[Gllug] Police want new powers

[Peter Grandi]

[ ... ]

>>> Was that a joke? The current lot are responsible for the
>>> RIP act?

And for the ''extradition-at-whim-to-the-USA-or-Guantanamo'' act
too. Fully legalized rendition... A lot more dangerous than the
RIP.

>> Well, yes the current administration is responsible for it
>> (it is the RIP Act _2000_, after all).  However I suspect
>> that our Dear Leader - apparently quite happy to proclaim
>> himself as a technical know-nothing - was probably driven
>> into it by lobbyists/advisors.

mike> That's not an excuse - for the PM, it's simply dereliction
mike> of duty. "The Labour Party further argues that attempts
mike> to control the use of encryption technology are wrong in
mike> principle, unworkable in practice, and damaging to the
mike> long-term economic value of the information networks".
mike> (Labour Party Policy on Information Superhighway).
mike> That was their line before they got in in 1997.

The same party enacted RIP in 2000 and got duly returned with a
largish if diminished majority after that. Evidently the votes
thought that changed circumstances excused the U-turn, or did
not care.

mike> The 180 degree about turn they did after getting in was
mike> nothing short of treating the electorate with total
mike> contempt. [ ... ]

This seems to opposite of what they are about -- the New Labour
posture is (with a very few exceptions) very driven by opinion
polls, and the polls tell them that ''[perceived] safety at any
cost [to someone else]'' is one of the trumps with voters.

Just about the only major policy on which New Labour has defied
the polls has been the Iraq war, and on that I believe that the
Dear Leader has acted in a totally statesmanlike (in the 19th
century, nasty-realpolitik sense) way, reckoning the strategic
interests of the country more important than his career or pangs
of guilt over a few small cases of innocent :-) dissembling...

Us poor geeks tend to be young and not vote Tory anyhow, so we
don't figure much on his pollster's screens, and I guess that
the importance of old aunties (or soccer moms) is ever
increasing.

[ ... ]

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