Extreme Pornography...

I am writing in reference to the above.  I realise the "official" period for response to the Consultation paper has long since passed,  however,  from what I have read,  the Government is still undecided about this issue,  and in the light of representations made by those fearful of the implications of such proposed legislation,  criminalizing possession of "realistic" imagery of extreme violent pornography,  are now considering a far more limited legislative approach to this material than is outlined in the Consultation paper published last year.  This at least is a welcome sign that sanity may prevail over this matter.

I have carefully reads the Home Office "Consultation on the possession of extreme pornographic material" (August 2005)-interestingly the word "violent" does not appear in that title-an oversight? I have also also read the responses published by the Scottish Executive and those to Westminster which have been made available on websites concerning themselves with the issue.
I should say from the outset that "extreme violent pornography" holds no interest for me personally.  I am not even particularly interested in "a bit violent" and "not at all violent" pornography! I share some the feelings of revulsion about the more extreme sorts of this material held by many others.  However,  to my mind,  these proposals,  as outlined in the Home Office Consultation Paper,  impinge quite appallingly on central tenets of human liberty and freedom from unwarranted and unnecessary interference in private life and free expression.  I wish to belong to a society based upon liberty,  the freedom of the citizen to go about his or her personal life with as little interference from the state as possible.  Sadly this Government and the pressure groups which constantly lobby for things they disapprove of to be "banned",  often don't seem to comprehend,  or care,  that tolerance of things they,  or a proportion of the population "disapprove of " is the very cornerstone of a truly "free" society.  That these proposals go much further than simply "banning" such things and include allowance for the lengthy incarceration of anyone found to possess the material,  seems to make this proposed law one of the most totalitarian measures ever suggested by a modern UK Government-built as it is on what I hope to show here are fundamentally flawed "justifications",  an over-reaction on a breathtaking scale,  to a "problem" the Government itself fails utterly to prove is actually real.  If allowed to see the light of day,  I feel sure they would put the UK Government in the unenviable position of trying to explain precisely why it chose to trample underfoot the guarantees it gave to uphold human liberty above all things,  when it took the UK into membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).  To describe a society as a "free" one,  which only permits "freedom" in things it "approves" of is an oxymoron.  This issue is at the heart of any reasoned objection to these proposals.

I will now get straight into my detailed appraisal of this matter,  using broad headings in which to discuss each of the pertinent strands of the issue.  However,  it is not possible to keep all the relevant matters "isolated" in their own section when discussing this business,  the issues are "joined up" and interweave.  However,  I have attempted as far as possible to make the contents broadly conform to the given titles and where it was apparent the correlations were getting as big as the material relating to the main heading,  I have broadened the headings themselves to give these a place in the title-inevitably issues discussed under one heading make reappearances in others as pertinent and connected to the "main" subject. 

FALLACIOUS ANALOGY MADE IN THE CONSULTATION PAPER,  UTILIZED AS A "JUSTIFICATION" FOR LEGISLATION CRIMINALIZING POSSESSION OF EXTREME VIOLENT PORNOGRAPHY.

The most striking and provably illogical argument used in the Consultation Paper, is its attempt to equate "adult" pornography with the "child" variety. This false correlation, is something that is crucial to the "case for action" made in the Consultation Paper, as well as in some responses from "pro-legislation" organizations. It is also inextricably linked to the other false "objectives" the proposals claim to be addressing and are "objectives" given in the Paper. One of these is the argument that such legislation could reduce "real life" criminality in domestic sex offending,  in the production of such adult porn and could curtail its availability (I discuss these "objectives" extensively later).

On the basis of such "justifications" and "objectives" the state proposes to pass severe legislation, creating new crimes and new criminals,  allowing for lengthy incarceration in prison, turning currently law abiding people into sex criminals. The fundamental reason this correlation of adult and child pornography, is illogical is this. Any form of "realistic" child pornography is always "real" (the only possible exception being when it is produced from "composite" photographs). A crime has been committed in its production, wherever it originates from. Of course, by definition, a child, a minor, cannot "consent" to what is being done to him or her, or what they are being made to engage in by adults. Thus both the producer/distributor and the "end user" of child pornography deserves the weight of the law to be brought down on them. In the case of the latter, the "end user " the downloader of the offending material in computer terms, merits punishment, as by utilizing this pornography they are "accomplices" to a very real, highly serious, devastatingly harmful criminal act against a child. It is as straightforward as that, and this fact is quite correctly recognized in current UK anti child porn legislation. And this is where the crucial difference arises between child porn and any variety of porn involving adults. The latter has been produced legally and involving consenting adults. No laws have been broken, overwhelmingly it is the case that nobody has been forced against their will to take part. The Government recognises the fact that most adult material like this has been produced "consensually". Indeed, there just might be a case (though not a very good one, I will return to this later, )which could be made for criminalizing the "end user" of adult porn where the whole thing is "real",  involving "non consenting" participants. The Consultation Paper makes too much of this-but is forced to, in trying as it does to compare child porn and the adult variety. It is utterly erroneous as a "justification", and of course would only have any meaning at all in rational terms, if the Government only intended criminalizing material which was in fact "real" and made by "unwilling" participants. But it doesn't, it "spreads its net" to encompass what is staged fiction! So we have proposals which see no distinction between fictional fantasy, legally produced and involving no criminality in its production, and cold non-consensual reality. Oh dear! The point needs to be emphasized-child porn is never legally made, it is criminal. All the forms of adult porn are almost overwhelmingly made where no law has been broken and those involved are consenting adults. Proposing to criminalize and imprison those who even look at something produced legally, as is being advocated in these proposals, is bizarre and it appears to me morally wicked and logically indefensible. No actual harm has been done to the participants in this adult "violent porn"-again I emphasise, it is overwhelmingly fantasy. Child porn does a great deal of harm to the unfortunates forced to participate in it, and is rightly seen as intolerable because of this fact. The user of child porn is an accomplice to real crime, the end user of adult violent porn is not-these things are as different as night and day!.

THE OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS ACT (OPA)/ "TARGETS" OF LEGISLATION AND PROPOSED PENALTIES.

The "Obscene publications act " 1959/64 gets a lot of space in the Consultation Paper. The very sight of this cobwebbed old law (surely ripe for repeal-in fact it should have vanished decades ago), dating from an era when even consenting adults engaging in homosexual acts were criminalized and liable to be imprisoned, should be a warning to those seeking to legislate for other people's sexuality. The reason there are seldom prosecutions any more under this law, is that society has moved on where sexual mores are concerned. What was once deemed "unacceptable"-and to "deprave and corrupt" in the antique jargon of the OPA, is now more or less mainstream. Every bookshop shelf heaves with volumes that make "Lady Chatterly's lover" (prosecuted under the OPA, 1960), seem like a children's tale, and would at one time have been considered to "deprave and corrupt" enough to warrant prosecution under the OPA. They aren't because the application of the law to them in this age would be seen as absurd-laughable and ridiculously prudish-and of course the state interfering with people's individual freedom to read what they want. Yet the freely available works of the Marquis DeSade contain material (including the violation of minors) as sexually violent as anything on the internet. What makes those who watch the material on the latter deviant "sex criminals" in the eyes of this Government and those who read about it in DeSade or Bret Easton Ellis ("American psycho") perfectly innocent?. The black hole in the reasoning here is huge, the inconsistency blatant, inexplicable and it's simply logically absurd.
Crucially of course, the OPA itself only criminalized the producers and distributors of material-not the "end user"-the reader, the "looker". Another huge distinction. Of course, as much so-called "violent porn", is produced-quite legally-in other countries, the makers are outside the clutches of such a UK law. The distribution, on the internet is often via websites emanating from outside the UK. Recognizing this, the Government has only the UK resident, the hapless "end user" it can target and criminalize. And the penalty proposed for daring to merely "look" at this material is given as up to 5 years in prison! It is a times like this one wonders if you are really living in the UK in 2006, , and not in some fundamentalist police state, where people are flung into prison for years for unacceptable "thought crimes"-not what they actually do! That a penalty like this should be applied to individuals merely looking at legally produced adult material can even be contemplated, leaves one wondering what on earth is happening to this country-where the maximum sentence allowed bears so little relation to the (supposed) harmfulness of the-alleged by the Government-"offense".

THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES/ RESOURCES WASTED.

The Consultation Paper itself acknowledges that there is no good evidence whatever that exposure to so-called "extreme violent pornography" has anything to do with the propensity for individuals to act out these fantasies in real life. In fact, some investigators assert (and good old common sense should concur with this!) that individuals using such material can be utilizing a harmless "safety valve", which actually makes them less likely to become sexual criminals in real life. The case of Japan, where a plethora of violent sexual fantasy exists in the cultural mainstream, along with very low rates of real violent sex crime, or any form of violent crime itself, compared to other "developed" countries, is instructional and should be carefully considered as a lesson to would be legislators out to criminalise some adult sexual fiction and fantasy. There might have well been no "Jack the Ripper", if he had been able to exorcise his sexual propensities harmlessly with fantasy violent pornography, instead of charging around Whitechapel murdering and mutilating women for real (interestingly, such legislation might even criminalize the viewing of the "realistic" official police photographs of the Ripper's victims, which have been appearing in books relating to the murders for decades! Another illustration of the ludicrous,  stupidities such a law could take us into!). There is something called "the law of unintended consequences", which can often be seen to occur when someone does something intended to eliminate a problem, but because the full implications of what has been done have not been considered adequately, there springs up another unplanned real problem-and one that's possibly much worse than the one the original action was meant to correct or end. Legislators should consider this "law" carefully before activating legislation intended to close off an important "safety valve" for certain people's sexuality-in the case of "extreme violent pornography" (which I will attempt to show is not required at all, on the basis of sound reasons-giving concrete examples why). The possible result here, the "unintended consequence", worse than the original (non) problem the legislation is aimed at tackling, is that rather than suppressing real life sex crime, it could be to make it much worse than before. To propose to introduce such severe legislation, with its potential to criminalize and destroy the lives of thousands of utterly harmless people, in reaction to short lived tabloid hysteria generated by the case of a single isolated sex crime-the Jane Longhurst murder case-is truly astonishing. To propose at a stroke "creating" thousands of "sex criminals", to waste valuable policing and legal resources, on something the Government admits itself has no proven relation to actual criminal behaviour, seems the height of irresponsibility. We know the harm done by child porn, there is no controversy worth anything on that score, yet the authorities are stretched to the limit in the attempt to stop it and punish those responsible. Yet here we have proposals to set the police off wasting precious resources in pursuit of another category of "sex criminality"-adult violent sex fantasy, something which the Government admits itself it has no proof originates real life harm at all. Well, what can one say?

Many murderers have had "religious" "justifications" for their crimes-Sutcliffe blamed the voice of God, Islamic terrorists cite the Koran and the calls from some Moslem clerics to "strike down the infidel". But do the actions of a few maniacs justify the outlawing of certain religions or the banning or censoring of religious books like the Bible and the Koran, because they can be used as "justifications" by criminals who commit vicious crimes? Yet these "influences" have led to far greater carnage than can ever be laid at the door of "violent pornography".

WHAT MAY BE CRIMINALIZED-DEFINITION-PROBLEMS( oh boy are there problems!)/. THE DANGERS OF LEGISLATIVE INCOHERENCE/REALITY AND UNREALITY/THE LAW AND "JOHN CITIZEN"

Another critical issue-what is "violent pornography? The Consultation paper singles out "realistic" depictions of violent sexual activities . -while admitting there is no evidence that most of this material is "real" at all-even the Government knows and acknowledges this stuff is overwhelmingly fantasy, involving consenting adults and no laws are being broken in its production. Once again, it's valuable to repeat what seems to need emphasizing and underlining, this is the absolute unarguable difference between any form of adult porn and material involving minors-this latter is always criminally produced, it is a social evil and a personal human tragedy for the child involved who cannot by definition consent to what is being done to him or her. Adult porn is not-it is the difference in the real world between actual sex with a minor which is criminal and sex with a consenting adult partner which is legal. The Government, in bringing in the subject of child porn, as it does in the Consultation Paper utterly fails to show it really understands or appreciates this crucial distinction. As I asserted in the first section, using a huge false premises as a basis for legislation is bad law and you end up with something utterly illiberal, illogical and totalitarian. I am sure if such legislation as was being proposed ever appeared it will be seen to be such, when it is looked at objectively by disinterested judges (more on that in the section dealing with the European Convention on Human Rights/The Human Rights Act, later).

Well on now to that detail in the Documernt of what the Government may criminalize.

Necrophilia-Realistic depictions of necrophilia are a special target mentioned. Necrophilia is by definition having sexual "relations" with a human corpse. Is the Internet so flooded with such depictions that the Government feels it necessary to pass draconian laws against those who may look at it-and in the light of the Government's need to justify legislation (probably at some stage in the European Court of Human Rights), is there evidence of a spate of "necrophiliac crimes" in the UK,  directly caused by the perpetrators exposure to internet acts of necrophilia?

Does the Government have some sort of strange vision of thousands of children (specifically mentioned in the document as in need of shielding from "extreme violent porn") nightly mesmerized by realistic depictions of necrophilia on their computer moniters? I feel pretty sure that the Government would be totally unable to show evidence of necrophiliac crime being committed for real by "net necro fiends" or kids discussing its apparent pleasures at playtime!

And even when the "crime" is specified and particularized in this way there are huge problems when it comes to attempting to criminalize "lookers at" such material in photographs etc. In the instance of "necrophilia" we once again see the muddle in the thinking behind this proposed legislation-and the real practical problems which would arise from prosecuting those "end users" of internet images of what I will prove here to be actually merely "alleged" necrophilia-a critical distinction-and what that practically-and importantly, legally implies, if you seek to throw people in prison on the basis that "well they do watch necrophilia, how horrid!". The act of necrophilia is a serious crime, and quite rightly so. But what about a photo /film of the "act "of "necrophilia". Firstly, in strictly logical terms the depiction of a sex act with a dead body might be termed "pornography",  but cannot really be called "violent pornography"-as you can't be "violent" with something that is dead already, an inanimate corpse!You can't actually hurt it in any way-it is beyond harm. Therefore a prosecution for "violent porn" of this kind should and could not be on the basis of a mere depiction of the "act" of necrophilia itself, but only if the depiction which landed the defendant in court also includes the killing of the person(s) who end up dead-whether by the necrophiliac criminal later "doing the sex" or someone else. Without this there is no actual violence involved. Porn maybe, but not violent. Case closed. Then the other critical issue arises, which defense lawyers could make much of. As I have said earlier, very little "violent porn", extreme or not-is real-it is made using paid performers-legally. Now murder is a crime whichever country you are in-and no paid performer is going to "die for their art" and agree to be killed so the pornographer can show a real act of necrophila-this would make the actor's performing days conclude rather quickly! The killer/porn maker would be facing a murder charge-no more money for him making nasty little necro movies, but a long prison sentence-or in some places a date with the executioner (doubtless to be confronted by his understandably annoyed late star in the hereafter!). Therefore, when the Government talks of criminalizing "necrophiliac" representations, these being beyond the pale of acceptability, they are actually onto a loser. Because for it to actually be a depiction of "necrophilia"-and thus prosecutable under such a law-the state would have to prove that what has taken place in the pictures/film is in actuality necrophilia-what it inevitably will be, is actually a sex act between performers-one of whom is "playing dead-well that's not necrophilia! It might be a realistic looking dummy "playing" the corpse, but sex with a dummy isn't necrophilia either! Therefore it is not "necrophilia" at all-mainly it's just a couple copulating in a particular way, like a "sex game", and the only way an honest prosecution could succeed, is if the state proved that the scene actually involved a real corpse-and not only that, but to take up the earlier point, the killing-a real killing-would have to be shown too-as even sex with a real corpse-vile disgusting and in real life illegal-is not itself in isolation violent-it is a "violation of the dead", not "grievous bodily harm" or even always murder-it may not have been the necrophiliac criminal who killed the person, indeed the person may have died of natural causes!. Going into this sort of detail for one example given in the Consultation Paper is not idle nit picking, it is necessary and vital, as it seems clear to me that the document simply ignores such critical fundamental legal matters, indeed, seems so concerned with building a case made up of moral tut-tutting and unsound comparisons between real crime and fantasy, that it's hardly aware of them at all. Targeting of even such "extreme" material-where possibly on the surface it may seem simple and straightforward to criminalize those who utilize such stuff via the internet, is far more complex and fraught with ambiguity than the Consultation Paper seems to realize. In a court of law such inconsistencies and illogic would tear a prosecution to pieces in the hands of any even half competent lawyer. You can't convict a person under a law proscribing necrophiliac images if the image isn't necrophiliac at all-and if it's not violent-because you can't be violent with and harm a dead person, it is just porn, not violent porn, extreme or otherwise and therefore logically outside the scope of any law against viewing/possessing "extreme violent pornography".

