Today I spotted this sign at a Tesco's grocery store in Islington, London -- it might just be the single stupidest salvo in the war on terror to date, courtesy of the London Metropolitan Police:

Terrorism: If you suspect it, report it
TERRORISTS NEED INFORMATION
Observation and surveillance help terrorists plan attacks. Have you seen anyone taking pictures of security arrangements?
TERRORISTS NEED TRANSPORTATION
If you work in vehicle hire or sales, has a sale or rental made you suspicious?
TERRORISTS NEED TO TRAVEL
Meetings, training and planning can take place anywhere. Do you know someone who travels but is vague about where they are going?
TERRORISTS USE COMPUTERS
Do you know someone who visits terrorism-related websites?
TERRORISTS NEED COMMUNICATION
Anonymous, pay-as-you-go and stolen mobiles are typical. Have you seen someone with large quantities of mobiles? Has it made you suspicious?
Translation: god help you if you worry about CCTVs in your neighbourhood, get into an argument at the car-rental agency, don't feel like telling your co-workers that you go off to have regular dialysis treatments, look at websites that the guy next to you in the Internet cafe isn't familiar with, or can't get credit and use pay-as-you-go phones instead. After all, the police here don't even need to charge you with a crime in order to lock you up for 42 days.
Absolutely the stupidest salvo in the war on terror to date, Tesco's, Islington, London, UK
ORG -- the UK Open Rights Group (disclosure: I am a co-founder and volunteers on its advisory board) is hiring a Data and Democracy Project Officer: "responsible for delivering our work on preserving democratic integrity in the digital age. This role has two main areas of focus: 1) electronic voting and 2) the use of […]
The Democrats' newly unveiled "Internet Bill of Rights" enumerates ten rights that the party says it will enshrine in law, ranging from Net Neutrality to data portability to timely notification of breaches to opt-in for data collection, the right to see the data held on you by surveillance capitalists, rights to privacy and to be […]
Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard the re-argument of Sessions v. Dimaya, a case that asks whether the administration can treat lawful immigrants to the USA (including Green Card holders like me) as though we have no Constitutional rights.
Just a reminder: Print isn’t dead. And now that printers are becoming as portable as cell phones, it might be around for quite some time. Enter the MEMOBIRD Mobile Thermal Printer, a mini-printer that is versatile, portable – and most importantly, never needs a refill on ink or toner. Measuring just a few inches around, […]
What do Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google all have in common? Somewhere in their framework, they all use MySQL, that most versatile (and free!) of database management systems. And they’re not alone. If your company or the one you’d like to work for wrangles data (and who doesn’t?), they’re going to need someone with a […]
There’s a reason you’re hearing about the gig economy in every other business story these days. More than ever, people are finding income from more than one source. And if you find the right one, a side hustle can do more than just pad your pockets – it can allow you to finally get paid […]