Undercover officer spied on green activists

A police officer who for seven years lived deep undercover at the heart of the environmental protest movement ... has quit the Met, telling his friends that what he did was wrong.

... [PC Mark] Kennedy's activities went beyond those of a passive spy, prompting activists to ask whether his role in organising and helping to fund protests meant he turned into an agent provocateur ...

The allegation was set to emerge during the trial of the six defendants who – unlike the other activists – maintained that they had not yet agreed to break into the power station ...

Lawyers for the activists submitted their demand for material about Kennedy's role last Monday.

The CPS confirmed it would not proceed with the trial, stating that "previously unavailable information" that undermined its case had come to light.

It said there was no longer sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of prosecution.

"I have no doubt that our attempts to get disclosure about Kennedy's role has led to the collapse of the trial," said Mike Schwarz, a solicitor at the Bindmans law firm who represented the activists ...

Guardian  09 Jan 2011    

Third undercover police spy unmasked

Did police spy use sex to win activists' trust?

A journey from undercover cop to 'bona fide' activist

Ratcliffe coal protesters spared jail sentences

Police demand new powers to stop and search terror suspects

Top officers tell government they want to replace section 44 law that was scrapped by human rights ruling ...

The debate about the proposed new power will be shaped by the memory of section 44.

Some police leaders now accept they were too slow to realise the damage it was doing to community relations and to their own reputation, while proving of questionable value in catching terrorists.

In 2009 more than 100,000 stops were carried out under section 44, but not a single arrest was made for terrorism under the power ...

Guardian  29 Dec 2010    Counter Terrorism - National Security

Stop and Search

Stop and search powers to change

European court pulls plugs on terror stop and search

Kettling - an attack on the right to protest

Since its introduction in 2001, kettling has been challenged in the courts a number of times, unsuccessfully.

Earlier this month, a new claim was brought on behalf of five students kettled at a recent demonstration.

Deployed initially as an unplanned response, many now see kettling as a pre-planned weapon to grind down the public’s willingness to protest, and to punish those who partake regardless ...

There are few more fundamental rights than those currently being attacked, yet the European Court of Human Rights has, so far, offered no protection to those exercising this basic democratic freedom ...

Despite a string of cases in 2009-10, no police officer has been prosecuted for their conduct towards protestors ... leaving the public to question whether the police are above the law ...

When criticised, they respond that the public should be thankful that they haven’t deployed water cannons ... yet.

openDemocracy  29 Dec 2010    Ian Tomlinson

Ian Tomlinson

Police officers 'tried to stop hospital staff treating injured protester'

Amateur footage of G20 incident

Video shows mounted police charging crowd

Police dragged me from wheelchair twice during protests

Police may ban future marches to prevent disorder

The Truth about Water Cannons

Supervision’ is not enough; the IPCC must handle this investigation themselves

When yesterday’s headlines announced that the police would be ‘probing’ my official complaint to the IPCC, after being dragged out of my wheelchair by an officer at Thursday’s student demonstration, some kind of medical examination was the first thought that popped into my mind.

But upon closer examination, it becomes evident to me that the IPCC have no interest in getting to the truth of the matter, let alone handing out some kind of justice ... but if the IPCC were intent on ensuring this incident was independently and fairly investigated, then they would manage the thing themselves.

Instead, they have left the matter to the Metropolitan Police Service’s Directorate of Professional Standards, under their ’supervision’.

Essentially, the police are being left to investigate their own actions ...

Independent  17 Dec 2010    

'Why is it so suprising that the police dragged me from my wheelchair?'

Kevin Bakhurst is emblematic of the BBC's biased response. Radio 5's phone in shows have been conducted in the same bullying manner towards anyone supporting the demonstrators.

Seven days ago, this 20-year-old political activist was at the student protests in London with his younger brother Finlay when police allegedly hit him with a baton, and pulled him from his wheelchair not once, but twice ...

Not long after the protests, footage emerged of the second incident which, while grainy, shows McIntyre out of his wheelchair, being pulled along the ground by police, as voices in the crowd shout "What the fuck are you doing?" and "You just tipped him over!"

It's difficult to watch without mounting horror, and the thought: has it come to this? The police dragging a man with cerebral palsy through our streets?

Not everyone had that reaction.

In the Daily Mail, columnist Richard Littlejohn ... (wrote) ...

"If [McIntyre's] looking for sympathy, he's come to the wrong place," wrote Littlejohn.

There also seemed a distinct lack of sympathy from the BBC, in an interview conducted by journalist Ben Brown on Monday night, that has attracted thousands of complaints.

The BBC News channel controller, Kevin Bakhurst, asked why people objected to it, and the answer seems to be this: in interviewing an apparent victim of police brutality, Brown's tone was highly accusatory.

He asked whether McIntyre might have been "rolling towards" the police in his wheelchair, whether he had thrown missiles at the police, and repeatedly questioned why he hadn't yet made a legal complaint about his treatment ...

Guardian  15 Dec 2010    A Moral Indifference Log    Higher education    Manufacturing Consent

IPCC to oversee investigation into wheelchair protester incident

Student protests video allegedly shows police pulling man out of wheelchair

UK Uncut protesters spied upon by undercover police

At least two plain-clothes officers of Met police's Forward Intelligence Teams spotted at London tax avoidance protest ...

Scotland Yard has deployed undercover officers to spy on a network of activists whose viral campaign against tax avoiders threatens to close down hundreds of shops in the run-up to Christmas.

The surveillance officers were first used at a protest in October, the Guardian can reveal, despite an assurance given to parliament last year that only officers in full uniform gather intelligence at protests ...

Responding to previous reports that plain-clothes officers were deployed at the G20 protests last year, Commander Bob Broadhurst, who runs the Met's public order unit CO11, told a parliamentary committee in May last year:

"The only officers we deploy for intelligence purposes at public order are forward intelligence team officers who are wearing full police uniforms with a yellow jacket with blue shoulders."

In a statement this week, the Met said plain-clothes officers were frequently deployed in "day to day" policing.

"It is key that as a police service we observe and gather information to provide us with a relevant and up-to-date intelligence picture of what to expect in terms of protest groups and public order policing." ...

Guardian  03 Dec 2010    Tax Dodgers

Topshop's flagship London store hit by tax protest

UK Uncut

Tax Gap

Spy planes and second-class citizens

It was with great interest that I read your report (Foreign fighters in the shadows, 25 November) on how spy planes have been patrolling British skies trying to pick up voice signatures of British citizens suspected of travelling to Afghanistan to fight against Nato forces, after Yorkshire and Birmingham accents were detected by RAF spy planes in Helmand.

If this is true, it raises a number of serious questions.

First, how often have these flights been taking place and under what authority?

Second, which areas have these spy planes been operating over?

One can only presume that they would be targeting Muslim majority areas in Yorkshire and Birmingham.

If so, it makes a mockery of the apology offered by the West Midlands chief constable, Chris Simms, after a secret police operation to place thousands of Muslims in Birmingham under secret camera surveillance was uncovered (Report, 1 October).

If spy planes are indeed also operating over Muslim areas in Britain, it once again highlights how little the government really cares about the dignity of its Muslim citizens.

Third, how is the information gathered from such surveillance being used by the authorities?

Is it being used as "secret evidence" against terror suspects brought before draconian Special Immigration Appeals Commission courts, where they are unable to see or challenge the allegations against them?

One of the justifications often put forward in support of the use of "secret evidence" is that to disclose it to the accused would be to compromise the intelligence services and their methods and strategies.

If this is indeed one of those methods, it is understandable why the government is fighting to keep it secret.

For were it to become public knowledge, it would further underline the fact that Muslims in Britain are being deliberately targeted by the authorities as a suspect community and treated as second-class citizens.

Fahad Ansari

Cageprisoners

Guardian  30 Nov 2010    War on Terror

Afghanistan's foreign fighters in the shadows

CagePrisoners

Ireland bailout: UK taxpayers could face £7bn bill

Irish newspapers reported today that Ireland is considering asking for money for its banks via the EU's emergency fund ...

An emergency bailout of Ireland, which is looking increasingly likely today, could cost Britain billions of pounds.

Although Ireland continues to deny that it has asked for help, many analysts believe the country will have to tap a €60bn rescue fund set up by the EU in May this year.

Under the terms of a deal agreed by Alistair Darling in May, the UK is liable for 13.6% of this fund.

This means taxpayers could contribute as much as €8bn (£6.8bn), depending how the rescue package was structured ...

Koolio
15 November 2010 11:06AM

Note the words used in the article could: could, denial, no application, we won't speculate etc. There's so much uncertainty here.

The lesson from the Greek fiasco was that the authorities can't afford to sit around and make up their mind.

We are supposed to have rules and mechanisms in place, yet we have a vacuum and speculation.

As for the UK paying, British banks have significant exposure and it is a large export market, the UK has a vested interest in helping.

That said, it's about time people realised that a total bailout is undesirable.

Professional investors know very well that the value of their investment can go down as well as up, they piled into Irish debt only now it has turned sour.

We need to be sure to save the Irish economy but those who took investment risk need to assume a share of their gamble.

For too long Britain and the EU have appeared to be acting on behalf of the bondholders.

sarkany
15 November 2010 11:16AM

And meanwhile the bankers, bondmasters and hedge-fund sharks order another magnum and calculate how much there is left to steal, the British Government reviews militarisation options in the event of civil disorder and old people start dying because of lack of social care.

What a great society ! What a wonderful system !

No doubt the usual Tory trolls will soon appear spouting their 'Live within your means' garbage, which now seems to be their daily prayer to the Great God Money.

For anyone who missed this report on the coming shape of our so-called democracy from this weeks Observer;

As police face continued criticism for failing to control the march, the Observer has learned that defence firms are working closely with UK armed forces and contemplating a "militarisation" strategy to counter the threat of civil disorder.

The trade group representing the military and security industry says firms are in negotiation with senior officers over possible orders for armoured vehicles, body scanners and better surveillance equipment.

The move coincides with government-backed attempts to introduce the use of unmanned spy drones throughout UK airspace, facilitating an expansion of covert surveillance that could provide intelligence on future demonstrations.

Derek Marshall, of the trade body Aerospace, Defence and Security (ADS), said that such drones could eventually replace police helicopters.

He added that military manufacturers had discussed police procurement policies with the government, as forces look to counter an identified threat of civil disobedience from political extremists.

Guardian  15 Nov 2010    Corporate State Britain    The Euro: A question of sovereignty

Warning of new era of surveillance state

Britain is heading for a new surveillance state of unmanned spy drones, GPS tracking of employees and profiling through social networking sites, the information watchdog has warned ...

Mr Graham's predecessor warned in 2006 that the UK could be "sleepwalking into a surveillance society" and an updated report for him today said such concerns are "no less cogent" in 2010 ...

[The report] said that despite the scrapping of ID cards and ContactPoint, the database of every child, and ongoing reviews of CCTV, the DNA database and "there are still many areas where surveillance continues to intensify and expand".

Mr Graham said: "Many of the new laws that come into force every year in the UK have implications for privacy at their heart.

"My concern is that after they are enacted there is no one looking back to see whether they are being used as intended, or whether the new powers were indeed justified in practice." ...

Telegraph  12 Nov 2010    Corporate State

'Sleepwalking into Stasi state'

Witnesses 'thrown off plane' during deportation flight

Two students who tried to voice concern about 'violent' deportation say they were questioned by armed police ...

Two passengers who attempted to voice their concern as a man was "violently" deported aboard a flight from Heathrow say they were thrown off the aircraft and quizzed by armed police.

The pair, both students, claim the man screamed as he was restrained by three guards from private security firm G4S, who were pinning him in his seat.

"He was handcuffed, clearly in pain and being violently restrained," said Matt Taylor, 29, an undergraduate at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London ...

As the deportee continued to scream, Taylor decided he had to do something ...

The pair demanded to see the captain but the request was initially refused.

After the plane began to taxi the captain appeared and Taylor raised his concerns, but says they were dismissed.

"I was told by the cabin crew I could sit at the front of the plane so that I would not hear the man screaming ... "

The pair continued to voice their concerns before the captain ordered the plane to return to the terminal, where armed police were waiting for Taylor and Bowman.

The pair continued to voice their concerns before the captain ordered the plane to return to the terminal, where armed police were waiting for Taylor and Bowman.

"They were crowding around the exit and gave me the 'option' of leaving the plane – which I did.

"I had every privacy of mine invaded by the police, who analysed my passport, inquiring why I had visited countries such as Sri Lanka and UAE."

Taylor said he was questioned under anti-terrorism powers for several hours before the pair were escorted to the underground station at Heathrow, where "it was suggested" he get on a train to London ...

Guardian  31 Oct 2010    Moral Indifference

Asylum Seekers

Protect police from lawsuits, says Met chief

Rights groups attack Sir Paul Stephenson's plan to curb court action against officers ...

The Met's chief says money is being wasted on speculative claims, with lawyers gaining large fees that would be better spent fighting crime.

The proposals are contained in appendices to a letter marked "confidential" and sent to Theresa May by Stephenson, who is Britain's most senior police officer, on 22 June.

In the documents, released after inquiries by the Guardian, he suggests:

• Making it harder for people to sue the police for damages in civil actions. These usually involve allegations of brutality or wrongful arrest.

• Loading higher costs on to officers and other staff suing police forces at employment tribunals. These cases include claims of discrimination and unfair treatment.

• Charging the public a fee for freedom of information requests. The Freedom of Information Act is supposed to help citizens hold public bodies to account ...

Guardian  10 Oct 2010    Corporate State    Propositional Democracy & Recall

Mark Saunders siege police 'had more than 100 guns'

Highly-trained officers were equipped with an arsenal including high velocity rifles, 9mm Glock self-loading pistols, MP5 carbines, Tasers and CS gas.

A total of 59 officers were posted around the man's home after he blasted a shotgun through his kitchen window ...

Westminster Coroner's Court heard that senior officers were keen the area should not be "bristling" with guns.

In court, Nicholas Hilliard QC, for the coroner, asked:

"If in this particular situation you can avoid the area bristling with firearms officers, is that something you try to do, if it can be done?"

Inspector Nicholas Bennett, of the Metropolitan Police's CO19 unit, replied:

"I certainly would not have any more firearms officers there than I thought were necessary." ...

BBC NEWS  29 Sept 2010    

C.I.A. Steps Up Drone Attacks on Taliban in Pakistan

It's time to create fear on the 'home front', again!

... Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has recently issued veiled warnings to top Pakistani commanders that the United States could launch unilateral ground operations in the tribal areas should Pakistan refuse to dismantle the militant networks in North Waziristan, according to American officials.

“Petraeus wants to turn up the heat on the safe havens,” said one senior administration official, explaining the sharp increase in drone strikes.

“He has pointed out to the Pakistanis that they could do more.” ...

... it remains unlikely that the United States would make good on such threats to send American troops over the border, given the potential blowback inside Pakistan, an ally.

But that could change ... if Pakistan-based militants were successful in carrying out a terrorist attack on American soil.

American and European intelligence officials in recent days have spoken publicly about growing evidence that militants may be planning a large-scale attack in Europe, and have bolstered security at a number of European airports and railway stations ...

NYT  28 Sept 2010    Moral Indifference    War on Terror

From Helmand to Merseyside: Unmanned drones and the militarisation of UK policing

The Merseyside deployment is merely one of the first, tentative step within a much wider push by arms contractors and security and technology corporations.

Supported by Governments, these are working extremely hard to ensure that the deployment of aerial drones for policing purposes quickly saturates UK airspace and becomes completely normal and taken for granted.

We thus face a pivotal moment in the evolution of civilian surveillance by electronic means, both in the UK and other western democracies.

This moment raises four particular concerns ...

... the widespread introduction of almost silent, pilotless drones with military-standard imaging equipment raises major new questions about the way in which the UK as a ‘surveillance society’.

Is the civilian deployment of such drones a justified and proportionate response to civilian policing needs or a thinly-veiled attempt by security corporations to build new and highly profitable markets?

Once deployed, what ethical and regulatory guidelines need to be in place to govern drone deployment and the ‘targeting’ of drone sensors?

Above all, are transparent regulatory systems in place to prevent law enforcement agencies from abusing radical extensions in their powers to vertically and covertly spy on all aspects of civilian life 24 hours a day?

openDemocracy  27 Sept 2010

CCTV in the sky

Six freed after Pope 'plot' probe

Six men quizzed by counter-terrorism police probing a plot to attack the Pope have been released without charge ...

Police searched eight homes in north and east London and two business premises in central London, including a street cleaning depot as part of the investigation.

The Metropolitan Police said the searches of the premises had been completed and had not revealed any weapons or suspicious materials ...

uk.news.yahoo.com  19 Sept 2010    Police and PM in dock over terrorist suspects    

Guilty as not charged

Back on the road

Two released without charge

Terror raids police release two

Warning over 'beheading plot' arrests

Birmingham terror briefings

The police should explain

Informant ... an 'utter incompetent'

Tomlinson pathologist 'irresponsible' in earlier cases

Dr Patel, 63, was said by the disciplinary panel to have failed to identify marks on the body of a five-year-old girl which suggested she had been violently attacked prior to her death.

The panel's chairman, Richard Davies, said Dr Patel's report into the death of the girl, who was admitted to hospital with a head injury following what was said to be a "serious fall", gave no details of so-called "marks of violence".

Mr Davies said: "If there were no significant marks of violence in your view, by implication there were some marks of violence."

Mr Davies said the panel considered it "probable" that Dr Patel "performed only a cursory external examination of the body" ...

BBC NEWS  25 Aug 2010    Corporate Public 'Services'    Ian Tomlinson

G20 Pc faces misconduct charge

Tomlinson pathologist 'not qualified' for G20 case

Officers charged with assaulting terror suspect

Note the Ian Tomlinson hasn't been able to take out 'civil proceedings for compensation', so no change of mind from the CPS in his case.

