come knocking now?

[coppercone2]

lol, how does this effect pyrotechnics and chemistry hobbies?

[Monkeh]

lol, how does this effect pyrotechnics and chemistry hobbies?

Guilty of a terrorism offence unless you can prove to the satisfaction of the police and if they charge you, a court, that you're not interested in any of this dangerous knowledge for terrorist purposes.

Horribly worded, over-reaching, heavy-handed act which just keeps getting more and more dangerous.

[apis]

lol, how does this effect pyrotechnics and chemistry hobbies?

They have practically banned pyrotechnics here now, you need an expensive licence to fire even the smallest fireworks. The general public thinks that if you do chemistry at home yo're either a terrorist or trying to make drugs.

[coppercone2]

lol, british chemical industry will take a HIT in like 15-30 years when all the old chemists that actually like doing chemistry die off. Going to have less skills, less enthusiasm and less creativity (these things won't happen in university or in a company very often). 

Ever notice how quite a bit of the best engineers and techs (particularly creative ones) at least have or had some stuff in their homes and practiced it on a armature level in their youth (and possibly up into the career youth)? I know some older guys burn out eventually but even they have a bit of gear in the basement usually.

You typically don't decide to be a chemist as a child unless you have a chemistry set/lab and know how fun it can be.

[CJay]

yeah, but nothing to hide, nothing to fear and all that other BS the muppets who want everything banned spout...

[tpowell1830]

lol, how does this effect pyrotechnics and chemistry hobbies?

They have practically banned pyrotechnics here now, you need an expensive licence to fire even the smallest fireworks. The general public thinks that if you do chemistry at home yo're either a terrorist or trying to make drugs.

apis, if you want to see fireworks, come to my neighborhood on January 1st or July 4th. It is like WW3, but it is awesome, (open invitation)!     

However, didn't UK make a law a few years ago to make it illegal to carrying a knife of any sort (if you are carving wood, better watch out), and didn't UK make a law about hate speech and then arrest the guy called Count Dacula for making a joke in a video on YT with his (or was it his girlfriend's) dog for that new hate speech law?

This type of thing happens to some extent in localities and some cities in the US as well, but to try to make it a federal law would not fly (because of the constitution). If some of the people are arrested for some of these, what I call "virtue signalling" laws, they could probably carry it to the higher courts and get it dropped, again, if you can afford the lawyers fees.

I have high hopes that I will see a lot of this type group think and mob mentality stuff die down before I die, but that time is getting shorter and shorter. Maybe cooler heads will prevail...

My 2 cents...

[wraper]

[coppercone2]

lol, how does this effect pyrotechnics and chemistry hobbies?

They have practically banned pyrotechnics here now, you need an expensive licence to fire even the smallest fireworks. The general public thinks that if you do chemistry at home yo're either a terrorist or trying to make drugs.

and thats why we don't have more smart people working on anti cancer drugs and such