The bill for freedom is eternal vigilance

I've signed the petition to support this here freedom bill.

I'm always a bit lairy of putting my name on political petitions, partly because that's how they getcha and partly because I don't want to end up being responsible for a pyramid of skulls.

But this bill seems entirely sensible. In fact I'm rather surprised the whole lot isn't already in law:

# Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.
# Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.
# Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.
# Abolish the flawed control orders regime.
# Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.
# Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.
# Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.
# Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the Information Commissioner and reducing exemptions.
# Stop criminalising trespass.
# Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.
# Prevent allegations of ‘bad character’ from being used in court.
# Restore the right to silence when accused in court.
# Prevent bailiffs from using force.
# Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.
# Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.
# Remove innocent people from the DNA database.
# Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.
# Scrap the ministerial veto which allowed the Government to block the release of Cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.
# Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.
# Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras.


Brought to this place by the inestimable People's Republic of Mortimer.

Impatience with the IMP

It seems I'm in good company with my opinion that the government's IMP (Interception Modernisation Project) is a great big steaming pile of FAIL and that Geoff Hoon is a bit silly, from the The Independent's Open House:

In speaking out against the government's proposed database of telephone and internet records last night, Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald joined a remarkable cast of critics of Labour's most draconian instincts.

...the really startling chorus of opposition to the raft of illiberal policies that has characterised this government is that which has emerged from the security establishment.

It's former MI5 heads Stella Rimington and Eliza Manningham-Buller speaking out against 42 days, and senior members of the Association of Chief Police Officers saying the same thing. It's former Prison Service director general (now Barnado’s Chief Executive) Martin Narey decrying the rate at which we incarcerate children, or Prison Governors Association president Paul Tidball on the government's decision to build Titan prisons 'in the face of unanimous opposition from professional and expert groups'. And it's Brian Gladman, a former director of strategic electronic communications at the Ministry of Defence and US government security consultant, saying that ID cards would be a disaster.

The list goes on. These people are not partisans. They're professionals. They're experts. If anyone is going to have sympathy with the impulse to 'go quite a long way' in undermining freedom to stop terrorism (another Hoonism) and crime and benefit fraud, it is surely them. And if even these people think the government has got it wrong, one has to ask: who on earth does the government consult when it formulates this stuff?

The appropriate message is that all of this is not "being tough on terrorism" it is giving in to terrorism.

The lunacy of the IMP

Listen to some of these justifications from transport secretary Geoff Hoon MP for the government's Interception Modernisation Programme:

He said the police and security services needed the powers to deal with "terrorists or criminals" using telephones connected to the internet, for "perfectly proper reasons, to protect our society".

...

"If they are going to use the internet to communicate with each other and we don't have the power to deal with that, then you are giving a licence to terrorists to kill people."

...

He added: "The biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a terrorist."

There is a very straightforward reason why the government shouldn't push forward with the IMP.

The government has shown again and again and again that it is incapable of storing the people's data securely and responsibly. And I'm talking about any government - the more information the state has, the more leaky the state becomes.

Incidentally this is Geoff Hoon MP speaking, who was appointed transport secretary in the recent cabinet reshuffle, the same reshuffle that saw Tom Harris MP sacked from his job as a transport minister, presumably because he committed the cardinal sin of pissing off the Daily Mail by asking why "...is everyone so bloody miserable?"

Geoff goes some way towards answering this question. Misery is an entirely understandable response if the people of Britain are constantly being told that they are under threat from terrorists and as a result have to have their every electronic communication recorded by an incompetent government.

Self evident truths

It's always nice to remind ourselves of what good people should strive for:




[via Boing Boing]