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I watched a TV program over the holiday period about the increasing number of deaths of young women involved in car accidents as passengers being driven by young uninsured and disqualified male drivers!

It was chilling to watch and clearly something needs to be done to curb this rising menace of boy racers, trying no doubt to show off their driving prowess (or lack it) to what must be terrified female passengers.

Unfortunately, any action taken will be too late for the latest addition to those horrible statistics, as can be seen in this report of the death of 16 year old Samantha Clarke who died at 2.00am this morning after the car she was a passenger in, hit a tree! The car she was in was been driven by a 27 year old Darren Byrne! At the time of the accident Darren Byrne was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee and was being pursued by an unmarked police car (with blue lights & sirens) full on.

I expect that there will now be huge amount of shouting against the police for chasing Dareen! I wonder why, if Darren had nothing to hide, did he run from the police? Perhaps it was because the Jeep Grand Cherokee he was driving, was suspected as being stolen and when apprehended by the police after the accident, he was found to have been driving with no insurance and whilst being disqualified!

Perhaps Darren should have been made to go around to Samantha’s parents and explain what he had done to their family. No, of course that’s not his job is it; that’s what the police have to do – pick up the pieces – after idiots like Darren devastate a whole family.

Of course, I’m sure that Darren will blame it all on the Police, who not only have deal with the aftermath of this tragedy, the police drivers now face an investigation by the over zealous politically correct Independent Police Complaints Commission – who knows who they will blame! Finally, the end of this vary dark tunnel will be the verdict of the courts, probably handing out to Darren yet another inadequate sentence, probably of community service, following again, along the lines of this countries’ persistent inability to deal with the grass roots of crime.

I didn’t know Samantha Clarke, her family, or any of the other people involved in this unnecessary tragedy. It just seems to me to be such a waste of the life of someone so young, at the hands of what seems to be a growing band of idiotic young male drivers with egos obviously bigger than their brains! Sadly, I’m sure it won’t be the last time we here of similar tragedies.

Tags: Bad Drivers, Death on the Road

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It seems that in the PC world of today and I am sure under the ever watchful ‘money‘ eyes of the constrained Public Services that we now have to put up with, many of our school children are now being served Halal slaughtered meat in their school meals! All this without any consultation or discloser to parent, or in fact children.

See the full story here. I don’t remember hearing about this on Jamie Oliver’s school meals program!

I have no objection to Halal slaughtered meat, each to their own methods; but when I hear so many people ram the word choice (mostly by politicians) into my face, I wonder why when something that ethnic minorities have the right to expect to be available for them, does the majority have it imposed on them with no choice offered?

Tags: School Meals, Halal Slaughtered Meat

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Been away from the blog for a while but made some catch up on a backlog of reading. I found this interesting article about ‘Our Toxic Homes‘ in the October issue of National Geographic. As we all grow more concerned about our environment and its effect on our health, it made for interesting reading, especially the information about the ‘Hormones in your water bottle‘.

Read all of the links in this story, it will make you think about many things that up till now, you’ve taken for granted!

Tags: Toxins, Environment, Health

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Following on from my previous posts, I heard about a related story whilst traveling in my car last week and scribbled a note down to (after I had become stationary of course!) post about.

It seems that not only are we to be monitored much more closely through the installation of yet more CCTV cameras. For example in Dawlish, Devon they are about to install the UK’s first officially sanctioned surveillance system. But, now we find out that some authoritie’s are considering the fitting of long range sensitive microphones to some of their CCTV cameras!

It also appears that trials have already been carried out in the London borough of Westminster where the Council has carried out two unannounced experiments with street microphones in central London, one in Soho Square Gardens, all without any notification of these trials or explanation to local residents or visitors to the square.

“The council insist that the system is simply measuring noise levels to alert police to trouble on the streets, but my information is that specific conversations were inadvertently picked up and listened to in this pilot project. The council denies this. The project is now being rolled out across Westminster; we will probably not learn the truth until all our streets are wired for sound and vision and it slowly dawns that liberty and the ordinary human experience in Britain has been incrementally curtailed to a point where we may no longer consider ourselves a free and independent people.” Guardian Story – 2nd December 2006

My understanding of the law, albeit very limited in this area was that the bugging of voice information in the UK was illegal and could only be carried out under a high-court warrant, unless of course I blinked last week and this had been eroded along with a  number of other rights. Does this now mean that if I am to be recorded as I go about my lawful business, but utter some comment about a subject that I fell passionate about, my voice will now be heard, by the ‘speech‘ police and I should expect a knock at the door! Perhaps I need to carry a tape recorder to maintain my own ‘track-record’ in case I get caught by one of these long-range microphones

I have heard that these devices are also being considered for use at the forthcoming Olympics, I can think of quite a few of my mainland European based friends that will be horrified to hear this news and I think that once this story really gets out, many overseas people will not want to have their conversations stored on yet another UK government database by simply attending the Olympics.