Simon Clements, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Babar Ahmad was arrested by the officers on suspicion of terrorism offences.

Mr Ahmad suffered a number of injuries during that arrest, including heavy bruising to the head, neck, wrists and feet.

"The Crown Prosecution Service received a file of evidence on how those injuries were caused from the Independent Police Complaints Commission in 2004.

"We took the view at that time that there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction of anyone involved.

"Following Mr Ahmad's successful civil proceedings for compensation from the police in the High Court last year, his solicitors asked the CPS to look at the evidence again.

"The Director of Public Prosecutions asked the Special Crime Division to do so. We have now completed our review of the evidence.

"Our conclusion is that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest to charge four of the officers involved in the arrest of Mr Ahmad with causing actual bodily harm to him, contrary to the Offences Against the Person Act 1861."

Independent  12 August 2010    Torture

Family win school catchment spying case

Council acted illegally in tracking movements of family to see if children qualified for primary school ...

The council claimed it was acting under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), which allows councils to carry out surveillance only if they suspect serious crimes, including terrorism ...

But in what is a landmark ruling, the tribunal found that the council had not needed to use the powers granted under Ripa.

It is the first time such powers have been challenged at an open hearing. The tribunal also ruled that the council had breached the family's right to privacy as stated in the Human Rights Act.

The ruling stated that the surveillance was "not proportionate and could not reasonably have been believed to be proportionate".

"The complainants have been unlawfully subjected to directed surveillance," it added.

Corinna Ferguson, legal officer for civil rights group Liberty, said the "sinister treatment" of the Paton family proved surveillance powers "need to be far more tightly restricted and supervised" ...

Guardian  02 Aug 2010

Policeman who stuck Ian Tomlinson faced two previous aggression inquiries

Pc Simon Harwood, the police officer who struck Ian Tomlinson minutes before he died, was previously investigated twice over his alleged aggressive behaviour ...

Although it has been decided he will not face criminal charges for striking Tomlinson it has been disclosed that the police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, backed a prosecution for manslaughter.

Pc Harwood left the Metropolitan Police a decade ago amid controversy over an alleged off-duty road rage incident, then got a job with Surrey Police, where he was accused of using excessive force.

He could now face disciplinary charges over the death of Mr Tomlinson, and could also be the subject of an internal investigation by the Met into how he was allowed to rejoin the force despite having an unresolved disciplinary matter on his record ...

Telegraph  23 July 2010

G20 Pc faces misconduct charge

Police officer faces disciplinary hearing

Riot officer faces no charge over G20 death

Fury over police 'culture of impunity'

Blair Peach, 30 years on

G20 police blog boasts about a 'good kicking'

Ian Tomlinson second postmortem

This lack of independence is adding insult to injury

Pathologist in Ian Tomlinson G20 death case was reprimanded over conduct

Guardian video reveals police attack on man who died at G20 protest

'Bleeding killed G20 riot man'

Ian Tomlinson: Police question witness ...

G20 witnesses tell of dogs, batons and an attack by police

De Menezes taught the Met nothing

Advice to charge police officer over Ian Tomlinson death ignored

Police watchdog and pathologist favoured tougher line than CPS as Tomlinson's family accuse authorities of cover-up ...

... a direct challenge to the CPS also emerged last night from Dr Nat Cary, the second forensic pathologist who examined Tomlinson's body.

He told the Guardian prosecutors made a factual error in dismissing a charge of actual bodily harm.

He said his report contained clear evidence that Tomlinson suffered injuries sufficient to support an ABHcharge.

The CPS dismissed the injuries as "relatively minor" and thus not enough to support a charge of ABH in its written reasons given to the family.

Cary, speaking for the first time about the case, said:

"I'm quite happy to challenge that. The injuries were not relatively minor. He sustained quite a large area of bruising. Such injuries are consistent with a baton strike, which could amount to ABH. It's extraordinary. If that's not ABH I would like to know what is."

The CPS said Patel's findings would provide a jury with enough reasonable doubt that the officer's strike contributed to the death, and as a result they would acquit.

By coincidence Patel yesterday faced a disciplinary hearing at the General Medical Council for allegedly conducting four other autopsies incompetently.

He could be struck off and the Home Office has suspended him from its approved list ...

Guardian  23 July 2010

G20 Pc faces misconduct charge

Ian Tomlinson death: police officer will not face criminal charges

G20 riot officer filmed striking down newspaper seller will not face charges because of postmortem conflicts, CPS rules ...

The police officer caught on video during last year's G20 protests striking a man who later died will not face criminal charges, the Crown Prosecution Service announced today.

Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, said there was "no realistic prospect" of a conviction, because of a conflict between the postmortems carried out after the death of Ian Tomlinson last year ...

In a written statement the CPS admitted that there was sufficient evidence to show the officer had assaulted Tomlinson, but claimed a host of technical reasons meant he could not be charged.

Tomlinson's stepson Paul King, flanked by his mother, Julia, who was struggling to hold back tears, said:

"It's been a huge cover-up and they're incompetent." ...

sarjmays
22 Jul 2010, 3:40PM

Weighing conflicting evidence was a matter for a jury. There was a case to answer and evidence to support it.

That case should have been answered in court, not behind closed doors.

The CPS now seems to have turned into a craven, slippery, target-driven organisation mostly concerned with self-preservation and avoiding anything that might put 'one in the loss column'.

Then again, the justice system is the moral core of our country and maybe we have the CPS we deserve - all pragmatism and targets, the hell with principle.

Guardian  22 July 2010

Peace campaigner, 85, classified by police as 'domestic extremist'

John Catt and his daughter were placed under surveillance at more than 80 lawful protests ...

When the Guardian first revealed details about a police monitoring system that keeps tabs on political activists last year, police gave assurances they were not interested in everyday campaigners.

They said surveillance was needed to monitor "domestic extremists" – a term that has no legal basis but is defined by police as activists who are determined to break the law to further their political aims.

Anton Setchell, who is national co-ordinator for domestic extremism for the Association of Chief Police Officers and is responsible for the NPOIU database, said most campaigners would never be considered domestic extremists.

However, information about the Catts has been transferred to the Police National Computer in Hendon and in July 2005, they were stopped by police under the Terrorism Act after driving into the east London to help a family member move house.

They later discovered police had placed a marker against their car registration on the database, triggering an alert – "of interest to public order unit, Sussex police" – each time they drove beneath an automatic number plate reading camera.

The Catts said they were particularly shocked to discover that they had been tracked for two days in Manchester in 2008, during the Labour party conference ...

Guardian  25 June 2010    Corporate State Britain

Criticism of EDO Corporation

EDO Injunction Case

smashEDO

'Request for information'

Police 'pay Kingsnorth climate protesters compensation'

Twins, then aged 11, and campaigner David Morris were attending a "climate camp" at Kingsnorth power station in 2008 when they were searched.

At the High Court in January, police admitted the searches were unlawful.

The solicitor who led the case called the police action a "massive violation of the human right to protest" ...

The news of the payout comes after heavy criticism of Kent Police from demonstrators and politicians in the wake of the climate camp.

The Liberal Democrats claimed in a report that police had used sleep deprivation tactics and threatening behaviour to compile data on protesters.

And the then police minister, Vernon Coaker, apologised in the House of Commons for telling parliament that 70 officers were injured dealing with the protests.

His comments came after it was revealed that injuries Kent Police claimed had been sustained during the climate camp included insect stings, toothache and heat exhaustion.

It was also revealed that among items confiscated by officers during searches were a clown outfit, blankets, balloons and colouring books ...

BBC NEWS  11 June 2010

Anti-terror law 'used illegally' to stop and search thousands

Police forces to apologise after Home Office finds 40 stop-and-search operations under section 44 were illegal ...

"The Met identified an authorisation from April 2004 which had not been confirmed by a Home Office minister within the statutory 48-hour deadline for confirmation," Herbert said. "Subsequent investigations revealed that approximately 840 were stopped and searched in the relevant area during the period of the invalid authorisation."

The Met is urgently considering what steps to take to contact those involved so they can apologise.

The discovery triggered a Home Office search last month through all the records dating back to the introduction of section 44 in February 2001. That trawl revealed that 14 forces had unlawfully used their counter-terror stop and search powers in no fewer than 40 different operations.

The Home Office said in most of the cases authorisations were issued for periods beyond the 28-day statutory limit for each operation, or were not signed off by ministers within the statutory 48-hour deadline.

The disclosure is another major blow to the police use of section 44 of the Terrorism 2000 Act under which anyone can be stopped in a specific area without any need for suspicion that an offence is being committed. The powers were used to stop 148,798 people last year and they have been used repeatedly against peace protesters and photographers.

Guardian  10 June 2010

HMRC officers to get powers to open people's post without asking permission

Officers will be allowed to intercept any suspicious mail anywhere in the country and open it before it is delivered, under plans being drawn up by the Government to amend the Postal Services Act.

The measure is billed as a bid to crack down on tobacco smuggling. However, a HM Revenue and Customs spokesman said the powers could be applied much more widely ...

Treasury documents say: “HMRC will no longer be required to notify the addressee and invite them to attend before such packets can be opened”.

The new measure will be passed into law as part of the Budget over the next few weeks, and amend section 106 of the Postal Services Act 2000 ...

Telegraph  26 Mar 2010

Hundreds more town hall staff to get police-style powers

"Arbeit Macht Frei"

Almost 1,700 people, also including car park attendants and dog wardens, already have powers to hand out a string of fines and even take photographs of low level offenders under the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme.

But the Government has quietly announced it plans to review the scheme with chief police officers to see how it can be expanded further ...

Under CSAS, a chief constable can give employees of local authorities or private companies limited powers such as the right to hand out on-the-spot fines for offences including disorder, truancy and littering; stopping vehicles for roadside tests and confiscating alcohol.

They have their own uniform and badge and can demand names and addresses as well as take photographs of offenders.

There are 1,667 so-called "accredited persons" in England and Wales with 109 organisations, including 31 private companies, involved across 26 forces.

A further 478 civilians have been given the power to stop vehicles to check for out-of-date tax discs.

But a section buried in a recent Home Office neighbourhood policing strategy document read: "The Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (CSAS) is a powerful way for the police to work with partners and to make the most out of other people whose job is to keep their neighbourhoods safe by giving them a limited range of powers to tackle ASB (anti-social behaviour) ... " ...

Telegraph  08 Mar 2010

Top

Ministry of Justice lists eco-activists alongside terrorists

Government officials have labelled environmental campaigners extremists and listed them alongside dissident Irish republican groups and terrorists inspired by al-Qaida in internal documents seen by the Guardian.

The guidance on extremism, produced by the Ministry of Justice, says: "The United Kingdom like many other countries faces a continuing threat from extremists who believe they can advance their aims by committing acts of terrorism."

It was sent to probation staff who were writing court reports or supervising a range of activists, including environmental protesters.

The advice lists "environmental extremists" alongside far-right activists, dissident Irish republicans, loyalist paramilitaries and al-Qaida-inspired extremists as among groups "currently categorised as extremist [that] may include those who have committed serious crime in pursuit of an ideology or cause" ...

Guardian  26 Jan 2010

Top

CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones

Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ­"routine" monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.

The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police ...

Guardian  23 Jan 2010

Top

Liberty and mendacity

Charlie Falconer is concerned about what Cameron might do to the Human Rights legislation

The Tory position on human rights just doesn't add up. It puts Britain's reputation at risk ...

Danot
14 Jan 2010, 11:39PM

The Tory position on human rights just doesn't add up. It puts Britain's reputation at risk

Is that our reputation for fighting in illegal wars, assisting with torture and assasination?

Or is it our reputation for being run by a parliament full of cheating liars only looking out for themselves?

Or is it our reputation for being a surveillance society with no respect for privacy or such basic rights as habeus corpus?

Or is it the insane stuff like people being arrested for taking photos in public?

Or the reputation we have for shooting people six times in the head for jumping a ticket barrier?

Or is it some other reputation that I'm not aware of?

The tories are going to have to be very creative if they are going to make things worse.

The Guardian  14 Jan 2010    

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20,000 council workers can enter homes without a warrant

The average local authority has 47 employees authorised to enter private homes, although some councils have hundreds of such inspectors.

The Home Office recently admitted that 1,043 different laws permit state inspectors to enter people’s homes and premises ...

Gordon Brown pledged more than two years ago to review the power of councils to enter people’s homes without warrant.

The Conservatives have also promised to scrap some laws permitting entry. However, neither of the main political parties has yet to announce firm proposals.

Big Brother Watch, a campaigning group, sent Freedom of Information requests to each of the country’s 431 local councils.

The 316 councils who responded admitted to employing a total of 14,793 people authorised to enter private homes ...

Telegraph 28 Dec 2009

Big Brother Watch

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Warning: Do not take this picture

Speaking to The Independent, Lord Carlile of Berriew said: "The police have to be very careful about stopping people who are taking what I would call leisure photographs, and indeed professional photographers. The fact that someone is taking photographs is not prima facie a good reason for stop and search and is very far from raising suspicion. It is a matter of concern and the police will know that they have to look at this very carefully," he added.

Lord Carlile's comments come just days after a BBC journalist was stopped and searched by two police community support officers as he took photographs of St Paul's Cathedral.

Days earlier Andrew White, 33, was stopped and asked to give his name and address after taking photographs of Christmas lights on his way to work in Brighton.

And in July Alex Turner, an amateur photographer from Kent, was arrested after he took pictures of Mick's Plaice, a fish and chip shop in Chatham.

Most of those stopped are told they are being questioned under Section 44, a controversial power which allows senior officers to designate entire areas of their police force regions as stop-and-search zones. The areas are chosen based on their likelihood of being a terrorism target.

More than 100 exist in London alone, covering areas such as the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and other landmarks.

Every train station in the UK is covered by a Section 44 order ...

Independent  03 December 2009

Photographer films his own 'anti-terror' arrest

Photographers protest against police stop and search

From snapshot to Special Branch

Police search photographer using anti-terrorism laws

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Terror suspects' DNA could be held for life

Terror suspects who are released without charge could face having their DNA profiles stored for life, it was revealed today.

Proposals announced by the Home Office could see the information on anyone arrested for terrorist offences but either not charged or acquitted kept indefinitely on the national database ...

Independent  11 November 2009

Plan for DNA database to hold profiles for 6 years

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Labour forces secret inquests Bill through the Commons

Secret inquests which will bar bereaved families and the public from attending hearings into controversial deaths were forced through Parliament last night.

The Government narrowly defeated opposition to the new powers by a majority of eight MPs in a highly charged vote in the House of Commons.

Under the measures ministers will be able to order that an inquest is replaced with a secret inquiry whenever they deem it necessary ...

Independent  10 November 2009

Ministers cancel 'Big Brother' database

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Arms protester on police spotter card was alleged infiltrator for BAE

He was listed as target X, a so-called domestic extremist included on a secret police spotter card as a regular attender at anti-arms demonstrations.

But today it emerged that X was not quite the threat police took him for – at least to the arms industry. In fact he was an alleged infiltrator from the arms company BAE.

The 2005 spotter card, published by the Guardian this week, contains a photograph of Martin Hogbin, who was national co-ordinator for the Campaign against the Arms Trade.

He was later accused of supplying information to a company linked to BAE's security department, but denied the allegation ...

Hogbin is the most unusual of almost a dozen people who have come forward after identifying themselves on the spotter card.

The others are a medley of environmental and anti-war activists including an ecologist, an artist, a carpenter, an anti-roads demonstrator and a camerawoman who has challenged her detention by police all the way to the European court of human rights at Strasbourg ...

Several of those who have come forward describe being targeted for extensive pursuit around London ...

Guardian  27 October 2009

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Police in £9m scheme to log 'domestic extremists'

Police are gathering the personal details of thousands of activists who attend political meetings and protests, and storing their data on a network of nationwide intelligence databases.

The hidden apparatus has been constructed to monitor "domestic extremists", the Guardian can reveal in the first of a three-day series into the policing of protests. Detailed information about the political activities of campaigners is being stored on a number of overlapping IT systems, even if they have not committed a crime ...

Three national police units responsible for combating domestic extremism are run by the "terrorism and allied matters" committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo). In total, it receives £9m in public funding, from police forces and the Home Office, and employs a staff of 100 ...

Guardian  25 October 2009

FITwatch exposes extent of police protester database

Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) have been a familiar sight at demonstrations for years, and many activists have had first hand experience of their particular brand of harassment and intimidation.

But although it is well known that they keep data on ‘known’ activists, including photos for their ‘spotter cards’, the full details of how extensive their database is, and how that data is used is only just beginning to surface.

FITwatch obtained evidence last December that the Metropolitan police places the personal data of political protesters onto their criminal intelligence database (Crimint), through the production of 'intelligence reports' by Forward Intelligence Teams In a subsequent Guardian investigation senior Met officers admitted the database included the names of regular attendees at political protest, regardless of whether or not they had done anything unlawful ...

FIT Watch 

Police forces challenged over files held on law-abiding protesters

Met hired lawyers to contest the findings of G20 protest inquiry

How police rebranded lawful protest as 'domestic extremism'

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Terrorist injunction over blacklist fight

Blacklist campaigners staged a protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London this morning where a construction worker is facing an injunction under the Prevention of Terrorism Act in a bid to stop him picketing a power station.

Scottish & Southern Energy is applying for an injunction against Steve Acheson of Denton, Manchester.

The injunction is being sought to prevent Acheson from protesting at Fiddlers Ferry power station where he claims he was denied work on the scheme because of information held about him on the construction industry blacklist.

The injunction is under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and seeks to show that Acheson, by constant picketing of the site, represents a threat to the energy supplies of this country.

