Sex offenders' e-mail addresses are to be passed to social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo to prevent them contacting children.Under government proposals, offenders who do not give police their address - or give a false one - would face up to five years in jail.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she wanted children to be "free from fear".I have never heard such shit in all my life.
"We need to patrol the internet to keep predators away from children in the same way as we patrol the real world," she told GMTV.
Apart from the obvious fact that one of the big failings of the Labour adminstration is that thanks to stifling bureaucracy and obsession with targets, nobody IS actually patrolling our streets anymore, this proposal displays a stunning ignorance of how the internet works. Any paedophile who can't work out how to get around this slight inconvenience in under 10 seconds is probably so stupid that they'd be caught instantly anyway.
As reported on the BBC Scotland website, internet security specialist Phil Worms viewed the proposals as a waste of time.
This is great news - or at least it would be, if it was in any way enforceable.
Online predators learn to cover their tracks and get around security measures, so does the home secretary really think it is as simple as asking for their e-mail addresses?
Clearly, she does. In case you're reading this Ms Smith, the helpful Mr Worms will explain the rather obvious flaw in your plans.
Anyone, anywhere, can set up an e-mail address, so even if paedophiles give a genuine address to police, there's still nothing to stop them setting up five new accounts with which to log on to Bebo and carry on regardless.
Jacqui Smith has admitted these measures could never be 'completely foolproof,' but frankly they are barely even worth bringing into force.
Not completely foolproof? I think the phrase you are looking for is "utterly fucking pointless", you fucking moron, Smith.
On one level, it's another example of hysterical knee-jerk regulation designed to capture headlines without delivering anything of substance. Another example is the recent ban on so-called samurai swords. Big words, tough talk and absolutely no fucking effect on the levels of violent crime in this country whatsoever.
Underlying it, proposals such as these are the top of an extremely slippery slope into full scale monitoring of the internet. Read again what Smith said on GMTV:
"We need to patrol the internet to keep predators away from children in the same way as we patrol the real world"
Naturally nobody wants their offspring to come to the attention of kiddie fiddlers on the 'net. But in reality, the chances of that happening are remotely small. This must be offset against the much greater risk to our liberty represented by restrictive and intrusive state intervention in our lives.
The problem is that there is so much bullshit about internet safety being propogated by fuckwits like Smith, that the levels of paranoia thus generated play straight into the hands of those who would happily throw away our rights to intellectual freedom so that their little darlings can remain wrapped in cotton wool. A recent example is the school that decided to replace the faces of children in its school photo with smily faces. Such an irrational and bizarre action could only have come about through fear, whipped up by people like Smith. The danger is that the freedom of information agenda will become driven by a load of hysterical, paranoid fat-arsed yummy-mummies who - like Smith - don't understand the internet and care nothing for the loss of civil liberties
For more lively debate, head over to th excellent Devil's Kitchen The Devil's Kitchen: Grooming kids (and I don't mean just brushing their hair)
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