Still it continues.

Time and time and time and time again the message is sent out.

You cannot do this.

Time and time and time and time again this message is ignored.

Two stories today.

Firstly the NUJ report that a photographer has again, amazingly, been threatened with arrest by the Met Police for taking photos in public, and was made, quite unlawfully, to delete the images she had taken.

How many times do they have to be told? You cannot do this. It is illegal. If a police officer is incapable of acting within the law, then he/she should be sacked. Possibly prosecuted. It is the one message that ACPO send out which is actually correct and desirable.

It may be irksome, it may be inconvenient. But you cannot prevent people from taking photographs in a public area, or arbitrarily destroy the images that have been taken just because you don't like it.

This is not how the police in a civilised, free society act.

I support the police, but fuck me, they make it difficult to justify that support sometimes.

Stupid, thoughtless and unilateral acts like this do nothing but stir up resentment and mistrust.

And if it isn't the police, it's the local council.

If you or I were to break the law, we'd be arrested and probably locked up. Well, that's not true, if we put a brick through someone's window, or knocked a granny off her electric buggy we'd suffer no penalty at all. If we didn't pay our council tax or TV licence, then it would be land of the stripy sunshine.

Is anyone going to lose their job over this? Anyone going to be locked up for a shocking episode of overbearing surveillance?

The bloke on the front line might, but the chap who authorised the operation will probably get out unscathed.

Not good enough.

Actions like these are incitement to civil disobedience.

The One That Does Not Own Himself. . .

A momentary departure from the World Cup, which, despite the bloody awful football we’ve served up, is taking a large amount of my time up. Back to real life for a moment.

We’re still in that strange sort of cusp period, trying to figure out how much of what this government says it will do, it will actually do, how much of it is good intention but not possible on closer inspection, how much of it is lies and how much of it they’re not going to mention at all because some of the toys Labour had fashioned are just too exciting and fun to put back into the box.

One thing is for sure, even under this new regime, you do not belong to you. You may have a bigger share in self-ownership than under Labour, but at the end of the day, you do not get the final say in anything.

Two stories that I’ve seen in a most perfunctory recce over the news sites illustrate this perfectly. Firstly there are the CCTV cameras in Birmingham, commented upon recently by Old Holborn. Well, not surprisingly, the predominantly Muslim population in the area of Birmingham were these cameras where installed are significantly unchuffed at being spied upon 24/7 just because they have a penchant for beards and like to prepare their meat in a different fashion.

CCTV cameras are a blunt instruments used to cow the whole area. Terrorists couldn’t give a toss about them. It will make no difference to their plans at all, they’ll simply re-locate. But for the rest of the population, the inference is clear. ‘For your own safety, you are not to be trusted. You are to be measured and recorded and monitored.’

This is how diversity is valued, by telling one section of the population they are suspected terrorists. Oh, don’t worry, Muslims, it isn’t just you, the Irish have been there, as have the South Africans over here during the apartheid regime. We’ll all have a go on this particular fun fair ride before the park closes. Anyhow, the community not surprisingly has decided that this is not what they want and have kicked up a stink. Good. Say what you like about the Muslims, they may be women oppressors, mentalists, and all other things, but they still have a community, in its proper sense, not in some Nicola Murray DOSAC sense. Community has power, that is why successive governments try to break them up.

Sooooo. . .

Bags are to be put over scores of surveillance cameras in parts of Birmingham with large Muslim populations, after local objections.

A small victory, but a victory nevertheless. Except. . .

The cameras will not be used until consultation has been carried out.

Sorry? Consultation with whom? I thought the local community had made their feelings on this matter quite clear. What it should have said was this: ‘The cameras will not be used until everyone’s had a little while to calm down and had it explained to them that unless they shut up that new medical centre will be refused planning permission, or that community centre will have its funding withdrawn, or the council will embark on a full on audit of small businesses adherence to trading laws etc, etc. At which point the cameras will be used anyway.’

No reasonable debate or reversal of decision can be made. Whatever the circumstances. You’ve done nothing wrong, but you must still be punished. Pour encourager les autres.

I’m being cynical. Of course this will absolutely stop terrorism. Just as this sort of thing will stop gangs of feral youth shooting each other (and innocent bystanders) into shreds.

A grandmother has been jailed for five years for possessing a "family heirloom" World War II pistol.

But of course. I can now sleep safely at night because an old WWII pistol, which has been sat quietly in an old shoe box in the bottom of a drawer and probably hasn’t been in a serviceable condition for twenty five years, is no longer a threat. Phew. Thank God for that.

This sort of thing is good, that woman could have struck fear into the hearts of the hard working school leavers, about to embark on a life long career of wearing trousers with the waistband around their knees, talking in some bizarre patois and intimidating old ladies on their way to the shop to buy twenty Lambert and Butler and a lotto ticket.