Bestiality is another named target-again like necrophilia this is a crime to commit for real-and quite rightly. The critical legal caveats relating to the legislative proposals I pointed out above in relation to necrophilia do not readily apply here. One is left with questions though, these should be uppermost in the minds of legislators in a society claiming to be free,  who consider introducing undeniably draconian,  controversial-and (I am trying to show) totally unnecessary laws creating "new criminals" out of people who weren't "criminals" before. Is it "just", is it "right" is it "liberal", is it "sane and sensible" in modern society to threaten people with years in prison, not for what they do, but for simply looking at something that is illegal to do? Unlike child porn-a criminal cottage industry of huge dimensions, and creating oceans of human misery to the most vulnerable-children, there is no serious societal concern around the issue of lots of people people engaging in rampant sex with sheep!. This is bringing legislative reality in modern Britain to the nightmare worlds of Kafka and Orwell's "1984", thought crime-it is a twenty first century inquisition-burn those who dare even think or see what some morally disapprove of, not for what they do. A rebirth for Torquemada.

The Consultation Paper follows necrophilia and bestiality with the comments which suggest consideration is being given to criminalizing the possession of extreme violent pornography which depicts behaviour which could leads to serious injury and prosecution for grievous bodily harm if done "for real". Here one is struck by the fact that these proposals are talking about making a crime out of something which is not currently a crime, (looking at something) and then laying down a maximum penalty for this "new offense" which usually exceeds the tariff served by a criminal who actually carries out the real thing! If the mind hasn't started to boggle with the illogicality and incoherence of all this already, it sure should at this point! Anyone seriously looking at this proposal begins to see they have entered a "Twilight Zone" of muddle and sanctimonious doublethink, terrifyingly threatening to engulf the real world-or at least the benighted UK!. One is led to echo the words of Mr. Bumble-that if that is the law, then "why the law is an ass!". Here is the danger to the people of this country-many of whom may suddenly find themselves criminals by new dotty laws-not mere ordinary run of the mill criminals though, but "sex criminals", alongside men who rape babies-merely because they looked at a picture of adults acting parts doing something not breaking any law! What on earth is going on here? All this on the basis of the "powers that be" disapproving of a harmless private form of sexuality!. The OPA,  with changing mores, has largely fallen into disuse with its talk of people being depraved and corrupted by certain material. But at least, for all its absurdity, the OPA was only there to prosecute the "experts" the career "pornographers" themselves and those distributing the material. Even then the authorities were not concerned with turning the "users" of the prosecuted material into criminals and banishing guilty readers of "Tropic of cancer" to jail and later onto a register of sexual criminals which would label them as such for life. The publishers and distributers of material were "experts", they largely understood the line the law drew between what was deemed "legal" and what was not-it was their job-they were the OPA's targets. With these new proposals it is not such "experts" but "John Citizen",  who is the target aimed at. It requires very clear stipulations indeed for ordinary members of the public to know exactly what constitutes the "pornographic" (there is no real established universally agreed or even a clear legal definition-and never can be),  never mind what's extremely violently pornography. It's all subjective. Talking about "GBH"-grievous bodily harm and "serious injury" as the Consultation Paper does is unhelpful and demonstrably fatuous when used to attempt to legally define the actual content of images such as photographs or film, even if "real" (which they overwhelmingly are not anyway!). These are the reasons. "GBH" prosecutions are made on the basis of the injuries to the victim, having been properly medically examined subsequently and accurately diagnosed. This cannot be done at all with internet photos or film. No one can know what the injury might involve, merely from viewing the material-even the victim yelling "Ow you broke my genitalia!" or the perpetrator saying "I've broken your genitalia!" wouldn't be meaningful for such a prosecution, even if the material was real (which it is highly unlikely to be). The victim/perpetrator or an "offscreen" narrator making a statement in the piece forming the basis for prosecution relating to the "injury" is worthless, as it's just their unprofessional subjective opinion (well really, it's usually a line of dialogue from a fictional script!)-not an expert medical diagnosis! But when even all this has been said, we remain in in the same dilemma, which makes such dangerous nonsense of these proposals-you are not seeing a picture or film or whatever of a "criminal act" in which the victim suffers some sort of injury-"GBH", "serious violence" or anything else-you are almost invariably talking about consenting adult actors, engaged in a fictional fantasy scenario in which participants have been rewarded financially for their participation in and no one has even broken a fingernail. Yet this Government proposes the possibility of flinging people in prison for up to 5 years and labelling them "sex criminals" for merely looking at this fantasy! Mr. Bumble-we need you now!
This whole of this business is bedeviled with subjectivity, in fact it coasts almost entirely on subjectivity, which is what makes such proposals mad, bad and dangerous as legislation. It is an area legislators should fear to tread, are advised to approach with caution and think it through thoroughly-not consider leaping in feet first as seems to be being proposed if the Consultation Paper is anything to go by Let's get down to specifics again, with a good old concrete example of, just the sort of think which could happen under such a law.  A depiction of a naked person-man or woman-being shot dead, with blood, lots of groaning etc is shown on the internet. Is this pornographic? It is certainly violent-in fact if the victim dies it could be called-well, serious, terminal violence-where it's death you can at least finally say this is sure "extreme violence", unlike a presentation where the victim is somehow "injured"-where it's impossible to say how badly, or even what has exactly has been "hurt "and "harmed". But is this naked shooting "violent PORNOGRAPHY? Some people might think so-the very fact that a naked person is being killed may suggest to them that it is. Others would say-no-a human being, in the state nature made us is not a pornographic representation at all, this is especially the case, it would be argued by these individuals, if there is no suggestion of any actual sexual activity being part of the scene (apart from the nudity of the victim, which, to them isn't "sexual" and certainly not "pornography" in the least!)-therefore they would aver, it's just a nude person-in the human state of nature-who in this instance is being shot by someone-nope not "violent porn". Subjectivity-who is right, how on earth is the "end user" to know if this is going to get them convicted or not and made a "sex criminal",  without any absolutely clear precise understandable definitions? The picture may actually be from a movie about a hit man or woman assassinating his or her targets-in the given example, the assassin has caught the victim when they are very vulnerable and defenseless-perhaps they have just come out of the shower. The police/prosecutors may not even know the "context, "deciding on a prosecution based on a single picture. The defendants lawyer could then establish to the court the context of the scene providing the grounds for the prosecution, showing that this was simply a scene from an action film or picture series, with nothing to do with pornography whatever. Therefore, it cannot be defined as "violent porn!". The traumatized defendant is cleared, the police and prosecutors look like dim prurient busy bodies with nothing better to spend tax money on than trying to convict ordinary people of non-crimes, instead of using rscources to tackle real life criminality. One fears that the wide vagueness that seems inherent in the kind of legislation being posited from a reading of the Consultation Paper, leaves both the police and Crown prosecutors with a very shaky idea of precisely what could constitute "criminality" under such legislation. It begs the question, if "experts" are in such a subjective "no-mans land", how on earth are the public, the internet users, to know where to draw the line?. This is highly relevant to the question of the acceptability of such a law under the Human Rights Convention (see the following section) We are left with a vision of legislation fighting a non-existent threat, wasting resources much better applied elsewhere and creating a huge hole through which the most appalling miscarriages of justice could be the order of the day. Even if all comes out right in the end, with the clearing of the defendant, they will have been put through Hell and been publicly humiliated for nothing!.

