The Liberal Democrats have gone on the offensive with the launch of The Freedom Bill.
The Freedom Bill would restore civil liberties and democratic rights in Britain - and with your help we can make it happen. The Freedom Bill will reverse laws introduced under successive Conservative and Labour governments, reinstating ancient freedoms like the right [...]
Long Live Devolution!
The Scottish Government has written to Westminster expressing their continued opposition to the national identity scheme. In a move that’s sure to add weight to the argument from the anti-ID brigade, Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing MSP said the scheme posed an “unacceptable threat to citizen’s civil liberties and privacy”. He also criticised [...]
The Number10 ePetitions website was set up some time ago to allow the public to get together and demand a response from Government on an issue. This one caught my eye:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to hold a referendum on ID cards and the National Identity Register
In view of the government’s inability to [...]
The Independent’s Home Affairs correspondent Ben Russell reports the parliamnetary debate on the data sharing clauses in the Coroners and Justice Bill:
But Dominic Grieve, the shadow Justice Secretary, said the plans would “drive a coach and horses through the traditional relationship between the state and individuals” to serve a “nebulous case of public good”. He [...]
I would like to add my name along with the Barcode Nation as a whole to the following letter from today’s Guardian:
With the approval of parliament, our government is planning to hold more information about us than ever before. It wants a national identity database of every UK citizen, identity cards for many UK residents, DNA [...]
The Guardian has published a very useful guide to the Identity Cards Act 2006. As well as describing the main provisions of the act, the article goes on to discuss the background leading up to it and significant coverage of the criticisms, notably from Liberty and NO2ID.
Well worth a read. It’s also a useful link [...]
…it may just land you with a visit from Plod.
The BBC’s Five Live Breakfast sparked a flurry of anti-surveillance texts this morning following their story on internet companies being forced to keep records of our emails.
From March, new legislation will force ISPs to keep information about every e-mail sent or received in the UK for one year. [...]
Reports that police have been granted new powers to snoop on your PC without a warrant have been denied by the Home Office.
According to the Sunday Times report, the Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan via Europe to allow police across Britain to conduct “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers to [...]
Police have used anti-terrorism legislation to stop more than 60,000 people near railway lines between October 2007 and September 2008.
The figures, unveiled by the Liberal Democrats, show that a further 60,000 people were stopped using stop-and-search powers.
There is a wide interest in railways in this country and to stop someone simply for taking a photograph [...]
