Conversations of Liberty

Smart readers, those USA Today patrons are.

Quite a confusing concept for me.  You see, with the UK’s camera on every street corner and it’s totalitarian views and laws against handguns, what are these people afraid of?

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Gordon Brown today urged police across England and Wales to offer to walk the last mile home with people who feel unsafe after they visit the cashpoint.

He floated the idea, pioneered by the Wanstead neighbourhood police team in east London, when he delivered his first major speech about crime at Chelsea FC’s conference centre today.

While Tony Blair faced ridicule for threatening to march young thugs to the cashpoint to pay their fines, Brown was criticised for assuming that the police have the time to escort people home from the bank.

In his wide-ranging speech, the prime minister defended the government’s civil liberties record over the use of CCTV cameras and the decision not to immediately delete the profiles of 850,000 innocent individuals from the DNA database.

He confirmed that the government is to overhaul its strategy to tackle organised crime gangs, including making it easier to seize their property by introducing legislation shifting the burden of proof so that their houses, yachts and cars can be seized immediately by extending the powers that already covers their cash.

Brown defended the record of the much-criticised Serious and Organised Crime Agency, saying it was here to stay.

He also disclosed that a policing white paper is to be published in the autumn to cover police accountability. This will include recent lessons from the G20 protests and will take in the conclusions of the official review by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary of police tactics during those protests and those at the Kingsnorth power station climate camp, in Kent, last summer.

The prime minister said the autumn white paper would look again at the thorny issue of police accountability at a local level – plans for elections to police authorities were recently shelved – to guarantee proper redress if the policing pledge is not met within a specific neighbourhood.

Brown acknowledged that the recession would also bring an upward pressure on burglary and robbery. He said a new programme would be launched this summer, backed by additional funding, to all the different agencies involved in tackling burglary and robbery.

In a speech that touched on nearly every issue on crime and disorder from parenting to sentencing, Brown said that it was easy to think CCTV is “excessive” if you never take the rowdy night bus home, or live in a gated community, or can always afford a licensed cab. He added: “The public should be able to identify streets where they don’t feel safe and get their local force or council to take action.”

The Conservative crime spokesman, James Brokenshire, said: “It is absurd that Gordon Brown thinks that police have time to escort people back from the bank. Between piles of paperwork and trying to fight crime, it’s troubling to think the government view this as achievable for police officers across the country.”

Hat tip

It’s about time.

Remember, their current operational practice allowed them to stop and search people without reasonable suspicion.

House bypasses governor’s veto to claim Oklahoma’s sovereignty.

Although Gov. Brad Henry vetoed similar legislation 10 days earlier, House members Monday again approved a resolution claiming Oklahoma’s sovereignty.

Unlike House Joint Resolution 1003, House Concurrent Resolution 1028 does not need the governor’s approval.

The House passed the measure 73-22. It now goes to the Senate.

“We’re going to get it done one way or the other,” said the resolutions’ author, Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City.

“I think our governor is out of step.”

House Democrats objected, saying the issue already had been taken up and had been vetoed, but House Speaker Pro Tempore Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, ruled the veto is not final action.

Key said he expects HCR 1028 will pass in the Senate. HJR 1003 earlier passed the House 83-18 and won approval in the Senate 29-18.

Henry vetoed HJR 1003 because he said it suggested, among other things, that Oklahoma should return federal tax dollars.

See Video and Article here.

Officers were armed with megaphones and told to bark warnings at homeowners who left doors and windows open during warm weather.

Police community support officers and constables took to the streets of Northampton and began bellowing: ‘This is the police. Shut your windows and lock your doors. Don’t let burglars in.’

Makes me proud of my English heritage?  I don’t think so.

Meeting face-to-face with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, President Obama on Thursday said the U.S. is to blame for much of Mexico’s drug violence, and he set up a major congressional gun-control battle by calling on the Senate to ratify a treaty designed to track and cut the flow of guns to other countries.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, leading a two-day conference with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the future of capitalism, said the crisis has shown that no country can go it alone on economic policy.

“In the 21st century, there it is no longer a single nation who can say what we should do or what we should think,” he said.

He went on to say:”In capitalism of the 21st century, there is room for the state.”

Sounds like another intellectually confused mish-mash of ideas by European leaders that have giant chips on their shoulders.  They are dying to be like the United States and the only way to get there is by creating some kind of European-led New World Order.

Saudi court tells girl aged EIGHT she cannot divorce husband who is 50 years her senior.

A Saudi court has rejected a plea to divorce an eight-year-old girl married off by her father to a man who is 58, saying the case should wait until the girl reaches puberty.

The divorce plea was filed in August by the girl’s divorced mother with a court at Unayzah, 135 miles north of Riyadh just after the marriage contract was signed by the father and the groom.

Lawyer Abdullar Jtili said:”The judge has dismissed the plea, filed by the mother, because she does not have the right to file such a case, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty.”

…and I must say, not only do you look good in it, but it fits you perfectly!

“They creep around in the dark spreading misery, rumour and secrets from inside Westminster.  Even so, paperboys and girls are hardly likely to pose a threat to national security.”

One local council, however, thought it necessary to use swingeing anti-terror laws against them.

Cambridgeshire County Council used the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to spy on eight paperboys thought to be working without permits.