METROPOLITAN POLICE SERVICE OFFICER FINED AND REPRIMANDED FOR MIS USE

[David Hansen]

On 26 Nov 2002 at 9:39, David Biggins wrote:

> > > Had the Home Office been serious about balancing rights with
> > > responsibilities RIP would have contained appropriate penalties
> > > for misuse by Toms, Dicks and Harriets.
> > 
> > That point is beginning to sink in.
> 
> The question is one of whether it is sinking in with our political
> masters.

Simon is an ambassador for the Home Office.

It appears that they have got as far as recognising they need to spin 
their way out of the mess they have created. It is not yet clear that 
they recognise the need for fundamental change.

Fundamental change is something very difficult, especially for large 
arrogant organisations. It means really acknowledging they got 
something completely wrong and sorting it out. So far we have not 
seen any evidence of this happening. They blamed everyone but 
themselves for the mess they created and said that the fault was not 
what they wanted to do, but how people saw what they wanted to do. 
That is what is called denial and the Home Office are in deep denial.

Hopefully the result of these discussions will be a proper 
consultation of the issues. If not Simon is simply a friendly front 
end to something rather less friendly, an ambassador.

It is utterly amazing that civil servants feed such lies to party 
politicians that it takes the son of a party politician to tell him 
what is really going on. Nobody else seems to be able to get through 
the lies that are told by the civil service, no matter how good their 
arguments. It appears that the only thing that attracts attention is 
dramatic media stunts, good arguments are ignored.

That is why the advice given to party politicians must be made 
available for us plebs to comment on. That is especially so in the 
subject freedom, the only thing the government have got more wrong 
than transport. Us plebs don't come up with idiotic "laws" like RIP, 
but we do suffer under them. If this is not to be a "consultation" 
the Home Office must make available all the replies they get (no 
secret advice from those who want to remain hidden), their summary of 
it and the recommendations they make to party politicians.
 
> > > those 
> > > that work for any government organisation, or semi-government
> > > organisation, are the ones with white hats and thus will never do
> > > anything wrong.
> > 
> > We don't think that.

The actions of the Home Office do of course give a different story.

> The Home Office and Government have repeatedly sought to increase the
> opportunity and mechanisms for intrusion on personal privacy,  and in
> doing so have consistently, totally and utterly failed to provide
> adequate protection for such privacy, openness to allow detection of
> abuses, or adequate and mandatory sanctions against those who commit
> such abuses.

With RIP the Home Office spoke to the usual suspects and listened to 
what they had to say. Anything that disagreed with the views of the 
usual suspects was discarded. The Home Office lost all the arguments 
here in the run up to RIP, but instead of learning from the 
experience they blundered on in their usual fashion.

> Until the Government and the HO recognise that such mechanisms are, to
> many, of rather greater importance than that of increasing the
> intrusion opportunities,  it is merely going to create the increasing
> appearance of a surveillance state.

Appearance?

RIP and a number of other "laws" go rather further than that. We are 
already beyond the wildest dreams of the East Germans. When they 
force through 7 year data retention (something they have been trying 
to do for years, see http://www.cryptome.org/ncis-carnivore.htm for 
the view from the usual suspects) another brick will be placed in the 
wall. I know they claim to be scaling down these communist proposals 
in reaction to http://www.fipr.org/press/020916Commissioners.html, 
but the usual suspects work slowly towards their goal of an open 
prison for us plebs to inhabit.


--
  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.