Richard's Kingdom

I’m disgusted by the Government’s new DNA database proposals being laid out as a “consultation” today. Jacqui Smith’s transparent attempts at spin are risible. So is any claim by this Government that it values freedom, civil liberties or the presumption of innocence.
SIX TO TWELVE YEARS. That’s the length of time Smith wants to keep the [...]

The UK Government have just announced a half-sensible security measure.
Thousands of UK workers are being trained to help respond to a future terror attack as part of an updated counter-terror strategy, ministers say. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said shop and hotel workers would be among 60,000 people able to deal with an incident.
(via bbc.co.uk)
I say [...]

There were a bunch of news stories last week ridiculing the Government’s ID card strategy by revealing that, though 50,000 cards will have been issued by April, no official (or unofficial) organisation is yet capable of reading them. No card readers have been issued and the back-end systems aren’t ready yet either. Ministers say they’ve [...]

The Power of Information Task Force, championed by Tom Watson MP, has announced a fantastic new Open Government initiative: a public-data mashup competition!
It’s great that the Government is soliciting new ideas for re-using public information, but what’s even better is that this competition is accompanied by a whole raft of new public APIs, and the [...]

The British Parliament must not extend the practice of internment.
In the UK you can already be detained without charge or trial for 28 days if you are accused of terrorism, acts preparatory to terrorism, possessing material for a terrorist purpose, being a member of a terrorist organisation, funding terrorism, attending a terror training camp, inciting [...]