Dear UK Government,
So far this I year have:
Do I get a reward if I report myself?
According to the Daily Mail, (via No2ID), the latest line from the UK government is that although you won’t be forced to have an ID card, if you opt out you’ll not be able to have a passport.
If this is indeed likely to be true, it’s yet another reason why people should renew their UK passports early, even if they don’t need to, and if at all possible, find a way to get a second passport. There’s probably quite a large percentage of the UK population who would qualify for an Irish passport, for example, but I haven’t noticed the press suggesting yet that people start investigating that.
Here in Estonia, I’m not sure what the status of ID cards actually is. I was originally told that they’re compulsory, but that there’s no penalty for not having one (as an aside, I really like the concept of laws with no penalty – it seems like a wonderful government hack). But recently I read an interview with an Estonian politician who said (IIRC) that they were originally compulsory, but that there was a lack of public support, so now you don’t need have one, but you’ll find lots of things simpler if you do.
One thing that they have gotten right in Estonia, however, is the privacy side. There is no centralised government database of information. Each department has its own, and there is full transparency back to the citizen. Not only can you see all your own data, you can also see who else has been looking at it.
So if the police had been examining your medical records, for example, you would both know about it, and have the right to find out why.
I wouldn’t recommend any hold their breath waiting for the UK government to do likewise…
The government brought in control orders to target suspects who could not be prosecuted in courts. This could be because the evidence against them had been collected by bugging the suspect – and was therefore inadmissible. – BBC News
Dear Government,
Having to produce admissible evidence is not a flaw in our legal system. It’s a feature.
Please stop trying to find ways around this.
I’ve been ranting about the proposed Abolition of Parliament Act to all and sundry for weeks now, and people just look at me as if I’m mad. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m becoming as incoherent as Marc, or because people really still believe that the government will generally “do the right thing”, or what, but there seems to be an underwhelming lack of interest, never mind outrage.
For now I’ll just make do with begging: everyone who lives in the UK, please visit the Save Parliament website. They’ve summarised the issues much better than I could ever do, and it’ll only take 5 minutes to read. Even if you’re not even remotely interested in politics, please read it. This one really does decide the entire future of the country.
I missed this one a few weeks back:
The Home Secretary will this week appeal to the Royal Courts of Justice for permission to charge all those who have been wrongly convicted for the costs of accommodation during their time in prison.
I’m increasingly finding myself horrified by the insanity of the government. I would have thought that if you discovered that if you sent someone to jail and then discovered that it had been a mistake, you’d be falling over yourself to apologise profusely, not trying to bill them for the money they saved on accomodation and food etc!
