~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                          INSIDIOUS GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP
                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After avenues through the Courts to pursue my allegations against Judge Simpson and hose members' of the judiciary,  who had unlawfully protected him, had been closed to me I decided to try to expose the conspiracy within the Lord Chancellor's department by putting up a website on the internet and in that respect, I purchased a computer.

I'd never had any interest in computers, although, I did recognize the world wide web as a powerful weapon that could be used in the interests of justice, so I set about trying to construct pages to upload and signed up with a local Internet Service Provider: Kingston Internet Ltd.

I uploaded very crude pages, using web space provided by my ISP, but in the knowledge that, the site had to be advertised, for anybody to know the address and therefore, to visit it. I was unable to afford to register it with the major search engines, which is the best method of making it known,
but I did inform Mrs. West's Solicitor and the Lord Chancellor's Department., in the hope that, either, Mrs. West, Judge Simpson, or the named members of the judiciary, who had conspired to protect Judge Simpson, by unlawfully striking out my claims, might, just might, issue an indictment to have me remove the pages under threat of imprisonment, when it would have to be shown that my allegations are defamatory and when I would be given an opportunity to produce the abundance of
official and other documentary evidence that supports the allegations.

On the 26th of October 1999, I received a letter from Mrs. West's Solicitor: Mr. Swales informing me that the Treasury Solicitor was aware of my website and was for the Lord Chancellor's Department and those members of the judiciary named therein, to decide what, if any action, they wish to take.

So it seemed that, Mr. Swales was still acting on behalf of the Treasury Solicitor, because both he and Mrs. West, are named in the pages and one would have thought that, they may have wanted to take action against me. It appears that the strings were being pulled by the Lord Chancellor's Department, they having instructed the Treasury Solicitor. Mrs. West's silence had to be maintained, for the protection of Judge Simpson.

I didn't have to wait too long to find out what action the Lord Chancellor's Department had
decided to take: six days in fact and that was when I received an e-mail message from Kingston Internet informing me that my webspace had been disabled. I'd been shut down in preference to being taken to Court, to answer for my so called defamatory pages and no prizes for guessing why the legal avenues open to, of all people the Lord Chancellor's Department, had been bypassed.

Copy of the e-mail message from Kingston Internet.

Monday, November 01,1999 9.36AM

Mr Hulbert,

It has been brought to our attention by the Lord Chancellor's Department
(http://www.open.gov.uk/lcd/lcdhome.htm) that your web site is causing offence. This is
in violation of Clause 6.2 of our Terms and Conditions, namely:

"You must not use or allow the Service or your web space to be used for storing, sending or receiving any material which is obscene, menacing, threatening, offensive, abusive, indecent,
defamatory, fraudulent, criminal or which infringes the rights of any other party including any
intellectual property rights."

As a result we are invoking clause 6.4 of our Terms and Conditions, namely: "We reserve the right
to suspend part or all of the Service if you are in breach of any of the term of this Agreement."

Your webspace has thus been disabled with immediate effect.

Kingston Internet Webmaster
=============================================================

I'd been toying with the idea of subscribing to ewsgroups to expose the corruption that I'd
encountered at the hands of the judiciary, so the disabling of my website encouraged me to
participate and my initial newsgroup post was to newsgroup alt.uk.law, warning of the
Government censorship. I copy it here.

Subject line: Take Notice.

Because if you are a UK. citizen it could happen to you. My web site at <www.karoo.co.uk> has
been unlawfully shut down by my ISP upon instructions from those I expose: the Lord Chancellor's
Department contrary to European Law: Freedom of Expression. The right course of action should
have been to take me to Court if anything that I have published is anything but the truth, but the
Department have dipped into its bag of dirty tricks to gag me. I now rely on the independence of a
USA. provider of web space and I understand that the USA has freedom of speech built into its
constitution. Can those conspirator's within our Lord Chancellor's department influence their
American counterparts to shut down my alternative site at: <http://zat.freehosting.net>
What has made the Department act in such a blatantly unlawful manner? Visit the free hosting site to
find out: no strings attached. - Jim Hulbert.

I was astonished at the response to the message, because it provoked a world-wide outcry. Someone, in the name of Lord Irvine, had scored an own goal.

I received many e-mail messages from people dedicated to freedom of expression on the internet and a number of offers to mirror my pages, some of which, I gratefully accepted. I also uploaded the pages  courtesy of overseas webspace providers.

A sample of the outrage caused by the UK Government censorship follows.

