Stardate 20021110.1807

(On Screen via long range sensors): Presenting for your enjoyment the latest source of controversy which is going to arise between Europe and the US. This is actually something that's been going on for a long time, but it's about to get more intense.

The subject in question is freedom of expression. We believe in it. Europe doesn't. The Council of Europe just outlawed it.

The essential test of free expression is the extent to which it tolerates unpopular opinions, even ones most people find vile and despicable. As soon as government gets involved in deciding what is acceptable and what is not based on content, then the fox is in the henhouse and people's ability to express themselves will be more and more restricted. The ultimate danger is the eventual tyranny of the majority, where opinions survive or are suppressed based solely on how popular they are.

The North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) is a perfect example of this principle. Pederasty should be, and is, a serious crime. (It's statutory rape.) But thinking about it, and talking about it approvingly, should not be. And though I find what they advocate revolting, I fully support their right to make their case.

The only way we can truly prove our commitment to freedom of expression is by defending that freedom for people whose opinions we despise. It is therefore necessary to protect the ability of vanishingly small groups to express opinions that others find loathsome. Only when such speech is protected can we be sure that our own speech is also protected.

Which is why one of the most profound things our founders did was to pass the First Amendment which, for all intents and purposes, bans the government from suppressing speech and print based on content.

However, the Council of Europe has just passed a measure which criminalizes "hate speech" on the Internet. The Council of Europe's press release says:

The Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers today adopted the Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime. The Protocol requires States to criminalise the dissemination of racist and xenophobic material through computer systems, as well as racist and xenophobic-motivated threat and insult including the denial, gross minimisation, approval or justification of genocide or crimes against humanity, particularly those that occurred during the period 1940-45. It also defines the notion of this category of material and establishes the extent to which its dissemination violates the rights of others and criminalises certain conduct accordingly.

The scope of this Protocol is twofold:
- to harmonise substantive criminal law in the fight against racism and xenophobia on the Internet,
- to improve international co-operation in this area, while respecting the right to freedom of expression enshrined, more than 50 years ago, in the European Convention on Human Rights.

So let's see just what it is they object to, shall we? Hmmm? The actual body of the protocol can be found here (PDF file). And the key definition is given right up front, in Chapter II where they describe just what they want banned:

For purposes of this Protocol,

"racist and xenophobic material" means any written material, any image or any other representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence, against any individual or group of individuals, based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as a pretext for any of these factors.

That's me. USS Clueless is "racist and xenophobic". Because of my advocacy of war against Iraq and other places where Arab Traditionalist beliefs hold sway, my writings would satisfy this definition. I'm advocating violence (in the form of war). I've also written many times about my feeling that we must effectively eliminate the influence of Wahhabism (an Islamic sect).

And that's also the rabid anti-American editorials posted in The Guardian on a regular basis, because they're intended to inspire hatred against Americans.

In hopes of placating the US and convincing it to join the convention, they've included a waiver that a Party may reserve the right to not apply paragraph 1 to those cases of discrimination for which, due to established principles in its national legal system concerning freedom of expression, it cannot provide for effective remedies...

Which is cold comfort, because many of the signatories have no equivalent protection to our First Amendment, and in many areas this is going to have a very chilling effect on freedom of expression. That definition paints with a very broad brush, and much of what I consider legitimate political debate falls under it. Given that war is always violent and that it is usually applied to other nations, it's difficult to see how anyone could write anything advocating war without being in peril.

They go further, though; Article 5 bans the act of publicly insulting any of that om