Global Polls

1. Is internet surveillance an invasion of privacy?

Do we not live in a democratic society with freedom of speech and individuality?  We have to wonder. Surveillance of workers is a common occurrence now, employers can monitor their employees every moment at work and they and the police have unprecedented powers to spy on the web sites we visit and the emails we send.

The Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 legalised the snooping of email by the security services.  The Secretary of State can insist that ISPs instigate measures to copy emails to the secret services.  Part of this act allows individuals served with the appropriate notice to disclose encrypted information or the appropriate decryption key.  If the individual fails to comply can face a prison sentence of  two years.

This is ludicrous.  It is a criminal offence for the Post Office to interfere with any of our written mail, so why should electronic mail be any different? If we were to give the right to the Post Office to open all our mail before they delivered it, or to log it for future reference, you can imagine the outcry.

A recent report written by Roger Gaspar, deputy director general of the National Criminal Intelligence Service, and submitted to the Home Office, sought authority to obtain records of web sites visited and for the details of emails sent to be stored for seven years.

An invasion of privacy does not change, it is still an invasion of privacy whether they root through the drawers of our filing cabinet, open our letters, or read our email.  If we wanted our email to be read or kept by the Security Services surely we would cc them a copy! 

2. Is the law too lenient on animal abusers?

Why are animals looked upon as an easy target for anger and violence.  It is all to easy to abuse animals with often little or no comeback on the abuser.  In Britain we are a nation of animal lovers and do, for the most part, tend to treat animals better than many countries.  Why is it then that when there are so many actual cases of cruelty and abuse to animals the law is relatively lenient on the perpetrator.

Cruelty comes in many guises from negligence and mistreating of  pets to the suffering inflicted on animals in the name of sport or science.  Often little is done, organisations such as the RSPCA do a marvellous job, but still have their hands tied in certain areas.  Often they can only tell the owners what to do to prevent the occurrence of negligence, but cannot remove the animals from harm.

Not often enough is an owner that is guilty of neglecting or abusing their pets banned from keeping them for life.  In severe cases of cruelty often all that happens is that a fine is imposed upon the guilty party - what about imprisonment?

If we take other examples such as Badger bating there have been few cases of imprisonment. Often a fine is imposed, and in some cases it is not even the first offence.  Some of these people are quite happy to re-offend because the fine means nothing, whereas a spell inside one of  Her Majesty's Prisons may get the message home.

We condemn other nations, such as Spain, for it's cruelty concerning Bullfighting and then continue to embrace blood sports as being legal and moral when the majority of people in this country disapprove of them.

We continue to torture animals in the name of science, inflicting unimaginable suffering on them in laboratories and to what ends?  Some would say that this is acceptable if it would result in a cure for cancer.  Even if we accept this (though there is much support  for investigating other methods) what of the other testing for products which we use everyday, cigarettes, shampoos, ballpoint pens?

More justice should be given to animals, we wouldn't treat humans this way.  Fines should be bigger, bans from ownership should be lifelong and severe cases of cruelty should result in imprisonment in order to get the message across.

3. Are we doing enough to prevent the spread of SARS? - Poll Closed

We are all now well aware of the potential threat from SARS.  The virus is now killing a higher percentage of those infected than originally suspected, but is less contagious we are told.

Worldwide there are companies who are profiting from the threat, selling everything from face and gas masks to drugs which purport to "strengthen the immune systems defence against all infectious viral diseases, and possibly SARS".

The question raised here is are we all doing what is necessary to prevent the threat of spreading this potentially fatal disease?

Are our individual countries putting the necessary checks in place, prior to, and returning from, international travel?  Or are they being driven by the the potential loss of huge amounts of money (and jobs) that could result from flailing tourism?

 

Are we doing enough to prevent the spread of SARS?

Yes  1 No  6 Don't Know  4 Don't Care  0 votes: 11 Polls

 

4. Has the threat of terrorism changed your travel habits?

We are all obviously aware of terrorism, and the potential threat that exists, but how is it effecting you with regards to your views about travelling abroad on business or vacation?

Do you get frightened at the thought of flying to your vacation destination, or do the events of  the September 11th attack on the twin towers effect your decision about when you travel?

5. What Is The Best Music?

6. Should There Be Flexibility With Traffic Tickets? - Poll Closes 25th December 2005