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| Terror tweet case threatens free speech | Jacob Rowbottom When people such as Paul Chambers are prosecuted for an offence first introduced in 1935, the knock-on effect is chillingAs a general rule, it is a good idea to avoid jokes about airports and terrorism, especially when delayed in an airport. Yet do such comments really deserve a legal penalty? This is the issue raised by the case of Paul Chambers, whose facetious tweet led to a criminal prosecution.While many commentators are rightly outraged at the prosecution of Chambers, does it really raise a free speech issue? A joke about blowing up an airport seems far removed from John Stuart Mills's defence of free speech for the pursuit of the truth or Alexander Meiklejohn's concern to protect political debate. The message may not be the type of high-minded discussion that many free speech theorists focus on, but it was a casual exchange of the sort that forms the vast majority of internet messages. These everyday low-level communications need protection too, as part of our commitment to self-expression.To take this position, you do not have to be a free speech absolutist. I accept that free speech does come with limits and that the internet should not be a place where anything goes. The question is how the boundaries are policed and enforced. For example, I have less concern when Ofcom reprimands a radio station for the offensive or politically biased remarks of a presenter. While some complain about the limit to expression when Ofcom intervenes, it is not a severe sanction. By contrast, Paul Chambers faced a criminal law conviction, which has very serious implications for him. I have read that he has already lost two jobs as a result. This is simply a disproportionate response.If the authorities were really worried by the tweet, they could have dealt with it through an informal letter and by removing the tweet. This may not make everyone happy, but it would be cheaper, quicker and a more proportionate response. In a time of austerity, investigating and prosecuting such a message hardly seems like a good use of state resources.At the heart of this issue is a broader concern about online expression and the criminal law. Many offences are cast in wide terms and can now be applied to an increasing range of communications. Chambers was prosecuted because his tweet was thought to be "menacing" and therefore an improper use of a public electronic communications network under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003. This statute provides that a person commits an offence if he "sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character". The offence was first introduced in 1935 to deal with nuisance callers. The legislation was initially drafted to cover cases where people "indulged in the use of improper or obscene language to female telephonists" working at the Post Office. During the parliamentary debate, Clement Attlee argued that the provision should be redrafted to protect all telephone users (and not just Post Office employees) from such calls. Attlee's proposal was accepted and the offence became law. The original offence was subsequently re-enacted in several statutes over the years and extended from the telephone to other types of electronic communications.The terms of the offence are vague and could in theory cover a wide range of online messages. People make flippant remarks in conversation, which could be interpreted as obscene or menacing, but which are quickly forgotten and cause no concern. When using services such as Twitter or Facebook, people speak as they do in conversation. However, the statements are made on a communications network that records those words and allows others to monitor what has been said (and potentially fall within the ambit of section 127). As a result, a much broader range of expression can now come to the attention of police and prosecutors. A blogpost, tweet or a YouTube video may be posted without a moment's thought, but find itself subject to criminal prosecution. This is true not just of section 127 of the Communications Act, but of many other offences that have either been poorly drafted or deliberately cast in wide terms.The broad terms of a criminal offence help to avoid problems of loopholes and evasion, but they leave much to the discretion of prosecutors. They also leave people who use Twitter in an uncertain position. Most people will not have access to legal advice before posting material, so it is important that legal restrictions give them clear instructions. They need to know how to avoid any liability. There is a role for the criminal law in some instances, but this should be reserved for serious and deliberate offences. In most cases, more informal methods provide a better way to cultivate online responsibility than heavy-handed criminal sanctions.Many remarks posted online could probably fall foul of some law, and most are not subject to prosecution. Chambers was unlucky because a staff member at the airport searched Twitter and found the posting. But the case does not just affect Chambers. It gives anyone posting comments pause for thought before saying anything that could be construed as indecent, offensive or menacing. The mere threat of prosecution can have a chilling effect on other speakers. This concerns not just those making facetious remarks. Those who self-censor could include people wanting to comment on matters of public importance. For that reason, even if Chambers wins his appeal, the case is not a victory for freedom of speech.Twitter joke trialUK security and terrorismFreedom of speechTwitterInternetJacob Rowbottomguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
No action against Moat Taser firm Police decide it is not in the public interest to prosecute a Northamptonshire firm that supplied Tasers used during the Raoul Moat stand off. bbc.co.uk |
