If only the metropolitan Plod had been this thorough when looking into Tony's "cash for honours", or the BAe/Saudi Arabia/Bliar deals, or the dodgy dossier and David Kelly, or... Or before unlawfully killing Mr de Menezes.

If only.

If the MPs' IT systems were like the vast majority of corporate infrastructures with data shares held on storage servers and corporate policies about nothing kept on individual machines, would the police have taken the relevant servers and all storage infrastructure as well? How do the police handle incidents in thin client environments where the "desktop" is nothing but a glorified emulator?

Would we have had the situation where the plod would have turned off the Commons' IT systems to preserve one user's data or would they expect the IT people in the Commons to get all the data including mail, shares the MP was allowed write access to and home area shares?

I'm asking because I genuinely don't know but it seems like a very nasty grey area.

Never has there been an man more unsuited to the job than the speaker.

Except perhaps Gordon Broon at playing prime ministers...

Or Wacky Jacqui playing home secretaries...

Or Peter Mandelson playing an honourable man...

following on from the earlier story, why can't the police chuck the machine into a warehouse and forget about it for a couple of years like they would with anyone else?

Either that or answer difficult questions like, if they can get an MP's pc back to them in a few weeks, then why can't they get everyone's back to them in that time, unless they have a good reason not to. Ie have found something illegal.

But...Wackie Jacki says nobody should say (or probably even think) about anything until the police have (spent several years) investigating.

So that's alright then...

Paris....something to do with giving permission to truncheon-weilders before letting them in.

I know it is a possibly unfair characterisation, but the speed at which he speaks has always implied to me that he's a bit slow. Oooooorrrrrddddddeeeerrrrrr, etc.

Chances are, they'd just impound the thin client machine, then, once they'd had a bollocking from the senior officer in the computer lab, come back and arrest you for making them look stupid, despite any attempts you may have made to explain to them that carting it off in the first place was grade A Fail.

Pace the informative correspondence attatched to your last item on plod/computer interactions, it should be abundantly clear by now that the Met have no intention of taking this to trial. Because if they did intend to go to trial, they now have no audited evidence trail for Mr Greene's PC or hard drive image.

We can therefore safely infer that the only remaining purpose of the SO15 operation is to serve as an intimidatory warning to others.

I'm still puzzled by the red herring of warrants? These are signed by a judge or magistrate on behalf of Her Majesty. And She is the one person who through centuries of hard-fought tradition is prohibited, along with all Her agents, from entering the House of Commons, except by the express invitation of the House.

Logically, any search of Parliament can only take place with the express permission of the Speaker and/or Sergeant-at-arms. Which, luckily for the Met, is exactly what happened.

Does anyone else out there ever listen to 'Today in Parliament' (R4 11:30pm)? It starts with whoever the current speaker is intoning 'Order, order...' Ever since Martin has had the job and thus it is he who is intones, I have been unable to continue to listen (it's pretty difficult at the best of times). A curious wave of nausea and instant depression washes over me as soon as I hear him ...something about that voice (shudder)... I have to turn it off.

Try it if you dare.

"I know it is a possibly unfair characterisation, but the speed at which he speaks has always implied to me that he's a bit slow. Oooooorrrrrddddddeeeerrrrrr, etc."

I disagree with this. One manager I used to work for, highly intelligent, with a PhD in Electronics, spoke incredibly slowly, he managed a department of 80 people, you just wanted to jump in and finish the sentence for him. So, no speaking slowing isn't necessarily indictative that someone is thick.

Time was , the rest of the world looked up to and tried to emulate the British parliamentary system.

Let's hope that is no longer the case. There must be countless Britons spinning in their graves who have died fighting or spent their lives campaigning for the liberties that are daily being eroded by this government in the names of anti-terrorism and our best interests.

I really hope the next election brings a government that genuinely cares more about the needs and wants of the British people than it does about it's own sense of power, if not, it is going to be time to be getting the pitch forks and rope out and sharpening the sickles.

"Or before unlawfully killing Mr de Menezes."

Apparantly, the jury isn't allowed to return a verdict of unlawful killing, something to do with a verdict which was inconsistent with the Police's own inquiry wasn't allowed.

Interesting idea, two enquries taking place and the second isn't allowed to have a verdict which doesn't agree with the first. So much for democracy. I call it a stitch up.

Some body, some people ballsed up in the de Menezes killing and they're all going to get away with it.

Ever since Michael Martin was elected to the position of speaker I have been very unimpressed with him. He appears partisan in many ways, and this latest effort just shows he isn't up to the task. The sooner a replacement comes along the better. It's a shame Betty Boothroyd wasn't still in the office.

"The English ability or lack thereof of many commenters here makes them thick to me. S'all relative."

Not judgemental of us plebs at all are you.

...mines the one with the dictionary in the pocket with no entry for "s'all".

If I were an MP I would be encrypting my HDD as soon as possible.

Well, actually, I've already done that. It seems any old excuse is enough for the plod to come in and seize your data these days, and I intend to make their work as difficult as possible.

Tombstone to mark the passing of our civil liberties.

"Correspondence with an MP is not automatically privileged in the way that medical or legal documents would be. It is possible that some of the material on Mr Green’s PC would be subject to privilege – but not necessarily so."

So to find out what is and isn't, they need to read ALL of it, whether it is privileged or not.

But reading privileged information is a crime.

So how does that work?

@Andre Carneiro

Encryption wouldn't work. You're forgetting that, in the UK, refusal to hand over encryption keys is itself a criminal offense.

"The maximum penalty for failing to hand over an encryption key on demand is two years – or five years where you are being investigated under anti-terror legislation."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/14/ripa_self_incrimination_ruling/

That's in the Lords!

"Encryption wouldn't work. You're forgetting that, in the UK, refusal to hand over encryption keys is itself a criminal offense."

Your point is that you can't refuse to hand over encryption keys because you will go to prison?

I think you will find that you CAN with hold the keys and the data on your hard drive. Yes you may go to prison, the price of freedom in our free country.

Peter Mandelson no longer has to be an honourable man, he's now in the Lords, not the Commons.

Yes, my ermine cape is in the pocket.

I'm sure we can find some pics of Green's nephew playing around with a toy gun. Extreme kiddie porn, and voila. All is magically justified. After all, this kind of situation is the only reason why the extreme (and KP) porn law were passed, let's put them to good use! Or are MPs immune to the fishing trip tactic?

well that is us told then :(