Fax sent to Lord Irvine by Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK)

Dear Lord Irvine:

ARTICLE 19 is concerned by reports that an ISP, Kingston Internet Ltd., recently closed down the site of one of its customers, Mr.Hulbert, after receiving a complaint from you as Lord Chancellor,
apparently to the effect that the site was “offensive”. We take no position on the content or legality of the material in question but note that the author, Mr. Hulbert, was effectively censored without
any opportunity to challenge this decision in court or to be heard by an independent body.

The potential for censorship, both by government and by private actors, through actions of this sort is clear. A mere complaint can result in the removal of material from the Internet and deny
individuals access to this important vehicle for freedom of expression.
 

The root of the problem is that Internet
service providers (ISPs) may be legally responsible for material on websites they host. This has been clearly established in relation to defamatory material, at least after the ISP has been notified of its existence. See Godfrey v. Demon Internet Ltd., 26 March 1999, No. 1998-G-No 30 (High Court). In practice, most ISPs will remove potentially actionable material whenever they receive a complaint, without much regard to the value of the material, its legality or freedom of expression. Most ISPs are commercial businesses with expertise in technical matters, not publishing or freedom of expression. They cannot be expected to disagree with senior government officials or to risk expensive court cases when material posted by one of their customers is challenged.

Mr. Hulbert would appear to have no effective legal recourse, as a broadly worded clause in his agreement with the ISP allows them to terminate services whenever he stores, sends or even receives material that is, among other things, threatening, offensive or indecent.

The European Court of Human Rights has specifically held that freedom of expression, guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, applies to information and ideas that “offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population.”  Handyside v. United Kingdom,
7 December 1976, 1 EHRR 737, para. 49. It is unclear what effect the imminent incorporation of the European Convention into law in the United Kingdom would have on the type of action you
took in this case.

Our concerns are highlighted in this case where it would have been a simple matter for you, or any individuals who felt their rights had been infringed, to initiate legal action against Mr. Hulbert. An
independent court could then determine whether he should be legally sanctioned. We are gravely concerned that instead of opting for an open, legal approach, you have chosen effectively to censor Mr.Hulbert by means of a private letter.

If officials, or anyone else for that matter, can censor the Internet merely by complaining to service providers, the implications for freedom of expression are grave indeed. We urge you immediately to
stop practising this insidious form of censorship. We also call on the government to commit itself to clarifying the law to make it clear that service providers are not responsible for material on websites they host.

Andrew Puddephatt Executive Director

============================================

Date: Embargo to Monday 29 November 1999
From: Ilana Cravitz, ARTICLE 19 Press Officer. 020 7278 9292

LORD CHANCELLOR CHALLENGED ON ‘INSIDIOUS CENSORSHIP’

The Lord Chancellor’s office has acted as judge, jury and censor by taking action leading to the closure by an Internet service provider of a website deemed ‘offensive’, according to ARTICLE 19, the International Centre Against Censorship.

Andrew Puddephatt, Executive Director of the London-based rights organisation said:

“The government department responsible for ensuring justice has effectively denied the author of this website the right to put his side of the argument. We are more used to protesting such insidious
censorship on the part of totalitarian governments.”

The action demonstrates that public officials are willing and able to censor the Internet merely by complaining to service providers, who are more concerned about the possibility of large legal bills than safeguarding free speech.

ARTICLE 19 believes that there should be an opportunity for an independent assessment of the site’s content – for example by being able to challenge the closure order in court or at a hearing by an independent body.

ARTICLE 19 is concerned about the implications for freedom of expression raised by this incident. The European Court has pacifically held that information and ideas that “offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population” are protected under the free speech guarantee offered by Article 10 of the Convention. In order for such standards to be tested, cases need to be brought to court. The Lord Chancellor has by-passed a legal process and thus undermined the force and judgement of the law.

ENDS

1. The action by the Lord Chancellor’s office comes shortly after a meeting held at ARTICLE 19 to brief the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression on the UK situation.

See ‘Lagging Not Leading: Freedom of Expression in the UK’ (ARTICLE 19, Oct. 1999).

Mr. Yaman Akdeniz,
Director, Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK)
URL: http://www.cyber-rights.org
E-mail: [email protected]

------- End of forwarded message -------
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
                     Hulbert’s Case, the Lord Chancellor and Censorship of the Internet

                             A Statement by Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK)

 
November 1999 Pages Updated on 15 November, 1999

Background Information on Hulbert’s Case

On 07 November, 1999, the Independent published a story entitled "Irvine closes down
‘anti-judge’ website," in which it was stated that "the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, has
shut down a web site because it was being used to criticise judges."

