Will the meddling never end?

Here's the latest social engineering experiment in Britain, "rights for cohabitees". There is no concept here of "common law marriage" as there is in N.A. Generally speaking common law marriage means that if you live with your partner for some continuous period -- often 2 years -- you are considered "common law spouses" and are technically legally married, and as such can claim various rights.

Now, Britain also wants to make you legally obligated to your partner if you live with them.

"Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips told the BBC changing the law would undermine marriage.

She said: "This idea that society is changing and therefore the law has to change to keep up with it is wrong, in my view, historically the law has led the progressive dismemberment of marriage by stripping it progressively of meaning."

I think Melanie is wrong that this undermines marriage; One reason people might not get married is that they don't want the legal obligations that can go along with that. If simply living together creates those same obligations, then heck, might as well get married (because ultimately everyone in our culture really expects you to do so -- if you don't it's a bit odd, isn't it?). However, then she says:

"The law is based on justice; justice requires that you don't get something for nothing. You don't claim rights if you don't enter into obligations."

There I can agree. And by the way, could the UK government please stop meddling in our lives? People who want to get married get married. That's most people. Speaking for the rest of us, please let us have our personal lives, and make our choices, in peace.

British Liberty Pt. III

With the confluence of access to modern technology and suspicion of its citizens, Britain has recently commenced down the road of "total information awareness" with computerized tracking of most (virtually all) of its residents at all times. Here are four major ways they accomplish this:

1. Pervasive CCTV (closed-circuit television cameras, A.K.A. surveillance cameras). From Wikipedia:

"based on a small sample in Putney High Street, "guesstimated" the number of surveillance cameras in private premises in London as around 400,000 and the total number of cameras in the UK as around 4,000,000. The UK has 20% of the world's CCTV and one camera for every 14 people."

This article goes into a bit more detail:

"Londoners can each expect to be captured on CCTV cameras up to 300 times a day - the secret state can now follow you from your home, onto the bus, on the bus, getting off the bus and then follow you along the street, and in some areas of the city of London, constantly monitor your movements."

"Barry Hugill, a spokesman for the human rights and civil liberties organization Liberty, said: "This proliferation of cameras is simply astounding. The use of CCTV has just exploded in the last few years, and what is terrifying is that we are alone in the world for not even having a debate about what it means for our privacy."

Automatic computerized facial recognition for these cameras is still in its infancy, but is being tested in various venues including airports and sports stadiums, particularly in the US. Rest assured that Britain will lead the world in deploying this technology nationwide.

2. Automatic number plate recognition systems (license plates). Beginning in earnest this Spring, there are cameras being installed throughout Britain, linked to a central database, which track and record the movements of all vehicles for at least 2 years.

3. Transport For London's Oyster Card, used on buses and trains. It's just an easy payment method, honest. Except they record all your journeys, and keep the records for a couple of years. If you don't use one, you have to pay significantly higher fares. And they've deliberately removed some of the most common ticket options from the cash ticket machines in stations. Want a single journey in central London? Well, now you have to queue at the ticket window for that -- where a belligerently unmotivated person will eventually get around to selling you a ticket, but not before making you feel like you've really inconvenienced them. Now, how about getting one of these handy cards?! You can just swipe it and walk through!

4. Mobile phone tracking. Here, we have a serious problem. In Britain, this is a wholly unregulated activity. Check out the web page for this commercial company in the UK, who gleefully offer, "track your family!" and "track your employees!". Here another company emotes "You can't be with your loved ones every minute of every day, but with [...] you'll always know where they are!". Touching! If this sort of thing doesn't appeal to the worst instincts of every jealous spouse, every paedophile, and every smothering parent, I don't know what will. This is a commercial free-for-all, unrestrained by laws (only a "voluntary industry code of conduct" -- i.e. they want to avoid attracting legislative regulation). Intuitively, all it takes is for one unscrupulous operator to corner the market on "unauthorized" tracking, and become the instant favourite of identity thieves, predators, private investigators, and stalkers everywhere. It wouldn't even be illegal. Taxi companies here can locate you from your call. Of course, it goes without saying that the government and police have access to the same data.

In Britain, if your mobile phone is turned on, any halfway competent police detective or private investigator could tell you where you are, right this moment, without leaving his office. If you drove anywhere today, they could probably tell where you went. If you used public transit, they could probably tell you where you went. If you walked the streets, computers will soon be able to tell them where you went. And if you cowered at home in fear and despair from all this surveillance, well, they know where you live obviously.

But in Britain we have faith that anything the authorities do with this information will be legitimate, and they will protect us from criminals, terrorists, and jealous spouses too.

If I was a criminal trying to avoid being tracked, I'd wear a "hoodie", use pay phones, get a fake number plate (trivial to obtain), and pay a bit more for a cash ticket on the train. Any halfwit criminal has already figured this stuff out, and so has every terrorist -- but at least the authorities can keep a close eye on the rest of us.

