OUR CARING OFFICIALS

It is good to read a nice heartwarming story of how a public servant went out of his/her way to help someone......

Unfortunately I couldn't find one and nearly exploded with rage when I read about the ba*&%$^d who slapped a parking ticket on a car when the couple inside pulled over to see to their baby daughter who was having difficulty breathing and needed an inhaler, ...... obviously just doing his job of course.......... I'm not normally violent but reckon I could be in that situation!!

'Callous' warden gives parents parking ticket after they pull over to help sick baby daughter

A couple were shocked to be issued a parking fine after pulling over to help their sick child.

Christine Ireland, 23, and partner Christopher Horton, 29, claim they had stopped the car to give their breathless baby daughter Caitlin an inhaler when a parking warden approached.

When they explained the emergency, he allegedly told them 'that's not my problem' and gave them a £70 fine.

The couple said they were driving through Hull, Yorkshire, on Tuesday after visiting their bank in the city centre when Caitlin started struggling to breathe.

She was born with a collapsed lung and pneumonia and has an undiagnosed breathing condition.

Miss Ireland, who is a full-time carer for her daughter, said: 'We were driving home when Caitlin's breathing became really heavy.

'We pulled over to the nearest safe place, which was a bus stop, to give her an inhaler.

'Then a parking warden knocked on our window. He told us we couldn't park there and started writing out a ticket.

She said the warden insisted they move on and even threatened to report them to the police if they didn't.

She said: 'He just kept saying "that child should be in a car seat" and that he was going to report us to the police.

'Caitlin was in a car seat, but I took her out as she always puts up a fight when you give her the medication.

'I told the warden she was a sick child with a condition, but he just said "you need to move off or I'll report you". I couldn't believe he still issued us with a ticket.



READ MORE at:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1138284/Callous-warden-gives-parents-parking-ticket-pull-help-sick-baby-daughter.html

Expenses row: 'Lodger' deal earns Jacqui Smith £100,000 as she claims sister's house is main home

I know it is a fantasy of mine, but I really would like to see an honest politician who clearly felt they were serving the public and should only spend OUR money in a responsible and frugal manner instead of fleecing the taxpayer at every possible opportunity.

Today I read in the Daily Mail about Jaquie Smith's expenses. While her family lives in the West Midlands, she claims that her sister's house in London is her main residence and therefore her family home is a second home necessary because of her parliamentary duties.

Now, I'm wondering, if you were in business and made a similar claim - would the inland revenue accept it? or would they tell you where to get off and get real!!

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has claimed more than £116,000 in Commons expenses for a 'second home' while effectively lodging with her sister.

Ms Smith claims the maximum parliamentary second-home allowance, currently a tax-free £24,006 a year, on the detached house in her West Midlands constituency, where her husband and two young children live and which she bought for £300,000 five years ago.

She is able to do so because she has told the Commons authorities that her 'main home' is a house in London owned solely by her sister, Sara, where she stays on some weekdays.

Nor is this the only large expense caused by the Home Secretary's decision to share her sister's house.

Two policemen provide a round-the-clock guard at the South London property, costing taxpayers an estimated £200,000 a year. The two officers are stationed at the property on a shift basis.

There would have been no need for such protection had Ms Smith opted to live in one of two vacant grace-and-favour ministerial homes in Whitehall when she became Home Secretary in 2007 as they already have police protection.

READ MORE at:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1138782/Expenses-row-Lodger-deal-earns-Jacqui-Smith-100-000-claims-sisters-house-main-home.html

Spy centre will track you on holiday

I have read the following article today in the Times. One more step towards a total surveillance society, I used to think that the UK was becoming more and more like George Orwell's book 1984, now I think we have gone way past it in many respects - George Orwell couldn't imagine how technology could advance so far and control so many facets of our lives.

THE government is building a secret database to track and hold the international travel records of all 60m Britons.

The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details for all 250m passenger movements in and out of the UK each year.

The computerised pattern of every individual’s travel history will be stored for up to 10 years, the Home Office admits.

The government says the new database, to be housed in an industrial estate in Wythenshawe, near Manchester, is essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration and terrorism. However, opposition MPs, privacy campaigners and some government officials fear it is a significant step towards a total surveillance society.

