"Web site" baffles Internet terrorism trial judge

[MrPrax]

"Web site" baffles Internet terrorism trial judge

LONDON (Reuters) - A British judge admitted on Wednesday he was struggling to cope with basic terms like "Web site" in the trial of three men accused of inciting terrorism via the Internet.

Judge Peter Openshaw broke into the questioning of a witness about a Web forum used by alleged Islamist radicals.

"The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a Web site is," he told a London court during the trial of three men charged under anti-terrorism laws.

Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms "Web site" and "forum." An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: "I haven't quite grasped the concepts."

AP via Yahoo

I have a proposal -- rather than cheap talk about 'terrorism'...

How about something a little more complicated like: Operation Ore and it's progeny Operation Avalanche and Snowball.

Anyone remember that? Want a follow up?

Is Operation Ore the UK's worst-ever policing scandal?
-- Guardian

Fatal flaws in Operation Ore - the full story
-- PC Pro

...and what should have been investigated if there was genuine concern...?

Dozens back identity fraud campaigner

AN Andover (England) man's campaign to expose an identity fraud which led to him and possibly hundreds of other, innocent people being arrested after their names appeared on a porn website, has really taken off since it first featured in the Andover Advertiser.

In this country evidence from the website led to the Operation Ore crackdown on child pornography, with thousands of arrests and searches nationally.

....

Mr Bunce, aged 45, later uncovered evidence that his data was stolen from a supermarket on-line shopping server registered solely so that he and his wife could shop on-line.

A BBC 4 investigation has since found that possibly hundreds of innocent people may have found themselves in the same boat as Mr Bunce. Since the Andover Advertiser article Mr Bunce has been contacted directly by about 25 individuals, all in the same situation as him - all victims of credit card fraud and identity theft.

Basingstoke Gazette

Operation Ore: evidence of massive credit card fraud
The Register

Last words...

Global child porn probe led to false accusations

"....Irish lawyer Paul Lambert has reviewed some of the Landslide cases. He says because the issue was child pornography, people were not treated as innocent until proven guilty.

"Certain police forces around the world ... would have been told by U.S. authorities, 'These are pedophiles and this is a 100-per-cent pedophile website,' " he said.

Lambert says no one seems to have considered other possibilities in the cases he has reviewed, "things like whether somebody else has access to a computer; things like malicious access to computers, malicious uploading and downloading.

"These are all issues which, strangely, were wholly ignored by the prosecution, and particularly prosecution experts in their examination of the evidence they gathered."

Lambert said he believes many suspects pleaded guilty because they didn't know how to fight back against the technical experts used by the police. ..."

CBC