foorah

Sunset over Whitstable Bay

Originally uploaded by fooflington.

Went for a walk last night during the calm between downpours and got this set of pics of the Sunset… Autostitch is amazing

So, I read on Wired that, for Free citizens of the United States of America, tomorrow marks the day that virtually all private communication mechanisms available to Joe Public are about to be forced to be not-so-private by the FCC.

From the little I’ve read, the powers vested in the FBI allow the law enforcement personnel in the Democratic Republic of the Free Peoples of the United States of America [1] to, with the oversight of the independent judiciary, can activate on your broadband provider, mobile carrier, university network account a wire tap allowing them to log all communication you make or receive including email, phone conversations (VoIP included), what websites you visit. This officially scares me.

I sincerely hope that, should this get implemented in the United Kingdom, then it gets tested in court against the Human Rights Act and stricken from the statute book like it would deserve. There is no way that this sort of activity is the way a democratic country should treat its citizens who are, after all, innocent until proven guilty [2].

As for readers in the DRotFPoUSA, I suggest you find out how to use PGP for all your email find out what ssh and something like TOR can do for you if only to show them that those who need to get around such privacy infractions are quite capable of doing so with little/no effort.

This does assume that the FBI don’t have backdoors in the SSL/PGP/TOR system already…

Notes

1. Well, you have the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea… is it any of that? There’s a relevant line from Yes, Minister! talking about laws they don’t want to implement along the lines of “Always dispense with the tricky issues in the title”
2. That’s how it is supposed to work, anyway

I’ve written my (mostly camera) wishlist.

It’s here and automagically updates

Last night saw what seems like (but probably isn’t) the whole rest of the British Isles under a blanket of snow but East Kent has escaped thus far with only a few minutes of slushy ming falling from the sky.

Fortunately, the Met Office have decided that tonight we will get hours of snow… bring it on

The people who wonderfully host this website for me are Dreamhost. By clicking that link or entering the referral code FOO82 you will not be charged a setup fee! (It’ll also help keep this site running!)

BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme are doing their annual listener vote. Listeners can suubmit suggestions for UK Laws which need repealing.

Please participate in this and get some of the rediculous laws that have been passed recently by government taken back off the statute books.

Some of the laws you may wish to consider are:

• Terrorism Act 2000
• Sections 132-135 Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005
• Identity Cards Act 2006

Rays

Originally uploaded by fooflington.

Near Culnacraig, Highlands looking towards the Summer Isles.

Really like how this one came out (after tweaking a bit)

With reference to Rachel from north London’s blog, I would like to draw people’s attention to the gradual erosion of our Human Rights in the UK.

On the government’s own website it says that our rights include:

• freedom of expression
• freedom of assembly and association

So, freedom of expression… is that not being permitted to express your opinion in a public forum even if others may disagree with you? The UN have decreed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that:

Everyone has the right to opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

The UN regard things like war propaganda, incitement to violence and certain forms of hate speech as outside the remit of freedom of expression.

With regards to freedom of assembly and association, Wikipedia states that [ref]:

Freedom of assembly is the freedom to associate with, or organize any groups, gatherings, clubs, or organizations that one wishes. It is held to be a key right in liberal democracies, where by citizens may form or join any political party, special interest group, or union without government restrictions. In legal systems without freedom of assembly, certain political parties or groups can be banned with harsh penalties for any members. Public protests against the government are usually banned as well.

In 2005, the people of the United Kingdom were restricted from demonstrating in the vicinity of Parliament by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. This act requires anyone wishing to demonstrate within a half mile of Parliament to get authorisation to do so. The main reason for this piece of legislation being a single man demonstrating against the war in Iraq, Brian Haw, which some members of the government have found to be distasteful.

Is this the sort of thing an elected body of MPs should be doing? Restricting the people’s ability to let them know, in times of civil unrest, what their views are? Should we allow them, once they’ve been elected, to shut themselves away from the nasty world outside and silence those who hold and wish to express conflicting views.

As a nation we have, in the past, condemned regimes which have limited the freedoms of people in this way. Is this, in fact, the same sort of regime we wish to be governed by?

I don’t.

Ok, so after much dribbling… they went and took away the decent 350D deal I was looking at (350D+18-55mm+55-200mm+grip). So, instead, I’ve gone and got myself a Canon 400D with standard 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 and dmc’s 75-300mm f4-5.6 to go with it… along with a rather swish looking backpack to keep it all in.

Oh, and “yay for Jessops” for price matching. Shame the only black 400d in Kent appears to have been in Maidstone… oh well, it’s in Whitstable now