Alan Sugar – the lord of all he surveys Baron Sugar of Clapton is a businessmen, a TV personality and a national treasure and has never been short of things to say. Now, in a new autobiography, he has written some of them downThe nerve centre of Amshold Group Ltd is to be found on the outskirts of London in Loughton (closest tube: Debden, two stops from the end of the Central line). It is a warm, autumn day. Along the road, a shipment of VWs is being unloaded, grindingly, from a transporter. A field-load of cranes nods behind a row of dirt-tinged leylandii. The M11 roars. It is often said that Alan Sugar, businessman, entrepreneur and media personality, has travelled "from a council flat in Hackney to the House of Lords", but the tidiness of the phrase glides past the time he still necessarily spends on an industrial estate in Essex.Lord Sugar of Clapton's empire, just along from the head office of Clinton Cards, is on the third floor of a large white corrugated building. Copies of Loughton Life are fanned out in reception, which smells of perfume ("Doesn't usually," says the girl behind the desk). Through the doors, into the realm of Amsprop (property), Amsair (aviation) and Amscreen (advertising technology), it is almost preternaturally quiet – acres of new carpet, piped air and widely spaced men and women who look as if they might have been on The Apprentice, but are not earning a six figure salary (one of the problems, Lord Sugar says, when the real one arrives).Past winners – Simon Ambrose, Lee McQueen – have left to set up their own businesses. But Yasmina Siadatan, last year's brightest prospect, is still here. Lord Sugar gestures at a distant corner. "Over there somewhere." I've read that she is having a baby. "Not in the office," he snaps. "Not right now." At one point he asks the employee closest to his door to fetch him some figures and, after Sugar has turned away, the poor man pulls down the corners of his mouth and widens his eyes, in an almost comedy expression of suppressed panic.Sugar's wife, Ann, has said he is much softer in reality than he is edited on TV to appear. In his new autobiography, What You See Is What You Get, he admits to feelings of guilt (towards his mum), of "gut-wrenching anguish" (during his 10-year period as the owner of Spurs football club) and to moments of self-doubt: "Am I a one-trick pony?" He has lost a lot of weight recently – mainly through cycling – and has had cosmetic surgery to lift his eyelids; he certainly looks less hooded, less angrily folded, but it would be a mistake to expect some sort of behind-the-scenes teddy bear. At 63, he has become a national treasure – TV's favourite business bully, Gordon Brown's enterprise tsar, underdog in the House of Lords – but the thought would probably irritate him intensely.He is dressed not in a suit today, but in a plaid shirt and black jeans – he buys all his own clothes, he says – and is sitting behind an expanse of desk several miles away at the other end of a black granite board-table. He has to shout and occasionally pretends he cannot hear questions ("Am I what?" "Dyslexic?" "Dys-what?") The room is very neat – family photographs are exactly spaced, as is the collection of certificates (the What Micro home microcomputer award, 1985, for example) in matching frames. In a recent documentary interview with Piers Morgan, viewers might have noticed that, at dinner, Sugar's empty clamshells were lined up perfectly: "Maybe [it's] a sign of lunacy," he says. "I like things in their proper places."His two glass in-trays are empty ("I'm one of these clear-your-desk people. Something comes in, I deal with it, it's gone.") Also empty is the page that is open on his week-to-view diary. He has two of everything – two TV screens (one for Sky News, one for the money market); two office phones, two computers, two mobiles (he squirrels the iPhone away under his diary when I notice it: "Ignore that. Just testing it out for somebody," he mumbles). His eyes dart from one screen to another. A recent convert to Twitter – for its instant tap into the opinions of "the population" – he has just had a spat with the property presenter Kirstie Allsopp, calling her "a lying cow" for saying he was "uncharitable"."My policy is simple. People's opinion: they like you, they don't like you. They're entitled to an opinion, right? But when someone lies, outright lies, I won't stand for it. Sorry," he says, suddenly, grabbing a remote control. "Must just hear what Phil has to say." He listens to Sir Philip Green's report on waste in Whitehall, £6m to be saved on photocopying, empty office space and stationery. "Absolutely. Spot on," Sugar agrees. He mutes the TV and shakes his head. "I could have told you that without going there. Without wasting my time."It must be so comforting always to be so right. Estate agents and bankers, in Sugar's world, are "tossers". Americans? Well – certainly the ones he comes across in Florida – "superficial". Media folk generally are too "schmoozy". His career, from flogging car aerials to selling £5m flats, has taught him about consumer habits, what motivates people, what annoys them – skills he is happy to transfer. TV is often "grossly inefficient". If he were a newspaper proprietor, he would "give up on the young lot and follow the Saga model". For his autobiography, which he dictated and got someone to "bang into" a computer (he can't spell "to save his life"), 180,000 words was suggested. "Of course it came out at 280,000 words. They wanted to talk about chopping it, but I've made my decision. I'm: 'No, no, no, not really.'" He is shaking his head and speaking quite mildly, but you know from The Apprentice that when he talks like that he has made up his mind.He is less assertive in the Lords. Appointed a Labour peer in June 2009, he has felt more comfortable since the general election. He rubs his face, pulls at his earlobes. "I'm better now we are in opposition. If anything was ever cut out for me it was to be more of a critic than to try and defend a position." There was snobbery when he first arrived. "Some people do believe they have landed from some special planet and walk down the corridors with a kind of glide. In the past I tried to make eye contact and smile. I've learned now to reciprocate. I glide past also." He rocks back in his chair, runs his hands through the grey bristle on his head. "I am cautious as a new boy that I am not going in like a bull in a china shop because the last thing on this earth I would like to be seen as is as some bigshot walking in. 