CDR: Re: CIA proctologists

[Ken Brown]

Ray Dillinger wrote:

 
> That's just part of the job.  If you're going to handle secret
> material for any government, that government will want to know
> everything about you no matter how invasive, and they will want
> to own every possible bit of leverage anyone can have on you,
> and they want to be damned sure that no one else has any leverage
> on you that they don't know about.
> 
> Medical examinations are just one aspect of that.
> 
> I bet they audit someone's taxes for the last six years before
> they hire them, too.

Current fuss over here on the downwind side of the Atlantic is the
Metropolitan police (i.e. local plod for all of greater London *except*
the City of London and some railway stations...) wanting permission to
hire convicted criminals.  The law prevents them hiring anyone with any
recorded conviction.

They say they can't get enough people at the moment, and as about 20% of
adult men have a criminal conviction they would like to treat each case
"on its merits", to increase the field of possible  recruits.

So they might, on a case-by-case basis, be willing to overlook "minor"
crimes, such as defaulting on tax, speeding, parking offences, minor
acts of vandalism or public disorder committed whilst a teenager,
possibly even single convictions for drug use if they were over ten
years ago.

Some disordered thoughts: 

- as driving kills ten to twenty times as many people as murder (in this
country, YMMV) I'm not sure speeding is a "minor" offence. 

- if the drugs & disorder offences are so "minor" why are they offences
anyway? Why do the police bother to arrest people for them? Why don't
they arresting genuinely dangerous people (like dangerous drivers :-)

- About a third of the population of inner London in the relevant age
group are black or Asian. Maybe ten percent are 1st or 2nd generation
Irish. All heavily under-represented in the police who have a bad
reputation for racism. Even if it is undeserved (I'm pretty bloody sure
it is largely deserved), if they are so short of recruits they should do
something serious about it.

- ditto their attitude to women

- and anyway, these governments have been forcing the ideology of the
Free Market down our throats for 25 years. If it is a Free Market and
they are short of workers they should put the wages up. All this palaver
is just a way to keep the wages down. Of course the wages are paid out
of taxes. So the question for the taxpayers is you say you want more
police (they always do, always, same as they say they want more TV
cameras) but if you really do are you prepared to pay for it?