Posts by Graham Marsden
4079 posts • joined Friday 19th January 2007 17:59 GMT
Page:
@Clearly a Plot
@ Mark Graybill
Are you sure you're not thinking of "The Hole Man" by Larry Niven...?
Common sense 0, Police Stupidity 2
When I did my Direct Access motorcycle training my instructor rode a white BMW with fluorescent stripes, dark jacket, hi-viz vest and a white helmet.
At one point we'd stopped in a side road when a Police car came racing by with lights and sirens going. Just as they went past there was a quick "toot toot" salute from the Coppers' horn...!
Mine's the one with the built in back protector, shoulder and elbow pads because I don't trust cagers to look where they're going...
Oh look, it's another Terrorist Bogeyman story.
No doubt this "loophole" will be closed with another "Christmas Tree" piece of legislation (where everyone gets to hang something on it, like the Serious and Organised Crim Act or the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act) and, under the guise of "protecting us" yet more liberties get whittled away.
@StopthePropaganda
> once again, liberals got what they wanted
That's odd, because as far as I recall, it's only the Liberal Democrat Party which has had the balls to stand up in Parliament and the Lords and *OPPOSE* this sort of ludicrous legislation and I would describe myself as a liberal (with a small l) person who believes that our liberties are more precious than getting some good headlines.
The Big Brother, Nanny State Labour Party think the only solution to any problem is to pass new laws, the Tories daren't do anything that might upset the Daily Mail readers of Middle England so only put up a token resistance but mainly refuse to support the Lib Dems, so yet another ridiculous law gets passed.
Blaming liberals (be it with a small l or a big L) instead of this authoritarian Government sounds very much like propaganda to me!
PS...
"What concerns me," said Hampshire assistant chief constable Steve Watts, "is the lack of legislation available for the police service to adequately address the threat of pseudo-emergency service vehicles."
And what concerns me is that these "pseudo-emergency service vehicles" could be let through security cordons without proper checking because "oh, well, they're one of us, they must be ok..."!
Stop sign because...
114 "Murderers"? Yeah, but...
... just how many False Positives would also be included in those figures?
"[...] in more than a quarter of cases where crime scene DNA matched the database, the police were given a list of potential suspects because the profile was not complete."
So how would this go? "Ok lads, we can't prove that he *was* there, but if we can get a Judge to agree we've got reasonable grounds for suspicion we can get a search warrant and dig around his place until we do find something."
"Yeah Guv, and don't forget we can grab his computer and look through it for anything we think is extreme porn, so even if we don't get him for the murder we've got a consolation prize that will still let us chalk up another solved crime!"
Doesn't...
... TLA stand for Tits, Legs, Ass?
Posted in UK abandons train and tube scanners
@Sarah Bee
Re: Z*nuL*bour
Could this be a new addition to the ranks of eg Godwin's Law?
Bee's Law? ;-)
"All necessary evidence"...?
> the government plans to launch a consultation to consider “all necessary evidence around current and future video games classification”
Which, if it's anything like the "consultation" on the Extreme Porn Legislation, will be totally biased in favour of the Government's plans and the "evidence" will be considered by rabid anti-violence campaigners who will ignore anything that doesn't agree with their views that it's obvious that these games cause people to do nasty things, so should be banned...
Posted in UK abandons train and tube scanners
@Jon Press
>> "because the technology does not work and the public would not tolerate the long delays"
> And this does not apply to airports ???
Most people don't commute to work on aeroplanes!
Imagine trying to catch the 08:21 to Waterloo only to find that you have to arrive half an hour earlier to get through the security scanners whilst removing your shoes and disposing of any bottles of liquid greater than 100ml...
@Don't blame the Government
> There's no Government legislation about half the things people here are blaming them for.
Give them time, AC, give them time...
Yep, we should be worried...
... after all, look at the devastating damage that could be caused...!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1744923.stm
Oops....
"[...] its call for restraint was backed by all three Westminster party leaders."
At least one of these leaders is a member of the Party that, in 2003, allowed David Blunkett to wave through an expansion of the number of organisations able to invoke the act from nine to seven hundred and ninety two...!