The "bondage" community have obviously been greatly exercised by the impact such proposed legislation could have on their own private sexuality. Reading their "Backlash" website regarding a meeting between representatives of this group of citizens and the Home Office in April, it seems the latter did not, in considering such legislation, really appreciate how far they might end up criminalizing the utterly harmless private sexuality of this large group of people (and voters!). Fantasy,  sexual violence-between consenting adults, and usually of a mild variety (looking more violent than it is, with its regular accoutrements of whips, chains and ancient torture devices), may seem distasteful and bizarre to some. But the view has prevailed for many years in "liberal democracies" (are we still one? For how long?), that as long as those involved are consenting adults, no real harm being is done and no actual crime is being committed, people's sexuality was their own business and they should be left alone, unharried by agents of the state enforcing legislation resulting from pressure by self appointed guardians of the personal sexual morals of others. Sadly this now seems to be a threatened principle-and can be seen starkly in the pejorative words and moral strictures being used to justify this proposed legislation. There is no evidence at all of social harm emanating from the availability of so-called "extreme violent pornography"-and with this fact the Consultation Paper has to concur. We are therefore left with the threat of a repressive law, anchored really in the kind of self-righteous disapproval of what people should be allowed to have access to, one had hoped ceased to have influence in the corridors of power about the time "Last exit to Brooklyn" (now to be found sold in any bookshop and available in the public library) was prosecuted under the OPA (which seemed then to be the last puritanical gasp of that "Mrs Grundy" law). The Consultation Paper makes the point that the proposed legislation is not aimed at the bondage community. I have said it before, here it has to be said again, such legislation as has been proposed is fraught with uncertainty, for the public and especially for "bondage enthusiasts". How will those for whom mild consensual sexual violence/bondage is part of their utterly harmless basic sexuality, know where they are under such a legislative regime? In seeking out images involving their personal "fetish" they will almost certainly be unclear if the prosecuting authorities would regard a violent act in a sexual context "extreme violent porn"-or whether it would be acceptable and legal-the whole thing being simply enshrining in law subjective opinions about largely fictional activities. As stated, the woolliness, ambiguity and openness in the stated examples in the Paper, mean the authorities themselves can have no clear idea where the line can be drawn-and of course I have tried to show in this letter, that in fact with most of this material, the level of violence, even whether the illustration is undeniably pornographic itself,  is often quite impossible to precisely establish-either by the "user" or those with the task of policing and prosecuting individuals under the proposed law.

THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS-this is a really big one!

The Consultation Paper makes the assertion that it doubts such a proposed law would see the UK contravening its statutory duties under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which if it's conclusions went against them would identify them as guilty abusers of basic human rights. To many of us who have studied both the proposals and the relevant Articles of the Convention, this sunny optimistic confidence, is not easily comprehensible. We wonder what facts (good solid ones-logical and provable as they must be) exist which we ourselves fail to see at all, they certainly can't be seen in the Consultation Paper itself. What do the proposers of the legislation base their happy hopes upon? This Government itself took the UK into the Convention, accepted it as paramount over domestic law. This Convention was of course incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act of 1998. (in force since October 2000). So the proposers state specifically that they does not think such legislation would fall foul of articles 8 and 10 of the Convention and their own law eh?. The barrister Mr. Rabinder Singh QC, of the Matrix Chambers in Grays Inn, who as a Deputy High Court judge is a pillar of the legal establishment and one of England's foremost experts on human rights issues, does not share this rosy view the proposers have of their innocence as potential human rights abusers. He has submitted a paper as part of the Consultation process, dealing with this matter on behalf of the Spanner Trust (November 2005) relating specifically to this proposed legislation in the light of the Convention on Human rights.

If there is a "successful" prosecution of an individual under this proposed legislation, the defendant would be well advised to appeal for their rights under the Convention. Of course, it is now possible for cases related to Human Rights legislation to be heard in UK courts due to the existence of the 1998 Human Rights Act. If a UK court delivers a judgement that a UK law, such as the one being proposed, is incompatible with the UK Government's obligations under the Convention, the domestic court then leaves the way open for appeal to the European Court of Human Rights ECHR) in Strasbourg, It would consider the issue and make its judgement based upon the cases presented by the parties involved. The Convention does indeed provide "get outs" for the 46 member Governments desiring to retain legislation which would seem to go against the basic rights guaranteed in the Convention, the Articles of which must otherwise be conformed to by Convention members. There are exemptions, exclusions and limitations which can be asked for, as detailed in the second paragraphs of the relevant articles of the Convention. However, can these be made to apply in the case of any "extreme violent pornography" legislation such as is being proposed for the UK?. For this legislation undoubtedly impinges upon crucial areas of the guarantees given in the Convention, which the Government has written into domestic law, agreeing to legally abide by the Convention. The specific Articles of the Convention are-

8)THE RIGHT TO RESPECT FOR PRIVATE LIFE.
10)THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.

The sight of a Government riding roughshod over its legal Human Rights obligations without good reason (well, I hope I'm showing with no actual reason at all worth a fig!), applies far more starkly to the issue of criminalizing users of "fantasy violent porn" than to the case of the anti terrorism measures, which the UK Government was forced to rethink recently as they were judged incompatible with the Convention. The Government would have to have a very strong airtight case indeed to justify the kind of measures proposed in its Consultation Paper. I have already tried to show up some of the sorts of problems which arise when dealing with this matter-these would become highly pertinent once the question of the legitimacy of such legislation for a Convention member state was considered by the Court. I will say more about this below, specifically relating it to the Articles of Convention already named, which are relevant. In the case of prevention of terrorism, the argument before the Court was that the UK had to take certain measures, which could impinge on the "human rights" guaranteed under the Convention of those individuals involved, in order to to protect Britain against an outbreak of mass carnage by potential terrorists. The Court disagreed with the domestic approach being taken by the UK Government, in its view the reasons given by the Government were not adequate justification-they failed to soundly establish the need (which is an exemption which is recognized as valid under the Articles of the Convention), the required proofs, the quality of the "reasons" were inadequate-the Government was therefore in breach of its Convention obligations by its domestic actions over this issue. How much more so would the Government be exposed to a humiliating reversal by the Court, in the case of legislation criminalizing users of "extreme violent internet porn". The Government would be totally unable to provide any strong pertinent evidence of harm to the public whatever. The isolated Coutts/Longhurst case, where one maniac's lawyers attempted to mitigate his awful crime by "blaming" external influences, is surely worthless as the basis for major draconian legislation impacting on basic human rights and free expression, leading to the wholesale "sex criminalization" and possibly lengthy incarceration of utterly harmless individuals who happen to like fictional fantasy sexual violence. The UK is not overrun with violent sexual criminals driven to depravity by exposure to extreme violent porn on the internet. And I am confident I can assert that the Government could not prove to the Court that it is. Such a total absence of proof for any need to criminalize huge numbers of people, would destroy any claims the Government would make to the Court that such legislation has been "proven" to be necessary because of what violent net porn has been "doing to our society" and its real life dangers (proven need-the main allowable justification under the exemptions to the relevant Articles of the Convention). It is only on such a sound, well proven unambiguous basis, that the Convention's guarantee of freedom from state interference in the private lives of its citizens could be justified and overridden and so keep the UK within the precise stipulations which signatories must comply with. The very fact that no state in the free world, including the UK's EU and Convention partners has, or proposes to have, such legislation, absolutely demolishes any claim by the UK Government that such legislation is acceptable in a member state actually complying with the Human Rights Convention. What on earth makes the UK so different to France or Germany or outside the Convention,  the USA , that we here have a well proven crying "need" for this utterly illiberal criminalization of people? These other states, quite comparable to the UK, feel no need to do it as an essential measure to protect the "morals" and the "safety" of their societies at all. The assertion that the UK does, will not hold, unless provable differences can be established. The inconsistency is glaring, quite obvious. The Government itself admits in the Consultation Paper that internationally it is isolated in proposing such legislation. One hopes after reading the considered opinions of opponents of the proposals-rather than giving credence to the jaundiced ramblings of self-appointed censors and moral guardians, who inevitably retreat into subjective opinionating involving streams of pejorative adjectives ("disgusting!" "obscene!"), when pressing for such laws-that the Government will see the logic of the former's case and realize that such legislation would head them towards another costly and humiliating showdown over human rights, if they try to introduce such laws-where no of the other advanced "free" democracies has them, or even intends having them!

