Did someone forward you this? Subscribe here free!
By Max Towey
“The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. Not one, not two – five. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest.”
The above isn’t a passage from the memoir of some notorious British convict. Rather, it’s from the latest Substack piece by Irish comedian Graham Linehan.
His crime? According to Linehan, it was posting three tweets. He wrote:
They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three tweets. In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for this tweet (and no, I promise you, I am not making this up.
These were the tweets in question:
News of his arrest spread quickly on the right-wing Twitter sphere, making Linehan into a free-speech martyr overnight. JK Rowling and Elon Musk pounced on the news, with Rowling calling the arrest “utterly deplorable” and “totalitarianism” and Musk writing, “Instead of the police in the UK protecting the public from violent criminals, they spend their limited resources on arresting comedians for social media posts! Shame, shame, shame!”
At first, the arrest seemed too damning for the UK to be true. Culture war battles like this one often blur or omit facts to foment rage. Was this the latest example of a culture war spat getting blown out of proportion? Or did Linehan actually get arrested for these tweets?
We decided to investigate the arrest to see if there was more to the story. To do so, we examined court records (a separate trial is now underway), newly-released audio of Linehan’s encounter with the police, and quotes from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the head of the UK’s Metropolitan Police. We also provide context on the UK’s larger debate on free speech, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s testimony to Congress this week.
So let’s head across the pond to find out if Britain is jailing comedians for their tweets.
We’re keeping our five-year anniversary giveaway going through the weekend: We’re giving out a free year of Roca premium to five subscribers. To enter, just sign up for a free trial below! We’ll announce the winners on Monday.
The rest of this report is for paid subscribers, who fund our journalism. If you start a two-week free trial today, you’ll be automatically entered to win a free year. Once you sign up, you can access all of our articles here!
Editor’s Note
We’re curious to hear from you all, especially from our readers in the UK. Is Britain’s attack on free speech as concerning as Farage makes it seem? Or is this all blown out of proportion? Send in your takes here.
And here are some replies to yesterday’s story on surveillance.
Liam wrote:
AI powered surveillance will be the complete end of freedoms and democracy as we know it. We already give up so much privacy and data to these big tech corporations, this will be the final nail in the coffin. Palantir has already created AI databases on every American and now ICE is using iris scanning AI powered tech to instantly identify who you are. This is being trojan horsed as "for illegal immigrants", so people don't push back. However, what happens when this technology is used for common traffic stops and within a second they can know literally everything about you.
This along with governments worldwide strongly pushing for digital ID's and CDBC will only lead us to one place; Technototalitarianism. Social credit scores are right around the corner as well, meaning a federal official could scan your iris, see the "poor" social credit score you have from criticizing your government (which is a 1st amendment right), and then deny you the money in your digital wallet so you can not access the grocery store for food that week. Dystopian nightmare but not unrealistic seeing what groundwork is being laid for this to potentially happen.
Our federal government is in bed with Peter Thiel and other technofacists (Alex Karp, Sam Altman, etc.) who do not care about our rights or our personal liberties or freedoms. People always think these scenarios are impossible but they could realistically make these things happen within the next 3-5 years. Look what happened during COVID and how easily and quickly they were able to implement whatever policies or restrictions on the public with no civilian oversight. Once government takes away rights from private citizens, it will never voluntarily give them back. The time to take action and demand accountability from our government is now, in 5 years we may already be too far down the tube to realistically do anything about it.
(Would also love to see a deep dive on how Palantir has deeply influenced government, as well as how Israel is using AI to target terrorists in Gaza with little human oversight leading to tons of civilian casualties (Gospel & Lavender))
Sam wrote:
When I hear a company claim they will have the technology to stop all crime I can’t help but think that even if we had the technology to surveil everyone, there is a whole other part to this that no one seems to be discussing. You need to have a Justice Department that actually enforces the law. I see stories every day about differences in enforcement. Self defense cases of some demographics get the book thrown at them while the perpetrators of the crimes against them get off Scott free. If the law were applied even handedly then this could maybe be a good thing, if it is not though….
Every day it seems we get closer to a kleptocracy. I’ve been paying attention to what’s been happening in Canada and the UK. They’ve made it nearly impossible to defend yourself from crime and the police are unreliable in providing assistance to victims. Would love a Roca wrap on those two countries and how the public is meant to protect themselves while also avoiding becoming a victim of government prosecution at the same time. I also want to know if America is headed in a similar direction, it sure feels like we are, at least in California where I live.
And Chrissy wrote:
There is no way a surveillance state can prevent crime- it's going to happen anyway. Ring cameras witness crime all the time it seems, based on the local public posts I’ve seen in my area. How could a camera stop someone from committing a crime? These tech bros have a great PR spin on spying on Americans - I don't buy it. Also, how can we undo what is already done? Looks like it might be too late to stop this freight train…
That’s all, thanks for reading. Check out our recent stories below if you need some more weekend reads:
–Max and Max
