Let's vote!! But who for?
"For the voters next Thursday, here are some of the liberties and rights you've lost or are in the process of losing:
Your communications are no longer private. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 500,000 emails and pieces of mail are intercepted every year.
Your home is no longer your castle. A report by the Centre for Policy Studies reveals that the state and its agencies now have 266 powers to enter your home without a warrant. Labour has done more than any other government in the last 50 years to extend these powers. A new act will mean that bailiffs may enter your home to collect traffic penalties and eventually to make good the vast number of fines imposed on those who refuse to bow to the ID card bill.
You may not demonstrate within a kilometre of Parliament Square without first asking a policeman's permission, not even with a blank placard or a quote from George Orwell
Terror legislation means that suspects may be held for up to 28 days without charge. This is punishment without a normal court deciding that the law is broken. Control orders have the same result. Foreign suspects may not instruct their own legal representatives or learn of the evidence against them.
You are about to surrender your privacy forever. The ID card bill will set up databases to record all your important transactions and allow scores of government agencies to monitor your life without your knowledge. Journeys by road are being recorded by ANPR cameras and the information kept for two years.
Defendants' rights are being reduced by the day. Hearsay evidence is allowed in Asbo cases. The proposed serious crime prevention orders will also make hearsay evidence admissible and give courts almost unlimited powers to impose conditions on a person before he or she has been found guilty by normal court proceedings. Trial by jury is suspended when there is a risk of jury-tampering or in complicated fraud cases where the jury is held to be too stupid to decide whether someone is telling the truth. The Carter reforms on legal aid result in pressure to plead guilty.......
Labour has introduced some 3,000 new offences. Under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, if arrested, you are now required to be photographed and provide a DNA sample and fingerprints. These are kept by the state regardless of whether charges are brought or not."
Henry Porter, The Observer, 29.4.07
Here, and see comments too
There is also a bill going through which will allow MPs to keep their expenses and correspondence with ministries secret. This from a government who brought the freedom of information act into being.
It's unlikely the Tories will be any better. It's not too late to do something about this, but it soon will be.
We are heading for a police state.
Your communications are no longer private. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 500,000 emails and pieces of mail are intercepted every year.
Your home is no longer your castle. A report by the Centre for Policy Studies reveals that the state and its agencies now have 266 powers to enter your home without a warrant. Labour has done more than any other government in the last 50 years to extend these powers. A new act will mean that bailiffs may enter your home to collect traffic penalties and eventually to make good the vast number of fines imposed on those who refuse to bow to the ID card bill.
You may not demonstrate within a kilometre of Parliament Square without first asking a policeman's permission, not even with a blank placard or a quote from George Orwell
Terror legislation means that suspects may be held for up to 28 days without charge. This is punishment without a normal court deciding that the law is broken. Control orders have the same result. Foreign suspects may not instruct their own legal representatives or learn of the evidence against them.
You are about to surrender your privacy forever. The ID card bill will set up databases to record all your important transactions and allow scores of government agencies to monitor your life without your knowledge. Journeys by road are being recorded by ANPR cameras and the information kept for two years.
Defendants' rights are being reduced by the day. Hearsay evidence is allowed in Asbo cases. The proposed serious crime prevention orders will also make hearsay evidence admissible and give courts almost unlimited powers to impose conditions on a person before he or she has been found guilty by normal court proceedings. Trial by jury is suspended when there is a risk of jury-tampering or in complicated fraud cases where the jury is held to be too stupid to decide whether someone is telling the truth. The Carter reforms on legal aid result in pressure to plead guilty.......
Labour has introduced some 3,000 new offences. Under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, if arrested, you are now required to be photographed and provide a DNA sample and fingerprints. These are kept by the state regardless of whether charges are brought or not."
Henry Porter, The Observer, 29.4.07
Here, and see comments too
There is also a bill going through which will allow MPs to keep their expenses and correspondence with ministries secret. This from a government who brought the freedom of information act into being.
It's unlikely the Tories will be any better. It's not too late to do something about this, but it soon will be.
We are heading for a police state.
posted by John at 7:06 pm
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