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Ben Goldacre's posted an update on the fracas with LBC and Jeni Barnett over their ill-advised broadcast on the topic of the MMR vaccine and autism.  In essence, while LBC's decision to threaten their legal muscle did cause Goldacre to pull the audio clip from his blog, it's now got spread over the internet, has attracted considerable celeb support, and now is the subject of an early-day motion.  Barnett's own efforts at damage-limitation appear to be restricted to deleting critical comments from her blog.  Thankfully, the power of the internet has ensured the information is still out there, and is proliferating.

Ben Goldacre's latest article very clearly explains why this is such an important issue, and why under-informed dimwits shouldn't make irresponsible broadcasts.  Perhaps LBC should keepa closer eye (or should that be "ear") on their broadcasters.

The Open Rights Group have reported on the Lords Constitution Committee report on surveillance and privacy.  This is a monster document, which can be read here: Constitution Committee - Second Report. Surveillance: Citizens and the State.  It's a big document, and it perhaps easier to digest via the ORG synopsis, and as the ORG say, "Those with nothing to hide can still have a great deal to fear".

The RIPA sections are interesting (Committee report section; ORG interpretation), in light of pretty clear local council abuses of RIPA ro spot fly-tippers etc.

Given the desire of central government to acquire and consolidate large quantities of personal data, one would hope that the holders of the data would encrypt or otherwise protect it. Not so - these data are often carted about, unencrypted, on optical disc, portable memory drives, or on laptop computers, and all too frequently lost.  the ORG maintains a log of data loss incidents. 

The Open Rights Group conclude with:

The two areas missing from the report are comments on the government's current plans for a new national database containing the electronic communications data of the entire population and the powers for unrestrained information sharing granted in Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill, currently being debated in Commons Committee.

What happens next? The Government will provide a written response to the report within the next two months. After that, a debate will be scheduled in the House. The more pressure we can bring to bear on Government, the better. The subject of the report is enormously important. Privacy is essential to a free society. Without it, the state is all-powerful.

The two missing areas are crucial to our freedoms in an increasingly data-hungry state - I've blogged about both recently. 

As the UK  and international cycling season begins to swing into action, it's also the time that my blog articles on cycling will start to reappear (see also the Team Grumpy blog).

Some really quite sad news from the recently completed Tour of Qatar cycling stage race this week: one of the riders (Frederiek Nolf, of Team Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator) died in his sleep, just five days short of his 22nd birthday.  The newsflash at cyclingnews.com (Belgian rider passes away in Qatar) was published on 5th February: the following stage was neutralised out of respect.

I think what must be rather harrowing for Nolf's family at this time of grief for them is the instant internet (and other media) speculation that this is somehow related to doping.  As the Science of Sport website put it:

However, a few people emailed me the story this morning with the very obvious implication that this was yet another in a long series of sudden deaths in fit and healthy athletes. In the 1990s, there was a spate of sudden deaths, at least a dozen, where fit amateur and professional cyclists died in their sleep. That negative publicity was at least part of the reason for the clamping down on EPO use, which was rampant at the time.

In fact, Science in Sport's take is very similar to mine - we should wait and see what any investigations reveal.  The (mostly anonymous) comments to that article are interesting.

Now, I'm not aware of published evidence that any of those rather anecdotally reported deaths among cyclists were indeed due to EPO abuse, or indeed to any other doping or training practises.  But I think this does illustrate a consequence of the doping culture in professional sport (I don't happen to think that cycling is any worse than other sports in this regard, incidentally - it has poorer press and better testing, at least these days, than many other equally high profile sports).  This consequence is that the first thought to occur after a particularly outstanding performance, or after a tragedy such as this, is that doping is somehow involved.

For my part I find this just as disturbing as the possibility athletes are unfairly earning victories and prize money by cheating.  And think of the heartache of Nolf's family, trying to cope with their grief, to read of these accusations.  For my part, at the moment I have no opinion one way or the other, and prefer to wait until the facts are known.

For the last few seasons, my availability for training has declined steadily.  This, coupled with the passing years, means that each year when I start reviewing past performances for completing CTT entry forms for the coming season, I find it a little depressing.  This season is no exception.

But at least the Cycling Time Trials website back again after yet another SQL injection attack, this time using a different platform.  Hopefully this'll be more secure.  Actually, I think it would look a lot better without all the flashing, moving adverts, but perhaps that's just me being a grumpy old man (and anyway, as a Firefox user, I can always use the AdBlock plug-in).

I am not sure how complete the results database there is, or whether it got at all crocked in the hack/rebuild cycle, but here is a link to may results over the last few years, which tells a sorry tale of decline!