freeinfidel

We all know Facebook won’t let you quit: you can deactivate an account, but not erase it. Many of us, who value our privacy, think this is disgraceful and arrogant. Facebook seems to think it owns us. But why worry? Just make sure all the information they have about you is false.

When I first heard about, and joined, Facebook it seemed like an amusing idea - for about a week. That’s about as long as it took to hook up with a bunch of old friends with whom I’d lost contact. Then the annoyances really set it - people badgering me to install applications to do things whose triviality and pointlessness make Big Brother seem positively constructive. Then there’s the advertising. And above all, the dawning realisation that I was doing all the work to make Mark Zuckerberg rich - by providing lots of intimate details about myself that he could sell.

Facebook is a waste of bandwidth. So why not leave? The answer is, they won’t let you. Your data is just too valuable to them. They can’t let you go.

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The news that a British teacher in Sudan has been charged with insulting islam is disappointing and distasteful, but not entirely surprising. Welcome to the world of Islam, where a sense of humour, and commonsense, are not required.

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Naomi Wolf’s prescient warning…

The police state creeps up on us, step by stealthy step. Every law, every restriction, is invoked for our safety and convenience. But a totalitarian state feeds on laws, twisting them to its own ends.

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The Metropolitan Police has been found guilty of a health & safety violation. It doesn’t seem all that sorry, though.

When Metropolitan Police officers murdered Jean Charles de Menezes in July 2005, they were in breach of health and safety regulations, a court has decided.

It’s surprising anyone needed a court case to decide that — the slaying of an innocent man wouldn’t strike many sane people as good practice in the workplace. All the same, the Met Police pleaded not guilty. Now it’s having to pay a £175,000 fine and £385,000 costs for its failings.

Sir Ian Blair, the Met’s Commissioner, reiterated that he’s not resigning over the affair. He did offer the family and friends of de Menezes another apology, but it rings somewhat hollow.

The problem is that authorities like the Police often have grossly skewed values when it comes to their own behaviour. It’s a given that police forces will always take whatever powers they can grab, because they always perceive their work to be so important that it overrides any other considerations — such as freedom of speech and other civil liberties. That’s why we have to be so cautious about granting new police powers: after all, society is not run for the benefit of the police — it is their function to serve us.

At the same time as making the apology, Blair also made excuses.

“As far as we know, this is the first time that such legislation has been applied to fast moving police operations where the public are in danger,” he said.

This is a trick often used in the co-called ‘War on Terror’. What danger was he referring to, exactly? As we lose our freedoms and walk slowly but surely towards a police state, it is to the sound of the powers that be wailing of the threat to those same liberties from terrorists. It’s all for our own good, apparently. But where is this threat?

Terrorism is real and must be fought. But what we suffer from most is the threat of terrorism, and the greatest damage being wrought on our society is coming from those who claim to protect us.

“The difficulties shown in this trial were those of an organisation struggling, on a single day, to get to grips with a simply extraordinary situation - its greatest operational challenge in a generation,” added Blair.

What situation? A plumber going to work? The mighty Met Police can’t deal with that? A man catching a Tube train is the “greatest operational challenge in a generation”?

The Met Police screwed up and its incompetence resulted in the murder of an innocent man. Blair and his organisation should have the decency and honesty to admit that, not hide behind these self-aggrandising lies.