Police create mega crime database to rule them all. Is your numberplate in it? Could be The police are to consolidate a number of their large databases into a single "platform" in order to "protect victims and spot potential links to other crimes." The plans for a "National Law Enforcement Data Programme" were announced by the Home Office today and will bring together data from the Police National Computer, …
Innocent unless proven guilty has never been a part of English law; it didn't apply to Lady Jane, didn't apply during the Boer War, didn't apply to Oswald Mosely, doesn't apply to holders of a driving licence and doesn't apply to a whole load of suspects, professionals, and other persona non grata today.
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Your appearance in court could depend on correct grammar and legal arguments!
It will certainly depend upon legal arguments. The trick lies, of course, in what the law allows and in how good your lawyers are*.
*Obviously this no longer applies if the government have removed access to legal aid from you because you have no money and/or fall into a category of society they don't much like.
"innocent until proven guilty" implies you're accused of breaking a law.
Cameron has specifically said that this doesn't apply any more.
“For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'”
members of the public have a responsibility to follow some basic rules to protect ourselves – choosing the more secure products....downloading software updates, particularly on our smartphones....
Right, so it is my fault that Android has more holes than a colander? And my fault if a carrier branded handset doesn't get updated because either the OEM, or the carrier can't be bothered to incorporate Google's latest half baked efforts to address vulnerabilities?
.
Sure. I'm willing to bury the hatchet on pointless left/right politics. But there is a lot of self-serving anti-democratic elements in politics that we can't just vote out every 5 years.
What is an individual to do?
History being mostly cyclical, what did we do last time?
"You will elect an English version of Trump - the UK is heading in the same direction when politicians of both sides only cater to the rich."
Whilst it isn't certain that Trump will win the election, I agree with the sentiment. Western politics is going through a very bad time, and the quality of "leaders" is going down continually. I probably won't be around to see it, but revolution is becoming more and more likely by the end of the 21st century.
I was thinking more along the lines of civil disobedience.
Trouble is, that kind of thing only works if people are motivated, and most people only seem to be motivated by simple, easy to understand, subjects. (which encryption/privacy/mass surveillance are not)
If (when?) people do finally wake up and smell the shackles, the internet is a grand tool for organisation. The only thing that would prevent it would be if it had been totally compromised by the vested powers who might conceivable object to such disobedience.
Oh yeah, it's all for terrorists, right.
I was always told to never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. Never did find out what happened to them when they disappeared.
I am Sparticus and so are you, and you and you etc.
In the US, the people trying to put it right are called "Bernie bots", and denied coverage in print and television, except as comic relief. AC because I trust, in the toxic political atmosphere, somebody will take out their (now legal anywhere) firearm and.....
"And tin openers. I'm sure criminals use tin openers too."
Not the crims that come to mind when talking about surveillance, encryption, terrrrrism etc. They usually eat in 5 star restaurants and get the dinner paid by the common pleb - us tax payers, who are supposed to be grateful that they protect us from whatever it is they think threatens us. (I'd argue that terrorism is a minuscule risk in comparison to truly ciminal pot holes on many British roads, but I'm getting carried away... again..)
Agreed. As has been said by many people here over the last few years, I am far more worried about the government than I am about criminals or terrrists. A criminal or a terrrrist** can make life miserable for a few people, but a government can do it for millions*,**. It is becoming more clear that the government's priorities are not the same as the population's when it comes to security - and why might that be.
* Unless the criminal is a data-thief.
** The two recent well-planned attacks in target-rich environments account for less then 1000 direct casualties, showing how difficult it is to cause mayhem with the tools available.
One of the great things about getting rid of Gordon the Clown was that several databases being implemented to keep the proles in order got the chop. Yet increasingly May is just as bad as the string of Home Secretaries we suffered under Labour. It is becoming increasingly apparent that it matters not one fig what colour ties the residents of Downing Street wear. The real power in this country is elsewhere, constant and answers to no one. We just get to choose the puppets every 5 years.
