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11th September 2013: The world's gone mad and I'm the only one who knows
13th August 2013: Black is white. Fact. End of.
11th August 2013: Electric cars, not as green as they're painted?
18th June 2013: Wrinklies unite, you have nothing to lose but your walking frames!
17th May 2013: Some actual FACTS about climate change (for a change) from actual scientists ...
10th May 2013: An article about that poison gas, carbon dioxide, and other scientific facts (not) ...
10th May 2013: We need to see past the sex and look at the crimes: is justice being served?
8th May 2013: So, who would you trust to treat your haemorrhoids, Theresa May?
8th May 2013: Why should citizens in the 21st Century fear the law so much?
30th April 2013: What the GOS says today, the rest of the world realises tomorrow ...
30th April 2013: You couldn't make it up, could you? Luckily you don't need to ...
29th April 2013: a vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE, because THE ABOVE are crap ...
28th April 2013: what goes around, comes around?
19th April 2013: everyone's a victim these days ...
10th April 2013: Thatcher is dead; long live Thatcher!
8th April 2013: Poor people are such a nuisance. Just give them loads of money and they'll go away ...
26th March 2013: Censorship is alive and well and coming for you ...
25th March 2013: Just do your job properly, is that too much to ask?
25th March 2013: So, what do you think caused your heterosexuality?
20th March 2013: Feminists - puritans, hypocrites or just plain stupid?
18th March 2013: How Nazi Germany paved the way for modern governance?
13th March 2013: Time we all grew up and lived in the real world ...
12th March 2013: Hindenburg crash mystery solved? - don't you believe it!
6th March 2013: Is this the real GOS?
5th March 2013: All that's wrong with taxes
25th February 2013: The self-seeking MP who is trying to bring Britain down ...
24th February 2013: Why can't newspapers just tell the truth?
22nd February 2013: Trial by jury - a radical proposal
13th February 2013: A little verse for two very old people ...
6th February 2013: It's not us after all, it's worms
6th February 2013: Now here's a powerful argument FOR gay marriage ...
4th February 2013: There's no such thing as equality because we're not all the same ...
28th January 2013: Global Warming isn't over - IT'S HIDING!
25th January 2013: Global Warmers: mad, bad and dangerous to know ...
25th January 2013: Bullying ego-trippers, not animal lovers ...
19th January 2013: We STILL haven't got our heads straight about gays ...
16th January 2013: Bullying ego-trippers, not animal lovers ...
11th January 2013: What it's like being English ...
7th January 2013: Bleat, bleat, if it saves the life of just one child ...
7th January 2013: How best to put it? 'Up yours, Argentina'?
7th January 2013: Chucking even more of other people's money around ...
6th January 2013: Chucking other people's money around ...
30th December 2012: The BBC is just crap, basically ...
30th December 2012: We mourn the passing of a genuine Grumpy Old Sod ...
30th December 2012: How an official body sets out to ruin Christmas ...
16th December 2012: Why should we pardon Alan Turing when he did nothing wrong?
15th December 2012: When will social workers face up to their REAL responsibility?
15th December 2012: Unfair trading by a firm in Bognor Regis ...
14th December 2012: Now the company that sells your data is pretending to act as watchdog ...
7th December 2012: There's a war between cars and bikes, apparently, and  most of us never noticed!
26th November 2012: The bottom line - social workers are just plain stupid ...
20th November 2012: So, David Eyke was right all along, then?
15th November 2012: MPs don't mind dishing it out, but when it's them in the firing line ...
14th November 2012: The BBC has a policy, it seems, about which truths it wants to tell ...
12th November 2012: Big Brother, coming to a school near you ...
9th November 2012: Yet another celebrity who thinks, like Jimmy Saville, that he can behave just as he likes because he's famous ...
5th November 2012: Whose roads are they, anyway? After all, we paid for them ...
7th May 2012: How politicians could end droughts at a stroke if they chose ...
6th May 2012: The BBC, still determined to keep us in a fog of ignorance ...
2nd May 2012: A sense of proportion lacking?
24th April 2012: Told you so, told you so, told you so ...
15th April 2012: Aah, sweet ickle polar bears in danger, aah ...
15th April 2012: An open letter to Anglian Water ...
30th March 2012: Now they want to cure us if we don't believe their lies ...
28th February 2012: Just how useful is a degree? Not very.
27th February 2012: ... so many ways to die ...
15th February 2012: DO go to Jamaica because you definitely WON'T get murdered with a machete. Ms Fox says so ...
31st January 2012: We don't make anything any more
27th January 2012: There's always a word for it, they say, and if there isn't we'll invent one
26th January 2012: Literary criticism on GOS? How posh!
12th December 2011: Plain speaking by a scientist about the global warming fraud
9th December 2011: Who trusts scientists? Apart from the BBC, of course?
7th December 2011: All in all, not a good week for British justice ...
9th November 2011: Well what d'you know, the law really IS a bit of an ass ...

