Big Brother is alive and well and living in Cambridge.......at Police headquarters.  On a mild spring morning in the month of May, Stephen Phillips, cyber name -Noonian Sung, received a letter at his home address from Superintendent Walter Haddow of Cambridge Constabulary, threatening to reveal his home address to Cambridge Social Services if he didn't remove the certain information regarding employees of Cambridge SS.

Poor Stephen is nothing more than our webmaster......actually, he is a lot more than that to us, but the point is, imagine if the Police threatened a typesetter at the Times if they didn't remove details of some-ones wrong doing....... Absurd !!! 

England is not a police state.

Even though Cambridge Police seem to think it is, they are sadly wrong.  It is not for some Superintendent to decide what can or can't be printed in the News..  It is not for Cambridge Police to trade, sell or donate information about peoples personal addresses to other Council run departments.  The Police are here to protect us, not act as bully-boy henchmen for some corrupt council who are trying desperately to cover up their wrong doings

I, Istvàn Sós own this site and I am fully responsible for it's content.  Mr Phillips works as an unpaid programmer and does not need this rubbish being sent to his home address.

This is yet another silly and time wasting attempt by Ms Railton to silence us.  Clearly we have made an impact, and we shall continue to do so with renewed vigour.

Our Message to Cambridge Constabulary Ltd, is to keep out of the business of being henchmen, private investigators and data collection agencies and get on with the job of solving real crime, committed by real criminals.  A good place to start would be Cambridge Social Services !!!

See the letter and Stephen's response below.

Emailed response :-

Dear Mr Haddow,

I refer to your letter dated the 10^th May 2002, in which you threaten to divulge my personal details to Cambridge Social Services unless I take certain information off www.Blunderingsocialworkers.co.uk.

Firstly, I do not own this site, I merely do the programming, and therefore I am not responsible for this site.  The owner of this site is Mr Istvan Sos, who resides in Budapest Hungary.  However, you may email any correspondence to this address.

Secondly, there are no personal details on this site other than the work addresses of people named.  All the information on this site is public is currently in the public domain and easily accessible. Had you taken the time to look thoroughly through the site, you will have easily noticed this.

As suggested at the foot of your letter, I have taken legal advice and I must inform you that unless you provide me in writing, within 48 hours of receipt of this email, that you will not divulge my personal information to your client, then I will take action to secure an injunction against yourselves, whilst seeking costs and damages.

I will not be intimidated, threatened, blackmailed or harassed by your force or the Social Services.  I am a programmer and nothing more.  The law is clear on this matter and I am advised on the following points :-

1. The Police are not a data collection agency for Social Services and may not abuse their access to privilege information upon demand.   
2. The  Police do not have the right to determine whether information published on this site is likely to lead to a criminal act, and therefore demand that this information is omitted, even though it does not exists. 
3. If you divulge this information, you are committing and offence under the data protection act.
4. It  is not your place, or that of the Police to determine whether or not the content of any website or newspaper goes beyond what is reasonable expression.  That is for the courts to decide.
5. The Police do not have the right or power to censor news papers or agencies.  This site is an electronic newspaper, and therefore will only respond to orders of court., not the Police

If you fail to provide the undertaking as mentioned, or if you provide Cambridge Social services, or anyone else with my personal information, I will immediately instigate a claim against you for substantial damages.

In the meantime, I intend to turn this into a formal complaint, and therefore would like to know what the procedure is without delay.  Additionally, I intend to write to the Home Office and clarify your role in this.  I have spoken to Mr Sos, who is happy for a copy of your letter to be added to the growing file on Cambridge Social Services.

Finally, it is obvious that those named on this site will do whatever they can to cover up their corruption.  It was never the intention of the owner to include anything to do with the police, as their role is tough enough.  However, your actions have left Mr Sos with no choice, as it appears succinctly that you are acting as private investigators for Cambridge Social Services.  Your letter is provocative and clearly animates the position that your force is taking in this matter.

Just in !!! Letter from Cambs SS Solicitor to our host.

BY E-MAIL:

abuse@Affordable-Space.com & legal@Affordable-Space.com

 Dear Sirs

 Website: blunderingsocialworkers.co.uk

 We are UK lawyers acting for Cambridgeshire County Council and their Director of Social Services, Ms Liz Railton.

 Our investigations reveal that you are the ISP hosting the above site.  The Domain Servers for this site are:

 ID IN A 209.126.160.2; and

ID IN A 209.126.160.18

 No contact details are provided of the owner or author of the material on the site.

 The content of the page on the site:/Camb.htm is highly defamatory of the Director of Social Services.  Furthermore, the site includes her home address.

 The material on this web page contains under the heading “Cambs SS Director exposed” our client’s photograph and with her personal address and telephone number at its foot suggests Ms Railton is, amongst other things, associated with making malicious and anonymous false allegations against families; is guilty of a criminal offence by destroying evidence and has been responsible for “terrorising families”.

 Apart from the defamatory nature of the allegations made which are both false and malicious, publication of Ms Railton’s home address on the site, we believe, exposes her to the risk of further abuse, possibly personal and physical and seriously threatens her private and domestic life.

 As publisher of the material now on notice, therefore, we require you:-

 (i)         immediately to remove this web page from the site and any other web pages containing material defamatory of Ms Railton and those in the Social Services Department of Cambridgeshire County Council;

(ii)        to provide us with the name and address of the owner of the web site by return.

 (iii)       advise us immediately of your proposals for ensuring that no further material defamatory and/or abusive of Ms Railton and the Social Services Department at Cambridgeshire County Council appears on any web site hosted by you.

 Please would you acknowledge receipt of this communication.

You should be aware that when we brought the above material to the attention of the website’s former ISP, Fasthosts Internet Limited on the 25^th and 26^th April 2002 the site was shut down immediately.  As a consequence, the site moved to a different ISP, OLM LLC of 4 Trefoil Drive, Trumbull, CT 06611, USA (www.OLM.net) and when we brought the above information to their attention on 29^th April 2002 they also took immediate action against the site.

 Our clients are considering the remedies open to them but in the meantime reserve all their rights against Affordable-Space.com to take such proceedings as are open to them to ensure removal from the site of any material defamatory of our clients and seek such financial recompense as is available to them.

Yours faithfully

Sharpe Pritchard

Our Response

We have contacted the parties involved and asked them to comment, but have not received a reply.  Perhaps Messrs Sharpe Pritchard should read the following extract from the case "Godfrey v Demon"

The US Congress decided not to impose tort liability on Internet Service Providers which carry other third parties’ potentially defamatory content through their servers as a policy decision and the effect of the section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 1996 was to overturn the decision made in the Prodigy case. (12) Wilkinson C.J. in Zeran v. America Online (13) stated that "section 230 creates a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service. Specifically, Section 230 precludes courts from entertaining claims that would place a computer service provider in a publisher’s role. Thus, lawsuits seeking to hold a service providers liable for its exercise of a publisher’s traditional editorial functions -- such as deciding whether to publish, withdraw, postpone or alter content -- are barred."                                                                

Also, do Cambridge SS and Cambridge Police clearly understand the Data Protection act ?  Clearly not !!

Indeed, if the USA has anything similar to the Data protection, which they do....FTC and common law bill.....then Sharpe Pritchard are asking my host to commit and offence and/or expose themselves to litigation from us for making our details available to them, thus breaching contract and intruding upon our right to seclusion and solitude.

But to be honest with you, our hosts are cool guys who are not phased by these storm trooper tactics.

Keep coming back for more juicy updates

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