Parliament probes privacy law Parliament will investigate privacy law in the UK and may give the law a 'nudge', Justice Minister Jack Straw has said. A select committee of MPs will look into how the law has developed and how it is being implemented by courts, he said. Historically, the UK has not had a law of privacy, but one has emerged in recent years …
" Other judgments in recent years have protected the privacy of JK Rowling's then-infant son, model Naomi Campbell and singer Loreena McKennit. "
More successful in the case of Loreena McKennit -- so successful, in fact, that I have never heard of her. The ultimate in privacy.
Is immediately give MPs huge privacy rights (to protect them from terrorists, paedophiles and anyone wondering what the f-ck they do for their money) and promise to extend the same rights to the rest of us...
...just as soon as a select committee of MPs can report on the effectiveness of the law - should take no more than a couple of decades.
We've had law made via judges in this country for centuries, and by and large they've done OK at it - in some respects better than Parliament. Judges, by and large, tend to have had reasonably successful legal careers before they get the big horsehair syrup and crimson bathrobe, which requires at least SOME mental horsepower, and most serious precedent is decided by the higher appellate courts anyway (Court of Appeal, HoL), who tend to be pretty bright.
One might infer, on the basis of his conduct and the facts of the Mosley case, that Paul Dacre's an anal retentive curtain-twitcher with a prurient interest in kinky sex and a wholly mercenary interest in punting his wretched rag at others of the same ilk, and that he's simply indulging in some teddy-throwing because a perfectly sensible judiciary decided that that wasn't a good enough reason for invading someone's privacy, but [Francis Urquhart] I couldn't possibly comment [/Francis Urquhart]. What I WOULD say is that it is vile to see (yet again) that a creature of that sort can apparently yank a Secretary of State's chain hard enough to commandeer, at least in part, the legislative process. Privacy law courtesy of the Daily Fail, the frothing mouthpiece of the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" idiots; now there's an edifying prospect.
How about adding something that stops the ''security'' services from poking their noses in all over the place on the inflated claims of hunting terrorists and paedophiles. Also that any govt collected info must really be kept private and not readable by almost any civil servant who wants to.
They'll look at the privacy laws that have evolved and decide they go too far in protecting terrorists, paedophiles and other undesirables and revoke the lot of them - meaning there will be no expectation of privacy anywhere, for anyone... apart from the House of Commons of course... and MPs' homes... possibly their country clubs/retreats as well.
Privacy laws are in direct opposition to the surveillance/police state that Citizen Gordov and his ilk have been busy establishing in the last few years.
This proposal is just another kneejerk populist move which will go nowhere. Any resulting law will be badly drafted, give excessive powers to the police, conflict with existing law or with common sense, remove people's supposedly inalienable rights etc.
The lawyers won't mind of course, more money for them getting appeals heard etc.
Point of information on that front: C Blair was practicing law well before hubby came to power, and in fact was a royal PITA for the Govt in terms of the cases she took.
In 2007 MPs were actively campaigning via a private members bill to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information act.
An email from Labour's influential parliamentary committee urged its backbench MPs to support a private member's Bill that would prevent the public using the new right-to-know legislation to see MPs' correspondence. Jack Straw said,."it would drive a coach and horses through the relationship that we have with constituents. It is all very well for some people to say that there are some exemptions, but the truth is that the way that some journalists and the Information Commissioner are acting means that that intention is not being met in practice"
Okay, so now we know where you're coming from Jack, we can appreciate what a jolly good wheeze it would be to set up a committee selected from this self-serving elite which, on the basis of recent revelations, probably has more to hide than any other group in the country - except the bwankers, of course.
It's tough being an MP, living on enhanced state benefits and struggling to get along on £63,000 a year plus unaudited expenses. Surely they are entitled to a little privacy in which to bemoan their lot.
She had some stupid "hit" CD years ago. She'd play a little guitar riff of the new age persuasion . . . then play it again . . . and again . . . and again.
There may have been a "Celtic harp" in the mix somewhere but, though I have the CD on my shelves, it's been a l-o-o-o-o-o-n-g time since I bothered to listen to her drivel and I'm not about to expose myself to it again.
I concluded that her little guitar riff was the only sequence of notes she could play and get right.
If you haven't heard her, you've missed nothing at all.
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