In the pub, can't find out via Google.
Are any books banned in the UK now?
Specifically things like the Anarchist Cook book?
I found a couple of people prosecuted, but not sentenced for possession of it.
Thanks!
Was the Anarchist's Cookbook ever an actual published book which could be banned?
... ah, seems it was, in the US at least.
I had it on Atari ST floppy disk in the 1990s, under the guise of "The Jolly Roger's Cookbook."
According to wiki- yes!
Banned in Australia
Was the Anarchist’s Cookbook ever an actual published book which could be banned?
Leaving aside whether it is a "book" if you have a copy then probably is illegal in the uk currently, sort of anyway.
It can count as "terrorist materials" (if you fancy chancing life and limb for something which is unlikely to go off when intended and likely to when not).
Its been used as evidence for convicting people of terrorism offences although I dont think on its own.
I'd hazard to say no.
And probably for good reason, we should learn from past mistakes, not hide from them.
You can't learn unless you understand, etc.
There's nothing to be gained by hiding from the past.
I’m pretty sure I downloaded a copy just out of curiosity, but I’ll be damned if I know where I put the file!
Banned in Australia
That's not really a supprise... did they not deny a new law recently that meant that the origionals don't have the same civil rights as the new white ones?
A Friend of mine of indian origin got called 'a darkie'. She didn't care as she was used to it.. but it really pisses me off, as a white guy...
These people are ****ing dispicable.
I’d hazard to say no.
i guess this is where it gets philosophical.
if you can be charged with terrorism offences for possessing a book does that count as it being banned?
That’s not really a supprise… did they not deny a new law recently that meant that the origionals don’t have the same civil rights as the new white ones?
Getting off topic but no the referendum was about having creating a "Indigenous Voice " to parliament/government in addition to the existing civil rights which, in theory, are equal already.
So banned films
But not actual list of banned books?
If you get a sentence for having the anarchicjts cook book- is that banned? I you have drugs and get a sentence, to me thata clear the drugs are banned.
Is there a list of- will get you in trouble if found in conjunction with... Books- a less snappy title than banned
Banned doesn't necessarily mean illegal. A book may be banned from schools, not sure if this is done at a national regional or local level.
Can't be arsed googling but I thought Mein Kampf was banned?
There is no such thing as a banned book.
The the printing press did away with that in the industrial revoultion, when the upper classes seeked to control knowledge.
Name a book.. I'll happily post a link to it.
There's a list on wikipedia (obviously) which says that the last book to be banned was in 1991- on obscenity, called Lord Horror. the ban was overturned in 1992, but you can't read it as all the copies were pulped and it was never reprinted.
Has the books you'd expect (as banned) as useful to criminals, Anarchists, Kill or get Killed, Put 'em Down.
Was the Anarchist’s Cookbook ever an actual published book which could be banned?
Leaving aside whether it is a “book” if you have a copy then probably is illegal in the uk currently, sort of anyway.
It can count as “terrorist materials” (if you fancy chancing life and limb for something which is unlikely to go off when intended and likely to when not).
Its been used as evidence for convicting people of terrorism offences although I dont think on its own.
It is a book, albeit mostly distributed as a PDF rather than a printed copy. And it is regarded as ‘information that could be useful to a terrorist’ and is proscribed under “Possession of terrorist documents, s58 Terrorism Act 2000”.
I know this firsthand, as I sat on the jury for someone who was found guilty of possession and dissemination of such documents (along with other things) and was jailed for a considerable time. There were individual charges relating to possession and dissemination of each document, and they were found guilty of all.
If you get a sentence for having the anarchicjts cook book- is that banned? I you have drugs and get a sentence, to me thata clear the drugs are banned.
Is there a list of- will get you in trouble if found in conjunction with… Books- a less snappy title than banned
In court we were told there is a list that documents found in the possession of defendants are compared with to determine if they fall into the scope of the legislation mentioned above. We were not shown this list, and I can’t find a copy of it online. But as that statement was given in evidence, I am assuming it to be true.
In the library where I work we are regularly accused of banning books just because we don't have a copy of it. The reality is that there are thousands of books we don't have as we have finite space and a finite budget.
There are people who will have a list of homophobic/racist/sexist/transphobic books and will go through libraries on line catalogues to try and find them. If they aren't there we'll get an angry email accusing us of being woke and banning books when the reality is we've spent the money on books people actually want to read.
Let's not forget that some of the books that were banned were damned good, eg Last Exit to Brooklyn and Ulysses.
Specifically things like the Anarchist Cook book?
I found a couple of people prosecuted, but not sentenced for possession of it.
So prosecuted but found not guilty?
The government doesn't need to ban named books, any book which contravenes the limitations placed on free speech, eg individuals are not allowed to incite violence, hatred, pedophilia, etc, will automatically be banned.