I think really think that the UK is turning into a paranoid society, with a government intent on controlling every aspect of our lives through fear and legislation. I used a train last week into London and took a picture of the roof trusses (a wonder of Victorian Engineering) at Paddington station – why because it’s there. I think about three seconds later, I had questions being thrown at me by station staff as to ‘who was I’ and ‘why was I taking pictures’? This despite the fact that four or five tourists were close by, happily taking pictures of the Paddington – Heathrow express as they made off to the airport. Perhaps the station staff we also secretly recording my conversation, how can I be sure that they weren’t?

Perhaps, after all, they weren’t really railway staff! Now, there’s another thought!

Tags: Security, Databases, Olympics, CCTV, Surveillance, Microphones

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I caught up on some back issues of newspapers over the weekend and found an interesting article on the current status of public surveillance in the UK – read the whole article, it is another example of what can be found out about you, already!

• 300 – the number of times the average Londoner is caught on CCTV (that is of course, if you not wearing a veil or crash helmet)
• 3.5 million – the number of people already on the UK National DNA database

As the current Information Commissioner Richard Thomas highlights in his latest report to Government (summary report here, full report here, report appendices here, other documents here), the UK continues its march towards an all too frightening Orwellian world.

If all the latest suggestions  (roadside fingerprinting of motorists being the latest example) are fully implemented under full legislation, we seriously run the risk of being under constant surveillance and government control from cradle to grave with punishments being imposed for any resistance to its rules at every minute of our lives.

Yes there is a need for society to have better protection against child molesters, to find the motorists who constantly driver without tax or insurance, to discover who the terrorists are in our midst, but it is a fine line that can be easily crossed over in the over enthusiastic rush of ‘need to know’.

Look at what is proposed for the governments planned Children’s Register. Future parents may well have to seriously rethink about their own protection before they have children, following the introduction of the governments planned Children’s Register or Index as it is sometimes referred to. Will it set out to classify all parents of children as potential criminals until they prove that they’re not!.

Information and comments about this one example of the UK surveillance society and how it will add to an already vast array of tracking information about the UK children’s population can be found…

• The Children’s Information Sharing (IS) Index – What is it?
• Additional information on many of the Databases that track children.
• Draft Regulations to be laid before Parliament
• Children’s Databases – Safety and Privacy
• UK child protection database ‘misguided’, critics comments

Yes, we do need to protect societies vulnerable people, especially children, but after the recent debacle concerning the Nationwide and Metropolitan Police data scandals, how sure are we that the watchers are being correctly watched to ensure that this huge collection of data is not being abused?

I for one, feel more and more uncomfortable as time progresses and what I see as further erosion of my privacy – freedom continues. I am sure that there will be much more to discuss on this subject.

Tags: Children’s Index, Surveillance Society, George Orwell

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First the Nationwide, now the Met itself (LogicaCMG offices). Isn’t it about time that senior managers at these companies are taken to task for the cavalier way that they treat our personal data files?

I am amazed at this latest incident. If the police cannot ensure that their own data (payroll) is taken care of by what I suppose they would consider is a trusted third-party, then what hope do I have for the safety of any of my data that may be collected by the police through their many overt and covert activities.

I’ve worked in IT for all of my life and have listened to the many presentations, warnings and sales pitches over the years about protecting your data. What sort of manager lets one of their employees take such sensitive data home on Laptops? Do I have a personal gripe here? No, I am not a customer of the Nationwide, nor in fact the Police! I’m just amazed at the simplistic attitude to data security that these two organisations  – Nationwide’s Chief Executive Philip Williamson attempts to say sorry, while LogicaCMG’s Group Chief Executive, Martin Read (one of a 22 person board!) has not uttered one word of apology to the serving Met police officers – have shown to personal data.

I expect as another example of the toothless society that we now live in today, that no action will be taken against either company, in another typical example of what the Information Commissioner and the Data Protection Act don’t or wont deliver to the public.

Tags: Data Security, Data Theft, Data Protection

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As I have I have said before in this blog [1] [2] [3], I am against the idea of replacing the Trident Nuclear missile system for a number of reasons, it will be simply too costly and this type of weapon has become completely useless in defending ourselves from today’s threats.

It will be interesting to see what today’s white paper uses as reasons for a replacement. The reasons will have to be very plausible for me, for example which country (countries) is/are going named as the potential new threat? China, India, Pakistan, Russia, Israel, France, the USA, all having proven warheads and missile delivery systems, or perhaps it will be the new enemies, Iran, Syria, Korea. Past politicians were very overt in their naming of the USSR as the post war threat that needed the original Polaris nuclear missile system, I wonder if Tony Blair or his successor will have any guts to name the new targets.

It’s also not only about naming who we might need to nuke in the future, it’s also about cost. Some reports say that the cost will be between £10-25bn to build and deploy a Trident replacement. We all know and have many current examples to expect that these costs will only go up, look at the NHS IT program increased costs, the cost of the Olympics continues to rise (some through accounting mistakes – ‘Honey I forgot the VAT!’,  this for two projects hopefully not designed to kill anyone! It is inevitable that the £10-25bn will increase through the usual issues and errors that creep into just about every government project. Would it not be better to focus these huge sums elsewhere.

