What about the children?

[altariel]

"A council has admitted spying on a family using laws to track criminals and terrorists to find out if they were really living in a school catchment." More here.

Really, it's difficult to know where to start. Perhaps I'll try something more substantive later when my teeth have stopped grinding. I mean, what went on in the meeting where they concluded this was a Really Good Idea?

Comments

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

....

........

There are no words.

Except to note that they seem to still not get why it is not a Really Good Idea.

[greylin.livejournal.com]

It's just horrible and wrong

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I know! It's like, "Oh, we're sorry we were caught."

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Imagine if they'd directed those resources towards poorly performing schools instead.

[narie.livejournal.com]

I hate to be simplistic but all I can imagine right now, with startling clarity, is John Stuart Mill rolling over in his grave.

[jthijsen.livejournal.com]

What happened?

Well, there were five politicians. And they came together in a meeting. That's pretty much all it takes, really.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I have a soundtrack to that image too, mostly bleeped out.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Fair point and good icon.

[greylin.livejournal.com]

In Dorset too! Not much call for anti-terrorism laws there, I bet. How brilliantly clever of them to think of using them like this.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

In Dorset too! Not much call for anti-terrorism laws there, I bet.

Pirates! Smugglers!

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be so sure that any politicians were involved, and I very much doubt there would be as many as five. This sounds like a wheeze dreamed up by council officers who've noticed the incredible latitude they have for snooping under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, and see this as a useful tool to tackle a problem that they've been tasked with. They may have briefed the relevant Executive Councillor, but I wouldn't count on it.

I gt involved in politics in the first place through opposition to RIPA, and this sort of thing is why. Give people working in a bureaucracy a tool, and they will use it as extensively as they are allowed. The way to avoid cases like this is to severely limit the powers, with independent checks built in to the process. Believe it or not, in its original form before it got a mauling in the Lords, RIPA gave even more powers to an even greater range of officials.

[edge-of-ruin.livejournal.com]

"An investigation may actually satisfy the council that the application is valid, as happened in this case."

Well that's alright then ... Gaaaaaaaaaaaah!

(Fury has finally winkled me out of my shameful hermit-hood - abject apologies for that.)

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Gah! Well, I certainly feel I can sleep soundly at night, knowing that three year old girls won't be able to attend schools from which they might excluded because of a bunch of arbitrary boundaries. Thank goodness the council were on the case and using all their powers to ensure this. [/sarcasm, in case it's not obvious]

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

There is a fundamental difference between a Local Authority and an individual: whereas I as an individual can pretty much do whatever I want, as long as there isn't a law stopping me (well, I can break the law, but you get the picture); as a LA officer I can do nothing unless there is a law empowering me to do it.

This tends, in my experience, in some officers to lead to a 'well, I'm allowed to do it, so I should do it' mentality. But strangely, no one seems to feel this way about their powers under the various acts empowering them to run museums.

What struck me as extremely odd (and disproportionate) about this case was that they have only admitted doing it for three cases, and have had an officer working on it for two weeks.

If they investigate every potentially fraudulent family to this level, they are either under-reporting their surveillance, or they are investigating what is essentially a non-problem - a very small proportion of offenses / very few children who don't get into the school of their parents choice due to fraud.

While I think the officers may have felt the problem was larger than it was, I think it more likely that they have not come clean about the extent of their suspicions/surveillance. Or, even more likely, they particularly wanted these three families children not to go to better performing schools.

They should, in any case, have approached the archaeologisits which they may employ ... who would have told them that going through the bins (given to them!) is far more effective than watching people, if you want to find out about them.

[jthijsen.livejournal.com]

Why am I suddenly hearing Sir Humphrey Appleby going on about the thin end of the wedge?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Gah indeed.

(No worries about hermitage - hope all is OK.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'll rest easy too, knowing these guys are on the case. [/also sarky]

[altariel.livejournal.com]

If they investigate every potentially fraudulent family to this level, they are either under-reporting their surveillance, or they are investigating what is essentially a non-problem - a very small proportion of offenses / very few children who don't get into the school of their parents choice due to fraud.

Yes, that really nails it.

[owl]

Gaaaah!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

My sentiments exactly.