ASBOs for Blair and Blunkett?

[nichomach]

True, but the vast majority of people will be guilty of anti-social behaviour.
I mean, our justice system has convicted inoccent people before, and will do again, but its still the best system we have for punishing those who step outside the law.
If we scrap ASBOs on the basis that they are not 100% certain to deal with 100% guilty people 100% of the time, then we should also scrap the crminal justice system, perhaps for the 'Float or Sink' trial method used in the Middle Ages.

That's not really the point I'm making; the actual implementation of ASBOs means that we can effectively sidestep the process of determining whether someone's behaviour falls into a criminal category, or even if where we think it does they are guilty "beyond reasonable doubt". Since we can impose ASBOs on the basis of whether we just don't like someone's behaviour (even if it's not criminal) or where "we know he's guilty of something...", we effectively sidestep the legislative and judicial process. In the first case, because we've suddenly created a new class of offender whose sole offence is that they may have broken an order preventing them from doing something that would be legal for anyone else (walking down a certain street, for instance) and in the second because even if we believe someone is guilty of criminal behaviour we would ordinarily have to prove that criminal behaviour beyond reasonable doubt. Now, we can again impose an order forbidding things that would be legal for any other person and if they breach THAT we can send them to prison. Again, the only thing they'd be guilty of is breaching an order that forbids them doing something that for anyone else would be legal, and the only reason that order would be there is because they are believed to be guilty of something, although they've not been tried or convicted for it. In the first place, we're criminalising someone without benefit of trial for something which isn't criminal, and in the second we're criminalising someone without trying them for the offence that we might think they're guilty of. You see the problem?

edit: Anyway, me for the pub too - oh, and Vaul? "You're my beshtesht pal!" >throws arm around shoulder and hiccups madly<

[Rave]

Well, my claim to be working class is not something I expect to have to proove, I am working class - what, you think because I own a PC and know (in a round-about way) how to type, I must be middle class? You'd be suprised Rave; most of us have inside toliets now.

Class isn't something you can choose, nor something you can change - give a working class person money and a big house, they are not middle class, they are a working class person with some money and a big house.

So by the same token, just because both my parents have degrees and professional jobs, I can never escape my middle classness? And, as a consequence, I must always be beaten with the 'middle class lefty' stick whenever I attempt to debate with you?

I'm a bit taken back that you think I need to, in some way prove that I am working class; if I wasn't, why would I claim to be so?

Well, because every time we lock horns, you're always at pains to stress your working classness at the same time as deriding my middle classness. You're the one who brings it up every time, you're the one who seems to think it's a relevant point, so why the disinclination to elaborate now?

As for point 2 - the point is, this system would make identity fraud much harder

How exactly? If you actually look at the proposals and give them more than a moment's thought, the only way to make the system any more secure than our current modes of identification (e.g. passports etc.) would be to have biometric scanners everywhere where people might need to be identified. The ID card only works when it's hooked up to the database, and having hundreds of thousands of iris scanners hooked in to one database is, frankly, impossible with current technology. The government can't even get the NHS database or the CSA database working properly, which are far smaller scale projects. Moore's law has hit the buffers; hard disk storage speeds and densities are plateauing, as is networking technology. To suggest that it's going to be possible to reliably hook up 300,000+ terminals up to a database with any technology available in the next ten years is frankly laughable.

That's how the government propose to spend £10bn and mess us all about for no good reason.

making some aspects of criminal activity harder to carry out. All people, terrorist included have to exsist in society for a while, just like the 9/11 hijackers had to live in America for a while, as 'normal' people. You need documents to get about, to get in and out of the country, etc.

Yeah, and guess what? According to the CIA 17 out of 19 Hijackers had legitimate visas to be in the country. They didn't sneak across the border and live as outlaws. And explain to me how exactly a national identity card issued to UK citizens is supposed to help catch foreign nationals like the 9/11 hijackers?

Do you defend the rights of groups of teenagers to smash windows for a laugh? The rights of people to leave dogs barking all night and threaten anyone who complains with violence? Maybe the rights of kids to bunk off school and spend the day harrassing people in shopping centers?

No. I have never said that, have I? But hey, why argue against what I actually have said when you can just put words into my mouth and then argue against them?

Rich :¬)

[Big RICHARD]

Do we need our handbags out to come in here?

Oooh, you bitch!

[Rave]

Here's a quote from the great 'Blunk' himself. To put it in context, it's in response to criticism of Peter Hain for his comments which were widely interpreted as making political mileage out of the terror issue.

Neither he nor Mr Hain advocated using the terror threat for political gain, he argued.

'Measures opposed'

Mr Blunkett said: "Peter was making the point that we have doubled the capacity of the security services, that we have invested heavily in the development of the Special Branch Anti-Terrorist Unit, that we have put over £2bn in the last three years into counter-terrorism and that we are developing the electronic border surveillance and identity cards."

Clearly, 'we' are not trying to milk this for all it's worth. Oh no, not at all.

Rich :¬)

Edit: CBA to start a new thread on it, but Peter Hain was one of the few Labour ministers who I genuinely respected, mainly for his efforts in the campaign against apartheid. That's why it feels like a knife in the guts to me to see him jumping on the politics of fear bandwagon

[RVF500]

The current raft of legislation is more a case of blatent electioneering. Creating a climate of fear gives teh incumbant govt 2 advantages. Firstly it allows them to bring in ever more intrusive legislation to dig deeper into our lives as individuals and extending the control that has been insidiously creeping in over the last 7 1/2 yars. Criminalising the population of normally law abiding citizens seems to be the mark of this crowd. Secondly it steals any ground that the tories may have made. Blair realises tht his party has been badly damaged so has leapt on the hard line against crime that has been so much a tory line in the past and one he saw them potentially usingto good effect. Remember this guy is a control freak and won't allow a single foot of ground to be given if he canhelp it even if he could reasonably expect to ride out the storm.

I carried an ID card for many years and never had a problem withit. In fct it was very useful in some circumstances. However there is once again something insidious in the way the govt intends touse these and the extent ofthe information held is worrying. It would allow more and more control of the population as we won't be able to do even the simplest things without production of this document in time.

The raft of bills in the Queens speech is also unnerving in their far reaching implications. They would give the govt unprecedented powers if they chose to excercise them. We have seen that when they want something done they will ramrod it through. The hunting ban. Was it so absolutely neccesary to the well being of the country that it needed the parliament act invoking? As with ID cards, the insistence on criminalising, I simply don't trust this govt to exercise restraint and control with the powers they want awarding. I also don't believe that the terrorist groups have anything like the ability to project power that we are led to believe.

We had trial without jury and internment. That worked really well didn't it? Actually, no it didn't. Why ry and ressurect a failed policy? Simple, the Islamo-facists have created an environment where we will allow the govt to impose it. We'll then sit back and say, well, it's for our own good isn't it? Well it's not. It would pave the way for people to be arrested and interned without trial and be faced with an impossible task of trying to prove a false imprisonment.

I think those of you who know me will know I am not a middle class lefty. WTF is middle class anyway? Working class people in a better job? It's an invention to categorise a group of people that didn't fall into either the aristocracy or the great unwashed. Mainly by those who resented the neighbours bettering their position in life.

[Rave]

Agreed. How often does that happen?

Rich :¬)

[nichomach]

*Applauds RVF500*

[RVF500]

ty ty *bows*