There is an American lawyer, Mr Preston Byrne, who used to live in and operate in the United Kingdom but who is now back in the United States, who is taking on the British government over the issue of freedom of speech. He is particularly interested in going after Britain’s Ofcom agency as Ofcom is attempting to impose Britain’s highly censorious anti free speech laws to American citizens. Mr Byrne is legally resisting this attempt to coerce Americans into surrendering their First Amendment rights and his campaign, which has been joined by like minded American lawyers, is already showing some success. The message board 4Chan whose cause is being supported by Mr Byrne and others, has already told the British government to ‘go forth and multiply’ and stated that they operate under the US Constitution which, unlike Britain’s, guarantees freedom of speech.
This particular Briton has been extremely impressed and heartened by Mr Bryne’s fightback against British government imposed censorship being applied to American citizens and American companies. I’m so impressed that I’ve publicly stated that if Mr Bryne wins against the UK and makes the UK government back down significantly on the issue of using British law to punish Americans for speaking that I will celebrate such a win. I have said that if Mr Byrne wins then I’ll ascend to the top of an Iron Age hillfort that I know of, wearing a three piece suit and a bowler hat and sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’. I hate my own government’s anti-free speech policies so much that I would be more than willing to embarrass myself in this way by taking my less than optimal singing voice into the public arena.
Now onto the meat of this From Elsewhere piece. Mr Byrne has produced an excellent article outlining all the things that an American could do on a Saturday night which would in the UK be criminal offences. Many of these potential criminal offences involve speech and the policing of speech.
I’ll give an excerpt or two from Mr Byrne’s piece but I would strongly counsel that people read the entirety of Mr Byrne’s article as just giving a few quotations would not do this piece justice.
You can find Mr Byrne’s piece via the link below:
https://prestonbyrne.com/2016/01/06/uk-us-comparison
Mr Byrne starts his piece by declaring that ‘the UK is not a free country’. He backs up his claim by listing some of the lunatic things that you can be arrested for in the UK such as preaching the Christian gospel or quoting from the works of Winston Churchill.
Mr Byrne said:
"The United Kingdom is not a free country.
When quoting Winston Churchill or the Bible verbatim on a street corner is enough to get you arrested and charged with a crime, it is not appropriate to speak of your freedoms being in danger from state encroachment. Your freedoms are gone.
And if the UK can slide quite as far as it has, much of it taking place in the last 15 years, so can any other English-speaking country. This includes the United States.
Below, I set out many political rights Americans have that folks in the UK do not in a handy tabular format, by reference to England and Wales, one of the UK’s three constituent jurisdictions (the other two being Scotland and Northern Ireland). I do this to demonstrate just what happens when the political left wins the battle to restrict civil liberties, and in particular free speech, as they have in the United Kingdom and indeed all across the European Union."*
Mr Byrne then went onto describe a mythical night out for an American in which this equally mythical American does things that are not offences in the USA but which are in the UK. Here’s just part of that section of Mr Byrne’s excellent piece.
"Let’s take what could be a fun Saturday night in America and see how many English crimes we can commit by doing what, for a wholesome, well-adjusted, baseball-and-apple-pie American, would be completely normal, healthy, and legal:
• 4:00PM: heckle Ron Paul supporters outside a political rally. (See: case of Bethan Tichborne (below), Public Order Act 1986, s. 4A)
• 4:30 PM: Holding a megaphone, I quote Winston Churchill on the steps of a public building. An officer says a member of the public is offended by the language, and orders me to leave. I stay put. (ss. 34-42 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014; Part 3, Public Order Act 1986; Article 10(2) of the Human Rights Act)
• 4:50PM: While I’m there I have a banner that says “Libertarians are, in my reasoned opinion, a bunch of slack-jawed troglodytes.” An officer suspects someone could find the banner offensive. It is seized… much as the police threatened to seize anti-monarchy banners and arrest anyone carrying them during the Royal Wedding. (ss. 4A(4), 5(4), Public Order Act 1986; Article 10(2) of the Human Rights Act)
• 5:00 PM: Disappointed, I leave. I have a multi-tool with a locking blade in my front right pocket. Because, y’know, it’s useful, in case I need to set up a campsite, fix something, open a can, tighten a screw, peel an orange, whatever. …Uh-oh! The Crown treats its subjects like Americans treat four-year-olds (no handling of sharp objects) meaning that my chosen penknife is illegal to carry – and one of the few areas of British criminal law where the government wants to impose mandatory minimum sentencing, too. (Prevention of Crime Act 1953, Offensive Weapons Acts, Knives Acts)"*
Mr Byrne then carries on in the same entertaining manner. However I have to say that reading Mr Byrne’s extensive list of what is criminalised in the UK might be entertaining for Americans who have a multitude of freedoms that Britons just don’t have, but this list is a nightmare for those of us who have to live with such a system as we do in the UK.
Mr Byrne also has a brilliant grid of what actions an American can do which are protected by the US Constitution but which are crimes here in the UK. I will not excerpt from that section as it is so absolutely brilliant and detailed that you really need to visit Mr Byrne’s site and read it for yourself.
I would like to conclude this piece by wishing Mr Byrne and his esteemed US legal colleagues who are fighting British censorship all the very best and I hope and pray that they win against Ofcom and the British government. Such a win would not only be of direct benefits to American citizens but might also assist British subjects in their long and ongoing fight for the same degree of freedom of speech as our American friends have.