Now the council is watching you...

You may have seen this story elsewhere.

Let's look at this shall we....

A council yesterday admitted using laws designed to track serious criminals to spy on a family for nearly three weeks to find out if they were lying about living in a school catchment area.

I admit my knowledge of RIPA is not what it should be but I'm not certain that trying to get a child into a school (even if the parents are intending to move out of the catchment area) is a 'serious crime'. Terrorism is a serious crime. Murder is pretty serious too. Rape is damned serious. Getting a kiddywink into St. Snob's School For The Intelligent and Good Looking is not.

The family are angry after Poole borough council, in Dorset, revealed it had followed them and watched them at home to check whether they lived in the correct area for one of their three children, a three-year-old girl, to be accepted at a local school

This wasn't some simple stakeout then, was it? It was following a family with a young child. It is, without being too hyperbolic, state-sanctioned stalking.

Tim Martin, Poole council's head of legal and democratic services, said: "The use of RIPA procedures ensures that surveillance is properly authorised and provides protection for the subject of the investigation.

Well done, Tim Martin. You have just won an award. The award is very rarely given out but it is only given to those who truly deserve it. You have won The Reactionary Snob Award For Outstanding Achievements in the field of Abject Cuntery. ''Legal and Democratic Services''? What the fuck does that even mean? Provides protection for the subject of the investigation? What? That's stretching it a bit, non? If you mean they are protected by having two goons follow their every move how can I disagree? I'd contend that it is a bit of an invasion of privacy and a total waste of police and council time?

The council is keen to ensure that the information given by parents who apply for school places is true. This protects the majority of honest parents against the small number of questionable applications.

Questionable? I remember the good old days when, you know, you were innocent till proven guilty and when the state only followed citizens if there was a palpable and current threat to the rest of the population.

The Home Office said the RIPA legislation did not appear to have been used inappropriately.

Fuck you, you sordid, 'orrible, malignant cunts. RIPA is a woeful bit of legislation as it is but surely it should not be used for such minor instances.

RS

Snitching

Whilst I can see where he is coming from... wouldn't you like to hit him in square in the chubby chops with a cricket bat? Whilst I'm not a fan of a tax cheat, I am profoundly depressed to think that if I do misdemeanour some do-gooding snitch will be on the phone to some organ of state or other... it all sounds terribly icky, a little European.

The thing I worry about here is that the British public are increasingly asked to snitch on other people in their community - whether it be shop-a-smoker, council staff looking out for 'violent people' or shopping a tax cheat, we are creating a society that looks over each others shoulders.

As if the surveillance state wasn't bad enough - from more CCTV cameras than any other state, to hidden racism tests in job applications, to lie detectors for welfare applicants, to using drones to monitor people and everything else in between - we now have the prospect of everyone playing spy.

It's rather depressing to think that your neighbour might be a snitch - it's hardly a way to promote good behaviour in the individual is it? People aren't behaving because they want to behave but because they think their neighbour might be looking through the letterbox. Brown's Britain...

RS

Jenkins on smoking

''The smoking ban was not necessary. There was no reason why an activity that causes individuals a mixture of pleasure and risk without necessarily harming others could not be left to communities and institutions to regulate for themselves. Why should a group of consenting adults wanting to smoke tobacco not be permitted to do so, if they can avoid impinging on the enjoyment of others?''

Beautifully put from Simon Jenkins. I am terribly sorry for the light-blogging. I have rather a lot of work on...

RS

The attempted bombings in London

No jokes, no swearing, no name calling... Just a few questions.

1) On a day when there are two huge and potentially devastating bombs, should DAC Peter Clarke be giving two press conferences to the media? Whilst I understand that it is important to keep the public informed was it necessary to have the man in charge addressing the media so often?

2) If there are bomb-making websites on the internet, why aren't we monitoring people who visit them? (I presume this is possible)

3) How will Brown's government respond? Will this lead to a greater crackdown on civil liberties - I think sadly that is most likely to be the case. The news reports are filled with references to the extensive CCTV network in the area. Whilst it may be a useful thing in this instance, we should ask is it the right thing?

4) It is fantastic to see the great British public responding to this and heading out to get sloshed tonight in central London. I do not mean to appear mocking in fact quite the opposite. Ladies and gentleman of the West End hostelries, enjoy a drink and show the fuckers they haven't won, they can't win and they won't win.

RS

Thought Police

Via the ever excellent Dizzy, I read about this frankly worrying idea.

A test is being developed to detect "hidden" racism in job applicants.

