Queen Elizabeth pardons Alan Turing

[Addison D.]

Posted: 12/24/13 at 1:40pm

Justice, of a sort, for a great Man.

"The pardon was announced by the British justice secretary, Chris Grayling, who had made the request to the queen. Mr. Grayling said in a statement that Mr. Turing, whose most remarkable achievement was helping to develop the machines and algorithms that unscrambled the supposedly impenetrable Enigma code used by the Germans in World War II, “deserves to be remembered and recognized for his fantastic contribution to the war effort and his legacy to science.”







From the NYT

Updated On: 12/24/13 at 01:40 PM

[Scripps2]

Posted: 12/24/13 at 4:04pm

Avatar and signature update (and some comment) in due course...




Updated On: 12/24/13 at 04:04 PM

[Scripps2]

Posted: 12/24/13 at 5:23pm

My immediate conclusion is that the pardon, like the man and the machine, is of course an enigma: emotionally satisfying, logically redundant and legally loop-holed.

I think the best report I've read today comes from The Guardian, particularly the comments of Andrew Hodges and Peter Tatchell:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/24/enigma-codebreaker-alan-turing-royal-pardon

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/25/13 at 1:25am

The question is, really, would Alan Turing pardon Queen Elizabeth?

[canmark]

Posted: 12/25/13 at 10:49am

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing in an upcoming film, The Imitation Game.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/showbiz/438236/Keira-Knightley-and-Benedict-Cumberbatch-go-back-in-time-as-they-film-The-Imitation-Game

[Scripps2]

Posted: 1/5/14 at 6:56am

"The question is, really, would Alan Turing pardon Queen Elizabeth?"

Well, of course, it changes nothing for him. And to have this pardon released on Christmas Eve, 60 years after his death, sentimentalises it crudely, particularly considering the pardon was agreed by Parliament six months ago and could have been released at any point since then.

But, on the other hand, this is as good as it gets. Whilst a "royal pardon" may sound patronising and condescending, let's not be in any doubt, this is the British state's way of saying "We fcuked up. Catastrophically!" There have only been three other cases of this pardon being used since the end of WWII and the one with which I am most familiar was instrumental in the abolition of the death penalty in this country: a widower of a woman murdered as part of a set of serial killings is arrested, convicted and hung for the killings (in the 1950s), only for them to continue. He was posthumously pardoned when the actual serial killer was caught. Again, it changed nothing for him but it was an acknowledgement that justice had gone catastrophically wrong.

The pardon is a sop to his supporters, who obviously include me. On a personal note I studied Maths in the late 1980s at Manchester University, an institution very proud of being one of the first places in the world to build a computer. The story of one of the individuals instrumental in this being arrested for "gross indecency" and committing suicide afterwards was well known amongst my lecturers and tutors but his involvement with breaking the Enigma code was only just becoming public knowledge at that time. There was a feeling then that this story was only going to get bigger and bigger, and so it has.

But the pardon sends out an important message to countries such as Russia, India and Uganda who currently seem intent on creating their own fcuk-ups with regard to anti-gay legislation (if they wish to listen). And it may create the opportunity for a legal challenge that everyone convicted in this country under this legislation could have their conviction over-turned, which would send out an even-better message.

I await The Imitation Game with some trepidation, considering rumours already that it has been straight-washed. I recommend the drama-doc with Ed Stoppard as Turing and Henry Goodman.