Airport Scanner - Coming Soon

Who said this?

I think we all know what they are trying to do. They are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cow us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do, trying to stop us from going about our business as normal, as we are entitled to do and they should not and they must not succeed.

When they try to intimidate us, we will not be intimidated. When they seek to change our country or our way of life by these methods, we will not be changed.

No not the words of a crazy blogger about the Labour Party, they are in fact Tony Blair's words after the terrorist attacks on London. As I now read about the full-body scanners that will be installed in airports, yet another terrorist necessity, I'll bear in mind those words as I head to the airport for my nude photo shoot. Because of course the only real choice here is between being groped or being stripped? Yet should people really be humiliated by their government like this? And for how much extra security, really?

Conservatives And The Surveillance State

Dominic Grieve the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, has outlined plans to reduce the role of surveillance by the state. This is just what I want to be hearing from opposition parties, given we've had 10 years of silly laws that have no regard to fairness, legality, common-sense or that little thing called privacy.

Some of the Tories policies are perfectly credible and I would imagine easy to implement. The problem with these proposals is what it's always been, they want us to trust that they will not be temped by the power the surveillance state presents. When those buzz words "terrorism" and "public interest" are like a trump cards for anything and databases are a quick fix for everything, they the Tories unlike Labour won't be temped.

They include the proposal for a British Bill of Rights they've previously mentioned, which will protect personal privacy, it's effectiveness of course will be determined by how it's implemented. Oddly for something so monumental though, information is sadly lacking. I hope it won't end up like Jack Straw's Bill of Conditional Rights and Many Responsibilities.

Yet regardless of the Tories policy, I can't help but feel uneasy, this is an easy stick to beat New Labour with, as perfectly illustrated by the documentation released along side this speech, it's like shooting ducks in a barrow. Will they really do it? I'm not so sure, yet the balance needs to be readdressed. Which is something that does work in the Tories favour, we know New Labour won't do it.

For every 1,000 cameras in London ...

Banksy

An internal report released by the Metropolitan Police under Freedom of Information laws disclosed that: "For every 1,000 cameras in London, less than one crime is solved per year." Well I'm so glad that the man who dropped litter is now rotting in jail with no chance of release, it makes the fact the UK is the one of the most monitored countries in the world worthwhile.

I truly don't understand why the government and police can't be targeted in using CCTV, it's becoming like a police replacement system. There have been many reports now that say having CCTV in car parks reduced theft and attacks on people, it also clearly makes sense to have CCTV outside and inside tube stations. So why not put the resources where they would prevent or be of use, rather than being so ridiculously indiscriminate. CCTV can not nor should it, replace a police officer on the street.

Mandelson's UK File Sharing Policy

Mandelson has personally intervened in the Digital Britain report saying that previous plans would take too long to implement. Under his proposal, "internet service providers would be obliged to block access to download sites, throttle broadband connections or even temporarily cut off access for repeat offenders."

So while Lord Long Pretentious title sits back slipping a Whiskey, listening to his wireless and happy with his days work. Just a little point, how on earth is this policy going to work? And why is there no mention of prosecution before cutting peoples phone line?

Torrent sites allow you to download legal files as well as pirated copies so how will they know without looking? People share connections, you can hide your IP address, encrypt and if you base the disconnection on the bases of how much you download, won't people that legally buy or stream films and music be effected?

The internet is incredibly adaptable, the only thing the government could do to stop file sharing is pull the plug. This proposal is unrealistic to say the least. The best thing the music and film industry could do, rather than just trying to sue everyone, would be to work with the digital download industry, as they can not continue to be elitist in an internet age.

Checklist for a Fascist State

In light of this article on imprisonment without trial or charge for months. I went looking for a Fascist state checklist. How does our government score?

Continuing nationalism, such as flying the national flag everywhere and taking pride in the national identity.


Ignoring "Human Rights" ethics.


Martialling the electorate by identifying "enemies" and scapegoating sections or particular groups.

Influence of the military - measured by how much is spent on defence against how much is spent on "social" programmes.


Media control, whether by "direct" control or with control in the hands of "sympathisers".

National security having a high profile in policy.


Government is overtly religiously linked to a particular faith.


Protection of Corporate Interests.


Overt sexism, measured as "masculine supremacy" and "oppression of women".


Trade Union activity is restricted or controlled.


Denigration of Intelligentsia and or/ restriction or control of higher education.


Emphasis on Crime and Punishment, measured as how harshly the criminal is punished and how much effort goes to "reforming" the criminal.


Corruption and cronyism, again looking at who gets what job, is connected to who and how the appointment is made.


Fraudulent elections - measured by the level of smear campaigning against opposition members and parties, dirty tricks and ballot box rigging to name but a few "tricks".

Score - 8/14

Like a teenager attempting to grow one, stubble but not quite a bushy moustache.

