Recent government advertisements
If you claim you're living alone, we can check your bills.
If you claim you're unemployed, our new powers let us find out about it if you're working.
Neither of these apply to me. So as an honest taxpayer, do I feel happy about these powers, about these threats?
Do I buggery.
These can be summed up as, "Big brother is watching you." This threatening attitude makes me concerned that maybe I, too, shall fall foul of the law - possibly through clerical error (there are two people who don't live in our house who we still receive mail for. What happens if they're committing benefit fraud?)
These advertisements seem fundamentally wrong. Now, instead of fearing being a victim of crime, they make me fear being a victim of the very legislature that is supposed to protect me.
If you've sat down in the cinema recently you may have experienced the same sensation. FACT adverts offer huge rewards if you shop your fellow film-goers for that bastion of international terrorism, piracy. We've seen cases recently where large corporate entities persue individuals for huge damages for the heinous sin of (promoting international terrorism and) offering MP3s to their college-mates. The law shouldn't be about setting examples; each case should be tried on its merits, with appropriate levels of punitive damages if justice is so served. This simply feels like another abuse of the legal system by overly powerful and unaccountable behemoths.
Glad to be alive.
If you claim you're unemployed, our new powers let us find out about it if you're working.
Neither of these apply to me. So as an honest taxpayer, do I feel happy about these powers, about these threats?
Do I buggery.
These can be summed up as, "Big brother is watching you." This threatening attitude makes me concerned that maybe I, too, shall fall foul of the law - possibly through clerical error (there are two people who don't live in our house who we still receive mail for. What happens if they're committing benefit fraud?)
These advertisements seem fundamentally wrong. Now, instead of fearing being a victim of crime, they make me fear being a victim of the very legislature that is supposed to protect me.
If you've sat down in the cinema recently you may have experienced the same sensation. FACT adverts offer huge rewards if you shop your fellow film-goers for that bastion of international terrorism, piracy. We've seen cases recently where large corporate entities persue individuals for huge damages for the heinous sin of (promoting international terrorism and) offering MP3s to their college-mates. The law shouldn't be about setting examples; each case should be tried on its merits, with appropriate levels of punitive damages if justice is so served. This simply feels like another abuse of the legal system by overly powerful and unaccountable behemoths.
Glad to be alive.