Double Plus Ungood
Monday, May 21st, 2007 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanI am vaguely surprised that no-one has picked up on the latest piece of statist nonsense to emerge from the rump Home Office. Now that they have been divested of any useful function by the creation of the ominously Napoleonic sounding Ministry of Justice, there is nothing to fill their time other than the continued pursuit of ID Cards and other bizarrely repressive ideas.
It is interesting and somehow ironic that the concept of justice has been surgically excised from the rump Home Office whilst responsibility for policing, immigration etc has stayed where it is. Lady Justice is blind, see, and separates out right and wrong with impartiality (not to be confused with the application of the law, as often it is, which is something else entirely). It doesn't always work, but at least the ideal is there behind the procedure. The rump Home Office no longer needs even to be squeamish in ignoring such a concept - that is the job of the Ministry of Justice, so they can start dedicating themselves whole heartedly to instruments that benefit the state rather than the individual.
Expect further pushes on the increasingly expensive and unwanted ID card scheme. It will become more closely linked (if possible) to passports, which are at least voluntary and subject to the entry requirements of foreign immigration services.
In the meantime, seemingly unnoticed in the detritus of other potential instruments of repression is this little gem. Council staff, charity workers and doctors could be required by law to tip off police about anyone they believe could commit a violent crime. Innocent until proven guilty? No, profiled into criminality more like, on the basis of hearsay and conjecture.
There's almost a Minority Report feel to it.
What happened to the country I was born in; where'd it go?
It is interesting and somehow ironic that the concept of justice has been surgically excised from the rump Home Office whilst responsibility for policing, immigration etc has stayed where it is. Lady Justice is blind, see, and separates out right and wrong with impartiality (not to be confused with the application of the law, as often it is, which is something else entirely). It doesn't always work, but at least the ideal is there behind the procedure. The rump Home Office no longer needs even to be squeamish in ignoring such a concept - that is the job of the Ministry of Justice, so they can start dedicating themselves whole heartedly to instruments that benefit the state rather than the individual.
Expect further pushes on the increasingly expensive and unwanted ID card scheme. It will become more closely linked (if possible) to passports, which are at least voluntary and subject to the entry requirements of foreign immigration services.
In the meantime, seemingly unnoticed in the detritus of other potential instruments of repression is this little gem. Council staff, charity workers and doctors could be required by law to tip off police about anyone they believe could commit a violent crime. Innocent until proven guilty? No, profiled into criminality more like, on the basis of hearsay and conjecture.
There's almost a Minority Report feel to it.
What happened to the country I was born in; where'd it go?
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-21 11:06 pm (UTC)Oh, and Gatsos going digital.
Bliss.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-21 11:51 pm (UTC)Digital Gatsos = Revenue Raisers. They are about Zero Tolerance policing and extracting revenue from Smooth streams of traffic, rather than actually picking out those driving dangerously. With already >10% of drivers in London not registered, etc, the trend for the generally law-abiding to be hammered for minor infractions while the more criminal minority get away scott free with much more serious and dangerous behaviour will just go further. We're getting to the stage Australia got to where a 4x increase in prosecuted offenses didn't reduce the accident rate significantly. When roads are deliberately detrunked, set to lower than safe speeds ("if you post 50mph they will do 60"), and then put this sort of camera on, it just brings the whole thing into disrepute.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-22 08:30 am (UTC)What happened to the Country you were born into ...it's still there but it's getting a good kicking , but no more so than at other times in history.
But the Home Office seems to be taking the lead in developing opressive and draconian legislation aimed at creating blacket laws that prevent all manner of harmeless activities in an attampt to stop a few violent individuals. Importing, Manfacturing or Collecting types of swords, replica guns, and even airsoft toys are all to be made illegal soon.
Who's responsible...all of us... the public/arm chair politicians who won’t engage with the process to shape law, the civil servants who draft myopic legislation the affects of which are often ill considered, the Part time (like Hekai’s description) Politicians we elect for being so cr@p , the selfish members of society who undermine values laws for their own gain….. What’s the solution ? …
I haven’t a clue.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-22 08:43 am (UTC)What happens if you don't fall into either catagory? do we become surplus to requirements? If my cousin, who always refers to me as "this is my cousin, the one with the terrible temper", were to say that within the hearing of the profilers would I be classed as a potential offender?
What about that b**ch in the office down the hall, the one who doesn't like me what if I were to start a rumour about her. Having seen what happens when a 12 year old lies about abuse by her step-father I don't thin this is a good idea. Oh no, this means another letter to my MP.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-22 01:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-22 02:18 pm (UTC)On the principal and alarming main point about the Home Office, I can only reiterate (at least I think I've said it before) that many of New Labour's grandees spent a lot of their 20s and 30s running mutually opposed Trotskyite (or at least dictatorial leftist) factions, so authoritarianism and repression are in their blood, along with a taste for infighting. This predisposition obviously survived their strategic move to the political middle ground.
A big problem is that even when Labour fall at the next election, much of their insane legacy will prove too deeply entrenched to remove promptly, so it will hang around for the better part of a decade...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-22 05:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-22 05:50 pm (UTC)