by spwa4 | 2026-01-10 15:29:09+00:00
The cyber security is the very least of it. Take the rotherham scandal. The UK child services uses force, and puts the costs on parents and children. And then, when things go badly wrong (and they often go badly wrong), they suddenly aren't responsible, and nowhere to be found. But in the many scandals, it is especially bad.

So, one of the scandals: the government got caught exploiting children they had placed out of home (sometimes for fake reasons) for prostitution. Multiple thousands. And by "got caught" I don't mean that the police noticed it, like normally happens when a hotel or nightclub does it. In fact the police was complicit, both as "customers" and getting some of the money. I mean that one of the victims exposed it (the government and the police refused to act for over 10 years, and so after 5 years, one of the exploited girls to age out of youth services and got a job, at which point she used her position in the press to expose the practice. It would take 4 more years from that point on for the government to act). Who was responsible? Well, a bunch of the government workers involved in the scheme were Pakistani on a visa (which was illegal: youth services was not allowed to hire these people, of course, this was barely reported and absolutely no consequences for that). Obviously these men were considered guilty, as in personally criminally liable. That plenty of English city hall workers were involved is quietly swept under the rug. That the police refused to help the children that complained, and in fact helped prostitute them and got payments for that is swept under the rug. That some of the "customers" were government workers and police officers especially was swept under the rug.

And, of course, when private persons or organizations (like hotels) are caught doing something like this enormous damages are awarded to the victims. No damages were awarded to any of the victims in this huge scandal (this has nothing to do with that even 1000 pounds times 1000s of victims would have cost the government millions. In private cases normally the damages are high 5 to low 6 figures, in pounds, which would have amounted to billions). So the government, as in the people that form the government, used their special privileges in law to prostitute minors, doing what the government considers billions of pounds in damages total ... and suddenly nothing was owed. Suddenly nobody was liable, and normal rules for responsibility didn't apply. Some victims were released from youth services ... and that's all.

Does the government and youth services still illegally employ foreigners? Yes (the problem is not that they're foreign, the problem is English: it is a requirement to speak the language, not a bit, but extremely well. If you're on a VISA, this needs to be proven)

Does the police still get kickbacks from youth services prostituting minors? Well, they've been caught multiple times since.

Does the police still participate, as customers, from the practice? They haven't been caught since, but why not?

Does youth services itself still participate in practices like this? Again, they have been caught since.

And so on ...

It was not the first, nor the last time it happened. Plus, there's the numbers: it does of course happen that private entities do the same. Hotels and sometimes nightclubs (and occasionally a prince of the united kingdom I might add), but there we're talking one or two minors per case, less than 10 cases per year. In other words, the damage the government did in this one scandal is more than the damage private persons do in decades without the government "helping" children.

Governments do not see themselves as even remotely bound by the law. This is not limited to cyber security.