Snoop more, share less - Home Office spurns EU advice

Government responses to two outwardly unrelated bits of EU policy go a long way to explain what it really thinks about the War on Terror and the rights of individual citizens. At present, the government collects data on passenger movements across UK borders. This is gathered from sources such as travel agents and airlines, and …

[Anonymous Coward]

I expected when I read the headline

To see Jacquie "the brownshirt" smith being the one to vocally say everyone is wrong and riding rough shod over civil liberties was the way forward.

Though if to be believed the not signing up to MI5 cross border stuff means she should also be known as two faced because she is certainly arguing the same thing from two different sides, give us all your data to fight something that probagbly won't help, but we don't want useful data from outside that might help.

Soon as labour are ousted the better, and as soon as her constituents realise what a nasty person she is the better.

Anonymous because the brownshirts will only come a knocking. (If not already on their way)

[dervheid]

All the pieces...

are falling nicely into place.

42 days; *useful* information; e-borders; CCTV/ANPR proliferation; Phorm (soon), et al

The NuLaborian jigsaw is nearing completion.

All Hail Emperor Broon.

[Nigel Whitfield]

Pick a meal, any meal ...

Perhaps we should all try varying our dietary requirements each time we fly - Halal one flight, Kosher the next, and so on... that'll make their data mining more interesting.

[Scott]

Got to love the gov...

...only if they are doing it is it good enough, get the EU involved and it will never work.

Joined-up-thinking indeed, this goverment hasn't done a single thing in years to help the slaves sorry Constituents, like the old saying goes given enough time even a mokey with paper and pen could write at least one goverment policy that works or is that shakespear play both are flights of fancy.

[Christoph]

Excellent idea

Combat terrorism by keeping all our credit card details (and lots of other personal info) in a central government database, with the government's usual hi-grade security measures guarding it. What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jacqui Smith is too frightened to go out at night

She won't go out at night in Kensington or Hackney she doesn't feel safe.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7198508.stm

So she's stuck in her little prison, locked down for the night with her police guard outside to protect her. But that's OK, because you too will get to experience Jacqui's prison for yourself!

You'll have a nice prison wall around you, to enter and leave you'll have a very elaborate ID card, and your movements will be watched at the gate. Not only as you enter and leave the country, but also while you move inside... after all one of those demons in her mind might get loose in the country!

Your very own prison, which it's tough rules and regulations, it's curfews, you'll retire to your own prison cells at night, the guards will protect the walls and if you're lucky, you'll get a prison pass, be allowed to visit outside, but only under supervision.

Look up at the guard towers with their CCTV cameras. Go exercise in the prison garden, but don't step on the grass and not after 6pm when the park gates close.

Do not photograph the prison guards, they don't like it and they'll zap you with their cattle prods.

Inspection of your prison cell can occur at any time, on 1000+ prison rules, so be sure to keep your cell clean and ready for inspection.

Be careful what you say, the prison has strict rules about 'incitement' and 'anti social' speaking, your anonymous internet comments are tracked for IP address, and your email headings, phone records etc, are all recorded and can be inspected at any time. Prison rules. The governor says he doesn't want any trouble makers.

It's a life sentence.

[Graham Marsden]

You can't trust them...

... but you must trust us!

- Sneak preview of the Government's latest strategy.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not as easy as it seems all this law making "stuff" is it?

The same old sh**e!

"You law abiding people, yes you the ones who have done nothing wrong and pay all the taxes, give us all your details, we need them to make sure your safe from the nasty terrorists that lurk around every corner. You can't see them, but we know they're there waiting to get you!!! You want us to protect you from the yobs on the street, killing innocent people and making everyone's life a misery? Ah well, you see there's a slight problem there. You see we don't know who they are, they won't sit still long enough for us to get their details and when by sheer chance we do get some details on them, we find they gave us fake names and details, so we have a devil of a job catching them. Don't worry though, I'm sure with enough encouragement and freebies, they will see the error of their ways, then it will be one lovely place to live here in the National Socialist Republic of Great Britain!"

[Richard]

The *real reason they're holding back

"The British rightly object that such a database would be as secure as the weakest access point to it – an argument that oddly doesn’t seem to hold much weight with the Home Office when it comes to its own plans for a centralised UK database containing details of all citizens."

Of course it does! The Home Office is doing its very best to ensure that _it_ is the weakest access point. Unfortunately they think that some crafty foreign power is planning on printing their database on toilet paper to be used in all govt buildings. And another is going to give DVD's away with whatever their version of the Daily Mail is. Until Jacqui's crack squad of data loss specialists have come up with something better than "losing it in the mail", then the scheme is a no-goer.

