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The Anarchist Cookbook, founded the nonprofit Next Frontier: Inclusion in atonement for writing the book? |
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The result was: promoted by
Cwmhiraeth (
talk) 05:41, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
Improved to Good Article status by Etriusus ( talk). Self-nominated at 05:39, 18 July 2021 (UTC).
I'm not entirely sure what there is to discuss here or what the controversy is. In the UK, it is an offence contrary to section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to possess, without reasonable excuse, information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. [1] Cases which have resulted in acquittal (such as R v Walker) were due to the defendant's proving, pursuant to section 58 (3) (3A), that he had a reasonable excuse for his possession. [2]
Parliament has made it, prima facie, a crime to possess The Anarchist Cookbook because of its potential utility to a terrorist. [3] R v Bel was a case of nothing more than simple possession and Bel was convicted on a single indictment after the jury rejected his defence of reasonable excuse by way of academic research. [4] There are many other such cases, as a simple Google search can verify. I cited such cases as well as the relevant legislation in my original edit.
The House of Lords has made clear that the circumstances in which the information is possessed is irrelevant unless it amount to a defence under subsection (3):
49. Section 58(1) focuses on the nature of the information which the defendant collects, records or possesses, rather than on the circumstances in which he does so. The description of the information is given in general terms: information will meet that description, irrespective of who might commit or prepare an act of terrorism and so be likely to find the information useful. It could be a third party or it could indeed be the defendant himself. So the offence is apt to catch someone who gathers the information and stores it with a view to passing it on to someone else who is preparing an act of terrorism. But, equally, it will cover someone who does these things with the intention of using the information himself to prepare an act of terrorism. Or else, the accused may have gathered and stored the information without having any clear idea of what he intends to do with it. None of this matters, since the legislation makes it an offence simply to collect, record or possess information of this kind. Parliament must have proceeded on the view that, in fighting something as dangerous and insidious as acts of terrorism, the law was justified in intervening to prevent these steps being taken, even if events were at an early stage or if the defendant’s actual intention could not be established. At the same time, Parliament enacted section 58(3), which introduced the necessary element of balance by giving the accused a defence if, with the benefit of section 118, he proves that he had a reasonable excuse for doing what he did.
— R v G, R v J [2009] UKHL 13 on appeal from the Court of Appeal Criminal Division), https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090304/rgrj.pdf
Further and similarly,
58. [...] section 58 focuses on the nature of the information which the defendant collects, records or possesses in a document or record. Subject to the defence in section 58(3), the circumstances in which the defendant did these things are irrelevant. So, unless it amounts to a reasonable excuse under subsection (3), his purpose in doing them is irrelevant. In particular, there is nothing in the terms of section 58(1) that requires the Crown to show that the defendant had a terrorist purpose for doing what he did.
— R v G, R v J [2009] UKHL 13 on appeal from the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090304/rgrj.pdf
If someone with a legal background would like to explain what was incorrect about my edit, then I would be very interested to hear it. Otherwise, I will gladly provide further citations if that is deemed necessary. I await a response.
Festus Muldoon ( talk) 04:27, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
75. By contrast, as we have already explained, the offence under section 58(1) does not depend on the defendant having a terrorist purpose. It depends, rather, on the nature of the information which the accused collects, records or possesses. The defendant cannot change the nature of the information, but is not to be convicted if he shows that he had a reasonable excuse for collecting, recording or possessing it.
— R v G, R v J [2009] UKHL 13 on appeal from the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090304/rgrj.pdf
References
The Anarchist Cookbook § Notable incidents of alleged possession
This section reads to me as trivia. Is it really "notable incidents" or is it every press mention of the book in relation to a case? If there is a point to be made here, it should be made by a reliable, secondary source rather than a rather indiscriminate list of mentions. czar 13:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
The Anarchist Cookbook article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1Auto-archiving period: 180 days |
The Anarchist Cookbook has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
A
fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the "
Did you know?" column on
August 2, 2021. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that William Powell, the author of
The Anarchist Cookbook, founded the nonprofit Next Frontier: Inclusion in atonement for writing the book? |
This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
On 15 May 2010, The Anarchist Cookbook was linked from Slashdot, a high-traffic website. ( Traffic) All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history. |
|
|
This page has archives. Sections older than 180 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 3 sections are present. |
The result was: promoted by
Cwmhiraeth (
talk) 05:41, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
Improved to Good Article status by Etriusus ( talk). Self-nominated at 05:39, 18 July 2021 (UTC).
