Category Archives: Civil Liberties

Bits of budget and other stuff

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One thing I hadn’t noticed in much of the budget coverage was that the idea to charge a 50p a month tax for having a telephone line, to fund rural broadband is alive and well (hat tip The Register). Though only if Labour win another term, or if the Tories decide it’s a wizard wheeze to take more money off us. Of course once they do you can bet it will be as temporary a tax measure as VAT is. Meanwhile Letters from a Tory picks up on some news that has been over shadowed by the budget. The proposed … Continue reading →

That didn’t take long

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So not long after they were introduced and as a matter of no surprise at all to virtually everyone, the body scanners at Heathrow have been used for ogling. This utterly predictable use of new technology for porn whilst worrying isn’t terribly surprising. What concerns me slightly more is that the security staff at Heathrow are apparently thick enough to enter “the X-ray machine by mistake” and also thick enough to tell the person concerned that they’ve just used a scanner to look at them. Though why the scanned guard “can’t bear to think about the body scanner thing” is … Continue reading →

Servants of the people?

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A bit of not so local news, which really isn’t terribly surprising but that’s worth highlighting anyway. News reaches me that due to police objections Strawbery fair is to be cancelled this year. The organizers say: “Cambridgeshire Police have made it absolutely clear they do not want the event to go ahead and have put an incredible amount of time and resource into preventing it. We feel the police action shows just how far out of step they are with the people of Cambridge, who have shown overwhelming support for the event; and had the same enthusiasm been spent on … Continue reading →