BTW, why is meal preference forwarded on? Is it so that the guards can waft the smell of said meal into the cells?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sturm Abteilung - Jacqui Smith NuLab MP

Oh for a "Night of the Long Knives" to be rid of her and the rest of the useless NuLab especially that brooding sulky Brown & his lick-spittle Browne (part-time Defence Minister).

They can work a bit to trace me!!

[James Pickett]

Nosh

"meal preference"

Shouldn't that be "..among the choices offered"? My preference is grass-fed beef and real ale, but that doesn't appear on airline menus too often.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Jacqui Smith is too frightened to go out at night

nahhh she will for being such a good puppet get a nice role like bliar somewhere out of this cuntry...

[Anonymous Coward]

Death spiral

Come on folks, who gives a toss what New Labour plan for the future? It doesn't have one - this government is spiralling around the electoral drain like a drowned wasp. .

Let's sit back and watch the brothers (and sisters) tear one apart in one final Blairite spasm. Then we give the survivors a damn good kicking.

Then to show we're not politically biased, we give the Tories another damned good kicking.

[Liam]

hmmm

i agree we need to get rid of them - but replace them with whome?

the tories? the same people that have sold off everything good so we now pay god knows how much more for power, transport and water? the same lot that dont give a fuck about anyone earning less than £100,000? the same lot that only 100 years ago we seriously looking into the stererilisation of the working class?

or do we go with the libdems who are a more trustworthy bunch but have some stupid policies (£900/year road tax my ass!)

dont let in the devill just because you are pissed off at idiots... do you all think that the tories will actually get rid of cctv etc?

[Charlie]

Sooner or later

the government is going to realise that the world is so dangerous and hostile that only way to keep us all safe is to have us all locked up and killed because the alternative is just too horrible to contemplate.

[mh.]

Airline meals

Rumour has it that that going for a non standard meal means you get something better than the usual airline food, although my mum's experiences with veggie ones tend to contradict this.

Meanwhile, I'd like the Home Office to explain how wasting time and money gathering data about people they know to be innocent is supposed to make everyone safer and more law abiding. You don't find a needle by building a bigger haystack, and every second spent investigating a person you know to be innocent "just in case" is one you can't spend investigating someone who has done something wrong. How many real crimes have been overlooked because the intelligence services have to wade through reams of useless information about people whose biggest transgression is to take their library books back a day late?

[Rob Cooper]

Who to Vote For?

Labour, Tories both talk bollocks and have never done little good..

LibDems would do worse.

Who is left? The BNP? Maybe they will actually right all the wrongs. They will prob have my vote, we need something different.

Hell if they screw up, they are only doing what Labour/Tories would have done anyway :\

[Mark]

They all had the chicken

I wonder if there would be any adverse consequences to everyone on a given flight ordering Halal meals?

[Florence Stanfield]

Presume UK tourisum wil die now?

Seems Labour cannot kill the country anymore than they have inflation soaring, unemployment up, visitors going to other countires since the second China is too restrictive.

The to top it all if any visitors have money taken from their accounts while over here a prime suspect would be our government or staff since they gather CC details..

Personal information they have no right to hold, if this isn't against EU human rights then it should be. Any government guilty of it needs to be punished not with fines since the ministers use the citizens as an open bank check. Punishment has to be the people who thought up the stupid idea in jail somewhere inside the EU but not the country they were MP/civilservant for.

[John Stevens]

All ordering halal

On a flight to Mecca? No problem.

On a flight to Jerusalem? Major security alert.

Paris - cause she's a preferred destination for frequent flyers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Snoop More, Share less

We viewed "1984" as an entertaining, if slightly dotty, tale and we constantly derided the East German Communist regime until it fell. Then we held our hands up in horror when the activities of the Stasi were made public. Now all these things have come to pass in the UK and there must be a lot of old Stasi agents chuckling quietly to themselves. No - of course - when they lost their jobs guess who re-employed them!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, that explains it.

>"... the War on Terror and the rights of individual citizens ... "

I thought it was just a war on terror; didn't realise they were now openly admitting it's a war on our rights as well, but it sure explains a lot about what they've been up to lately...

[RW]

"arguing the same thing from two different sides"

Can't do that in a court of law. It's forbidden by the legal doctrine of estoppel.

[kain preacher]

Wait

Weren't you mad at us yanks for collecting such data ??? Hell at least we told you were doing it. You wanted the UK to be reciprocal. you got it. All you need now is to fly through t5 to get finger printed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorists use Paypal

My son, who lives in the US, needed to borrow some money, so I sent it via Paypal, as it's quicker and easier than a bank wire transfer. It got through no problem. When he sent it back, however, my Paypal account was frozen due to "EU" money laundering regs. As I recall, these regs were foisted on the EU by The Supreme Brown Leader in order to starve terrorists of funds. Al Quaeda use Paypal all the time, apparently. Fortunately our NuSoviet government are much more on the ball with this stuff than their cronies in the US.