Nothing to Hide Nothing to Fear from the Police?

For those that trot out this little ditty every time the Police want extra powers, you should read this report.

Still pictures of actors in the movie "The Firm" somehow accidentally got mixed in with photos of genuine football hooligans wanted for questioning about football violence. Just how pictures of innocent people totally unrelated to the incident the Police want to investigate got anywhere near being mixed up with real hooligans isn't made clear, but one thing is for sure: it should never happen. Just what would have happened if any of the innocent guys HAD been arrested, or if they'd (understandably) been a bit reluctant to go to the station and something nasty had happened during the arrest doesn't bear thinking about.

Just another reason why the Police shouldn't have been given the massive, sweeping powers they have at the moment. They are human and fallible and can make mistakes. Its us the population at large that have to pick up the pieces after any wrongful arrest.

Those proponents of the DNA database should take this as a salutory warning before things go too far and someone gets hurt. The Police are fallible, database engines are fallible, DNA profiling is fallible.

Nothing to hide nothing to fear? I've never heard so much bollocks in so few words.

Jacqui Smith on Question Time

The trougher extrordinaire and mealy mouthed apologiser is on QT tonight. I wonder if she'll get a hard time over her expenses? I do hope so.

Google Wave

Interesting app from Google in the works. Google Wave can work seemlessly as email, IM, blog feed, document colaboration tool and it seems quite a bit more.

Its from the team that brought us Google Maps. Maps has been a global hit, especially the APIs that allow you to integrate maps into your own websites. Its become commonplace to see Google Maps embedded in a website for directions, as well as businesses searched for via google to have a map produced showing their location.

The same goes for Wave: its been designed to be open source and there are a host of open APIs for developers to exploit. It'll be interesting if it captures the imagination of the public.

Google Wave may just give online publishing a big kick when it eventually arrives.

McKinnon Extradition "frozen"

In another outburst of common sense of the type that seems to be gripping the government as we get closer to the General Election, Alan Johnson has announced he has "frozen" the extradition of Gary McKinnon.

This travesty of justice needs to be sorted once and for all. I doubt President Obama would like UK headlines blasting the U.S. for vindictively persuing the extradition and prosecution of a vulnerable adult with a mental impairment.

He should be tried here in the UK with the sympathy that someone with aspergers deserves, not dragged to some foreign land and justice system.

Yeah, Slavery is a Real Problem on our Streets.

Violent Crime is Up, Street Crime is up, Drug use is up, Racial Tensions are rising.

What do our political elite discuss? What is such a threat to society that it requires time allocated for debate above all the other crises that are afflicting the country at the moment?

Slavery.

Yeah, fucking slavery, that thing that we already have laws against. That problem that is so rife, you can't walk down the street for people dragging their chains behind them. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. In other words, such a fucking miniscule problem it has no place wasting time in Parliament when there are bigger problems to sort.

I really do fucking despair as to when the fuckwits in charge will get a grip and actually sort the shit out that we're in. You know, the thing we pay them to do.

Political Manipulation?

The link about New Labour I added to the Nick Griffin thread has had me thinking. Despite it being an example of the sort of vindictive, spiteful politics we've become to associate with New Labour, there has to be a word of caution, mainly to do with the timing of the release of the news.

We've just had a weeks worth of media furore over the BNP QT episode and now along comes some information to seemingly stoke the race and immigration issue even further. Coincidence? I think not. Labour will be looking for any and all ways to shut down forums for the BNP to air their views and if they can prove a significant shift to the BNP, or an increase in protests or violence as a result of question time, that will give them (in their eyes) enough excuse to shut down the BNP.

Thats why I view the timing of this information as cynical manipulation.

The fact that it also wants me to hunt down all those that have deliberately manipulated the country for serious political gain and hang the fuckers is by-the-by.

I'm beginning to lose count the number of times the country has been goaded into responding by the political elite over the past few months. I've come to the definitive conclusion there is a deliberate policy in motion there too.