New Testingstan

let's just have a revolution already

Even worse than ASBOs
fuck me

The bill would permit injunctions against anyone of 10 or older who "has engaged or threatens to engage in conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person". It would replace asbos with ipnas (injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance), which would not only forbid certain forms of behaviour, but also force the recipient to discharge positive obligations. In other words, they can impose a kind of community service order on people who have committed no crime, which could, the law proposes, remain in force for the rest of their lives.

The bill also introduces public space protection orders, which can prevent either everybody or particular kinds of people from doing certain things in certain places. It creates new dispersal powers, which can be used by the police to exclude people from an area (there is no size limit), whether or not they have done anything wrong.

so, essentially (assuming this is an accurate report of the bill) anyone can be arrested for doing anything and sentenced up to five years in prison without going through a criminal trial
this, combined with the recent slashing of legal aid
and the internet censorship filter (think of the children!)
and the unlimited, unaccountable wiretapping of all our communications
and privatisation of public services
and ongoing attempts to demonise the poor, immigrants, and minorities
and anti-terror police persecuting children for organising peaceful protests
death to the tory party
death to the home office
bunch of ratfuckers
(p.s. GCHQ I'm joking you motherfuckers)

EDITon the plus side, I'm hoping to slap David Cameron with one of these based on his annoying nuisance rhetoric. See if we can't ban all the tories from westminster.There is no plus side

Hansard wrote: 4 Applications for injunctions

(1) 30An injunction under section 1 may be granted only on the application of—

(a) a local authority,

(b) a housing provider,

(c) the chief officer of police for a police area,

(d) the chief constable of the British Transport Police Force,

(e) 35Transport for London,

(f) the Environment Agency,

(g) the Natural Resources Body for Wales,

(h) the Secretary of State exercising security management functions, or a
Special Health Authority exercising security management functions on
40the direction of the Secretary of State, or

(i) the Welsh Ministers exercising security management functions, or a
person or body exercising security management functions on the
direction of the Welsh Ministers or under arrangements made between
the Welsh Ministers and that person or body.

Good News

The Lords have blocked it. At least for now.

Thank god for small mercies

I used to be all for Lords reform
but they've been so consistently better at defending freedom of speech, human rights, and so on than the democratically elected guys over my political lifetime that I've kind of changed my mind

If all fails, the Queen will refuse Royal Assent.

Right?

it'd take more than asbos+ for that to happen

glory to the Lords

God save the Queen

evilsoup wrote:it'd take more than asbos+ for that to happen

What would it take, do you think?

And how quickly would Parliament alter the law so it could never happen again?

but wouldn't she have to approve the law altering it before it would come into force?

Royal Assent isn't really optional.

But then I remember that article about Charles having some pretty actual power and influence over some kinds of laws so who knows

in theory the Queen could refuse Royal Assent
in theory she could dissolve Parliament on a whim and appoint whomever she wanted as the Government
in theory the army all swear allegiance to her, rather than Parliament or whatever, so she could force the issue if she wanted
each of these things are about equally as likely

If the Commons keep passing this bill, the Lords will eventually accept it. They can only hold it for so long before convention kicks in and we face a proper constitutional crisis.

If this ever does pass, I'll be singing Flower of Scotland and waltzing north of the border to vote 'yes' faster than you can blink.

No love lost with the British establishment and their love for self-destructive crony capitalism, but one understandable reason why there's this sudden push for increasingly extreme, arbitrary civil enforcement laws was the '11 riots where the homes and properties of ordinary people (not evil corporations and banks) got destroyed (that event played right into the hands of the authorities, with comparatively civil student protestors now getting lumped in with the looters and arsonists).

And about NSA/GCHQ wiretapping:


http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bhj1Us47U3k

I doubt the NSA/GCHQ would care about the folks on the street, I'm not surprised they can tap into the internet and mobile networks, and allies spying on allies has always happened - although fictional, in The Ipcress File the main protagonists (a MoD intelligence officer) was stalked through half the film by a suspicious looking man and when the protagonist kills the sinister man shadowing him in an action scene, it was revealed to be a CIA officer.

some people have always fucked their own children and murdered their neighbours
that doesn't make it right or acceptable behaviour
likewise with governments spying on their allies and populations

Doug Stanhope is a very funny man, but in this case he's playing right into the hands of the motherfuckers. Just like all those fuckjaws who went on about George Bush II was so stupid you guys, lol look he's reading very hungry catapillar lololol -- and meanwhile the fucker gets an extra term and wipes the shit from his arse with that rag the Americans call a constitution and gets away with a multitude of crimes. If the devil's greatest trick was making people think he didn't exist, the secret services' greatest trick is making people think they are in some way comical. A joke, not to be taken seriously, and anyone who does take them seriously should just relax, after all don't you give the same amount of information away to Google and Facebook (answer: no I don't, and even if I did, the big difference there is that neither Facebook nor Google have a history of torture or the power to smash down my door and drag me away into the night)?

attempting to introduce a bill that would, as written, allow the police to ban anyone from doing anything for any reason and potentially imprison people for several years without bringing them before a jury can never be acceptable. Existing laws are more than sufficient to deal with rioters. This is typical toryscum fuckery: instead of providing funding for youth centres and support for the homeless, they will criminalise the young and the poor.

