Not quite off topic - Form 696

[marshlander]

very curious... was there some sort of event that brought on this new Form?

Do the police have that much time to check all the data this Form will generate?

I really dont understand this at all???

When I lived in SF there was some attempt to close a famous gay club due to drug use inside the club... but a large protest was started and the coppers backed down real quick...

The police claim it is to do with increased incidences of gun and knife crime. I don't see how the licensee filling in a form will make any difference. One might have thought they had more succinct kinds of intelligence!

I doubt very much that police officers will have the time to check the data without detracting from duties of more interest to the public. However, there are a lot of civilian admin people working for the force, I believe. The more likely effect will be to deter someone from attempting to put on a show. Not that there aren't already enough disincentives in terms of local authority licenses, public liability insurance, health and safety risk assessments, portable appliance testing certificate checks etc etc etc

Can't see the police backing down on this unless they are forced to by Parliament. They are acting power crazy at the moment. Presumably you've heard about the arrest a few days ago of a Tory MP simply for being the recipient of information in the course of his duty?!!!

National compulsory DNA databases, biometric identity cards, detention without charge for terrorism suspects, the extension of time that that suspects may be held pre-trial, the imposition of control orders, anti-social behaviour orders (which often lead to criminalising people for civil offences), most frequently used incidence of electronic surveillance in Europe (possibly in the so-called free world?), a succession of acts of parliament (including the Terrorism Acts of 2000 and 2006 and the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005) restricting the rights to free speech, changes to extradition law (including co-operation with states operating the disgusting practice of extraordinary rendition), the impending logging of all telephone calls and e-mail messages to a central database, even radio frequency identification tagging on everyday products... the last eight years have been very busy putting all the machinery in place for a totalitarian regime to walk right in. Whilst perhaps insignificant in comparison with some of these more fundamental changes to the ways we have regarded ourselves as a nation Form 696 is a part of a picture where one can envisage the eventual centralisation of personal information on a scale hitherto only practised by the Stasi.

Orwell's picture of society in 1984 generally focusses on the protagonist, Winston Smith, or on the excesses of the ruling elite. However, I think his description of a proletariat so engaged in coping with poverty, befuddled by drink and preoccupied with sex that they took no thought to challenge the state that suppressed individuality through over-legislation, micro-control, fear and torture is also worryingly prophetic.

Sorry, but I don't feel any better at all after that rant :mad: