deleted (88)

That was the basis of the story, way over the top as the local education authority could have just as easily checked the council tax records, rather than going to lengths that were being talked about.

OK, I'll come clean ossifer... I dun it!

I was short of cash and couldn't afford the fees to the local public prep school. As a lifelong atheist who has actually read the bible cover to cover, I have a very good understanding of the Christian beliefs (having a reverend gent as a late grandfather etc and discussed theology at length) so I lied like buggery to get the child in. It worked a treat and saved me about £30k. Do I feel guilty? Hell no!

The fucking government didn't give me a tax break for spending £60k plus a year to save them the cost of educating my kids so why the fuck should I care?

We did have to make an effort to undo all the religeous indoctrination of course, but it wasn't that hard and it worked a treat.

I did what I had to do for my kid, and don't regret a thing. Where I live the alternative bog standard state schools are a fucking zoo. And that's a compliment to them. You're lucky if you get out of a state school without a knife stuck in you.

It's a competitive world and the brightest succeed. Not necessarily nice, but true. There never has been and probably never will be equality of opportunity.

But don't start me off about education... 40 years of socialist principles infused into the system by left wing teachers have fucked our country big time, with a lying government using "grade inflation" to claim everything is hunky dory. Try giving a 1950s O level paper to today's GCSE kids! That will fuck their 10 A* records! As an employer, it's a bleeding nightmare now to even find people who have basic literacy skills!

Rant over!

I did it many years ago... I wonder if they would catch up with me if I did it now... They'd have needed to be pretty intrusive to catch me out, reading my emails, opening my post, all a breach of Article 8 of the HRA.

But this is yet another instance of our rights and freedoms being abused and reduced by this crappy commie bunch of dilettante thugs that call themselves a government...

We do all really need to wake up to this and get active!

--
David
Email: nicad_2 AT yahoo.co.uk www.geocities.com/nicad_2/aboutme/

Wrong place to offer to hand yourself in, you'll have hundreds of offers of handcuffs! lmao.

I can not fault you on the literacy angle, I have come across barristers who speak eloquently, but the grammar is absolutely shocking! We have in the last few weeks had a conviction overturned on a technicality, the CPS solicitor who completed the prosecution submissions mis-spelt soo many words that it actually invalidated the writ! I gather this isn't the first time this has occured either. A sad reflection of todays educational standards.

spirifer wrote: emark wrote: Aside from the worry of snooping, I'm shocked at the idea that a child's education is being discriminated based on the parent's belief (or lack of) in a supernatural being. (What next, is the council going to snoop to see if someone really believes in fairies or not?) Anyone know any more on this, or is the story mistaken? On the other hand, (just to be Devil's Advocate ), if you don't believe in God, why put your child down for a Christian school and deny a place to someone who does believe?

Also note that it is unlikely (AFAIK) that such decisions would be made based on the child's belief, but on the parents' belief, which seems even less relevant.

Thirdly, note that all state schools are effectively "Christian" schools with a legal requirement of Christian worship. As you can probably guess, I oppose that too, but it means there is even less distinction between a "Christian school" and non-Christian school, and even less reason to give special privileges to Christian families just because they believe in the story of baby Jesus.

Having said that, I'm not sure I would want to send my child to a school that is labelled "Christian" as a matter of principle, but I don't have any concerns that a poor little Christian family is being denied a place for their child.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/extreme-images/ - Petition against "extreme porn" law!
See http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ and http://www.seenoevil.org.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_... for more details.

Edited 11 Jun 08, 1:14 AM by emark

Article 8 has that wonderful get out clause

So that means the convention likely does not apply in such an instance. The saving grace in your case is that you seemed to be talking about a private, fee-paying school, and such a body may not have the rights under RIPA to snoop, however local councils do have that right.

Practically all the conventions of the charter contain similar "public good" or "necessary for the state" exemptions.

It's easy to tell the difference between right and wrong. What's hard is choosing the wrong that's more right.
I tend to be suspicious of all true believers. Present company included.
Elise Kraft, The Siege.

It is still covered under article 8 as the authority/administration that decides it has the right to breach any of the articles of the HRA have to provide justification. In order to get access to your online viewing records, tellphone records and access to your mail still requires a high court warrant. They still don't have to inform you but they can not just turn up and demand information.

Looking for people who are lying about residence doesn't really fit, unless it for "pecuniary advantage" which it could easily be argued it's not as the child involved could still be a thick as pig shit, and Inspector Knacker would have to be involved.

