Back in January on my own blog, I talked about an e-mail that my educational institution had sent round about potential problems with blogging. Employers can (and according to this e-mail do) find out about blogs, and this can harm employability.
To be honest, I wasn't overly convinced, and thought that there might be scaremongering:

[Blogging's] a way to express yourself. Whilst Asp Bites originally started off as a "This is what I'm doing" blog, it's developed, and now I explain my opinion on various matters constantly. Some which, it's fair to say, are controversial.
I imagine that finding a prospective employees blog can also help them get a job. A well written blog, well thought out, can show intelligence. And a hobby outside of work/study." (Asp Bites - Blogging v Employment)

What I never thought about though was the potential of criminal liability from a blog. OK, obviously if I posted the recipe to build a bomb, perhaps I would attract the attention of MI5. And yes, there's Civil Liability if I defame someone. But other than that?

Besides, most of us in the blogosphere occasionally use our blogs to let off steam. Have a rant about someone or something. We might not mention names, but whilst in full flow you might not think clearly. It appears that that now may be a problem:
This in many ways is baffling. How did the officer and his wife find the quote to take offence at? How is that sentence, on its own, menacing. Without the benefit of hearing it being said, it could even be a polite thought.

What was interesting though is that the court looked at his site as a whole in answered that latter point. They determined that "the blog was articulate, detailed, specific and critical of the police and the CPS." Therefore "any reasonable person would find the words about the baby to be menacing in the context of the overall blog." Which suggests that if we're always offensive, people are able to consider any comments directed as them as just part of the rest of tone of the blog. Dont b 'articulate' in ur posts then [sic].

When he was arrested, Brent is reported to have claimed "You can write on websites because it's freedom of speech." Which the court right decided was a load of old nonsense - there's always got to be limits. But, when directing tirades at public figures, have you considered the option that you might be able to rely on your opinion and "freedom of speech" as a defence.

It's only a decision by a magistrate's court - so there's no binding precedent. Next court could decide differently on exactly the same facts. But, it does make you think. And, perhaps, occasionally stop before hitting "submit post"...

~ Asp

This picture tells a story.

Either:

(a) We all need to wear a stab jacket when walking the street, even if flanked by three policemen,
(b) Only Harriet Harman needs to wear a stab jacket because she's more important than us, or
(c) We're all seeing things and Harman isn't really wearing a stab jacket.

Her excuse that it is like wearing a hard hat when on a construction site is utterly absurd. You wear a hard hat on a construction site because things might fall from above - and, well, it's the law. Wearing a stab jacket on the street, however, is certainly not on the same level.

I can't help but think that this would just be a waste of police time. We pay the police to do this for us. To know and understand the problems in a community and to deal with it. It may well sound good to say:

But in reality, it's a load of bollocks.

The police already know - or damn well should know - what the crime problems are in any given area. Giving out mobile numbers of police officers won't help anything, except distract them from their actual job of dealing with crime even more than the current target-focused policing that this government has introduced. It is just a waste of police time.

Nevertheless, a greater level of contact between local police forces and local communities is desirable - but on a more manageable and less of a free-for-all basis. Such as, maybe, monthly meetings when residents can give their thoughts on crime issues to a local police force?

But one thing which would certainly enable more police to be communicating with local residents would be through reducing the ridiculous number of targets that they are expected to meet and the amount of paperwork that they are required to fill out foe every little thing, thus enabling them to actually patrol the streets in the way that we expect them to and come in to contact with the community that way.

As David Davis said: "The public want [the police] on the streets, not on the phone."

Dad's Army is going to be here to save you.

Volunteering in Britain is already screwed. Few do it any more. It has fallen by a quarter in the last decade. So how on earth does Brown expect to get people to do this? Those who would already do volunteering and are unlikely to drop their current commitments to take on this new pointless one, and those who don't almost certainly won't.

We already have people to fulfil this role - y'know, the police and the other emergency services? As well as associated volunteers? - so this proposal of a "Civil Protection Network" seems like little short of an attempt to take it all under on centralised authority - a good thing in some ways, and very very bad in others.

And the inevitable comparisons with Dad's Army are never going to be lived down, no matter what.