Question Time - Teenage Kicks

Question Time was a teenager special and David Dimbleby seemed to dress up for the occasion. More overwhelming than his tie however was Andy Burnham's incredibly vacant comments, "freedom is not absolute", wonderful to think he's in charge of the NHS. Firm understanding of law, democracy and common sense showing there. Freedom should be absolute, those little things like a fair trial, not being detained without charge, the right to protest, are the minimal you should expect as a human being from a democracy.

The panel had a 18-year-old student, Suzanne Burlton, it was nice to hear the comments of a generation that has in effect grown up under New Labour. Given they haven't known a government other than a Labour one, there was a real sense that this wasn't the direction they wanted the country to go in, which is very reassuring.

Back Door ID Cards = National Identity Register

Over the last few days Alan Johnson seemed to retreat, only to then start spinning on ID cards. They won't be compulsory, they're to protect your identity, they were never for terrorism and the nation is crying out for them.

The home secretary emphasised his personal commitment to a voluntary scheme, saying it should be a personal choice for British citizens in the same vein as obtaining a passport.

Heathrow Terminal 5 had a similar scheme, the bases was you couldn't get on the plane unless you were fingerprinted. I don't call that voluntary, I call that compulsory in all but name. Much like the "voluntary" scheme this government want to bring in.

As I've said before the ID Card scheme is interlaced with the passport application process, why? The real point to this is not the question of an ID card but a National Identity Register and the overall cost to the government. As the Guardian reports the passport scheme is being pushed though parliament:

two batches of draft regulations to be approved by MPs tomorrow and next week are expected to include powers to make the passport a "designated document" under the national identity card scheme. This means that anyone applying for or renewing their passport from 2011 will have their details automatically added to the national identity databases.

The identity register will include, name, date and place of birth, address, gender, immigration status, facial image and fingerprints. This information will be available to government agencies and private businesses. At the moment of course, but this government have always moved the goal posts and their "anti terror" checks are abused by people and councils all the time. Combine that with CCTV, DNA, phone, emails and on-line tracking databases, it starts to become Orwellian.

Which is what it distils down to, I don't trust this government with my data, in fact I don't trust them with anything. It's incredibly back handed to not be clear about what's happening, while pretending to be "honest Alan", he's is no more honest than Jacqui Smith was. He's just taken away the symbolically contentious element, in order to push through legislation on what the government really wanted the ID card for, a National Identity Register.

Criminal Trial Without Jury

Banksy's justice statue sketch read more about it here

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 introduced powers to hold trials in the absence of a jury when- there is a danger of jury tampering taking place and additional measures to prevent it would not have fully succeed. In a historic judgement the court of appeal ruled that, the criminal case of the Heathrow robbery will become the first time in 400 years that a criminal trial will not be judged by peers. It feels me with unease.

Trial by jury is not prefect and justice in some cases is dependent on the peers sitting. It has throughout our history been a knife that cut's both ways. Yet the same principle applies to judges. What strengthens the reasons for juries is that those 12 people come from a range of life experiences and have to reach a common consensus. A fair judgement is not just more likely for the accused, but also it places society at the heart of the justice system.

If the law had been that the defendant could wave there right to a jury, it wouldn't be such an uneasy thought. As I do think there are cases were juries would be automatically bias. For example cases involving children. Where the problem lies with this is that criminal justice and civil liberties legislation over recent years, has eroded trust and replaced it with suspicion. The state has tilted the scales of justice.

The right to be judged by 12 of your peers is at the very heart of British law and liberty. It feels me with foreboding that now the criminal court has used this law, they may have opened Pandora's box.

Anniversary of the Magna Carta

The Magna Carta was signed by King John today in 1215, it's importance is that it subjected the king to the law of the land for the first time in Britain's history. The relevance to today is within this charter of freedoms is Habeas corpus:

No free man shall be seized, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or injured in any way, nor will we enter on him or send against him except by the lawful judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land.

The principle is essentially no person should be deprived of freedom without due process of law. In short it protects us from the state. Thomas Paine captures the wonderful British cynicism, I like to think was illustrated 794 years ago today and has continued through out our history:

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.

Brown's Constitutional Changes

Labour are to set about making "constitutional changes", them reforming our constitution does seem a joke. Though at least David Blunkett isn't in Brown's 'National Council for Democratic Renewal', that would be beyond a joke. Yet what reform does Brown propose?

For the Commons he suggests, curbing the power of whips and letting MPs select all select committees, take control of the Commons' business programme, and be given a greater chance to introduce legislation. MPs' expenses will be overseen by an independent body and will cover the Lords too. The House of Lords will also be given new powers to "punish" misconduct.

For the public Sir Tim Berners-Lee will advise the government on how to open up access to official information. MPs' expenses that everyone has seen in the Telegraph will be published on-line. Brown will consider whether to reduce the voting age from 18 to 16.

