See no evil. The government doesn't want you to view certain images. And will send you to prison if you possess them. Even in the privacy of your own home.
Shooting the Messenger
The internet is a convenient scapegoat for society's ills.
The UK government is to legislate how best to imprison potentially many people for viewing content on the internet.
How should governments regulate the details of our personal lives and control individual expression ?
Preserve Individual Freedoms
Backlash campaigns to ensure the right remedies are applied to the right problems.
Whilst doing so we preserve hard won individual rights and liberties.
Press Release by backlash
"Government proposals to criminalise the possession of 'violent pornography'
will do nothing to reduce real crime. They will treat consenting adults like
children. And they run the risk of imposing much wider limits on freedom of
speech than they intend."
That is the view of Backlash - a national umbrella group representing a range of organisations concerned with civil liberties and the right to
individual sexual expression [1].
Throughout its consultation process, the government has consistently
admitted that there is no evidence that the imagery it wishes to ban causes
any "harm". It links the current proposal to existing law on children,
suggesting that a loophole needs closing. But in reality there are many
areas where the law for adults and children differs. This is a red herring.
Counsel's opinion [2] suggests that the effect of such a law will be to shatter
support groups for individuals whose sexuality is not mainstream - leading
to an increase in unsafe sexual practice. And focusing police resources on
what consenting adults choose to do in private is going to mean less time
spent going after real violent criminals.
This proposal will give the police an increased right to check on our net
activity and our credit card transactions: as with Operation Ore (a major
police sweep aimed at catching those with an interest in child porn), the
wrong people will be picked up and lives ruined with no chance of redress3.
Backlash has been involved throughout the consultation process, providing the government with input from academics, lawyers and the alternative sexual
community.
For further information, email backlash
ENDS
1 www.backlash-uk.org.uk
2 Rabinder Singh, QC
3 Increasingly, follow-up to Operation Ore shows individuals charged who had
no interest whatsoever in child porn. So far, nearly 40 individuals accused
under this operation have committed suicide.
Issued Wed Aug 30 2006