Everybody sing!…
If buttercups buzz’d after the bee
If boats were on land, churches on sea
If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse
If the mamas sold their babies
To the Gypsies for half a crown
If summer were spring
And the other way ’round
Then all the world would be upside down!
From The London Daily Mail, Martin Beckford reporting, we learn [emphasis mine]:
The row over secret arrests [BOB: Not what you think — read on] deepened last night as Britain’s data watchdog claimed that naming crime suspects breaches their human rights.
Christopher Graham, the Information Commissioner [BOB: 'Information Commissar' — TFTFY], said there was no ‘pressing social need’ for the public to be told who was being held by the police.
He warned that identifying suspects risked them being denied a fair trial and would leave them exposed to ‘media intrusion into their private lives’.
His comments have been echoed by senior judges and lawyers, including a barrister at the forefront of the Hacked Off campaign to introduce state regulation of the press.
There are now fresh fears that police will press ahead with a draconian plan, recommended by Lord Justice Leveson in his landmark report, to keep secret the identities of people suspected of serious offences.
Under guidance being drawn up by the Association of Chief Police Officers, revealed by The Mail on Sunday last week, forces across England and Wales would be banned from confirming the names of those they have arrested when talking to journalists.
The guarantee of anonymity has been branded an attack on open justice that could allow criminals to keep offending by preventing victims or witnesses coming forward with evidence.
The Government’s own legal reform advisory body, the Law Commission, has said that reporters should be able to check names with police forces.
But in his strongly worded response, the Information Commissioner has claimed that a policy of identifying all suspects would breach the Data Protection Act, which concerns the handling of personal information, and Labour’s notorious Human Rights Act, long described as a criminals’ charter.
Mr Graham, a former BBC employee who previously ran the Advertising Standards Authority, wrote: ‘The European Court of Human Rights has recognised the state’s positive obligation to protect individuals from media intrusion into their private lives . . . due consideration will need to be given to the right of the individual to a fair trial and the right to respect for privacy.
‘It is not clear that there is a pressing social need to divulge the details of those individuals who have been arrested.’
Here we have, in all it’s shining, pathetic glory, another example of Leftist Thinking traveling down the road to it’s extreme and logical end.
Don’t for a minute think that this policy would be implemented here. Perhaps it will be done in a city such as San Francisco first [trial, meet balloon], but eventually the Left In America will work to have it applied at every level of law enforcement.
It’s the way the Left thinks; it’s what they do.
This, of course, does not mean that the names of certain arrestees will not be conveniently leaked-out, like say those who happen to be conservative or Classical Liberals. Funny how it works that way.
Resistentiam Tyrannis nunc.
Resistentiam Tyrannis saecula.
PROSCRIPTUS!
Resistance to Tyranny now.
Resistance to Tyranny forever.
OUTLAWS!