Thank God there are no guns on our streets. And thank God there are no guns sat quietly in an old shoe box in the bottom of a drawer that probably haven’t been in a serviceable condition for twenty five years.

Everything is OK. Just do as I say, don’t ask questions, don’t make a fuss, take your punishment like a man, it’s for your own good.

The One That Is Blessed With Clairvoyance. . .

I blogged a little while ago about an entertaining conspiracy theory surrounding the Government's intentions for t'internet.

Well, bless my barnacles. . .

A controversial broadband tax should be law before the next election, according to Minister for Digital Britain Stephen Timms.

Now there's a surprise. Didn't see that one coming.

The 50 pence a month tax applies to everyone with a fixed line telephone.

Speaking at a debate in London, Mr Timms said the tax will be presented to parliament as part of the Finance Bill.

So, £6 per year, doesn't sound that bad does it?

I'm betting any office will have to pay for each and every phone on their premises, even if it is on a switchboard. More cost which business won't have to bear, because it will be passed on to those who use their services or buy their products.

And what will the money be used for? Making sure everyone has broadband. The next stop will be a modem licence.

Why?

So they can get us all on to Cloud. That means that ALL your files, contacts, emails and browsing history will be centrally stored, and you'll only be able to access websites which the controllers feel is appropriate for you to access.

It's coming people, and it won't just be us, this will be global.

The One That Hopes You'll Forgive His Cynicism. . .

According to Nanny Beeb:

The Conservatives have set out plans to reverse what they describe as "the rise of the surveillance state".

Well, if correct that is certainly a step in the right direction.

They have pledged to scrap two new databases - the ID card register and ContactPoint - and strengthen powers of the Information Commissioner. The Conservatives say they want to restore public trust in the use of personal data by the state.

I'll believe it when I see it. You see, as far as I'm concerned, if any of the Big Three told me that the sky is blue and the sea is wet, I'd go and check it out with my own eyes.

Is it going to make me vote Tory in the general election? Nope.

The One That Says 'It Was Only A Song. . . Jeez!'. . .

I'm not sure whether I should be alarmed or entertained by this little story from Nanny Beeb:

People in Azerbaijan who voted for a song by neighbouring Armenia in May's Eurovision Song Contest have been questioned by the authorities.

Perhaps there's a Ministry of Artistic Integrity. I don't think I've heard the song, but I'm sure it isn't going to win any awards. Maybe Azerbaijan are very concerned about the public's consumption of the arts?

One man told the BBC he was accused of being unpatriotic and a potential security threat, after he sent a text backing Armenia's song, Jan Jan.

What? A potential security threat? Bloody hell. He voted for a fucking song. It's not just us that use the security dogwhistle as an excuse to give someone a hard time for the hell of it, then.

The Azerbaijani authorities said people had merely been invited to explain why they voted for Armenia.

Bloody hell. I remember reading about an East Berliner who was given a hard time by the Stasi for being a Hertha Berlin fan (who played in the Bundesliga in the West) and listening to their matches on the radio. Supporting a Western Team was dangerously subversive (Dynamo Berlin were despised as the Stasi club and finally died in 1991), but to be given a hard time for text voting in the Eurovision? Invited? How? Would you like to explain your vote, or would you like Big Ivan here to hit your hands with this lump hammer? Jesus.

One final little question; How did the authorities know this man had voted for the Armenians? I'm willing to bet that it was down to the retention of all telephone calls and text messages on some sort of central database.

Of course, that could never happen here, and would never be used for such a trivial 'offence', no it would only be used on naughty brown people.

The One That May Surprise You. . .

I couldn't help but notice the subject of ID cards raised its head on the Daily Politics on BBC this lunchtime. It included a marvellous peice of double think from Phil 'Custard Pie' Woolas when Brillo made the point that the biometrics could be stored on passports rather than ID cards. 'Not everyone wants a passport' said Woolas.

Where as you can't get through the doors at Marsham Street for people trying to force their way in to get an ID card, can you?

Here's the suprising bit; I have no problems with an ID card.

That is an ID card that I may choose to apply for, or not. An ID card that does not contain a copy of my fingerprints, DNA, inside leg measurement, favourite brand of breakfast cereal or number of shoes I own.

I have no problem with an ID card that contains my photo, my face is on display every time I set foot out of my door, if I didn't want it seen, I'd cover it. Nor do I have a problem with my address and date of birth being displayed on it, it is already on my driving licence. I don't even have a problem with an RF chip in the card carrying an encoded electronic version of my photograph, that would make it very difficult for someone to appropriate the card and substitute the photograph.

