Keep out of My Face......book Jacqui

In my past I have had a KGB, Securitate and Stazzi file. Some of them must have been an interesting read.

The KGB file must have mentioned my visits to a youth detention centre, a prison, several hospitals, the local fire station, orphanages and my association with non-state registered Christians and giving two red guards a lift in our team minibus. The Securitate file may well detail all the contents of my suitcase that was forced open at Bucharest airport on the way to a school ski trip, the Sunday Times article on Nicolae Caucescu I'd avidly read on the flight over along with the rest of the magazine as I doubted even before being told that I'd not get that into the country.

However, none of those would be as anything compared to the file that this government must be compiling on me. Forget the fact that the majority of my daily emails on my work account are of a proprietary nature and the government could be sued under US law if my employer were so inclined. Forget the fact that as a result the government will know just where I will be campaigning, have the minutes of local party execs and who is feeding me information for my blog.

Now they want to access my social networks. Circumventing the privacy settings that I set up so that only certain people can see certain bits of that. Not you understand for terrorist ends but because they are private and not to be broadcast to the world. They want to know who I flirt with, what gifts I've been sent, what I think of the thought for the day. I have friends on Facebook in all political parties.

Do they really need to know how Iain Dale makes me blush? What Lord Faulkes's right hand woman Kezia Dugadale is saying to me? Or how one of my Nat supporting fellow Livingston fans is tackling me on the issue of the day?

What about my Northern Irish friends? Two of whom at least have relatives that have been in prison for terrorist activities. Is the fact that I am friends with them making me guilty by association?

What about our elected representatives on Facebook? Many of them use it as a tool to reach there constituents, one has even held an online surgery through the medium. Surely such communication between an MP, MSP, AM, MLA or Cllr and their constituent being held on such a database is a breach of confidentiality and guidelines.

Jacqui 'Big Sister' Smith is taking a knee jerk reaction, one that doesn't take into account the consequences of her actions. If you want to read my emails, if you want to see my Facebook, MySpace, Bebo or anywhere else details come to me with a warrant, the same goes for everyone else. If you have a suspicion against me go the whole hog.

Don't leave me naked and exposed with no privacy and the chance of having my details being exposed without my knowledge or consent by storing them on a third party data base on an off chance that I am one of the 3,000 suspects you think are in this country.

He's Not that Principled

Ok so only the day after the Tim'rous Beastie that is our Prime Minister set out a non-nonsense, taking no prisoners* agenda over the 42-day detention plan. Just when you may have thought he'd found a backbone as he was spurting on about principles.

Today the same paper that posted his message the Times informs us that he's not prepared to stand or fall for his principles after all. Even John Major was ready in his darkest hour over Maastricht to face a confidence vote. But the Prime Minister is only prepared now, after saying we will fight and we will win, to put the vote to the commons in the normal way.

David Davies the Shadow Home Secretary takes a guess at just what is going on the Gordon Brown's head.

"I think the logic is probably something like this: Tony Blair was defeated on 90 days; and most of the people who voted against him were Brownites.

"Therefore, Brown thinks they will support him if he comes back with more of a compromise and tries to present it as a consensual argument: 'I am likely to succeed where he failed'."

However, a the PM is currently hoping that the 9 Democratic Unionist Party Members abstentions may stave of a very humiliating Commons defeat it wouldn't seem to be that much of a consensual agreement within his own party.

Jenny Rigg over at Liberal Conspiracy was good enough to mention yesterday's post in her Monday Morning Warm Fuzzies. However, it was hollow laughter with which I commented on Gordon Brown's search for his principles as today's entry shows it was guessing that they would be as short lived as recent appearances of a spinal column from the occupant of Number 10 have been when opinion doesn't follow 'his' principles and he opts for others.

*Actually there are potentially rather a lot of these just not from his own backbenchers.

Sticking by His Principles is he? What Principles?

Today's opinion piece in the Times by Gordon Brown regarding the upcoming 42 detention without trail debate, and possible defeat he is facing, ends with the following:

That is why I will stick to the principles I have set out and do the right thing: protecting the security of all and the liberties of each; and safeguarding the British people by a careful and proportionate strengthening of powers in response to the radically new terrorist threats we now face.

Oh dear having Gordon Brown talk about principles at the moment is probably not the best think. We all knew what standing by his principles to lift our poorest people out of poverty and encourage them to work hard led to. Yes the U-Turn when he realised his principled stand over abolishing the long term goal of the 1997 Government to have a 10p tax band led to swift backtracking during a by election campaign.

Speaking of principles on this matter didn't Gordon once support 56 days in the original debate which got voted down to a mere 28. So he has already had to accept a compromise once on this 'principled' stance of his. At present as Gordon reminds us Judicial review is required to detain beyond the 14 days. Doesn't that tell us something? That the interest of the individual still needs to be enshrined. That the decision is not taken by the politicians or the police. It is taken out of their hands after 2 weeks, and substantive progress needs to be made in that time scale to convince the judge that detention should continue. Why therefore after a further 2 weeks should a further 2 weeks be required again?

Of course this being a piece by Gordon he opens with a ream of statistics. "Today in Britain there are at least 2,000 terrorist suspects, 200 networks or cells and 30 active plots." Hang on a second here Gordon, now I realise that the police cannot start to piece together the actual evidence until they have issued warrants to seize the stuff. But surely some of this complexity of things must already be on record with the police, like the picture on the front of a jigsaw puzzle, they just are required to find the pieces. That is of course unless the statistics are nicely made up by Gordon at his PC at 4 a.m. at the end of his working day.

Gordon does try and address the issue of civil liberties in his piece. Blink and you may miss it:

So I say to those with legitimate concerns about civil liberties: look at these practical safeguards against arbitrary treatment. With these protections in place, I believe Parliament should take the right decision for national security.

Oh dear Gordon to use the word arbitrary when you're trying to defend your principles is hardly a good combination in English. You should have scoured the thesaurus for alternative. After all arbitrary suggests choices and actions which are considered to be done not by means of any underlying principle or logic, but by whim or some decidedly illogical formula.