Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit

Unusual circumstances in Northamptonshire:

Customers in 100,000 homes were told by Anglian Water to boil tap water for up to 10 days after the Cryptosporidium outbreak on 25 June.

The firm said a rabbit gaining access to the treatment process led to the bug at Pitsford Treatment works.

"We have already taken steps to ensure this cannot happen again," Peter Simpson, of Anglian Water, said.

"We have concluded that this occurrence was due to a combination of unusual circumstances."

An unauthorised rabbit "gained access"! Did an accomplice on the inside give him a key?

Someone has to ask the question, and it might as well be me: Was this a terrorist rabbit?

Met police vow to arrest Dr. Evil

The British police are at it again, grandstanding for the Hello magazine readership. When my neighbour's shop was broken into, they didn't bother to investigate or, um, show up. But here's what happens when people supposedly spit at one another on television:

Police quiz [Big Brother] 'spit' housemate

Police have interviewed Dennis McHugh, the contestant ejected from Channel 4's Big Brother show for allegedly spitting in the face of a fellow housemate.

So, the police are conducting an investigation, eh?

Police will also speak to Mohamed Mohamed, at whom Dennis allegedly spat, "as and when he leaves the house".

Excuse me? If they're serious about this, why wouldn't they go speak to the alleged victim, say, now? I mean, if the police want to talk to someone, don't they go to that person's home, or workplace or whatever, and speak to them right away? Why wouldn't they do that, in this case? Because the alleged victim is sequestered inside the Big Brother house? On a frigging 'reality' show?

"Goodness, we can't go in there," I imagine P.C. Plod saying to himself, "the contestants aren't allowed to have any contact with the outside world!"

The police are grandstanding for the benefit of the television audience (good P.R.) but don't want to ruin their telly program (bad P.R.). Unbelievable.

Well, not actually unbelievable, because they've done things like this before: When the entertainment-loving public get excited about celebrity shenanigans, the British police are all over it.

Remember Kate Moss's troubles, after photos allegedly showed her taking cocaine? The police made a big performance of that one, too. The problem was, they had no actual evidence that she had been taking an illegal drug (or in any case, which illegal drug). The stuff in the photos could have been anything, as far as reasonable standards of proof are concerned.

Nonetheless, the police had to make a big show of disciplining a wayward celebrity. The police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, made such a public fool of himself (yet again) that the Director of Public Prosecutions was bewildered: "If he is accurately quoted he appears to have completely misunderstood the law."

At the time, it seemed pretty obvious to me that the police didn't have a case against Kate Moss. It's pretty shocking that the police commissioner couldn't figure it out. The likely truth is that he knew it was nonsense, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to showboat:

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, who has pledged to tackle middle-class users of cocaine, had said the decision on whether to charge Moss would take into account her effect on "impressionable young people".

You see? A crime is more serious when committed by a celebrity. Perhaps we should have special laws for them so that they can be prosecuted, without proper evidence, for the sake of "impressionable young people".

What a crock of poo.

It would be nice if Commissioner Sir Ian Blair and the British police would do their frigging jobs, make some token effort to solve real-life crimes (such as burglaries at shops), and stop the posturing over celebrities and pointless television non-events.


[ P.S. Big Brother is still the crappiest television show in history, and the British public should make a serious effort to develop some taste. I've seen classier things circling the toilet bowl. The police should get serious and arrest the producers for contributing to the decline of civilization. ]

David Davis: right on, brother

I think I might have to go campaigning for the shadow home secretary. Here's an opinion piece in the Torygraph about the issues in question:

Twenty years ago you would also have been regarded as barmy if you had said innocent people would have their DNA held on a database for criminals; or that there would be one CCTV camera for every 14 people; or that children would be fingerprinted and their records held, as though they were all potential victims of abuse; or that it would be unlawful to stage a silent, one-person protest within one kilometre of the Palace of Westminster without permission from the police; or that trials would be held without juries; or that microchips would be placed in our dustbins; or that there would be 266 separate provisions granting power to enter homes without permission, a symptom of the expanding role of the state in the lives of citizens.

This Labour government has never met a thought or behaviour it didn't want to regulate, outlaw, or mandate.

What's that smell?

Professional douchebag Gordon Ramsay illustrates the danger of the mindset (prominent here in paternalistic Britain) that we can and should legislate for everything:

Ramsay orders seasonal-only menu

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay says British restaurants should be fined if they serve fruit and vegetables which are not in season. He told the BBC that fruit and vegetables should be locally-sourced and only on menus when in season. Mr Ramsay said he had already spoken to Prime Minister Gordon Brown about outlawing out-of-season produce.

"There should be stringent laws, licensing laws, to make sure produce is only used in season and season only," he said.

Listen fella, you're entitled to your opinions and preferences; and since you own several restaurants, go ahead and run those any way you like. However, if I have a craving for asparagus (Tee hee! Funny smell!) in December, that should be between me and the chef, right?

By Ramsay's rationale, importing any food should be illegal. Whee! I for one look forward to the day when we return to dining exclusively on world-renowned British cuisine! Mushy peas are always in season, right?

