In message , at 20:28:56 on
Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Paul Corfield remarked:
Such mission creep is nothing to do with what press barons demand.

Sorry but I disagree. The press create hysteria about alleged tourist
threats - no doubt aided and abetted by the police - and everyone goes
into irrational fear mode and are thus buttered up to accept the next
awful bit of legislation. To suggest that the owners of the Sun, the
Mirror and the Mail have no influence in this process is just wrong.
They have an agenda.

To increase government control? Why would that be.

We've had the Congestion Charging mission creep (July 07) and the Oyster
Card data is simply another box to tick.

I really don't think it is you know. There is simply too much data in
too technical a format for open ended access to the system to be of any
value whatsoever.

They can afford to spend a billion or two putting it into intelligible
form.

I really don't think they can. The country is not far off having no
money to spend on anything.

They are currently still pressing on with spending much more on similar
projects, as far as I can see [from the outside].
--
Roland Perry