Harry's Place

This puts me in mind of that scene in The Dark Knight where Batman uses mobile phones to effectively give him bat like sonar…

The council would have to have a specific suspect in mind and evidence for that suspicion, if the evidence from a mobile phone then sealed a conviction then tough shit.
All this council snoopers/jobsworth stuff is such a load of bollocks, the reality is the exact opposite of peoples fears in that the more of this sort of data that is collected the less chance there is of anyone ever being remotely interested in it.

“This puts me in mind of that scene in The Dark Knight where Batman uses mobile phones to effectively give him bat like sonar…”

Haha – yes. Were it only likely that these powers would be used so smartly and efficiently.

I live in the London Borough of Englied where we have a big problem with fly-tipping on green spaces. Personally, I’m in favour of it. What’s wrong with knowing people’s movements? Unfortunately, we are moving into a ’surveillence state’, but if that’s the price we have to pay for social order and security, so be it.

That should be ‘Enfield’. Must have been a Freudian slip.

Now I know what “fly-tipping” is.

SueR. “What’s wrong with knowing peoples movements?”

Perhaps you’d like to tell me all of yours for the last 48 hours then? Just to keep you safe you understand.

Or you could quite rightly tell me to sod off and mind my own…

I had to google “fly-tipping”. :)

“I live in the London Borough of Englied where we have a big problem with fly-tipping on green spaces.”

So what’s the problem with a good old fashioned police stakeout, catching some people in the act, and publicising the stiff penalties when they’re convicted as a deterant. I bet it would be cheaper than spending millions on this technology which TonyS attempts above to reassure us won’t even be used because of its built-in data overload.

I work for a Local Authority and I can’t wait to don my obersturmfuhrers uniform and start spying; there are only four hundred thousand people in the area to go at, I should have no problem keeping tabs on them all!

I had to google “fly-tipping”. :)

Me too. I was guessing it would be something extremely naughty involving trousers.

“I had to google “fly-tipping”.

Yeah, in SAfrica is just called “illegal dumping”. I have no idea where the phrase “fly tiipping” actually comes from. Over to wiki, I suppose…

Honestly Brett I sort of share your outlook if not your concerns on this occasion, there might be half a dozen overworked wretches in a largish council trying to tackle fly tipping and people do really hate it. The workers cannot be everywhere twenty four hours a day but they often find scraps of paper in tipped rubbish with addresses and such like that can be a clue to the dumpee, if armed with that evidence they corroborated it with further evidence from a Mobile then I can live with that.

“I work for a Local Authority and I can’t wait to don my obersturmfuhrers uniform and start spying; there are only four hundred thousand people in the area to go at, I should have no problem keeping tabs on them all!”

I don’t expect you will do that. But were does the moral right come from to treat a person’s mobile phone as the equivalent of a convicted criminal’s electronic tag – a means by which you can establish their whereabouts or track their movements.

I would argue that this breach of privacy is only justifyable with a court order and in cases of very serious crime or state security.

Fly tipping, fly posting etc, you do the naughty thing you shouldn’t be doing and ‘fly’. I think.

Sue R:
“Unfortunately, we are moving into a ’surveillence state’, but if that’s the price we have to pay for social order and security, so be it.”

That mindest is just too scary to contemplate. Are we blindly accepting this government’s constant attempts to curtail our liberties? The answer sadly seems to be yes.

So what’s the problem with a good old fashioned police stakeout, catching some people in the act, and publicising the stiff penalties when they’re convicted as a deterant.

So we are going to have Police waiting in hides on the off chance of a fly-tipping event?

I see this use of mobile phone data about as intrusive as eliminating people from enquiries who don’t have the correctly matching tyre tread. When the Police ask for witnesses, what do you think that is besides an attempt to track the whereabouts of the suspected perpetrator?

Hehe. An ex-girlfriend of mine many years ago (before cell phones) fly-tipped a pickup truck load of household rubbish. The next day, she got a visit from a deputy sheriff. Seems he went through the garbage and found a document with her name and address on it. Doh!

“using anti – terror powers” can people stop using this phrase!! its wrong in principle and wrong in law. RIPA is not directed at terrorsim, whatever the media tell you. It is the UK’s legilsation to comply with Art 8 European Convention on Human Rights, it is not anti terrorist legislation and is not used as such by local authorities.

and as for the rest of your comments about council jobsworths, get real. I work in enforcement for a local council and the picture you paint is completely at odds with general practice of all the councils I have dealings with.