All your privacy are belong to US

New anti-terrorism rules 'allow US to spy on British motorists'

Routine journeys carried out by millions of British motorists can be monitored by authorities in the United States and other enforcement agencies across the world under anti-terrorism rules introduced discreetly by Jacqui Smith.

The discovery that images of cars captured on road-side cameras, and "personal data" derived from them, including number plates, can be sent overseas, has angered MPs and civil liberties groups concerned by the increasing use of "Big Brother" surveillance tactics.

This is depressingly familiar, and I'm sorry to say, totally expected. That the British government allows its citizens to be arbitrarily spied upon by foreign authorities on the streets of London is nothing new. The American eavesdropping agency, the NSA, has at least one listening post on British soil, at Menwith Hill, Yorkshire. It is claimed that their ECHELON system intercepts nearly every electronic communication in the world. It's more than a little disturbing that they can use our baby monitors, or our mobile phones (even when they're 'off' see also: this) to record the daily, offline conversations of any person. It's a pet peeve of mine that, not only does the US monitor my communications, the British government helps them do it. I'm a British citizen. Is it quaint that I expect my government to be on my side?

Last year I wrote about the police being given blanket, real-time surveillance power over every vehicle in London, and their assurances about its limited scope:

But they will only be able to use the data for national security purposes and not to fight ordinary crime, the Home Office stressed.

I replied:

Yes, I trust them on that score, because it's so believable. Obvious prediction: In a year or two, the system will be hailed as a great success in stopping terrorism, and the government will be pushing a 'scheme' to have the cameras used fight "ordinary crime".

Well, it's been less than a year since then. They haven't admitted to using the cameras to investigate petty crime yet, but in some ways, this is even worse. At the time of writing, last year, the government had already, secretly, given authorization for foreign governments to use the system. They used their usual tactic of 'selling' it to us one way, whilst planning to use it in another.

Whenever the government tells us that some new invasion of privacy is strictly for one thing (usually, protecting us from terrorist bogeymen), remember that they have their fingers crossed behind their backs, OK?

If a capability exists, it will be abused. You can take that to the bank. Just don't deviate from your usual route -- it might look suspicious.

[ Edit: the post title may require some explanation for those who aren't familiar with the "all your base are belong to us" joke: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base ]

In CCTV we trust

Poole council spies on family over school claim

A council has used powers intended for anti-terrorism surveillance to spy on a family who were wrongly accused of lying on a school application form.

Poole borough council disclosed that it had legitimately used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to spy on the family.

The Act was pushed through by the Government in 2000 to allow police and other security agencies to carry out surveillance on serious organised crime and terrorists. It has since been taken up by councils to catch those carrying out any "criminal activity".

I bleat on and on about the emerging British 'surveillance society', so this kind of story brings a mixture of feelings -- both outrage, and also vindication: Who is surprised by this? Not me. Talk about a good example of sliding down the proverbial slippery slope. When I discuss this subject with Brits, they tend to dismiss the potential pitfalls, because they trust their government not to abuse the new powers it regularly gives itself. Will this story give them pause to reconsider? Probably not, even though a followup story reveals that the abuse is already rampant:

More than 1,000 covert surveillance operations are being launched every month to investigate petty offences such as dog fouling, under-age smoking and breaches of planning regulations.

Councils and other public bodies are using legislation designed to combat terrorism in order to spy on people, obtain their telephone records and find out who they are emailing.

Councils are increasingly using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa) to investigate anything that can be classed as a criminal offence. The Home Office website describes the legislation as a tool for "preventing crime, including terrorism".

But it is used to spy on otherwise law-abiding people committing minor offences such as fly-tipping and failing to pick up dog mess and to gather evidence that can be used to instigate fines.

"including terrorism", eh? In a post-9/11 world, every single invasion of privacy and abuse of government power will be hidden behind a smokescreen of fighting terrorism. Police here rarely bother to investigate nonviolent crimes. But what the government really want to do, and what they're really good at, is coming down hard on ordinary citizens for speeding. Or not paying the TV tax. Or [not] fibbing on a school application. Or protesting climate change at Heathrow.

They film our activities hundreds of times per day using CCTV. They log all of our phone calls and text messages. They want to collect DNA samples from every Briton. They record every car journey. They record most public transportation journeys. They track our personal whereabouts using our mobile phones. They can stop us and search our pockets without cause. They want the right to interrogate us on the street. They want the right to fingerprint us on the street. They want to lock up terrorism suspects indefinitely, without charges.

They keep all of this detailed information on ordinary citizens, whilst government ministers make ludicrous claims about their databases being "unhackable", meanwhile losing the bank account details of every parent in Britain. In recent decades, British governments and institutions have not excelled in displays of basic competence. At least when someone screws up, bank account numbers can be changed. DNA and fingerprints are for life.

Still, at least we can trust them not to abuse all this information and power. Can't we?:

Professor Jeffrey Rosen wrote an article in The New York Times in 2001 showing that surveillance cameras in London, which were put up to combat the threat of terrorism from the Irish Republican Army, are actually used to intimidate vagrants and punks -- and, predictably, to ogle women.