The other is fraud, where again they would have to have grounds, but having previously acted as a fraud investigator you would be a complete nugget to try and circumvent the systems in place as it would ultimnately lead to the case being thrown out of court.

As for the fly tippers angle, normally Inspector Knacker and VOSA are involved as invariably the organised and regular perpurtrators are not only illegally dumping, they invariably lack valid road tax, insurance and MoT. I watched a VOSA training presentation sometime back showing the mechanical condition of many of the vehicles involved. Less said the better as it was frightenning.

I am hoping that someone actually turns up some hard evidence that local authorities have been abusing the system, as I suspect they use outside copmpanies to do their investigations and this would show up the scandal and the many millions of our money wasted chasing shadows.

To stay with the local authourity funded school concept....

"in accordance with law" As long as any investigation stays within the bounds of RIPA and any other appropriate legislation the circumvention of article 8 is legal. This exemption simply state that any breach of article 8 must be done in a legal manner.

"necessary in a democratic society" A local authourity could argue that not only is it necessary, but perhaps even a legal obligation to provide services appropriate to a persons place of residence. Yes there is theoretically some freedom of choice regarding choice of school, but at the end of the day the LEA has the final say. This exemption states that there must be a reason for the breach of the article. It does not offer even guidance as to what is necessary, that is left to the courts to decide on a case by case basis, either a low court where a magistrate issues a warrant, or right the way up to the european courts in Strasbourg.

In my eyes both of the exemptions can be made to apply in this instance without any real difficulty.

It's easy to tell the difference between right and wrong. What's hard is choosing the wrong that's more right.
I tend to be suspicious of all true believers. Present company included.
Elise Kraft, The Siege.

Your quite right in your evaluation of the legislation and its wording as it stands, but there is already old case work in hand that could be called upon to prove that any LEA or local authority must have good reason to view these details. Even with the introduction of the HRA, the old case work can not be ignored.

The one they would have difficulty over is the phone records, land lines are easy enough to trace, though if it is ex-directory the LEA or local authority would have to apply to a court for those details to be released, as they count as legally priviledged information.

Even the police can not demand those details are handed over as they would definately require a legal search which cost £200 a throw just to be told who was the registered name and where they resided. The same goes for mobile phones. The LEA would require a court order as the Freedom of Information Act certaibnly does not permit companies giving away sensitive information.

As for internet trawling, they again can obtain these details from the telephone company and/or ISP that the person uses. However, they do still require a court order to obtain these details.

As long as the LEA can prove they have a genuine reason to be allowed to obtain these details then article 8 of the HRA is no longer admissiable. If you find that an LEA or local authority had obtained these details without good cause, take them to court and your almost guranteed a large demonination cheque! There are plenty of no-win, no fee solicitors who will gladly take on a local authority.

Currently the European Courts are trying not to upset the applecart too much as there is a will to try and push the Lisbon Treaty through and get it ratified. If it is, which I suspect it will be, then watch the new litigation start appearing, 2010 could ber a very interesting year.

Edited 11 Jun 08, 12:15 PM by DarkLordDredd

I think we have a little crossed line here. I am not referring purely to interception of communication, that is only part of RIPA, but a part loved by the press as it is written to include anything from terrorists try to nuke Birmingham, through drug dealers right down to fly tippers and people trying to play the system to get the best for their kids. It is typical of the far reaching, try to catch all but achieve little legislation typical of recent years

There is however a particularly scary angle to this story that does give me great cause for concern. If we pretend for the moment that I am being investigated for not using the green bin properly, and some busybody in the local council applies to the judiciary for a warrant to intercept my communications and is granted that warrant, after all I might be part of some radical anti-recycling group intent on creating global catastrophe by using up all the landfill. Not impossible, many who need search and seizure warrants knows somebody who knows a bench member who will sign without reading too much.

Now a week down the line, they find emails containing rather "incriminating" pictures as described by the CJIA and an hour later record a phone call where I state in no uncertain terms just what is going to happen to that gal when I meet her on saturday night, well that busybody is going to turn that over to the police. Regardless of the actual legality of the pictures, regardless that the girl knows me well and has agreed to and wants all those acts, my life will suck from then on.

It's easy to tell the difference between right and wrong. What's hard is choosing the wrong that's more right.
I tend to be suspicious of all true believers. Present company included.
Elise Kraft, The Siege.

To do any more than that is beyond their capability.

I know that they have a filter that picks out unusually large amounts of flesh colours in picture files to combat indecent photos. This usually results in lots of false alarms going off regarding beach holiday photos sent on the council e mail system.