Weekly Daily Brickbats Archive 2007 April 15-31

The British government is training about 1,200 local officials to enforce new anti-smoking rules. These workers will be able to enter bars and restaurants undercover, film and photograph people, issue immediate 50-ound fines to those they see smoking and bring charges against establishments that allow smoking.

Bill and Sue Faber hadn't been to Cleveland, Ohio, in six months. So they were surprised to get a speeding ticket from the city. They were even more surprised to open the letter and find a photograph of a car, not their truck. The photo and the ticket had been generated by a red light camera. And the tag on the car wasn't legible. It seems authorities just took a guess and sent the ticket. After a local TV station took up their cause, the city dropped the ticket.

A Florida appeals court has upheld the child pornography conviction of a 16-year-old girl identified in court documents only as A.H. The girl and her 17-year-old boyfriend took photographs of themselves engaged in "sexual behavior." They also sent the photos from her computer to his. Though sex between the two is legal under Florida law, photographing it isn't.

In England, those who send naughty e-mail could wind up on the country's register of sex offenders. An amendment to the Sexual Offences Act of 2003 permits sexual offence prevention orders to be issued to those who those who send obscene e-mails or make nuisance phone calls of a sexual nature.

A day after breaking up a protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russian police beat demonstrators in St. Petersburg. Reuters reports that police forced about 150 anti-Putin protestors into police vans and continued to beat some of them with batons in the vans.