British Liberty Pt. II

There is no concept of "unreasonable search" in Britain. For the most part, if a police officer doesn't like the look of you -- regardless of where you are or what you're doing -- that officer can demand to search you. The police don't even have to be looking for any particular thing; they can search you and then prosecute you for whatever they find.

Of course, they can (like police in any authoritarian country) make your life miserable even if you weren't doing or carrying anything illegal. Take a couple of minutes and read David Mery's personal account of his Terrorism Act arrest in a Tube station (he is not a terrorist). They arrested him because:

• they found my behaviour suspicious from direct observation and then from watching me on the CCTV system;
• I went into the station without looking at the police officers at the entrance or by the gates;
• two other men entered the station at about the same time as me;
• I am wearing a jacket "too warm for the season";
• I am carrying a bulky rucksack, and kept my rucksack with me at all times;
• I looked at people coming on the platform;
• I played with my phone and then took a paper from inside my jacket.

However, despite the fact that the police were able to search him and swiftly determine that he was not a suicide bomber, they persisted:

"Arrested for suspicious behaviour and public nuisance, I am driven to Walworth police station. I am given a form about my rights. ...I empty my pockets of the few things they had given me back at the tube station, and am searched again. My possessions are put in evidence bags. They take Polaroid photographs of me. A police officer fingerprints me and takes DNA swabs from each side of my mouth."

They then searched his home, taking lots of "evidence" with them. Note that in Britain, DNA samples taken from suspects who are mistakenly arrested, innocent, never charged, etc., are nonetheless retained in the national DNA database. If you are unlucky enough to fall under suspicion, or just meet a policeman who's a power-tripping bully (surely such a thing doesn't exist!) you have just permanently lost another piece of your privacy.

The bar for this kind of police behaviour is very low in Britain. We are living in a strange kind of hybrid here: a democratic surveillance/police state. The British people I've talked to about it don't see anything wrong with it; in fact it makes them feel safer. They inherently trust their government and police to always do the right thing, as if overreaching, coercion, corruption, bullying, and the potential for abuse didn't exist.

Naturally as a North American I culturally, fundamentally, don't share this instinct. The police and government in this country possess extensive knowledge of our lives, and the power to use it for whatever means they determine. Every day we read news stories in which they demonstrate their inclination to exercise this knowledge and power, right or wrong -- whether for the sake of catching evildoers (great and small), or just finding innovative new ways to tax and regulate us. And virtually no one protests.

I fear and predict that one day Britain wake up with a government they weren't expecting, and find out too late that resistance is futile. Remember, a nation of reasonable, rational people once democratically elected a man named Adolf.

Britishness

A clever little quiz: http://www.nakedtranslations.com/en/2005/06/000428.php

Oh lovely, this is back?

Americans and Canadians are booing one onothers' anthems at sporting events again?:

"booing started from the opening notes of singer Annmarie Martin's rendition of O Canada. While other fans attempted to drown it out by singing along, the boos were audible until the final notes."

Classy. Well, everyone remember that American fans started it this time. And, BTW, Sharks fans, how many of your team's players are Canadian? By my count, nearly half: 12 of 25, including both big stars, Jonathan Cheechoo and Joe Thornton. Oh well, nobody ever said Sharks fans know anything about Hockey (I've been to games at the Tank).

Ashamed of Canada

Speaking of free speech, here's something that makes me ashamed of Canada: the saga of Ernst Zündel. Sure he's a rotten little racist. A holocaust-denier, neo-Nazi, you-name-it. Exactly the sort of person we should hold our noses and defend in the name of free speech. Because the principle of free speech is a mutual covenant between the people of a free society, promising that I'll defend your right to speak your mind, as long as you defend mine -- even if we don't agree.

Here's what my country did. Before any Canadian criticizes the U.S. for things like the Guantanamo bay detention facility, take a look in the mirror:

Here we have a man with some nasty little opinions, who was imprisoned in solitary confinement for two years without charges as a "national security risk" because of purported connections to American white supremacists. He had lived in Canada for some 45 years, and was apparently denied Canadian citizenship due to his undesirable beliefs. In 2005 Canada "deported" him back to Germany to face charges of holocaust denial, because, of course, holocaust denial is illegal in Germany. Is it illegal in Canada? No. But, you see, some of his writing was available on the Internet to German residents, thereby violating German law. He didn't do anything in Germany, he did it in Canada. Not against the law in Canada. Yet, this man is now facing trial in Germany.

Germany and Canada are complicit in this sordid little affair. All I can say is that I hope some international court is able to intervene.

