In 1996, sixteen children and one adult died in Dublane, Scotland after Thomas Hamilton walked into a school armed with four handguns. In 2009, journalist Paula Murray tracked down and befriended several of the survivors on Facebook, waited until they turned eighteen, and then wrote this article for the Sunday Express. [more inside]
posted by permafrost on Mar 18, 2009 - 66 comments

You can't just give away free software! Or can you? Firefox's copyleft premise destroys U.K. anti-piracy laws. Gervase Markham takes on a U.K. official who wants to arrest pirates for distributing firefox.
posted by FeldBum on Feb 23, 2006 - 14 comments

Nominate the world's stupidest security procedure. UK-based watchdog group, Privacy International, is accepting nominations until March 15th from the general public about the most annoying and invasive security measures with the lowest effectiveness in protecting individual safety. What would you nominate?
posted by jonp72 on Mar 6, 2003 - 19 comments

"British Liberty, RIP"
A leader article on the danger represented by the British Government's new Statutory Order and the need for Parliamentarians to step in and resist. (The Order will allow a wide range of organisations access to phone and internet records - The Guardian's own story with details is here.)
Ben Franklin has been quoted here many times before, but I have no hesitation quoting him again: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
posted by jonpollard on Jun 11, 2002 - 10 comments

Virgin Mobile Phone Records Which Map Users Whereabouts Kept Indefinitely. Admittedly, this data is only accurate to within a few hundred metres at the moment, but 'When the new breed of 3G - third generation - phones comes on stream, probably next year, they will enable the users' location to be pinpointed to within a couple of metres'. I know the current climate is increasingly pro-identity cards, pro-police state, but this can't be right, surely? Why do they want to keep this information indefinitely?
posted by boneybaloney on Oct 30, 2001 - 15 comments

No Hiding Place "According to most experts in the field, a police state with powers of control and surveillance beyond the wildest dreams of Hitler or Stalin could now be established in Britain within 24 hours" Here's how...
posted by hmgovt on Apr 20, 2001 - 4 comments

Be careful what you say online. At least if you're in the UK, where an anonymous poster to 2 message boards now faces charges of defamation after the courts ordered the disclosure of their identity. ISP Totalise used existing law to force Motley Fool to disclose the details of an anonymous poster to their message boards alleged to have made defamatory comments. Landmark case or storm in a teacup?
posted by Markb on Mar 23, 2001 - 3 comments

Bye bye online privacy The RIP Bill goes through the Lords this week. Watch as the UK's ISPs and e-commerce ventures up sticks to the US and Ireland. John Naughton has been providing a commentary on its passage (he's well-briefed by the good people at STAND) and how it's such an insidious piece of work.
posted by holgate on Jun 4, 2000 - 1 comment