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Tryphena, I didn't say a Prince Charles thread would draw employers' attention. I said that Barbelith might not hold up well to the close legal scrutiny which could result from a libel suit. As to how people could be traced, I imagine in the first instance that in the event of separate investigations arising from a suit, Tom could be compelled to hand over addresses, IP numbers and so on.
I agree most discussions here are anodyne. That doesn't mean they aren't in breach of the law (or don't refer to activities which are), just that the breaches are fairly obviously insignificant. However, if those breaches become obnoxiously obvious, as they might during the course of a libel suit, then triviality could cease to be an issue. It's like the difference between smoking a spliff every morning at home and doing the same thing in front of a police station.
As for slash and child porn - until someone shows me a test case, I'm not convinced that the 1959 Obscene Publications Act could not be applied if someone got in a tizzy about it.
(From IWF)
Obscene Publications Act 1959
The law on obscene publications is difficult to define in everyday terms, and it is for a court to decide what is obscene. As a guide it would be images featuring extreme acts of sexual activity such as bestiality, non-consensual sex or extreme torture.
This act makes it an offence to publish, whether for gain or not, any article whose effect, taken as a whole, is such, in the view of the court, to tend to "deprave and corrupt" those likely to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.
In the political context, may I point out to you that since September 11th, a number of rather obviously harmless people have found themselves at the sharp end of government scrutiny:
'Do you have any pro-Taliban stuff in your apartment, any posters, any maps?'
FBI raids Strip Club in Anti Terror Op
'We have clients who have had anti-terrorism orders served on them. To use it as they are using it against protesters at an arms fair seems to us to be blatantly illegal.'
I do not regard these nightmares as likely. I regard them as not impossible, and my point is that I have no desire to discover from experience what would actually happen. |
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