Whilst I would agree with most of the populous that racism is a bad thing and something to be fought against this seems a little OTT no? A person has done nothing wrong but 'fail' a thought test and will not be employed because of that. Nothing to do with their ability to do the job, nothing to do with whether they actually are racist (even if we accept that we shouldn't employ racists... which I'm not sure has been established). In fact, a candidates political beliefs are really absolutely fuck all to do with a potential employer. If they, during the course of their employment, do something illegal or bring the companies name into disrepute then that's a different matter... This, however, is not about these things but rather about a potential subconcious bias!

It is highly unlikely, of course, that these tests are foolproof (as there are many flaws with psychometric testing) but I would presume that the results would be taken as such.

That doesn't even get us started on the bountiful evidence that suggests that most people (black and white) equate 'black' with 'bad' and 'white' with 'good' - whether we want to or not.

Candidates are asked to put images of black and white faces into categories of "good/positive" and "bad/negative" using arrow keys on the keyboard. By getting them to respond to prompts as quickly as possible, the test aims to side-step what is known as "cognitive control" - the brief, but significant time lapse needed to give an "acceptable" answer rather than an instinctive or "honest" one.

As Dizzy so eloquently points out, surely not giving someone a job because of perceived 'racism', or more correctly, not giving someone a job beceause of the beliefs they might hold is more discriminatory than the 'hidden racism' they have supposedly shown? Discrimination on belief... who'd have thought it?

Furthermore it seems unreasonable to assume that people judge purely on colour, surely? One of the pictures might have a person with terrible teeth or horrible glasses or just be Blears ugly.... there are any number of reasons why someone would put tick the bad box? And added to that, surely people would get wise to this and just rate everyone positively?

And as ever with this government - what happens to the results of the tests as they are supposedly being developed for public sector jobs? Does a failed test effectively blacklist a candidate for ever?

RS

Human Rights Act

Whether one agrees with the Human Rights Act or not, surely we must begin to wonder what is the point of agreeing to be bound by rules if we opt out of them every time they conflict with what we want to do?

A few further points for 'Double Hard Reid':

1) Given the worry about the 3 suspects was that they'd go to Iraq and join the insurgency, deporting them would never be a very good idea.

2) Given that the 3 suspects were on the lightest control order available isn't it absurd to suggest that they should have been in Belmarsh - only if he had put them on the strongest control order possible would he remotely have a case.

3) On deportation - it is cases like this that test our nerve. Even if they are guilty and are Islamist terrorists should we send them to a nation where they are to be tortured? Are we significantly against torture not to abuse people even if we despise them?

RS

Attack of the drones

Yesterday, it was the idea of making council officials snoopers. Today, it seems to be this.

I mean really a spy drone? What in the name of Malcolm Muggeridge is this country coming to? Is it just me or does anyone else think that a new game amongst tag-wearing, Scouse scallies will be to try and shoot these things out of the air with their air guns?

I made my over-arching point, I hope, yesterday about the nature of the relationship between the state and the individual. This isn't to fight international terror or anything like that it is to help enforce ASBOs...

RS

Snoopers

My recent blogging has not been typically voracious. It has been rather light - 'look at this' or 'go to this site' and 'isn't Brown a fucking twatface' and so on. The long posts going through the policy proposals looked to be a thing of the past. My posts had become leaner, less mean, less sweary. I was becoming Dale-ified.

However, this morning I had to go to Cumbernauld for a meeting with some solicitors. A solicitor in Cumbernauld - I'm sure Dante invoked a circle of hell called 'Johnson, Bugger, Johnson Solicitors and Notaries, Cumbernauld'. If he didn't, he should have. The poor citizens of Cumbernauld are locked forever in a dizzying system of roundabouts that no sane man can navigate so they spend their lives driving around the only town in Scotland that would be improved by a nuclear blast.

Cumbernauld brings the worst out of anyone. It's myriad of roundabouts, wierd traffic islands and underpasses give a vaguely 'Prisoner' feel to it all and everything seems to have been knocked up in 20 minutes at some point in 1965. More worringly is that everyone is so pleasant - what the fuck is going on?

It's very modern in the sense that everything in the Soviet Union was modern... and also rather shit.

I am of the firmest belief that Betjeman only pointed the friendly bombs towards Slough because he had never had the misfortune to get lost in the roundabouts of Condorrat, Croy and Cumbernauld.

Anyway, as I got back onto the train at Croy station (one always feels slightly smug getting the largely pointless first class to Glasgow or one of it's satellites) I picked up The Times and was dismayed by the front page story about new plans to turn staff into police informers. My rage began to rise, I began to shake uncontrollably... I think most people thought this was a reaction to Scotrail coffee. Little did they know.

Council workers, charity staff and doctors will be required to tip off police about anyone whom they believe could commit a violent crime, under secret Home Office plans.