If you think that what happened here is okay, consider your position if you write anything pro-democracy online; What you're doing might be illegal in China. Don't post anything critical of Islam or Mohammad, for that might get you the death penalty in Saudi Arabia or Iran.

That is, unless your country stands up for your free speech rights -- but I wouldn't bet your life on it if you're Canadian.

British Liberty Pt. I

I couldn't have said it better myself. Andrew Sullivan writes*:

"Tony Blair has never seen a free act he doesn't want to constrain, subsidize, tax, regulate or inspire."

*(I have been in violent disagreement with Andrew on many occasions, particularly because of his single-minded support of the Iraq war, but this apology really restored my respect for him.)

I would take this further, and say it applies to most of modern British life and politics.

From a North American's perspective, coming to grips with civil liberties in Britain can be a tough task. Most of us agree with free speech as an overriding principle, and with perhaps a few extreme exceptions, believe that free speech must be absolute: if you have too many "buts", it's a slippery slope, and then the question is -- as with any form of censorship -- "who gets to make the decision?". That's why the U.S. has a constitution that guarantees free speech by default. Canada at least tries to follow along the same lines, with varying degrees of success.

Contrast this with free speech in Britain. Free speech exists here only insofar as the current government hasn't deemed particular speech illegal. People here will tend to pooh-pooh this hypothetical, but in theory the current majority government could vote a law tomorrow making it illegal to criticize Tony Blair. And henceforth, until such law was repealed by some theoretical future government, criticizing Tony Blair would be illegal (I'm not sure why Labour hasn't tried this yet).

For example, in conversation you can ask a British person whether they believe in free speech, and of course they will answer in the affirmative. However if you then ask them, hypothetically, whether it should be okay for you to say publicly "I hate Japanese people" (I choose Japanese people randomly here, sorry) they will tend to be taken aback and answer something like "of course not", as if it's common sense. You see, racism and bigotry of various sorts are technically illegal in Britain. Saying things like that could get you in trouble. "Political correctness" has actually become law here. The problem is that what's politically correct changes all the time.

I contend that with free speech, as with several other areas of civil liberties, the British have progressed so far down the proverbial slippery slope that they don't recognize it any more.

If you believe in civil liberties and free speech, you have to defend the principle even when you don't agree with someone else's politics (even if they aren't nice). Unfortunately the British pay lip service to principles they don't faithfully believe in.

They're Building Empires

The U.S. military has "702 overseas bases in about 130 countries".

How many foreign military bases exist in the U.S.?

(This question is rhetorical. The answer is obviously zero.)

If there's a U.S. military base in your country (there is in mine), how do you feel about the sovereignty of your country? Do you think the relationship is reciprocal?

Exceptionalism Pt. I

This is a little out-of-date, but here goes:

For Americans, I ask you to consider a hypothetical scenario.

For many years, a number of Americans, particularly some Irish-Americans, sympathized with the IRA and its cause. This was in the years shortly before America discovered terrorism. But, make no mistake, the IRA were terrorists. And in this case at least, a not-insignificant number of Americans identified not with "civilization" (Rudy "You're either with civilization or with terrorists" Giuliani), but with the terrorists.

So, let's imagine a scenario: It's 199X. Boston, a stronghold of the Irish-American community is attacked in an unmanned airstrike by the British armed forces, attacking a "safe house" for IRA terrorists and/or sympathizers. 18 Americans are killed, including women and children. Some of them may or may not have been IRA terrorists or sympathizers.

What do you think the reaction would be? From the government? From the American public? It would be an act of war, obviously. The British would no longer be considered an ally, but an enemy (even if there were rumours that the American government had secretly sanctioned the act -- but of course denied it).

Now we've established the scenario, tell me why this was okay with most Americans?

I think I know why, actually: Because the 18 dead were a bunch of Pakistanis.

Hosepipe bans

So here's some stupid stuff:

In much of England, including London where I live, we are now under what is called here a "hosepipe ban".

For North Americans and others who haven't heard the term, this means you can't use your garden hose for making things wet. In particular, you can't do things like water gardens or wash your car with the hose (you can do these things with buckets of water if you want, just not with a hose).

So. This is the wettest country you've ever seen. The stuff is falling from the skies by the bucketload. It rains here more-or-less nine months out of the year. The idea that there's a shortage is so typically, amusingly British. They've got more rain than the rest of the world put together (well okay, but you get my point) and they can't seem to capture it for human consumption.

I've heard people say they put rain barrels in their gardens, for watering purposes, and they're perpetually full. You don't have to do anything special to collect a lot of water in Britain, just put out containers big enough to hold as much water as you want. Couldn't they dig some nice big reservoirs? People have been living here for several millennia -- you'd think they'd have mastered this by now.

Politics and stupid stuff

So, I decided to post a 'blog', because I just need a place to rant about things. Especially politics and stupid stuff.