Agree with you on Kennedy. A decent bloke who, with a fairer electoral system, would be PM now.
I have kept a very close eye on Cameron and I'm still completely in the dark as to his real beliefs. The problem for us (and problem/boon for him) is that the political landscape dictates that he should act in this way if he is to get elected. One promising thing is Webcameron - he answers the top rated questions submitted by the public, rarely dodging any. We got him to pledge to scrap the National Identity Register last week.
As regards Brown, I'm trying to miracle Michael Meacher a surprise victory.
Fair point, however, the Daily Mail has a readership higher than the The Guardian, Independent, Telegraph & Financial Times put together.
They have also positioned themselves for swing voters and thus have an even greater influence.
This is why NO2ID pursue them. I submitted their article as they're the only ones to highlight the passport connection recently. I think that Slashdotters should have the opportunity to avoid 10 years of mass-surveillance by renewing before the 26th.
I got my submission accepted! How excellent is that?
In case you hadn't noticed, the current Labour government were elected
by only about 22% of the population, thanks to our bizarre first-past-the-post
system. (It was only around 1/3 of those who actually voted, and actually lost
the popular vote in England, for the record.)
Needs to be added that the war-criminal only won because the other 2 parties
were headed up by an alcohol and Michael Howard (for the Americans, the joke is
that people don't need to be reminded why they wouldn't vote for Howard).
And the alcholic never really had a chance in the same way that Nader didn't.
Please understand this: the current government is toast. They have been
toast since almost the day they won that "historic third term" based
on dubious election mechanics. They have no integrity, and no accountability
until the next general election, which could still be several years away. Their
only concern at this point is to entrench as much of their abusive policy as
possible and cement Blair's "legacy" before they are kicked out. It's
like having a five-year lame duck government running the show. What does a lame
duck administration care about protests? There is no mechanism for the people
to remove them from power early, and they have zero chance of securing a fourth
victory, so protests don't matter to them at all.
I guess it depended who won the Tory leadership election. But Orwellian
tendencies were obvious in this Govt ever since RIPA.
Britons were already the
most spied upon nation in Western Europe. Data-mining through this
unprecedented level of mass-surveillance allows any future British govt to leapfrog
even countries like China and North Korea.
I don't believe any polls as a rule. It does indicate very hard core resistance to the scheme. Passport renewers will go nuts from April when they find out they have to choose between their holiday vs being forced on to the ID database and thus subject to a lifetime of mass-surveillance. Could get very ugly.
None of the safeguards in LRRA amount to much. I've read the legislation in great detail and it all relies on the subjective opinion of the minister and the willingness of somebody to fund a judicial review in the hope that the courts will break precedent and override the will of Parliament.
Knowing that no-one in their right mind is going to want one an ID card, never mind pay for it, the Govt are secretly forcing passport applicants and renewers on to the ID surveillance train from the 26th March.
What will happen is that you will need to submit your bank details, your National Insurance number and your Driving License Number. These will be recorded on to the National Identity Register without you knowing.
Your NIR record will then cross-link into your tax records, benefits records, bank records and DVLA (car tracking records) thus creating one massive virtual database. This alone makes it the most intrusive database of all time, anywhere in the world.
It gives any future government a picture of who you are and what you're doing throughout the day.
The Slashdot headline is completely incorrect. Only about 2600 phones were tapped.
Requests for data such as who phoned/emailed who and when number 439,000 ish.
The distinction is due to the way RIPA is written. Only Secretaries of State can authorise intercepts whereas police commissioners can request the other data.
Yes, RIPA is a totalitarian law, produced by a Government that has written several totalitarians laws: http://www.waronfreedom.net/
I personally am making backup plans to leave the country.
It's about the same here. There are about 15-20 Labour MPs who will routinely vote along with their conscience as opposed to the party whip - out of 354. The rest rebel 0-2% of the time.
The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act passed a couple of months ago. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 also allows laws to be made by decree in the event of a minor emergency. Strangely enough, Hitler used the exact same power when he burned down the Reichstag.
