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August 05, 2004
Censorship
The Monk has to be extremely careful these days about what he writes in his blog. The reason is that the rules have been adjusted and can now be interpreted in so wide a fashion that it could almost be a disciplinary offence to comment on the state of the weather - if the information regarding the weather came from a work related source. Since much of what drives me and my opinions is related to work, this creates something of a dilemma. Do I do a Horatio Nelson - "I see no such signal, Captain Blackwood" - or do I risk losing the very small and entirely inadequate (but a damned sight better than nothing) pension the politicians and the civil service begrudge me?
I am therefore forced to apologise to my readers for the bland nature of my posts of late. Once the present pile of ordure has been cleared from the respective fans, I hope I shall be able to resume the right of freedom of speech which so many brave soldiers, sailors, and, latterly, airmen have fought to preserve in this supposedly "free" world.
Sadly, I am forced to the conclusion that we are no longer free to speak as we find; we are under threat at all times since we are now "managed" by bullies at all levels; and here I include the supposedly elected ones as well. This will get very ugly before it is finally settled, but, at the moment, I cannot see it being settled at all.
There it will have to rest for the time being.
Posted by The Gray Monk at August 5, 2004 05:11 PM
Comments
Maybe this is a good time to ask how Madam Paddy is doing? I was wondering, but hated to interrupt thoughtful serious posting.
Posted by: Atlantic at August 5, 2004 10:01 PM
The generally accepted practice when wankers threaten your job for blogging is to get a new identity and move to Silent Running... even WE don't know who we really are!
Free speech is damned expensive when the arsehole ratio is so high.
Posted by: Murray at August 6, 2004 10:19 AM
Shhh... They are listening
Posted by: Gawain at August 6, 2004 11:17 AM
Of course, there is the matter of proving who said what.
As another blogger who has used guru-international in the past it is worth noting that for this blog:
a. the author is in one country
b. the server is in another country
c. the address or cannonical name is served in a third country
Which laws of libel would apply (if any)? Somehow I doubt that the "proof" would be available to convict you of writing anything.
To further complicate matters, your host is paranoid and runs the webserver and database on an encrypted filesystem. That means that seizing the server would be highly ineffective because the data would be instantly invisible and unusable.
Hmmm.....
I think you are pretty safe :-)
Posted by: Some Knowitall at August 7, 2004 11:37 AM