UK Government Wants To Bypass Data Protection Act 262
rar42 writes "Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill, currently being debated by the UK Parliament, would allow any Minister by order to take from anywhere any information gathered for one purpose, and use it for any other purpose. Personal information arbitrarily used without consent or even knowledge: the very opposite of 'Data Protection.' An 'Information Sharing Order', as defined in Clause 152, would permit personal information to be trafficked and abused, not only all across government and the public sector — it would also reach into the private sector. And it would even allow transfer of information across international borders. NO2ID has launched a Facebook group to challenge this threat to data protection."
Re:Terrifying! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Raise your hand... (Score:3, Interesting)
They can't. Not with the Tabloid newspapers screaming "Something Must Be Done" every time some brat drinks themselves to death, or a knife is drawn outside of a nightclub.
The British public support this measure and others like it every single morning when they buy sensationalist, right wing papers whose sole objective seems to be to prevent the Government from acting in any kind of reasonable or rational way. Hence CCTV mania, databases and ID cards.
People are not oblivious to this. You must understand that most people in the UK want this. England has always been a very right wing country, and its press and politics reflects that. The only thing keeping the country sane at this point is the BBC and the conservative upper classes. May the gods help us all.
Re:People of the UK - just give up! (Score:5, Interesting)
If half of the "UK is out to get it's citizens" articles here are to be believed - you might as well give up and get out as it appears that the fascists have taken over the UK government and nothing you can do will make it otherwise short of a revolution.
Or just challenge it in the European Court of Human Rights. They're likely to view such a change as a clear violation of the Data Protection Directive unless they think they can seriously walk such broad lifting of protections under the exemptions. [cdt.org]
unbelievable. uk is practically a fascist country (Score:5, Interesting)
it is just one step from here to a fascist regime. every kind of laws that violate magna carta has been implemented. british public did nothing. i cant believe my eyes.
Elected dictatorship (Score:4, Interesting)
As a concrete exampke, I offer the spectacles of Tony Blair putting down three separate back-bencher revolts against him. Labour traditionally had no business supporting the US, particularly over Iraq. Most of the Labour voters were against Iraq. But for some reason Tony thought differently. And was able to impose his will. How would be interesting to know.
Please note, I am not claiming US-style presidential systems are better. They are certainly less democratic in the sense that the people's will is often thwarted.
On this privacy issue, UK citizens may need to fall back to the EU courts and constitution. Rather ironic, the birthplace of freedom (Magna Carta) have to rely on the continent with fewer and a horrible history of citizens serving the state.
Re:Slippery Slopes (Score:3, Interesting)
I think what is missing from the current picture, or any picture from around the world was implied by the war in Iraq, or at least by some of those perpetuating it: If you show people some freedom they will naturally grab hold of it and demand democracy and freedom for themselves. What is unknown is what it takes to move a westernized populace to revolt en mass. What amount of salt must a western government grind with it's boots into the wounds of its citizens rights before they revolt with guns, bombs, and beheadings? How far are we from that point? What revealed lie or uncovered atrocity against civil rights will be required to bring armed revolution to the front pages of newspapers around the world. What manner of indignation will it take to push the people into forcibly retaking government and reducing its size one head at a time?
These are the questions that must be pondered mightily in the halls of power. These are the questions that we the people should be looking for the government's preparation against. When the government is shown to be preparing for it, it's already time to be shooting at government loyalists.
Ask yourself, will it take only one head? Three heads? How many will be required to satisfy the people and the world that there has been a change of management? How do we in the US simply get rid of the federal government? Declare it null and void and fight off any who argue? Whose brother do you shoot? Whose father? If not bullets, what?
Now is the time to join politically active groups who want real change, change you can be part of and not just change you can believe in. You can believe all change once it happens; both good and bad. What we want is to be part of the change, change that benefits us all, not just corporations and pseudo fascist bureaucrats.
How much more will you take? How much more can you take?
âoeThere are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order.â
â" Ed Howdershelt
You have to be joking don't you? (Score:1, Interesting)
Out current NuLab Government just ignores anything they say.
Take the ruling about DNA etc made at the back end of last year.
Wacky Jacqui is just ignoring it. She says there will have to be a change in the law.
It is perfectly easy to add an ammendment to a bill going through Parliament or even do it by executive order in the interim while they wait for a law change.
Do they do this? Not a chance.
This bunch of 'Plonkers' are total control freaks. They want to know everything we do at all times. No privacy for the masses while they can hide all their excesses with impunity. Sort of sounds like the USSR jusr before their empire crumbled.
Remember at their head is 'el Gordo', the saviour of the world economy. Yeah Right.
Most of the MP's in charge are going to be out on their ears at the next election (provided they don't change the law in the meantime) so they are just fiddling while the UK burns. With all the news attention on the Economic Meltdown it is only too easy for them to slip out bad news unnoticed (just like 11-Sept-2001)
Only the Lib-dems are saying the right things about undoing this mess but they are unlikely to get elected to power. The Tories are certainly committed to cancelling ID Cards but I'm not sure about all this other stuff.
Remember, that it is now a possible Terrorist Act if you take a photo of a Policeman anywhere, anytime.
I'm posting as AC as I don't want Special Branch knocking my door down at 04:00 tomorrow morning.
Re:A facebook group? (Score:5, Interesting)
Protester Brian Haw's still in Parliament Square because his protest pre-dated the poorly-drafted Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.
Re:Raise your hand... (Score:1, Interesting)
You seem to be confused about 'left wing' and 'right wing'.
But it is an easy thing to do, as the left in the UK like to say that everything bad and oppressive is right wing, which simply isn't true. Right of centre politics as practiced mainly means individuals not state. Let's clarifiy that once more:
Expansion of the state is a left wing idology.
Britain is pretty left wing 'socialist' in the scale of other countries. If it helps, the USA and Australia are examples of countries more right wing than the UK; France and Germany are examples of more left wing countries.
You then go on to say that it's the conservative upper classes (conservatives are right wing) and the BBC (left wing) who are keeping the country sane! It's not even self consistent!
Re:ja mien furer (Score:3, Interesting)
No need wo worry, even if you had one, you surely won't next year. I am expecting bankruptcies to exeed the level they were in the last recession - where, three years in a row, 33% of companies were wiped out. (ie leaving about 15% of the original number of businesses) and there were considerable losses in the years before and after this exciting catastrophy.
I fully expect 50% of businesses to go in this year, and each of the two following years. This will leave less than 10% of the businesses we had a year ago.
Quite possibly most of these will be very antisocial. None will be in manufactur9ing, or anything else with a need for investment over a period exceeding 1 quarter.
Yes, I am making plans for my family to leave. But I wont be going to America.
Gordon Brown has been recieving secret training in Government methods by Robert Mugabe
Re:Slippery Slopes (Score:2, Interesting)
it turns out that none of these laws are actually needed to sucessfully prosecute terrorists.
Yup, who'd have thought that planning to murder people, building bombs, and distributing material suggesting other people should commit murder has been illegal for a long, long time?
In the UK non [sic] of the recent anti-terrorism laws appear to have been used against terrorists who cannot be portrayed as "Islamic".
But they have been used against protesters, random people who look a bit shifty, and my mate who left his bike locked up outside a train station, apparently calling up a terror alert in case he'd filled the frame with nitroglycerine and nails.
All those terror laws actually did was mean the police don't need to remember the names of so many laws and acts, or have reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime before they search you. Huzzah for democracy! Mob rule dressed up as mob rule, and somehow people seem to think it's a social panacea. I suppose those people are the mob... they're probably so innocent they've got nothing to fear, too...