Some immigration officials with knowledge of the plans admit there is likely to be public concern. “A lot of this stuff will have a legitimate use in the fight against crime and terrorism, but it’s what else it could be used for that presents a problem,” said one.

“It will be able to detect whether parents are taking their children abroad during school holidays. It could be useful to the tax authorities because it will tell them how long non-UK domiciled people are spending in the UK.”

The database is also expected to monitor people’s travel companions.

READ MORE at:-
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article5683677.ece

The surveillance society has arrived

Fears that the UK would "sleep-walk into a surveillance society" have become a reality, the government's information commissioner has said.

Richard Thomas, who said he raised concerns two years ago, spoke after research found people's actions were increasingly being monitored.

Researchers highlight "dataveillance", the use of credit card, mobile phone and loyalty card information, and CCTV.

Monitoring of work rates, travel and telecommunications is also rising.

There are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain - about one for every 14 people.

But surveillance ranges from US security agencies monitoring telecommunications traffic passing through Britain, to key stroke information used to gauge work rates and GPS information tracking company vehicles, the Report on the Surveillance Society says.

Download Surveillance Society Report

READ MORE at:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6108496.stm

CCTV boom has not cut crime, says police chief. But more money will be spent on it!

What a surprise!

Someone has finally realised that the multitude of CCTV cameras installed all over the country, providing practically continuous coverage of everything we do, have nothing to do with crime reduction.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville said it was a “fiasco” that only 3 per cent of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV.

Unfortunately, in true government style, this means that they will throw more money at it.

Britain has more CCTV cameras than any other country in Europe. But Mr Neville is reported in The Guardian as saying that more training was needed for officers who often avoided trawling through CCTV images “because it’s hard work”.

Viido had launched a series of initiatives including a new database of images that will be used to track and identify offenders using software developed for the advertising industry ....... and building a national CCTV database that will hold images of convicted criminals and unidentified suspects.

READ MORE at:-
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3877670.ece

Some links to videos on surveillance

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_6100000/newsid_6108500?redirect=6108562.stm&news=1&bbwm=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1&nbram=1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6100000/newsid_6108500/6108562.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&news=1&bbcws=1

Privacy International Report on Data Sharing

The UK government has proposed to legislate, in its 'Coroners and Justice Bill', for wide scale sharing of personal data. The scale of the danger to privacy should be seen in the light of other current UK proposals, such as mass communications data surveillance and nationwide vehicle surveillance. These latter projects constitute a major threat, but do not encompass the breadth or potential corrosive effect on existing protections.

The mass exchange of personal information has the potential to deliver some benefit, however it also presents vast risks associated with governance, privacy, security and human autonomy. In the rush to institute data sharing, these aspects have largely been ignored.

Privacy International took the decision to prepare this report on the basis both of the dangers inherent in the legislative proposals and the unprecedented way in which they have been created.

The aim of this report is to bring to the attention of the public, parliament and media the urgent need to consider the extraordinary dangers created by the proposal. Previously people’s consent was required, but now the consent of the governed is not longer being sought. In fact, the Government’s proposal eradicates consent from the governing framework, thus placing not only our data at risk but also fundamental tenets of our democracy.

Conclusions

This policy has been the overarching vision of the UK Government since the late 1990s. We are surprised it has taken so long to devise a policy of this breadth and with such disregard for even the most basic safeguards. Despite continuous debates about genetic databases, health databases, and biometric databases, everything has been done to ignore debate on this policy. This can serve only to destabilise any decision made by Parliament on these other matters.

The problems with this law is as follows:

1. Based on an illegitimate consultation process over a ten-year period, created to justify whatever the Government drafted into law. Even the Information Commissioner’s Office has been compromised.
2. Avoids Parliamentary scrutiny by pushing orders through secondary legislation.
3. Consists of meaningless protections and oversight, where the ICO may provide comments to Parliament in a process where Parliament is not permitted to amend the order.

The report is available in full in PDF here.

Visit Privacy International at:-

http://www.privacyinternational.org/index.shtml