are not serious offences. They are a nuisance, but they are not in the same league as murder.

Take away ALL the powers to snoop from the councils. These proposals are just a sop, and no doubt an electioneering sop at that.

1) "Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has opened a public consultation on how snooping laws should be used by local authorities" - They shouldn't

2) "As promised in December the Home Office will make changes to the code of practise which governs use of RIPA. This could limit the RIPA-empowered investigation of offences such as dog fouling and restrict the use of surveillance to offences like fly-tipping and rogue trading." - Or it could open up the number of 'offenses' for which these powers can be used and lower the grade of civil servant (theres an oxymoron if there ever was one) permitted to authorised the snooping.

Just fodder for a) The Press and b) The gullible.

When petty officials & jobsworths are given ANY powers, have they EVER given these powers up? or have they EVER been effectively rescinded? Answer - not in a million years.

Damian Green was obviously part of a terrorist plot to shatter the very fabric or our society, by showing Wacky to be an incompetent, venal cow with no saving grace(s) thus fomenting FUD in the general population, and now the wacky one thinks that making a cosmetic change to the verbiage, whilst in reality sweet bugger all changes, will result in us all viewing her as a latter day Joan of Arc, the heroine who restored our civil liberties & freedoms..

Fail!

IMHO Jacqui, you're still a miserable, venal, incompetent, arrogant and deeply unpleasant power-crazy loon.

Proof?

I quote "Wacky Jacqui has also promised a review of the national DNA database after the Home Office lost its final appeal to the European Court of Human Rights and was told to delete entries for innocent people."

The court to which NuLab genuflects says to her "You're breaking the law: You're guilty: Do this"...

Wacky "studies the ruling" - I seriously doubt she could effectively study The Beano - and "promises a review".

If one of Wacky's personal Chekists (The Met, inter alia) grabs me on suspicion of being a Brazilian Electrician, and I survive long enough to be dragged to the Bailey, and a tame loony liberal-lefty idiot of a judge tells me to do 12 months, would I be able to toddle off home saying "I will study the ruling", and "I promise to review my activities (sometime)"?

Even Obersturmbahnfuhrer Schmidt is subject to the law! How then does she continue to ignore it when it doesn't suit her, or is "inconvenient"?

As (theoretically) free citizens it is our right to rebel.

It is fast becoming our civic duty.

Yet another chance for the electorate of the UK to actually put their points of view to the people in charge - and for Jaqui Smith to selectively edit the highlights to make the data fit the conclusions she requires.

I especially like the first sentence in the third paragraph of Ms Smith's explanation for this latest example of political chicanery - "The government has absolutely no interest in spying on law-abiding people going about their everyday lives. "

What, like opposition MPs revealing dirty little secrets the Government would rather the voters were not aware of, even when it is the sort of thing the Government should have announced publically anyway?

Or members of the public trying to hold peaceful protests outside the (alleged) place of work for their elected representatives?

Or people with some pride left in our country trying to fly the flag of St George?

And what exactly will happen once this consultation is over anyway? Does anyone really believe that, once the fanfare has died down, they won't find another way to let the abuse of the system continue? Reword it all you like, Ms Smith, you know it'll be back again soon as someone figures out just what slant they need to put on the wording to get away with it.

And am I really the only person who finds it mildly amusing that the same week in which ZaNew Labour announce a "consultation" on RIPA is the same week that the EU come down on our glorious leaders like a ton of bricks over their mishandling of the BT/Phorm debacle?

Mine's the one with the bolt for the stable door...

A "Review" of RIPA access, a "Review" of who should be on the DNA database.

And a promise of a "Review" of the database of the G.IMP and its idea of a central database.

Note Councils *may* be *recommended* to loose some spy powers.

Note She *lost* the last chance to argue that holding suspects (rather than convicted criminals) DNA on the DNA database. There is no higher court to appeal to. What's to review?

Note The man from Vodaphone is still busily architecting the database.

Note. She can ignore the results of any of these reviews, as her master ignored the petition to get rid of her.

I recommend making a representation however. A big enough pool of well argued complaints about this level of intrusion, its cost and its effectiveness will stop 2 things. The "we had no complaints" argument and the later "No one said it was heading for epic fail" argument.

However I doubt it will achieve its real objective. Making Labour look like they care and are not run by senior people with a very deep authoritarian streak in them. I live in a Labour marginal. Their goose is still going to be stuffed come polling day.

"This could limit the RIPA-empowered investigation of offences such as dog fouling and restrict the use of surveillance to offences like fly-tipping and rogue trading."

This is bad - councils (and the police) don't have sufficient resources to manually police every street corner and potential fly tipping site. Dog fouling has serious health implications and fly tipping is a major problem in the UK. While I don't want to see CCTV replacing real police patrols etc., CCTV is the only realistic way to gather enough evidence to prosecute fly tippers etc.

We're more likely to get a Revue than a Review.

Go home you silly cow, hubby's been seen down the video shop again.

This is going to be a smokescreen. They want people to think that they are on our side until after the election, while changing nothing at all.

If they wanted to fix it, it's easy for them to do so. Just amend the RIPA law in the next session of parliament. I'd suggest making it an offense to use these powers to investigate anything except a matter which, if proved, could result in someone serving jail time. Authorizing illegal surveillance should itself be punishable by jail time, and also by mandatory disqualification for life from holding public office.

It's really quite simple. They don't need ANY of that type of authority and as other have stated, will abuse it upon every given opportunity. But, then again, EVERY level of government will abuse that type of authority, so best to repeal it in its entirety.

@AC - 12:58 GMT - (jointly authored by David Bunkett and Charles Clarke).

Yes, but written by someone with an actual command of the English language.

Actual spy powers lost: 0

What does serious mean? It means whatever I want it to mean, said Wacky Jacqui through the looking glass. (And echoed by Blears, Harman, Straw, Cameron et al).

However the RIPA was sold, to the general public (Daily Heil, The Scum etc) and to MP's (as has been mentioned regarding entries in Hansard) there are *no* limits on the subjects under investigation beyond IIRC that it needs to be breaking the criminal law.

Just a reminder.

Woohoo! Vote the buggers out! We'll get our chance soon...

By voting for who exactly? Dave Matey and the blue-rinse apologists? Or whatsisname and the third party?

Once we change the government it will all be so much better, they'll repeal the nasty laws that the other lot brought in because it'll be such a love-fest that they won't need to spy on us anymore! Isn't that right Dave? Dave, hello, Dave?

It's the nature of government in the UK that's the problem, not which ever brand of venal, self-serving Oxbridge overlords you choose every four or five years, but hey, what do I know? Good luck to you...

They do have to count the number of fouled papers, you know. Wouldn't it be great if there was a majority of deliberately, obviously fouled papers? A massive vote of no confidence in the whole sorry system at the next election?

"government has absolutely no interest"

Central Govt only has superficial interest; once they make silly decisions, councils jump on them and Central cannot and will not rescind as it will dent their standing in the polls... until its too late and their shortcomings are illuminated so they get double-helping of humble pie: ridiculed in the press, have to do a u-turn, and then get hammered in the polls anyway.

Btw, Jacqui Smith may have an 'education', and 'public service experience', but she is way out of her depth in her current position.

10 points for AC 17th April 2009 12:59 GMT comment, 'Revue not Review' applies to the whole Westminster show.

Thumbs down for more dumbing down