United Kingdom - The national security and anti-terrorism state

David Allen Green (@JackofKent) wrote an article on his blog, 'The national security and anti-terrorism party.' In that he said that government oversight and overreach is inexorable and inevitable. No matter who is in government. In 2012 the coalition government announced it planned more email and social media surveillance. The plan echoed a similar announcement made in 2009 by the Labour Party. Later scrapped. David Allen Green cited the Home Office which said in that article:

"It is vital that police and security services are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public."

And David Allen Green said in response:

"But they may as well be saying: 

"It is vital that police and security blah obtain data blah serious crime blah and TERRORISM KLAXON blah and to protect the public."

David Allen Green (@JackofKent) - The pointlessness of a law degree

David Allen Green wrote here about the pointlessness of a law degree:

"The one thing a law degree is not particularly useful for is the practice of law. In fact, it may well be the last degree one should do if the ambition is to be a practising lawyer."

Worse: 

"A law degree can even be worse than useless."

And so:

"Do not waste three years of your life on a LLB, for there is nothing in answering the clever questions of law academics that will get you very far in in a courtroom or with a client.

More:

"The only thing an LLB contract course and typical contract drafting and negotiation have in common is the word “contract”."

He finished with a flourishing metaphor:

"But the academic study of law is like reading sheet music without an instrument: one can more or less make it out, but as with music, law only comes alive in its performance."

Leonard Duricic of Bechstein Piano also gave us a flourishing metaphor:

"If you only learn theory, it’s like learning to swim by reading a book - it’s not the same, so you need both."

 This is an example of the wishy washy carers advice they're giving out now that I got in 2005:

"Employers across the spectrum respect law degrees because they know law is a tough discipline that helps you to develop analytical skills."

It's bollocks. An employer does not want you to think like a lawyer. They want you to do it. David Allen Green in full here.

Blogging has enormous depth, Ctd

I've looked at the US bloggers Andrew Sullivan (@SullyDish)and Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) and Christopher Hitchens who all talked about the depth of blogging. I also looked at what Paul Krugman had to say about blogging. I've also looked the the UK legal bloggers David Allen Green (@JackofKent) and Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1). The internet has had an incredible democratic and levelling effect. As Paul Krugman said:

"Academic credentials are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for having your ideas taken seriously... if someone without formal credentials consistently makes trenchant, insightful observations, he or she has earned the right to be taken seriously, regardless of background."

All the above have attested to the depth, authority and veracity of the new medium. Daniel Hannan (@DanHannanMEP) added his voice to the debate:

"The separate categorisation of columnists, reporters, bloggers and interested readers is becoming meaningless. Every citizen is now a potential journalist. News and opinion are a conversation. We still hear occasional complaints from Leftie pundits that online media “lack quality control”. In fact, the dialectic element of blogging ensures a higher standard of accuracy than before. Mistakes are ruthlessly exposed and, because of the sheer number of outlets, a plausible new theory can spread with previously unimagined speed. 

Blogs have improved veracity, quality and diversity. They have not led to the segregation by opinion that many predicted: Leftists and Rightists argue online in a way that never happened when people took just one newspaper. It's true that bloggers, being human, are as prone to cruelty, stupidity and error as anyone else. But it has never been easier to go elsewhere: more people are reading more news and comment than at any time in history."

On what blogging is all about, Greenwald put it best:

"I began [blogging] without any plan to become a journalist or writer, but simply to participate as a citizen."

Arm Folding and Mirror Holding, Ctd

Love how #CreepingSharia amply demonstrates that there is no Defence more English than taking this piss out of extremists. Of any stripe...
— Andrew Haydon (@Postcards_Gods) April 16, 2012

Being able to mock, laugh and ridicule power is a distinctively British tradition. Britain is after all the mother of the free world. Classical British liberalism is what informed the American Constitution and the First Amendment which gives American a complete right to free speech. Britain gifted America Habeus Corpus. The Britain John Milton made the classic case for free speech in his pamphlet Areopagitica. David Allen Green said:

"Being able to openly ridicule and mock those in power – or seeking power – is perhaps a more important right than many realise."

George Orwell knew that England and the English could never fall to fascism as the people instictively laugh at ostentatious acts of power. He said in England Your England:

The best in legal commentary via @JackofKent

Won't be long. But for legal comment follow: @AdamWagner1 @JoshuaRozenberg @carlgardner @Familoo @copyrightgirl @Lyndon_Harris @DBanksy
— Jack of Kent (@JackofKent) January 29, 2014

David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) (@JackofKent) is away from Twitter and the blogosphere. He's writing (a "wretched") book.

@DavidAllenGreen - Let's ban the banning of things

David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) (@JackofKent) wrote of the political addiction to prhibition and the impulse to ban things in The New Statesman here:

"Those calling for something to be "banned" should... ask two simple questions. First, what will the prohibition do in respect of the undesired behaviour? And second, what other consequences may flow from the prohibition? Good answers to both these questions will inform the political choice as to whether such a ban should be implemented and, if so, how. We may even get better laws as a consequence; we could even get prohibitions that actually work and are proportionate. 

The call for something to be "banned" should be the start of a mature and constructive political debate, and not the end of one. Perhaps the time has come to ban just banning things."

In full here.

Blogging has enormous depth, Ctd Modern day pamphleteers

Legal blogger Adam Wagner talking about social media for law professionals here

David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) (@JackofKent) is a legal bloggers who began writing online in 2007 when he created his personal blog Jack of Kent, to promote the public understanding of law. He said that blogging is like being a modern day pamphleteer. He said:

"The elements of speed and self-publication in blogging make it, in my view, akin to pamphleteering... blogging is akin to pamphleteering, then it is pamphleteering with electronic footnotes."

David Allen Green on social media regulation

The Financial Times legal blogger David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) wrote about social media regulation in The New Statesman. My previous post on Allen Green's move from the New Statesman to the FT can be read here. He said here on social media self-regulation:

"Social media provides the means by which clusters of like-minded individuals can easily swap ideas and scrutinise data on public matters. In this way, social media users can hold politicians and media outlets to account in a manner not possible -- or conceivable -- until a few years ago. Instead of a politician saying something forgotten the day after, or a reporter's bylined piece being in next day's fish-and-chip paper, those involved in social media can pore over details and make connections weeks and months later. Transgressions can be linked to and accumulated. A speech or a byline can now come back and haunt you long after you have "moved on".