 

 
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More than 150 town halls have been blocked from accessing the DVLA database after breaking rules protecting motorists' privacy. In dozens of cases, councils were caught making unauthorised access to the database - which contains personal details of every licensed driver in the UK. In others, officials were barred because they hadn’t kept proper records of who was accessing the database, how often and for what reason.
 
The councils are among nearly 300 Government bodies or agencies who have been stripped of their DVLA access in the past three years.
 
Councils use the database lawfully to track drivers for parking fines, bus lane tickets and other infringements, but also to prosecute so-called ‘environmental crimes’ such as littering and dog fouling.
 
Privacy campaigners said the figures showed it was impossible to protect the public’s private data from unauthorised State snooping. The figures were published by Big Brother Watch only days before a major report is expected to blow a major hole in Government plans for a database of internet activity branded a 'snoopers' charter'.
 
A committee of MPs is expected to say that the Home Office's argument for keeping details of every internet click - including all web activity, Facebook, emails and even online video-games is flawed. Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, said: 'Concerns about the DVLA database have been voiced for several years, but it is remarkable that in just three years nearly half the country’s councils have been suspended from looking at motorists' information.
 
'The same concerns exist about a range of other databases and the public are right to be worried that their privacy is at risk across a range of Government services. The question is whether these suspensions hinder staff trying to do their job, while the staff doing the unauthorised searches escape proper punishment.'
 
A total of 294 councils and other public bodies had their access to the DVLA databases suspended or terminated in the past three years. Among them were major agencies such as Transport for London which collects the Congestion Charge. Another was Sussex Police, which had its access suspended for a month earlier this year because of 'audit issues'. Some 38 councils had their access permanently closed down.
 
Some suspensions followed access by staff who were not authorised to make enquiries. Others were the result of poor record keeping, or a failure to respond to DVLA requests for audit information.
 
A DVLA spokesman has said they take their duties very seriously with regards to the use of its data. Once approved to view the DVLA database, councils are given direct access with a username and password - giving them largely unrestricted access. It allows them to get at a range of information on drivers and vehicles, including convictions and penalty points, medical information and drivers’ home addresses.
 
On Monday a joint committee of MPs and Peers is expected to criticise the draft Communications Data Bill. The controversial law will require internet companies to store details of emails, website visits and social media messages for 12 months. The Home Office argue it is necessary to track terrorists and tackle organised crime gangs and online paedophiles, but the report is expected to say the case has not been made - and urge ministers to go back to the drawing board. The report is expected to spur Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg into opposing the Bill.
 
Big Brother Watch added 'If the current system cannot even protect basic information about motorists and vehicles, how can the public have faith that a host of information about who they email and what websites they look at will be kept secure and only accessed by those who are supposed to be doing so? The public do not have confidence that their data is being kept securely and their privacy is not being violated on a routine basis.'
 

 
The GOS says: All well and good, and it would be nice to think that the DVLA are taking seriously their duty to protect information about private citizens. But ... wait a minute ... is this the same DVLA that makes money by selling that same information to private companies? Well, yes it is. Which rather makes a mockery of their holier-than-thou attitude, doesn't it?
 
Bastards.

 

 
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