(no subject)

[PeteM]

David Hansen wrote  on 14-05-08 14:22:
> On 14 May 2008 at 10:38, David Biggins wrote:
> 
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/14/law.humanrights
>>
>> A council that used controversial powers to spy on a family to check
>> whether they were living in the correct school catchment area has done
>> the same to keep an eye on local fishermen, it emerged yesterday. 
>> Poole borough council is using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers
>> Act (Ripa) - a law brought in to combat terrorism and cyber crime - to
>> scrutinise people gathering shellfish.
> 
> The true RIP successors to the Egg Marketing Board:-)

It's not funny. We used to use the Egg Marketing Board as the ultimate 
example of a comic-opera government agency, but the HMRC child benefit 
fiasco has taught us that none of these people give a monkey's about our 
privacy. However I suppose they can always claim that they are better 
than the Italians:

"There has been outrage in Italy after the outgoing government published
every Italian's declared earnings and tax contributions on the 
Internet." Apparently this was not a bug, but intentional.  In any case, 
the full details of every Italian's income and tax returns were posted 
without warning on the Net for anyone to see, for at least 24 hours. 
(BBC report)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7376608.stm

Coming to an HMRC website near you soon ...

-- 
Pete Mitchell