It is worthwhile here to go into some detail about the specifics of the Convention's articles which are applicable to this area. I gratefully acknowledge the valuable work Mr. Rabinder Singh QC has done in the aforementioned response to the Consultation Paper in reference to this. There can be no adequate substitute for would be legislators in this matter to careful study of his paper, which shows in precise legal argument just how badly such proposed legislation could do if it came before the European Court of Human Rights. A Court which would take an impartial, precise view of the obligations signatories to the Convention must have and decide whether any domestic legislation passed in a member state violates the Convention-when all the evidence relating to the allowances the Convention's Articles makes for exemption have been duly presented to it and considered.
As stated earlier, Article 8 and 10 of the Convention are the relevant ones-it is with these such proposed legislation should meet its "Waterloo".

Article 8 The right to personal privacy of the citizen and freedom from state interference with it.
"1)Everyone has the right to respect for his/her private and family life, his home and correspondence. . .
2)There shall be no interference by a public authority with this right except such as in accordance with the law and is NECESSARY IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY. . . FOR THE PREVENTION OF DISORDER AND CRIME, for the protection of health or MORALS or for THE PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTS AND FREEDOM OF OTHERS. "(my emphasis)

The Government admits there is no connection that can be proved at all between "extreme violent pornography" and any actual material harm to society. The words used by the Government to describe this material are pejorative adjectives which amount to "we want to do this because some people find it distasteful". Well calling things distasteful is not evidence of harm-it is subjective opinion, and the Convention does not permit exemption from its articles on the basis of subjective opinions and flurries of pejorative adjectives, but on proof of harm, of established "necessity" (more on that crucial word "necessity" later). The very fact that no similar democratic society has introduced, or plans to introduce such legislation as this, shows categorically that THEY (whether Convention members or not) feel no crying need for it. In order to be permitted to retain such legislation, this Government would have to prove to the Court, that unlike these other nations, the UK has a burning necessity (that word again! for such laws-proof positive we are different. Can it?

Article 10-The article dealing with freedom of expression.
"1)Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include the freedom to hold opinions and to RECEIVE AND IMPART INFORMATION AND IDEAS WITHOUT INTERFERENCE FROM A PUBLIC AUTHORITY regardless of frontiers. . "(My emphasis).

The "get outs" about individual nations being allowed to exercise certain restrictions and are granted exemptions in some matters, are on the same grounds, basically proven necessity, like Article 8. Thus we have the situation again, where to uphold such a law as that being proposed as permissible under the Convention, it would be up to the UK Government to prove necessity. The Court would query why such legislation is needed so badly in the UK. It would fall to the Government to establish why, to provide proof, solid evidence why the UK is different to all these other Convention signatories, establishing its case concretely before the Court if it has any chance of retaining such laws. Yet in its own Paper on the matter, the Government admits that it cannot do this. It is unable to-

a)Establish a connection between the material proposed being criminalized and "real life" crime-or anything else.
b)Recognises no other country has introduced or has plans to introduce such legislation-that is to say feels any need for it whatever. The document admits the UK Government stands isolated in this.

Back now to what this does for "John Citizen",  that poor soul who may end up flung in jail and labelled a perverted sex fiend by these proposed laws, what can the Convention do to protect his liberties and liberty? Yes it does do something to help protect him against bad laws his Government may slam thoughtlessly onto the Statute book, which may not only stop him doing things, but have him imprisoned for years for doing what is guaranteed he can do as a citizen of a nation pledged and legally bound to uphold the Convention. That Human Rights Convention says that any legislation dealing with this area of law, must be clear and precise, so individuals may regulate their behaviour accordingly, meaning they can adjust their behaviour to save them from being charged as criminals under any domestic law impinging on the issue the Convention is there for-to help ensure basic human rights are adhered to in its member states. I hope I have made it obvious, that in respect of the bulk of this internet "extreme violent porn" this is virtually impossible. The whole thing is fraught with problems of definition, context, what is "real" what is "unreal", what is "fact" and what is "fantasy". One can reasonably contend that without a "blanket" criminalization of anything involving sex at all, trying to have clarity about what precisely is being done in the majority of this material,  whether the material is really "extreme violent porn" or not, is impossible-to both "end user", who is threatened with prison for transgressing, as well as the prosecuting authorities who have to attempt to make something of this contrived babel of imprecision and illogic. Thus individuals and even the law's "upholders" would find themselves utterly unable in practice, to know if the material is actually illegal under the law or not. Clear and precise-that is what the Convention insists such legislation must be-the individual "user" must be left in no doubt about whether by utilizing such material they are breaking a law. If the Government ends up passing legislation using definitions given in the Consultation Paper like "Grievous bodily harm" and "Serious sexual violence",  I hope I have shown how impossible it is to "prove" what level of actual harm an image or piece of film actually illustrates (and remember, we are not talking about a real scenario, but a piece of fiction-as the document, absurdly does not acknowledge the crucial distinction between what is fact and what is fantasy!).

It might be "serious sexual violence", it might not be. Unless the legislation passed abandons unprovable generalizations such as "serious sexual violence" and specifies say-

"It is now illegal to view an image in a sexual context of a man having his penis cut off"( and of course such a phrase as "in a sexual context" would have to be added in the legislation, because of the fact that in this-as in many such specific named criminalized images, it is quite possible for a person to be shown having such things done to them in a totally "non sexual" context-say during a medical operation!).

