Brian Kelly wrote:
> Message forwarded on behalf of Andrew Cormack, Chief Security Advisor at
> UKERNA.
>
> Comments?
Well, there are several whole collections in Northern Ireland that could
be taken down on the say-so of one policeman under that legislation.
The Linenhall Library has a loan collection of political documents from
the troubles, including many advocating terrorism
(http://www.linenhall.com/northernIrelandPoliticalCollection.asp).
There is the Conflict Archive on the Internet (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/).
There are hundreds of pages of notes on the troubles on university
sites: let alone copies and endorsements of the Taoiseach's speeches
celebrating the 1916 Easter rising.
Now if you read the act, there are plenty of defences which could be
used to show that such work does not encourage terrorism under sections
1 or 2. However section 3 allows any police constable to send out a
take-down notice.
We are back in the situation when police used to raid cinemas showing
films that had already been classified by the British Board of Film
Censors as fit to show, on the opinion of a policeman as to whether they
were obscene. That stopped when a number of cinemas pleaded not guilty,
and made the police to look foolish in the courts. On one famous
occasion, the chief censor came out in his pyjamas to argue with the police.
We need several universities to refuse to obey such notices, and then
argue in the courts that the material does not encourage terrorism under
sections 1 and 2, and the use of section 3 is excessive, going further
than can be justified under the restrictions on freedom of expression
accepted under the European Convention on Human Rights. Once the police
have lost a few times, they will give up sending notices to academic
institutions.
The worst thing to do is automatically accept without challenge every
notice sent under section 3, even if some lawyers recommend doing so.
Obeying an unethical law is still unethical, as shown at the Nuremberg
trials.
--
Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast, School of
Management and Economics, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland (UK)
Tel. +44 28 9097 3643 FAX: +44 28 9097 5156
mailto:[log in to unmask]
http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/
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