On Sun, 04 Feb 2024 20:07:08 +0000
BTR1701 <
atropos@mac.com> wrote:
Amazing what the British people have allowed the BBC to do to them.
https://youtu.be/sQnX83cCcmM?t=524
Imagine if you woke up to a knock on the door and had a goon from CBS
pushing into your home, claiming to be executing a "TV warrant".
The BBC can apparently write their own warrants-- not signed or
overseen by any judicial authority-- then force their way into your
home and start grabbing your stuff to satisfy whatever debts they say
you owe for daring to watch a TV without paying the government for
the privilege.
Oh, and the claim the right to film *you* when they show up and force
their way into your home but if you film *them* they demand that the
police confiscate your phone.
The TV licensing people (who operate in an agency called OFCOM) are not
the only ones who have the legal power to enforce their own laws. The
Post Office has the same power - and has had it for 300 years!
If you get a chance, track down a show called Mr. Bates vs. the Post
Office. It aired early in January on the ITV network and consists of
four 45 minute episodes. It's essentially a re-enactment of the chaos
that befell sub-postmasters in the privatized Post Office as a result
of a truly appalling software/hardware system called Horizon which they
were forced to use. Long story short, the system was so buggy that it
showed sub-postmasters as having substantial shortfalls in their
accounting, making it look like they were stealing. The Post Office
took advantage of its right to interrogate and punish sub-postmasters -
who were essentially small independent business owners, as opposed to government employees - to demand tens of thousands of pounds in
shortfalls from these people and even get some of them sent to jail.
They made barely any use of the courts to do so!! Several had to file
for bankruptcy and a few even committed suicide. Meanwhile, the Post
Office kept insisting that there were no systemic problems in Horizon.
This nonsense has been going on for over 20 years and has been a
low-visibility scandal for quite a long time but the ITV series about
Mr. Bates (the guy who started to fight back) has made it a very hot
topic in Parliament in the past month. The former CEO of the Post
Office, who even got a CBE for her efforts on behalf of the Post
Office, was even pressured into giving it back. A number of the court convictions against sub-postmasters have now been overturned and one substantial award of compensation was made, although legal fees ate up
the large majority of it. Many people are anticipating criminal charges
against Post Office executives but that hasn't happened yet.
Meanwhile, the Horizon system continues to be used, although it is
apparently being rewritten to work properly.
--
Rhino
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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