[FYI] BOFHs will legally need licence to work

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/18866.html

-------------------------------- CUT --------------------------------

BOFHs will legally need licence to work  

By: Kieren McCarthy  

Posted: 10/05/2001 at 16:25 GMT  

The ludicrous Home Office legislation that has accidentally involved 
sysadmins in its aim to licence security people such as bouncers and 
wheel-clampers has been passed in the last week of Parliament before 
the election and is now law.   

As we've reported before, thanks to some sloppy drafting the new law 
failed to include the word "physical" when talking about licensing 
security people, leading to the IT industry, the CBI, CSSA and FIPR 
realising that the law essentially requires sysadmins to have a 
licence.   

Despite extensive lobbying by these groups and even a recognition by 
the government that the legislation was not intended to include IT 
folk, it actively prevented the clause being adjusted. The Bill has 
now gone through its final stages and the amendment was voted out by 
315 to 111.   

The government's behaviour is inexcusable and it is hard to see it as 
anything but spite because of the hard time the IT industry has given 
the Home Office in the last few years because of its misplaced 
legislation regarding computers and the Internet.   

[...]   

-------------------------------- CUT --------------------------------