Now This is Worrying

The police managed to get Fitwatch closed down.

Scotland Yard has forced the closure of an anti-police blog which was being used to disseminate advice to protesters pictured at the student fees demonstration.

The website Fitwatch was suspended after the its hosting company received contact from C011, the Metropolitan’s public order branch, stating that the blog was “being used to undertake criminal activities”.

Leave aside for a moment the background story – the student rioters and that Fitwatch was seeking to assist possible suspects escape the long arm of the law. What is worrying is the ease with which the site was suspended:

Hours later, the Met’s “e-crime unit” informed Fitwatch’s website hosting service – JustHost.com – that the blog was being used to attempt to pervert the course of justice by providing guidance to “offenders”.

“We hereby request [you] de-host this website for a minimum period of 12 months,” it said in a letter seen by the Guardian. “The website is providing explicit advice to offenders following a major demonstration in central London.”

“The demonstration was marred by violence and several subjects have already been arrested, with a major police operation under way to identify and arrest further offenders.”

The letter stated that authority to close “the website and IP address” had been given by Will Hodgeson, an acting detective inspector at C011.

That’s right – a detective inspector authorised a letter. That’s it. No court order, no senior officer involved, just a detective inspector’s say so. And, on the basis of that, the host rolled over.

As an aside, I’m not convinced that the “advice” was perverting the course of justice – nothing in it was new or couldn’t be worked out by anyone with half a brain. The police should have had a quiet chuckle rather than over reacting and doing a Streisand.

9 Comments

  1. ” And, on the basis of that, the host rolled over.”

    Should have gone for an overseas host then. Bet they’ve learned their lesson now.

    And now the police have no handy website to monitor and see who has said what to whom. Idiots!

  2. Justhost.com will lose because of this and rightly so. Who wants a ‘host’ who’ll just kowtow to anything a ‘uniform’ says? We all write things that upset the authorities at some time or other. Is this shutting down of sites going to become the norm? Perhaps WordPress? Blogger?

  3. They were’nt even aiding criminals. They were offering sensible advice to people who thought they might get arrested because they were photographed.

    I’ve re published it.

  4. To be honest I’m amazed it’s still news worthy, you could get pretty much any site/blog you like shut down in the UK, thanks to the Lawrence Geoffrey case (years ago) and our wonderful libel laws and the like. The ISP/Hosting provider counts as a publisher once they’ve been notified by the police/lawyer/anyone that they’re hosting something which might be a bit naughty.

    They then have the choice to fight it and be liable, or pull the site, whilst you contact people (or not)to check the facts. If you’re charging a fiver a month for hosting guess which makes economic sense. Pretty much any ISP will do the same thing based on any complaint from anyone – at least if they’re based in the UK.

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