Interpretation

[David Hansen]

On 20 Nov 2002 at 11:16, Donald ramsbottom wrote:

> I am sorry if my first email seemed churlish, I apologise. 

I don't think it was and I don't think you should apologise to Simon. 
It might have been a bit curt, but then we are all guilty of that 
from time to time.
 
While I am not a great fan of the law or the ways it works I too have 
been saying, "so what", to myself through some discussions recently. 
The views of people on the list may be useful to all sorts people, 
but they carry little weight in a court.
 
> If the statute
> is badly drafted, as some think RIPA is (especially in the definitions
> sections), it is for the court to decide what Parliament meant.

Precisely. Just one of the reasons why RIP must be discarded. Instead 
of trying to get us to sort out the mess it has created the Home 
Office should be drafting a replacement that is understandable. We 
may of course still not like what it says, but at least we could 
understands what it says.

Instead the Home Office are wasting time on silly measures only 
intended to be seen to be doing something, but which nevertheless 
erode even further what liberties people in the UK had. If the time 
of the Westminster parliament is scarce then, in the absence of 
speeding things up with (for example) a sensible voting system, it 
makes sense to spend this "scarce" time sorting out past cockups, not 
adding more cockups.

Unfortunately the chances of sensible approach happening are probably 
close to zero. It would mean officials and party politicians 
admitting that they cocked things up, a rare thing. Yes, I know Mr 
Blunkett appears in the media from time to time saying the Home 
Office got something wrong. However, until they actually **DO** 
something about these cockups his words remain the words of a party 
politician from the New Labour party, about as believable as  
pronouncements from the regime in North Korea.

Now Simon says he is busy filling in the famous hole Mr Blunket 
described in his difficult to understand comments on the attempt to 
extend RIP powers to every Tom, Dick and Harriet in government and 
some outwith it. However, so far there have been no results and I am 
very unbelieving until I see results.


--
  David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
 I will *always* explain why I revoke a key, unless the UK 
 government prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.