The page that the Lord Chancellor thought to be offensive involves a series of open letters to the
Lord Chancellor made by a certain James Hulbert, 67, from Hull, who has "identified five judges
who had presided over a series of cases in which Mr Hulbert claims he was denied justice."

Mr Hulbert used Kingston Internet Limited  http://www.kingston-internet.net  as his Internet Service
Provider (with offices in Hull, Leeds and London) to set up his web pages including the above
referred statements.

Last week the Lord Chancellor’s department wrote to Kingston Internet Limited describing the
statements provided by Mr. Hulbert as "offensive" and asked the company to remove the content
that the Lord Chancellor found as "offensive." According to the Independent article, a spokesman
for the Lord Chancellor’s Department confirmed that the department had written to the service
provider alerting the company to the "offensive" material. (So far we did not see a copy of Lord
Chancellor’s letter).

The following message was sent by the Kingston Internet Limited Webmaster to Mr. Hulbert on
Monday November 01, 1999 with the subject line - Deletion of Webspace.

==============================================================

Mr Hubert,

It has been brought to our attention by the Lord Chancellor's Department (http://www.open.gov.uk/lcd/lcdhome.htm) that your web site is causing offence. This is in violation
of Clause 6.2 of our Terms and Conditions, namely:

"You must not use or allow the Service or your web space to be used for storing, sending or
receiving any material which is obscene, menacing, threatening, offensive, abusive, indecent,
defamatory, fraudulent, criminal or which infringes the rights of any other party including any
intellectual property rights."

As a result we are invoking clause 6.4 of our Terms and Conditions, namely: "We reserve the right
to suspend part or all of the Service if You are in breach of any of the term of this Agreement."

Your webspace has thus been disabled with immediate effect.

Kingston Internet Webmaster

The Kingston Internet Terms and Conditions can be found online at
 http://www.kingston-internet.net/tsandcs.html

==============================================================

Therefore, Kingston Internet Webmaster closed down Mr. Hulbert’s website. But according to the
Independent article, "Mr Hulbert said he was merely asserting his right of self-expression following
what he describes as his outrageous treatment at the hands of the courts and the police."

Mirror Copies Spawned

As ever, mirror copies of these "offensive pages" are now available elsewhere over the Internet. This is the public response by individual Internet users to fight censorship and we have already witnessed
similar examples in the case of JET Report and mirror copies were crucial in that case to stop the
threats of a local government body to suppress the publication of a previously not available report.

Therefore, if you want to read what Mr. Hulbert wrote to offend the Lord Chancellor, than visit the
following web sites:

Website site "removed" at the request of the Lord Chancellor at
http://www.markgold.freeserve.co.uk/censorship/

UK Censors at Work at  http://www.openpgp.net/censorship.html

Another mirror of Mr. Hulbert's Web pages is provided at  http://members.nbci.com/larks/mirror

The mirror copies started to appear following an initial message by Jim Hulbert [email protected]> on 05 November, 1999 with a subject line - Take Notice which was
posted to the newsgroup alt.uk.law.
The above message can be seen through
Deja.com at  http://www.deja.com/[LBURL=_LBHTwww.openpgp.net_LBFS,LBT=Take%20Notice]/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=544763569
 
 Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK)
Position

Without taking a stand on Mr, Hulbert’s statements, Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) issues
the following statement:

We believe that the Lord Chancellor, or whoever considers these statements to be offensive or
defamatory, should complain to the original publisher of these statements - in this case Mr. Hulbert,
rather than the Internet Service Provider, Kingston Internet Limited. If necessary those who are
offended should take legal action - but against the original publisher of the statements and not against the ISPs.

We object to individuals or companies putting pressure on Internet Service Providers with legal
threats for the removal of Internet content from their customers’ web sites. Furthermore, we strongly object to such pressures being applied by public and political figures (in this case the Lord
Chancellor) in matters regarding political speech and public criticism of those who hold public
positions.

We also object to the position taken by the Internet Service Provider, Kingston Internet Limited, in a case where the preservation of political speech and public criticism of public officials is in dispute. A
letter sent by the Lord Chancellor who found the pages in question to be offensive is not a satisfactory ground for taking down a customer’s web site regardless of the references to the Terms
and Conditions of the ISP in question. It amounts simply to a "licence to censor" which is
unacceptable in matters involving the preservation of political speech.