Weird, thought Mein Kampf would be banned, but available for sale on t'internet, weirdly we had to review some of the anarchists cookbook during my course, against the proven manufacture routes, some scary 'advice' in that thing.
there is David Britton - Lord Horror ebook on piratebay, but you have to install something to dload it, so i wont bother.
There is a big list of in thailand, like the king never smiles,
I guess there are levels of banning as well. There have been lots of cases in the good old land of the free (USA) where school or disctrict school boards have banned books. If you got back to the 50s/60s/70s I'm sure anything vaguley communist would have been banned.
But yeah banned in the UK to me would mean banned centrally by the UK gov.
This is the first hit on google. https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/50138/leisure_and_learning/1435/censored_-_the_books_they_didnt_want_us_to_read
Last page has an interesting satement...
Strict censorship has since ceased, and virtually all books banned have been unbanned. A 2007 era listing of banned books showed that none had been banned since 1998.
Yes the Anarchists cookbook was actually in print form and was available as a mate had a copy and I've read it a few times. No idea what he did with it as no longer see him. In a box in the loft i expect.
So prosecuted but found not guilty?
I have been on a jury that found someone guilty for possession of a very similar (derivative) text. They got eight years in total.
A number of the charges were “possession of material that could prove useful to a terrorist” and they were found guilty on all those charges. I paraphrase, as I can’t recall the exact wording of the charge.
Yes the Anarchists cookbook was actually in print form and was available
does that make it a book? I would say the definition of a book is it has an ISBN. I would say a good test if a book is banned is whether the British Library would let you view it - legally they should have a copy of every book published in the U.K.
i think the purpose of the terrorist legislation is to stop me rephrasing parts of it republishing and being Ok.
Last Exit to Brooklyn was a good book?
Thanks for all that!
I'm glad I never downloaded the anarchist cookbook when I was a kid out of curiosity.
Did I dream someone put a link to it on here?
So books aren't banned, but possession of certain materials can land you in jail. One such thing being a book.
I'm still not sure if it counts as banned, but that's a pointless wonder. Got book= jail is close enough to banned for me not to get or read said book.
From @jeffl link
I saw that, but have read about half of them. Mostly bought from books shops, hence my confusion if any books are banned in the UK now.
I sat on the jury for someone who was found guilty of possession and dissemination of such documents (along with other things) and was jailed for a considerable time.
Was context considered? Like "dissemination with intent"? Or was it simply "you own it, go directly to jail, do not pass Go"?
As I said, I had a copy of it on the ST. I'd have been, what, 16? It was disseminated far and wide, by many people. As a teenager it was a little bit taboo and exciting but we weren't terrorists, it was considered a curiosity, a laugh. Different times today perhaps, but as though any of us were actually going to pop to the shops with an ingredient list to go and make nitroglycerin.
Even back then we figured, the vast majority of it probably didn't work. Like, the phreaking stuff was interesting, but would only have been relevant to anything if I was in the USA in the 1960s. We might as well have been reading how to summon the dead using five candles, a catering pack of Saxo and a goat. We looked at it like how today you'd see Facebook memes telling you to hold down your finger (always effective on a desktop PC) to find all these people you'd never heard of who were secretly following you.
Methinks he doth protest too much.
Cougar admits to possessing & reading a certain cookbook.
Bensales says he sent someone to jail for this (paraphrasing 😉 )
Cougar posts long panicky paragraph about how it was only a laugh, honest guv, and we never really believed it anyway, and I don't even know where it is, and and
Suspicious 😉
Suspicious
Yeah, I always had him down as a wrong 'un 😕
does that make it a book
Ohh let me think. Black cover both sides, loads of pages in between. Title, foreword. I might be going out on a limb here but yup, i think it does.
Weird, thought Mein Kampf would be banned, but available for sale on t’internet
I remember seeing Mein Kampf for sale on the shelves of W.H. Smith in Croydon. I was particularly incensed as they didn't sell The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels.
Presumably they thought Adolf Hitler was a more desirable author.
W.H.Smith stop selling Mein Kampf a while back.
Suspicious<br /><br />
key phrase in Bensale’s post is ‘amomg other things’
W.H.Smith stop selling Mein Kampf a while back.
I hate to be a grammar nazi here....
key phrase in Bensale’s post is ‘amomg other things’
"Other things" such as certain dodgy practices involving goats, that certain people seem to know a little too much about? Hmm.
It is a book, albeit mostly distributed as a PDF rather than a printed copy.
A fellow student on a Computer Studies BTEC during the mid 90s gave me a copy on a 3.5" floppy in .txt format.
I read some of the recipes but didn't have any need for bombs, and I cooking up drugs in my parents house wasn't going to happen!
and this:
Even back then we figured, the vast majority of it probably didn’t work.
