Gov sneaky move to limit your privacy and liberty

I am concerned about the threat to my liberty and privacy by the Coroners and Justice Bill being rushed through Parliament and you should be too.

Clause 152 of the Bill is due for its first debate in the Commons on Monday 26th January and would convert the Data Protection Act into its exact opposite. It would allow ministers to make 'Information Sharing Orders', that can alter any Act of Parliament and cancel all rules of confidentiality in order to allow information obtained for one purpose to be used for another.

Write to your mp and ask him/her to p lease read Part 8 (clauses 151 - 154) of the Coroners and Justice Bill, and oppose the massive enabling powers in the "Information sharing" clause. The Bill contains a number of controversial provisions, but could appear mainly to be about reforming inquests and sentencing. It is due its Second Reading in the Commons on 26th January 2009.

These clauses be given proper Parliamentary scrutiny as this will affect every single one of your constituents, unlike the rest of the Bill. I am concerned that the government will set a timetable that will cut off debate before these proposals - which are at the end of the Bill - are discussed.
The government must keep limits and monitor the information available to officials.

A good month to bury bad news

Martin Bright in the New Stateman highlights loads of 'BAD NEWS' stuff that New Labour wants to bury. He says he's told that John Reid is planning to use the Blair-Brown interregnum to shovel out all the overdue business of a famously dysfunctional department in an attempt to bury a veritable landfill of bad news!

'Children's charities have already been informed that the much-delayed research into a
British version of Megan's Law will be published...

A further flurry of potentially embarrassing research into systems for the supervision of the most dangerous sex offenders is also planned for publication later in the month. ....

A second considerably delayed report, into the costs of the government's ID card scheme, will also be published during this period' and ...

an early-release scheme for prisoners
Published 30 April 2007