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I didn’t seek election to roll forward Labour’s surveillance state

Via Government web surveillance: ‘Expensive, impractical, totalitarian’ – Telegraph: The Government’s plan to make Internet Service Providers capture personal communications data is nothing new. It was brought up under the last Labour government as the “Intercept Modernisation Programme” and received heavy criticism from the Tory party in opposition. The article concentrates on the practicalities of recording people’s internet activity. For a more philosophical point of view about why it shouldn’t be attempted, see Sam Bowman’s Our road to serfdom. Meanwhile, [...]

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Tory MP says HMRC ‘menacing’ letters show state is using ‘sinister’ psychology | News | Money Marketing

Updated. A story on Money Marketing, reporting my comments to them on a letter that two of my constituents received from HMRC as a first demand (notwithstanding HMRC’s claim in the article that it is only sent as a third reminder): A Conservative MP says recent letters from HM Revenue & Customs demanding people pay up or face having their possessions auctioned is an example of behavioural psychology now being employed by the Government. And He says: “We now have [...]

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Speech on the retention of DNA from those arrested but not charged or convicted

I spoke yesterday on clause 3 of the Protection of Freedoms Bill in committee. It relates to the retention of DNA from those arrested but not convicted. Via Hansard: Steve Baker: I support the clause. We have heard a great deal this afternoon about balance; in particular, the balance between evidence and principle has come out in hon. Members’ remarks. Consideration of that balance speaks very much to the nature of the clause. A lot of the talk has been [...]

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Civil rights organisations capitulate on CCTV reduction – Big Brother Watch

From the excellent JP Floru: Yesterday I witnessed the lamentable spectacle of civil rights organisations bending over backwards not to lose their wished for influence over the government’s civil rights agenda. I attended a Freedom Bill Committee hearing in Parliament.  The witnesses included spokespeople for the human rights organisations Justice and Liberty.  At issue was the CCTV part of the proposed Freedom Bill. Read the rest of the article via Civil rights organisations capitulate on CCTV reduction – Big Brother [...]

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Private versus Public Nudging

Via Private versus Public Nudging « Mark Pennington on Pileus: Listening to Professor Thaler I was reminded of the claim made by many socialists in the past – Lenin being perhaps the most prominent – that since private firms routinely engage in ‘planning’ there should not be any concern about the state ‘planning’ on  a society wide scale. Yet, as Hayek noted on numerous occasions, to recognise that ‘planning ‘ is an essential element of a progressive society tells us nothing [...]

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The Prisoner and “Mindspace”

I just discovered the Cabinet Office and Institute for Government publication, MINDSPACE, Influencing behaviour through public policy (THE PRACTICAL GUIDE). It put me in mind of this: Number Two: I am definitely an optimist. That’s why it doesn’t matter “who” Number One is. It doesn’t matter which “side” runs the Village. Number Six: It’s run by one side or the other. Number Two: Oh certainly, but both sides are becoming identical. What in fact has been created is an international [...]

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Why we need Big Brother Watch

Something posted by Big Brother Watch on DNA prompted me to glance back at Albert Speer’s Inside The Third Reich. In the conclusions to this book, the war criminal wrote, referring to his final remarks at Nuremburg: The criminal events of those years were not only an outgrowth of Hitler’s personality. The extent of the crimes was also due to the fact that Hitler was the first to be able to employ the implements of technology to multiply crime. I [...]

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The Great Deception

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This post from 5 April 2009 seems appropriate to bring forward, following yesterday’s motion on EU economic governance. Today, I shall be remembering those who have fought and died for our freedom over the years. A good time to complete Booker and North’s extensive history of the European Union — “The Great Deception – Can the European Union survive?” — seemed to be these last few weeks, as I visited Portugal, France, Germany and Austria. It was an enlightening read. [...]

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The view from Wycombe: Big Brother or the Big Society? – Big Brother Watch

Via The view from Wycombe: Big Brother or the Big Society? – Big Brother Watch, I respond to the recent Guerilla stickering in the town: In the last few days, we have had a round of guerrilla stickering in Wycombe. There was the sticker of the week. Then there was talk of prosecution at the Bucks Free Press. Finally, the sticker returned. Now, it is a good photograph. As a totem for the surveillance society, it is superb. Perhaps some even [...]

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On trial by jury

Via The Last Ditch: Another step toward the abyss: I despair. The right to trial by jury has protected Englishmen from an over-mighty state since long before democracy was born. Combined with the Great Writ of habeas corpus, it meant you could not be detained without trial and that your trial must be by 12 independent jurors. For most of the last 400 years, those jurors were required to decide unanimously that you were guilty. If they couldn’t, you were [...]

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Steve Baker is MP for Wycombe. He was previously an RAF officer then a business software consultant. Find out more...

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