ASBOs have failed. Rather than deterrents, they have become badges of honour among young thugs. So what is the government's response? To roll them out over young potentials as well:

So they just haven't learnt from their mistakes, have they? Handing out "baby ASBOs" to even younger children - especially those who haven't even done anything very bad at all.

The name of the scheme that is to to deal with this just sums up Labour's entire style of government: Family Intervention Projects. Why do they feel that they have the right to intervene in out lives?

When this comes alongside the proposal to put young children who "exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life" on the DNA database. I mean, WTF? Since when has being a behaving badly ever been a good enough reason for your DNA to be added to their Big Brother database?

Have we finally abandoned the idea of innocent until proven guilty? Do you no longer actually have to commit a crime before you can be convicted for it?

Baby ASBOs and adding disruptive children's details to the DNA database will not prevent them feom becoming criminals, but the opposite - pushing them in to a life of crime, since that seems to be what is expected of them!

I can see no real problem at all with using phone-tap evidence in court. After all, they can only record them, not make them say anything. It shouldn't be used instead of other evidence, and shouldn't be used as the sole source of evidence of any particular fact, but rather to strengthen circumstantial evidence gathered in another way. Also, if any phone tapping evidence is to be used in court, the defence must be provided with all secret recordings made.

Not to be allowed to use evidence gained through bugging seems rather silly, really. As a law student says:

Precisely.

When the Home Secretary says that she wouldn't feel safe walking around London on her own at midnight, she replied:

And she says this just after claiming that the streets at night are safer after ten years of Labour government. This demonstrates both that she can't really believe that labour have made the streets safer and that she is completely removed from the real life circumstances which cause some people to have to do things which they wouldn't choose to - like walk the streets at night.

Since 46% of Londoners said they don't feel safe in the neighbourhoods at night, and that there has been a 21% rise in in violent crime nationally among 10 to 17-year-olds in three years shows that Labour have failed to do anything about increasing law and order in the past decade.

Image hat-tip: Curly's Corner Shop

Michael Portillo is investigating how to kill a human being. He is looking for a humane execution technique.

Surely a humane execution technique is a contradiction in terms? How can killing an otherwise healthy person possibly be called humane in any way?! A "humane" execution is simply not possible, whether it is conducted by a state with judicial approval or by an individual. Either way, it simply cannot be described as "humane".

No matter how fast the death may be, it is still not "humane" - the waiting etc. in themselves make that impossible.

I can't see how the death penalty is in any way acceptable in a modern, civilised, society. If just one innocent person is killed, the entire system is undermined. We can never be so technologically advanced as to have complete proof of guilt.

The death penalty is immoral and inhumane in itself. There is and cannot be any "humane" way of killing, either by the state or by an individual. No matter the method used. The idea of a "humane death penalty" is simply a contradiction in terms.

[And the pro-death penalty lobby in America is comprised of a bunch of nutters. It's also massively ironic that those who consider themselves "pro-life" (ie. anti-abortion) tend also to be those who are pro-death penalty. Idiots.]

Our government is putting us in danger by placing violent criminals in open prisons - against its own guidelines. By placing these dangerous people in open prisons, they are leaving us open to the risk of risk of them escaping and re-offending.

They have also started doing this from the start of December by sleight of hand, without actually announcing it at all - just doing it. However, at least it is better than releasing them early. But not by much.

Unfortunately this just isn't as surprising as it should be that the government has broken it's own guidelines and put us in potential danger.

Source: The Times

How on earth can driving whilst using a mobile phone a bad enough offence to warrant jail time? Especially for two years! Yes, it's stupid and dangerous - nobody is claiming that it isn't - but it sure as hell isn't worth the potential sentence of two years in jail. Especially at a time when the prisons are so overcrowded that they are releasing real criminals early!

Even the idea of a custodial sentence for such a minor crime is ridiculous, especially considering the current state of the prison system. And two years is an absurdly long length of time in itself. People commit far more serious crimes than driving whilst using a mobile phone and get shorter jail sentences.

This is a policy aimed solidly at the middle-class, aiming to criminalise them. Just give larger fines and more points to the perpetrators, and raise the penalties for actual dangerous or reckless driving and it's results.

Sources: BBC, The Telegraph, The Guardian

Despite passing the Terrorism Act in 2000, the government appear to have failed to actually enforce this, since "at least six countries have complained."