-- and, predictably, increasingly, to track and monitor everyone all the time, for any reason at all. Just in case they're terrorists, or in case they 'forget' to pick up their dogs' poops. Ah well, take heart, for as long as you have nothing to hide...

Free what?

Just in case anyone was under the impression that we have free speech and the right of peaceful protest in Britain, read this about the Beijing olympics torch relay in London today:

Before the torch arrived police circulated among Tibetan demonstrators ordering them to remove T-shirts and confiscating Tibetan flags in an apparent breach of a promise from Met commanders that police would not intervene to prevent embarrassment to Beijing.

Yonten Ngama, a Tibetan who has been resident in the UK for four years, was ordered to remove a T-shirt scrawled with three slogans, 'China Stop the Killing', 'No Torch in Tibet' and 'Talk to the Dalai Lama'. "They didn't tell me why, they just said I couldn't wear it," he said. Police on the ground declined to comment on the reasons for confiscating the T-shirt.

Oh, well that's okay then: we wouldn't want to embarass the Chinese by allowing democratic-style demonstrations during their big day. Not only can the police in London order you not wear a T-shirt with the wrong slogan on it, or wave the wrong flag, they won't even bother to tell you why. We did the Chinese proud today.

In the photo above, 10 British police and "Chinese security guards" tackle a woman with a placard.

We'll teach you how to live right, you silly person

A government advisory board in the UK has proposed a smoking permit:

The permit might cost as little as £10, but acquiring it could be made difficult if the forms were sufficiently complex, Le Grand said last night.

His paper says: "Suppose every individual who wanted to buy tobacco had to purchase a permit. And suppose further they had to do this every year. To get a permit would involve filling out a form and supplying a photograph, as well as paying the fee. Permits would only be issued to those over 18 and evidence of age would have to be provided. The money raised would go to the NHS."

Le Grand said the proposal was an example of "libertarian paternalism".

I find the use of the word "libertarian" in this context insulting to the intelligence. This is big-brother-knows-best British nannyism at its finest. Calling it libertarian is positively Orwellian.

Charlie Brooker of the Guardian has a sufficiently sarcastic response to the whole idea here, so I'll refrain from going further with that.

One thought to add, though: What about tourists? I mean, if the government were to implement this scheme we could say goodbye to all those puffing Japanese visitors, for example, and their money as well. People coming to Britain for a holiday couldn't be expected to go through the whole deliberately-difficult application process, of course. But it would be unlikely that they would enjoy their holidays if they were going through withdrawal. They'd probably go to France instead.

It wouldn't do to lose all that business to the Frenchies, so you can bet there would be different rules for tourists. There would have to be easy, temporary permits for them. It wouldn't be fair to subject visitors to the same sorts of indignities endured by the poor saps who live here.

They won't go through with the scheme, I don't think. Instead they'll use the default British method of curtailing every undesirable activity (such as driving, flying, polluting, smoking, drinking, eating unhealthy food, etc.) which is to slap more taxes and fees on it.

In Britain, only rich people can afford to misbehave.

Privacy, what's it good for?

A new international ranking of privacy protections. Britain is the "worst in Europe":

Britain, the country with the world's biggest network of surveillance cameras, has the worst record in Europe for the protection of privacy, according to a report from a London-based international watchdog. The UK is billed as "an endemic surveillance society" alongside Russia, the US, Singapore and China in the survey of 47 countries by Privacy International (PI).

No surprise there. On the other hand, not to crow about this too much:

Canada heads the international table, with Argentina, Iceland and Switzerland close behind.

This might help to explain why I care so strongly about the subject. I guess I just grew up in a place where the government and police mostly stayed out of our lives, and that seems 'normal' to me. Here, everything I do is recorded and likely analyzed, even though it's just boring everyday crud. Makes you feel like a suspect, it does. It's always in the back of my mind, and as a result I always make a subconscious effort to do little things like paying in cash, and leaving blank spaces in paperwork when I think it's none of their business. I just assume that any information I allow companies and the government to gather about me will be misused. All the same, they announced just last week that they'd lost some of my personal information.

[ I took the driving theory test between the dates in question ]

The policeman's balls

It takes some cojones and not a little hypocrisy for a man like this to go blazing around country roads in his Audi:

One of Britain's most senior policemen was yesterday banned from driving after pleading guilty to speeding at 90mph. Meredydd Hughes, the former chairman of roads policing at the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), was caught on a speed camera exceeding the 60mph limit on the A5 near Wrexham, north Wales, in May.

I mean, one doesn't want to enjoy this too much; even off-duty policemen get caught speeding. Speed cameras in Britain are supposed to be conspicuous, to deter speeders (as opposed to just catching people out and/or being obvious money spinners). Never mind for the moment that the camera that got me was hidden behind an overpass at the time (since moved in front of the overpass). However, this man wants hidden speed cameras. To make more money, err, to catch more people out, umm... "slow down traffic":

As Acpo's chairman of roads policing, Hughes argued in favour of “less conspicuous” speed cameras as a way of slowing down traffic.

In that case, up yours buddy. Enjoy the bus.