"We need to recognise that the crime prevention challenge has evolved – we now need to prevent serious harm that happens inside victims’ homes, or to stop a cyber-criminal on the other side of the world from targeting thousands of people here with a single keystroke."
Sadly, this will likely do nothing to prevent the most common crime that happens in people's homes - domestic violence. This is one of the most under-reported crimes, and unless you have been a victim (or a perpetrator), you would likely think that it is much less common than it actually is - astoundingly one in twelve women is a victim of some sort of domestic abuse every year (and yes, it does happen to men too).
What we really need is a cultural change towards acceptance of violence of all sorts in our society, be it the public brawl on the high street on a Friday night, or the more insidious violence that happens behind closed doors, and this is an area where predictive policing could really help. If a woman is in a new relationship with a partner who has a record of violence against other women (a common pattern of domestic violence), it is not beyond the realms of possibility that this link can be identified, and the woman warned.
I doubt, however, that this programme will help in this way. It'll probably be politically led, looking for the vanishingly small number of terrorists under every stone, whilst ignoring the real crimes that actually affect people's lives every day. It'll be target-led, leading to easy to solve but low impact crimes (like littering,or parking on double-yellows) skewing the system.
I was mulling this over the other day. You can tot up a person's role as an "assailant" quite readily, and this happens. But nowhere is it totalled up the person's "role" as a "victim".
I'm mentioning this because the ex-wife is a serial fruitcake - quite happy to wind people up, picking at their soft-spots which she has an uncanny and instinctive ability to identify and exploit, until they snap and lash out at which point she's straight on the phone to plod who cart off her "assailant".
The thought arose as I was driving out to the depths of the county where the new custody suite is many miles away from the old one after she had our teenage child arrested for the twentieth time. He apparently angrily grabbed at the coat she'd thrown at him in a fit of temper and the tails had whiplashed out causing the heavy bunch of keys in the pocket to swipe her across the face. Has he ever been arrested for assaulting anyone else? No. Have I ever been arrested for assaulting anyone else? No. Have any of her three boyfriends prior to me that I know of who assaulted her and the two afterwards in a similar position ever been arrested for assaulting anyone else? I've no idea about that one.
It seems to me that she'll use the police and the criminalisation of someone as a means of acquiring power over a significant male. I wish I'd realised that was how some people operate instead of believing naively that a relationship was a partnership instead of some kind of uneasy cold war balance of power.
Perhaps richer data will allow more slicing to identify patterns like this. But I expect the police (a) won't have time, (b) be limited by policy and (c) don't give a f***.
"What we really need is a cultural change towards acceptance of violence of all sorts in our society, be it the public brawl on the high street on a Friday night, or the more insidious violence that happens behind closed doors, and this is an area where predictive policing could really help."
I doubt it'll work. Violence is damn near instinctive, probably even biological. That's why it feels so damn GOOD to vent steam, to shoot guns at nothing in particular, to unload on a punching bag, and so on. I would say getting rid of violence is going to be a tall order when our bodies are against us in that regard.
Violence is damn near instinctive, probably even biological.
This is true, but there is a clear distinction between cultural tolerance of violence, and it being culturally unacceptable.
After all, in many cultures, adult men are still marrying child brides, but our culture doesn't accept this.
Most people are able to overcome the 'natural instincts' to go around trying to have sex with anything that moves, defecate wherever they like, and grab hold of anything that takes their fancy. Violence against each other can go the same way, without too much difficulty, as far as I am concerned. Those who really cannot keep themselves form lashing out should really be locked away, either in prison, or in a psychiatric institution, depending on whether a judge deems them 'mad or bad'.
"Most people are able to overcome the 'natural instincts' to go around trying to have sex with anything that moves, defecate wherever they like, and grab hold of anything that takes their fancy."
