Incompetents, Security and Hellish Policies

“You do not secure the liberty of our country and value of our democracy by undermining them. That’s the road to hell.
– Lord Phillips of Sudbury (source: BBC News - “Police decryption powers ‘flawed’“

I don’t normally post on politics or law because I’m not an expert and, to be honest (judging by my apache logs), they’re only interesting to a small fraction of the people that stop by here. However, two of the security related news stories I’ve seen today need to be pointed out, first of all we have proof of the old saying, “if they want you bad enough they’ll get you”.

Only in this case “they” turned out to be a 12 year old child (and no, I don’t read the Express - it’s the only instance of the story I could find to link to) who’d run away from a care home in Merseyside. And made it on to a jet during “one of the tightest lock-downs in airport history”. He only managed to sneak through passport control. And police. And security. And a metal detector and pad down. And the ground control checks. And through the departure checks.

Who ever said “The guards are most diligent after the break in” has obviously never met any of the massively skilled people at Heathrow. I liked “we’re launching an investigation”, I don’t want an investigation, I want a full witch hunt; with bloodhounds. Followed by lots of high level sackings and possible prosecutions. Airports are a vital part of our infrastructure, something like this must be as near to criminal negligence as you can get without seeing a nice cell and that guy called “Bruiser” with the pretty tattoos on his knuckles…

Now I’ve released my bile let’s get to the other story, well, another link. Some peers have claimed the Police decryption powers are ‘flawed’ and risk being abused.. No shit.