The basis of the application is that by picketing the site he is committing a trespass on the firm's property; that having issued leaflets to workers on the site calling for 'direct action' he is 'inciting' the workforce to commit acts contrary to the national interest which may impact on energy supplies and that he has, at times, acted in a way that might have intimidated the workforce.

One campaigner said: "Steve is a trade unionist not a terrorist."

ContractJournal.com  21 October 2009

Blacklisted electrician hounded by company

Protester injunction bid rejected

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Secret files reveal covert network run by nuclear police

The nuclear industry funds the special armed police force which guards its installations across the UK, and secret documents, seen by the Guardian, show the 750-strong force is authorised to carry out covert intelligence operations against anti-nuclear protesters, one of its main targets.

The nuclear industry will pay £57m this year to finance the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) ...

Most of the nuclear force's officers are armed with high-powered guns and Tasers. The CNC has spent £1.4m on weapons and ammunition in the past three years.

They patrol outside nuclear plants, with their jurisdiction stretching to three miles beyond the perimeter of the installations. They have the same powers as any other British police officer and can, for instance, arrest and stop and search people.

The body that regulates the CNC is also funded by the nuclear industry. Four of the eight members of the Civil Nuclear Police Authority are nominated by the nuclear industry as its representatives. Those four are employed in the industry. The others – mainly former police officers – are deemed to be independent.

The force is expected to expand as the government presses ahead with plans for a new generation of nuclear plants, which are likely to attract protests.

Ben Ayliffe, head of Greenpeace's anti-nuclear campaign, said: "There are very obvious worries about an armed police force that is accountable to an industry desperate to build nuclear reactors in the UK. This industry will probably be very keen for their police force to use all the powers available to them to prevent peaceful protests against nuclear power." ...

Guardian 

Nuclear Power

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Government anti-terrorism strategy 'spies' on innocent

The government programme aimed at preventing Muslims from being lured into violent extremism is being used to gather intelligence about innocent people who are not suspected of involvement in terrorism, the Guardian has learned ...

Tonight Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, branded it the biggest spying programme in Britain in modern times and an affront to civil liberties.

The intelligence is being gathered as part of the strategy Preventing Violent Extremism – Prevent for short.

It was launched three years ago to stop people being lured to al-Qaida ideology and committing acts of terrorism.

The government and police have repeatedly denied that the £140m programme is a cover for spying on Muslims in Britain. But sources directly involved in running Prevent schemes say it involves gathering intelligence about the thoughts and beliefs of Muslims who are not involved in criminal activity.

Instances around the country include:

• In the Midlands, funding for a mental health project to help Muslims was linked to information about individuals being passed to the authorities.

• In a college in northern England, a student who attended a meeting about Gaza was reported by one lecturer as a potential extremist. He was found not to be.

• A nine-year-old schoolboy in east London, who was referred to the authorities after allegedly showing signs of extremism – the youngest case known in Britain. He was "deprogrammed" according to a source with knowledge of the case.

• Within the last month, one new youth project in London alleged it was being pressured by the Metropolitan police to provide names and details of Muslim youngsters, as a condition of funding. None of the young Muslims have any known terrorist history.

• In one London borough, those working with youngsters were told to add information to databases they hold to highlight which youths were Muslim. They were also asked to provide information, to be shared with the police, about which streets and areas Muslim youngsters could be found on.

• In Birmingham the programme manager for Prevent is in fact a senior counter- terrorism police officer. Paul Marriott has been seconded to work in the equalities division of Britain's biggest council.

• In Blackburn, at least 80 people were reported to the authorities for showing signs of extremism. They were referred to the Channel project, part of Prevent.

• A youth project manager alleges his refusal to provide intelligence led to the police spreading false rumours and trying to smear him and his organisation.

• One manager of a project in London said : "I think part of the point of the [Prevent] programme is to spy and intelligence gather. I won't do that." In another London borough wardens on council estates were told to inform on people not whom they suspected of crimes, but whom they suspected could be susceptible to radicalisation.

One source, who has been involved in Whitehall discussions on counter-terrorism, said: "There is no doubt Prevent is in part about gathering intelligence on people's thoughts and beliefs. No doubt." He added that the authorities feared "they'd be lynched" if they admitted Prevent included spying.

Prevent is run by the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism, part of the Home Office. It is widely regarded in Whitehall as being an intelligence agency.

The OSCT is headed up by Charles Farr, a former senior intelligence officer, with expertise in covert work. Also senior in the OSCT is another former senior intelligence officer. The Guardian has been asked not to name him for security reasons ...

Guardian 16 October 2009

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Damian Green row: Cabinet Office shamed

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that a top official from the Cabinet Office will be accused of misleading the police about the seriousness of the security implications resulting from the Westminster leaks that led to Mr Green’s arrest.

The disclosures will embarrass Labour — and be seized on by Opposition politicians — because the role of the Cabinet Office is to co-ordinate policy and strategy across government departments.

Scotland Yard will also be heavily criticised in the report by Ian Johnston, the chief constable of the British Transport Police, for its alleged heavy-handed and ill-timed arrest of Mr Green.

He will suggest that the nature of the raids late last year were disproportionate to the allegations of Westminster leaks ...

Sir David Normington, the Home Office Permanent Secretary who first raised concerns that leaks of sensitive material could damage national security, is believed to have asked for passages to be redacted ...

Telegraph  10 October 2009

Senior officers 'scared' to abandon inquiry

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Vetting database will cost NHS and public bodies £170m

The Government's controversial vetting database will cost the British public at least £170m, The Independent can disclose.

The Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS), which comes into force next month and is intended to prevent unsuitable people from working with children and vulnerable adults, has already cost the Government £84m to set up.

Now, public bodies such as the NHS and the Prison Service will be forced to spend millions of pounds registering their employees on the scheme, at a time when their budgets have already been squeezed. Anyone who wants to work with children or vulnerable adults must pay a mandatory, one-off registration fee of £64. Almost all of the NHS's 1.3 million employees will have to join, leaving the organisation facing a total bill of about £83m.

Although each NHS trust can instruct its employees to pay their own fees, The Independent understands that almost all intend to foot the bill themselves, in much the same way as they have covered existing Criminal Records Bureau checks.

Prisoners are also classed as vulnerable adults, so the country's 40,000 registered prison officers will also need to register. The Prison Service has agreed to meet their registration costs, which amount to more than £2.5m.

Each individual must be cleared by the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), which will employ 200 case workers to sift through information passed to them by the police, professional bodies and employers before making a judgement ...

Within five years, the Government estimates that the details of 11.3 million people will be stored on the database, making it the largest of its kind in the world ...

Independent  11 September 2009

Child protection as political football

By and large, people will probably accept the new scheme, because of the unique significance society gives to child protection, and will soon take it for granted, as they do other bureaucratic intrusions.

But it will inhibit the kind of modest participation in the life of the community on which those committed enough to organise clubs and activities for young people depend for support.

It will dampen down the kind of spontaneous arrangements between people that give a community life, and will encroach further into an area where people have hitherto been free to make their own judgments and arrangements.

Even if it will not suggest that anybody who wants to work with children or around them is suspect, it will insist, more firmly than before, that they cannot be trusted.

Guardian  11 September 2009

Vetting must be combined with common sense

Independent Safeguarding Authority could bar 'lonely' people from working with children

Josie Appleton, the convenor of the Manifesto Club, a civil liberties group that is leading opposition to the vetting scheme, said:

“It is clear that these procedures will further erode people’s privacy and civil liberties – and increase the likelihood of innocent people losing their job because ‘on the face of it’ somebody thought they did something.” ...

Concerns are growing about the scope of the scheme, its potential effect on volunteer numbers and the relationship between adults and children ...

It had been widely assumed that the ISA’s 200 case workers would make their decisions based solely on objective criteria such as whether applicants had relevant criminal convictions or professional misconduct findings against their names.

But official guidance discloses that subjective opinions about an individual’s beliefs or personal life could also be used to end their careers in education, health care or sport, if there are concerns about their conduct ...

Telegraph 08 September 2009

Anger grows over 'paedophile checks'

Matthew Parris

Child protection scheme 'draconian'

New checks unveiled for children's club drivers

DCSF

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More plane terror plots 'likely'

Whip up a climate of fear and it's easier to further degrade the Rule of Law

Al-Qaeda is likely to try again to use aircraft to attack the West, Whitehall officials have told the BBC.

Security correspondent Frank Gardner said they believed the airline bomb plot was part of al-Qaeda's "obsession" with using commercial airliners.

The warning comes after three British men were convicted of plotting to blow up flights from London to North America using bombs disguised as soft drinks.

Defence expert Michael Clarke agreed that al-Qaeda was "still plotting".

On Monday, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, Tanvir Hussain, 28, and Assad Sarwar, 29, were found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court after the UK's largest ever counter-terrorism operation

Their arrests in 2006 changed the face of air travel, prompting the introduction of restrictions on the carriage of liquids.

UK intelligence officers believe the plot was directed by al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan, including a British man - Rashid Rauf - from Birmingham, now thought to be dead ...

The case has reinforced calls for the use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails as evidence in court.

The prosecution case included a series e-mails linking Ali and Sarwar with jihadist figures in Pakistan.

These were not intercepted - they came from the Yahoo server in the US - but the BBC's home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford said they had given ammunition to those calling for intercept evidence to be used in British courts.

At present, phone tap and intercepted email evidence is not admissible, but Sir Ken Macdonald, who was head of the Crown Prosecution Service when the airline plot was uncovered, says the case is proof that a change in the law is needed.

"This is the best evidence you can have - people convicting themselves out of their own mouths," Sir Ken told the BBC ...

BBC NEWS  08 September 2009

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Innocent trainspotter suspected of being a terrorist by police after taking photos of trains

When trainspotter Stephen White noticed some interesting engines, he wasted no time in taking pictures of them for his collection.

It was the start of a bizarre sequence of events involving midnight phone calls, police raids and even, it is claimed, suspected terrorism ...

Daily Mail  25 August 2009

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CCTV cameras: If they do not stop crime or catch criminals, what are they for?

Britain has far and away the largest number of surveillance cameras in the world. It is not known for certain how many there are, although one estimate puts the total at 4.2 million, or one for every 14 people, with one million in the capital alone.

Nobody can deny that this involves snooping on people in a way that would once have been unacceptable — and which would still be intolerable in countries with recent memories of totalitarian regimes. But it is justified by its advocates on crime-fighting grounds, and most people instinctively feel more secure if their neighbourhood is watched over by CCTV.

Yet there is plenty of evidence that people are not safer because of the presence of CCTV: studies have argued convincingly that money is better invested in improved street lighting and more uniformed police patrols.

If the efficacy of cameras as a crime prevention tool is at least questionable, they must, surely, be useful in helping to apprehend crooks? It turns out that they do not fulfil even that basic function. Det Chief Inspector Mike Neville of Scotland Yard says that in London just one crime is solved a year by every 1,000 CCTV cameras.

CCTV played a role in capturing just eight out of 269 suspected robbers across London in one month, many of whom might have thought twice about committing a crime had there been a policeman about. In recent years, the Government has spent £500 million on surveillance cameras. If they do not stop crime or catch criminals, what are they for? ...

Telegraph  24 August 2009

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Lib Dems demand curbs on 'spying'

The Lib Dems want tighter controls on surveillance powers for authorities including councils and the police.

More than 500,000 requests to access phone and e-mail records were made in 2008, a report by the Interception of Communications Commissioner showed.

The Lib Dems say only a magistrate should be able to approve a request for surveillance, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) ...

An average of about 1,500 surveillance requests were made every day in Britain last year, according to figures which have emerged from an annual report by commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy.

That is the annual equivalent to one in every 78 adults being targeted.

Although slightly down on 2007, the total number of requests last year was up by more than 40% on 2006.

It included 1,500 approved applications from local councils ...

BBC NEWS 10 August 2009

A request to snoop on public every 60 secs

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Police told to ignore human rights ruling over DNA database

Chief constables across England and Wales have been told to ignore a landmark ruling by the European court of human rights and carry on adding the DNA profiles of tens of thousands of innocent people to a national DNA database.

Senior police officers have also been "strongly advised" that it is "vitally important" that they resist individual requests based on the Strasbourg ruling to remove DNA profiles from the national database in cases such as wrongful arrest, mistaken identity, or where no crime has been committed.

European human rights judges ruled last December in the S and Marper case that the blanket and indiscriminate retention of the DNA profiles and fingerprints of 850,000 people arrested but never convicted of any offence amounts to an unlawful breach of their rights.

Britain already has the largest police national DNA database in the world, with 5.8m profiles, including one in three of all young black males. Thousands more are being added each week.

So far the Home Office has responded to the judgment by proposing a controversial package to keep DNA profiles of the innocent for six to 12 years, depending on the seriousness of the offence. The official consultation period ended today.

The advice to senior officers comes in a letter from the Association of Chief Police Officers criminal records office. The letter, seen by the Guardian, tells chief constables that new Home Office guidelines following the ruling in the case of S and Marper are not expected to take effect until 2010.

"Until that time, the current retention policy on fingerprints and DNA remains unchanged," it says. "Individuals who consider they fall within the ruling in the S and Marper case should await the full response to the ruling by the government prior to seeking advice and/or action from the police service in order to address their personal issue on the matter.

"Acpo strongly advise that decisions to remove records should not be based on [the government's] proposed changes. It is therefore vitally important that any applications for removals of records should be considered against current legislation." ...

Guardian  07 August 2009

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High Court revokes control order

The government's anti-terror strategy has suffered a blow after the High Court revoked the control order of a suspect accused of links to al-Qaeda.

The ruling comes after the Law Lords said terror suspects held on house arrest-style conditions must be allowed a better idea of the case against them.

Mr Justice Mitting revoked the order against a British man, known as AN.

It comes after Home Secretary Alan Johnson chose to drop part of the case against AN rather than reveal it ...

The High Court heard that Mr Johnson was already taking steps to make a new order - which AN will not be able to challenge before the autumn ...

Dominic Casciani, BBC home affairs correspondent

On the face of it, this judgement at the High Court looks like it's good news for the terror suspect, known only as AN, and bad news for the home secretary.

But the government has in fact succeeded in defending control orders despite predictions they were doomed.

The Law Lords, driven by the European Court, say more secret evidence must be revealed in cases like this terror suspect.

But the Home Office has swerved around the controversy of closed material by withdrawing its old case - and seeking a new order on different terms. So despite winning, the suspect is in the same place as before.

This man will challenge the new order - and the High Court will, in essence, hear all the same arguments again. The Lords' judgement shifted the balance towards suspects' rights - but we're a long way from the tipping point.

BBC NEWS  31 July 2009

High court revokes control order

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Woman 'detained' for filming police search launches high court challenge

A woman is to challenge the Metropolitan police in the high court, claiming she was handcuffed, detained and threatened with arrest for filming officers on her mobile phone.

Lawyers for Gemma Atkinson, a 27-year-old who was detained after filming police officers conduct a routine stop and search on her boyfriend, believe her case is the latest example of how police are misusing counterterrorism powers to restrict photography.

Atkinson's mobile phone recorded part of the incident at Aldgate East underground station on 25 March, one month after Section 58(a) – a controversial amendment to the Terrorism Act – came into force, making it illegal to photograph a police officer if the images are considered "likely to be useful" to a terrorist ...

Guardian  21 July 2009

Standing up for our rights

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Police want water cannons to beat back city rioters

Police 'Failing to prevent violence' - you could not make it up!

British mainland police want water cannons to use against demonstrators in the face of criticism that conventional crowd-control tactics, such as those used during the G20 demonstrations, are failing to prevent violence.

The Metropolitan and Greater Manchester forces are set to request permission to use cannons, according to internal documents seen by The Independent on Sunday.

MPs on the Home Affairs Committee last week condemned the Metropolitan Police's handling of the G20 protests in London in April, particularly the behaviour of untrained officers when confronted with large crowds and the controversial technique of "kettling" – the compulsory containment of demonstrators.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, admitted Scotland Yard was looking at more robust tactics – including water cannons – in the wake of the G20 disturbances.

But the IoS has learnt that Scotland Yard first began training officers to use the weapons in May 2008, a year before G20. The same month senior Met officers considered a plan to buy six water cannons for "quelling or moderating violent disorder" at a cost of £5m. They are seeking financial help from the Home Office.

The Independent 05 July 2009

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Court law 'hinders terror police'

Translated: "Make it easier for us to bang people up"

The government should review the Contempt of Court Act, the UK's former top anti-terror police officer says.

Peter Clarke said the law, designed to ensure fair trials by limiting reporting of cases, made it harder for anti-terrorism police to do their jobs.

He said if they could not fully explain their actions, it made it difficult for communities to have confidence in them.

The Criminal Bar Association disagreed with Mr Clarke, saying the law "should not constitute a problem" for police.

The Contempt of Court Act became law in 1981.

It says once someone has been arrested, any kind of publication that creates "a substantial risk that the course of justice... will be seriously impeded or prejudiced" is a criminal offence, regardless of intent ...

Abdurahman Jafar, from the Muslim Safety Forum, which liaises with the police and British Muslims, said Mr Clarke was wrong.

He told the BBC that more information would only fuel the "media feeding frenzy" around these cases and lead to "an increase in isolation and criminalisation" within the Muslim community.

"What we've seen is huge amounts of publicity when people are arrested… but when the individuals were either acquitted or the charges dropped there is absolutely no publicity whatsoever," he said.

"The result of that is that the wider public feel as though Muslims per se are a community of terrorists." ...

BBC NEWS 05 July 2009

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Identity card trial for air industry staff dropped

A compulsory identity card trial for pilots and 30,000 other airport workers due to start in September has been abandoned by the new home secretary, Alan Johnson. But he intends to accelerate other elements of the scheme, including plans to issue £30 voluntary ID cards to young adults across north-west England. Johnson is also looking at making ID cards free for over-75s.

Longer-term plans to make ID cards compulsory for critical workers at railway stations have also been dropped.

