Another reason not to visit Britain

Actually they're not - parliament have just voted on it, it's not law yet. The Lords will _never_ let this hit the statute books (acting as a control for parliament actions is precisely what they're there for) and if the government tries to force it there will be fireworks.

One member of the shadow cabinet already resigned over this (outrageous) vote and is fighting a self-inflicted bi-election on this very issue, with the intention of making it clear that it's not acceptable.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/2116756/David-Davis-resigns-from-Commons-over-42-day-anti-terror-plan.html

In other wonderful news, the Swedish parliament just voted to allow one of the 'intelligence' agencies the wire tap all internet traffic going through the Swedish borders. In search for 'external threats'. Because 'external threats' would obviously not use encryption. I don't want to move back anymore.

ah, interesting, so I hope it won't get through.

but woha, now also sweden? I thought this is one of the last 'good' countries.

Well, so far the limit has been 28 days in Britain I think, which is bad enough. In the follow up to the bombings in London in 2005 (I was in London at the time btw) there was pretty shocking blog coverage from a guy who was arrested, not allowed to call his girlfriend or family, had his home raided, and held for ~14 days without charge. The reason they arrested him was something really stupid like his rucksack was too big, he was wearing too many clothes, or he was looking at the floor while walking down some stairs.

By the way, I tried to sign up for an account to post comments on here a few days ago and it never sent me an email to activate my account.

woha, 14 days is already enough to loose a job.
about the mail: sorry, will have a look at it when I have time. (I think I disabled the registering system because some bots misused it, maybe I'll simply remove the registering-link)

Yeah, it's pretty shocking. Even though it's going downhill in terms of freedom here in Austria, I (subjectively) feel much freer here than in the UK. When I worked in London, I once started counting the security cameras filming me on the way to work. I gave up after about 50.

[email] Oh ok, if it's disabled then that's fine, although you might want to just remove the registration link altogether. Remembering details via cookie is fine anyway.

most people dont care about it. media control