'He's only been here a bloomin' year, look at him shooting his mouth off.' So slowly, slowly, yeah, I'm winning respect. I once stood up to interrupt a question and they started shouting at me from the other side. I suggested Lord Strathclyde buys vuvuzelas for all of his members because that would at least make a better sound than the rubbish coming from them." Did you really? A sort of half-smile pulls down his lips. "No. I didn't actually say it. I'm storing it up for next time."He is restrained on the new face of politics – Gordon was his man; he knew he shouldn't have agreed to those TV debates, he told him so at the time. "I've deliberately kept out of the leadership [race] because the truth of the matter is I don't know the people. My advice to Ed [Miliband] is to keep it honest and he'll get the respect of the public." On David Cameron: "Look. I don't know. I like to be a very fair person. Let's see what he does." He talks about the benefit cuts and the anomaly of combined earnings not being taken into account. When he turned 60, he received a £200 heating allowance cheque in the post. "I think that day I must have spent an hour on the phone to some civil servant up in Newcastle trying to say, 'Look. I don't want this please. Can you just stop sending it to me?' I had to give up in the end."Remembering this has animated him, and he launches into one of his tirades. "One thing that's for sure, this coalition thing is an absolute joke. It's got to be sorted out. It can't last for long with these Lib Dems and all that. These two people, [Nick] Clegg and [Vince] Cable, in their heart of hearts never thought they would get into power, now it's as if Leyton Orient suddenly found themselves in the Champions League. Fish out of water! Unbelievable! They don't know what they are doing! I think Cable should ... he should just give it up. They should put him in a field somewhere and give him a bit of hay."Does he ever fancy a field of hay himself? Sugar considers this. He has talked earlier with enthusiasm about one of his products – an advertising screen based on Israeli surveillance technology which can tell, for one thing, how many eyes have focused in on it in a day. Now he says: "I am tired of hustling. If I had to go out and bring new products to market, go through the whole shebang, I know how to do it. Do I want to? That's the point." Business has got too committee-based for him. It used to be he could pick up the phone and deal directly with the likes of Rupert Murdoch. "But it's not 'click, click, click' any more. It's alien to me. You used to get things done. I can see a snowflake in a snowstorm, now you start with James Murdoch and you have to go through a process." He shakes his head. "Nah".He and Lady Sugar divide their time between the family home in Chigwell and properties in Spain and Boca Raton, Florida. In the Morgan documentary, there are encyclopedias on the shelves in the Floridian house and also a copy of Thy Neighbour's Wife, Gay Talese's study of sexual America. This is not a clue. "Fake books. Nothing to do with me. The interior designer went out and bought a load from a charity shop. Not mine." He doesn't read or listen to music, but he likes Law & Order on TV. He enjoys tennis when the groin isn't playing up and he cycles – "No I have not tried one of Boris's bikes. Too big and heavy. I like carbon frames." He has a pilot's licence and a £20m private jet. "My little luxury. Standing around at airports, checking in and all that stuff, gets on my nerves." He drives himself in the Land Rover to Spurs but otherwise he's chauffeured in a Bentley or a Ferrari. He hasn't been on a tube for 45 years.All three of their children (Simon, 41, Daniel, 39 and Louise, 36) were privately educated and are now married. His two sons work for him. He was busy elsewhere during their upbringing – developing Amstrad for starters. Is he a better grandfather? "Oh hang on. Don't let's get carried away," he says, reprovingly. I think he's about to say he was a pretty good dad thank you very much, but he says: "I'm not that hands-on as a grandfather." Do any of his seven grandchildren (aged four to 17) show entrepreneurial spirit? As a child, he was already selling ginger beer to neighbours. He winces. "The problem is none of them will have the hunger. They've had everything they wanted."Is there anything he still wants? He ponders. "I've got friends who suddenly feel they've got to travel the world. India! Indonesia! Nick Hewer [his friend, PR adviser and right-hand man on The Apprentice], he's been to every corner. Well good luck to him. I wouldn't go to India. I don't wanna go there. I've got no reason to go there at all. I've seen Slumdog Millionaire. I get the point." He pauses. "I guess if I could be beamed to India, spend a day there and then say, 'Thank you; I've done it now, get me back' I might, but ... nah. Not for no reason." He looks around his tidy office, its awards, its framed cartoons. "Why would I be bothered?"What You See Is What You Get is published by Macmillan at £20Alan SugarThe ApprenticeHouse of LordsLiberal-Conservative coalitionSabine Durrantguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Aberdeen 4-2 Hibernian Aberdeen win their first Scottish Premier League match since August with a dominant display in Colin Calderwood's first game as Hibernian manager. news.bbc.co.uk |
Katy Perry and Russell Brand are married in private Hindu ceremony Katy Perry and Russell Brand have married in an exotic Hindu ceremony under heavy security in the heart of India's leading tiger park. telegraph.co.uk |