Vicious officialdom...
This is just another example of the "Do as we say" attitude which is pervading this country in the guise of "protecting our freedoms" as those with even a little bit of power follow the example of our Political Leaders in seeming to think that it is their duty to control every aspect of our lives.
Of course what they are actually doing is *threatening* our freedoms, but try explaining that to them...
I can see...
... profits for Cruise Line companies going up...!
@Ideala2
> What are the governments other options?
How about "well, we were considering closing your Post Office, but if you agree to take fingerprints, we'll let you stay open..." :-(
More knee-jerk politics
It seems that the only function of Labour's "Citizens' Juries" is to measure just *how far* people's knees are jerking...
(PS to J.O. - Unless your apostrophe is in the wrong place in the second paragraph and it's only *one* Citizen on the Jury ;-) )
@Max Lock
> WHY? All because we can not moderate our behaviour.
No, all because we have a puritanical bunch of leaders who think that *we* shouldn't look at anything that *they* don't like and a spineless "Opposition" who don't want to upset Middle England, so will pander to their prejudices instead of voting against a ludicrous Thought Crime law which says "if people don't see this stuff, they won't do nasty things".
I have *no* respect for a law like that.
More relevant information...
Having now had time to look through the Explanatory Notes here's some more information regarding this offence:
The explanatory notes on the "Communicating Indecently" section say:
* * * * *
23. Both subsections (1) and (2) provide that the offences are committed only where the victim did not consent to the activity and the perpetrator had no reasonable belief that the victim consented.
[...]
26. Subsection (3) provides that an offence under subsection (1) or (2) is committed only where the perpetrator’s purpose is to obtain sexual gratification, or to humiliate, distress or alarm the victim.
[...]
28. Subsection (5) provides a test for whether an activity is sexual for the purposes of this section. This is effectively the same as the test used in section 2 – see paragraph 13 above.
(Paragraph 13 says: [...] It provides that an activity is sexual if a reasonable person would, in all the circumstances of the case, consider it to be sexual.)
* * * * *
This suggests that it would require the prosecution to demonstrate that the communication was sent "to obtain sexual gratification" or "to humiliate, distress or alarm the victim".
This is unlike the UK's "Allowable Defence" for possession of "Extreme Pornography" in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act that the image was not owned "for sexual arousal", ie a much more stringent test.
I still think that 10 years is ridiculously excessive, but perhaps people might like to stop their knees jerking when they read an article like this and try to ascertain a few of the facts first...
Yes, but...
... Having just read through the Scottish Bill, it's a shame that this article focuses on only one small area of what is actually an eminently sensible proposed set of laws.
Unlike the English Government's usual "sledgehammer to crack a nut" approach, the Scottish have engaged in some joined up thinking such that it's much clearer what actually would or wouldn't be an offence including, for instance, not criminalising children for "underage sex" if they are between 13 and 16 but the difference between their ages is less than two years.
Admittedly the possible maximum of 10 years for a text seems excessive, especially since they only have a maximum of 5 years for offences such as indecent exposure or "administering a substance for sexual purposes" (ie a date rape drug) and it's 10 years for causing a child to be present during sexual activity or "communicating indecently with a young child", but hopefully this anomaly would be sorted out during debate of a Bill that the English Government could learn a lot from.
@What If...
> An image deemed to be obscene is of you and your partner for example?
> Could they arrest you for having pictures of yourself???
Paragraph 66 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act says:
* * * * *
[...]
(2) It is a defence for D [the Defendant] to prove—
(a) that D directly participated in the act or any of the acts portrayed, and
(b) that the act or acts did not involve the infliction of any non-consensual
harm on any person, and
(c) if the image portrays an act within section 63(7)(c), that what is
portrayed as a human corpse was not in fact a corpse.
* * * * *
Of course there's the small technical details that 1) this defence will only be available *after* you have been arrested and charged and 2) it rather ignores that little thing called "presumed innocent unless proven guilty" because it requires you to *prove* that you are innocent.
There's also the matter that you have to have been a "direct participant", so if a photographer takes a picture of two people engaged in a legal act, but one that could fall under this law, the participants would legally be permitted to own a copy of the image, but if the photographer keeps a copy, they would be breaking the law...!
