The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

THE LAST DITCH

New Labour cracking the whip

Published by Tom

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New Labour cracking the whip over extreme porn « Harpymarx.

The relentless invasion of our private life by this government continues. Labour knows no ethical limits to state power, because it believes the state itself  to be an ethical force. Its simple minded equation is that "more government = more virtue." You don't have to share the classical liberal view of the state as a necessary evil to realise that this is dangerously naieve.

Harpymarx (a new blogger to me, found through the current Britblog Roundup) goes into detail in the linked post about the government's new measures against pornography. The dangers of these are multiplied when you connect the dots with other legislative innovations. This particular proposed new crime is based on "possession" of pornographic images. I am sorry to shock my more delicate readers but all "possession" offences are subject to the risk that the offending material will be "planted."

Am I alone in fearing that police powers to hack into our computers will ensure a 100% conviction rate of the state's enemies? If they have access to our hard drives, they can place there whatever illegal images or documents they please. Since Labour's voters (and not a few from other parties) share their simplistic faith in the essential goodness of all who take the Queen's shilling, where are we then?

Be polite to any policemen you know. You might like to start considering donations to police charities and little gifts at Christmas etc. If you have any friends who grew up in a former Warsaw Pact country, ask their advice on how to maintain a friendly relationship with law enforcement officials of an all-powerful state. Your days of insisting on what few of your rights remain may soon be over.

6 responses to “New Labour cracking the whip”

  1. Linda Avatar
    Linda

    If porn was planted on your computer by someone else then it can be tracked back, so nothing to fear there.
    I’m sure the police have also got better things to do (like manipulating their crime stats) than planting naughty pix.

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  2. Tom Paine Avatar
    Tom Paine

    Are you joking? I am only a middle-aged lawyer, but if you lend me your computer for an afternoon I could put an incriminating file on it that looked as though it had been put there a year ago. Your “nothing to fear” is a bit naive, I am afraid. The police have always better things to do than faking evidence, but I am afraid they have quite a lot of “form” for it nonetheless.

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  3. clutterbells Avatar
    clutterbells

    This sort of stuff makes me very uncomfortable. Why do they really need these sorts of powers? Of course governments love having these rights. I am just not sure that they can be trusted to use it correctly and appropriately.

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  4. Roger Thornhill Avatar
    Roger Thornhill

    It would be quite easy for one agency to use these “powers” to plant information, then “detect” it and tip off the regular plod who go to a judge, get a warrant to search and seize legally, without the need for them to plant anything. No paper trail at the regular Police, but only in a tightly controlled organisation that can hide behind “national security”.
    The EU will soon make it illegal to “insult” EU Officers and EU symbols. With that mindset, it is easy to see them being happy about stitching up their enemies.

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  5. thomas Avatar
    thomas

    Surely anyone who suspected it could raise the issue in court and the police would then be legally required to say if they had had access to the computer, and the experts on both sides would then pile in to examine the comouters?

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  6. Tom Paine Avatar
    Tom Paine

    Yes, and it would turn on the court’s/jury’s view of police evidence vs that of the “suspect.” How exactly can you prove the origin of a backdated jpg file placed on a computer? Even assuming it’s possible (which I doubt), will your legally-aided defence lawyer be able to get access to the technical expertise required, bearing in mind that the public purse funds the technical experts doing this to you? It will be just as hard as to prove the origin of drugs slipped into a suspect’s pocket. “Possession” offences are a very bad idea in general, as are all offences with no requirement for evidence of criminal intent. They are designed to make convictions easier so that the government can claim success in the fight against crime, at the cost of convicting more innocents. Remember when drugs were found at former Home Secretary John Reid’s home? He was guilty of possession. Had that been you or I we would have been prosecuted and convicted. His position saved him (which is why those in power don’t care so much about the law). Even ignoring the possibility of political enemies being deliberately “fitted up”, It is naive in the extreme to expect 100% of all policemen to resist the pressures on them to secure convictions 100% of the time, however much faith you may have in policemen in general.

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Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.

Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.

He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that

“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

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