British citizens would not be forced to carry ID cards, the home secretary insisted. Johnson said: "Holding an identity card should be a personal choice for British citizens – just as it is now to obtain a passport.

"Accordingly, I want the introduction of identity cards for all British citizens to be voluntary and I have therefore decided that identity cards issued to airside workers, planned initially at Manchester and London City airports later this year, should also be voluntary." Asked if the cards would ever be made compulsory he said "No", adding: "If a future government wanted to make them compulsory it would require primary legislation."

Guardian 30 June 2009

'If you apply for a passport you automatically go on the ID database'

Johnson has his card marked by Brown

Passport details to be kept on ID register despite card U-turn

Explainer: Identity cards

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'Too few trained police' for G20

Too many inexperienced police were on the front line of London's G20 protests, according to a report by MPs.

The Commons home affairs committee said confidence in police had been damaged because of some officers' actions, despite the operation's successes ...

The committee also criticised the police's widespread use of crowd containment - a controversial strategy known as kettling.

... MPs said the success (of the operation) was partly down to luck on the day, particularly because too many untrained officers had been on the front line of protests.

Most police officers receive two days of public order training every year, although specialist officers train almost once a month.

"Never again must untrained officers be placed in the front line of public protests," said the report ...

BBC NEWS 29 June 2009

Don't blame the G20 police officers

Police told: stop 'kettling' activists

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Video shows surveillance protesters bundled to ground by police

Two female protesters who challenged police officers for not displaying their badge numbers were bundled to the ground, arrested and held in prison for four days, according to an official complaint lodged today.

The incident was caught on camera, and footage shows officers standing on the women's feet and applying pressure to their necks immediately after the women attempted to photograph a fellow officer who had refused to give his badge number ...

Val Swain, 43, and Emily Apple, 33, both mothers with young children, believe they were deliberately targeted for arrest at last year's climate camp demonstration in Kent because they campaign for Fit Watch, a protest group that opposes police surveillance at demonstrations.

The pair were remanded to a women's prison for four days and released only after the demonstration against the Kingsnorth power station had finished ...

A third Fit Watch campaigner, Geoff Cornock, 52, was also arrested and bailed the following day.

Charges were later dropped against all three, whose joint complaint to the IPCC alleges that they were unlawfully arrested and detained ...

Guardian 21 June 2009

Fit Watch

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Tories will scrap ID cards, contractors warned

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling has written to the companies contracted to produce identity cards to warn them the scheme would be cancelled if the Tories won power.

Mr Grayling told the firms the ID cards programme would not be completed under a future Tory government, and warned ministers against putting "poison pill" provisions into the contracts that would increase the cost of cancellation.

He said: "We intend to scrap the ID card project as one of our first acts if we are successful at the election.

"I am increasingly concerned that the Government is putting in place contractual arrangements that are designed to tie the hands of a future government, and I want to make the contractors absolutely aware that we do not intend to complete this work."

The scheme for ID cards, biometric passports and the national identity register is expected to cost more than £5 billion ...

Telegraph 17 Jun 2009

NO2ID

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Terror law used to stop thousands 'just to balance racial statistics'

Thousands of people are being stopped and searched by the police under counter-terrorism powers simply to provide a racial balance in official statistics, the government's official anti-terror law watchdog has revealed.

Lord Carlile said in his annual report that he has got "ample anecdotal evidence", adding that it was "totally wrong" and an invasion of civil liberties to stop and search people simply to racially balance the statistics.

The official reviewer of counter-terrorist legislation said there was little or no evidence that the use of section 44 stop-and-search powers by the police can prevent an act of terrorism ... such searches were stopping between 8,000-10,000 people a month ...

None of the many thousands of searches had ever led to a conviction for a terrorist offence ...

"I have evidence of cases where the person stopped is so obviously far from any known terrorism profile that, realistically, there is not the slightest possibility of him/her being a terrorist, and no other feature to justify the stop."

Carlile uses his annual report to endorse complaints from professional and amateur photographers that counter-terror powers are being used to threaten prosecution if pictures are taken of officers on duty ...

He mentioned an incident in which two Austrian tourists were rebuked by officers for photographing Walthamstow bus station ...

Guardian 17 June 2009

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UK 'must log' phone and web use

It's for your protection!

All internet and phone traffic should be recorded to help the fight against terrorism, according to one of the UK's former spy chiefs.

Civil rights campaigners have criticised ministers' plans to log details of such contact as "Orwellian".

But Sir David Pepper, who ran the GCHQ listening centre for five years, told the BBC lives would be at risk if the state could not track communication ...

Details of the times, dates, duration and locations of mobile phone calls, numbers called, website visited and addresses e-mailed are already stored by telecoms companies for 12 months under a voluntary agreement.

However, the Liberal Democrats said the government's plans were "incompatible with a free country and a free people".

In February, the Lords constitution committee said electronic surveillance and collection of personal data had become "pervasive" in British society.

Its members said the situation threatened to undermine democracy.

However, Sir David said he was speaking out to help people understand that agencies were there to protect them.

BBC NEWS 07 June 2009

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'Domestic extremism'

As the political consensus collapses, now all dissenters face suppression

... A few weeks ago, like everyone in mid-Wales, I received a local policing summary from the Dyfed-Powys force.

It contained a section headed Terrorism and Domestic Extremism.

"Work undertaken is not solely focused on the threat from international terrorists. Attention has also been paid to the potential threat that domestic extremists and campaigners can pose."

I lodged a freedom of information request to try to discover what this meant. What threat do campaigners pose? ...

Paul Mobbs of the Free Range Network has found what appears to be an explanation.

Under the heading "Protect[ing] the country from both terrorism and domestic extremism", the Dyfed-Powys Police website repeats the line about domestic extremists and campaigners ...

Mobbs has also found a bulletin circulated among Welsh forces at the end of last year, identifying the "new challenges and changes" the police now face.

Eco-terrorism is a charge repeatedly levelled against the environment movement, mostly by fossil fuel lobbyists. But, as far as I can discover, there has not been a single recorded instance of a planned attempt to harm people in the cause of environmental protection in the UK over the past 30 years or more.

So what do the police mean by eco-terrorism? It appears to refer to any environmental action more radical than writing letters to your MP.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) now runs three units whose purpose is to tackle another phenomenon it has never defined: domestic extremism.

These are the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (Netcu), the Welsh Extremism and Counter-Terrorism Unit and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

Because Acpo is not a public body but a private limited company, the three bodies are exempt from freedom of information laws and other kinds of public accountability, even though they are funded by the Home Office and deploy police officers from regional forces.

So it's hard to work out exactly what they do ...

Guardian 19 May 2009

Britain's Secretive Police Force

A-Z of legislation

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Straw drops secret inquest plans

The government is dropping plans to hold secret inquests without juries, Justice Secretary Jack Straw has said.

In a Commons written statement, Mr Straw said the move did not command the necessary cross-party support, despite earlier government concessions.

It was included in the Coroners and Justice Bill earlier this year to cover cases involving sensitive information.

Civil liberties groups who feared cases like that of Jean Charles de Menezes would be affected, welcomed the move ...

BBC NEWS  15 May 2009

Secret inquest plans brought back

Secret inquests plans 'dropped'

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Why no respect for the presumption of innocence?

Do you believe in the infallibility of governments, police forces and databases? If so, your letter welcoming the latest Home Office "consultation" on the national DNA database will no doubt be gratefully received. But if you are of a more cautious disposition, a closer examination of yesterday's proposals might be advisable.

No one disputes the considerable benefits of well-managed DNA evidence in the justice system. It is capable of clearing the innocent and contributing to the conviction of the guilty. Nor is there any objection to those arrested on suspicion of a crime having their DNA taken and applied to evidence gleaned from past or present crime scenes: this is a common, and completely uncontroversial, scenario. There is not even any argument about the wisdom of retaining a suspect's DNA until the conclusion of the investigation, and of any subsequent trial.

The crucial question – and the one on which the Government was defeated in the European Court of Human Rights last year – relates to the retention of intimate material, or the unique personal information extracted from it, in case you should offend in future.

Predictably, the Government's instinct has been in favour of a universal database. Undeterred by the spectre of every small child or senior citizen being marched to the census point for saliva swabbing, Tony Blair openly mooted this terrifying and impractical idea in 2006. But, just as predictably, the Government lacked the courage of its convictions, and instead moved towards universal retention by stealth ...

Telegraph 07 May 2009

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DNA profiles of innocent to be kept for 12 years despite European ruling

The DNA profiles of innocent people will remain on the national database for up to 12 years despite a landmark European Court ruling that they should be deleted ...

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "This well-spun proposal proves that the Home Secretary has yet to learn about the presumption of innocence and value of personal privacy in Britain.

"Wholly innocent people - including children - will have their most intimate details stockpiled for years on a database that will remain massively out of step with the rest of the world. With regret we shall be forced to see her in court once more."

There are an estimated 5.3 million profiles on the DNA database - around one in 10 people making it the largest of its kind in the world - but around 850,000 are people who were never convicted of any crime ...

Telegraph 07 May 2009

DNA database powers condemned as 'blanket and indiscriminate'

DNA pioneer condemns plans to retain data on innocent people

Cleaners vote to boycott fingerprint machines

DNA database

Timeline of the national DNA database

Government plans to keep DNA samples of innocent

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Britain's least wanted: The 16 barred from the UK

Islamist preachers, white supremacists, a radio shock-jock, an Arab terrorist and two anti-gay evangelicals are just some of the people to have been banned from entering Britain recently, it emerged yesterday.

In a bid to regain the initiative after weeks of negative publicity and fears that anti-immigration parties will sweep the board at the forthcoming European elections, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith took the unprecedented step of "naming and shaming" 16 individuals who were barred from coming to the UK between November and March ...

Under a new law introduced in 2005, Britain is able to pre-emptively ban anyone who promotes hatred, terrorism or serious criminal activity. Since the measure was introduced, 101 people have been refused entry.

In the five months to March, 22 were excluded; the Home Office refused to name six of the people, citing national security reasons.

Critics argue that the orders are a form of pre-emptive policing that stifles free speech and, in the age of the internet, have little effect on halting hateful remarks.

The Independent 06 May 2009

Savage response: barred shock jock vows to sue

UK 'least wanted' list published

Who is on UK 'least wanted' list?

The Home Office list

The unwanted

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Campaigners monitored by civil servants

Government officials have been monitoring environmental campaign groups and then passing intelligence on to the police, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

An internal risk report from the Department for Transport reveals that a unit referred to as the comms directorate ­"continuously monitor[ed]" peaceful protest groups opposed to the expansion of Heathrow airport and then briefed detectives about their findings.

The disclosure is the latest evidence of a wide-ranging crackdown on environmental campaign groups and has been condemned by MPs and civil liberty groups ...

The Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, David Howarth, said it was "extraordinary" that civil servants were monitoring peaceful environmental campaigners and then passing information to police.

"The document confirms the suspicion that the main concern of the government is to undermine the protest movement rather than to engage in a genuine debate with campaigners and local residents.

"The fact that the monitoring was being undertaken by a communications and public relations team, rather than by the police or security service officials, strongly suggests that the government's real concerns about protests are political and nothing to do with national security or public order."

Greenpeace said the documents revealed a systematic attempt by government to stop protesters highlighting the impact Heathrow expansion would have on climate change.

"A pattern appears to be emerging of government departments concerned as much with protesters as with policy," said spokesman Ben Stewart. "The case for Heathrow expansion was riddled with exaggeration and misrepresentation and now we know it was pushed through by the Department for Transport over-reaching its authority to spy on peaceful and legitimate protest groups." ...

Sabina Frediani, campaigns co-ordinator for Liberty, said it was inappropriate for civil servants to be carrying out any investigation into protest groups .

"We always thought a communications directorate was a press office – now that simple phrase takes on positively Orwellian overtones. First we had police investigating Home Office leaks and now we've got DfT officials investigating protest groups. Haven't we had enough of constitutional cross-dressing?"

Guardian 02 May 2009

Civil Liberties

Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus

Top

Phone bills 'will rise' to pay for database

Jacqui Smith: pork pies for sale!

Ministers want to farm out a Big Brother database of everyone's emails, phone calls and internet use to private companies who will be given the job of storing the data on behalf of the state.

The £2bn cost of the plans could add millions of pounds to phone and internet bills to help pay for new systems to collect and sort private information.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said the Government had rejected the idea of a centralised database because it would impinge on privacy. She favoured a "middle way" in which primary communication companies, such as BT or Virgin, and leading internet service providers would have the job of collating phone, email and web use.

The Home Office wants communications companies to extend the range of information they currently hold on subscribers and organise it so that it can be better used by the police, MI5 and other public bodies investigating serious crime and terrorism.

Ministers estimate that the project will cost £2bn to set up, which includes some compensation to the communications industry for the work it may be asked to do.

"Communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers, paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime," Ms Smith said.

"It is essential that the police and other crime-fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job. However, to be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single central store." ...

The Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, welcomed the decision not to go ahead with a giant centralised database, but called on the Government to publish details about how ministers intended to protect privacy. He said: "You can tell an awful lot about some people's personal circumstances from the people they are talking to and the websites they visit. It is important that the proposals are tightly defined and minimise the level of intrusion with appropriate safeguards in place."

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, described the decision as a "Home Office climb-down" on a super Big Brother database. "It is a clear signal that the public interest in personal privacy can no longer be ignored, she said. "However, if companies are to be required to hold even more information than they do at present, concerns about access and use become even more important."

Communications service providers already hold large amounts of communications data and an EU directive that came into force this month requires data to be retained for a year.

The Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA) welcomed the government consultation. Nicholas Lansman, ISPA secretary general, said: "To ensure that any updated law enforcement requirements do not place extra financial burdens on internet service providers, ISPA stresses the importance of cost recovery." ...

The Independent 28 April 2009

Scrap ID cards now, say Cabinet rebels

Respect our right to privacy

Paying billions for our database state

Top

Police caught on tape trying to recruit Plane Stupid protester as spy

Undercover police are running a network of hundreds of informants inside protest organisations who secretly feed them intelligence in return for cash, according to evidence handed to the Guardian.

They claim to have infiltrated a number of environmental groups and said they are receiving information about leaders, tactics and plans of future demonstrations.

The dramatic disclosures are revealed in almost three hours of secretly recorded discussions between covert officers claiming to be from Strathclyde police, and an activist from the protest group Plane Stupid, whom the officers attempted to recruit as a paid spy after she had been released on bail following a demonstration at Aberdeen airport last month.

Matilda Gifford, 24, said she recorded the meetings in an attempt to expose how police seek to disrupt the legitimate activities of climate change activists. She met the officers twice; they said they were a detective constable and his assistant. During the taped discussions, the officers:

• Indicate that she could receive tens of thousands of pounds to pay off her student loans in return for information about individuals within Plane Stupid.

• Say they will not pay money direct into her bank account because that would leave an audit trail that would leave her compromised. They said the money would be tax-free, and added: "UK plc can afford more than 20 quid."

• Accept that she is a legitimate protester, but warn her that her activity could mean she will struggle to find employment in the future and result in a criminal record.

• Claim they have hundreds of informants feeding them information from protest organisations and "big groupings" from across the political spectrum.

• Explain that spying could assist her if she was arrested. "People would sell their soul to the devil," an officer said.

• Warn her that she could be jailed alongside "hard, evil" people if she received a custodial sentence ...

In a statement last night, assistant chief constable George Hamilton said the force had "a responsibility to gather intelligence", and such operations were conducted according to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) ...

Guardian 25 April 2009

'UK plc can afford more than 20 quid,' the officer said

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Police and PM in dock over arrest of terrorist suspects

The case against 12 Muslim men involved in what Gordon Brown described as a "major terrorist plot" amounted to one email and a handful of ambiguous telephone conversations, it emerged last night after all the men were released without charge.

Eleven Pakistani students and one British man were freed after extensive searches of 14 addresses in North-west England failed to locate evidence of terrorist activity, according to security sources.

Police did not find any explosives, firearms, target lists, documents or any material which could have been used to carry out an attack ...

The Independent 23 April 2009

'The officers got bad information and are using it to scare everyone'

Nine held after terror raids face deportation

Guilty as not charged

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Shami Chakrabarti was target in police search

Police who arrested the Conservative frontbencher Damian Green trawled his private e-mails looking for information on Britain’s leading civil liberties campaigner.

Officers from Scotland Yard’s antiterror squad searched the computer seized from his parliamentary office using the key words “Shami Chakrabarti” – even though the Liberty director had nothing to do with the leaking of Home Office documents that prompted the investigation.

In an interview with The Times, Mr Green warned that his arrest and the raids on his Commons office and homes smacked of a “police state”. The Tory immigration spokesman said that Ms Chakrabarti’s name had been one of the keywords used to go through e-mails and computer documents going back several years.

“This feels to me like a fishing expedition on somebody who embarrasses the government of the day,” he said. “That’s very disturbing.” ...

The Times 18 April 2009

Our freedoms are not frothy skinny lattes

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Leaks 'exaggerated' in MP arrest

Civil servants exaggerated the seriousness of Home Office leaks which led to the arrest of Tory MP Damian Green, a committee of MPs has said.

The Crown Prosecution Service is to say later if it will prosecute Mr Green and the official who fed him information.

The inquiry ran into controversy when the Tory immigration spokesman was arrested and had his office searched.

The home affairs committee questions whether police would have got involved if they had not been misled.

It has also called for changes in the way sensitive cases such as this are handled.

Mr Green and Christopher Galley, a junior civil servant working at the Home Office, both deny wrongdoing. Mr Green says he was releasing information in the public interest ...

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said officials "seemed to have complained about national security when all they wanted to hide was their embarrassment".

"The police should never have been involved in this case, which should have been handled as an internal civil service disciplinary matter," he said ...