When your American friends are bullies

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

Presumably the US won't make much of a fuss then, if a foreign country abducts Americans from the States. For example, Americans who name their teddy bears Mohammad, could be kidnapped and taken back to Iran or Saudi Arabia for trial, yes?

No? This wouldn't be the umpteenth example of American exceptionalism, would it?

When people like Karen Hughes try to tackle the problem of America's negative image abroad, it's an uphill struggle. No wonder she's giving up. Because, spin it all you want -- it's the substance of America's behaviour in the world that stinks. A good starting point might be showing respect for other countries' sovereignty, just as America expects for its own.

Losing our information

Personal details of every child in UK lost by Revenue & Customs:

The personal details of virtually every child in the UK has been lost by HM Revenue and Customs, the chancellor, Alistair Darling, admitted today.

The missing information includes the names, addresses and dates-of-birth of the children and the national insurance numbers, and in some cases the bank details, of parents claiming child benefits.

This, quite simply, is one of the big practical reasons why the government shouldn't be relentlessly collecting information about us. If the government, or a company for that matter, creates databases with huge amounts of private and personally-identifiable information, then at some point that information will escape. Someone will lose a laptop, or backup tapes, or fail to erase a discarded hard disk properly, and voila! -- the bad guys have got it. Not to mention that hackers get into every system eventually, given sufficient motivation. When the politician says "but this system will be totally secure" he's either lying, or else foolishly believed the vendor who lied to him.

I refuse to give out personal information whenever possible; whether to the government or companies. The only way I can ever be sure that the British government won't leak my DNA profile to profiteers and villains, is to never give them a sample. So that's what I'll do. Can you imagine the implications of future identity theft, involving your DNA signature? When someone cloned my bank card, I got a new card. If someone steals your DNA, it's stolen for life.

I repeat, don't trust governments and companies with sensitive information. I bet the parents of "virtually every child in the UK" will come to wish they hadn't.

Which brings me to all the information, besides DNA samples, that the British government collects on us without our consent. They're keeping information about our movements, the physical location of our mobile phones, and all our phone calls, among other things. That information will leak too (though we may never know it leaked). It's only a matter of time.

Political correctness, hate speech ctd.

Here's a testimonial from the television show in question, "Undercover Mosque":

So what was the police's intervention about? Why did the police and the CPS feel entitled to act as television critics and, in effect, as potential censors of what we could watch? Clues to the motive, I think, lie in the slightly sinister phrase "community cohesion".

Once again, let's get the police out of the business of television censorship and hate speech and community cohesion. Let's get them out on the streets, getting to know people, and policing. I spend a fair bit of time in front of my house; smoking cigars, working on the motorcycles, etc. In the 4 years I've lived at my current address, I don't recall ever seeing a regular policeman walk down my street. I've seen volunteer policepeople a handful of times. I see police vehicles drive past occasionally, but not often. One van full of volunteer policepeople, passing by, stopped to hassle me at length about pushing a motorcycle down to the garage without wearing a helmet.

Can just I say how impressed I'd be if bobbies occasionally strolled down my street, perhaps once per week, said hello, and asked me what's going on?

I'm not against the police, not at all. We need them. I just think they need to readjust their priorities.

Political correctness, hate speech

The police here are being bashed for trying to prosecute some TV producers (and, when that failed, trying to get them "watchdogged"):

Channel 4 has been vindicated by the media watchdog Ofcom after police complained about an investigative programme that exposed extremism in British mosques.

West Midland's police had faced criticism for targeting the producers of the show rather than the controversial preachers depicted in it.

Police claimed that the Dispatches programme had misrepresented the views of Muslim preachers and clerics with misleading editing.

Following today's ruling, the Channel 4 called the police's actions "perverse" and said they had, in some people's eyes, given "legitimacy to people preaching a message of hate".

Can I ask: What are the police doing enforcing political correctness? Why did they feel they needed to get involved one way or another? See, this is what happens when you muddy the free-speech waters with "hate speech" laws. A television show airs undercover footage of nasty things being preached in mosques (read the article for more detail). You then end up with police trying to 'target' the producers for making the preachers look bad, and thereby for the offence of "stirring up racial hatred" against Muslims. So, not the nasty preachers, but the TV producers who tried to expose them. Is all that clear? Furthermore, what would happen if a Christian preacher was filmed giving a sermon filled with blatant hatemongering against Jews and homosexuals? You can bet the police would be going after the preacher.

How about this: The police should get out of the business of enforcing political correctness and perhaps spend a little more time solving actual property crimes, for example, like burglary and vehicle theft. My neighbour had his bicycle shop broken into, and merchandise stolen; the police didn't even show up. He had to go down to the station and fill out some paperwork, and that was the end of it, as far as he knows. There isn't even a presumption that the cops will bother with an actual investigation, and that's just sad.

Perhaps the police should forget about all their surveillance technology, and all this thoughtcrime nonsense, and get back to the old fashioned business of police work. You know, walk the beat. Know the people in the neighbourhood, and by extension, what's going on in the neighborhood. Show up when a crime is committed. That sort of thing.

British liberty ctd.