BTW The Ministry of Justice have said that they will be producing some "non-statutory guidance" regarding this law, however there's no sign of it actually appearing and any enquiries to them simply get a response which has been cut-and-pasted together from various stock replies with some vague and non-specific (ie useless) suggestions of what might be covered.
PS Here's a good example of how stupid this law is. It makes illegal "extracts from [BBFC] classified works" if "it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been extracted (whether with or without other images) solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal" but that does *not* include the entirity of those films.
The BBFC recently gave an R18 classification to a film called "Girls with Guns" which features men being "forced" to engage in sex at gunpoint.
Clearly that "threatens someone's life" and it's "for sexual arousal", but because it is not an "extract from a classified work" it would still be entirely *legal*!!
(Headdesk)
@Kyle
Not forgetting the habit of some American psychiatrists of convincing parents that their child is "mentally ill", charging them lots of money for "treatment", then, when the insurance runs out, pronouncing them "cured"!
Smiley face because of lots of "happy pills"...
Elephants are not scared witless by mice...
... but Mythbusters demonstrated that they *do* shy away from them!
I already did the...
... Six Feet Under gag...
So at least...
... one of the Government's Thought Crimes gets the boot.
Hopefully this can be used as precedent against all their other headline grabbing ideas that simple possession of "extreme pornography" or owning Hentai cartoons that allegedly show "child pornography" are equally illegal.
Coffee Machine Overflow Error...?
Surely that would be when you get more than a cup full and it ends up pouring all over your feet?
Annual debate?
Of course just because Parliament *debates* something doesn't mean that they are actually obliged to *DO* anything, especially when you have a bunch of arrogant, Big Brother, Nanny State pillocks like the current lot who are quite happy to guillotine debates which might ask awkward questions about the liberties they are taking away...
In other news, Gordon Brown said that...
... citizens were not alarmed by the government's demands for biometric data, saying this was proved by the fact that “many people now have laptops activated by finger-scans.”
So its one rule for us, but another rule for them.
No change there, then.
@Aodhann
> Think how easily one can get into your system, hide a folder on your hard drive, fill it with pictures of child pornography,
> only impotent morons use this to compensate for their own short comings
> We need a Stevie Wonder avatar; because even he could see this guy is a twit.
Yep, I think that just about sums up Aodhann's attitude.
I wonder if he works for the organisations whose ludicrously lax security meant they were left looking like idiots?
@Compton Abbas Airfield
Are you sure it's not because Madge wants to sunbathe in the nuddy and doesn't want pilots peeking down on her?
Of course I'm sure our Military would never use their spy drones for any such behaviour...!
If they find one more...
... will this mean a new series of Six Feet Under...?
@James
> Fake information = LIE
Really? So you'd like to see The Onion prosecuted...?
And so we see...
... Another victim of the "presumed guilty unless you can prove your innocence" mentality that the worldwide media have managed to whip up regarding child pornography.
Luckily for him, unlike many who were baselessly accused during the Operation Ore fiasco and similar events, he *has* managed to show that it wasn't anything to do with him.
Unfortunately it seems that his so-called friends were willing to assume the worst and his employers (who should certainly shoulder some of the responsibility for failing to adequately secure their computers) were willing to try to destroy his career and leave him penniless to cover their own backsides.
I hope he gets a serious wodge of compensation and finds himself some new friends.
Hopefully...
... this case might see the end of the shameful extradition treaty between the UK and the US where they can say "We want to extradite this person and we don't have to offer you any evidence, but if you want one of our citizens, you'll have to show you have a reason to do so!"
@this
> CLID doesn't work internationally. Display usually just says 'International'
It can work, just as sometimes 1471 will return an international number.
Just not always.
Here we go again...
... it seems that once more we have our blessed Government deciding that "We don't like the nasty stuff that's out there, so *YOU* shouldn't be allowed to see it".
