Nanny Knows Best

Nanny Knows Best
Dedicated to exposing, and resisting, the all pervasive nanny state that is corroding the way of life and the freedom of the people of Britain.

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

The Grim RIPA

Grim RIPA
My compliments to Jenny Paton who took Poole Borough Council (a Conservative council!) to a tribunal, after it admitted using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to spy on her family 21 times (see an article on thsis ite from 2008).

For why was Poole council spying on Miss Poole?

Did they suspect her of being a terrorist?

No!

Did they suspect her dog of fouling the pavement?

No!

They wanted to check to see if she and her family lived in the right school catchment area.

She does live in the right area by the way!

Anyhoo, Poole lost the case and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that it was not a proper purpose and not necessary to use surveillance powers.

The tribunal also found that the surveillance breached the family's right to privacy, under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.

Miss Paton and her family were tailed round the clock, spied on at home and their movements were recorded in detailed surveillance forms. Their car was also described as a "target vehicle".

As ever with councils and jumped up jobsworths, if you give them a smattering of power they misuse use it and abuse it.

Councils, whatever political party they claim to represent, are not to be trusted and are the enemy of the people.

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7 comments:

  1. Lord of Atlantis11:14 AM

    Well done, Jenny Paton! If I found I was being followed, I'd either go straight round to the police station and report the fact or, bearing in mind that they are probably p*****g in the same pot as these council jobsworths, simply go on a long and circuitous walk over the roughest terrain I could find, definitely somewhere it was impossible to drive a car, by the end of which said council jobsworths would think twice about ever following anyone again!

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  2. OK….So the councils are abusing laws to spy on their own constituents. People also seem to be quite rightly upset by the amount of hi-viz jobsworths and the power that they have.

    Has nobody bothered to challenge their councils on these issues?

    For instance…..If the freedom of information act makes it possible for the general public to scrutinize serving MP’s salaries and expenses, shouldn’t you also be allowed to scrutinize your own council? Police Officers pay, along with High Court Judges’ and other civil servants salaries are all public knowledge, so why not council workers?

    Wouldn’t councils be under a legal obligation to supply the following information………

    How many council workers are allowed to issue fines?

    How many council workers are employed to actively spy on the public?

    What are their job titles?

    What salaries do they earn?

    What exactly are their powers?

    What laws and by-laws do they have the authority to enforce?

    What training and guidance is given to these individuals?

    What is the yearly cost to the tax payer for these services?


    Perhaps the councils would refuse to supply the above information, but I suggest that by not answering these questions they would seriously hinder their own ability to issue fines and generally hassle the people that they claim to represent.

    It’s all very well sitting around with your thumb up your arse moaning, but perhaps somebody should write to their own council and see what occurs.

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  3. Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells11:42 AM

    Gary said:

    "For instance…..If the freedom of information act makes it possible for the general public to scrutinize serving MP’s salaries and expenses, shouldn’t you also be allowed to scrutinize your own council?"

    Unfortunately, no. All councils have to do is claim that to reveal such information would compromise the detection of crime. A very convenient get-out clause also used by the BBC when it comes to FOI requests about its Capita debt enforcers aka TV Licensing.

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  4. Disgusted………

    Perhaps you are right, but I have no idea what you mean.

    I thought it was the job of the police to detect crime, but as I have already stated, anyone can find out the number of serving police officers and how much they are paid. And anyone can easily find out what powers they have. As for the laws that they can enforce, these are also common knowledge.

    The councils are not a law unto themselves. They are accountable to the people and the people should MAKE them accountable whenever necessary…… and it is no good coming out with brave statements like people shouldn’t fear the state, the state should fear the people if all that 99.99% of people do when their rights are abused by the state is roll over and die.

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  5. Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells12:34 PM

    Gary said:
    "I thought it was the job of the police to detect crime,"

    Not nowadays. ZaNuLiebour intoduced a lot of "new" crimes and gave the tin-pot little Hitlers in UK town halls the powers to enforce them. Unfortunately said little Hitlers aren't subject to the same scrutiny as the police, as has often been pointed out in these hallowed pages.

    The particular case under discussion was the subject of a phone-in yesterday on BBC Five Live and a policeman opined that giving false information in order to have your child accepted at a favoured school is technically fraud, as a service is being obtained under false pretences. All the ammunition needed by local authority snoops, and of course the perfect excuse not to supply relevant information under FOI for the reason I gave.

    Watching television without a licence is one criminal offence that isn't enforced by the police. Instead prosecution has been privatised and undertaken by Capita under the guise of TV Licensing. Both BBC and TVL routinely refuse FOI requests on the grounds that revealing the information requested would hinder the detection of crime. Ergo, town halls use the same excuse. After all they have the job of investigating bin crimes, litter crimes, dogshit crimes, going-to-the-wrong-school crimes and so on ad nauseam.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ken;

    Perhaps she could be given an award by this site.....A kind of anti-prat of the week award.....Well done to her!!

    Many of the problems we have with our local Nanny are caused because we cannot vote out the staff and managers who are the ones that have the real power....Our councillors are just fall guys.
    Our local councils work like the EU;
    Commissioners (Council staff/managers) make policy and suggest changes, the MEPs(councillors) are told how to vote,"To comply with directives" and just nod them through.
    It is a very clever way of shifting blame onto other people.....We can vote our councillors out but, the real muppets still remain behind the scenes, pulling the strings.


    Hi-Viz....Just say NO!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. microdave12:39 PM

    @ Gary - get stuck in: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/

    ReplyDelete