From Cork to Toronto

Societies change and so do laws but it should be a priority of government to avoid retrospective actions, creating difficulties for citizens who made good faith, legal decisions only to find the law changed adversely in a way that compromises those decisions. The decision by Ontario to disclose the identity of adoptees and birth parents without the safeguard of a veto by either side was set aside by the Superior Court of Ontario this week. The change in the law was pushed by Marilyn Churley , a former NDP MPP who had gone through a lot of anguish to find the child she gave up. Unfortunately she pushed Ontario law up to and past other jurisdictions who recognised that adoption is one of the ultimate "hard cases make bad law" situations and gave little recognisance to the bargain which women made decades ago in the form of a veto. The only safeguard offered to either children or parents was to levy massive fines against the party who refused to stop attempting to make cont...

It was previously thought that Mr Blunkett, through his time as Home Secretary of the United Kingdom , to be a privacy invader without compare, particularly through his championing of flawed ID cards. The Big Brother Awards even named the "Lifetime Menace Award" after him. It seems now that he's a private citizen without access to the juicy fruits of State investigation, he reveals himself to be a defender of the right to private conversation . Nice to know he still has the ability to lead a double life .

Via Slashdot , the news that Ray Mallon, former police Superintendent in Middlesborough in the United Kingdom and now Mayor of that city, has introduced loudspeakers on seven city CCTV units to tell wrongdoers to stop littering, fighting or cycling through pedestrian zones. From the Daily Mail article : The control room operators have been given strict guidelines about what commands they can give. Yelling 'Oi you, stop that', is not permitted. Instead, their instructions make the following suggestions: 'Warning - you are being monitored by CCTV - Warning - you are in an alcohol-free zone, please refrain from drinking'; and Warning - your behaviour is being monitored by CCTV. It is being recorded and the police are attending.' Mr Bonner said: 'We always make the requests polite, and if the offender obeys, the operator adds 'thank you'. We think that's a nice finishing touch. Well, that's nice. I mean, "move along, citizen 599-011-334" ...

So said Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in her opinion calling a halt to the warrantless, FISAless tapping of phones by US intelligence (sic) agencies. Slate has what seems a good article here , noting its follow-on to Hamdan vs Rumsfeld . Let's hope a similar, thorough examination of signing statements is not far behind. Taylor quotes Justice Black: The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who make laws which the President is to execute. The first section of the first article says that 'All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States' Taylor ends by quoting Justice Warren: Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. . . . It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the ...

As the Tory transit tax credit draws near, I'm looking into getting a metropass. So I took one of the application forms from the subway car and read it en route to my stop. In addition to a (marked voluntary) section on my existing commuting habits and whether I have a car, there's a section which is not marked voluntary asking for my driver's licence number and my date of birth. Now, this form is used for student and senior passes so in theory it could be linked to that but you can order multiple passes with one form so that's a no. The idea of a transit authority looking for a licence they are in theory supposed to replace at least in part bugged me so I decided to read the accompanying fine print. The metropass is paid for with pre-authorised payment with penalties of $25 for having insufficient funds. However it seems the TTC also conducts credit checks: 12... (continues) The customer hereby consents to the TTC conducting credit checks and other financial verifi...

The price of a democratic society is often unpalatably high - in terms of what society pay must to preserve it and in terms of what some societies will demand of their citizens to exercise it. Two instances of this have come to mind over the past few days. The first was a story in the NY Times (registration required) in respect of mounting fees which States levy on former criminals in order to regain their franchise, lost at the time of their conviction. Those few of the poor that bother to vote are now denied it both by their punishment which in turn becomes a "life sentence" as they are too poor to discharge the fees levied. These States are not just the usual suspects like Georgia but so-called blue states like Connecticut. The fees seem to be small, $30 here, $15 there but added together come to thousands of dollars. I consider it dangerous to withdraw the franchise for prisoners - any group without a franchise or unable to exercise it is a group which will encounter...