PR will give the LibDems and maybe even the Greens a chance. But power still corrupts. The UK and US political systems are broken in different ways. The US at least has a codified constitution, separation of powers and ways to hold public officials accountable.
It will never work. Humans are about as sophisticated as image recognition will get.
Besides, your car will be tracked via ANPR this year if it isn't already, your mobile phone is trackable under RIPA (the law this report is on), every time you use a credit/store card - that pinpoints you too.
The media rarely cover it for the same reasons and because the issues don't fit nicely into 300 words. The Tories haven't mentioned it for reasons only known to themselves. And the LibDems never get any media coverage.
There's one going through Parliament now that can punish anyone who (on balance of evidence) might be reasonably expected to inadvertently aid a criminal. That's right, no intent required, no crime has to be committed, just the hypothetical aiding of a hypothetical crime can get you interred.
Hmm, just scanning through the posts looking for actual numbers (ie does the test distinguish autistic kids from non-autistic) and got quite baffled by the number of people who took this at face value, even talking about the morality of eliminating autism!?!
Hence glad that someone knows what they're talking about.
I wouldn't give the rest of your life for a cure though. I bet you provide your son with a much better quality of life than many abused/impoverished kids have.
Unfortunately, you're absolutely right. A few people will curb their own emissions but the vast majority of Westerners are too damn self-important to do anything that will make their life more difficult.
BTW, it doesn't help that the main country not to sign up to Kyoto is the one which produces 1/3rd more CO2 per person than any other country.
Our entire system of government is based on a fundamental distrust of authority; otherwise, why not have just a President, and disband Congress, the Supreme Court, and all State and Local governments?
Any system which enables the opression of political dissent takes away from that distrust of authority, and thus weakens our nation. That's a very succinct and effective argument right there - and in the last 2 years I've seen literally hundreds of attempts.
In the same vein, if you don't mind surveillance, why do you have curtains? Why do you put letters in envelopes? We take privacy for granted so much that people won't know what the word means until it's gone.
The mere threat of oppression is enough to weaken opposition. Saddam's Iraq was a perfect example of that. 99% of people weren't directly oppressed but Saddam made sure that they knew they could be if they started opposing him.
BTW, Blair has also duplicated Hitler's Enabling Act, the one the Fuhrer used to gain absolute power. It is part of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act is similarly nightmarish. The Serious Crime Bill can severely punish you for potentially inadvertently helping to commit a crime - even if no crime is committed!!
Luckily, if Blair/Brown were planning some kind of totalitarian coup, I think they've left it too late. Their chances of winning the next election without the help of a Diebold are slim.
Slashdot Mirror
Agree with you on Kennedy. A decent bloke who, with a fairer electoral system, would be PM now.
I have kept a very close eye on Cameron and I'm still completely in the dark as to his real beliefs. The problem for us (and problem/boon for him) is that the political landscape dictates that he should act in this way if he is to get elected.
One promising thing is Webcameron - he answers the top rated questions submitted by the public, rarely dodging any. We got him to pledge to scrap the National Identity Register last week.
As regards Brown, I'm trying to miracle Michael Meacher a surprise victory.
MI5's excuse for letting the London bombers through the net is that they don't have enough resources to keep track of more than about 100 suspects.
Al Qaeda's job then is to get as many people acting like terrorists as possible.
Witheld Karma bonus in case I give anyone ideas.
Fair point, however, the Daily Mail has a readership higher than the The Guardian, Independent, Telegraph & Financial Times put together.
They have also positioned themselves for swing voters and thus have an even greater influence.
This is why NO2ID pursue them. I submitted their article as they're the only ones to highlight the passport connection recently. I think that Slashdotters should have the opportunity to avoid 10 years of mass-surveillance by renewing before the 26th.
FWIW, Irish people are unlikely to be compelled to get ID cards either.
Hey ABG :)
I got my submission accepted! How excellent is that?
In case you hadn't noticed, the current Labour government were elected by only about 22% of the population, thanks to our bizarre first-past-the-post system. (It was only around 1/3 of those who actually voted, and actually lost the popular vote in England, for the record.)
