1984: Not a How-to Manual!

[RadioElectric]

First there was this a week or so back:

'Snooper's charter' to check texts and emails

Local councils, health authorities and hundreds of other public bodies are to be given the power to access details of everyone's personal text, emails and internet use under Home Office proposals published yesterday...

When the measure was floated after the London bombings in 2005 by the then home secretary, Charles Clarke, it was justified on the grounds that it was needed to investigate terrorist plots and organised crime. But the Home Office document makes clear that the personal data will now be available for all sorts of crime and public order investigations and may even be used to prevent people self-harming...

This means that hundreds of public bodies including local councils, health authorities, the Food Standards Agency, the Health and Safety Commission and even the education standards watchdog, Ofsted, will be able to require telecommunications companies to hand over the personal data.

And now this:

Child protection database 'will be used to prosecute young people'

ContactPoint will include the names, ages and addresses of all 11 million under-18s in England as well as information on their parents, GPs, schools and support services such as social workers.

The £224 million computer system was announced in the wake of the death of Victoria Climbié, who was abused and then murdered after a string of missed opportunities to intervene by the authorities, as a way to connect the different services dealing with children.

It has always been portrayed as a way for professionals to find out which other agencies are working with a particular child, to make their work easier and provide a better service for young people.

However, it has now emerged that police officers, council staff, head teachers, doctors and care workers will use the records to search for evidence of criminality and wrongdoing to help them launch prosecutions against those on the database - even long after they have reached adulthood.

It amazes me how much the government keep pushing and pushing for more control. Databases seem right to them because they see the country as an organisation of figures: crime statistics, unemployment numbers and hundreds of other measures and indexes of how the country is ticking along. What is convenient and helpful for the government however is detrimental to the country.

To top it all off, the home office keeps losing the data it's keeping on us. On average laptop/thumdrive/DVD a month for the past 3 years.

[evilmags]

Unless you have control, survailance and coersion you cannot run a large, tax hungry socialist state, which is what the UK is lurching towards becoming. The sooner that mendacious, one eyed embodiment of the West Lothian question is out of power the better. He was a disaster as chancellor and is proving worse as prime minister.

[manicguitarist2]

Nice to see that as soon as I stop posting these articles, someone else takes over.


Hows about the thing in the paper that if you claim a reduction in your council tax cos you live alone, then the council has the right to demand entry to your house in the early morning to ensure that no-one has slept over.

Oh, and the council now has the right to demand entry to your house in order to revevalute your council tax, or to check that you are not growing any prohibited plants (not drugs, but japanese knockweed (sp?)).

Long gone has the time when to get into someone's house you needed a warrant from a judge.

Also - if you smoke and these people are in your house, you have to stop smoking whilst they are there, or risk arrest.

[Fretwired]

Originally Posted by manicguitarist2

Oh, and the council now has the right to demand entry to your house in order to revevalute your council tax, or to check that you are not growing any prohibited plants (not drugs, but japanese knockweed (sp?)).

Long gone has the time when to get into someone's house you needed a warrant from a judge.

Also - if you smoke and these people are in your house, you have to stop smoking whilst they are there, or risk arrest.

What a load of bollocks - the council cannot force entry into your house. They have snoop teams that can watch your house from outside and collect evidence.

[evilmags]

Originally Posted by manicguitarist2

Nice to see that as soon as I stop posting these articles, someone else takes over.


Hows about the thing in the paper that if you claim a reduction in your council tax cos you live alone, then the council has the right to demand entry to your house in the early morning to ensure that no-one has slept over.

Oh, and the council now has the right to demand entry to your house in order to revevalute your council tax, or to check that you are not growing any prohibited plants (not drugs, but japanese knockweed (sp?)).

Long gone has the time when to get into someone's house you needed a warrant from a judge.

Also - if you smoke and these people are in your house, you have to stop smoking whilst they are there, or risk arrest.

They can try and enter my property, but no way in hell would I let them unless they got a warrent. The current attitude to powers is a farce, and hands way to much control to utter numpties who's brain cells are destined to die lonely deaths. The guy I recently had to deal with at Islington council was practically retarded. (If anyone wants to check on this I'll PM them his contacts, a quick phone call will confirm his appalling level of stupidity and riseable command of basic English).

[manicguitarist2]

Originally Posted by Fretwired

What a load of bollocks - the council cannot force entry into your house.

Sadly not true.

As part of the form filling for getting the reduced council tax rate - you have to sign a bit that allows council staff into the property at any time.

[Fretwired]

Originally Posted by manicguitarist2

Sadly not true.

As part of the form filling for getting the reduced council tax rate - you have to sign a bit that allows council staff into the property at any time.

I've just telephoned my local council (I worked there years ago and have a few friends working in the finance department) and have been told it's untrue and as far as they are aware it's unlawful. I've checked the form on my local council's website and there's no mention of it.

Where are you getting your information from?

[manicguitarist2]

Originally Posted by Fretwired

I've just telephoned my local council (I worked there years ago and have a few friends working in the finance department) and have been told it's untrue and as far as they are aware it's unlawful. I've checked the form on my local council's website and there's no mention of it.

Where are you getting your information from?

Here is the first source that I could readily find.

[Fretwired]

What you said:

Originally Posted by manicguitarist2

As part of the form filling for getting the reduced council tax rate - you have to sign a bit that allows council staff into the property at any time.

What the article in the Torygraph says:

Another local council, Thurrock in Essex, requires those applying for the single person exemption to sign a declaration agreeing that they will allow council officials to enter their home as part of an inspection.

Firstly, the article mentions one council in Essex. Secondly, you claim officials can turn up at any time. The Torygraph states it's an inspection not a raid. If you check the small print on your Council Tax form you will see that every council reserves the right to inspect your property to check any relevant facts. They make an appointment - they don't turn up like the police on a drugs raid at 04:00 hrs and smash the front door down. They need a court order and a good reason, such as non-payment of tax or fraud in which case the police get involved.

As for snooping council's have been doing it for the last 30 years, especially with housing benefits. I worked for an internal audit department in the 1970s and we'd watch people's houses. It's nothing new.

Tory scaremongering - don't believe everything you read in the Torygraph.

:-)

[manicguitarist2]

I guess I'm just naive in expecting local councils to be there to serve the people that they work for.
But I s'pose the aphorism that "in any modern country 'civil servant' actually means 'uncivil-master' " is pretty much true.