A year ago this week, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper gave a speech outlining the Labour Party’s new approach to security policy. She argued that we need to strike a careful balance between liberty and security, and that security decisions should be based on proportionality and evidence.
I attended that speech, and wrote afterwards about how impressed I was by the principles governing Ms Cooper’s approach. Labour’s acquiescence last week to the Data Retention and Invesigatory Powers (DRIP) Bill ‘stitch-up‘ has made me feel pretty stupid in my praise. It seems that at the first real test, Ms Cooper and her Labour colleagues have found it politically expedient to cast those principles aside. Continue reading
Page 93 of 328
Today the Prime Minister and his Deputy announced ’emergency’ legislation to legalise the mass collection and retention of data. The laws will be rushed through parliament next week.
I have a lot to say about this: Continue reading
Yesterday’s news carried reports that the government may act to criminalise ‘revenge porn’. This is when an angry, jilted person posts private, explicit photographs of their ex-lover online.
At the moment, those who have been exposed in this way can try suing for a breach of privacy in the civil courts, but it’s not currently a criminal offence. For something to constitute ‘harassment’ it has to be a pattern of behaviour, which does not capture the one-off posting of consensual photographs. Continue reading
There was some controversy last month surrounding free speech group Index on Censorship. They’ve appointed Steve Coogan as a patron, but he is famously a part of the Hacked Off campaign which supports press regulation policies that Index does not. Both Nick Cohen in the Spectator and Richard Pendlebury in the Daily Mail have written angry responses to the manoevre.
I’ve heard a couple of people express dismay that Hacked Off are being described in such reports as a “pro-censorship lobby”. Through my work at English PEN 1, I’ve met three of the people who run the group—Brian Cathcart, Martin Moore, and Dr Evan Harris. If you have read their countless articles, heard any their speeches, or read their tweets on the issue, I do not think one can seriously suggest that they are in favour of “censorship” as the word is commonly understood. They are at pains to point out that they do not endorse any kind of pre-publication curbs on the press.
Continue reading
Why don’t you while away a few precious minutes of your time consuming these related pieces of internet media, all on the topic of our pathetic attention spans and our ill-disciplined little brains.
First, I Dare You To Watch This Entire Video (its only three minutes): Continue reading