I'm not entirely sure what there is to discuss here or what the controversy is. In the UK, it is an offence contrary to section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to possess, without reasonable excuse, information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. [1] Cases which have resulted in acquittal (such as R v Walker) were due to the defendant's proving, pursuant to section 58 (3) (3A), that he had a reasonable excuse for his possession. [2]
Parliament has made it, prima facie, a crime to possess The Anarchist Cookbook because of its potential utility to a terrorist. [3] R v Bel was a case of nothing more than simple possession and Bel was convicted on a single indictment after the jury rejected his defence of reasonable excuse by way of academic research. [4] There are many other such cases, as a simple Google search can verify. I cited such cases as well as the relevant legislation in my original edit.
The House of Lords has made clear that the circumstances in which the information is possessed is irrelevant unless it amount to a defence under subsection (3):
49. Section 58(1) focuses on the nature of the information which the defendant collects, records or possesses, rather than on the circumstances in which he does so. The description of the information is given in general terms: information will meet that description, irrespective of who might commit or prepare an act of terrorism and so be likely to find the information useful. It could be a third party or it could indeed be the defendant himself. So the offence is apt to catch someone who gathers the information and stores it with a view to passing it on to someone else who is preparing an act of terrorism. But, equally, it will cover someone who does these things with the intention of using the information himself to prepare an act of terrorism. Or else, the accused may have gathered and stored the information without having any clear idea of what he intends to do with it. None of this matters, since the legislation makes it an offence simply to collect, record or possess information of this kind. Parliament must have proceeded on the view that, in fighting something as dangerous and insidious as acts of terrorism, the law was justified in intervening to prevent these steps being taken, even if events were at an early stage or if the defendant’s actual intention could not be established. At the same time, Parliament enacted section 58(3), which introduced the necessary element of balance by giving the accused a defence if, with the benefit of section 118, he proves that he had a reasonable excuse for doing what he did.
— R v G, R v J [2009] UKHL 13 on appeal from the Court of Appeal Criminal Division), https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090304/rgrj.pdf
Further and similarly,
58. [...] section 58 focuses on the nature of the information which the defendant collects, records or possesses in a document or record. Subject to the defence in section 58(3), the circumstances in which the defendant did these things are irrelevant. So, unless it amounts to a reasonable excuse under subsection (3), his purpose in doing them is irrelevant. In particular, there is nothing in the terms of section 58(1) that requires the Crown to show that the defendant had a terrorist purpose for doing what he did.
— R v G, R v J [2009] UKHL 13 on appeal from the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090304/rgrj.pdf
If someone with a legal background would like to explain what was incorrect about my edit, then I would be very interested to hear it. Otherwise, I will gladly provide further citations if that is deemed necessary. I await a response.
Festus Muldoon ( talk) 04:27, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
75. By contrast, as we have already explained, the offence under section 58(1) does not depend on the defendant having a terrorist purpose. It depends, rather, on the nature of the information which the accused collects, records or possesses. The defendant cannot change the nature of the information, but is not to be convicted if he shows that he had a reasonable excuse for collecting, recording or possessing it.
— R v G, R v J [2009] UKHL 13 on appeal from the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090304/rgrj.pdf
References
The Anarchist Cookbook § Notable incidents of alleged possession
This section reads to me as trivia. Is it really "notable incidents" or is it every press mention of the book in relation to a case? If there is a point to be made here, it should be made by a reliable, secondary source rather than a rather indiscriminate list of mentions. czar 13:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)