We're NOT "overcoming" them. We're merely repressing them. Thing is, it builds up like water behind a dam, and the dam doesn't have very solid foundations. Or perhaps a better analogy, a forest that keeps getting tinder built up. Sooner or later, the dam's going to break down or the forest is going to flash into a blaze. Why do you think we see so much scandal these days? We LIKE to think we're creatures who can control our emotions, but when crisis hits, what do we turn to? Not the brain, the gut, and like I said we do it practically on a reflex, without even thinking so we don't even have time to consider our actions until it's too damn late.
@"This is one of the most under-reported crimes, "
@"astoundingly one in twelve women is a victim of some sort of domestic abuse every year"
Unreported, yet you claim to know the true number. By magic? Or just made up to support an agenda. I think its the latter.
If you're spouse beats you up you can report it to the police, if the police beat you up, well tough.
As to whether the spouse should take minor violence as a police matter, isn't that a matter for the spouse? Their judgement call not yours? I have a few scars from my wife, and I view that as par for the course. My judgement is the correct one, not yours. I make the choice individually based on the person, not Google or Magic 8 ball data mining.
@"I doubt, however, that this programme will help in this way. It'll probably be politically led, looking for the vanishingly small number of terrorists under every stone,"
Are you suggesting that the police be watching inside people's homes? Seriously, you might want to read up on why the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad was disbanded (lots of dead bodies, not a single police prosecuted). If domestic violence is such a big problem in your mind, yet is such a small problem it goes unreported, perhaps the problem is in your mind?
Unreported, yet you claim to know the true number. By magic? Or just made up to support an agenda. I think its the latter.
Based, on facts, if you'd bothered to check for yourself.
http://www.lwa.org.uk/understanding-abuse/statistics.htm
"on average there will have been 35 assaults before a victim calls the police" - so yes, vastly under-reported.
What I am suggesting is letting people know if their partner has a history of violent crime (something that in some circumstances they can already check for themselves, but I believe it needs to be more proactive).
As for the police beating people up, do you have any sources for that, or did you invent it to suit an agenda? It might have been a historical problem, but these days, with CCTV in police stations, and almost everything being referred to the IPCC, I think you'll find that it's a very small problem, compared to domestic violence.
My partner happens to work with victims of crime, a large number of whom are victims of domestic abuse, so I happen to have some inkling of what I'm talking about. Unlike you, it seems.
Ah the infamous 2 women a week stat made up by a pr DROID at wimmins aid. A figure so imaginary that even the cps stopped using it.
And that's before you look at the incredible level of false reports of DV in child contact proceedings as a contact blocking strategy.
Much like false rape allegations the real victims end up doubly victimised by those making false allegations.
A database of violent partners is a good idea, as is a database of those who make false allegations. Some prosecutions of them would be welcome as well but the man hating femonazis have an issue with that.
@"Based, on facts,"
A PR report from a domestic abuse charity is PR, not fact.
You are seeking to claim crimes for which the claimed victim does not claim as a crime. The victim knows better than you, they were actually there. You are classic nanny state, fixing non crimes from your own imagination.
@"As for the police beating people up, do you have any sources for that, or did you invent it to suit an agenda? "
Let me ask you a simple thing. If 1 in 12 people are domestically violent as you claim, why would 1 in 12 police not be domestically violent? i.e. what makes the men in uniform special? Wouldn't stronger men use to applying violence be more prone to using violence?
Now go back and read about why the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad was disbanded, basically murders during torture, covered with falsification of evidence.
They're not special, there are good and bad, violent, calm, psycho, balanced among them. The SYSTEM of checks and balances is what gives us the stability we have, not some sort of magic goodness in the officers themselves.
This article says the police want a giant fishing database. i.e. an end to the privacy right, and no checks and balances and removal of judicial process, and the right to challenge. How would we protect the people from mafia police? You couldn't even run to the press in a world where journalists are the most watched!
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