BBC NEWS 16 April 2009

Tory MP Green 'warned of life sentence'

Damian Green cleared - what DPP Keir Starmer said

Tory MP Green will not be charged

Top

Government faces legal action over online snooping

• EU wants Britain to tighten laws on internet privacy
• Use of new advertising technology questioned

... The commission's legal action, which could result in the government being dragged before the European court of justice, centres on the handling of controversial online advertising technology developed by UK-based Phorm which has been tested by BT in the UK and cleared by the authorities.

That technology enables internet service providers (ISPs) to track what a user does on the internet to create a list of their interests which can be used to show them more relevant adverts on websites they subsequently visit. While heralded by ISPs and media companies as a way of making more money from internet advertising, a market dominated in the UK by Google, it has been widely criticised by privacy campaigners and the web's creator, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, as unjustifiable online snooping ...

Guardian 15 April 2009

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The (very) heavy hand of the law

It was clear from early on, in the City of London on Wednesday, that two very different protests were being staged. One, centred on the Bank of England, sheltered masked agents provocateurs, who were intent on clashing with the police. They succeeded in their aims.

But the other, the Climate Camp on Bishopsgate, harboured no such elements, and continued peacefully all day. Yet the 800 people at this street party were still attacked by riot police very suddenly in the evening. Footage has been posted on the internet showing officers repeatedly hitting unarmed civilians

The attack on the camp by the police is being described as "unprovoked" by protesters. This is not, strictly speaking, the case. It is provocative, of course, to block a road without permission, and the aim of the protest was to block that section of Bishopsgate for 24 hours.

What is downright sinister, however, is that all those who were visiting the Climate Camp at that time were violently attacked and then trapped for many hours by the police. They were not allowed to leave between 7pm and midnight, even if they had been injured. Even a woman in a wheelchair was held.

If the concern of the police was to clear the road for traffic, then their action was certainly counterproductive. They succeeded, after all, in blocking the road to pedestrians as well as vehicles for five hours. The tactics of the police smack of collective punishment for everyone.

It is possible that had a warning of an impending shutdown been given to the campers, the news may have attracted more aggressive visitors. It's true also that had the police put in place a policy whereby people were allowed to leave but not to enter, there was no guarantee that those leaving would quietly disperse.

Yet these factors only make it difficult to understand why the police became so confrontational so early. Why could the police not just keep the protest under observation, while they concentrated on quelling the violent skirmishes in other parts of town?

Their claim is that they corral groups of protesters so that they can isolate the anti-social elements. But by the time they mounted their attacks, the police had had nearly seven hours to assess whether any such element had ever been present. The fact that the Climate Camp protesters mounted no violence in response to that meted out to them suggests that their intentions of mounting a peaceful protest had been successful.

Most worrying of all, when legal observers advised people who had been hit by the police, or who had been witnesses to it, to take down the numbers of their assailants, the line of police all covered their badges. It is much more terrifying that the police are hiding their identities as they take part in violence, than that the self-styled "anarchists" we have heard so much about are doing so.

The Independent 04 April 2009

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Police scheme identifies 180 children as potential Islamic extremists

One hundred and eighty schoolchildren across Britain have been identified as potential Islamic extremists by a police-run early intervention programme which aims to coax youngsters away from radical influences.

The Channel project, a pilot scheme established in April 2007 and run by six police forces, provides parents, teachers and youth workers with training to recognise the warning signs of "grooming" by radicals and a mechanism to report concerns over a child, or group of children, to the police. A panel of community leaders then decides the best course of action, in the most serious cases referring them to social services.

Keen to assuage fears the scheme targets Muslim children unfairly, the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) last night said the aim was to steer vulnerable children away from radicalism before it was too late.

An Acpo spokeswoman said: "It provides support to parents and safeguards to identify young people who are at risk of violent extremism. It also creates a way for the police, local authorities and community to work together to identify those at risk and then refer them to the relevant agency for help."

The Channel project was piloted in Lancashire and the London borough of Lambeth, then rolled out to nine other areas in Britain, including West Yorkshire, home to the four July 7 2005 bombers. It will be trialled in a further nine areas this year.

Guardian 28 March 2009

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Extent of council spying revealed

Councils in England and Wales have used controversial spying laws 10,000 times in the past five years, figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) was designed to fight serious crime.

But officials have been using it to spy on suspected dog fouling, littering and other minor offences.

The government has promised curbs on its use but the Lib Dems warn it could still become a "snoopers' charter".

The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal for the first time how widespread the use of Ripa is among council officials in England and Wales.

A survey of more than 180 local authorities found:

• 1,615 council staff have the power to authorise the use of Ripa.

• 21% (or 340) of these staff are below senior management grade.

• Ripa powers have been used 10,333 times in the last five years.

• Just 9% of these authorisations have led to a successful prosecution, caution or fixed-penalty notice ...

BBC NEWS 26 March 2009

Council uses criminal law to spy on school place applicants

Spy law 'used in dog fouling war'

Council admits spying on family

RIPA

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Now 'Big Brother' targets Facebook

Minister wants government database to monitor social networking sites

Millions of Britons who use social networking sites such as Facebook could soon have their every move monitored by the Government and saved on a "Big Brother" database.

Ministers faced a civil liberties outcry last night over the plans, with accusations of excessive snooping on the private lives of law-abiding citizens.

The idea to police MySpace, Bebo and Facebook comes on top of plans to store information about every phone call, email and internet visit made by everyone in the United Kingdom. Almost half the British population – some 25 million people – are thought to use social networking sites. There are already proposals under a European Union directive – dating back to after the 7 July 2005 bombs – for emails and internet usage to be monitored and added to a planned database to track terror plots ...

The Independent 25 March 2009

Social network sites 'monitored'

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Threat of dirty bombs 'increased'

There is an increased risk terrorists could get hold of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons to attack the UK, the Home Office has said.

The assessment comes as Home Secretary Jacqui Smith unveiled a new UK strategy to tackle an evolved terrorist threat.

It warns failed states such as Iraq have made it easier to obtain materials for weapons such as dirty bombs.

Ms Smith said the threat is "severe" - meaning an attack is "highly likely" and "could happen without warning" ...

BBC NEWS 24 March 2009

Warm words, dud deeds

'The government's new anti-terror strategy plays into the hands of the extremists'

Hazel Blears' standoff with Muslim Council overshadows new anti-terror launch

Counter-terror training 'flawed'

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Quarter of UK's databases are 'illegal'

One in four of the major government databases is almost certainly illegal and should be scrapped ...

Researchers called for 11 systems assessed as "almost certainly illegal" under human rights or data protection law to be scrapped or substantially redesigned.

The study, by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, also pointed to significant legal and practical problems with a further 29 databases, including the national childhood obesity one and the planned NHS summary care record system, and said they should be reviewed independently ...

The report's co-author, Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge University, said:

"Britain's database state has become a financial, ethical and administrative disaster which is penalising some of the most vulnerable members of our society. Often, computerisation has been used as a substitute for public service reform rather than a means of enabling reform. Little thought is given to safety, privacy and value for money." ...

The Independent 23 March 2009

Call to scrap 'illegal databases'

Ten ways to track the citizen

Baby's DNA was held on database

Warning over 'surveillance state'

390,000 to access child database

DNA database 'breach of rights'

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Police 'heavy-handed at protests'

Police are too heavy-handed in dealing with protests, harassing and intimidating people, a leading parliamentary committee has said.

The Joint Select Committee on Human Rights also criticised the misuse of legislation used against demonstrators.

It says peaceful protesters have had personal property seized and have been intimidated by police.

It wants tighter restrictions to prevent the use of anti-terrorism laws. Police say they are acting lawfully.

The committee also said police were too heavy-handed with journalists reporting on demonstrations. It comes as police forces prepare to deal with large-scale protests in London ahead of the G20 summit ...

BBC NEWS 23 March 2009

Camp complaints referred to IPCC

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Thousands getting terror training

Thousands of UK workers are being trained to help respond to a future terror attack as part of an updated counter-terror strategy, ministers say.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said shop and hotel workers would be among 60,000 people able to deal with an incident.

The updated approach, aimed at tackling immediate terrorist threats and the causes of extremism, would be the most comprehensive in the world, she added ...

The paper - called Contest Two - will update the Contest strategy developed by the Home Office in 2003, which was later detailed in the Countering International Terrorism document released in 2006.

Over the last six years the strategy has concentrated on preventing radicalisation of potential terror recruits to disrupting terrorist operations, reducing the UK's vulnerability and ensuring Britain is ready for the consequences of any terror attack.

The updated strategy will increase the focus on challenging individuals and groups who undermine the UK's "shared values" - even if they are not breaking the law ...

One terrorism expert said equipping people to react quickly to an attack in the workplace and in public areas was a "bold and imaginative" step.

"There are thousands of people not only in the public sector but in the private sector also who have the necessary knowledge and skills to help in the constant vigilance that is needed against the terrorist threat," said Professor Paul Wilkinson, from St Andrew's University.

By 2011, Britain will be spending £3.5bn a year on counter-terrorism, the Home Office has said.

The number of police working on counter-terrorism has risen to 3,000 from 1,700 in 2003 ...

BBC NEWS 22 March 2009

We are about to take the war against terror to a new level

A new opportunity for arbitrary restrictions

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Police 'over the top' at climate camp

Police have been accused of setting a "dangerous precedent" when they confiscated hundreds of items of property - including children's crayons, a clown's outfit and a pensioner's walking stick - from people attending an environmental protest camp at Kingsnorth power station.

A list of more than 2,000 possessions taken from protesters, who were repeatedly searched going to and from the camp last August, has been obtained through a freedom of information request by Liberal Democrat justice spokesman David Howarth.

It shows that officers took packets of balloon, tents, a clown's outfit, camping equipment, cycle helmets and bike locks, plastic buckets, bin bags, blankets, soap, banners and leaflets, books, party poppers and nail clippers. A toy plastic gun, life-jackets, inflatable dinghies, paddles and foot pumps were also confiscated, police say, to stop protesters taking to the river around the Hoo peninsula in Kent. Much of the property has yet to be returned. ...

Kent police were embarrassed over the event last year when, after ministers had justified what they called the "proportionate" £5.9m cost of the security operation by pointing out that 70 officers had been injured at the event, they then had to admit that the injuries reported by officers included heat exhaustion, toothache, insect bites and headaches.

Howarth said: "It is not the police's job to confiscate protesters' banners, pensioners' walking sticks and children's crayons.

"The police admit that almost all the items seized had a legitimate purpose. The idea that it is appropriate to seize ordinary people's property on the off-chance that it might be used to commit a crime is a dangerous precedent.

"Almost anything can be invested with sinister intent with enough imagination. I even heard of one case where police confiscated a camper's soap on the basis that it could be used to make them slippery and evade capture by police. This is simply farcical.

"This kind of pre-emptive policing is out of all proportion to the threat posed by environmental direct action and should not be acceptable in a democratic society." ...

Sarah Perkins, a member of the Climate Camp's legal team, said their main concern was that they believed police misused "stop and search" legislation. "It certainly was disproportionate policing and a real sea change in the way police are using their powers. Absolutely everyone was searched, many people several times over, and then police raided the camp and searched yet again."

Green party MEP Caroline Lucas, who attended the week-long event, said at the time that she had witnessed police confiscating disabled access ramps, board games and fire safety equipment ...

Observer 01 March 2009

Protesters fought the law, but the law fought back

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Civil servants attacked for using anti-terror laws to spy on public

Controversial surveillance powers employed to fight terrorism and combat crime have been misused by civil servants in undercover "spying" operations that breach official guidelines, the Guardian has learned.

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information show some government departments and agencies have used these powers incorrectly or without proper controls. They also show the official government watchdog set up to monitor the use of such clandestine techniques criticised the departments for their behaviour ...

The watchdog highlighted how:

• Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) did not have proper authorisation when they went undercover posing as anglers to glean information about imported fish;

• A manager responsible for authorising surveillance at the NHS anti-fraud agency routinely gave officials "carte blanche" in surveillance operations;

• Tracking devices were attached to vehicles in a bid to monitor the disposal of waste, after the Environment Agency received apparently incorrect advice from the Home Office

• Potential prosecutions were jeopardised because those conducting the surveillance operations were not properly trained and had not followed procedures

• A large array of public bodies are also using surveillance powers, including the Charity Commission, Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the BBC ...

Guardian 28 February 2009

Cameron pledges bill to restore British freedoms

Spying on 60 million people doesn't add up

Top

Government plans to keep DNA samples of innocent

The government is planning to get around a European court ruling that condemned Britain's retention of the DNA profiles of more than 800,000 innocent people by keeping the original samples used to create the database, the Guardian has learned.

A damning ruling last December criticised the "blanket and indiscriminate nature" of the UK's current DNA database - which includes DNA from those never charged with an offence - and said the government had overstepped acceptable limits of storing data for crime detection.

Last month the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said she would publish a white paper setting out "a more proportionate, fair and commonsense approach", but she has not given any indication whether DNA samples already obtained would be destroyed. However, Home Office sources said the government, which was given three months to respond to the ruling, has "no plans" to destroy samples of DNA ...

Guardian 27 February 2009

DNA details of 1.1m children on database

DNA database

Top

Sir David Omand on Protint -
'protected information' data mining of personal sensitive data by intelligence agencies

In which a certain, er, "left of centre" think tank's role in Corporate State UK is confirmed.

Perhaps because of the media interest in the Convention on Modern Liberty, both The Guardian and the Press Association via the The Independent newspapers, have quoted from a discussion paper published over 2 weeks ago by the NuLabour "think tank" lobbyists at the Institute for Public Policy Research, through which several Labour party surveillance nanny police state policies have been "market tested", to see if they can be slipped through past the public and Parliament, without too much vocal opposition.

IPPR seem to have funded and have now published, "A discussion paper for the ippr Commission on National Security for the 21st Century" by Sir David Omand, an eminent retired Whitehall security and intelligence insider, on whose watch under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, many of the most repressive Labour laws and policies were trotted out ...

A significant challenge supporting the National Security Strategy will be how the intelligence community can access the full range of data relating to individuals, their movements, activities and associations in a timely, accurate, proportionate and legal way, and one acceptable in a democratic and free society, including appropriate oversight and means of independent investigation and redress in cases of alleged abuse of power.

Spy Blog go on quote the following surreal extract from the IPPR's report:

A significant challenge supporting the National Security Strategy will be how the intelligence community can access the full range of data relating to individuals, their movements, activities and associations in a timely, accurate, proportionate and legal way, and one acceptable in a democratic and free society, including appropriate oversight and means of independent investigation and redress in cases of alleged abuse of power.

But not a challenge which will unduly worry Mr Jack Stawman at the Ministry of ,er, 'Justice'

Spy Blog 25 February 2009

It is time to resist

Top

Holding inquests in secret

Secret inquests, held without a jury. Is this an idea whose time has come? The Public Bill Committee is going through the text of the Coroners and Justice Bill.

The proposal is this. The state is involved in the death of someone – in police cells, in prison, in a shooting incident, on the battlefield in Afghanistan – and the minister decides to hold the inquest beyond the public gaze.

Is that odd, at all? There are usually juries in these sorts of matters. Ordinary people have been sitting in judgment for centuries. Too long, some think. Yes, true: it's against the spirit of the times. Ordinary people have no expert knowledge of the sensitivities involved. And our intelligence relationships with foreign countries demand great sensitivity. Also, the safety of our police is paramount – it's the first duty of officers these days to protect the safety of themselves.

And, of course, national security. That shuts everyone up.

David Howarth, the Cambridge MP, thinks this is drivel. As does Edward Garnier for the Tories. As does Liberty, as does Inquest, the coroners organisation, as does... almost everyone. Possibly not the police, who may be behind this nasty piece of work.

The way the Bill is worded, the Minister of Justice can use five grounds to bang up the inquest. Mr Garnier pointed out how a police officer can – and has – used a clause in the Counter-Terrorism Act to confiscate a camera from a member of the public who'd photographed the officer committing a traffic violation. That's the trouble: if they can, they will.

Would the Menezes inquest have been held in public under this law? Like fun. Under all five provisions of the Bill they could have held it in secret. To protect "national security" (terrorists shouldn't know how incompetent our police were). To protect "the relationship between the UK and another country" (ditto foreign governments). To "protect the safety of a witness or other person" (the head of the Met, for instance).

James Gray mentioned the Hercules that went down in Iraq killing 10 servicemen – the coroner criticised the US intelligence sharing (very relationship-damaging), and the British Government for not having flame suppressant foam in the plane, and made £30m of safety recommendations.

If they could pull it off, all military inquests would be held in secret. The several oppositions agree there are occasions when secrecy is required, and agree with Mr Howarth that coroners should operate according to the same rules of secrecy as High Court judges in espionage or terror trials. That's the answer. But the Government is asking a different question.

Simon Carr 25 February 2009

Straw plan for private inquests back on agenda

Secret inquests plans 'dropped'

Top

The well of freedom is running dry

We are letting the well run dry, allowing little bits of our civil freedoms to be chipped away by paranoiac governments who assure us we can trust them – and consistently betray that trust.

We are gradually sacrificing what has taken hundreds of years of civilisation to achieve, which is a condition of some kind of liberty. It may not be evident to everyone yet, but we have lost so much freedom in the past 10 years. When the Government passed its "anti-terror" laws, it reassured those who campaigned against them that they would only ever be used in the most extreme circumstances.

But these are completely vague laws which enable a government to arrest almost anybody for almost everything.

Within a couple of years they had been used to eject an 80-year-old heckler from a Labour Party conference, to arrest a woman for reading out the names of British soldiers killed in Iraq, and to freeze the assets of Icelandic banks in England. This is the problem with vague legislation of this type: it invariably gets called into use whenever anybody does anything that the Government finds embarrassing or the police find inconvenient.

