baldysblog.co.uk

The main problem with all this lies in the type of justification given for it, “To prevent terrorist outrages” which could as equally apply to sanctioning the use of torture. I do not think that the Government, Police or Security Services are “evil” but they are all clearly incompetent as the Bob Quick incident at the time he was in charge of the Anti-terror Unit demonstrated.

There is a complete lack of basic “awareness” which is frightening as for example Heather Blears doing exactly the same thing as Quick, a week later. To be fair to the Midlands Dwarf, she did at least show some humility over it and in her case it wasn’t a security issue but as a Member of the Cabinet – she still did it !

The Cultural Environment is Wrong

The constant loss of confidential information right across the Public Sector betrays a total lack of understanding of what anything is about when it comes to IT. The only time I will be convinced that they have a glimmer of understanding the issues will be when they set up a central unit that deals with Computer/software Forensics and Cyber Warfare.

If they had access to such expertise, they would never have attempted half the “IT Projects” Labour have most of which are the product of sheer ignorance on their part.

The IT Press

Although I am currently a full time carer, my background is IT and I keep up both my skills and connections. The Editor of an IT newsletter today asked for comments on this, they are considering forwarding them all to Jacqui Smith, I hope they do.

I won’t bore you with the technicalities but the following was my contribution:

“As usual this Government is totally bonkers, all mouth and no common-sense. When people have talked to me about ID Cards and Civil Liberties I tell them that I just haven’t got that far, my objections have always been on technical grounds and the fact that the result will be so insecure that if it ever goes “live”, it will be closed down within 2 months on the grounds of it being a threat to National Security.

Why do I mention this ? Very simply because that and this collecting information on all communications just demonstrates once again that Politicians are just not qualified to make these kind of decisions and really shouldn’t. As for the Police and Security Services, they are like drunks sitting at a bar, if you say “Anyone want a drink ?” they will always say yes.

If all they are going to do is prove that someone visited this site or that and not ‘capture the content’ what in Heaven’s name is the value ? On top of this, quite apart from placing yet another TAX on the communications industry have they any concept of the volume of data they are talking about ? Have they any idea as to how they can sift that data to produce anything useful ? Let’s be honest here, after the total cock up on arresting a bunch of Pakistani students, it is clear the Police can’t deal with they have got already, let’s not burden the poor dears further.

Yes send it all on to the Home Secretary but like her boss, she won’t listen and probably has an expense claim to fill in.”