But under the examples given in the Consultation Paper, with most of such material, the viewer can read whatever they like into the results-the "'medical consequences" of the violence being shown (See my section concerning definitions).
Thus under the Convention, the legislation being proposed looks far too imprecise to the citizen (and to the authorities instructed to enforce it) to be acceptable for "exemption" as well. The nature of the material makes it virtually impossible for the user to know if by looking at certain images they may risk prosecution. Legislation and prosecution works on the basis that "ignorance of the law is no defense". But unless very precise actions, such as I gave in the example above, are specified, the proposed legislation fails to satisfy the UK's legal requirement under the Convention to be so clear and precise, so an individual would be in no doubt about what they are and are not allowed to see, and when they are breaking the law. Imprecise phrases about the level of violence are not only subjective, but as, I have shown earlier, can't honestly and precisely be applied at all to the vast majority of this material. Even definitions used in law to apply to real life criminal injury, such as "grievous bodily harm", have no meaning when applied to fictional scenarios, where the consequences of violent acts can never be proven or known (of course they are not "real" anyway! )and are entirely subjective in the individual viewers mind-phantoms, airy nothings-yet seriously invoked by these proposals as justifying sending people to prison for years! Using words like "offensive" as justification for such legislation won't wash either. What may be "offensive" and "unacceptable" material to one person, might be entirely inoffensive,  innocuous and perfectly acceptable to another. Phrases like "offensive" or "unacceptable" or "disgusting",  "abhorrent" etc are entirely subjective, thus a user of the material may find he is watching something totally "acceptable" to him but "unacceptable" to the man next door. Putting any of these sorts of adjectives into such severe restrictive legislation-and attempting to use it as a justification for exemption from the articles of the Convention, would not meet the requirements of proof, necessity etc demanded if such exemptions are to be granted by the Court. It certainly fails the clarity test, such phrases being utterly subjective, in no way making it clear precisely what is actually "illegal" and thus leaving the citizen quite unable to judge whether viewing something may criminalizes them or not. So to sum up, lack of precision and clarity in a law-such as is being posited in the Consultation Paper-is manifestly unfair to citizens-therefore incompatible with the articles of the Human Rights Convention.

Precedents and cases-.

Mr. Rabinder Singh QC, in his submitted opinion on the Consultation Paper in relation to the Human Rights Convention,  gives details of domestic and European Court of Human Rights cases pertinent to the issues of "necessity" and imprecision which detail why such legislation as is being proposed over "extreme violent pornography" will probably prove quite unacceptable to the Court responsible for upholding the articles of the Convention-the rules which member states are bound to abide by. Such a precedent of imprecision negating UK law, is that of Hashman and Harrup v the UK(2000). In this case the UK regulations stipulated "good behaviour" and used a definition "right in the judgement of contemporary fellow citizens". Such terminology was found acceptable by the ECHR as too imprecise and subjective. Yet the Government's proposals for "extreme violent pornography" legislation are couched in far more starkly subjective terms than this. In fact the entire thing is being judged in terms of moral abhorrence, with a lot of generalized commentary about the possibility that such material well maybe/might cause this or that, but ultimately admitting that it has no proof whatever to give factual backbone to all the subjective opinionating it goes in for. As "Hashman and Harrup" shows, this is insufficient grounds for having such wide ranging and severe legislation, impacting on fundamental human rights which the Government has agreed to uphold as a Convention signatory. Moral abhorrence is not proof, subjective unsupported opinions are not proof, saying "maybe it might cause this" is not proof. . This is doubly the case where a single solitary Government attempts to "go it alone" and introduce legislation no other comparable one feels any need for whatsoever!. One is left wondering if the proposers of this legislation have actually studied the Articles of a Convention, which the Government itself piously made supreme over any domestic legislation in 1998. Cases have already established what is actually acceptable when using a phrase like "necessity" (which the UK Government would have to prove before the European Court for such proposals to remain UK law). These precedents establish-within the UK itself-that "necessity" does not mean merely "useful" or "desirable", but meeting a pressing social need. It should also be proportionate to the aim being pursued-that is, that the state must show it has very strong, sound reasons indeed for interfering in areas of private life and personal liberty. Mr. Rabinder Singh QC quotes the judgement on "necessity" by the Noble and Learned former Law Lord, Lord Steyn. Lord Steyn states it means-

"(Whether) the legislative objective is SUFFICIENTLY IMPORTANT TO JUSTIFY LIMITING A FUNDEMENTAL RIGHT.
The measures designed to meet the legislative objective are RATIONALLY CONNECTED TO IT. . . "(My emphasis).
To quote Mr. Rabinder Singh QC-

"Where the interference involves an intimate area of private life WEIGHTY REASONS are required for its justification(Dudgeon v UK 1982)(My emphasis)

Now where are these "weighty reasons" in the case of "extreme violent pornography?" The Government has. . er. .  well none really!.

In its own document it accepts that fact, it cannot evidentially justify limiting a fundamental right on the grounds of necessity, as it is totally unable to provide any proof whatever that the right to view certain material without being criminalized is absolutely needed due to some important detramental affect the material is having-for example, creating a huge swathe of sex crimes-real life ones-which are jeopardizing the safety and security and health of UK citizens. It mentions as an "objective" regarding combating actual criminality, another conjured up "real life" offense, venturing the opinion that maybe the production of this adult material is through some people being forced to take part in it against their will. Then admits it really has no proof whatever that this adult material is actually produced in this way. It talks of the "objective" of minimizing the extent of the availability of such violent porn material on the Net, and then admits no other country comparable to this one intends behaving in a similar way-making a mockery of any claim that independent action like this by the UK would make any real impact at all on the amount which is out there-if it would at all, and with what comes next I hope to prove it wouldn't(though other countries aren't going to do it anyway, reducing the whole of this to an empty exercise in error and wishful thinking-"Well they could join us-oh please do President Chirac, Chancellor Merkel. President Bush-we're going to be lonely on our own, looking so ridiculous-come and be fools with us in this prison of prudery we've shut ourselves into!"). We can see quite cleary when it comes to supply of pornography, that child porn flourishes and the amount of material around defeats the authorities attempts to destroy this mountain of muck-despite its being illegal and users who are caught being heavily punished over a large part of the world! The Government provides no evidence whatever that these "objectives"-mere tilting at "imaginary windmills"-could be furthered by the existence of "anti violent porn" legislation in the (isolated)UK. But let's look a bit more closely at one of those objectives, one of those "imaginary windmills", for again, as with so much of this, it is anchored in the quicksands of fallacy. An "objective" has been created out of a non-existent problem-they know it, and admit it! The Government is forced to concede that it has no real evidence at all that this extreme violent pornography is produced using "involuntary" participants and therefore, like child porn is being created through criminality. People are not being harmed, forced to do things, being victimized in a criminal operation in making this material. So the Consultation Paper substitutes for evidence opinions and unprovable generalizations that this might be the case with some of the material being produced. Coulds and maybes, assertions unsupported, are not acceptable "evidence" that something has any reality and is actually going on. Yet here this insubstantial ghost grows like topsy and the phantom is transformed into an "objective"! Here we are being told, this Government is setting out to try to stop something happening, which it can't give reasons for anyone to credit is really happening at all-the Government being incapable of proving it's happening-and this is then erected into one of the pillars on which legislation is proposed to criminalize innumerable unhappy citizens, imprison them and label them "sex offenders"- to supposedly help curtail some illegal activity the Government has no evidence is actually occurring in the first place!. Good grief! Oh well, we might as well give another good (non-sexual) hammering to that other "imaginary windmill" which strides around calling itself an "objective" in the minds of the proposers of this legislation. Again, by admitting the fact that the UK is basically alone among advanced democracies in proposing criminalizing extreme violent porn, the Government nay says (well they have to! Can't substitute adjectives, wispy generalizations and "opinions" there!) one of its own stated objectives-though it doesn't seem clear to them that they're doing this. It talks about it's hopes of getting other Governments to go along and give a hand--providing no evidence that these wiser nations could or would be so absurd as to do so,  well-you could imagine the laughter from Paris and the glower of incredulity on the faces of the Justices of the US Supreme Court!. Making it illegal in one country would have a negligible effect on its availability on the Internet. Let the example of child porn, which I brought up earlier illustrate the utter fallacy of the notion that "banning" and criminalizing the users of something will inevitably impact heavily on it, reducing the supply-it doesn't even happen when nearly all countries criminalize it-the idea that one doing it would make any difference whatever is ridiculous, the child porn situation shows this position is totally wrong. If child porn isn't enough to go on, think of the worldwide criminalization of drugs-boy has THAT cut down their supply and reduced the number of addicts and users!