It criminalises the behaviour of concerned citizens and thereby encourages disengagement and apathy. By preventing people from taking part in critiques of governance it increases the gap between rulers and ruled: it is fundamentally anti-democratic.

I worry about initiatives like identity cards and computer databases because they could be a step towards a police state, with completely innocent people being held in custody because of software malfunctions.

It is incredibly sad that these moves towards a police state should have happened under a Labour government. Gordon Brown should think about the serious problems that need to be solved – such as climate change – and direct his government's efforts towards that.

The Independent20 February 2009

Revealed: the full extent of Labour's curbs on civil liberties

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Judges possess the weapon to challenge surveillance

If, historically, the record of British judges as defenders of personal liberty has been patchy, the tools at their disposal were rather limited. They could, in case of doubt, interpret parliamentary enactments on the assumption that parliament did not intend to infringe rights and freedoms; yet if the enactment was clear and unambiguous, they had no choice but to give it effect. But the rules of the game have changed - if not in the sense or direction that Tony Blair had in mind when using that expression - for parliament has, in the Human Rights Act 1998, instructed the judges to protect the main rights and freedoms enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, providing a much more comprehensive framework of principles than judges have been able to invoke before.

It is in this context that we must review a development that is a cause of profound unease to many. It has recently been described, in unrhetorical but chilling terms, by the House of Lords select committee on the constitution in its recent report on Surveillance, Citizens and the State: "Successive UK governments have gradually constructed one of the most extensive and technologically advanced surveillance systems in the world ... The expansion in the use of surveillance represents one of the most significant changes in the life of the nation since the end of the second world war." Tony McNulty, then minister for security, counter-terrorism, crime and policing, told the committee that this was "today's normality. CCTV, DNA database and a whole range of these other elements are not there as a response to exceptional threats and exceptional circumstances." A national identity card and a database with the name and address of every child lie in the future.

Perhaps the British are content to be the most spied upon people in the democratic world. But this would be surprising given their traditional resistance to official intrusion and their traditional belief that the state should mind its own business, not theirs. The qualified right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence, embodied in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, is not an ideal weapon to counter the growth of a surveillance society; but failing parliamentary restraint and adequate regulatory oversight, it may be the best weapon there is.

In reversing a House of Lords decision that permitted the police to retain DNA samples given by people who had been acquitted or never charged, the European Court of Human Rights has given a nudge in the right direction. There has been a surprising paucity of legal challenges in this area, but the number of challenges may grow in the years to come, as the public appreciate the extent of the surveillance to which they are subject. But the judges are not, in any ordinary sense, legislators: they cannot rule on claims that litigants do not choose to bring before them.

• Lord Bingham retired as senior law lord last year

Guardian 17 February 2009

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Calling the police to account

On the day that it becomes illegal to take pictures of police engaged in counter-terrorist operations – in practice a ban on taking pictures of the police – it is worth noting events in Brighton recently where police set up outside a cafe and photographed people attending a meeting about the environment.

According to the Brighton Argus, members of the Cowley Club, which was hosting a meeting of Earth First, "were confronted with four uniformed officers outside the Somerfield store, opposite the venue, snapping visitors using a paparazzi-style lens". One of the club members, David Biset, said the police were behaving in a deliberately "intimidating manner". He said:

Avenues of dissent are being closed down and police feel able to treat politics as a police matter. There was no suggestion of anything going on outside the building. The police have no reason to be there beyond intimidating people. You shouldn't be put on a database simply for attending a meeting.

The local MP, David Lepper, agrees that the police operation was designed to scare activists rather than prevent crime, and has written to the divisional commander for Brighton and Hove demanding to know why officers were photographing people engaged in a political activity. The police have refused to comment other than to produce the usual assertion that this was a normal police operation ...

Guardian 16 February 2009

ACPO

The secret police are watching you

Police chiefs body faces calls for review

CIA warns Barack Obama that British terrorists are the biggest threat to the US

Secret police unit set up to spy on British 'domestic extremists'

Taser Abuse in the United States

Launch of Automatic Number Plate Recognition

ACPO

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£46m taxpayers' bill for companies to store web use details

Taxpayers face a £46m bill for the cost of communications companies storing details of all personal email and internet use, the Home Office has revealed.

The introduction from April of a requirement on internet service providers to keep details of personal internet use follows a 2006 EU directive on data retention agreed after the 2005 London bombings.

Many British communications companies have kept customers' data on a voluntary basis but said they would only comply with a mandatory requirement if the government was prepared to pick up the bill. The move towards compulsory data retention represents a major step towards the creation of "super-database" to track all phone, email, text and internet use.

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, is expected to publish a paper this month on the new database as part of the government's "interception modernisation programme".

The Home Office says the data being stored is not the content of emails, texts and phone calls but the traffic and location data and other details needed to identify a subscriber or user.

Ministers say the data is needed to enable police and national security investigators to identify suspects, examine their contacts, establish relationships between conspirators and place them in a specific location at a certain time. The data is used to build up a profile of the suspect, and can be used to disrupt a criminal enterprise or terrorist operation, or in a prosecution.

The Home Office admitted in an assessment published this week that the use of data in this way involves interference with personal privacy but said it was balanced by the benefit to investigations by the police or security services. ...

Guardian 13 February 2009

Keeping tabs on texts and Twitter

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Government plans travel database

The government is compiling a database to track and store the international travel records of millions of Britons.

Computerised records of all 250 million journeys made by individuals in and out of the UK each year will be kept for up to 10 years.

The government says the database is essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration and terrorism ...

The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details of travellers ...

Minister of State for borders and immigration Phil Woolas said the government was determined to ensure the UK's border remained one of the toughest in the world.

"Our hi-tech electronic borders system will allow us to count all passengers in and out of the UK and [it] targets those who aren't willing to play by our rules," he said.

"Already e-Borders has screened over 75 million passengers against immigration, customs and police watch-lists, leading to over 2,700 arrests for crimes such as murder, rape and assault."

BBC NEWS 08 February 2009

390,000 to access child database

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Data Bill 'will wipe out privacy at a stroke'

Sweeping new laws to allow ministers to release the private details of millions of people to a string of public bodies or private firms have been condemned as being "open sesame to a vast increase in government power".

Opposition MPs joined human rights campaigners in attacking the new powers, warning that they could lead to the widespread release of medical records and other sensitive data.

As MPs opened debate on the Coroners and Justice Bill, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats branded the plans an unacceptable extension of the state, while the all-party Commons Justice Committee called for greater safeguards to protect the public against the sharing of information.

Genewatch, a genetic technology pressure group, warned that proposed data-sharing powers could ultimately open the door to the creation of a national DNA database linked to medical records. It said the Bill could allow DNA samples taken for medical reasons to be released alongside people's medical records. Dr Helen Wallace, the group's director, said it would "wipe out the personal privacy of everyone in Britain at a single stroke".

Under the proposals, ministers will be able to draw up new information-sharing orders that would allow them to release private data – such as tax returns, personal details or medical records – to any public or private body.

Orders would have to be vetted by the Information Commissioner, the official freedom of information watchdog, and approved by Parliament.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, insisted yesterday that sharing data between government departments would reduce the burdens on taxpayers and businesses.

But Dominic Grieve, the shadow Justice Secretary, said the plans would "drive a coach and horses through the traditional relationship between the state and individuals" to serve a "nebulous case of public good". He warned that the Bill would allow ministers to share medical records with organisations that had no link to people's health.

Mr Grieve said that clauses "tucked away" at the back of the Bill would give ministers "carte blanche to expand data sharing between officials across Whitehall, with local authorities and even with companies in the private sector". He added: "This should be done with great caution and should not be open sesame to a vast increase in government power."

David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, said the data-sharing proposals were "outrageous". He said: "These provisions will allow all the restriction on data sharing in the ID Cards Act to be overridden and drive a coach and horses through all other restrictions on medical and DNA records. These plans are not confined to government departments and other public authorities. They would allow unlimited data sharing between private sector organisations and government and the private sector, whether in this country or abroad."

Ministers insist that tough safeguards would prevent the misuse of data. The Information Commissioner would have to investigate any proposed data sharing, which must then be approved by MPs and peers. But members of the Justice Committee called on ministers to increase the safeguards in the Bill.

Mr Straw said that data sharing powers could help relieve the burden on bereaved families who were forced to notify a string of public bodies when a relative died. He said: "Responsible data sharing between the relevant agencies would reduce the number of people who need to be notified of a death, thereby helping to relieve distress."

The Independent 27 January 2009

Hackers steal details of 4.5 million job-seekers

Them and us child register

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Riding roughshod over our privacy

The economic downturn has altered the political landscape in numerous ways, but one constant remains: the Government's determination to ride roughshod over the privacy of the individual.

The Coroners and Justice Bill, published yesterday, proposes to give ministers the right to allow public bodies to exchange sensitive data about each of us between themselves.

The effect would be to free organisations such as the Inland Revenue and the National Health Service from the present data protection laws which state that such information can only be used for the purpose for which we originally handed it over.

Ministers would even be able, in theory, to transfer public records to private companies ...

The Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, argues that there will be strong safeguards against these new powers being abused.

We heard the same thing when the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill on terrorist surveillance was making its way through Parliament in 2000. Yet that upshot of that odious act was to allow councils to mount covert surveillance on householders suspected of such offences as dog fouling or fly tipping ...

The Independent 15 January 2009

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Compensation clause in ID card contracts angers Tories

Taxpayers face paying tens of millions of pounds in compensation to private companies involved in the national identity card scheme if their contracts are torn up by an incoming Conservative government.

The disclosure of the repayment clause in the contracts, which the Government is negotiating, provoked fury among Tories, who are committed to scrapping the cards. The secrecy surrounding the agreements has raised the threat of an investigation by the information watchdog.

The Home Office is offering contracts worth more than £1bn to run the world’s largest identity scheme. Just one small deal has so far been signed, but most are expected to be awarded this year in preparation for a planned roll-out of the cards in 2011.

The Government has confirmed compensation for costs will be paid to companies whose contracts are scrapped and they will also be entitled to claim for lost profits if they receive less than a year’s notice, but the Government will not reveal the exact amounts that would have to be paid.

NO2ID 09 January 2009

The true cost of this folly

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Police set to step up hacking of home PCs

THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant ...

The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home, office or hotel room.

Material gathered in this way includes the content of all e-mails, web-browsing habits and instant messaging.

Under the Brussels edict, police across the EU have been given the green light to expand the implementation of a rarely used power involving warrantless intrusive surveillance of private property.

The strategy will allow French, German and other EU forces to ask British officers to hack into someone’s UK computer and pass over any material gleaned.

A remote search can be granted if a senior officer says he “believes” that it is “proportionate” and necessary to prevent or detect serious crime — defined as any offence attracting a jail sentence of more than three years ...

Sunday Times 04 January 2009

Top

Private firm 'may run' phone log

A private company could be asked to run a huge database containing details of all telephone calls, emails and internet use, it has been reported. ...

Former director of public prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald reiterated his opposition to the plan in light of the Guardian's report, dismissing official claims that additional legal assurances would ensure the information is not misused.

He told the paper: "All history tells us that reassurances like these are worthless in the long run. In the first security crisis the locks would loosen."

The database, which critics claim would cost up to £12bn, is not intended to record the content of communications, but only the details of internet sites visited and what emails and telephone calls have been made, to whom and at what times ...

BBC NEWS 31 December 2008

Private firm may track all email and calls

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The Paranoia Squad

When you hear the term “domestic extremist”, whom do you picture? How about someone like Dr Peter Harbour? He’s a retired physicist and university lecturer, who worked on the nuclear fusion reactor run by European governments at Culham in Oxfordshire. He’s 70 next year. He has never been tried or convicted of an offence, except the odd speeding ticket. He has never failed a security check. Not the sort of person you had in mind?

Then you don’t work for the police.

Dr Harbour was one of the people who campaigned to save a local beauty spot – Thrupp Lake - between the Oxfordshire villages of Radley and Abingdon. They used to walk and swim and picnic there, and watch otters and kingfishers.

RWE npower, which owns Didcot power station, wanted to empty the lake and fill it with pulverised fly ash.

The villagers marched, demonstrated and sent in letters and petitions. Some people tried to stop the company from cutting down trees by standing in the way. Their campaign was entirely peaceful. But RWE npower discovered that it was legally empowered to shut the protests down.

Using the Protection from Harrassment Act 1997, it obtained an injunction against the villagers and anyone else who might protest ...

The act, parliament was told, was meant to protect women from stalkers. But as soon as it came onto the statute books, it was used to stop peaceful protest.

To obtain an injunction, a company needs to show only that someone feels “alarmed or distressed” by the protesters, a requirement so vague that it can mean almost anything. Was this an accident of sloppy drafting? No. Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, the solicitor who specialises in using this law against protesters, boasts that his company “assisted in the drafting of the … Protection from Harassment Act 1997?(3). In 2005 parliament was duped again, when a new clause, undebated in either chamber, was slipped into the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act(4). It peps up the 1997 act, which can now be used to ban protest of any kind.

Mr Lawson-Cruttenden, who represented RWE npower, brags that the purpose of obtaining injunctions under the act is “the criminalisation of civil disobedience” .... Monbiot.com 23 December 2008

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Legal move to crack down on climate protesters

The attorney general is considering asking the courts to clamp down on high-profile, direct-action protests on issues such as climate change, the Guardian can exclusively reveal.

Six Greenpeace protesters, who were acquitted in September of criminal damage for their demonstration at the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent, now face having their case referred to the court of appeal in what is believed to be an attempt to increase convictions for direct-action protests.

The six were acquitted after they successfully persuaded a jury that the demonstration, in which they scaled a 200 metre chimney in an attempt to paint Gordon Bin It , was intended to prevent greater damage to property from the imminent threat of global warming.

The defence centred particularly on plans for the new-generation station - Kingsnorth II - planned for the site.

The jury accepted the defence of lawful excuse after an eight-day trial which included evidence from the ecologist Zac Goldsmith and Professor Jim Hansen, the Nasa scientist regarded as one of the world's leading climate change experts.

Jurors were shown maps of the Kent region depicting coastal areas where property and land would be at risk of being submerged by rising sea levels and heard from a representative of Greenland's Inuit community who described watching their villages "eroding into the sea" ...

... a lawyer familiar with the case told the Guardian: "Juries are a reflection of the public. In this case the jury spent two days carefully thinking about more than a week's evidence and they came to a conclusion. This is a ... sinister effort to undermine their decision" ...

Guardian 18 December 2008

Ed Miliband: 'We need a mass movement ... '

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The police crossed a line at Kingsnorth

The £5.9m bill to police the climate camp at Kingsnorth is not only a colossal waste of money, but yet another example of the increasingly aggressive and authoritarian attitude the police are taking to peaceful green protests.

... why, rather than being straight with the public, did the truth about police "injuries" have to be dragged out of the government by a freedom of information request? At the time of the police operation at the power station in the summer, ministers justified the police's action by claiming that 70 officers had been injured in the course of their duties. Now we know there were in fact only 12 reportable injuries – ranging from wasp stings to backache from sitting too long in a police car ...

Guardian 15 December 2008

Minister apologises

Those Kingsnorth police injuries in full:
six insect bites and a toothache

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DNA database innocents win landmark European court ruling

Two men from Sheffield, south Yorkshire, who were previously cleared of criminal charges, have won a major victory after the European Court of Human Rights ruled keeping their DNA on the British police database breached their human rights.

The decision now has far reaching consequences for the police, the Home Office and the British Government, although officials initially refused to say whether all the samples of innocent people on the system will now have to wiped.

The UK database is the biggest of its kind in the world per head of population, with around 4.5 million profiles held, and is seen by the police as a vital crime fighting tool, helping to solve hundreds of high profile murders and rapes. ...

The profiles of the two men are now expected to be taken off the database but the Home Office said the current policies of taking and retaining the DNA of innocent people will remain until it delivers it's formal response to the European court in March.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "DNA and fingerprinting is vital to the fight against crime, providing the police with more than 3,500 matches a month, and I am disappointed by the European Court of Human Rights' decision.

"The Government mounted a robust defence before the Court and I strongly believe DNA and fingerprints play an invaluable role in fighting crime and bringing people to justice.

"The existing law will remain in place while we carefully consider the judgement."

Telegraph 04 December 2008

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The Big Brother state – by stealth

Personal information detailing intimate aspects of the lives of every British citizen is to be handed over to government agencies under sweeping new powers. The measure, which will give ministers the right to allow all public bodies to exchange sensitive data with each other, is expected to be rushed through Parliament in a Bill to be published tomorrow.

The new legislation would deny MPs a full vote on such data-sharing. Instead, ministers could authorise the swapping of information between councils, the police, NHS trusts, the Inland Revenue, education authorities, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, the Department for Work and Pensions and other ministries ...

Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, said he believed Britain had gone too far in helping to bring about a "surveillance society". In a report drawing on personal data infringements across Europe but "inspired" by Britain's plan for a new internet, email and telephone database, he added:

"General surveillance raises serious democratic problems which are not answered by the repeated assertion that those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. This puts the onus in the wrong place: it should be for states to justify the interferences they seek to make on privacy rights." ...

The Independent 04 December 2008

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£1,000 penalties for out-of-date ID details

People who fail to tell the authorities of a change of address or amend other key personal details within three months will face civil penalty fines of up to £1,000 a time when the national identity card scheme is up and running, according to draft Home Office regulations published yesterday.

The Home Office made clear that repeated failures to keep an entry on the national identity register up to date could ultimately be enforced by bailiffs being sent round to seize property.

But yesterday's detailed regulations to implement the national identity card scheme make clear that they intend to avoid the creation of ID card "martyrs", by levying no penalty on those who refuse to register for the national identity card database in the first place. ...

Guardian 22 November 2008

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MPs seek to censor the media

Britain's security agencies and police would be given unprecedented and legally binding powers to ban the media from reporting matters of national security, under proposals being discussed in Whitehall.

