[governance] England and shutting off Twitter & Blackberry access

[Roland Perry]

In message 
<CAHuaJtPiRPSmr-V2ts8xFNBTG7gto6Kr-gSkE1n=NCtqmXU16A at mail.gmail.com>, at 
13:43:15 on Fri, 12 Aug 2011, Fouad Bajwa <fouadbajwa at gmail.com> writes
> Shut this off, and you not only facilitate the danger,
>you endanger our fundamental right to freedom of speech. Violence
>should be punished where the law has been broken, but not at the
>expense of our fundamental rights."

I don't think there's a practical possibility of shutting off people's 
access to social networking sites (which is where the Internet 
Governance aspect is involved), but this episode has been the nearest to 
"shouting fire in a crowded theater" that I can think of for some time 
(which is relevant to the concept of free speech).

The initial riots (which soon became completely non-political looting) 
may well have been triggered by false reports that the police had shot a 
suspect in the head[1]. In the UK, the police shooting anyone is quite a 
rare thing, there's an average of only two fatal incidents a year - 
which is perhaps why such a fuss is made. (And it's about 100x less than 
the USA, once you factor in the different population size)

[1] A man was shot (and died), but not in the head.
-- 
Roland Perry
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t