Comments on: Nitwittery continues apace; investigations mount http://idealgovernment.com/2008/02/nitwittery_continues_apace_investigations_mount/ What do we want from Internet-age government? Wouldn't it be better if... Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:35:48 +0100 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Paul Stone http://idealgovernment.com/2008/02/nitwittery_continues_apace_investigations_mount/comment-page-1/#comment-2131 Paul Stone Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:11:20 +0000 nitwittery_continues_apace_investigations_mount#comment-2131 Yeah, sometimes laws are ambiguous as our world:) Yeah, sometimes laws are ambiguous as our world:)

]]> By: Guy Herbert http://idealgovernment.com/2008/02/nitwittery_continues_apace_investigations_mount/comment-page-1/#comment-2130 Guy Herbert Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:56:58 +0000 nitwittery_continues_apace_investigations_mount#comment-2130 I shall be very amused when ministers explain* clause 58 of the new Counter-Terrorism Bill (doncha love the quaint hyphen?), and someone asks whether "we accidentally lost it" will be a reasonable excuse for officials charged with an offence of "publishing or communicating information about a person who is or has been a member of Her Majesty’s Forces which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism". The same discussion should bring out that the sort of arbitrary, unlimited data-sharing of the kind hoped-for (not, definitely not, "envisioned") by government will almost always be exposed to the charge... unless it is deemed that when anything is done for official purposes or under official procedures that is automatically a reasonable excuse. Which is really the core of the government's authoritarian ethos (not quite the right word, but "thinking" definitely isn't): <em>Officialdom is above suspicion; everyone else under it. The availability of severe punishment for those deemed bad constitutes order. Coherent law and principle are in the way.</em> * Though they might well avoid doing so by some device of timetabling. I shall be very amused when ministers explain* clause 58 of the new Counter-Terrorism Bill (doncha love the quaint hyphen?), and someone asks whether “we accidentally lost it” will be a reasonable excuse for officials charged with an offence of “publishing or communicating information about a person who is or has been a member of Her Majesty’s Forces which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.

The same discussion should bring out that the sort of arbitrary, unlimited data-sharing of the kind hoped-for (not, definitely not, “envisioned”) by government will almost always be exposed to the charge… unless it is deemed that when anything is done for official purposes or under official procedures that is automatically a reasonable excuse. Which is really the core of the government’s authoritarian ethos (not quite the right word, but “thinking” definitely isn’t): Officialdom is above suspicion; everyone else under it. The availability of severe punishment for those deemed bad constitutes order. Coherent law and principle are in the way.

* Though they might well avoid doing so by some device of timetabling.

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