for Uninformed.co.uk
by Tobias Cunningham
Thursday, November 29, 2007

Well, I warned quite a few people that it would get to this. I said all along that the smoking ban wouldn’t stop where it was. And it hasn’t.

Police officers are now branding all of you smokers who gather outside of pubs and clubs as an ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD for blocking pavements, creating too much noise and increasing the potential for trouble and have requested that you be BANNED from smoking OUTSIDE!!

Yet, we all knew that smokers would have to go somewhere…we all knew that that somewhere would be outside of our pubs and clubs…and we all knew that there would be large groups gathering following the introduction of the ban…so why now do the police seem completely stunned that people are actually choosing to light up cigarettes on the street?! Did the police seriously believe that the introduction of a smoking ban would simply result in everyone becoming a non-smoker? I think not, and it’s not the health of the people that they are at all interested in. It is the bullying of smokers and the power tripping of those in charge that is of greater concern to them.

Anyone that I ever discussed the July smoking ban with I have told them that getting people to quit smoking and improve people’s hearlth is not the main priority at hand here. It is the government and police further flexing their muscles to us all to see just how much they can keep pushing us around.

Pubs and clubs could soon face prosecution for allowing customers to smoke OUTSIDE and these new rules of law cannot be understated for their potential to lead us further down the road of police officers being our Gods.

By now you will all be familiar with the groups of people who gather outside pubs and clubs in order to smoke since the indoor ban came into effect, and it is these groups that the police are now targetting.

I don’t smoke myself, and because of that people automatically assume that I was happy when the smoking ban came into force. Well, I wasn’t. Because no matter how much someone smoking near me could ever annoy me I would never ever try and tell somebody what they should do. We have liberties for a reason, and the way in which any one of us should interpret the law is simple…if something is legal in the eyes of the law…then you should be allowed to do it. Apparently the police do not agree.

You all have to think logically about what is being suggested here. The police are now requesting that an activity which is PERFECTLY LEGAL to indulge in in this country should effectively be outlawed on the pavements of our cities as well as inside.

Police have requested that pubs and clubs be limited to no more than 15 people gathering outside…a measure club owners have dismissed as being “completely unenforcable”.

Phil Burke, of the MCPN said: “When the idea to limit smokers outside to about 15 was first suggested it got quite heated.”

One Manchester city centre landlord who did not want to be named said: “It’s ridiculous. The only way we would be able to limit numbers smoking outside is by holding people in venues against their will, which could cause a riot.”

It is this pushing around of our people by these mighty chaps in ‘authority’ that is sending our country into a state of total dictatorship, where the police and government tell you what you can and cannot do whenever they feel like it.

The ability of the police to simply say that you cannot do something which is legal is a scary prospect for the future of our nation. Where exactly will this end? Telling people they can’t smoke in their own homes? If they get their way with this request that could well be where this is leading.

UK Daily Mail
Wednesday, November 28, 2007

In the hush of the courtroom, where a couple’s turbulent love life was being laid bare, the mobile phone trilled out sharply.

Enraged, the judge presiding over the case demanded to know whose it was - but was met by a sea of blank faces.

Since none of the 46 witnesses, friends or onlookers had owned up, Judge Robert Restaino decided drastic action was in order. So he sent them all to jail.

Two years later, he has been sacked over the incident at the court at Niagara Falls in upstate New York. A judicial panel found Mr Restaino, 48, had snapped and engaged in “two hours of inexplicable madness”.

It said he acted like a “petty tyrant”, dismissing his explanation that he had been under stress in his personal life.

The incident caused an outcry at the time. Mr Restaino was hearing a domestic violence case when he heard the phone ringing.

A sign in the courthouse warns that phones and pagers must be turned off. The judge asked the culprit to step forward but when no one did he told the group: “Every single person is going to jail in this courtroom unless I get that instrument now.”

Security officers then attempted to find the phone, but failed.

After a brief recess, Mr Restaino returned to the bench and again asked who had been responsible for the ringing phone.

When no one came forward, he ordered that the entire courtroom audience be taken into custody and set bail at £750.

He told the group: “This person, whoever he or she may be, doesn’t have a whole lot of concern. Let’s see how much concern they have when they are sitting in the back there with all the rest of you.”

The group were taken to Niagara city jail, where they were searched and packed into crowded cells. Several were then shackled and transported to another jail.

Fourteen of them remained in prison for several hours while trying to raise the bail money.

UK Daily Mail
Friday, November 23, 2007

Children are to be tracked in school via radio chips sewn into their uniforms.

The manufacturer is marketing the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) surveillance system nationwide, following a trial with 19 pupils at Hungerhill School in Doncaster this year.

The chip is embroidered into school uniforms using conductive ’smart threads’. A teacher can then scan these to view the pupil’s identity, photo, whether they misbehaved in lessons and their school attendence record.

Hungerhill headteacher Graham Wakeling said the pilot was “not intrusive to the pupil in the slightest” because tracking would not go beyond the school’s gates.

However, the chip has drawn criticism from civil liberties groups. David Clouter, from LeaveThemKidsAlone, a campaign group, was appalled by the idea.

“To put this in a school badge is complete and utter surveillance of the children. Tagging is what we do to criminals we let out of prison early,” he said.

The chips were developed by Danrbro Ltd, which was set up by Andy Stewart, an ICT teacher at Hungerhill School, and a school uniform company.

Schools could fit scanners to doors or give teachers hand-held scanners to identify pupils entering or exiting rooms.

Darnbro siad their product can “trace a pupil’s every step during the school day” and that the system can be set up to limit access to doors, such as shutting the main doors of a school to pupils during classtime.

Mr Stewart, 36, said the system would cost about £2000 for a small primary school and up to £14,000 for an average-sized secondary, according to the Times Educational Supplement.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families supports the use of electronic registration to improve safety and security and reduce truancy.