What is the point of passing a law and then not enforcing it? Especially in these times and when they want to extend the length of time in which they can detain 'terrorists' without charge beyond the current 28 days, why are they not enforcing the laws that they have already passed and outlawing these terrorist organisations in the UK? The law to do it already exists, so why are they not?!

That Labour have passed laws and then either ignored them or failed to enact them does appear to be becoming a tendency lately - and yet they still want to make more laws!

Source: The Times

The hunting ban forced through by Labour in 2005 now lies in tatters as "a judge suggested it was virtually impossible to bring a conviction against those accused of breaking the law." This is because

So, even despite Labour's attempt to ban fox hunting as part of their class war, they have failed due to their inability to properly define their law.

They have failed on every level, neither have they actually made hunting illegal or reduced the number do hunt - in fact the very opposite. The Hunting Act has failed to save any cute little foxes or to stop toffs parading in red jackets.

Very simply, it is a rubbish law poorly executed and has failed as comprehensively as ASBOs have - neither have done what the government wanted, and in fact caused the exact opposite.

Source: The Telegraph

Daniel Finkelstein is wrong when he says that the sentence meted out to Gillian Gibbons for allowing her class to name a teddy bear Muhammad isn't disproportionate.

He is utterly wrong. The sentence meted out to Gillian Gibbons by Sudan is disproportionate. The reaction both legally and socially is highly disproportionate to the supposed crime of naming a teddy bear after a prophet.

After all, let's think about this. The teddy bear is named after an American President, and who among us didn't have a teddy bear that had it's own name? Why was that? Because the teddy bear is a children's toy much loved by every child who has one - which is pretty much every child. Even those who didn't have a bear per se would have had something similar. Quite frankly, naming a teddy bear Muhammad should be regarded as a good, pro-Islam, thing - especially when it is selected by the children themselves.

Yes, Gillian Gibbons was naive to let her children choose such a name, but she can hardly be blamed for the excessive and disproportionate reaction taken towards it and her by Sudan.

News that two British Muslim peers - Labour's Lord Ahmed and Tory Baroness Warsi - have visited Sudan to meet Gillian Gibbons and to press their case to have Mrs Gibbons pardoned and released is cheering. Hopefully their reason will triumph over the religious fundamentalism which has led to her imprisonment.

I've just seen a report on TV saying that police drivers shouldn't pursue criminals because some cause deaths. This is utterly wrong. The police should always give chase to suspects unless it is obviously extremely dangerous to do so for themselves and innocent passer-bys.

The fact-file that comes with the report says that there were between 11,000 and 19,000 police chases in 2005/6 in England and Wales, of which approximately one in eleven led to a death. Whilst this is obvious tragic for the individuals and their families concerned, it is usually the suspect - who is running away from the police - who dies. So, really, I can't see it as much of a problem. If they hadn't ran away, they wouldn't have died.

If the police are restricted in the way in which they can give chase to criminals, then the criminals win. All they have to do is break the speed limit or do something considered dangerous enough to force the police not to pursue and they get away with it. This is obviously unacceptable. We cannot get into a position of policing by numbers, whereby criminals know all they need to do in order to escape the police is to run a few red lights.

Taking precautions to ensure that as few deaths as possible occur in police chases is obvious - but only so many can be taken. Such as training all police officers who drive patrol cars as highly as feasible, and have guidance on what sort of pursuits to continue, and which to back off from, but with the knowledge that these are guidelines not hard-and-fast rules. Also, helicopters could be employed - but they are expensive. But not everything can be done - for example, the skill of the driver being chased is, obviously, impossible to change.

But criminals must know that the police will pursue them. Otherwise they will have the ability to offend with impunity - so long as they have access to a car and are willing to take a few risks.

Source: BBC - article 1, article 2

Ha!
That is a transparent attempt to lessen the damage to his reputation.
So does he now consider himself a "serial potential killer"? Or is that definition just for the likes of us non-parliamentarians?
So even though he helped make the law, he decided to break it anyway! If he was talking before he started driving - why? If he answered the phone whilst driving - why? There is no justification for it. If he was talking before he started driving, then he did so willingly, and if he answered the phone whilst driving he couldn't have known that it was definitely an "important deportation phone call".