No other country comparable to this one would wish to look so prudish, silly and authoritarian as to follow in the footsteps of such proposals as this-and if they are members of it, they know full well that such laws contravene the Human Rights Convention. Thus the proposed legislation fails to pass the tests given in Lord Steyn's judgement, that the legislative objective is "sufficiently important" to justify criminalizing aspects of an individuals private life, nor can it be shown that legislation is "rationally connected" to the stated "objectives" of reducing the amount of this material available and thus help to combat a crime-they being an epidemic of real life sex offenses directly attributable to extreme violent internet porn and the criminal production of some of the material-both matters the Government document shows it has no evidence really exist at all. So not just the measures but the "objectives" themselves defy all rationality!. A law to tackle problems that aren't there, using the legislative equivalent of an atom bomb to do it! But then to heap yet more illogic on illogic, the Government proposals don't just say-"well we'll make it illegal to view the stuff made by criminal methods as that's putting a viewer in line as an accessory to a nasty real life crime", no, it proposes to lump any (barely existent) "real" material with total fantasy involving actors!. Proposing 5 years in prison as a maximum penalty for viewing it!.

If all this doesn't drive a coach and horses through Lord Steyn's "Sufficiently important to justify limiting a fundamental right" and "measures must be "rationally connected to the stated objective", I don't know what does!

So it is proposed to possibly introduce legislation, substantially interfering in areas of private life, introducing criminal law where it has not been before, with no established "problem" to justify it, and no established connection whatever between the "extreme violent porn" which may be criminalized and actual real life crime epidemic whatever-the Government itself admitting it cannot deny any of this with proper evidence!. Pursuing sexual wraiths in this way, which high UK legal judgement asserts is quite unacceptably totalitarian in a society which can truly call itself a "free" one, would leave the UK Government lawyers twisting in the wind, if an attempt was made to justify it under the articles of the Convention on Human Rights. The Government's utterly woeful and inadequate substitute for "weighty reasons" are subjective moral opinions, bald statements about certain things not being acceptable and substituting provable solid reasons to back up such words with feeble wide "well possibly" type generalizations about "harm" and the connection such material has to actual criminality here in the UK and elsewhere, with no evidential basis at all-as it has none to give.

The Court has pronounced on these matters, and its judgements will not be happy reading for anyone wishing to pass legislation such as is being proposed. The judgements aver that signatories to the Convention must "Convincingly establish" their grounds for having any legislation which interferes with a citizen's right to free expression-which encompasses the right to view material too. This right applies to material which might "offend", "shock" and "disturb" the "state" or any section of the domestic population (Mueller vs Switzerland 1991). Any interference from the state and its agents must be on "CONVINCINGLY ESTABLISHED GROUNDS" (my emphasis) (Barthold v Germany 1991). Can this be done here with the proposed UK laws?After all that has been said, one may confidently give the opinion (this time backed by real evidence!) "no". The Government itself proves this in the paucity of real evidence it provides as its "justification" for the proposed laws (to meet "objectives" that are themselves unreal airy supposition). No evidence of harm, no proven social need, no evidence this material has any bearing on real life crime, no proof that it would "save" individuals being forced to engage in a criminal activity through making such material (no evidence at all that criminality is actually involved in its production), no evidence that such legislation in the UK alone-and others have no plans for any-would lesson the availability of this material-which most of the rulers of advanced democracies don't regard as criminal and dangerous anyway.

MISCARRIAGES BY TECHNOLOGY

There seems to be little understanding evinced in these proposals as to how the web, internet sites and such can actually work, or how computers themselves can be used. The Consultation Paper talks about how it is not the intention of the Government to make criminals of those who accidentally/inadvertently come across the proscribed material on their computers. But computers are constantly bombarded with material from everywhere and some of this will infiltrate onto a person's computer without the owner being aware of it. Computers are often used by many people apart from the actual registered "owner" of the equipment. In the home, relatives, friends and visitors can utilize the machine-an office computer might have dozens of hands using it. There is no guarantee that a computer might not contain "criminalized" material without the owner being aware of it, or because it has been put there by another user (in the latter case the actual "guilty party" would be almost impossible to identify and to provide proof of guilt).  A person may be viewing "soft" non "criminalized" material on a website,  when something "harder" and possibly "illegal" appears-the individual may not know that such material can be part of this particular site, and, as has been stated, is likely to be totally unsure if this is or is not "criminalized" imagery anyway. In the climate of fear and prurient spying being fostered by such proposed legislation,  the instinct of many for the preservation of their liberty may be to unplug their computer completely-never daring to use it in case they inadvertently broke this dreadful proposed law and were pursued by prosecutors out to convict newly categorized "sex criminals". What a climate to be creating in the twenty first century!. The personal disasters and examples of some police incompetence and downright skulduggery that have been seen in some of the "Operation Ore" investigations, nominally seeking paedophiles, but netting stigmatizing and destroying many individuals not at all interested in child porn, but merely the legal "adult" variety, illustrates starkly the complexity and very real dangers inherent in pursuing "sexual criminality" where the means of delivery are computers and the internet. A bland blanket assertion that nobody need fear they are going to be wrongly railroaded, does not convince in the light of recent judicial history. Even something like "Operation Ore", (this being the the biggest and best known case ), where the issue was something clear cut and knowingly illegal and internationally recognized as criminal, child porn, involving basically just one US website, saw many quite innocent people have their lives destroyed. How many more can result from an amorphous, vague, subjective computer "crime" like the viewing of "extreme violent pornography" on the internet?. Thus where even the "experts", saddled with implementing the legislation would have little idea what they are meant to be doing, flaying round in a sea of subjectivity, the internet user is even a worse position-not knowing if looking at something has the potential to send him or her to jail for years and stigmatize them as a kind of "sex criminal" (the lowest of the criminal low) for the rest of their days. A witches brew indeed, perhaps more accurately, a sexual witch hunter's brew.

A SUMMING UP /THE POLITICS OF ABSURDITY

There is an old adage-"If it ain't broke-don't fix it!". If there was ever a case for heeding that hoary axiom it is this one. It is a major state interference in the private life of the citizen over activity not currently illegal. There is no evidence whatever that the material under consideration is responsible for bringing about a huge social evil-inspiring real life criminality which absolutely "necessitates" the Government introduce draconian laws, punishing and criminalizing perfectly law abiding , decent,  utterly harmless citizens. To anchor this, as the Consultation Paper tries to, in a single real murder, is a classic example of overreaction to sincere but prejudiced and unreasoning interest groups, blinded by a lone personal tragedy from seeing reality. Jane Longhurst died because Graham Coutts is an evil psychopath, not because he looked at images of women suffocating on the net-it is like saying we will get a modern day epidemic of Christians carrying out the murders of "non believers" and "pagans",  because it is encouraged by "God" and the prophets in some of the Old Testament, or lots of us will be tempted to become blood drinkers if we watch a lot of vampire movies. The plaudits that might flow initially from such pressure groups and prurient,  hysterical tabloids, from bringing in legislation like this, would soon dissipate in an avalanche of legal problems and appalling miscarriages of justice for internet users, proving the whole sorry business to be an expensive, needless fiasco-another ban from a Government increasingly being viewed and feared and thus disliked, as intolerant authoritarian, illiberal and "ban happy" over anything it doesn't care for. The fact alone,  that no other state in the western world would remotely consider doing what these proposals suggest, should be warning enough-we would rightly be seen as being governed by a prissy band of puritanical, authoritarian, punishment freaks. Besides which, the legislation as envisaged in the Consultation Paper, is almost certainly in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, which this very Government joined and made supreme over any domestic legislation-yet which seems not to mean anything to it if the Articles conflict with the domestic "agenda" they wish to pursue. Though that should not stop such a law being declared in breach of the Convention by the European Court-showing up the Government as human rights abusers, and making it repeal or radically re-draw the law-or resign from the Convention completely.

