UK launches massive, one-year program to archive every email : Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech

Posted with the greatest trepidation by Lord Lunch

In a move that even the most nonchalant of privacy advocates is crying foul over, the UK has put into effect a European Union directive which mandates the archival of information regarding virtually all Internet traffic for the next 12 months. The program formally goes into effect today.

The data retention rules require the archival of all email traffic (the identities of the sender and receiver, but not the contents of the messages), records of VOIP telephone calls (traditional phone calls are already monitored), and information about every website visited by any computer user in the country. The rules are being pushed down "across the board to even the smallest company," as every ISP large or small will be required to collect and store the data. That data will then be accessible -- to fight "crime and terrorism," of course -- by "hundreds of public bodies" to investigate whatever crimes they see fit.

Technically the new directive applies to all countries of the EU, but individual nations appear to be complying with the rules to various degrees. Privacy-obsessed Sweden is reportedly ignoring the rule completely, for example.

The privacy implications of the rule are enormous, as everything UK citizens do online will now be under the watchful eye of EU's powerful Home Office. One privacy advocate, whose anger is clearly barely being held back, called it "the kind of technology that the Stasi would have dreamed of." Naturally, the government counters that this kind of information has already proven invaluable in tracking down criminals, including the killer of an 11-year-old boy a couple of years ago.

UK launches massive, one-year program to archive every email : Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech

If you Colonials would but peruse our papers here in once Great Britain, a daily dose of horrors like this you would get. Sadly for me, I've kept up with news from the rebel colonies you call the USA, and I see that the Fresh Prince of D.C. is racing pell mell to catch up with, and then outpace, we wee British on the expressway to hell.

When m'Lord Cornwallis surrendered to Gen. Washington at Yorktown in 1781, he ordered his drum & fife corps to play 'The World Turned Upside Down.' Time for someone to do a cover recording, is it not?

Pip pip (though I feel rather like saying 'poop poop.')

Lord Lunch

Hamsammich Castle, Worcestershiresauce, England

Tennessee law enforcement is a smoke screen for fascism

Tennessee Department of Revenue agents are under orders to stop Tennessee motorists who have in their vehicles "large quantities of cigarettes" purchased out of state.

How will the 'Revenooers' know the cigs were purchased out of state? Easy-peasey.

Tennessee is dispatching under-cover agents to stake out stores selling cigarettes along interstate highways near the Tennessee border. When an agent spots someone with Tennessee tags buying cigarettes 'in volume' at a store in any one of the eight states bordering Tennessee, a radio call is made to a revenue officer who stops the car when it enters Tennessee.

And what happens then?

The stoppee, the schmuck whose car is weighted down with "large quantities of cigarettes," is arrested for bringing untaxed cigarettes into the state.

What is a large quantity of cigarettes, exactly?

More than two cartons, exactly. Namely, two cartons and one pack.

Toting untaxed cigarettes exceeding two cartons in measure is a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in the pokey and/or a $500 fine.

Oh, a further little punishment may also be meted out, entirely at the arresting officer's discretion. Vehicles used to transport more than two cartons may be seized, since they are deemed contraband.

Now, you can bring up to 24 cartons and 9 packs into the state and get off with six months in the pokey, a fine of $500 bucks, and perhaps see your brand new used Buick hauled away to the auctioneer. But if you cross that "Welcome to Tennessee" line with just one pack more, 25 cartons in toto, you'll wish you were an illegal alien instead of a poor sap who likes his 'backy.

Bringing 25 or more cartons into Tennessee is a Class E felony. The punishment is a minimum of one year in prison (the maximum is six years) plus a fine of up to $3,000.

And, agents have been ordered to seize any vehicle carrying more than 25 cartons of cigarettes without Tennessee tax stamps.

Why has cigarette transport into Tennessee become a matter for the Gestapo?

On July 21, Tennessee’s cigarette tax jumped 40 cents, to 62 cents per pack. All eight states bordering Tennessee have lower tax rates, ranging from 17 cents in Missouri upwards. That means one carton (10 packs) is $4.50 cheaper in Missouri. Twenty-five cartons purchased in the Show Me state saves someone from the Volunteer State $112.50.

Is there, Dear Reader, a lesson to be drawn from this dreary dispatch? You betchum.

A Distasteful Foretaste of HillaryCare

Wife gets apology over dying cancer patient's 8-month wait to see doctor

Lyndsay Moss - The Scotsman (lmoss@scotsman.com)

HEALTH bosses have been told to apologize to the wife of a cancer patient who was left waiting eight months to see a doctor.

Pauline Cheasley said her late husband Maurice's follow-up appointment was canceled twice by Stirling Royal Infirmary. When he was finally seen by a doctor, he was told his cancer was inoperable. He died eight months later, in March last year.