Another reason to question the need for retaining a nuclear deterrent, if we cannot (or will not) name a target country, is who or what do we aim the new missile at? As I have written before, did having a nuclear deterrent stop 9/11, or 7/7, or the many other terrorist atrocities around the world? No it didn’t and no it won’t in the future.

I will watch with interest how our elected MP’s position themselves on either side of the argument, my MP, John Redwood has so far given a very middle of the road response to my questions on how he will vote.

If you care about this subject you should write to your MP to find out what they think and how they might vote when given the chance. More on this to come I think.

Tags: Nuclear Deterrent, Trident, Blair, Terrorism

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So much has already been written about the recent success of the Democrats, I’m not sure I have anything new to say, except that I came across some great articles in a recent copy of the International Herald Tribune (INT). Here’s a very pointed article by Maureen Dowd.

Check out the IHT for access to others.

Tags: Bush, IHT

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Successive UK Governments have always been slow to let The People know more about what is going inside government and until the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 we were pretty much kept in the dark. However since the Acts introduction, progress has been made in many areas which allow the general public gain access to information about the way the Government (both central and local) does its business – at the end of the day, they, governments work for us don’t they?

However, all is not well with Freedom of Information (FOI) now managed by the Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA). It would seem that it has been working too well and we are starting to ask too many questions and probably finding out too much information and this is causing the Government concern!

Following a review (Seventh Report) of the Acts performance by the Constitutional Affairs Committee (CAC), the Government, in the form of the head of the DCA Lord Falconer, has announced via its response to the CACs review that it is minded to accept two of the reviews recommendations.

What does this mean for you and me? Lets look at the two items.

1. Currently a FOI request to main government department can be refused if the cost of providing the response is over £600 (£400 for other departments). The DCA in its response (page 16 (13), para 50.i) will now include reading time, consideration time and consultation time in the calculation of the appropriate limit (£600) above which requests could be refused on cost grounds!
2. Currently there are a few restrictions on how many requests individuals or organisations can summit. The DCA, in its response (page 16 (13), para 50.ii), will aggregate requests made by any legal person, (or persons apparently acting in concert, to each public authority (e.g. Government Department) for the purposes of calculating the appropriate limit.

Surprisingly, the DCA does not accept the CAC’s recommendations to introduce a flat fee for all FOI requests (although this might not be ruled out permanently) or reduce the FOI cost threshold to £400.

If the items above are enacted into law, they can only mean a restriction of the FOI. For example, if the cost to the government is to include the reading time, consideration time and consultation time, it can only mean that the £600 threshold will be reached sooner thereby excluding many requests due to increased cost. If the government aggregate requests, that means that individuals and organisations like media company’s (Radio, TV or Newspapers) can only make one request every three months!

Sir Christopher Meyer, former UK Ambassador to the US and now the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission commented in the Guardian yesterday “In 2006 it is harder to find out what is going on in government than it was 10 years ago,” . These proposed changes will surely make even harder.

Interestingly, Lord Falconer appears to be a non-executive director of Frontier Economics, the company that the DCA appointed to review the performance of the FOI. Its report (download and read, it contains many interesting facts),  to the DCA seems to have been used by the CAC as the basis for its suggestions to the DCA (headed by the same person as the non-executive director of Frontier Economics) for changes to the FOI.

I might be a bit dim; but how come a government department is using a private company to influence what an independent committee offers up as guidance to the CAC? Or is this lobbying at it worst? Various stories have circulated the impending FOI changes and what seems to me a very big conflict of interest. [1], [2], [3], [4]

Yes, there have been a number of frivolous FOI requests (there’s even a DCA ‘toolkit‘ showing how departments can deal with them), for example “how many bachelors there are in the Hampshire police constabulary”, but I cannot believe that these stupid requests are at heart of the reason for the DCA wanting to restrict access to information via the FOI.

It can only be because as more of us (mainly journalists) have become better at understanding how to use the FOI act to obtain the hidden info that the government doesn’t want us to see.

Restricting the FOI will be a step backwards and will do nothing to the already tarnished reputation of this government. Somehow this change must not be allowed to happen.

Tags: Freedom Of Information, DCA, CAC

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I spent the weekend visiting one of my relatives in Eastbourne and on the Saturday went for a walk along the White Cliffs surrounding Beachy Head. It was a very brisk walk as there was a fairly cold wind blowing off the sea, but it did not spoil the walk.

I was struck by a number of bunches of flowers that had been tied to the some of the wire fences that run along various parts of the cliff paths. What a sad sight they made, indicating that someone had been driven to a decision that in some cases had ended a life. It was all the more ironic that I was walking along this path on the anniversary of Armistice Day, when so many other deaths were being remembered for very different reasons.

I took this picture, not out of some morbid curiosity, but more to wonder at what could have driven this person to come to such a final decision, it was really very sad to see.

Tags: Beachy Head, Eastbourne, Armistice Day, Samaritans

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