Ripa is a necesary tool, otherwise we’d all be in breach of Article 8 (privacy) so it isn’t going to go away, nor are councils content to just sit back and watch tax payers money go to shit just because of some very ill informed gob shite in the national media stirring up fake troubles.

There is a madness in the air and this prying into our lives is going to get a lot worse. Every week there are new regulations to keep a check on us, so where does it stop? When does someone “in authority” say, okay we have enough to go on?

Each new measure is an expense (oh yes, and Guv’mint always pays top dollar for any services) and yet more cartloads of statistics. And when all this logging doesn’t really do anything, then at what point does the plan start to include actual email content? Above all, how does this deter criminals and terrorists who may – perish the thought – actually want to avoid being found out and find other methods to talk besides sending emails and phone calls?

Oh yes, it is those email headers like “Bank Job, July 14th” or “Bomb targets for next Thursday”. Silly me, I was forgetting all bad guys communicate this way.

The bottom line is this will do nothing for “security” but it is gratifying to know we are all now the enemies of the state, or potential enemies, because we cannot be trusted. We are all apparently capable of bringing down the tottering edifice of the EU and NuLab, so we must be restrained.

The state is not your friend, and soon you will be its sworn enemy.

“I see this use of mobile phone data about as intrusive as eliminating people from enquiries who don’t have the correctly matching tyre tread. When the Police ask for witnesses, what do you think that is besides an attempt to track the whereabouts of the suspected perpetrator?”

So all small time crooks need to do now is swap phones to establish an allibi. It’s like ‘Strangers on a Train’, but instead of swapping crimes, they swap sim cards!

The police can already use mobile phone records to track an individual’s whereabouts and I don’t have a problem with that if it’s part of a criminal investigation (not just a “fishing expedition”) and they get suitable authority from the courts. That should be the limit to the use of such information though.

So all small time crooks need to do now is swap phones to establish an allibi. It’s like ‘Strangers on a Train’, but instead of swapping crimes, they swap sim cards!

Fair point, I’m sure that hardened criminals will always use pay as you go phones bought over the counter anyway.

Just for fun, I spent a weekend watching some of the nutty conspiracy theory videos on google video. You would not believe some of the kooky shit these goofballs are predicting.

Like just about all bureacacy creep in the UK, this initiative has the dead hand of the EU all over it.

Remember E-Call (part of the Intelligent Car Initiative)? Galileo? Data retention?

But then as Auntie (Pravda?) was long ago bought and paid for by the EIB, you can’t expect them to tell the truth.

Both Westminster and Brussels reek of totalitarianism.

The Terrorism Act was used to investigate my finances three years ago following a rejected claim for a review of a disallowed award for Council Tax and Rent Benefit. My MP discovered this on my behalf and I have his letter and a copy of the written response from the Benefits Agency confirming powers under the Act were sought and were used.

I believe the action came about because I made an ‘undiplomatic remark’ to the adjudicator. Not threatening nor abusive, simply not PC. I shall resist making jokes at such times in future.

The extent to which “anti-terror” legislation is used in cases wholly unconnected in terrorism is extremely worrying.

In a liberal democracy the state is supposed to work for the people and govern by consent. It is supposed to be a government of the people. Detailed information in enormous quantities on each citizen changes the nature of this relationship. It hands the state too much power and misuse of that power is inevitable. An example off the top of my head – one of those 10 people charged with “tackling” fly-tipping for the council, earning £20k p.a, could well be persuaded to pass the movements of an individual to a private detective instructed by suspicious husband for a cash payment. These abuses already occur but the more people with access to sensitive data, the more abuse.

I believe the action came about because I made an ‘undiplomatic remark’ to the adjudicator.

Oh do tell! What did you say? :D

Anthony Burgess put it all very well in Clockwork Orange many moons ago.

If you want freedom you have to have evil.

You may think that you can exchange freedom for the absence of evil, but that of course will not follow. Evil will remain.

I don’t think we’re into Clockwork Orange territory. I’ve never really understood the luddites who think that criminal investigation techniques should be confined to those available 100 years ago. If we can catch a murderer or two using ‘phone records (actually we already have but this will extend the possiilities open to the authorities) then 3 cheers, I say.

“I believe the action came about because I made an ‘undiplomatic remark’ to the adjudicator.
Oh do tell! What did you say? :D” – Boogski

Having been told I was “making myself deliberately homeless” I said “Can I apply for political asylum?” (I am very English!)

It was not a great joke, just all I could come up with at the time when I was being pushed into a corner. Then my problems began … Happily all is now well and the BA have been somewhat nicer than my Council, possibly because they KNOW I am broke!

