U.K. Cops Crack Down on Swearing

Here's a guy in the U.K. who got an eighty-pound fine for saying the word "fuck" in a conversation with friends — a cop overheard him. Here's another guy who got the same fine for remarking to a buddy that a particular metal detector was a "piece of shit."

And so it goes in Merry Olde England, where police now invoke new "anti-social-behaviour" laws to crack down on swearing. The standard to determine who is a lawbreaker is bizarrely low. The Public Order Act gives cops the right to detain citizens who use "threatening words or behaviour likely to cause alarm, harassment or distress."

If the adjective "Orwellian" wasn't so hackneyed, I'd use it in a heartbeat. Instead, "fucking unbelievable" will have to do.

Comments

[Phil]

The phrase is unbe-fucking-leivable.

[Amsterdamsky]

Lenny Bruce was routinely being arrested for "obscenity" which is much milder than current South Park episodes. Censorship and denial of free speech always seems to start with accusations of obscenity although I guess racial/religious hatred is a new twist to keep the sheeples quiet.

[Martin Owens]

Wimbledon brand police, gay-rights song police, Cops as speech police- poor England!

God save the Queen indeed- if she ever says something some hypersensitive twit doesn't like, she'll likely be arrested, too.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:
this is what happens when you give up your guns.

[Dawdy]

jesus fucking christ. like everything else nannyish, such bs will make its way to the states.

[Angie]

Next thing you know they'll come after those of us who post on the net. First tv, then people on the streets, next is us. Watch.

[GreginOz]

"God save the Queen! And the Fascist regime"
(Sex Pistols). Given today's climate can you imagine the reaction of the London pigs to the Sex Pistols rocking past the palace on a barge blasting out that song?
"I am an Anarchist, I am the AntiChrist!" Fuckin' ay, cowboy...they'd a been pumped full of lead. Here in Oz I can swan around wearing a black Soundgarden t-shirt with giant hazard yellow script of "FUCK HAPPENS" and nothing happens. I do however pick the time and place to wear my Rothbard "Hate the State" t-shirt!