The US Court of Appeal has confirmed airlines can chuck you off a plane for the crime of trying to fly while appearing to be Asian (after a man of Portuguese extraction had a polite conversation with the pilot, wanted to sit by the emergency exit, and waschucked off a plane - see Boston Globe report)

Since chip implants work so well on dogs the Ministry of Justice, encouraged by Acpo, favours trying to put RFID tags into prisoners and monitoring them by satellite (Independent).

Finally, before the full intrusive folly of the electronic Common Assessment Framework (eCAF) for children has become apparent the crazed “Cab in a Toffice” wants to extend this surveillance to the whole family:

For individuals with multiple needs, an overarching assessment should bring together pieces of information that would otherwise be scattered across the system. Frontline practitioners should build on this knowledge base when reviewing progress or designing support. This assessment process should build on progress made through the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) for children and young people, implemented as part of the Every Child Matters agenda. The CAF provides a shared and holistic assessment for children and young people with additional needs. It takes account of family risk factors and can therefore also help to identify and direct support towards the unmet needs of other family members – a parent’s learning disability, or an older sibling’s substance misuse, for example.

(these last two items thanks to FIPR Alerts).

I’d love it if these were all absurd hoaxes, but I fear not. After a burst of disasters based on a toxic blend of arrogance and ignorance, the tribe has gone completely mad. There’s no sense in implementing policies which make everyne hate the police and prison officers or clam up with the GP or teacher they despreately need to talk to about personal problems. Human dignity isn’t incidental to government: it’s the underlying purpose.

Public servants should listen. Needy people are uncomplicated and articulate about what their needs are. Government should remember at all times, however clever it feels, that it is the servant not the master. While you’re at it stop bloody photographing us. As the philanderer Boris Johnson says in Taking Liberties, just butt out of it.

Please join me in letting off steam. For sanity and moral support you can turn to:
- Liberty for most things
- Action on Rights for Children (Arch) re children’s database matters
- FIPR on children’s databases and chips
- Caspian’s antichip site.

Wrap up...

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