As I expect many here do also, I know asylum seekers as friends.

“If we can catch a murderer or two using ‘phone records (actually we already have but this will extend the possiilities open to the authorities) then 3 cheers, I say.”

Oh, I’m in favour of serious crime and terrorism investogators getting all the help they can get. I’m just not in favour of the jobsworth from the local council having this sort of power.

Having been told I was “making myself deliberately homeless” I said “Can I apply for political asylum?” (I am very English!)

Hahaah! Awesome. :D

Just leave your mobile at home when you go fly-tipping

Ripa is not a terrorism related power

Ripa is not a terrorism related power

Ripa is not a terrorism related power!!!!!

do your research!

Ripa is not a terrorism related power

Maybe so, but when the Government asks for sweeping new powers (which RIPA gave, regardless of whether or not the act was written to allow for human rights legislation), it always does so by mentioning terrorism or the terrorist threat. It even says so on the Home Office website:

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) legislates for using methods of surveillance and information gathering to help the prevention of crime, including terrorism.

You can’t then say it’s the media’s, or people’s ignorance when they refer to legislation such as this as anti-terror legislation.

Automatic surveillance is counter-productive because it destroys our own autonomy, our ability to make judgements and respond to anti-social behaviour. So if I see a wee sod spraying graffiti on a wall in full view of a CCTV camera, I am less likely to intervene because I think that someone else will do it for me.

“So if I see a wee sod spraying graffiti on a wall in full view of a CCTV camera, I am less likely to intervene because I think that someone else will do it for me.”

I think that people are less likely to intervene because the little sod is probably carrying a knife and the CCTV is probably broken. If it isn’t broken, you will probably fear being done for affray, kidnapping, assualt and a breach of the peace, while the sod is given cookies and free reflexology sessions.

I think that people are less likely to intervene because the little sod is probably carrying a knife and the CCTV is probably broken. If it isn’t broken, you will probably fear being done for affray, kidnapping, assualt and a breach of the peace, while the sod is given cookies and free reflexology sessions.

You appear to have got lost from the Daily Mail’s website. More likely the “little sod” is a bored 15 year old trying to impress his mates who would start crying if you said anything to him.

More likely the “little sod” is a bored 15 year old trying to impress his mates who would start crying if you said anything to him.

Or accuse you of being a paedophile instead.

“You appear to have got lost from the Daily Mail’s website. “

Actually, I got that from BBC’s Newsnight, about a guy who remonstrated with a teenager who had racially abused the local shopkeeper and threatened his wife and consequently spent two nights in jail, was charged with ‘kidnapping’ and almost lost his job. Or the story of the father of three who was kicked to death when he asked some teenagers to stop vandalising his car. I believe this was also on the national news beyond the Daily Mail. Indeed, I’m fairly sure both these incidents actually happened and aren’t fabrications of TDM.

Have to go with Brett on this one, the most mild-mannered hippy type character I have ever known (and I have known him for 20 odd years) was battered senseless by a gang of 20 kids over Xmas for the crime of asking them not to shout constantlyoutside his window.

Well, I imagine the incidents where an adult who asked a kid to stop doing something and they stopped, didn’t make the 10 o’clock news.

Not to belittle the experiences of Graham’s friend, or Brett’s news story people, but thinking that every kid, or even every kid who’s scrawling on a wall, is some kind of knife-wielding maniac is counter-productive and will lead to the kind of authoritarian surveillance society Brett is complaining about in the original post. And the bit about cookies and reflexology is very much Daily Mail.

“And the bit about cookies and reflexology is very much Daily Mail.”

And yet true. And defended by some hippy-dominated council as a revolutionary plan.

S.O.C is certainly right that all kids are not violent. But in these days of gangs and mobile phones even a non-violent kid is able to “call in a favour” and quickly direct a violent gang at a target- especially if he knows where the target lives. As a result people are much less likely to even ask politely for those making their lives misery to stop. And (as we know) all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

What new powers did RIPA give?

it gave none, it merely legitimised what was ordinary practice before hand.

And it is ignorance when RIPA use by councils is spoken of in terms of terror legislation. the clue is in the title of the legislation, its not Regulation of Investigations of Terror Act (RITA) it covers all investigations, and whether you like it or not councils are tasked with investigating criminal offences.

It gave none, it merely legitimised what was ordinary practice before hand

True. It effectively legitimised dodgy practice that before had been at the edges of legality.

