The Home Office wants to give the police and the courts sweeping new powers which could see suspected hackers and spammers receiving the cyber equivalent of an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo).

The proposed Serious Crime Prevention Order is intended to combat organised crime where the police do not have enough evidence to bring a criminal prosecution. It would enable civil courts to impose the orders on individuals, even if they had not been convicted of a crime.

These people have absolutely lost their minds!

"In the US, this legislation would not be constitutional," said Starnes.

I gather from the quotations that the tone of this comment is critical of the US.

"Hey, look at the great things we can do in the UK! We can administer punishments to people without any evidence of wrongdoing! Isn't that awesome? Wouldn't it be terrible to live in the U.S. where the police actually have to have evidence before they can sanction someone? Evidence is such a waste of time. Obviously the police are always right and can always be trusted. Everyone they suspect is clearly guilty, so why bother with this whole messy judicial process. It just slows things down. Crime victims demand immediate action, and in the UK we can give it to them! The UK is the greatest country in the world! God save the queen!"

If I had to pick an egregiously unreasonable legislative proposal it would be that people who propose legislation like this be dragged out into the town square and stoned to death with history text books.

UK Government goes off the deep end