I'm a little late on this one because I've been travelling this week:

Information about all landline and mobile phone calls made in the UK must be logged and stored for a year under new laws. Data about calls made and received will also be available to 652 public bodies, including the police and councils. The Home Office said the content of calls and texts would not be read and insisted the move was vital to tackle serious crime and terrorism.

Note the fairly waffly statement that "calls and texts would not be read". It doesn't say "can not be read" because we know from common sense that they will be, when the government or police decide that this too has become 'vital'.

Note also the huge number of organizations who'll have access to the information; it will practically be public information. (i.e. what private investigator or hacker won't be able to access it for the right price?).

Note further, if you read the article, that our physical locations will now be officially tracked and recorded when we make calls or send texts.

On the basis of several technologies, including CCTV, automatic number plate recognition (recording all car journeys), Oyster cards (recording all public transit journeys), and this new phone logging, the government will now have a record of where we are and where we go at all times. Clever terrorists and criminals, of course, will evade these methods by doing things like, for example, using anonymous pay-as-you-go SIM cards in their mobile phones (available for a few pounds in the dodgier news agents) and changing them frequently. It will be the rest of us who are effectively tracked by these methods. Feel safer now?

What part of "police state" don't we understand?

Those little perks of democracy

Anyone who visits here once in a while will know that I write a lot of posts about British liberty and our surveillance society. I write about the many different ways our government tracks and spies on us. I also complain a lot about the nearly limitless powers that the British police ask for, and most often get. The nastiest tools at their disposal come from the various incarnations of the Terrorism Act (2000, 2001, 2005, 2006). Under these acts, for example, they've done away with the idea of "unreasonable search". Here's a little lesson on why that's a bad idea:

Armed police will use anti-terrorism powers to "deal robustly" with climate change protesters at Heathrow next week, as confrontations threaten to bring major delays to the already overstretched airport. The police have been told to use stop and search powers against the protesters...

So here is an example of the police having a hammer called the Terrorism Act, but since a protest at Heathrow is inconvenient during "its busiest week of the year", the protesters look like a nail. The police are threatening, in advance, to use the Terrorism Act to intimidate lawful protesters. These laws give the police the right to stop-and-search people without justification (i.e. reasonable suspicion that the person is a terrorist), among other powers.

The police aren't making any serious effort to argue that the protesters are terrorists -- just that they're an annoyance, and so the police are going to use the tools at their disposal.

The Guardian has established that at least two climate change campaigners have been arrested recently at Heathrow by officers using terrorism powers. Cristina Fraser, a student, was stopped when cycling near the airport with a friend and then charged under section 58 of the Terrorism Act. This makes it an offence to make a record of something that could be used in an act of terrorism.

"I was arrested and held in a police cell for 30 hours. I was terrified. No one knew where I was. They knew I was not a terrorist," she said.

Ms Fraser, a first-year London university anthropology student, has been on aviation demonstrations with the Plane Stupid campaign group, but claims she was carrying nothing at all. The police later recharged her with conspiring to cause a public nuisance.

Ah, "public nuisance", the catch-all charge for any person who irritates a policeman. Does "conspiring to cause a public nuisance" mean it's also illegal to seem like you're thinking of being irritating?

Weren't we told that these powers were meant for stopping terrorists? As opposed to climate protesters? We bought it. In retrospect it seems like a bad idea to have given the police unlimited power to arbitrarily stop-and-search people on the streets, but there's nothing we can do about it now.

But for the police it's never enough. They want equivalent stop-and-fingerprint, and stop-and-DNA-test, and the power to hold 'terrorism' suspects indefinitely without charge. We're assured they would never think of abusing these powers. So are we going to grant them? Are we going to buy it yet again, in the face of evidence to the contrary?

I bet we will. Furthermore I bet it won't be long before they're using these new powers to deal with minor nuisances (that means you and me). Put down that placard and behave yourself, if you know what's good for you.

Sir Ben Dover ctd.

Some commentary from the Telegraph about this issue:

The British police, I was bleakly surprised to read in The Daily Telegraph this week, have the biggest single DNA database in the world, with more than five per cent of the population logged, including nearly a million children under 17.

Is that big enough? The police, their response to a Home Office consultation about their powers now tells us, don't think so. If they get their way, next time you're arrested on suspicion of failing to scoop your dog's poop, they will be entitled to keep a permanent record of your DNA. Does that strike you as a bad thing? It does me.

I should make clear here what I think the police request is about. I do not imagine a cabal of senior police consciously fantasising about a surveillance state in which Plod Is The Master Now. Nor do I imagine that a similarly totalitarian instinct exists among those in government.

Agreed. I don't think it's a conspiracy. The police just want to do their job better. And it's our job (and thus, the job of government) to decide where the line is. When the police reach too far, it's our job to say no. The problem is that in Britain, we don't say no very often.

Sir Ben Dover

But of course, officer! The latest:

"Police are seeking powers to take DNA samples from suspects on the streets and for non-imprisonable offences such as speeding and dropping litter."

Well of course they are. Tony Blair had previously stated his belief that every person in the UK should be in the DNA database (and I've no reason to think that Gordon Brown feels any differently). Since there might be too many legitimate and vociferous arguments against making it mandatory, the 'stealth' way to accomplish the same goal would be exactly, well, this. (They've already been slapped for gathering samples from innocent schoolchildren). How many adults have never been stopped whilst driving, or for jaywalking, or littering, or some other minor, 'ticketable' offence? Raise your hands... Anyone? I thought not.