What I do have a problem with is the idea that I would have to have an ID card, and one would assume that being obliged to have one, I'd be obliged to carry it with me at all times. One can only assume that being obliged to carry it, a nice policeman would have powers to ask to see it if he fancied having a look.

The phrase 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' cuts no ice with me. Firstly, when I walk down the road to the shops, I'm doing just that. I am a private citizen, and where and when I choose to go for a walk is nobody's business but mine, I am doing nothing wrong.

I'm a reasonable person, and not given to unctious displays of resistance. If a policeman comes up to me and politely asks me where I'm going, I'd probably be minded to say 'I'm just walking to the shops, Constable.' I'm not about to make a big fuss about it, despite the occasional digs at the Old Bill on here, I actually quite like the police. I've always personally found them to be professional, sensible and reasonable. In the main, they are decent people who are doing a job which, through ridiculous over legislation, changes every day. They have little hope of keeping on top of the changes and have a management which implements initiative after initiative. In my opinion, most coppers just want to go out and catch bad guys. It is sad that they find themselves as pawns in a political battle.

The problems come where a simple question posed by a police officer who may have just seen something to get their spidey-senses tingling turns into the routine tap on the shoulder and the request 'papers, please.'

How many times have we seen the scene in the Cold War era thrillers, where the noble Communist regime citizen is stopped by a plain clothes agent with that same request?

I commented a while ago that it was the little things from Communist Eastern Europe that chilled me, the big monolithic systems of controlling government provide a dull ache, but the idea of being stopped on the street and being questioned, for no apparent good reason, checkpoints on the roads, having to provide details of where you are going and for how long when you leave the country, having to do the same when you travel internally, having your vehicle tracked, and your movements monitored when on foot, these all provide sharp pricks of pain.

Some we will hopefully never see in the UK, some will certainly happen, and soon, others are here already. The introduction of an ID card such as is proposed is a big step down that road and it makes me very uneasy indeed, not just for what this government would do with it, but for what the next one, and the one in ten years will do with it. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it will be almost impossible to put it back in.

The One That Thinks This Is A Bloody Good Idea. . .

Reproduced from the LPUK blog and written by Ian P-J:

From Monday All your emails, web browsing history and mobile calls will be stored for a year due to sweeping new laws making Britain a proper kleptocracy, by order of the EU.

(On 15 March 2006 the European Union formally adopted Directive 2006/24/EC, on "the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC")

Your web browsing will be stored from your ISP. The Government will force you to have it all revealed to them from your ISP. IP addresses the works.

Story in the Independent here

As a personal protest, I have created the following email signature, which will be added to each and every email that I send. I see this as a completely responsible act, one which does not break the law, but none-the-less an act of defiance, an act of rebellion against those who would take away my right to privacy, supposedly guaranteed by the European Charter of Human Rights, one which I hope will make those who draft such inept laws pay attention.

The following is a disclaimer and a protest at the collection, retention and sharing of my personal mail by the morally bankrupt state. By adding a string of key words, it will guarantee that each and every mail that I send will now need to be manually viewed as it is picked up by the auto scan software. If every person in the UK does exactly the same, then the entire system will quickly become so unmanageable, so unwieldy that it will become unworkable.

Key words, bomb, assassinate, president, brown, Osama, Obama, Sargozy, Merkel, government, target, location, rocket, grenade, al-Qaeda, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, UK, America, guns, jets, bombs, machine-gun, terrorists, MP's, pigs, troughs, France, Germany, Italy, nuclear, Korea.

It is time to stop meekly accepting everything that the government throws at us. It is time to stop listening to lily livered politicians who say this is OK, because it really is NOT OK. It is time to stop listening to the apologist organisations or committees who will accept this type of data collection with a rider of wanting a little more protection for the data.


I refuse to be intimidated by my own Government. It is time to make this kind of data collection unworkable.
Now Government, make me stop !!

The One That Says 'Ooooh, They've Done It Now'. . .

I can't work out if this government is actually barking mad or really wants to lose the next election. Such is the rate at which things designed to piss people off are trotted out, that I'm starting to think it is the latter, there must be something big and very very bad 18 months down the road, so bad that not even Labour with their sociopathic desire for power want to be a part of it.

It really is the only conclusion to draw. Can they really be so divorced from reality that they think telling people that their Facebook, Bebo and MySpace activities must be monitored will win them support? The anti-crime and anti-terror excuse is pathetic. 'Osama Bin Laden is planning a fiery death for the infidel, lol' 'Fingers Freddie is turning over the NatWest tonight! OMFG!' No, I don't think so.

In the grand scheme of things this is a tiny issue, especially when records of all our phone calls, emails and browsing history will be kept, just in case we do something wrong, even if that something wrong is perfectly legal now. However what hasn't happened thus far is any real coverage in the MSM, there's been a couple of flickers (or should that be flickr? Sorry) but nothing to really suggest that this might, you know, be a bad thing.

