Unworkable and dangerous legislation

Minister of State responsible for drugs strategy, Pat Carey, has decided not to backdate the registration of ‘pay as you go’ mobile phones. (Irish Times, sub required)

Of course, he couldn’t have decided otherwise unless he was prepared to force millions of citizens to report to their local police station and provide all the details.

The truth is that this proposed legislation is unworkable and dangerous.

For example, any citizen ‘caught’ with an unregistered phone will come under immediate suspicion of being a law breaker.

If they refuse to explain where they got the phone a policeman or judge can, in law, make certain assumptions about that person in light of the recent watering down of that hitherto pillar of democratic freedom – the right of silence.