For a political advantage, the 30-year rule of releasing government information will be changed to 20 years, Labour are bringing out Thatcher.

Brown also supports a written constitution which is where it gets worrying, Jack Straw published a green paper on this in March, it shows the Labour idea of what constitution is. Yet I would support a written entrenched constitution, in effect our constitution in writing. As it would place a different focus when making laws, at the moment our rights are not granted to us by the government. Rather, the government has to justify any right it takes away. Countries with a constitution operate on a different idea, that your rights are granted to you. Given "terrorism" is the magic word that can even take away the right to a fair trial, sadly this has become more relevant under a Labour government, as has parliamentary reform.

Lest we forget.

Protester Surveillance Database Illegal

Thank goodness for a little Liberty, in both sense of the word. The human rights group Liberty took the Met police to court for taking photos of protesters, activist, campaigners, to store on yet another database. Lord ­Justice Dyson said there were:

very serious human rights issues which arise when the state obtains and retains the images of persons who have committed no offence and are not suspected of having ­committed any offence.

I would say take note Jacqui Smith and her Met, but she'll no doubt find a way around it. Perhaps a helpful guide above might make clear the different between a "terrorist" and "protester". As she doesn't really seem that clear, I guess it all looks the same way up in that ivory tower of hers.

Jacqui Smith Says Britons Should Be Grateful

Jacqui Smith criticised the "current vogue for police bashing'' in a speech at the Police Federation conference. That's an interesting choice of words "vogue for police bashing", is it vogue to strike a citizen, I hope not.

We all saw the pictures on the television. But what we didn't see was all the hard work that went in, behind the scenes, to mounting such a large-scale and intensive police operation

Yes preparations that involved talking up the danger the protesters presented, warning pregnant women not to venture into the City, telling bankers to dress down and generally demonising protesters. Going on to an operation that lend police hiding identity numbers, covering their faces, trying to remove the press, allegedly getting undercover police officers to provoke protesters into violence, finishing up being heavy handed, beating a woman and killing someone. All of which they attempted to cover up.

She goes on to say:

We are lucky in this country for the way in which protest is facilitated and the police play a very important role in that.

Yes we're lucky Jacqui Smith hasn't outlawed it yet. This isn't a few bad apples, this a general mentality in the police force at large, they have far too much power and not enough accountablty. Yet we should be grateful?

Come and Get Your ID Card Only £60

Who on earth would volunteer for the privilege of paying £60, to be finger printed and photographed like a criminal? It's almost as puzzling as why, "Jacqui" isn't just spelt "Jackie"?

Jacqui Smith DNA Spy

Up to 1 million innocent peoples DNA will be removed from the database, Jacqui Smith said:

there has to be a balance between the need to protect the public and respecting their rights. Based on risks versus benefits, our view is that we can now destroy all samples.

What she's not saying however is the European Court of Human Rights ruled that keeping the samples "could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society". She has no choice but to comply. Smith can dress it up all she likes but, she cares about as much for civil liberties as most people care for her.

Yet her dishonesty doesn't end there though, after saying she respects the concerns of people with regard to her mega database and U-turning on it. Agent Smith backhandedly created a program called 'Mastering the Internet'. Like something from a James Bond film MTI, has installed black boxes which gather email and internet information on us. The project has been allocated a budget of £1 billion over three years, so it is well past the "possibility" stage. The Times reports it as:

A huge room of super-computers will help the agency to monitor — and record — data passing through black-box probes placed at critical traffic junctions with internet service providers and telephone companies, allowing GCHQ to spy at will.

One of the firms undertaking the work is American, which is particular interest as under USA Patriot Act the data can be requested by the US government. This worry has been raised before with a US firm being awarded the census 2011. Coincidentally the same company.

Update: GCHQ has issued a statement denying any plans to monitor everyone, saying that the project is intended to "enable the organisation keep pace with developments in internet technology."

Jacqui Smith's Data Cost

For a moment I thought Smith might of back tracked for some "degree" of privacy worries. Having done a little web searching, alas no it's money, she reduces the cost of her database from £12bn to £2bn, by pushing the work and costs over to the service providers. The Independent are reporting phone and internet bills may have to rise to pay for collecting and sorting private information. Effectively if the government don't cover all the costs with our tax, we'll pay for it via our phone bills as well and what's the betting that happens.

We don't just stand to be swindled there though, ID cards are also in the spot light, minsters want to cut the unpopular plans as they look for £9bn spending reductions, ID cards are estimated at £5bn cost. Though Computer Weekly has a very interesting post on the costs to us. £650m worth of contracts have been awarded and producing passports and ID Cards aren't so easily separated. As the government intends to regain their cost via us paying for them. Everyone needing an ID card reduces the cost, as it's shared between the whole population. Scraping ID cards means only passports will be used to regain the expense, as not everyone has a passport it could easy be a £200 plus bill for those that re-new and get one. Yet we still stand to get ID cards technology within our passports, unless they cancel the contract.

At least there's one positive point to this recession, it curbs Smith's ability to create database upon database of information on us. Big sister is still watching though, as she raids our piggy banks.

Two U Turns and New Labour Snubbed

Two U turns and a snub in a day, nice to see Labour are clear and confident in what they're doing.

Brown has dropped his flat rate expense proposal and will only include the safe options that he knows MPs are likely to vote on. Which means his pay off didn't work, and what does that say about the state of New Labour, if MPs won't take a bribe to vote for Brown. Paul Waugh is reporting though that Sir Christopher Kelly is being asked to come up with proposal that looks a lot like Browns.

Jacqui Smith has decided that creating a mega database of information, might be going to far, in doing so she wins the award of "stating the bloody obvious". She's changed the proposal to have service providers retaining the data, every internet user will be given an unique ID code and all their data stored. So essentially if the government don't have it, it's not a privacy issue in her "mind".

Brown was snubbed by the Pakistani president when he cancelled the press conference scheduled between them. Which goes to show that when you point your finger and shout terrorist, it's not very diplomatic. Particularly when it's essential that we work with Pakistani. They do have nuclear weapons and the Taliban 65 miles from them.

Terrorists or Protesters?

114 environmental activists were arrested and charged with "conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass and criminal damage." Police officers raided a school where they were meeting, seizing "specialist equipment". After the protesters were placed in custody, the police went to their homes to seize computer equipment and mobile phone records.

I don't personally support direct criminal action, yet since these protesters were 'pre-emptively arrested', I don't know what form their protest would have taken. The police do have a duty to act when they think lives are threatened, I don't dispute that. I do question however, whether they know the different between a terrorist and protester.

They used intelligence gathering from informants and/or email spying to send, 200 police officers from 3 forces storming into a school, to arrest a group of protesters. Who at their worst, were gong to chain themselves to conveyor belts, do a sit down protest within the grounds or do nothing.

Over the top and heavy-handed springs to mind, which hardly fills anyone with confidence in light of recent events. Yet a sense of uneasy fills me to, as the question of what has triggered this crack down hangs in the air. I do wonder if this plays a part in an answer.

Statebook

The Open Rights Group have created a spoof government site Statebook, which puts together information the government currently has, can and wants to hold on us. Seeing the information put together in this way is truly shocking.

Inmates To Get Voting Rights

Though I do find the thought of politicians having to campaign in prisons entertaining. I'm mostly left just bemused by how can it be OK to take away the right of freedom, yet not the right to free election while in prison? Heaven forbidden being a convicted rapist means you miss an opportunity to vote.

This law does underline a growing problem with our legal system. Lady Justice's blindfold is starting to feel like it indicates blindness, not impartial justice. The balance between victim and convict has started to tilt in a way that doesn't seem right, fair or just.

The larger problem is this tug of war between Westminster and Strasbourg. Something will have to give, as it throws such confusion on the issue, who's in charge? What laws do we follow? What laws apply to us? Who makes these laws? This is increasingly becoming an unworkable situation, particularly when people's trust is being eroded.

It would be nice to think that perhaps in being forced into making this law, Labour will consider not just signing anything the EU puts in front of them in future. As I don't hold any hope that they have the backbone needed to stand up to the EU, or attempt the reform so badly needed.

Protesters and Police At The G20

I realise there is an argument to say we place high standards on our police, yet it's common sense that if you can't keep a clear head or your temper in check, then you shouldn't be on the front line, incitement is a two way street. There are several videos circling the web of peaceful demonstrators being harassed by the police, and of course the video of Ian Tomlinson. I'm not including the protesters who were obliviously provoking the police and causing damage, as I haven't seen anything yet to show police overreacted to them. Though I can't say the same for the people who were demonstrating peacefully.

The police officer that attacked Mr Tomlinson went out of his way to do it, he wasn't standing behind and gave him a little shove to get him walking quicker, he moved in from the right to attack a man that posed no threat. His actions are completely disgraceful, I'm not a doctor so don't presume to know whether a heart attack can happen from such an act. If it can the officer should face a criminal investigation.

It's the right of police to use reasonable force to protect the public and themselves, but they have to balance that against their responsibility to allow peaceful protest to take place. A lot of the videos I've seen certainly pose the question of if they've got the balance right in general.

That's what concerns me about this, people will no doubt be put off protesting and democracy isn't just about turning up to vote every 4 years. Protesting equals saying this is wrong or I object. Whether it's on the street or web doesn't matter, because the alternative is we get the laws and the government we deserve from our silence.