The Leveson Enquiry
What a waste of time and money! If the law is broken, throw the book at them.
Anyway regulating the newspapers is a waste of time, as everything can be posted on the Internet without checking. And it will be!
Newspapers will just be used to wrap fish and chips.
A Good Day For Criminals?
On the whole, I think a minimum price for alcohol is a good idea. I said so here a few days ago.
But the downside is that criminals will be smiling at all the profits to be had by selling cheap alcohol to all and sundry, after it was announced that a minimum price will come in. It’s here on the BBC. I doubt the measure will curb binge-drinking and the associated crime.
And then we have the Leveson report, which is due to be released in a couple of days. According to this BBC story, many are worried about it on a freedom f speech basis. They have a point, but if we have more restrictions on reporting, which overall is a good thing, the value of a good story will increase. So I think, we could see more harrassment of celebrities as the pot of gold will be even bigger. Especially, as many countries won’t care what is illegal in the UK and will fully publish on the Internet.
Just remember that if we had a privacy law like the French, would the details of the MPs expenses have emerged? So the so-called great and good, who break the law, may well be protected by Leveson’s recommendations.
But as the phone-hacking by the News of the World has shown, wrong-doing gets properly investigated.
Would You Disclose Your Name On Zopa?
Or any other financial site, that gave loans?
Zopa allows me to see who I have lent money to, their payment history and a few other details. Normally, the person is only identified by a code name. So you could lend to someone called MickeyMouse or Graham171.
In two cases though, I’ve been able to identify the borrower. One was actually someone, that I knew and the other is a reputable professional living and working in London.
Both incidentally, have had immaculate payment records, so they have nothing to hide.
But I do find it strange that someone would join a financial site and make it possible to identify them.
Finding Details Of Someone, Who Has An Unusual Name
The surname of someone, I used to know came up in the BBC’s Olympic coverage. I haven’t seen them in years, so I searched for them on Google. It was only out of curiosity and I found a PDF of a letter that they had written to their local council, objecting to an extension to one of the neighbouring properties. It was on the council Planning Department’s web site.
Obviously this person has nothing to hide, but imagine you are an errant husband or wife, not wanting your name, address and telephone number to be disclosed to your spouse!
So does this mean that you shouldn’t object to planning permission, if you want to keep your details secret?
I Back the Judges
Senior judges are at odds with David Milliband over documents concerning interrogations in the US.
Here’s the first two paragraphs of the BBC report.
Senior judges say the foreign secretary is stopping them releasing details of CIA interrogation techniques – even though the US has published them.
The High Court says it wants to refer to previously classified documents as part of its judgement on the alleged mistreatment of Binyam Mohamed.
Interestingly, it would appear that the BBC’s web page links to the documents on the American Civil Liberties Union.
So if we can all read them on the web, why can’t the judges use them?
But then we are never given the truth by government when it suits them. Chevaline was the codename of the project by the Callaghan Government to update the Polaris missiles in the 1970s. It was kept secret for years and only a few years ago, the only full reference to it on the Internet was on the Federation of American Scientists.
We need a lot more information to be published. And not about MPs expenses, which is just peanuts compared to the dark and terrible secrets of things that governments do in our name.
The Anonymous Widower 