If you squint slightly and extend books to published material, including websites, then you do start to see 'banned' or calls to ban. eg: on the Radio last week there was a heartbreaking story about this
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67082224
but then where the sites are hosted overseas and just accessed by UK computers, there's limited that can actually be done. There are of course statutory instruments covering the download, etc., of child porn but I'm not sure what else is specifically in place to ban other websites and other contents.
Cougar admits to possessing & reading a certain cookbook.
I mean, it was a wholly differently-titled book, probably satire or something. Your Honour.
I'm wondering now whether I still have it. It's doubtful. I still have an ST but I think the vast majority if not all of my disks for it are long gone. What 3.5" disks I do have (other than PC disks) are for the Amiga, and I suspect most of those don't work any more.
Was context considered? Like “dissemination with intent”? Or was it simply “you own it, go directly to jail, do not pass Go”?
Context mattered but the specific charge was possession.
IIRC there were six or seven charges of “possession of materials that could be of use to a terrorist”, one for each document. Then there were another set of charges for dissemination of each document. Plus charges relating to possession of explosives and unlicensed firearms.
The possession charges, context didn’t matter. It’s black and white, you are either proven to have them or not. In this case the evidence of possession was unarguable, defence didn’t even try to defend those charges.
The dissemination charges required examination of the context and circumstances relating to the manner and timing of publication of the materials. I can’t discuss this as it would mean talking about jury deliberations.
Overall, I suspect a simple possession charge against a single document wouldn’t hold up. But multiple documents combined with the other offences, it just all adds weight.
So in the context of this thread, not exactly banned material as such. But possess a copy of the JRC and get caught making explosives in your kitchen? Yeah, possessing it is going to increase your sentence.
Did I dream someone put a link to it on here?
That was myself......Oops - apologies, didn't think it could possibly be an issue as a year or so ago there was a link to it on the BBC website in reference to a investigation/report into counter culture books so naturally thought posting it on an obscure middle aged mtb forum wouldn't be an issue, obviously middle aged mtb'rs are a social group to be wary of, gawd knows what these reprobates get up to in the garage late at night with compressed air and stans tyre milk.
A few years ago the DEA tried to ban two books by Dr Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin titled PIHKAL - Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved regarding synthetic compounds and TIHKAL - Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved regarding naturally occurring compounds in nature
Obviously the DEA got their arse handed to them, still got my well thumbed copies purchased in 1998
Essential reading from the Godfather of MDMA and the bible for wannabe psychonauts.
Even back then we figured, the vast majority of it probably didn’t work.
Expert witness testimony I listened to in the court case I was part of, was that the recipes and introductions being followed would produce viable explosives and bombs.
So in the context of this thread, not exactly banned material as such. But possess a copy of the JRC and get caught making explosives in your kitchen? Yeah, possessing it is going to increase your sentence.
That's where I was going with the question. I'd (perhaps naively) like to think that there's a degree of common sense applied both in terms of arrest, charge and prosecution. The accused wasn't standing in front of the beak solely because someone had got wind that they'd got a 'banned' book and the police had kicked their door in to drag them out. Rather, it's an easy win - as you say, there was no defence presented - when faced with someone who was already believed to be involved with terrorist activities.
Like, there are strict laws on carrying knives. But I'd like to think that if I had a chef's knife wrapped in a towel in the boot of the car along with big pans and a whisk whilst driving to a meeting with friends where I was going to be cooking for a dozen people, it might be handled slightly differently from if it was duct taped to my back under a hoodie at 1am.
Expert witness testimony I listened to in the court case I was part of, was that the recipes and introductions being followed would produce viable explosives and bombs.
Well, we never managed to get it to work. 😁
I dunno. Maybe we were naive. It just seemed ridiculous that it'd be in our hands so readily if it was real. I suspect with hindsight it was a varied mix of viable, hypothetical and hyperbole. The nitro one sticks in my mind, all around ice baths and salt and a thermometer and when you should run away if you valued your hands and/or house. Who in their right mind reads that and thinks "yeah, I'll try that"? (Though of course, not everyone is in their right mind...) It felt like a big old collection of urban myths with just enough fact to give the rest credence.
Who in their right mind reads that and thinks “yeah, I’ll try that”?
My guy purchased all the materials to make his explosives from Amazon, using his own account, and had them shipped to his own address. Then mixed it up on the hob in the kitchen.
After telling people on white supremacist WhatsApps groups that was what he was going to do, followed by posting videos of himself doing it.
He wasn't the smartest cookie.
Amusing anecdote of the day... did you know if you buy certain things to make a well-known explosive from Amazon, Amazon will recommend you the rest of the ingredients?
"People who bought this also bought..." ?
I once bought a load of ziploc baggies to organise board game components. It took me a minute to work out why I was suddenly getting suggestions for micro weigh-scales.
