Charles Nesson, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School:
“the idea of imposing law on the global ocean of free bits that has flooded into cyberspace is a gross and harmful over-extension of the power of the state and authority of the law.”
Does our government like us? Henry Porter has his doubts (they’re my doubts too).
The left, at least as we see it in government, gives the impression of not really liking the British people and so finds every possible pretext to chivvy, nudge, monitor, watch and criminalise its behaviour. How else do we explain the 3,500 new criminal offences that have been brought in by Labour or the expensive programmes of surveillance and data capture, which have done nothing to alleviate child poverty or address the wealth gap but a great deal to extend state power?
It is “totally unacceptable” for Ordnance Survey not to provide maps suitable for the digital economy, said former Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson at the Guardian’s Activate 09 summit - part-sponsored by Ordnance Survey - last week.
(There may be other ways of doing this, but FWIW…) If you’ve ever wanted to reduce workspace clutter by merging two terminal instances, you can do this easily by creating a tabbed view within one of the instances (SHIFT+CTRL+T) and dragging the tab (or tabs) you wish to merge to the other instance. Simple eh?
Can’t confirm if this works in KDE, but I suspect it does
To understand what’s really behind the furore over MPs’ expenses, it’s necessary to understand that it’s not primarily about whether or not it’s right to claim for moat-cleaning, or even about whether or not claiming for non-existent mortgage payments is fraud. It’s about a conspiracy (sic) to hide the workings of parliament from the people it serves, from the people who fund it. Tin-foil hat stuff? Have a read of the following. It explains the background to this whole sorry saga.
EDIT: After alluding to it in the title above, I neglected to mention the following jaw-dropping quote in the article above from the head of the House of Commons Fees Office, Andrew Walker: “Transparency will damage democracy.” Given the sustained assault on civil rights and personal liberty that members of parliament have been responsible for over the last decade or so, that they and their officers can display indignation over what they perceive as an invasion of MPs’ privacy, is quite stunning hypocrisy and arrogance.
These fines arise, after all, from the abuse of monopoly power. And there are no greater abuses than those associated with intellectual monopolies – patents and copyrights. The more that the European Commission punishes such monopolies, the sooner, it seems to me, it will be forced to confront the worst monopolies – those actually backed by its constituent governments. If it wants to make the European markets truly fair, and to promote competition, it should not just be hitting big, bad companies that bully competitors, but the big, bad system that has such bullying at its heart.
UPDATE: a perfect illustration of the type of monopoly tolerated and facilitated by governments, legislation and regulatory frameworks: the ultimate form of legal extortion
Remember all that stuff about how Tasers were humane, non-lethal replacements for firearms? About how police officers would only use them against knife and gun-wielding crims or any other situation in which an officer feared for his life or safety? At least, that was the official justfication. However, as was predicted by many, their principal use in the US has turned out to be the subjugation of anyone refusing to comply with a police officer’s orders, and this is a much larger section of the public than those wielding dangerous weapons.
In this video the man could have just been handcuffed, arrested and charged with whatever offence he was committing. In a democratic, accountable society it’s the job of the courts to meter out punishment, but these officers couldn’t be bothered with all that pesky bureaucracy. After the obese officer’s cowardly and dangerous knee drop into the nudist’s stomach failed to hurt the prone man sufficiently, three fit, well-trained policemen really should have been able to render him immobile, even though handicapped by wearing little gloves to protect them from germs. They can certainly do this in Japan, but then Japanese police officers aren’t too fat to tie their own shoe-laces, they all practise judo or aiki-jutsu and their primary concern isn’t avoiding getting their Ray-Bans bent or their shirts creased. I realise it’s a bit much to expect the porkers in this video to do much else other than sit on people, wave batons around or pull triggers, but it would be nice for the American public if their ordinary police officers were fit and capable enough to be able to subdue suspects of highly questionable threat without resorting to torture methods or lethal force.
Of course, a single video does not constitute evidence of widespread abuse of the device by police officers. But then, that’s why we have services like delicious. If you’re not up to speed with the Taser issue, I suggest you spend a few minutes scanning the following link’s listings:
