Sad but sorta not

While I'm saddened that it's not just the U.S. that's got fucked up ideas about freedom post-9/1l/01, I'm somewhat heartened that at least their press is willing to talk about it. Of course, that's not really the press -- more the geeky press -- but the British press seems generally more willing do real reporting than the U.S. hacks.

The best part of the article is this amusing footnote:

We shouldn't allow yesterday's democratic low point to pass unremarked. Clarke's intention to amend the Bill became known as the Commons debate on it was beginning, and his intended amendments effectively made Commons discussion of the first section of the Bill redundant. Clarke's amendments however had not at that point been written, and he proposed to put them to the House of Lords once the Bill had moved there (which it did today). The Commons was therefore asked to vote not for the Bill they had in front of them, but for the one sketched out by Clarke that was to be presented to the Lords, but which did not yet exist. The Commons was therefore asked to vote for a promise - it did.

Sounds a lot like something that would happen in Congress, but then of course we wouldn't be reading about it...

BTW, if you don't get The Register's RSS feed you should. It's probably the best site for technology news out there, along with some gems of more mainstream reporting as well, and a refreshing snarky style.