There are any number of problems with this. Firstly, council workers are renowned for their anal attitude to life. It is why they work for a local council, one would presume - why else would you waste a career by working in local government? These people are so anally retentive they've been known to swallow chairs as they sit down.

It is eminently plausible that they would use such a scheme for revenge, in fact that is exactly what these petty little fuckers have been waiting for. Secondly, it means that people who have committed no offence whatsoever may be placed under surveillance, put on record and detained despite having committed no offence. I realise I'm a romantic old soak but I believe in the doctrine of innocent till proven otherwise and I believe that such a body of surveillance may end up counting against you in a court of law or, if not, at least contravening your freedom outside a court of law.

Are these people qualified to assess the nature of a threat? Can they reasonably be expected to be able to tell who may or may not become a violent person?

And a senior Whitehall official, who leaked the plans to The Times, said that it would entail a mass of personal information, including sensitive medical records, being passed around many different agencies — even if there was no firm evidence of any potential risk from an individual.

Again, there are huge problems with this. A person may not have done anything wrong but some jobsworth fuckwit from a local council might suspect they may, at some point in the future, commit a violent crime.

The draft set of proposals on “multi-agency information sharing” was circulated around Whitehall by Simon King, head of the violent crime unit at the Home Office. The document states: “Public bodies will have access to valuable information about people at risk of becoming either perpetrators or victims of serious violence. Professionals will obviously alert police or other relevant authority if they have good reason to believe [an] act of serious violence is about to be committed.

What happens if no offence is committed? Are the council workers or professionals held to account for sullying someone's name? Are the records destroyed? What exactly is a 'good reason to believe'? Like the referee in the England vs Argentina game in 1966 when sending off the Argentine captain for 'the look in his eye'.

What does the Home Office do with the people that are 'worrying' but that have committed no crime? In my view, if you haven't committed a crime, you should be free to go about as you please not with the state looking over your shoulder because you've happened to piss off some bedwetting fuckwit from Midlothian Council.

However, our proposal goes beyond that,

But, of course... Good to see you are boasting about it!

...and is that, when they become sufficiently concerned about an individual, they must consider initial risk assessment of risk to/from that person, and refer [the] case to [a] multi-agency body.”

Ah, I see. The draft does not spell out what action should be taken to head off violent attacks. So what is the point in the measures? To encourage people to become snoopers for the state?

And when asked what should trigger a report (a threat, general behaviour, bruises on the wife...) and waht would count as a serious violent crime they couldn't give an answer....

Increasingly, this government seems to forget the relationship between citizens and the state.

Danger signs used to identify an individual as a potential perpetrator might include a violent family background, heavy drinking or mental health problems.

For fucks' sake - we are taking genetics and how much vino you sink into account. Dear fucking Christ.

Supporters of the plans say that they would build on existing local arrangements that are already helping to head off domestic violence before it happens. It is claimed that better information-sharing might have prevented the Soham murders.

Rule No 8 of Public Life - If in doubt when losing a civil liberties argument invoke a child killing to get the public on your side.

However, some senior Whitehall officials are concerned at what they consider to be a significant extension of information-gathering which will, in any case, be ineffective.

There are concerns too, that the system could be used to spread malicious smears.

Really? Who'd have thought it...

This government has taken us into a surveillance society - the looming prospect of ID cards, 4 million CCTV cameras, the possibility of 'Reid Warblers' and any number of laws that have given the police increased power - and I think we are reaching a tipping point about the relationship between the state and individual.

Where does the state derive its legitimacy? Why does the state exist?

To the first question, ulitimately from the people that make up that state and, in this nation, from the electorate that gives the government a mandate to govern.

To the second question, to protect us - first and foremost and in doing so should minimise its impact on our freedom to go about our business.

With this in mind, the state should remember that it is the individual members of the state that are the creators and arbiters of the state. The state does not, or, at least, should not control the lives of its citizens but rather the citizens should control the state.Those of us that question the state over issues of surveillance have freedom in our hearts. It is not about how they will use the information - although, I josh about some pencil pushing turd using it for revenge, there may well be instances where crimes are stopped because of such a scheme. But at what price? What does this move signal about the type of society we live in?

This does not affect those guilty of a crime or even those who may commit a crime. Such a step against civil liberties affect us all and therefore, I believe, should be resisted.

To me, this questions the notion of the freedom of individuals who have done nothing wrong, committed no crime and have not breached the social contract. With this in mind, I can see no reason as to why they should be placed under surveillance on the say so of someone who, self-evidently, is not an expert in assessing whether or not they are a threat to anyone else in society.

RS