Twitter's got a new UK public policy wonk... 'You are the product' Big Brother Watch bloke! Twitter has hired a well-known privacy campaigner to head up the UK wing of its public policy team. Big Brother Watch director Nick Pickles is moving over to what some might consider to be the dark side by taking such a job, having been a vocal critic of US tech companies' privacy practices in the past. In February 2012, for …
There are quite a few Tory MPs/MEPs who have libertarian views - although there is no single definition of libertarianism so I'm sure many will disagree with some/all of these names; but names like David Davis, Alan Duncan, Daniel Hannan, and Douglas Carswell spring to mind. They are also part of a long tradition of libertarianism in the party (much of Thatcherism, although by no means all of it, for example, was founded on a Libertarian beliefs).
The Classical Liberal tradition - which you seem to know nothing about - advocates personal freedom and laissez faire. The Tories always had more Classical Liberals than the Whigs.
Since the mid-20th Century, the modern Tories have had a hang 'em and flog 'em brigade of party members from the Shires. Boot camps and national service.
Today Tories love regulations, banning things and spunking taxpayers money on vanity projects like HS2. So any onfusion is understandable. Although with Stewart Lee, he's probably just thick.
"Today Tories love regulations, banning things and spunking taxpayers money on vanity projects like HS2. So any confusion is understandable."
And remarkably similar to New Labour, so much so that you can't even see the join/dividing line.
The main difference is the name of the particular person who is intending to ban slightly different things and invade your privacy while removing some of your freedoms under the pretext of saving you from 'the other lot'.
Both parties will also slavishly go along with anything the bosses of our former colony dictate to them in the name of democracy.
Meanwhile, Tony's back in the news. I was getting worried.
Demented Tony Blair recites the Saudis' creed in his latest speech
"Although with Stewart Lee, he's probably just thick."
I'm sure you're right.
His ethics are probably negotiable, but I can understand that - from scraping around to make a £50-60k living at BBW, he's suddenly on the Farcebook payroll on a six figure package with a bottomless expense budget and a brand name that people listen to simply because they've heard of it.
In terms of questionable ethics, though, what about Farcebook. I daresay they'd be able to buy (if not already have) a very well paid and very effective Head of Lobbying, Greasing, Free Lunching and General C***ery. So why go for Pickles? Simply to behead an organisation that might be making your life difficult, IMHO.
I remember a couple of years back where Nick Pickles was orchestrating a very heavy handed FOI request to schools, demanding to know if they had CCTV, where they were and who managed them.
Fair enough you might think. But it led to news stories about CCTV being in school toilets and the usual pitchfork brigade being outraged. What the story glossed over was the fact that the cameras were not in cubicles providing candid shots but in the general hand washing areas, where bullying was rife and CCTV eliminated it from a difficult area to police.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/12/cctv-cameras-schools-out-of-hand
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Oh, I'm definitely joking. The thing is, I can, because I left the UK long ago and moved to a country where freedom of expression is constitutionally protected, with no ifs or buts. Truth be told, I'm not that bothered about porn - it was more that something got chipped across and I instinctively nodded it in.
That said, I am concerned about the apparent state of affairs in the old country, with the censorship and the demonisation and all the other things that sound better in Prof Frink's voice. Though, given what I'm reading about people getting arrested for quoting Churchill and the like, maybe porn isn't the most glaring example of the problem...
> moved to a country where freedom of expression is constitutionally protected, with no ifs or buts.
Presuming you're referring to the USA, that "protection" isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Look at the fate of Insex who closed down after Dubya decided to get his Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to start harassing such sites. An anonymous FBI Agent commented "We must have won the War on Terror if we can afford to use our manpower for this."
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How can anybody consider tweets to be PRIVATE?
I remember a legal case a former employer was involved in years ago. Some of the opposition people were using a forum on Compuserve (remember that?). They posted blatantly untrue, defamatory and libelous remarks about my employer and were shocked to see our attorneys bring those into court to impeach some of their witnesses. Their counsel tried to exclude the forum remarks, claiming privacy concerns. The judge disagreed, saying that remarks posted to a public forum are hardly private communications.
How can anybody “tweet” something to the world and still consider it private? That’s doublethink on a par with anything in 1984.
"How can anybody consider tweets to be PRIVATE?"
Not private, but personal.
Most people never read the T&Cs when they sign up to a service and so probably think that their public posting is still owned by them via copyright and so have rights to dictate or limit use of said tweets.
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