Peter Rhodes on a burglar's human rights, re-settling the Jewish nation and catching the cyberspace crooks - 20 years from now
TIME will reveal all about the alleged burglary in London which ended with an intruder killed by the pensioner householder. In the meantime, as one who was once burgled at 2am by a thug who kicked in our door, let me share a thought. Every human being possesses 100 per cent human rights. However, if you break into someone else's home, you leave your human rights at the door and if you end up dead or injured, tough.
AS the row over "pockets of anti-semitism" in the Labour Party rumbles on, with inevitable references to the Third Reich, you might get the impression that blaming Jews for all the world's troubles began with Adolf Hitler. Not at all. As the First World War ended in defeat for Germany in 1918 riots broke out in German cities and Kaiser Wilhelm was advised to abdicate. At first he refused, blaming "a few hundred Jews and a thousand workmen." Anti-semitism was in fashion when Hitler was still a corporal. And so was the ruling class's fear of the workers.
AND some folk still don't get it, do they? On the issue of creating the state of Israel, a reader writes, in all seriousness: "Isn't it reasonable for some within the Labour Party to consider that an 'alternative' homeland, such as some reserve in America, could have been provided (if no-one else stakes a claim)?" What a novel and uplifting idea. And perhaps the entrances to these Jew reserves you have in mind could have some inspiring motto about work setting one free?
ONLINE crime, from fraud to threats of rape, has become so vast that no-one bothers to keep records. It happens literally millions of times a day. Every time your phone rings and it's someone from "Windows Technical Support" or "your bank" urging you to protect your money by transferring it to a new account, someone, somewhere is trying to rob you. They get away with it because they cannot be traced and their phone calls are rarely recorded. But consider this. A steady stream of criminals who thought they had got away with murder, rape or other crimes 20, 30 or even 40 years ago are being brought before the courts, having been tracked down by vast improvements in DNA science. Supposing cyber-detection had the same great leap forward and powerful new programs, the digital equivalent of DNA testing, could trawl through cyber space, picking up those long-forgotten phone calls and matching them against global voice-recognition software. Ten or 20 years from now, today's online crooks could find themselves behind bars. It might happen. In fact, the next time you take a dodgy phone call, you might just mention it, and spoil his day.
STRANGELY enough, while writing the above I had a phone call from someone offering free boiler replacements. He sounded as though he was from the Indian sub-continent but he insisted his name was Kelvin Mackenzie. We will be coming for you, Kelvin. One day . . . .