Nevertheless, the current legal situation does not protect the ISPs from libel suits for not taking down Internet content and they can be held liable for defamation under section 1 of the 1996 Defamation
Act. Such an action was recently taken against Demon Internet in the High Court case of Laurence
Godfrey v Demon Internet (March 1999, see http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/godfrey2.htm).

Holding an ISP responsible for content published by third parties or by the customers of ISPs has
serious implications for the preservation of freedom of expression over the Internet. This is
censorship by the back door and needs to be strenuously resisted.

We remind the Lord Chancellor’s Department that decisions of the House of Lords in the cases of
Derbyshire County Council v. Times Newspaper [1993] AC 534 and Reynolds v Times
Newspapers (28 October, 1999 at: http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199899/ldjudgmt/jd991028/rey01.htm)

moved from concerns for the private reputations of others towards interests of democracy and truth,
which is consistent with free speech theories and with article 10 of the European Convention on
Human Rights and Human Rights Act 1998.

Furthermore, the European Court of Human Rights in Lingens v. Austria (1986) 8 E.H.R. 407,
stated that: (at 419, para. 42):

"The limits of acceptable criticism are accordingly wider as regards a politician as such than as
regards a private individual. Unlike the latter, the former inevitably and knowingly lays himself open
to close scrutiny of his every word and deed by both journalists and the public at large, and he must
consequently display a greater degree of tolerance. No doubt article 10(2) enables the reputation of
others--that is to say, of all individuals--to be protected, and this protection extends to politicians
too, even when they are not acting in their private capacity; but in such cases the requirements of
such protection have to be weighed in relation to the interests of open discussion of political issues."

We, therefore, call for the Lord Chancellor’s Department to review the current state of the
Defamation Act 1996 as far as section 1 is concerned and we call the Government to review the
position of the ISPs as far as defamation laws are concerned rather than applying pressure to
suppress freedom of expression, and the rights of individual citizens to criticise those that hold public
positions.

Please note that the legal position in relation to public officials and the law of defamation in various
countries were summarised in the judgement of the House of Lord in Reynolds v Times
Newspapers (28 October, 1999).

Press Coverage

Wired News, "Censorship Furor on Brit
Site," 13 November, 1999, at  http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,32520,00.html
 
The article quotes a spokesperson for the LCD and a spokesperson for the Kingston Limited, the ISP who took down Mr. Hulbert's pages. According to the Wired article, Peter Farr, a spokesperson for the Lord Chancellor’s Department, would not say why Hulbert was not approached directly. "We believe [going to Kingston Internet] was the most appropriate action as
Kingston is an objective third party and [they] are assessing the site according to their own criteria," Farr said. He also denied that approaching Kingston was the speediest way of getting the site pulled and that any government pressure was exerted. "I would hope Kingston does not feel they were
pressured," Farr said. "It was a request and not an instruction."

Kingston Internet confirmed it was not coerced. However, the ISP’s marketing manager, Kay Stevenson, said she did not believe it was fair to hold ISPs accountable.

"It’s a sticky situation," she said, pointing out that Kingston, which has 7,500 customers, was simply
heeding the outcome of an earlier case. "We would have felt much more relaxed if Demon hadn’t
happened," Stevenson said, referring to the March 1999 case between Demon Internet, one of the UK’s oldest ISPs, and Laurence Godfrey.

ZDNet UK News, "Lord Chancellor shuts down Web site," 13 November, 1999, at
  http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/45/ns-11409.html

Neither the Lord Chancellors department nor Kingston Internet were available to comment at press time of this article but the artixcle includes a comment by Laurence Godfrey who is pleased to see an ISP acting on the ruling made in his fight with Demon Internet. "I haven't read the content in this case but I am glad to note that, as a result of the precedent made in the ruling in my case against Demon, some ISPs are behaving responsibly in acting to remove offensive material," he said.

Silicon.Com News, "Lord Chancellor denies Web site censorship," 9 November, 1999,
available through  http://www.silicon.com

This is an earlier article in which the Lord Chancellor's office has refuted suggestions that it
demanded the closure of a Web site set up to criticise five judges.

The ISP said in a statement: "The Lord Chancellor's department did not order the closure of the
Web site, but drew our attention to it. After reviewing the material we decided to apply our
conditions of Internet service and believe the action we took was correct."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My initial message to alt.uk.law was the start of literally hundreds of messages to law newsgroups in a prolonged effort to expose the corrupt Circuit Judge and those that had and still were protecting him and maintaining Mrs. West's silence.
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Chapter Eighteen 
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