Fuck all of that. The 2011 riots wouldn't have even been noticed by the vast bulk of the country if the media hadn't ran wall to wall coverage of them. We've seen far worse without assigning that sort of power to the authorities and will undoubtedly see far worse again in the future. The whole thing is completely bogus.

And you really don't need people manually listening in to tap comms lines, record their contents (with a bit of basic filtering to remove Netflix, Spotify, etc. to make the dataset manageable), and perform your analysis as required. We have a panopticon running. It's only a matter of time before they can fully work it. Abuses are already happening (parallel construction, loveint) and it will only get worse from here if it isn't headed off. Just remember that the law book is massively overgrown and we all live in violation of something or other if they choose to enforce it upon us. The room for abuse is incredible even without changing social mores potentially making us blackmailable if we ever get interesting to someone in power. It's all very, very dodgy.

Only now, at the end do you understand the evils of British tyranny.

Big Orangutan wrote:No love lost with the British establishment and their love for self-destructive crony capitalism, but one understandable reason why there's this sudden push for increasingly extreme, arbitrary civil enforcement laws was the '11 riots where the homes and properties of ordinary people (not evil corporations and banks) got destroyed (that event played right into the hands of the authorities, with comparatively civil student protestors now getting lumped in with the looters and arsonists

No. There is nothing understandable about this. Nothing.

Those riots happened two and a half years ago, and the crime rate since has been falling. If they were going to make a sudden push for increasingly extreme and arbitrary civil enforcement laws, they should have done that all the way back in 2011 when there were all those bloody riots, not now in 2014 when there are no riots actually occurring. The only reason I can think of for why such measures would seem reasonable is that the government is expecting to have some reason to arrest a fuckload of people over the next year or so, and given the increasing number of budget-cuts specifically ignoring the genuine money-sinks and specifically targeting the poor and the disabled, I can't help but wonder if there is perhaps more in the pipeline that they know will cause more outrage.


Another thing you forget is the catalyst that began the 2011 riots, the killing of Mark Duggan, with most of the looters being mere opportunists who had probably been looking for an excuse. But most of the mainstream media focused on the looters because 'YOUTH CRIME WAVE!' is a good headline for selling newspapers.

I would like to apologise for reacting in a way I would in person with mates I socialise with as a drunken fool. My text doesn't offer the body language cues I would in person and makew it all seem far more harsh than I really mean. I really mean that. Text doesn't give the cues I'm used to when talking to people in person.

But the only people who really give a fuck about Mark Duggan[1] are his fairly deluded family. The rest are just angry folk looking for an excuse. The Met overstep their bounds as a matter of course and that makes everyone far more angry than they would be if the system happened to be fair.

[1] there is v. little doubt now that he was carrying a firearm. A man has been sent down for supplying the weapon to him. ATM, it's just quibbling about whether the cops who shot him dead should have known he'd tossed the weapon away before the stop or not. The real grievances are about matters that go far beyond his pathetic criminal career.

Sandman wrote:

Big Orangutan wrote:No love lost with the British establishment and their love for self-destructive crony capitalism, but one understandable reason why there's this sudden push for increasingly extreme, arbitrary civil enforcement laws was the '11 riots where the homes and properties of ordinary people (not evil corporations and banks) got destroyed (that event played right into the hands of the authorities, with comparatively civil student protestors now getting lumped in with the looters and arsonists

No. There is nothing understandable about this. Nothing.

I still think it's partially understandable, even though I don't like it.

The media coverage may have somewhat overblown the disturbances and it's starting to get a long time ago now, but it seemed to be enough to put the wind up the British Establishment (and it still presented a very bad image to the world with the London Olympics just a year away). And although a waste of molecules by most accounts, Mark Duggan getting shot still generates strong feelings.

The ingredients and infrastructure is already here for a proper police state, but I think it'll end up backfiring and there's this growing frustration with the Establishment.

The problem now is that too many people in the UK, mainly through no fault of their own, are getting economically marginalised and rendered surplus to requirements by Neoliberal Globalisation, and are getting unfairly vilified (I was depressed by Charlie Brooker's Newswipe when it covered C4's Benefits Street, when the people on benefits were subjected to condemnation from pompous rightwing tabloids and death threats from Twitter).

Sandman wrote: und the crime rate since has been falling.

Perhaps not violent crime, but shoplifting has certainly increased.

Shoplifting is an incredibly minor crime.

Big Orangutan wrote:

Sandman wrote: und the crime rate since has been falling.

Perhaps not violent crime, aber shoplifting has certainly increased.

I think the most important thing about that article is that it says one of the most common types of item shoplifted is power tools

Now I don't know about anyone else, but if I was a shopowner and someone tried to sneak a chainsaw out by stuffing it down his pants I'd let him get away with it on general principle.

Shit, I'd put a sign up. FIT A CHAINSAW INTO YOUR UNDERPANTS AND GET IT FREE! Stick a jack-hammer in your gym-pants! Secrete a belt-sander in your blouse!

Instant advertising and in-store comedy!

Power tools are also drills, electric circular saws, sanders, etc. I expect it's mostly drills.

drills in dungarees also acceptable