Well, here's news for you Mr Burnham, most of the rest of the world doesn't agree with you, so are you going to a) build a Great Firewall of Britain like China, b) criminalise people for looking at stuff that doesn't have your stamp of moral approval like Saudi Arabia and Iran or c) allow people to look at stuff that's legal in the rest of Europe and stop wasting everybody's time and money...?
Paris because even she isn't as stupid as our Government...!
A moustache...
... isn't a proper moustache unless it can be seen from behind!
- Old RAF proverb.
Divisions???
Gordon Brown seems to be even less capable of doing basic maths!
How many Labour MPs voted with the Opposition on 42 days? Thirty six.
How many Tories voted with the Government? *One*
How exactly he can have the bare-faced gall to spin that as representing "deep divisions" in the Tory camp, I'm not sure.
Paris, because even she could probably work the maths out...
What you don't realise...
... is that before you can take off you'll have to present your ID, fingerprints, DNA sample, iris scan to the onboard computer which will then check you for nail clippers, scissors, nail files, bottles containing more than 100ml of liquid or any other dangerous items...
Mine's the orange jumpsuit...
Posted in Gamers not social misfits, after all
All I can say is...
... Eat plasma death you repulsive alien wierdos!
Ok, but...
... whilst it's nice to see a Tory Politician standing on a point of principle regarding our liberties, I have to ask where the hell they were when the *other* policies that violated our liberties were being pushed through?
The Tories had the chance to vote against the Governments Extreme Porn legislation, but, instead of standing up for our rights, they decided that criminalising people for looking at "bad pictures" and creating a Thought Crime wasn't important enough, so they just abstained, when, if they had voted, the Government would have been defeated and a liberty protected.
So pardon me if I think that, whilst it's a good idea that the 42 Day limit gets questioned, this looks like a piece of political grandstanding to me.
Posted in God makes you stupid, researchers claim
They should get a Darwin Award...
... because they're risking a lightning bolt from the Heavens...!
Erm...
Dahnn daaaahh!!
Nobody expects...!
@This made me smile
Hmm, I seem to remember the documentary you mention, except not quite in the same way that you do.
It showed a naiive girl with "Daddy issues" (apparently her father had left when she was young and her "agent" was leading her around by the hand) being drawn into something that she was not ready or prepared for.
If anyone is to blame it is her agent who was more interested in getting his fee than taking care of her.
But this gets away from the issue that, both in the USA and the UK, there are those who don't like pornography and will use (or abuse) any case or any bandwagon they can in order to ensure that *their* tastes govern what *we* are allowed to see (cf the UK's "extreme pornography" legislation).
Of course what they *really* want is to ban *all* porn, but they know that they don't have a chance of getting their way all in one go, so they go for the "soft targets" instead and slowly the thin end of the wedge gets driven in more and more...
Posted in Another police website hacked
Are you re-assured?
Nope, I'm not surprised either.
Of course I won't be surprised when someone in the Government starts demanding that "Something must be done!" and starts another ill-judged crusade against "hacking tools" or some other nonsense.
A voice was heard to say...
The servers canna take it, Captain!
Posted in Angry? Try the Tw*t-O-Tron
Yebbut...
... those have been reading the BBC's forums for some time now know that this sort of thing has been appearing on there pretty much since there inception.
That's right, it's not random gibberish being put together by computer, some people actually write like that!
Paris because... oh, figure it out yourself.
@What is my Road Tax for?
@Mad Dave
> I was under the impression that I paid Road Tax in order to be able to utilise the highways which I, and my fellow taxpayers, have already paid for.
Which is, as usual, a completely mistaken impression.
Road Tax was replaced by Vehicle Excise Duty (a tax on your ownership of a car) before WWII. Unless you are about eighty years old you have *never* paid to use the road.
You don't own it, either.
Replacing the RIPA...
> the Government is expected to introduce legislation to replace RIPA in the next session of Parliament.
Well, of course. Because it's not enough that any jumped up nosey parker Council can (ab)use the RIPA to conduct surveillance on pretty much anyone for any reason, we need to get rid of any safeguards left and make sure that *everyone* with a bit of power can monitor what people are doing.
Hopefully the British Public should have enough sense to replace this power-mad, control-freak Government at the next election.