But notice the phrasing "...suspects on the streets and for non-imprisonable offences..." [emphasis added]. In other words, all you'd really have to do is look suspicious. Just like stop-and-search.

Ultimately the job of the police can be done most easily and efficiently when they have the means of knowing a) each person's identity; and b) where they've been at all times. In the past few years I've been in Britain, they've made great strides toward these goals. They track us when we drive (ANPR), when we ride on public transport (Oyster), and potentially everywhere we go with our mobile phones. Our passports have chips for our biometric data (pictures and fingerprints). They want us to carry mandatory ID cards, also with biometric data. They film us with CCTV from every street corner. Under the "terrorism act" they can stop us and search us on the street, and will soon be given 'wartime' powers to interrogate us on the street as well. If they don't like the answers, they can imprison us for 28 (maybe 50, maybe 90) days without charge. The goal is to be able to know who we are, and where we've been, at any given time. So why not cut to the chase, as they say?

Why not fit each person with an ankle bracelet that continuously broadcasts their identity and location to a police computer? Perhaps you think that's too easily tampered with or spoofed? Take the technology a little farther then, and implant us with RFID chips. That would basically solve the crime problem, no? You'd be right in thinking that the real criminals and terrorists would find ways to beat the system -- but then, they'll always do that. This is about the rest of us. Will you speed if you *know* that a police computer is definitely going to detect it, and send you a ticket?

So why don't we just do that, then? I think the answer lies in what people sometimes call the "yuck factor". Why aren't the police asking for stop-and-cavity-search powers? Yuck factor. Monitoring each one of us all day, every day? It just seems wrong somehow, doesn't it? These are our remaining instincts of privacy and free will, trying to be heard over the increasing din of our fears. Fears of muggers and terrorists who lurk, we are assured by policemen and politicians, around every corner. But tracking all of us, all the time, without fail? That still seems like overkill.

However, we will get used to the idea, over time, that we have no longer have privacy anyway. Some future government study will say, in essence: Look, we're already tracking and monitoring everybody anyway, through all these various means; Let's save the taxpayers a lot of money by just implanting this little chip, which can be used as a debit card, and an ID, and a passport, and which will also be able to do useful things like storing your grocery store loyalty card info, etc. etc.

And someday we'll just finally give in, lured by the promises of a more convenient life and resigned to the fact that the government is going to pass the law anyway. Or perhaps they'll start with an optional version, and gradually subtract from the list of things you can do without having one. Of course, they'll probably charge us a fee to get the chip (they're just that cheeky), but we'll pay without grumbling too much.

Am I being paranoid again? Many of the things I mentioned earlier -- things that have been pushed upon, and accepted by, the people of Britain -- would have seemed pretty far-fetched 15 or 20 years ago. "We'd never stand for that!" And yet, we've come to accept them nonetheless. Have these measures made us any safer? The statistics (not to mention all the warnings from politicians and policemen about criminals and terrorists) would indicate not. But the schemes keep coming. The slippery slope is getting steeper and slipperier every day, but like the frog in slowly-heated water, the British public don't seem to notice what's been happening to them. Or that it's starting to happen faster and faster.

A pledge: I will not voluntarily give a DNA sample to any policeman. They will have to hold me down. I'll go to jail if I have to, but in the grand scheme of things, it would probably be smarter to save myself the trouble by moving away preemptively, to a still-free country. Preferably one with a bill of rights, and maybe a constitution.

When we get carried away

Schoolboy guilty of terrorism offences:

A schoolboy who ran away from home to become a Muslim martyr and three students who recruited him are facing jail after a jury found them guilty of terrorism offences.

Mohammed Irfan Raja was supposed to be on his way to school in Essex when he ran away to join a group of radicalised students in Bradford.

During raids on their homes officers found material on their computers which included al-Qa'eda manuals, speeches by Osama bin Laden and justifications for suicide bombings.

The defendants, who had spent much of the trial laughing and giggling together, looked shocked as the verdicts were announced.

So now we're going to start putting away rebellious kids, under the terrorism act. A 17 year old is going to go to jail for adopting 'jihadi' rhetoric and running away from home. And for downloading stuff from the Internet, and "glorifying terrorism". Look at this goofy teenager. He looks about as sharp as a box of rocks. That could easily have been me at 17. Luckily for me, I didn't choose to rebel in the same way as him. I stuck to music my parents didn't like, and staying out past curfew. I exploded all my little 'bombs' harmlessly, in empty fields.

We're scared as hell and we're not going to take it anymore, I guess. We should probably start jailing little hoodlums for repeating gangsta rap stanzas about guns and 'hos', too. And now that I think about it, those kids in hoodies -- stick them in jail too. They look very suspicious if you ask me.