Needs to be added that the war-criminal only won because the other 2 parties were headed up by an alcohol and Michael Howard (for the Americans, the joke is that people don't need to be reminded why they wouldn't vote for Howard). And the alcholic never really had a chance in the same way that Nader didn't.
Please understand this: the current government is toast. They have been toast since almost the day they won that "historic third term" based on dubious election mechanics. They have no integrity, and no accountability until the next general election, which could still be several years away. Their only concern at this point is to entrench as much of their abusive policy as possible and cement Blair's "legacy" before they are kicked out. It's like having a five-year lame duck government running the show. What does a lame duck administration care about protests? There is no mechanism for the people to remove them from power early, and they have zero chance of securing a fourth victory, so protests don't matter to them at all.
I guess it depended who won the Tory leadership election. But Orwellian tendencies were obvious in this Govt ever since RIPA.
Breaking news today, Britons will be denied a passport if they don't submit to the world's most intrusive mass-surveillance system
People who refuse to give up their bank records, tax records & details of any benefits they've claimed and the records of their car movements for the last year, or refuse to submit to an interrogation on whether they are the same person that this mountain of data belongs to will be denied passports from March 26th.
The Blair Govt has already admitted that this and other data will be cross-linked so that the Home Office and other officials can spy on the everyday lives of innocent Britons.
Britons were already the most spied upon nation in Western Europe. Data-mining through this unprecedented level of mass-surveillance allows any future British govt to leapfrog even countries like China and North Korea.
I'm not aware that bit changed eg the Negative Resolution Procedure requires that Parliament put forward a motion opposing the order within 40 days:# 16
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/60051--b.htm
Presumably the Govt can still guillotine any debate there.
I don't believe any polls as a rule. It does indicate very hard core resistance to the scheme.
Passport renewers will go nuts from April when they find out they have to choose between their holiday vs being forced on to the ID database and thus subject to a lifetime of mass-surveillance. Could get very ugly.
Hey ABG :)
None of the safeguards in LRRA amount to much. I've read the legislation in great detail and it all relies on the subjective opinion of the minister and the willingness of somebody to fund a judicial review in the hope that the courts will break precedent and override the will of Parliament.
Knowing that no-one in their right mind is going to want one an ID card, never mind pay for it, the Govt are secretly forcing passport applicants and renewers on to the ID surveillance train from the 26th March.
What will happen is that you will need to submit your bank details, your National Insurance number and your Driving License Number. These will be recorded on to the National Identity Register without you knowing.
Your NIR record will then cross-link into your tax records, benefits records, bank records and DVLA (car tracking records) thus creating one massive virtual database. This alone makes it the most intrusive database of all time, anywhere in the world.
It gives any future government a picture of who you are and what you're doing throughout the day.
Most of you will have no idea about other totalitarian laws passed by this Govt.
http://www.waronfreedom.net/
The next few govts could be much worse. If you have less than 8 years on your passport, I strongly recommend you renew early, asap.
http://www.renewforfreedom.org/
I hope this helps someone.
July 7th bombers weren't only British citizens, but they all carried valid, bombproof ID. 2 of them even made martyrdom videos.
All you need to know about a terrorist is how to distinguish them from the millions of non-terrorists. Obviously ID cards are useless here.
The most recent poll indicated that something like a million people would rather serve a long prison sentence than submit to the ID scheme.
We'd be quite happy to see this go to a referendum. But we weren't even allowed a free vote in the Commons. The House of Lords held it up 5 times.
Quite possible. Blair has been very evasive on tapping MPs or what's called the Wilson Doctrine.
0 06/03/the_wilson_doctrine_retained_b.html#more
His last utterance said "that the Wilson Doctrine should be maintained."
Artfully avoiding saying whether it is being maintained and especially whether it was being maintained.
http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2
The Slashdot headline is completely incorrect. Only about 2600 phones were tapped.
Requests for data such as who phoned/emailed who and when number 439,000 ish.
The distinction is due to the way RIPA is written. Only Secretaries of State can authorise intercepts whereas police commissioners can request the other data.
