Civic Duty

It seems that not only is the UK full of people too stupid to realise that 42 days detention of innocent people is a BADTHING©™®, but it is also full of people with a weird idea of what to do when something, which is a potential threat to national security, happens.

The second main news item on the BBC now (after the travesty of 42 days) is about the government losing some top secret documents on a train. Now, I am not going to harp on about the irony that a government that wants to intern people for six weeks is staffed by people who can’t look after a document for a sixty minute train journey. That would be too obvious 🙂

What really intrigued me is the actions of the member of public who found the documents. Did they, upon seeing the MOD and Government headers and top secret classifications, go straight to the police and report this heinous breach of national security?(*) No. Did they, on realising a crime had taken place report it to the police? No. Did they, in fact, do anything which could be described as fulfilling their public duty? Not really, no.

What they actually did was give it to the BBC security correspondent. Yes, not just turned up at the BBC and said here you go, they actually made enough arrangements to find out who the BBC security correspondent was (I have no idea and cant be bothered to look it up), then went to the BBC to hand over the documents. Madness.

What sort of world do we live in where 65% of people want innocent people locked up but don’t have the sense of civic duty to hand top secret documents in to the police, preferring to give them to the media….

* Top Secret apparently means “Information and material the unauthorized disclosure of which would cause EXCEPTIONALLY GRAVE DAMAGE to the nation (UK).” (source)

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