Guardian launches Liberty Central

Check it out, this is great work by the Guardian.

Georgina Henry explains:

 .. there is a growing number of journalists, bloggers, lawyers, MPs and civil liberties and human rights groups who tirelessly track this process, trying to unravel its complexities and stay on top of the relentless march of legislation. Their belief that we are at a particularly dangerous moment in the erosion of our fundamental rights is the driving force behind the Convention of Modern Liberty, called for the end of February (see below for details).

It’s also the reason why today we’re launching a new Comment is free site, liberty central, both to reflect and focus the debate, and as a resource to keep you abreast of legal and political developments. …

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Lunch?

Private Eye:

THOUGH Private Eye exposed enough of former National Audit Office boss Sir John Bourn’s junketing for him to resign a year ago, the NAO consistently refused to divulge the names of the 160 “UK contacts” he himself took out to lunch and dinner at taxpayers’ expense in just three years.

Until now, that is. The Information Commissioner has decided that their disclosure is in the public interest – and Private Eye is happy to pass the names on to the public who may indeed find them very interesting. …

Full list on the website.

What do civil liberties mean to the ordinary law-abiding citizen?

It occured to me that it’s all very well when people (e.g. me) bang on about how important civil liberties are and moaning about how this Labour Government has waged war on them for the past eleven years, and that this law infringes that liberty and so on, but perhaps one reason why there isn’t more outrage is because ‘the public’ doesn’t tend to appreciate or consider how liberties relate to them, as opposed to people suspected or convicted of being criminals, terrorists, or  illegal immigrants.

So from now I will make an effort to relate civil liberties to the ordinary, honest, and law-abiding UK citizen, with examples from real life, not hypotheticals, in order to show why it’s important for us all to stand up for our liberties.

This may of course require the reader to make some attempt to imagine himself in similar circumstances to those described, which might be more difficult in some situations relative to others.