ralpress.org

It’s such a relief to finally see a mainstream media organization nailing these issues and making a concerted attempt to track the progress of the creeping totalitarianism that is ongoing today. At last, people more eloquent than the average blogger, or El Reg hack, are pitching in and comprehensively covering the erosion of our civil liberties and the employment of digital technology as a pervasive and overbearing mechanism of control.

Henry Porter writes:

“There will come a day when everyone understands that the Justice Minister Jack Straw ranks as one of the bigger menaces to our free society. Whatever issue you care to consider – the macro or the micro – Jack Straw is chipping away at freedom, accountability and openness. He really should be hauled before a commission of good democrats, exposed and made to account for his sins with community service order and a Day-Glo jacket.

Today we will look at a micro issue – the disgraceful behaviour of his department over the Courts and Tribunal Enforcement Act, the law which ends 400 years of the tradition that an Englishman’s home is his castle and allows bailiffs to march into that home and seize what goods they like in settlement of a fine (think ID card fines; think of the pressure people are going to experience in this recession).”

Source: Your home is no longer your castle

Has your government secretly classed you as a “pre-terrorist” on account of your political actions or beliefs? Alberto Toscano has written a disturbing article on the Liberty Central website that highlights the stakes involved with the development of the “new authoritarianism” that is infecting so many of Europe’s political leaders.

It’s not only political dissenters who are in the sights of those who prefer to focus on “ruling” rather than “serving”. Whatever you may think of football and the fans who follow it, you should be aware of current police treatment of football supporters, if only because what is happening to football fans today will no doubt be happening to runway protesters (and their ilk) tomorrow. [UPDATE: it's happened: Campaigners monitored by civil servants]

And while on the subject of the police acting in an illegal overbearing manner, let’s not forget that many police officers are due to be equipped with Tasers this year. These are devices the ostensible purpose of which is to reduce the need to use firearms against citizens, but which, as the American police have repeatedly demonstrated, often end up being used to simply compel unruly, noisy or merely irritating citizens to obey the wielding officers’ commands. (EDIT: never mind the US police, you don’t have to go that far to find officers gratuitously electrocuting citizens)

Just checking for pre-terrorists.

*Image from Mike Langridge’s flickr collection. Mike has kindly made this picture available for public use using the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licence.

Tony Benn talks in today’s Guardian about why he supports that publication’s new website, Liberty Central and its support for the Convention on Modern Liberty (an event Melissa and I will be attending):

“Of course we need good government. Of course we need it to have policies that deliver greater social justice and equality. But the more influential government becomes the more it is essential that it respects our liberties. Its obligation must be to serve the people, not rule over them. We have to insist on this principle. It is not a matter of left or right, Tory or Labour.

In fact it is essential to defend liberty to the hilt especially if, like me, you want a government that can protect the weak and vulnerable. The more government has influence over economic and social policy, the more democratic, open, accountable and respectful of our liberties it needs to be. Otherwise, if it is not based on the wishes of a free people, the rich and powerful corporations will take advantage of any lack of democracy”.

Liberty is Crucial to Democracy

UPDATE: Sadly, it sound like these guys didn’t get the memo.

The Open Rights Group has produced a video that neatly encapsulates the objections to the EU’s proposed Copyright Term Extension Directive:

How copyright extension in sound recordings actually works

(If you don’t have Flash installed, an Ogg Vorbis version can be found here)

This is a directive that the Max Planck Institute in Munich, The University for Information Law in Amsterdam,  The Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law in Cambridge and The Centre for Intellectual Property Policy Management in Bournemouth have unanimously agreed is unjustified, going so far as to jointly declare it as “a deliberate attempt to mislead the European Parliament” (Source? See the above video).

I’ve left it rather late (but hopefully not too late) to urge anyone reading this to contact their MEP with regard to this matter. Background information and MEP contact details can be found here.

There’s a useful and reasonably comprehensive history of Python web application framework development on the (revamped only yesterday) Pylons site: Pylons Historical Timeline

Despite the title, and despite the article being on the site of one of the frameworks discussed, it appears to be a reasonably uncontroversial and even-handed treatment. If you’re new to the convoluted world of Python web development, this should help you sort your Zopes from your Twisteds and your TurboGears from your Djangos. It also makes clear the purpose and role of the WSGI specification.

Shot on morning of 11 january, 2009 (click image to see larger version).

The BBC’s caption for the unfortunate Colorado skier:

“The man dangled for about seven minutes.”

Ahem

(Click on “Enlarge Image” to see caption)

Bread, without the fish…

Atheist bank notes