Useful summary of current state of play on access to personal data under RIPA

So why did the government back off the proposal for extending surveillance powers under the RIP Act?

Interesting piece in Stand arguing that one important factor was the volume of email and faxes to MPs by cyber-activists worried about online liberties. Quote:

“As most of you will already have heard, the government has backed down from the RIP s22 Order that would have given access to traffic data to dozens of government departments. We thought you’d like to know that this U-turn was largely down to you. The FaxYourMP folk say that they relayed 1789 faxes from last monday, and estimate that around 1600 of those were related to the s22 RIP Order. That means that, on average, every MP received at least two messages expressing concern over the measure. We’ve received mail from constituents saying that their Member of Parliament called them directly to discuss the issue. We’ve had MPs mail us with advice. We’ve had TV companies and newspapers contact us after they’d been hassled by their readers and viewers. We’ve even had MPs writing letters to constituents explaining, mournfully, that there was nothing they could do – and then had their own voters explain to them how to attend Standing Committee debates, and who to get in contact with others to help fight this order. Ah, those apathetic votees. ”

What does the financial services industry do for us? Answer: Zilch.

“One expert, formerly an investment banker who lived through the good times and got out of the City before the decline, says: ‘The financial services business has failed the three basic tests – fund management returns are falling, mergers and acquisitions have been shown not to work, analysts’ forecasts nearly always turn out to be wrong. How can they claim to have added any value to the well-being of the nation after all that? It’s a bloody scandal.’ ” Frank Kane on Britain’s rip-off financial services industry.

Dave Winer disappeared from the Web for a few days and then returned with some enigmatic references to illness. Seems to be connected with smoking. He’s not telling — just hinting. That’s his privilege. Hope he’s all right. I’ve been reading him for years, and he’s wonderfully insightful about the Net and refreshingly humane about life.

Why do we buy such absurdly powerful computers when many of us could get by with a good abacus? Are we all geneticists working on decoding the human genome? My Observer column this week.