Cracking down on free speech?

So were heading into a world in which free speech is only ok,if its ok with a censor? Protests are going to be basically ran by censors.Deciding what you can and cant say.People.look around you.Speak up against what is occuring,before you no longer have a right to speak up.

(Gaurdian.co.UK)-Police want power to crack down on offensive demo chants and slogans ·
Present curbs are too light, Met chief to tell Goldsmith
Rights groups say officers would be 'censors in chief' www.guardian.co.uk...

Police are to demand new powers to arrest protesters for causing offence through the words they chant and the slogans on their placards and even headbands.
www.guardian.co.uk...

The country's biggest force, the Metropolitan police, is to lobby the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, because officers believe that large sections of the population have become increasingly politicised, and there is a growing sense that the current restrictions on demonstrations are too light.
www.guardian.co.uk...

The police want powers to proscribe protest chants and slogans on placards, banners and headbands. Human rights experts say that such powers could also be used against protesters such as animal rights and anti-globalisation activists. The civil rights group Liberty said the powers would make the police "censors in chief".
www.guardian.co.uk...

The director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, said: "[The proposal] misunderstands the nature of law and free expression in a democracy and casts the police as censors in chief. It aims to protect people from 'offence' rather than harm, slates the CPS and muses wildly on 'public perceptions'."
www.guardian.co.uk...

And also here

(The Union Leader)-Gingrich raises alarm at event honoring those who stand up for freedom of speech
www.theunionleader.com...

MANCHESTER - Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism.
www.theunionleader.com...

Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.
www.theunionleader.com...

Gingrich sharply criticized campaign finance laws he charged were reducing free speech and doing little to fight attack advertising. He also said court rulings over separation of church and state have hurt citizens' ability to express themselves and their faith.
www.theunionleader.com...

We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade," said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994.
www.theunionleader.com...

Wrong title brother, should be " Cracking Down on Hate Speech".

About time it came, hope it extends to Deporting the Hate speakers back to there sandcastles.

So who is to determine what hate speech is?

The government?

Oh yea, that will really work...

Free speech is free speech.

Originally posted by omega1
Free speech is free speech.

Agreed, as much as I don't like what some have to say they have a right to say it. As long as they aren't calling for death and violence towards individuals and they follow the law when it comes to time and place it's fair game.


[edit on 28-11-2006 by WestPoint23]

No, Free speech in its current form is Double Standards.

A group of Islamofascists can stand outside Westminster cathedral wearing masks and shouting all sorts of profanity like HERE yet if a few Crusaders got to together and decided to throw on there St George kit and do the same outside a mosque we would be arrested and in court the same day!!.

Screw free speech if thats what free speech means!

Don't know how it is in the UK but here in the US what you described would be fair game, you would not get arrested, unless you called for the death of someone. But if the situation is as you state it than that is a double standard.

Originally posted by NumberCruncher
No, Free speech in its current form is Double Standards.

A group of Islamofascists can stand outside Westminster cathedral wearing masks and shouting all sorts of profanity like HERE yet if a few Crusaders got to together and decided to throw on there St George kit and do the same outside a mosque we would be arrested and in court the same day!!.

Screw free speech if thats what free speech means!

No, that is not what free speech means.

Free speech means free speech.

What you are talking about is not free speech, and that is exactly why free speech should be enforced.