And it is ignorance when RIPA use by councils is spoken of in terms of terror legislation

From a point of extreme legal pedantry, that is correct. However the legislation was justified to Parliament and to the country as being measures designed to tackle serious organised crime and terrorism. It was not presented as a way of facilitating trivial investigations into misrepresentations made by parents to get their child into the school of their choice.

It is analogous to the use of anti-terror legislation against Iceland. Government apologists say that the letter of the law permits the powers to be used that way. Which is correct but utterly beside the point. When one one refers back to the debates in Parliament one sees that the powers were justified on the basis of dealing with ‘financial terrorism’ but were drafted in a sufficiently loose way to permit far wider application.

On many occasions in the past few years, government ministers have been asked why legislation is drafted in such a way to permit wider application that the purported reasons for the legislation. We are always told that of course the legislation will never be used in this way. The misuse of RIPA and anti-terrorism legislation are good reasons why such claims should not be believed.

S.O.C is certainly right that all kids are not violent. But in these days of gangs and mobile phones even a non-violent kid is able to “call in a favour” and quickly direct a violent gang at a target- especially if he knows where the target lives

Evidence?

I live in the London Borough of Englied where we have a big problem with fly-tipping on green spaces. Personally, I’m in favour of it What’s wrong with knowing people’s movements?

What’s wrong with it is that the authorities have no business in knowing my movements. And if the authorities think they have a reason for surveilling me then they should be obliged to adduce evidence to a court which decide whether there is legitimate reason to infringe my privacy.

Unfortunately, we are moving into a ’surveillence state’, but if that’s the price we have to pay for social order and security, so be it

This is a pretty witless argument. The spending of countless millions on surveilling the vast majority of people who do not commit crimes is a waste of money that demonstrably does not make us safer. It also marks a deterioration of our national life and reduces respect between the public and those in authority.

Evidence?

My evidence (your honour) is what happened to my friend in the story I outlined above as well as in many other cases – my local Vietnamese barber for instance was beaten shitless and had all his takings stolen by a gang who were alerted to his presence in a deserted car-park where had left his car by a mobile phone call. (Unless you are asking for evidence for my statement that not all kids are violent of course, in which case I refer you to the evidence of a non-violent child near you.

Graham – I was asking for evidence of your contention that youths who may not be ‘violent’ themselves can assemble a hit squad of violent toughs by ‘calling in a favour’. It seems more like a lurid fantasy than anything that happens frequently in real life.

“And it is ignorance when RIPA use by councils is spoken of in terms of terror legislation.” – Adam Snow.

I was not investigated by my Council. They merely organised the BA who later confirmed they had used powers granted by the Terrorism Act in a letter to my MP. Everything is wonderful now and I am full of admiration for everyone and could not hope for better treatment please do not water board me I tried it once on myself and it is horrible can I go now?

XofTHExX you need to do some research and not rely on what is written in newspapers, as the recebt Israeli/ Gaza situation has highlighted.

Lord Bassam, introducing the bill to parliament: Thursday 25th May 2000

“These powers do not only affect law enforcement agencies in their pursuit of criminals; the Bill also regulates the use of covert surveillance by all public authorities. A beneficial side-effect of the Bill has been the public identification of all the agencies which use this technique in order to ensure that surveillance is regulated and controlled to the same standard across all public authorities.”

It is not, never has been, nor is it legal pedantry to point this out, RIPA controls investigatory powers, it’s akin to saying that local authority officers shouldn’t give a police caution when questioning a suspect because these are police powers under PACE.

It’s rubbish, always has been and always will be.

Has anyone on here ever attempted a RIPA authorisation? I very much doubt it.

RIPA and PACE for that matter is concerned with protecting suspects rights in the face of state power, hence the judicial oversight and application procedure. It is not an anti terror power, just because the guardian labelled it as such doesn’t make it so!

It is not, never has been, nor is it legal pedantry to point this out, RIPA controls investigatory powers, it’s akin to saying that local authority officers shouldn’t give a police caution when questioning a suspect because these are police powers under PACE

Anyone can interview anyone else under caution. Calling it a ‘police caution’ is extremely misleading. If a jobsworth interviews me I am as entitled as he to remind him that anything he says may also be taken down and may be used in evidence.

RIPA does not simply regulate existing powers, it significantly expands the list of organisations that may use them, and it atttenuates the controls they are subject to.

It is not an anti terror power, just because the guardian labelled it as such doesn’t make it so!

I think you will find that virtually every newspaper refers to the powers as ‘anti-terrorist’ powers because that is how the government of the day sold them to the general public, not withdstanding the unheeded maunderings Labour peers. Your obessive dislike of the Guardian is rather revealing.