Well, look at the comments on the Pravda article about this story, as I write this there's only one comment which doesn't have a problem with this. We'll see how Pravda's moderation policy balances this out.

Have Labour learned nothing from the last few months? A very large number of the votes picked up by Obama in the American election were won in the blogosphere and on social networking sites. As each General Election here becomes more like a Presidential election you'd have thought that the Labour spin doctors would have realised that cyberspace is the new battleground, not against terrorism but for votes.

How many people between 18-30 turn out to vote? How many from that same age range use social networking, blogging and email as one of their primary methods of communication? The internet has always been about liberty, it empowers the media consumer and gives the individual a voice. In the case of this blog, it may only be that 20 or so people a day hear my voice, but if every one of those 20 people speak to 20 more people themselves and so forth, that is a huge number of people.

Recently the outcry amongst social networking site users about the rights to uploaded photographs caused these sites to back down. Internet users have real power, perhaps that is what really scares the government, there's no boozy paper editor with a skeleton or two in the cupboard that can be leant on or manipulated, instead there is a large collection of individuals who will say and write what they want, not what they are told.

I'll tell you this, you can piss around with recording people's itinerary when they go abroad, put chips in their bin and so on, but piss around with their Facebook and they'll mobilise in their tens of thousands; you're screwed.

Labour, you are so screwed. But please, tell me, why are you doing it on purpose?

The One That Says They've Got It Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. . .

The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has released a document about the 'database state'. The report opens with a preamble detailing the loss of data by HMRC and goes on to make the claim that many of these Government databases are illegal.

You'll get no argument from me on that point.

What is disappointing is the way that these charities always have to have an angle. I don't know much about the Joseph Rowntree Trust as a whole, other than the fact that they have many strings to their bow, I know nothing of their funding nor their political affiliations or leanings.

It is heartening to see that they have decided to speak out against this mania for measuring, recording and controlling every facet of our lives, but they haven't half gone about it in a half-arsed way.

They've spoken about how these databases present a danger to young black men, single parents and children. Well, yes. That's correct, but why pick on the dog-whistle groups? These databases and the appalling security record of the public sector in the field of data security pose a danger to every single one of us.

Come on, use your brain, this paternalistic and patronising attitude has to stop if there is to be any credibility about your report. Don't fall into the Righteous trap, speak out for all of us, not just those who you feel are incapable of speaking out for themselves. I am neither black, a child, nor a parent, single or otherwise. Were it not for my civil liberties interest, I would have looked at these headlines and decided 'Doesn't apply to me, not interested, next.'

If the headlines said that this poses a threat to you, no matter who you are, you'd find interest was much higher.

Perhaps if we spent more time focusing on what binds us together rather than that which seperates us, we'd have a much more cohesive voice. It is in the interests of the status quo for our differences to be pointed out and amplified at every turn.

Must do better.

The One That Is Full Of Admiration . . .

David Blunkett earlier today when he realised he had a great chance to stick the knife in.

Sometimes I think I may have got some people wrong. I always thought that Blunkett was an authoritarian wankstain with no more right to live on God's green Earth than a weasel. It turns out I could be wrong.

In a stunning about face, he's due to tell Essex Uni's law students that Britain is in danger of becoming a 'Big Brother state.'

Christ on a bloody bike. Next week, Pol Pot will be popping along to warn people that working in fields can be, like, really bad for you if you don't take a breather every now and then, followed by Adolf Hitler warning against the threat of gas chambers.

Blunkett must have balls the size of fucking grapefruits to stand up in a public forum and say:

'It is not simply whether the intentions are benign, undoubtedly they are, but whether they are likely to be misused and above all what value their use may have.'

Let me guess David, the big boys made you bring all this shit in when you were Home Sec. Did they threaten to steal your dog or something? Or is it just that your mate Tony isn't about anymore, you don't like Gordon very much and you can't wait to stick the knife in?

Leg Iron is quite right when he says that there's no loyalty amongst The Righteous, they are the most self-centred, ruthlessly ambitious bunch of arseholes out there and God help you if you look a bit wobbly, because they will descend upon you like a pride of lions on a lame zebra.

Even taking into account that Blunkett has discovered a Libertarian heart, forged in the fires of the Peoples' Republic of South Yorkshire, he betrays his true authoritarian leanings.

'Let's make me popular! I think we should scrap ID cards!' The crowds will carry him shoulder high from the room, cheering and singing his name, especially when he chips in with 'holding a passport would become compulsory for all British people, who could choose to opt in to the ID card scheme if they wished'

Thicker than bottled pig shit. . .