I am at a loss to understand why any Home Secretary let such proposals as these see the light of day (except maybe to win plaudits from the tabloids, which love a good "ban" and a chance to hound people over sex-juicy headlines guaranteed!). The emphasis on this complete "non problem", has been made to seem to appear all the more extraordinary, in the light of the revelations that dangerous foreign citizens have been released from prison in large numbers without being deported, and without the Home Secretary and the relevant authorities even knowing where most of them are!. Some of the "wobbling" and "lets pretend it's not happening and hope nobody finds out" attitude over such demonstrably dangerous foreign felons, seems to have been based on a degree of fear on the part of the Government, that deportation of such people, especially to "unsafe" areas of the world, might cause another collision between the Government and the ECHR. Yet where the state prevaricates and does nothing over provably violent threatening aliens, who are an all too real danger to the life and limb of the people of this country, it nevertheless charges forward with draconian proposals to trample on the human rights of perfectly law abiding citizens, threatening the most severe punishment for those who fall foul of such legislation-over an issue which the Government itself admits there is no evidence whatever of serious consequences for society as a result of the lack of any law criminalizing users of "extreme violent pornography". And this proposal undoubtedly sets the UK Government on a collision course with the ECHR, and with a far shakier case to justify its behaviour to the Court than can be made for the "necessity" (that word again!) for violent foreign criminals to be deported from the UK when they come out of jail, to protect our society from the consequences of their criminal behaviour. Truly we seem to be living in an "Alice in Wonderland" world,  where all logic and reason has been abandoned.

I know nothing of the internal manoeuvers within the Home Office which led to these proposals being given any consideration at all (they should have been laughed out of the building!). Maybe this is the price paid for having a Home Secretary, who in the Twenty first century, threatened to extend and toughen the seventeenth century laws against "blasphemy", instead of consigning them to the dustbin of history. Thus it's maybe not so amazing that under such a Minister we see a gibbering dark ages absurdity resurrected (after it was long ago buried in the age of reason 300 years ago), running free once more and terrorizing the present day with its rusty puritanical axe. Perhaps this rubbish was the special "baby" of that Home Secretary, who has now lost his job on the basis of the scandal revealed about ineptitude and complacency over the aforementioned dangerous foreign criminals. It certainly shows a very peculiar-well let's be blunt, quite inexplicable judgement about what should and should not be the priorities of the Home Office!.

Dr.  Reid, the new Home Secretary, showed common sense and a rational approach over the "smoking" issue recently-sadly absent in many of his colleagues. His proposals, as Health Secretary, in my view at least, were a sensible compromise, allowing there to be certain "public places" where smoking would be permissible, while the bulk of them would become smoke free. This is the kind of compromise, which should be seen in democratic politics. Unfortunately, Dr. Reid and his handful of allies, were overruled by the rest of the Cabinet, the Prime Minister and MPs, including a new Health Secretary, determined to implement her far more wide reaching ban-responding to ill informed hysteria and baseless statistics trumpeted by pressure groups (who may shout loudly, but are not necessarily telling the truth and do not necessarily represent actual public opinion either, they did not on this issue in either case). This, of course directly went against the policy stated in Labour's 2005 election manifesto-the voter thought he would get a limited ban by re-electing Labour, instead he ended up with a total one, something he may not have wanted at all, and might have changed his vote accordingly if he'd known. Dr. Reid, being a new broom in the Home Office, with a new team, need not be beholden to a discredited predecessors dangerous, wrong headed ideas, and one would hope he'll look critically at this issue again. From what has come out on the subject from official sources, the shoddiness of the approach which has been taken, the lack of serious consideration of their practical implications for the judicial authorities, the enforcers, and most of all the liberty and human rights of the citizens of this nation, is all too depressingly apparent. The implications for the UK's obligations under the Convention on Human Rights are glibly brushed aside in a few words, none of them establishing how on earth such legislation could possibly be justified under it, appearing to indicate that this simply hasn't been looked into in the detail one would have thought anyone drawing up even "suggestions" for future legislation would have felt duty bound to do, especially in view of the real probability that such legislation would be unacceptable to the ECHR, and land the Government in embarrassing and totally unnecessary trouble for doing something it clearly is not allowed to do and remain a member of the Convention.

MY POSITION

In response to the Consultation Papers question, I would obviously strongly favour the option of "do nothing" over this business, and let what is an utter non-issue drop, avoiding the sort of mess and disaster I have predicted would result from anything but the most limited legislation. If the Government feels-despite the timely warnings from so many of us who flatter ourselves we have a clear view of the implications-that it has (inadvisably) gone too far down this road to apply the brakes, and do a handbrake turn, then my feeling (reluctantly-but politics often does need to be about a compromise) would be to say "criminalize" sites within UK jurisdiction, which contain factual material-things that look real and are real, and are provably so. It seems there are actually very few UK based sites which contain even fictional depictions of this sort of "extreme" material, never mind real ones. The possession of pictures/film of real-provably real-"extreme sexual violence", could be criminalized. As with child pornography, we are not talking here about "fantasy" violence in which nobody is harmed, but material which has indeed been produced by means of criminality. Thus by utilizing such material, a prosecutor can assert that, as with child porn , the "end user" is an "accomplice" to a real crime (proving the user actually knew it was real is another matter-and would need to be established to justify a conviction-not easy to do-which is why doing even this is not a very sound idea!). It would be far better to choose the option of letting sleeping dogs lie-but something like this may be the least damaging way of getting out of a corner it would have been wiser not to have volunteered to get painted into by persistent minority pressure group pestering in the first place!.

IN CONCLUSION (finally!)

If by this letter, I have added some sound weighty arguments, to warn of the perils implicit in bringing in laws "criminalizing" viewers of "violent internet porn" I feel I will have accomplished something.

To sum up, the proposals as given--

1)Provide no evidence for the need for draconian legislation impacting severely on the private life and human rights of UK citizens.
2)Employ justifications based on fundemental and provably false and fallacious arguments by-
a)Linking child porn and any form of adult porn.
b)Try to say that the measures are needed to stop a real crimes-
-real violent sex offenses.
-people being forced to make such material-
for both of these,  the Government can produce no actual evidenceThen it lumps the unproved "real" material and the fantasy variety-treating both as equally reprehensible-a totally illogical and absurd position to propose translating into legislation impinging on human rights. .
c)Claim that outlawing such material here, especially when nobody else is intending doing it, may reduce supply of this material(I have illustrated with examples why this wouldn't work even if other nations were silly enough to join the UK in it-which there is no evidence that they are going to.
To use these facile assertions as main planks in the "reasons" for and "objectives" sought for controversial legislation is ridiculous.
3)Do not seem to recognise the implications which surround the issues of definition and clarity, absolutely critical both to the prosecuting authorities and to the citizen who may end up being criminalized by such proposals.
4)Most importantly, they do not seem to have taken into serious considered account that proposals over internet etc porn of such a severely draconian type as envisaged in the Paper, with penalties mooted bearing no relation to the alleged severity of the "offense" and undeniably being a fundamental and major state infringement on human rights-with "justifications" based on nothing but provably illogical comparisons, subjective moral opinionating and an obvious lack of understanding of the material in question itself-could almost certainly not be seen as conforming to the Government's legal obligations to uphold the citizens right to privacy and freedom of expression under the Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. 
One can do no better than to end with the wise words of a legal expert in these matters, who has studied the Consultation proposals and is expert in the relevant sections of the European Convention on Human Rights-

"In conclusion, I consider that the legislation as proposed gives rise to real concerns as to its compatability with an individuals rights under articles 8 and 10 of the Convention. "
(Rabinder Singh QC 18 November 2005)