In the light of some recent disclosures regarding the escapades, either real or alleged, of our Security Agencies, as well as the huge assets of the American NSA, I would like to bring to your attention some statistics from a more local outfit, namely Durham County Council. They were amongst the many who were clamouring to gain access to our data, both private and public, so that we might be ‘better protected’, through the ‘SNOOPERS’ CHARTER’, allegedly killed off by Nick Clegg, but is reported as being returned to life as being ‘IMPORTANT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY’. Now I am not decrying the activities of our Secret Services, who already have a heavy job to do in controlling and slapping the wrists of all these tiresome Muslims who insist upon their right to bomb, maim and kill us because their Religion demands it, but, one side talks to another, so we should be at least concerned.
I asked our local Council in 2011 various questions regarding their activities under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which the Government has given them the power to covertly view, record and monitor our e-mail, phone and general behaviour.
Their reply, which was very illuminating, stated that, from 2007 to the end of 2009, there had been a total of 225 requests for surveillance operations. As they are now able to bring requests together into a block, (for statistical purposes only, you must understand ‘sarcasm alert’) there were a further possible 270 actual surveillance activities authorised to proceed. So, you may well ask, of this substantial number of intrusions into the private lives of residents of County Durham, how many resulted in prosecutions?
Well, the reply, taken verbatim from the Council’s letter to me was for a grand total of ONE.
Our response: There has been one successful prosecution which went to court in March 2011. This was a fly tipping offence caught on a covert CCTV camera.
Am I right in thinking that Maher is something of a (US) liberal/progressive? Or are his opinions more eclectic than that? I know he’s not a favourite among Republicans. He’s fawned all over Ron Paul on his show. Maybe some sense rubbed off onto him. Let’s hope he keeps moving that way instead of putting his hope and money in politicians who hate his freedoms more than any jihadist.
Remember when Cameron opposed government snooping into our lives? Not any more, clearly. His Communications Data Bill, dubbed the “snooper’s charter” (in reality, a Home Office Bill) would pay ISPs to log our complete online acts, allowing the police and intelligence agencies to easily discover what we’re each doing. What could possibly go wrong with that?
When you’re on the authoritarian side of Nick Clegg, you might have gone a bit far. Clegg has vowed to sink the Bill, vowing that it will not happen (audio here). Good luck to him, but he’s passing through while the bureaucracy is permanent. He might win now, but they only have to win once.
Speaking of authoritarian bastards, CISPA has passed the House of Representatives and is in the Senate. I’m sure that two such similar Bills appearing concurrently, thousands of miles apart in two friendly capitals, is no coincidence.
When they kick out your front door How you gonna come? With your hands on your head Or on the trigger of your gun
Remember those loons who warned that this can happen when you cede too many powers to the state? Here we see residents raided, forced out of their own home, at gunpoint, by shouting paramilitaries and marched up the street, hands raised in submission, in America in 2013 –
And when it was over, these goons were applauded by the locals.
Cenk Uygur neatly rounds up the significance of Rand Paul’s filibuster against the imperial presidency. Along the way he notices that some Dems, liberals and progressives, people who’d have gone up like their hair’s on fire if a certain ex-president had behaved like Obama, have suddenly gone AWOL.
GOP drones shouldn’t get off lightly either. They stood mute while a certain ex-president committed constitutional atrocity after constitional atrocity. Yet it’s only with a Dem in the White House that they’ve discovered a concern for such outrages. Whose shoulders do they think Obama stands on? Power-worshipping hypocrites, every last one of them.
A question for gun grabbers, after we first read of a happy outcome:
[A] woman was working in an upstairs office when she spotted a strange man outside a window, according to Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman. He said she took her 9-year-old twins to a crawlspace before the man broke in using a crowbar.
But the man eventually found the family.
“The perpetrator opens that door. Of course, at that time he’s staring at her, her two children and a .38 revolver,” Chapman told Channel 2’s Kerry Kavanaugh.
The woman then shot him five times, but he survived, Chapman said. He said the woman ran out of bullets but threatened to shoot the intruder if he moved.
“She’s standing over him, and she realizes she’s fired all six rounds. And the guy’s telling her to quit shooting,” Chapman said.
Two women were raped by an armed assailant on the roadside in Texas after being forced to pull over. The excuse for stopping them was that a cigarette butt was seen being thrown from the car. Rather conveniently, the male assailant claims to have then smelled marijuana in the car, leading to this –
Danny Alexander, money man for the mafia state, has been boycotting Starbucks despite it being perfectly tax-compliant.
Pauses to cackle madly …
Yep, Starbucks pays the tax that the law prescribes, but that’s not enough for the parasite Alexander, so he’s taking his (looted) money elsewhere. This is the Danny Alexander who dodged tax by flipping his taxpayer-funded home. He designated it his second home for the purposes of expenses but told the HMRC it was his first home. By charging through this MP-designed loophole he was quids in, the dirty, thieving, lying bastard.
It’s been said in here before that the savage state is always hungry for our wealth. It’s now bullied Starbucks, the Quislings, into paying even more tax than is legally required. That’s just the start. This one retailer will now increase prices and lower wages and sack staff so it pays more tax – do you see how it works yet?
Well done Tory drones, you’ve been suckered again. Digital Dave Cameron spoke often about the surveillance state prior to the election, promising to roll it back and protect civil liberties. That’s what the Tories thought about it, on the left, from page 79 of the 2010 manifesto.
Roll forward a couple of years and Interior Minister Theresa von May thinks that all of our communications must be recorded, that the state must have access, and that if we disagree we must be on the side of terrorists and kiddie-fiddlers.
Well done Tory drones, you were suckered yet again. When will you learn that the major political parties are one LibLabCon party? When will it penetrate your thick skulls that nothing changes whoever gains power because they’re on the same side and advocate exactly the same policies?
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