I read the news today, oh boy

Someone tossed a "newspaper" into my garden today. The Sun. The two "headlines" I saw on the blowing pages littered around my home were:

FLY FLAG ON EVERY BUILDING

and

EXECUTE THE TERROR FIENDS

I mean, I guess I always knew the Sun was a lowbrow, xenophobic, fascist tabloid rag, crossed with a skin mag and a TV guide, but I've never had to actually look at it before. And it's one of the highest-circulation papers in the UK, as I understand it. This is what the "working class" people read every day? Lordy.

I can't even get excited

Maybe it's because I'm tired tonight. Maybe it's because I'm surprised they weren't doing it already. Here it is:

Police are to be given live access to London's congestion charge cameras - allowing them to track all vehicles entering and leaving the zone. Anti-terror officers will be exempted from parts of the Data Protection Act to allow them to see the date, time and location of vehicles in real time. They previously had to apply for access on a case-by-case basis.

Or maybe it's because, finally, I've given up on the concept of privacy in Britain. I'm sure I'll continue to highlight it here, but I may have reached the point of resignation. That's a tough pill to swallow for a North American, with our disinclination to automatically trust "authorities". I drive through the congestion zone every day. This affects me. Being tracked in real time by the police -- when I'm not a suspect in any crime -- strikes me as so fundamentally wrong as to be on the level of a human rights violation. But that's Britain today. I guess you like it or you leave.

But they will only be able to use the data for national security purposes and not to fight ordinary crime, the Home Office stressed.

Yes, I trust them on that score, because it's so believable. Obvious prediction: In a year or two, the system will be hailed as a great success in stopping terrorism, and the government will be pushing a 'scheme' to have the cameras used fight "ordinary crime". Probably, some heinous crime will be paraded about as an example of something that wouldn't have happened if the police had had more access. Then the public will nod, and it will be done.

Meanwhile, the sensible people of New York City are in the process of rejecting congestion charge cameras.

And throw away the key

I was going to write an entry about this:

One of Britain's most senior police officers has demanded a return to a form of internment, with the power to lock up terror suspects indefinitely without charge.

But my friend over at Jen's Den of Iniquity has done an admirable job of beating me to it.

Ho hum, another day, another odious assault on democracy and freedom. This is becoming a way of life in Britain. I don't have too much more to add, except to point out that under the UK's Terrorism Act 2006, even "condoning or glorifying terrorism" is an offence. For that, they'd like to be able to lock people up indefinitely without charge.

Not only is there no guarantee of free speech in this country (indeed, various types of speech are illegal), but apparently there won't be the guarantee of a trial either.

Paranoia, paranoia, la la la.

And there you have it

Ask a stupid question...

The politicians now have to DO SOMETHING! What clever thing will they (our intrepid leaders, not the terrorists) think of next? A crackdown on nails and gas canisters? On parking? On Mercedes sedans? (along with a new tax security charge, undoubtedly?)

...and here's the stupid answer:

Background security checks on foreign doctors and other health workers migrating to Britain are to be stepped up after the weekend bomb scares in London and Glasgow.

(throws hands in air, slumps in chair).

Al Qaeda sure makes crappy bombs

Apparently my skepticism of last week's attempted car bombings has some justification. The Reg has a pair of smackdowns (they're good for that sort of thing):

Beavis and Butthead in London jihad. Good quote:

Today we have news from London, where a "big [explosive] device" was discovered inside a parked car near Piccadilly Circus. The device consisted of petrol, propane gas cylinders, and nails. The car containing it had been abandoned after its driver was observed piloting it erratically, crashing it, then running off, like a true professional.

And another:

"It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been serious injury or loss of life", Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke intoned gravely.

Ah, if it had detonated. Yes, it could have been a real horror. Only, the device could not have detonated. Not under any circumstances. You see, the terrorist wannabe clown who built it left out a crucial element: an oxidiser. The device was pure pre-teen boy fantasy.

"We'll heat up these propane cylinders with burning petrol, and they'll go off like bombs", boys the world over have remarked with glee. They don't realise that air is a poor oxidiser, and the only "explosion" they will get is when gas pressure inside the cylinders is great enough to burst them. Then the propane will ignite, and a nice fireball will blossom. A fireball, not an explosion.

Here's the other razzie (from a former bomb squaddie no less): 'al-Qaeda' puts on big shoes, red nose, takes custard pie. Good quote:

If these guys at the weekend really were anything to do with al-Qaeda, all one can really say is that it looks as though the War on Terror is won. This whole hoo-ha kicked off, remember, with 9/11: an extremely effective attack. Then we had the Bali and Madrid bombings, not by any measure as shocking and bloody but still nasty stuff. Then we had London 7/7, a further significant drop in bodycount but still competently planned and executed (Not too many groups would have been able to mix up that much peroxide-based explosive first try without an own goal).

Now we have this; one terror-clown badly burnt and nobody else hurt at all.

So if these guys are obviously amateur 'terror-clowns', why are the police and politicians trying to spook us again with talk of Al Qaeda and international terrorism?

Another bogus terror plot? This is getting ridiculous -- add it to the long, long list. Ask yourself: Do the British police and government have any credibility left, at all?

Close the barn door (them horses done ran away)

Seems we in Britain are on high terror alert after this week's failed car-bombing attempts.

Can I just say, how much more impressed I'd be if they'd alerted us before the events?

