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(intro music)

Roy: The issue of censorship is very kind of heated right now in the UK and different people will talk about protecting the children, or terrorism, or libel, issues to do with leaked passwords, things to do with violence and threats and so on and so forth. Where do you set the line if anywhere, when it comes to censorship?

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RMS: Censorship is more disgusting than anything anyone proposes to censor. Because censorship threatens democracy. There is no political freedom if people are not free to express their views. But in the UK you can be imprisoned for merely having copies of a book. You can be imprisoned for offending somebody.

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Now, this is not freedom of speech. The crucial point about other issues, such as, for instance, libel, is that in the UK and the US, libel is not a crime. It's grounds for a lawsuit. But there are many countries where people can be imprisoned for offending, insulting something or other. A

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man said, "Sarkozy, I see you". Meaning you're behind what is happening here and he was arrested and charged. So, and in Italy,

Roy: In the United States there was a guy who jotted with a chalk on the sidewalk against Bank of America and almost got 13 years in jail.

RMS: He was, well he was charged and acquitted but if he had not

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been acquitted, I expect the conviction would have been reversed on appeal because the First Amendment counts for something. The point is though that, that wasn't because of what he wrote. At least not ostensibly, maybe they chose to prosecute him because he was criticizing banks. But he wasn't accused of insulting banks. But there are

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many where people can be accused of insulting various, depends on which country who it's a crime to insult, but that's different from allowing the possibility of a lawsuit for libel. So making it a crime to insult someone, that's always wrong.