I am an undergraduate journalism student always looking for something to write.

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When David Milliband was asked about the embarrassment on the Andrew Marr Show he replied: “The fact that there’s a picture that the Head of MI6 goes swimming. Wow! That really is exciting. I mean it is not a state secret.”

In regard to Sir John, Milliband said: “He’s an outstanding professional who will do a really good job in an outstanding organisation that does a huge amount for this country. A newspaper’s gone onto Facebook and got pictures of him in swimming trunks.”

What Milliband refuses to publicly recognise is the ease at which this information was accessed. The Internet is the first port of call when researching anything, and with its world wide access anyone anywhere with an Internet connection would also be able to access the same information. Terrorists or other criminals could have just of easily used this information to track down Sir John’s closest family members.

Citizens who do jobs where there identities need to be protected should consider their safety more carefully. Especially if they are members of social networking sites. Members of the police force are banned from such sites for this exact reason, so should this also be the case for family members to?

It seems that the Government does not know where they stand on ID cards. Their confusion on the party line has now led to a very unpopular scheme becoming doomed. Johnson said that the cards were: “an important tool, for tackling terrorism, but it was never the whole toolbox.”

Alan Johnson

The Prime Minister’s new Home Secretary seems to have different ideas to him about his beloved scheme that Brown refuses to let go of. The new idea to make it a voluntary scheme has surely left it without a hope.

The best option for Brown now would be to scrap the scheme and use the billions of pounds that they would save to help the economy. Its a shame that they never listen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/whos_watching_you/default.stm

Since his identity was revealed by the newspaper the blog has been deleted by the author, leaving behind the question of the fate of other bloggers operating under anonymity. Are they really safe? The ruling has sent shock waves through the blogosphere. NightJack was a Police Detective Constable and in his blog he gave the public a chance to find out what really happened in the police. It was intimate and heavily lined with political and social views.

In April this year he was awarded the Orwell Prize for his writing the judges said: “The insight into the everyday life of the police that Jack Night’s wonderful blog offered was – everybody felt – something which only a blog could deliver, and he delivered it brilliantly. It took you to the heart of what a policeman has to do – by the first blogpost you were hooked, and could not wait to click on to the next.”

Anonymity is crucial to some bloggers, and the law should recognise this need, not dismantle it piece by piece. Without it, most bloggers would be forced to stop writing. A shame not only for them but also for everyone in the blogosphere. Blogging allows people to share experiences and ideas which they may not be able to do in their everyday lives. Everybody needs an outlet and for some this is it. The Internet allows us to reach a wider audience with what we have to say.

NightJack was one of those who needed his anonymity to protect his identity from his employers. He gave the public a realistic idea about an institution we pay fund for our protection. He analysed and criticised it in a way that he felt comfortable with. His blog could easily be describe as citizen journalism at its most effective. He has now received formal disciplinary action.

The Times’s need to reveal his identity has caused the loss of a crucial source of information about the practices of the police. The rights of bloggers still aren’t protected as they should be. In the same way that newspapers protect their sources, bloggers should also be protected.

With the recent expenses scandal everyone is talking about transparency and this is something Mr Justice Eady referred to in his explanation for his decision: “There is a growing trend towards openness and transparency in such matters.”. However the cost of this need for transparency will lead to a decline in citizen journalism, one blog at a time. Who knows how many more this ruling will halt.

Even though the blog has been deleted I found a few entries in a Guardian article if anyone wanted to read.

A senior Cabinet Minister said: “My sense is that ID cards will not go ahead. We have to find savings somewhere, and it would be better to shelve schemes like this that aren’t popular.”

The scheme is well known to be unpopular but Gordon Brown is still in favour of the scheme. Only last month Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, was insisting that the Government was “on track” with the scheme.

Todays u-turn, reported by The Independent  is a big step forward, and will please many campaigners against the scheme, such as pressure group No2ID

Remember these were only a handful of the most prominent and visible cameras that I could see. There are always more. That is the scary truth.

The Regulatory of Investigatory Powers Act was first introduced in 2000, and intended to be used by police as well as security councils and Revenue and Customs. Councils were also allowed to use the laws to monitor criminal or potential criminal activity.

But the powers have abused through the unclarity of them, they have used to stop flytipping and those who failed to pick after their dogs. These are definitely not what the laws where intended for. Hopefully the review won’t just be left to collect dust like so many others before.

The Telegraph

After the recent disaster of the G20 protests, the brutality and excessive force used by police to tackle the protesters has been highlighted. This has only been possible by the pictures and videos taken by professionals and ordinary citizens alike.

The importance of public photography has never been greater. Pictures can reveal so much, the truth is harder to hide when it has been captured in an image. It is irreversible and unchangeable.
The footage, filmed by an American man, of Ian Tomlinson being unnecessarily pushed to the ground will be the most important piece of evidence to bring justice for him and his family. Without it justice may not have been ever delivered.
However photography in public is under threat and has been for a while. There have been many examples of innocent citizens having their cameras taken from them and being interrogated by the police for taking pictures. This is unacceptable behaviour; the police are abusing the laws which they serve to uphold. The use of terror laws specifically the stop and search powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which gives the police the power to stop and search anyone in an authorised area and search for any articles which could be used in connection with terrorism.

In a recent debate in Parliament Shahid Malik a Labour under-secretary for the Ministry of Justice said: “I make it absolutely clear that unless someone is engaged in criminal activity, they must be allowed to take photographs in public places and that the law should not be used to discourage or hamper that activity.

“People have the right to take photographs in public places for legitimate reasons and we will do everything we can to uphold that right.

“The power does not stop the taking of photographs in an authorised area and the police should not use those powers to prevent people from taking pictures.”

Even though the government knows of the problem, it still hasn’t come up with a viable solution.

I recently went to the Tamil protests outside Parliament and am glad to say that I took many pictures which included the heavy police presence and nobody interrogated me or treated me unfairly. The problem may not be widespread but as long as it is happening somewhere it is a problem, and there are many examples of mis-condict by the police. Now is the time to speak up against this sort of treatment especially when the police are already being questioned over their handling of the G20 protests with the IPCC receiving 145 complaints. It is proof that we do not live in a police state yet.