Take your eye off the ball, and what happens?

I go on holiday to Sri Lanka, which has its own security problems, and what do I find back home?

Now that the main terrorists are on ceasefire, and about to come into government in NI, the UK Government only want to cut back our own civil liberties!

In the "good old days" (TM) the police needed to have some kind of actual suspicion that crime was afoot before mounting a raid to secure evidence. Now, they are introducing an order [see draft law] to allow the police to confiscate stuff where they don't even have a suspicion of a crime. All they need is to think they might get suspicious, once they finish combing through whatever they grab, and before you can say "no scope for abuse whatsoever", your records, computers, photo albums, goods, whatever have been confiscated indefinitely while PC Plod tries to see if you have done anything that he can book you for.

There is lots more not to like, buried among the mind-numbing details, but that's enough to be getting on with. Slugger O'Toole has highlighted it, twice, and now the press are covering it.

You have until January 22nd to comment [see consultation page]. They are also asking about something called "community support officers", whatever that means. Probably bad news too.

Bah humbug.