The Intelligence and Security Committee, the parliamentary watchdog of the intelligence and security agencies which has a cross-party membership from both Houses, wants to press ministers to introduce legislation that would prevent news outlets from reporting stories deemed by the Government to be against the interests of national security ...

The committee has focused on one particular case to highlight its concern: an Islamist plot to kidnap and murder a British serviceman in 2007, during which reporters were tipped off about the imminent arrest of suspects in Birmingham, a security operation known as "Gamble" ...

The Independent 10 October 2008

Censorship is not the answer

A law unto themselves

Politics, propaganda, and persecution

Birmingham: the questions remain

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Shops may take ID card biometrics

Supermarkets could be asked to take people's fingerprints as part of the government's identity card scheme.

The Home Office is talking to retailers and the Post Office about setting up booths to gather biometric data.

It comes as Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced ID cards would be issued to airside workers at Manchester and London City airport from late 2009 ...

On plans to involve retailers and the Post Office in the ID cards scheme, a spokesman said it would be "more convenient" for people than the government's original plan to set up enrolment centres in large population centres.

The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) would continue to carry out enrolment at its offices but a spokesman said it also wanted to "drive down costs using market forces and competition" and was talking to a "range of high street retailers and other organisations".

He stressed that security of data would remain the "utmost priority".

"Any third party involved in enrolment would be accredited and audited to ensure they meet and continue to meet robust and strictly administered security standards.

"System design standards will ensure that no data is stored locally and that all data is transmitted directly to IPS using a secure communications link. In addition all locations and personnel will be subject to strict security standards set by IPS."

...

BBC NEWS 06 November 2008

Foreign students fingerprint fear

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Government black boxes will 'collect every email'

Internet "black boxes" will be used to collect every email and web visit in the UK under the Government's plans for a giant "big brother" database, The Independent has learnt.

Home Office officials have told senior figures from the internet and telecommunications industries that the "black box" technology could automatically retain and store raw data from the web before transferring it to a giant central database controlled by the Government.

Plans to create a database holding information about every phone call, email and internet visit made in the UK have provoked a huge public outcry. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, described it as "step too far" and the Government's own terrorism watchdog said that as a "raw idea" it was "awful".

Nevertheless, ministers have said they are committed to consulting on the new Communications Data Bill early in the new year. News that the Government is already preparing the ground by trying to allay the concerns of the internet industry is bound to raise suspicions about ministers' true intentions. Further details of the database emerged on Monday at a meeting of internet service providers (ISPs) in London where representatives from BT, AOL Europe, O2 and BSkyB were given a PowerPoint presentation of the issues and the technology surrounding the Government's Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), the name given by the Home Office to the database proposal.

Whitehall experts working on the IMP unit told the meeting the security and intelligence agencies wanted to use the stored data to help fight serious crime and terrorism, and said the technology would allow them to create greater "capacity" to monitor all communication traffic on the internet. The "black boxes" are an attractive option for the internet industry because they would be secure and not require any direct input from the ISPs. ...

The Independent 05 November 2008

Parents to be fingerprinted by nursery schools

Up to 50 nurseries and playgroups have already signed up for the new security measures, thought to be the first time parents have been targetted in this way. ...

The Government has issued guidance telling head teachers they have the right to collect pupils' biometric data for security reasons ...

Any information gathered will be subject to data protection laws and should not be shared with outside bodies, says the guidance.

However, the Government insists that using biometric data is an efficient way of tracking children during the school day. It is estimated that at least 200 schools used fingerprint scans, before any official guidance was published. But this is thought to be the first time that parents have been targeted. ...

Telegraph 29 October 2008

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Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street

Every police force in the UK is to be equipped with mobile fingerprint scanners - handheld devices that allow police to carry out identity checks on people in the street.

The new technology, which ultimately may be able to receive pictures of suspects, is likely to be in widespread use within 18 months. Tens of thousands of sets - as compact as BlackBerry smartphones - are expected to be distributed.

The police claim the scheme, called Project Midas, will transform the speed of criminal investigations ...

To address fears about mass surveillance and random searches, the police insist fingerprints taken by the scanners will not be stored or added to databases. ...

Guardian 27 October 2008

Panopticon highway

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Centuries of British freedoms being 'broken'
by security state, says Sir Ken Macdonald

Outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald warned that the expansion of technology by the state into everyday life could create a world future generations “can’t bear”.

In his wide-ranging speech, Sir Ken appeared to condemn a series of key Government policies, attacking terrorism proposals - including 42 day detention - identity card plans and the “paraphernalia of paranoia”.

Instead, he said, the Government should insist that “our rights are priceless” and that: “The best way to face down those threats is to strengthen our institutions rather than to degrade them.” ...

But Sir Ken warned that increasing the powers of the state in law meant that any new powers would be “with us forever”.

He said: “It is in the nature of State power that decisions taken in the next few months and years about how the State may use these powers, and to what extent, are likely to be irreversible.

“They will be with us forever. And they in turn will be built upon. So we should take very great care to imagine the world we are creating before we build it. We might end up living with something we can’t bear.”

Sir Ken warned Parliament to resist “special courts, vetted judges and all the other paraphernalia of paranoia” in the fight against terrorism.

That risked copying “the Guantanamo model.... which says that we cannot afford to give people their rights, that rights are too expensive because of the nature of the threats we are facing”.

He added: “It is difficult to see who will maintain a cool head if governments do not. Or who will protect our Constitution if governments unwittingly disarm it.” ...

Telegraph 21 October 2008

Ken Macdonald's speech

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Storm over Big Brother database

Early plans to create a giant "Big Brother" database holding information about every phone call, email and internet visit made in the UK were last night condemned by the Government's own terrorism watchdog.

Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, the independent reviewer of anti-terrorist laws, said the "raw idea" of the database was "awful" and called for controls to stop government agencies using it to conduct fishing expeditions into the private lives of the public.

Today the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, is expected to signal the Government's intention to press ahead with proposals to collect more details about people's phone, email and web-browsing habits as she warns that the terrorist threat to Britain is growing. ...

The Independent 15 October 2008

The threats to our liberty just keep on coming

Top

Police train for riot scenarios

Police officers from forces across the South West are to receive training to prepare them for riots. Police horses, dogs and a helicopter will be used to add realism during the two-day courses at Moreton-in-Marsh Fire College, Gloucestershire.

Some officers will take on the role of hostile crowds in real-life scenarios such as raves, demonstrations and disorder at football matches. Missiles and petrol bombs will be thrown as part of the training.

Officers attending the training will come from Gloucestershire; Dorset; Wiltshire; Avon & Somerset; and Devon & Cornwall Constabularies.

Inspector Mac McGarry, of Gloucestershire Constabulary Operational Services, said: "These are very important and impactive sessions because it is essential all officers allocated to the Public Disorder Unit experience the sort of difficulties they will encounter in real-life situations.

"It also gives us the chance to test the command structure we have in place and the inter-operability with other forces."

BBC NEWS 05 October 2008

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There’s no hiding place as spy HQ plans to see all

Every call you make, every e-mail you send, every website you visit - I’ll be watching you.

That is the hope of Sir David Pepper who, as the director of GCHQ, the government’s secret eavesdropping agency in Cheltenham, is plotting the biggest surveillance system ever created in Britain.

From his office in the agency’s famous “doughnut” building, Pepper is masterminding an innocent-sounding project called the Interception Modernisation Programme.

The scope of the project - classified top secret - is said by officials to be so vast that it will dwarf the estimated £5 billion ministers have set aside for the identity cards programme. It is intended to fight terrorism and crime. Civil liberties groups, however, say it poses an unprecedented intrusion into ordinary citizens’ lives.

Aimed at placing a “live tap” on every electronic communication in Britain, it will dwarf other “big brother” surveillance projects such as the number plate recognition system and the spread of CCTV ...

Sunday Times 05 October 2008

Government will spy on every call and e-mail

First ID cards are to be issued within weeks

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Bully-Boy State Picks on Soft Targets

Desperate to shore up support for the ID scheme, the Home Secretary this week brandished a new plastic card to be issued to some foreign residents from November, calling it an "ID card" for foreign nationals. This cynical branding exercise with its sly appeal to xenophobia should fool no-one.

Having failed to convince industry and employers, the unions and the public at large that ID cards are necessary or desirable, the government has resorted to picking on soft targets - anonymous individuals seeking marriage visas or education - those who have no choice but to keep quiet and comply. And if the statements of junior minister Meg Hiller at Labour Party conference are to be believed, they also intend to target children as young as 14.

Ministers try to give the impression that their National Identity Scheme is inevitable It is not. All the opposition parties are committed to scrapping it and, without the National Identity Register (the database at the heart of the scheme) and with the repeal of the Identity Cards Act we can - and shall - go back to being a free country.

no2idcards.net 25 September 2008

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Coal protesters cleared of criminal damage

Six Greenpeace climate change activists have been cleared of causing criminal damage at a coal-fired power station in a verdict that is expected to embarrass the government and strengthen the anti-coal movement. ...

The jury was told that Kingsnorth emits the same amount of CO2 as the 30 least polluting countries in the world combined – and that there are advanced plans to build a new coal-fired power station next to the existing site on the Hoo Peninsula in Kent. ...

Guardian 10 September 2008

Goldsmith defends climate change activists

Top

Children aged eight enlisted as council snoopers

The youngsters are among almost 5,000 residents who in some cases are being offered £500 rewards if they provide evidence of minor infractions.

One in six councils contacted by the Telegraph said they had signed up teams of "environment volunteers" who are being encouraged to photograph or video neighbours guilty of dog fouling, littering or "bin crimes".

The "covert human intelligence sources", as some local authorities describe them, are also being asked to pass on the names of neighbours they believe to be responsible, or take down their number-plates.

Ealing Council in West London said: "There are hundreds of Junior Streetwatchers, aged 8-10 years old, who are trained to identify and report enviro-crime issues such as graffiti and fly-tipping."

Harlow Council in Essex said: "We currently have 25 Street Scene Champions who work with the council. They are all aged between 11 to 14. They are encouraged to report the aftermath of enviro-crimes such as vandalism to bus shelters, graffiti, abandoned vehicles, fly-tipping etc. They do this via telephone or email direct to the council."

Other local authorities recruit adult volunteers through advertisements in local newspapers, with at least 4,841 people already patrolling the streets in their spare time. ...

Telegraph 06 September 2008

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While the cat's away ...

Parliament is on holiday. No doubt to the relief of the officials driving forward the database state.

With the politicians out of the way, a cadre of Home Office and Cabinet Office cronies is free to extend the tentacles of Whitehall.

This August, long term plans to monitor your movements and communications have moved on significantly.

Your travel information, your phone and text records, your e-mail and internet usage are set to be monitored. Your personal details trafficked ever more widely among officials and to foreign powers.

The Home Secretary has been hyping "biometrics" at Manchester airport - a trial of 'facial recognition'. But in reality it is just an excuse to get your passport electronically scanned.

"e-Borders" is about collecting massive amounts of detailed information on every traveller's journey for official use.

The spin is all about 'foreigners' but the system applies with even greater force to UK citizens.

The spectre of road-pricing through a 'spy in the sky' technology has also reappeared.

Following everyone everywhere is the government's way of dealing with road problems.

And if you stay at home, you are to be watched there, too.

Many people have been shocked to discover that Local Authorities have spy powers.

But for years now hundreds of bodies have been able to authorise themselves to examine any of your phone, e-mail, text and web-browsing histories that have been held by phone and internet companies.

Now there are determined efforts to make that easier. The Home Office is seeking to build a massive database of all communications data. Massive funding is already secretly committed.

What could be done with such powers? Who would you trust with them?

Whatever the purpose, it is certain that the very private information involved will be lost or fall into untrustworthy hands.

NO2ID August 2008

Machines to scan faces of travellers at UK airports

System to count visitors by 2014

'Spy-in-the-sky' paves way for road pricing

UK.gov to spend hundreds of millions on snooping silo

Top

Police may be given powers to question child suspects alone

The police will be able to question children without their parents or other relatives being present under a shakeup proposed by the Home Office yesterday.

Ministers also announced their intention to push ahead with plans for "shopping centre jails" - short-term holding centres in busy shopping malls and town centres - to detain low-level offenders for up to four hours so they can be fingerprinted and processed without being taken to a police station. ...

... a proposal for an extension of the national DNA database by allowing samples to be taken from people arrested for minor offences such as littering, which featured in an earlier consultation paper, has been "parked" pending the outcome of an important human rights case in the autumn.

The changes to the rules on interviews of child suspects would mean that the police would no longer have to wait for a parent, guardian or other relative to turn up at the police station. In future the presence of an "appropriate adult", a role often fulfilled by a trained lay visitor at the police station, would be sufficient. ...

Changes are also proposed in the rules surrounding extensions of detention in custody from 24 to 36 hours. Currently, they have to be approved by an officer of the rank of superintendent or above. In future the signature of a police inspector would be sufficient and reviews could be carried out by telephone or video link. ...

Tony McNulty, minister for the police, said that changes to Pace codes were designed to reduce police bureaucracy while ensuring they had the powers needed to carry out frontline duties.

Guardian 29 August 2008

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New powers proposed for security staff

Powers for council wardens and private security staff to issue fixed-penalty notices and on-the-spot fines for disorderly behaviour are being considered by the police and Home Office ministers. Chief constables are also looking at using security staff to tackle community problems in places where police involvement might be seen as excessive.

A Home Office "audit" published yesterday of the use of council and private sector staff said they had been employed widely by police forces across England and Wales since their powers were established in 2002. "They are an extra pair of eyes and ears and if tasked properly they will get results, because unlike police officers who can get diverted, they are usually on the street for seven hours engaging with the community," said the report.

At present the powers used most by these "accredited" security staff are those to request a name and address if someone is acting in an antisocial manner; to confiscate alcohol from under-16s and from anyone drinking in a public place; and to issue on-the-spot fines for littering.

Those involved include park wardens, hospital and shopping mall security staff, council wardens and car park attendants.

A review of their powers is under way and senior police officers are looking at giving them the power to issue fixed penalty notices for a far wider range of offences, including disorder.

Guardian 27 August 2008

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Safe in our cages

In the Queen's speech this autumn Gordon Brown's government will announce a scheme to institute a database of every telephone call, email, and act of online usage by every resident of the UK. It will propose that this information will be gathered, stored, and "made accessible" to the security and law enforcement agencies, local councils, and "other public bodies". ...

Two things have made this ghastly development possible: the technology, and politicians.

The technology is way ahead of the game: Siemens of Germany are already supplying 60 countries with a device that monitors and integrates data from phone, email and internet activity; its software establishes patterns of uses and alerts monitoring staff to deviations from the patterns.

As New Scientist reports, the system is already known to throw up huge numbers of false positives; that could have been predicted by a rudimentary acquaintance with human nature and human life. But it is a fact that has to be added to the brilliance and reliability of government and law enforcement agencies in keeping data secure, unhackable and unlosable.

The second point concerns the quality of our politicians. They say they are putting us all under suspicion for our own good. They wish to protect us against terrorists and criminals, and to make bureaucracy more efficient.

The efficiency of bureaucracy has one of its finest moments in the neat and sorted piles of false teeth, hair and spectacles at the gas chamber doors. Oh no: better the milling crowd than the police-disciplined queues of bureaucratic efficiency; better the irritation of dealing with human fallibility than the fear of dealing with jack-booted gendarmes whose grip on one's arms follows stepping out of the queue. ...

Guardian 26 August 2008

Snoop software makes surveillance a cinch

UK may store all phone calls and emails

Communications Data Bill

Civil Liberties

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Labour warned over limits to free expression

The government has been accused of creating laws that have a chilling effect on freedom of expression in the UK in a sharply critical report from the United Nations' committee on human rights. ...

Among the problems identified, the UN says:

· Terrorism Act 2006 provisions covering encouragement of terrorism are too broad and vague, and should be amended so that their application does not lead to "a disproportionate interference with freedom of expression".

· Libel laws should be reformed to end so-called "libel tourism", whereby wealthy foreigners have gone to the high court to sue over articles that would not warrant action in their own country.

· Powers under the Official Secrets Act have been "exercised to frustrate former employees of the crown from bringing into the public domain issues of genuine public interest, and can be exercised to prevent the media from publishing such matters".

The committee also warns that, in the age of the internet, Britain's unduly restrictive libel laws create the danger of affecting freedom of expression worldwide, contrary to a UN covenant on civil and political rights which guarantees the right to freedom of speech and to exchange ideas and information "regardless of borders". ...

Guardian 15 August 2008

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'Snooper's charter' to check texts and emails

Local councils, health authorities and hundreds of other public bodies are to be given the power to access details of everyone's personal text, emails and internet use under Home Office proposals published yesterday.

Ministers want to make it mandatory for telephone and internet companies to keep details of all personal internet traffic for at least 12 months so it can be accessed for investigations into crime or other threats to public safety.

The Home Office last night admitted that the measure will mean companies have to store "a billion incidents of data exchange a day". As the measure is the result of an EU directive, the data will be made available to public investigators across Europe.

The consultation paper published yesterday estimates that it will cost the internet industry over £50m to store the mountain of data ...

Guardian  13 August 2008

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Dirty tactics to defend a dirty industry

The police – primarily from the local Medway force but Metropolitan officers are also in evidence – have raided the camp twice now, confiscating items that included crayons, disabled access ramps, marker pens, banners, radios for relaying fire and medical emergency information, the nuts and bolts holding toilet cubicles together and blackboard paint.

They have found it necessary to use pepper spray without provocation, and several campers have been arrested and bailed off the site for "obstructing" increasingly aggressive police officers.

Everyone who enters the site is being searched. Police officers are taking anything away that "could be used for illegal activity", with efforts being made to strip protesters of such hardcore weapons of choice as bits of carpet, biodegradable soap and toilet paper.

