Thursday 4 December 2008

Simply delightful!

Civil liberties? We shit 'em:

Personal information detailing intimate aspects of the lives of every British citizen is to be handed over to government agencies under sweeping new powers. The measure, which will give ministers the right to allow all public bodies to exchange sensitive data with each other, is expected to be rushed through Parliament in a Bill to be published tomorrow.


Rushed through? Without a debate? Without any concerns for our rights? Wow. I'm amazed.

ministers could authorise the swapping of information between councils, the police, NHS trusts, the Inland Revenue, education authorities, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, the Department for Work and Pensions and other ministries.


... and anybody else they feel like. And all those banks they we now own? Yep, they'll be sharing your bank details with every motherfucker who cares to peruse them. And they'll be sold on the black market or just lost like all the other fucking data losses.

I simply refuse to accept that there isn't some malign purpose behind all this. You don't start fucking around with 800 years of accepted practice on a whim. Something is definitely going on.

And I don't like where it's going.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The Ministry of Justice said data-sharing was essential for the delivery of "efficient and effective public services, tackling crime and protecting the public"."

Didn't I read that in a book 50 years ago?

Anonymous said...

Hang on, I just realised, isn't this illegal under the Data Protection Act?

I s'pose like everything else now, it's illegal for my small business to do it, but it's not illegal for the grey men.

Anonymous said...

"...isn't this illegal under the Data Protection Act?"

That'll soon be rectified, I'm sure...

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately I think you're wrong. This is exactly the kind of government that would fuck around with traditions on a whim.

Feeling inadequate? Break something down - it's much easier than actually building something new (that works). These bastards have been destroying institutions, traditions and precedents since they came into power; all under the guise of 'reform'

Forgive me for my naivete, but I thought reform was meant to make things better - not to take the spark and character of a nation with all its individual quirks and evolved customs, and then chuck it all in a blender to make some sort of politically-correct, acceptibly-nutritious brown soup which might keep the dead-eyed masses alive in dull, equal misery, but tastes like boiled-up pages of the Guardian.

It's ignorance coupled with arrogance - plain and simple. History created something beautiful, interesting, functional? Don't understand it? Clearly it must be easy to do it better; so smash it down with your Great Clunking Fist...

...and then appoint a quango to badly ape the thing you've ruined in the first place - with focus groups, doublespeak, optimisation consultants, special advisers and 'inclusiveness facilitators' - whatever the hell they are. After all, it's all about job creeeeation, right?

God, I hate those jealous, arrogant, puffed-up, oxygen-thieving little grey bastards. Get back to the level of your competence, you shaved, suited chimps - i.e. kill yourselves and do the world some good as compost.

Anonymous said...

john miller: "The Ministry of Justice said data-sharing "

You guys, this government has taken data sharing very seriously indeed, they shared the data of all the recipients of child benefit, then they shared the data of all the people known to the tax authorities, then I am sure they have shared even more data.

Give them a break!