eliminate the negative.

Step 1. Work out what crimes your police force are good at solving.

Step 2. Create more offences in those categories

Step 3. Put up barriers to reporting, for crimes you're not good at solving (or that are too hard, expensive, unglamorous), so they don't get reported - see step 4.

Step 4. Reorganise the way crime figures are reported. Say, into 3 groups: reported, recorded and detected

Step 5. Choose whichever of these groups shows the biggest improvement, claim this is the most relevant measurement.

Step 6. Praise your officers for doing such a good job at reducing crime.

Step 7. At the same time you're saying crime is at it's lowest for years, claim there are new, hidden threats that mean you need even more officers

Step 8. Instigate a process of continual improvement, so it's impossible to compare current and past performance as the rules get changed too frequently.

You missed out the "Repeat" before Step 2 and the "Until kicked out of office by a public who are fed up with being lied to and criminalised" after Step 8...

"... we haven't got a budget for this work yet," the minster said.

I wonder if they have considered the possibility that wholesale monitoring of the net could be used both in connection with e-crime and also to generate income from the sale of real-time data for behavioural marketing?

It would be a small price to pay for security to have the government know what one looks at and and buys on the net and for advertisers to have access to one's profile. </sarcasm>

it'd be nice if the police cared about online fraud.

The piles of confirmed, bonafied, fraudulant transactions that most e-tailers have that the police just ignore is pretty impressive.

But no, instead they want more money for toys.

No problem here, as long as they include themselves on the hit-list when sensitive information goes AWOL.

[conspicuous lack of crap government icon, IMHO]

Can't see this working;

1) Government led: Labour government dictatorship + lazy, incompetent and cretinous civil servants/consultants = equal disastrous IT projects ....

From a Police perspective

1) Anything that interferes with the donuts and coffee is a no go.

2) Might mean having to perform a task of work.

3) Instructions may be a tad too complicated.

4) May have to speak with the sheeple.

So there you go ....

i am trying to work out if you are talking about the police or BT/Phorm (my comments in brackets)

eliminate the negative. (baffle them with BS)

Step 1. Work out what crimes your police force are good at solving. (decide the data you want to pimp for the best profit)

Step 2. Create more offences in those categories (create more data to profile)

Step 3. Put up barriers to reporting, for crimes you're not good at solving (or that are too hard, expensive, unglamorous), so they don't get reported - see step 4.(deny secret trials until unable to)

Step 4. Reorganise the way crime figures are reported. Say, into 3 groups: reported, recorded and detected (claim to have reports and surveys that prove your point but never provide them)

Step 5. Choose whichever of these groups shows the biggest improvement, claim this is the most relevant measurement. (selective quote people out of context)

Step 6. Praise your officers for doing such a good job at reducing crime.(give the PR droids pat on back)

Step 7. At the same time you're saying crime is at it's lowest for years, claim there are new, hidden threats that mean you need even more officers (claim number of punters sorry victims of the spyware far higher than they actually are to try and boost profits)

Step 8. Instigate a process of continual improvement, so it's impossible to compare current and past performance as the rules get changed too frequently. ( time for mission creap and expand the range of data captured for yet more profit)

then we wonder why law enforcement agencies don't want to prosecute phorm and BT

:-P

peter