He has no defence, and his attempts to manufacture an excuse out of an impossible scenario just shows that he won't even accept real wrongdoing, despite calling others who do it "potential serial killers". I think we all know who the potential killer is now.

Source: BBC

Should the police stop more ethnic minority suspects? The president of the National Black Police Association thinks so. He said:

It may be unpopular, but it's right. It is the only way in which to win the battle against gun and knife crime. It shouldn't matter what your race, religion, or skin colour is if you are suspect. The police should be free to stop and search anyone who they regard as likely to be part of any criminal activity.

If race is used as a reason not to stop-and-search any suspect, Britain will suffer. It may lead to an increase in "tension" in black communities, but if it works then it is worth it. If it stops crime, or stops more people getting involved in crime, then it is worth it. The police must not shy away from tackling criminal activity because they might be accused of racism. In an equal society, the police should be colour blind, and stop and search anyone who they have reasonable suspicion to suspect, whatever their race. If they can't act through fear of being branded racist, crime cannot be tackled.

Crime affects all parts of society. Preventing it - and locking up the perpetrators - helps all parts of society too, and makes everyone safer.

Source: The Guardian, The Telegraph, BBC

This demonstrates just one of the reasons why I am against guns being freely available to anyone, for any reason. Gun control is essential in a modern society. Guns don't kill people themselves, but they are used to kill people - and do that job extremely easily.

I certainly wouldn't feel safer with a gun or with all police officers being armed - if the police have guns, the criminals then need them too. Gun crime may be on the rise in Britain, but it certainly isn't anywhere near the level of that in America. In Hertfordshire, the last time a policeman fired a gun in anger was about 1985 - the year I was born.

Guns breed guns. If people have guns, criminals need them too. If they don't, few criminals have them. And then there are fewer guns around, so fewer shots get fired, and fewer people die.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw says that

Yes, it should. And he is right to say that
But why then didn't he do anything about it in the four years [1997-2001] in which he was Home Secretary? After all, it was during his tenure as Home Secretary than Tony Martin, the man on whom much of this is based, was convicted of murder [reduced to manslaughter on appeal].

It is during the last decade that people have become increasingly shy of becoming a "have-a-go hero" because of the way in which Labour have consistently undermined them. Criminals have been given rights under the law way beyond that which belong to the standard law-abiding person. It is under Labour that it has been possible for a burglar to sue a house owner for injuries sustained whilst robbing them. It is under Labour that the police force has been reduced to form-filling all day, and not preventing or even properly investigating crime. It is because of Labour that people are wary of enforcing the law because they are as likely, or at least feel that they are as likely, to be charged as the criminal they apprehend.

Jack Straw can apprehend criminals like he has said to have done three times because he isn't going to get dragged up before court for doing so. But for anyone else, it doesn't hold true. He claims that he was "always uneasy" about the government not doing anything about protecting those citizens who try to uphold the law, but why then didn't he do anything about it? He was Home Secretary for four years, during the period when this all began. He is to blame for it.

They have consistently done nothing about it, and rejected Conservative calls to do so. It is all well and good for Straw to try and fix it - but he has to acknowledge his, and the last decade of Labour government's, huge role in causing the problem in the first place. Until they accept that it is them who caused it, it is all just meaningless rhetoric.

Source: BBC, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent

She's guilty.

You can't help but feel sorry for her. She is said to have been a "rising star in Labour ranks" and now she has lost her council seat and been suspended from her party. Quite a come-down.

I doubt, however, that she did it on purpose. It is far more likely to have been just an indiscreet, and very ill-advised, slip of the tongue. I don't think she's likely to be stupid enough to have deliberately set out to smear her opponent - as much as my political prejudices may make me like to believe that she did.

I feel sorry for her. She has lost so much now, as well as many possibilities for the future. If she ever stands for public office again, this case will constantly rear its head. It is the sort of thing that could happen any politician, a foolish and indiscreet remark putting paid to a potential future career.

No party can claim to have had no problems in the past. There can be rotten apples in any basket, after all. No political party has an immaculate yard. What happened to Miranda could happen oh-so-easily to numerous others.

Image: Miranda Grell
Sources: BBC, The Times