Going to jail nowadays for owning a book, wtf?

[Lance Cottrell]

UK law, not US, so no “1st amendment” protections. The affirmative defense is interesting if incredibly vague.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/58


58	Collection of information.
(1)A person commits an offence if—
(a)he collects or makes a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or
(b)he possesses a document or record containing information of that kind.
(2)In this section “record” includes a photographic or electronic record.
(3)It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that he had a reasonable excuse for his action or possession.
(4)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—
(a)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years, to a fine or to both, or
(b)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both.

--
Lance Cottrell
loki at obscura.com



On May 21, 2014, at 9:54 AM, Henry Rivera <4chaos.onelove at gmail.com> wrote:

> All "speech" should be legal--printed, electronic, or otherwise--even guides to making bombs like the Anarchist Cookbook, of which I have a copy. Anyone who doesn't support that doesn't deserve freedom of speech. I understand limits to speech being necessary to prevent imminent harm (when there is evidence of clear and present danger) like yelling fire in a crowded theater. However, this logic has been overextended and abused to the point where less-than-clear danger and just potential risk are enough to justify censorship of unpopular political speech. One more reason to nix the Terrorism Act. 
> -Henry
> 
> On May 21, 2014, at 12:05 PM, tpb-crypto at laposte.net wrote:
> 
>>> Message du 21/05/14 16:24
>>> De : "Georgi Guninski" 
>>> AFAICT someone might go to jail for owning
>>> a book (not sure if paper or electronic):
>>> 
>>> From wikipedia (old revision):
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Abu_Hamza_al-Masri&oldid=609513570
>>> 
>>> ---
>>> Guilty of one charge of "possessing a document containing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism"[31] under the Terrorism Act 2000, s58. This charge under the Terrorism Act of 2000 related to his possession of an Encyclopedia of Afghan Jihad, an Al Qaeda Handbook and other propaganda materials produced by Abu Hamza.[32]
>>> ---
>> 
>> Would you be in favor of charging someone for possessing things like:
>> - A catalog of hacking tools;
>> - Pedophile instruction manual;
>> - Recipes for preparing human flesh;
>> 
>> ???
>> 
>> Things like that remember me that google once did not have the capacity to exclude links from its systems, but because of pedophiles, they finally built that capacity. The next day the copyright industry was knocking at their door to take down content they previously couldn't because of the lack of technical capacity.
>> 
>> "Now Google don't have excuses." - I remember seeing that phrase in a New York magazine.
>> 
>> The only way to not have people charged because of a book would be to make legal all books no matter what and you guessed it right, it won't happen.
>> 
>> Because you, yourself, will be in favor of indicting people in at least one of the items I quoted, which automatically makes it legal to charge anyone because of possession of any book.
> 

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