Tag archive for ‘uk’
UK subjects will be compelled to submit to ID cards
To: Alan Powell, Editor, The Star Dear Sir James Hall is wrong to claim ID cards will be voluntary (Letters, 10 June). Sheffield residents won’t be forced onto the National Identity Register directly, unless they’re from outside the European Economic Area, however the Government intends to make it impossible for us to live without an [...]
Wacky Jacquie resigns: plus ça change at the Home Office?
Jacquie Smith is to step down as Secretary of State for the Home Department in the cabinet reshuffle that Gordon Brown is planning to make after the European elections on Thursday. While the door to the Home Secretary’s office has revolved ever more rapidly since 2001 the authoritarian brief of its occupants has hardly wavered. [...]
CCTV has almost no impact on crime, says Home Office report
Last year I wrote about the ineffectiveness of mass CCTV surveillance and suggested that we should fix the broken way in which CCTV is used in the UK. Now a report funded by the Home Office has reached the same conclusion. It turns out that CCTV has almost no impact on crime. Except in car [...]
UK DNA abuse to continue despite EU ruling
I’m disgusted by the Government’s new DNA database proposals being laid out as a “consultation” today. Jacqui Smith’s transparent attempts at spin are risible. So is any claim by this Government that it values freedom, civil liberties or the presumption of innocence. SIX TO TWELVE YEARS. That’s the length of time Smith wants to keep [...]
UK government in sensible security shocker?
The UK Government have just announced a half-sensible security measure. Thousands of UK workers are being trained to help respond to a future terror attack as part of an updated counter-terror strategy, ministers say. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said shop and hotel workers would be among 60,000 people able to deal with an incident. (via [...]