Are we on alert because the government knows there are more attacks coming? Can I be excused for being skeptical about that? With all their eavesdropping and surveillance, why didn't they warn us in advance? These attempted bombers were clearly amateurs. Of course we're being told it's the work of the usual bogeymen (Al Qaida) but colour me unconvinced; Al Qaida's bombs don't usually fail to explode, do they? And another thing: terrorists don't usually attack us when we're expecting it -- for example on obvious symbolic anniversaries, or holidays, or when we're on high terror alert. They usually wait until we're not expecting it. When we're nice and relaxed. They're clever that way. So what's the point, really?

Now, this isn't just macho talk. I am afraid of terror attacks. But not for the obvious reason. They worry me because of high terror alerts, hair-trigger police, and itchy politicians. The most dangerous thing to be in Britain right now is the proverbial innocent bystander. Terror attacks worry me because I wonder about how the government is going to punish the rest of us.

The politicians now have to DO SOMETHING! What clever thing will they (our intrepid leaders, not the terrorists) think of next? A crackdown on nails and gas canisters? On parking? On Mercedes sedans? (along with a new tax security charge, undoubtedly?)

I'm not being totally facetious. We're still carrying our lipstick and toothpaste in clear plastic bags when we board airplanes, aren't we? Because of a bogus plot.

You can't beat terrorism with oppressive laws and security restrictions (not to mention with fighter jets, M16s, or daisy-cutter bombs). Terrorism isn't a group of people, or a religion, or even an ideology; it's a tactic. The object is to make us afraid, and to make us change our behaviour. So is it working? Every time we react badly, we show our enemies that it is.

Wave of rumination

British Press Fears Wave Of Terrorism!

Alternative view:

British Press Looks Forward To Lots Of Big Headlines About Fears Of Terrorism!

If you've spent much time with the British press, you'll know how often we are regaled with headlines about FEARS and STORMS (controversies) and PANICS and those sorts of things. Sells lots of newspapers I guess. Last year the newspapers were all in a tizzy about an alleged wave of youth knife violence, for a couple of weeks. Every mugging became front page news. Then it was quickly forgotten in the wake of some celebrity news or something -- but not before the politicians could respond with some draconian new knife laws (they had to DO SOMETHING!).

Cynical? Moi?

Pesky terrorists Pt. 5

So most people are probably aware that 2 supposed car bombs were found and disabled today here in London. Good for the police. Something keeps bothering me about this though; the reports persist in referring to the bombs as "potentially viable". That suggests to me that the bombs were not viable. As in, a stunt, or carried off by amateurs. Given the UK's history of hyped-up, bogus terrorism busts (think: big airline terror story from last summer), surely we've learned our lesson by now. This couldn't be yet another example, could it? I don't have any inside information. I'm just saying.

Meanwhile, I went out to lunch today with about a dozen workmates. I don't recall last night's attempted bombing coming up in conversation.

It would seem that we "ain't bothered".

How long till the election?

There's a good piece by Boris Johnson here on the 'Torygraph' (my employer when I first arrived in London) with some sentiments that I want to echo.

First, with regard to the departure of Tony Blair:

Sky News may be treating it like the funeral of Queen Victoria, but I am really feeling quite chipper about the political extinction of Tony Blair. Yes, I was going to say, there are some of us who are bearing up pretty well, on the whole, and there are some of us who can't think of a better fate for Tony than to be carted off to the Middle East.

And on the arrival of Gordon Brown:

Suddenly my mood changed; suddenly I felt a sense of desolation and morosity that we had lost Tony Blair, and I can tell you the exact moment when I caught the bug and joined the national mourning. It was the moment Gordon Brown opened his mouth, and, with every word he uttered, the mercury of my mood started to sink and the clouds rolled in.

Yep. Pretty much the same for me. Perhaps the new Prime Minister will be excellent, but as of speech #1, I already can't stand watching him speak. Perhaps he was just really nervous and emotional. Or else, he's the most wooden, unlikeable politician I've ever seen, and as charming as a bag of poo.

I can already see that I'm going to miss that lovable rogue who walked out on us yesterday. Maybe we can all just forgive him for the Iraq thing, and he'll come back?

Score +1 for Brown, already?

He hasn't yet officially become Prime Minister, but sounds like he's already planning to give us back a bit of the democracy we've recently lost:

Gordon Brown is to hold out an olive branch to opponents of the Iraq war by reinstating the right to demonstrate and march outside the Houses of Parliament, it has been claimed.

Restrictive legislation introduced by Tony Blair will allegedly be reversed by the Chancellor soon after he enters Number 10 next week.

Colour me impressed: The right to peaceful protest might be back! This is certainly a step in the right direction. Keep it up, you cranky, unlikeable fellow, and you just might win my admiration. And win back my vote.

Noisy as ducks

Great quote found here today, on Londoners:

noisy as ducks, eternally drunk. - Verlaine

British liberty Pt. V

We will no longer have the right to remain silent:

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to push through a new anti-terrorism law before he steps down next month giving "wartime" powers to police to stop and question people, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The "stop and question" power would enable police to interrogate people about who they a