Yes, RIPA is a totalitarian law, produced by a Government that has written several totalitarians laws:
http://www.waronfreedom.net/
I personally am making backup plans to leave the country.
It's about the same here. There are about 15-20 Labour MPs who will routinely vote along with their conscience as opposed to the party whip - out of 354. The rest rebel 0-2% of the time.
The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act passed a couple of months ago. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 also allows laws to be made by decree in the event of a minor emergency.
Strangely enough, Hitler used the exact same power when he burned down the Reichstag.
PR will give the LibDems and maybe even the Greens a chance. But power still corrupts.
The UK and US political systems are broken in different ways. The US at least has a codified constitution, separation of powers and ways to hold public officials accountable.
There are more important changes. Here's an old blog post I did on democratising Britain:
http://www.waronfreedom.net/fixing-our-democracy
It will never work. Humans are about as sophisticated as image recognition will get.
Besides, your car will be tracked via ANPR this year if it isn't already, your mobile phone is trackable under RIPA (the law this report is on), every time you use a credit/store card - that pinpoints you too.
And the ID database seeks to collate all this data together.
http://www.bristol-no2id.org.uk/blog/?page_id=5
http://www.bristol-no2id.org.uk/blog/?page_id=5
You're absolutely right although, because Britain has escaped totalitarianism, the public think it will never happen.
0 0
Consequently, Blair's Government has passed more totalitarian laws than Hitler ever did and hardly anyone has noticed.
http://www.waronfreedom.net/
The media rarely cover it for the same reasons and because the issues don't fit nicely into 300 words. The Tories haven't mentioned it for reasons only known to themselves. And the LibDems never get any media coverage.
There's one going through Parliament now that can punish anyone who (on balance of evidence) might be reasonably expected to inadvertently aid a criminal. That's right, no intent required, no crime has to be committed, just the hypothetical aiding of a hypothetical crime can get you interred.
http://www.magnacartaplus.org/news/index.php/?p=1
Hmm, just scanning through the posts looking for actual numbers (ie does the test distinguish autistic kids from non-autistic) and got quite baffled by the number of people who took this at face value, even talking about the morality of eliminating autism!?!
Hence glad that someone knows what they're talking about.
I wouldn't give the rest of your life for a cure though. I bet you provide your son with a much better quality of life than many abused/impoverished kids have.
Surprises me. Every single IBM/Hitachi drive I've had has failed within 3 years. I've got through about 5 and only one was the Deathstar.
100% failure rate for me versus 1.4% for everyone else.
... and half the posts:
I don't care if a billion people die, I'm not giving up my car. Somebody else is going to have to fix the problem.
Unfortunately, you're absolutely right. A few people will curb their own emissions but the vast majority of Westerners are too damn self-important to do anything that will make their life more difficult.
BTW, it doesn't help that the main country not to sign up to Kyoto is the one which produces 1/3rd more CO2 per person than any other country.
Massive tax hikes on fuel are the only way.
Any system which enables the opression of political dissent takes away from that distrust of authority, and thus weakens our nation. That's a very succinct and effective argument right there - and in the last 2 years I've seen literally hundreds of attempts.
In the same vein, if you don't mind surveillance, why do you have curtains? Why do you put letters in envelopes? We take privacy for granted so much that people won't know what the word means until it's gone.
The mere threat of oppression is enough to weaken opposition. Saddam's Iraq was a perfect example of that. 99% of people weren't directly oppressed but Saddam made sure that they knew they could be if they started opposing him.
There are many ways that ID cards and especially the British surveillance system intended to back them up can weaken political opposition. I outlined several here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=221612&cid=17
BTW, Blair has also duplicated Hitler's Enabling Act, the one the Fuhrer used to gain absolute power. It is part of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act is similarly nightmarish. The Serious Crime Bill can severely punish you for potentially inadvertently helping to commit a crime - even if no crime is committed!!
Luckily, if Blair/Brown were planning some kind of totalitarian coup, I think they've left it too late. Their chances of winning the next election without the help of a Diebold are slim.