In the absence of any serious threat, the police clearly found it necessary to justify their presence with an unprovoked attack on personal hygiene.

When I met with Medway police ahead of climate camp, I asked if officers could be given specific information about the ethos behind climate camp and guidelines on proportional responses. I had hoped that the guidelines would be based on sensible use of discretion and grounds of precedent.

I am therefore horrified that police here have used pepper spray, riot gear, physical intimidation, and indulged in bizarre confiscations. It almost feels like an attempt to inflame tensions and provoke protesters into less peaceful behaviour ... ...

Guardian 04 August 2008

Top

Curse of the DNA register

One million innocent Britons 'criminalised', says damning report

A generation of young Britons is being criminalised for life by the relentless expansion of the national DNA database, ministers are warned today.

Alarm and hostility over the massive scale of the collection of DNA has been uncovered by groundbreaking research funded by the Home Office among panels of members of the public.

The Human Genetics Commission found there was widespread mistrust among people presented with evidence of the size of the database, which now contains the genetic records of more than four million people. It called for the database to be taken out of the control of the Home Office and police altogether, with one panel member warning that the database was a "first step towards a totalitarian state".

Britain now has by far the largest DNA database in the world. It includes an estimated one million people who have never been found guilty of any offence, some 100,000 of whom are children.

About 40 per cent of young black men have been forced to provide samples, compared with 13 per cent of Asian men and 9 per cent of white men.

Genetic material is now taken from all people arrested by police, regardless of whether they are subsequently charged or convicted, and remains on file for life.

Offences covered include begging, being drunk and disorderly, taking part in an illegal demonstration and minor acts of criminal damage caused by children kicking footballs or, in one instance, throwing a snowball.

Detailed consultation on the database by the commission, the Government's genetic watchdog, found the public believed samples provided by the innocent should be destroyed and those of people convicted of lesser offences removed after a few years.

The damning verdict was delivered by panels in Birmingham and Glasgow. After studying evidence about the database they called for an array of reforms designed to reassure the public that it would not be abused. They concluded that the records of children convicted of minor offences should be removed after a short period. Warning that adults are "criminalised" by having their DNA permanently on record, the panels said the length of time it stays on the database should be proportionate to their offence. "Currently no distinction is made between someone who has been arrested for breach of the peace and someone who has murdered somebody," the commission's report noted.

It registered alarm over the "very lax security" protecting the database and concerns over "who had access to samples and profiles and for what purpose". The panel members unanimously supported a nationwide publicity campaign to raise awareness of the database, using the internet, posters, leaflets and school visits.

The public backed control over the database being transferred to an independent body comprising ministers, police and civilians. Juries should be given better information about DNA in trials, they said, with independent scientists explaining the evidence, in addition to those hired by the prosecution and defence.

The proposed destruction of many DNA samples would be strongly opposed by ministers, who argue that they have proved vital to solving a succession of "cold cases". A Home Office spokesman said: "The national DNA database is a key information tool which has revolutionised the way the police can protect the public through identifying offenders and securing more convictions. It provides the police on average with almost 3,500 matches each month." He said there had been 41,717 crimes in 2006-07 which yielded DNA matches, including 452 homicides, 644 rapes, 222 other sex offences and more than 8,500 domestic burglaries. ...

The Independent 30 July 2008

Top

Bluetooth is watching

Tens of thousands of Britons are being covertly tracked without their consent in a technology experiment which has installed scanners at secret locations in offices, campuses, streets and pubs to pinpoint people's whereabouts.

The scanners, the first 10 of which were installed in Bath three years ago, are capturing Bluetooth radio signals transmitted from devices such as mobile phones, laptops and digital cameras, and using the data to follow unwitting targets without their permission.

The data is being used in a project called Cityware to study how people move around cities. But pedestrians are not being told that the devices they carry around in their pockets and handbags could be providing a permanent record of their journeys, which is then stored on a central database.

The Bath University researchers behind the project claim their scanners do not have access to the identity of the people tracked.

Eamonn O'Neill, Cityware's director, said: "The objective is not to track individuals, whether by Bluetooth or any other means. We are interested in the aggregate behaviour of city dwellers as a whole. The notion that any agency would seriously consider Bluetooth scanning as a surveillance technique is ludicrous." ...

Guardian  21 July 2008    Keeping an eye on city lives

Bluetooth monitoring can bring many benefits

Cityware - Urban Design and Pervasive Systems

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Warning over phone calls database

A central database holding details of everyone's phone calls and emails could be a "step too far for the British way of life", ministers have been warned.

Plans for such a database are rumoured to be in the Communications Data Bill.

But Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said "lines must be drawn" to defend "fundamental liberties".

The government says the growth of the internet means changes must be made to the way communications are intercepted in order to combat terrorism and crime.

In his annual report, Mr Thomas addressed speculation about plans for a government-run database holding details of telephone and internet communications of the entire British population ...

BBC NEWS 15 July 2008   

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Put young children on DNA list, urge police

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert.

Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.

'If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,' said Pugh. 'You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won't. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.' ...

The Observer 16 March 2008

Top

Why I told Parliament: you've failed us on liberty

Two things are striking as you read through the oral evidence presented to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The first is the measured calm of the majority of your witnesses and, indeed, of the majority of the committee, in the face of the most serious attack on personal freedom and privacy ever mounted during peacetime in this country. British democracy is on the brink of being changed beyond recognition, yet nothing seems to disturb the equanimity of your proceedings. Even allowing for the well-mannered traditions of parliamentary committees, the lack of urgency and of a sense of crisis seems remarkable. ...

The shocking loss of rights in Britain is now being noticed with bafflement abroad by people who do not understand this turn of events in one of the oldest democracies in the world. On a book tour last month in France, I was repeatedly asked by journalists: 'Why in Britain? Why are there no demonstrations?'

There are complex answers to these questions, but an obvious one is that the government has consistently advanced the argument that new laws meet singular threats from crime, terror and antisocial behaviour. We accepted these appeals with a rare faith in the wisdom and benevolence of our leaders, a faith, incidentally, that I increasingly do not share. After a decade, the account shows a devastating loss of the freedoms that we once regarded as our birthright, the self-evident and self-perpetuating virtue of the British people and their constitution.

The shocking part of it all is that it has occurred with almost no coherent analysis, scrutiny or opposition in Parliament, no debate about the direction of our society and only a little understanding and exposition in the media. ...

The Observer 09 March 2008

Top

DNA register 'labels children as criminals'

What's the real purpose of this register?

Nearly 1.5 million 10 to 18-year-olds will have been entered on the national DNA database by this time next year, sparking claims that Britain's youths are being criminalised and disproportionately 'targeted'.

Changes to the law have meant police can arrest anyone over the age of 10 on suspicion of committing a 'recordable' offence - which includes even minor crimes - and place their details on the register. But the government has been reluctant to discuss the issue of minors, confirming last year only that the profiles of some 358,012 children are currently on the register.

But campaign groups claim that this figure masks the bigger picture. A close analysis of the register by Arch and the pressure group Genewatch reveals the profiles of more than 1.1 million young people aged 10 to 18 have been added between 1995, when the database started, and April last year. Of these, they calculate 521,901 were aged 10 to 16 and 604,590 were between 16 and 18. ...

Genewatch calculates some 100,000 children on the database are 'innocent' in that they have not even received a caution after being arrested. It also claims that between 1995 and 2007 only 189 minors have successfully applied to have their details taken off the register. ...

A spokeswoman for the National Policing Improvement Agency, which oversees the register ... added: 'The retention of a person's DNA profile... is not a criminal record. If a young person has DNA stored on the database but does not have a conviction, this database record will not show on criminal record checks for education or employment matters.'

The Observer 09 March 2008

Top

How this government has undermined society

Communications

· Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2002), government agencies make 500,000 secret interceptions of email, internet connections and standard mail.

· Since summer 2007, the government and some 700 agencies have had access to all landline and mobile phone records.

Databases

· Police build network of ANPR cameras on motorways and in town centres. Data stored for two years.

· The National Identity Register will store details of every verification made by ID card holder. Data used without knowledge of citizens.

· ID card enrolment will require biometric details and large amount of personal data.

· The Home Office plans to take 19 pieces of information from anyone travelling abroad. No statutory basis.

Free expressions

· Public-order laws have been used to curtail free expression.

· The Race and Religious Hatred Act (2006) bans incitement of hatred on religious grounds.

· Terror laws are used to ban freedom of expression in some areas.

The courts

· Asbo legislation introduces hearsay evidence which can result in jail sentence.

· The Criminal Justice Act (2003) attacks jury trial.

· Admissibility of bad character, previous convictions and acquittals.

· The Proceeds of Crime Act (2002) allows confiscation of assets without prosecution.

· Special Immigration Appeals Court hearings held in secret.

Terror laws

· Terror laws used to stop and search. Current rate is 50,000 per annum.

· A maximum of 28 days detention without charge.

The Observer 09 March 2008

Top

Anti SOCPA Campaigners To Assert Right To Protest

The Government consultation on ‘Managing Protest around Parliament’, which closed on 17 January, began as a review of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) 2005, s.132-138, which controversially restricts demonstrations in a 1km zone around Parliament [2,3]. While it had previously been reported that Prime Minister Brown intended to repeal the unpopular provisions of the legislation [4], the consultation paper’s questions on the possible ‘harmonisation’ of the existing legislation suggest that the Government plans to extend current restrictions on protest around Parliament to the whole country. This means giving the police the power to censor the number, size and content of banners and placards; and existing laws requiring prior notification of and the power to impose restrictions on, and even ban, protest marches - covered by the Public Order Act 1986 – could be extended to all demonstrations ...

RINF.COM 28 February 2008

Top

How commonplace is it for people to be bugged?

In his annual report for 2006, Sir Paul found that the majority of requests related to the supply of communications data - telephone calls, emails and post - rather than actual bugging of phone conversations.

This means that information held about a person by phone companies and internet providers can be accessed to reveal their network of friends and colleagues, how often and when they are communicated with and where the person has been when the communication has taken place.

Of 253,557 applications to intercept private communications under surveillance laws in the last nine months of 2006, it is understood most were approved.

BBC NEWS 04 February 2008

Simon Jenkins

Police 'took MP bugging decision'

Police bugged Muslim MP Sadiq Khan

Bugged Muslim MP:
Tories claim they warned Gordon Brown

Letter from Tories to PM over bugged MP

Top

US and UK rival China for government surveillance

The US, the UK, China and Russia are "endemic surveillance societies", according to a recent study examining privacy protection around the world that gave the four nations the lowest possible rating.

The 10th annual report showed a global increase in surveillance and a decline in privacy safeguards during 2007, as concerns over immigration and border control continued to dominate national policy agendas.

The 2007 International Privacy Ranking, published by advocacy groups Privacy International of the UK and the Electronic Privacy Information Center in the US gave Britain the "black" or "endemic" ranking for the second year in a row.

Gus Hosein, of Privacy International, justified the UK's low ranking, noting that the country has the world's largest network of surveillance cameras, plans for national identity cards rich with personal and biometric information, and little government accountability when personal information is lost.

"This government has access to its people and technology that China doesn't," says Hosein. "It really is that bad here." ...

New Scientist 07 January 2008

Privacy International

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Civil rights fears over DNA 'census'

More than 100,000 people, including children as young as 10, will be asked to provide saliva tests and DNA samples in a new annual survey of the lives, behaviour and beliefs of people in the United Kingdom.

The UK Household Longitudinal Study will replace the long-running British Household Panel Survey. It will be the most expensive and ambitious survey of its kind in the world, costing an initial £15m and covering 40,000 households. ...

The study will incorporate the existing survey, which has been running since 1991, but will ask those taking part to allow interviewers working for the National Centre for Social Research to take a saliva sample and allow a range of physical examinations. 'The sample could be sent to a medical laboratory to look at indicators of health, such as sugar and cholesterol levels, and for genetic tests that use the DNA contained in saliva,' said Buck.

The sample will not be tested for diseases such as HIV but interviewers may ask those taking part for permission to store a small amount that can be used as medical tests become more advanced. 'If a certain gene is found in the future to be associated with a certain illness, then being able to go back to previously gathered samples and testing to see how common that gene is will help to plan healthcare,' said Buck.

The Observer 30 December 2007

UKHLS

FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics

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You’re better safe than free -
the mantra of the Whitehall Taliban

How much did you drink last week? In Harrogate 26.4% of you had between 12 and 17 “large” glasses of wine (depending on your sex), in Mole Valley 25.5% of you did, and in Leeds 25.3%. Don’t ask me how the government knows this. It apparently wants to “target middle-class drinkers”. Public money must be squandered, so why not measure the nation’s drinking habits?

Meanwhile the makers of the film, The Bourne Ultimatum, needed a location where a character could be watched by police as he moved step by step about the city. Did they use Moscow or Berlin or New York? No, they used London. They did so because Britain is the world capital of surveillance, deploying a fifth of the global stock of closed-circuit television cameras, even though the Home Office admitted last week that they were next to useless. ...

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, wants to give the police and others access to all mobile phone records - and one day possibly the satellite tracking of car movements. Smith wants to supplement this material with electronic identity cards, including personal and criminal details, and computerised medical records. If the lord chief justice and others get their way the DNA of every native of, and visitor to, Britain will be added to this mighty store.

Given the number of access points - police, National Health Service, Whitehall, local councils and insurance companies - and given the ease of modern computer hacking, every Briton’s life story will be open to all and vulnerable to all. One result is that millions may find it impossible to get credit or insurance cover. ...

Sunday Times 21 October 2007

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Moving towards post-democracy?

This summer one of our biggest debates cycled down the road from Westminster and set up camp outside Heathrow, where environmental protestors (ranging from seasoned eco-warriors to suburban housewives) became a magnet for concern about the impact of the vast expansion in air travel on climate change.

However, the aim of the protest was not just to challenge public opinion and get people to change their minds about flying. It was also aimed at getting governments to do something.

The role of our domestic legislature was an essential part of the story in another way, too. For what few noticed is that the parliamentary Act used to challenge the climate camp makes any protest virtually illegal, interpreted to the boundaries of its meaning.

The 1997 Protection from Harassment Act, as amended by the 2005 Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA), creates an offence of trying "to persuade any person ... not to do something that he is entitled or required to do" or "to do something that he [or she, presumably] is not under any obligation to do" in a way that harasses them.

Harassment is defined as "alarming the person or causing the person distress". Alarm and distress are left undefined. As such, they become catch all categories – rather like “terror” in legislation directed at combating what the experts rather forensically call “asymmetric, non-state sanctioned violence, designed to intimidate people and public institutions.”

Public demonstrations are, by definition, trying to get someone or somebody alarmed or distressed about something – the treatment of workers, environmental damage, human rights, global poverty, or whatever. And increasingly, the legislature is forcing the executive and the judiciary to ban them ...

Ekklesia 07 September 2007

Top

Climate of Fear

If nothing else, police attitudes at the climate camp indicated that the road to sustainability is likely to be a rocky one. If the camp's media collective seemed to be pumping out the message that a peaceful negotiated solution to climate change is just on the horizon, and airhead mass-media celebs confuse low-carbon living with the Atkins diet, the Metropolitan Police at least seem to realise that any genuine attempts to push our society towards a carbon-neutral and eco-friendly future will mean a total smashing of the status quo. And needless to say that's something the boys in blue and their bosses are none too keen on. ...

Throughout the week campers were subjected to assaults, constant stops and searches, sexist comments, aggression and sarcasm from the Met. One element of police repression which attracted some mainstream media attention were the searches under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act. In fact by Wednesday most stops were being conducted under Section 1 of PACE (this meant that the police claimed to suspect everyone of 'going equipped to cause criminal damage'). One man was stopped on the basis that he was thus 'equipped', even though two minutes before he was being kicked out of West Drayton police station with no possessions and wearing a paper suit! Stops and searches were carefully coordinated with a team of police photographers making sure that everyone stopped had their mugshot taken. People were forcibly and illegally detained until the happy snaps could be shot. Of course 99% of these searches produced no evidence of anything ...

schnews.org 24 August 2007

Anti-terror powers used at climate camp

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SOCPA - The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005

What does the phrase "Serious Organised Crime" conjure up in your mind? Violent murder, drug gangs, and protection rackets perhaps?

High-level fraud and corruption, corporate tax evasion and dodgy arms deals maybe?

Think anti-social behaviour, and peaceful protest, and you'll be on the right lines.

SOCPA is a long document, setting up the ‘Serious Organised Crime Agency’ but also introducing clauses that target protesters in this country in various ways.

Section 125 covers harassment (used on animal rights protestors), Sections 128-131 deal with military bases (with serious penalties on trespassers) and Sections 132-138 outlaw "unauthorised" demonstrations roughly 1 kilometre around Parliament ...

occupiedlondon.org 20 March 2007

SOCPA Border Control

Top

2012 London Olympics: Police State Opening Ceremony

A combination of leaked documents and public policy debate has recently revealed that the British government is preparing to use the 2012 Olympic games in London as a showcase for multiple big brother police state operations and technologies.

The London Telegraph reported on Sunday that a memo, entitled No 10 Policy Working Group on Security, Crime and Justice, Technological Advances, asks: "To what extent should the expectation of liberty be eroded by legitimate intrusions in the interests of security of the wider public?"

The document, drawn up by officials at the Home Office and sent to 10 Downing Street, explores ways of winning over public opinion to intrusive and liberty crushing methods of policing and surveillance and concludes: "Increasing [public] support could be possible through the piloting of certain approaches in high-profile ways such as the London Olympics."

This is key as it shows that the overall agenda is to make people accept big brother per se, not to make them accept it in the short term to ensure security at the Olympic games. Once again it is clear that security is not the issue, the real agenda is control.

Some of the methods advanced by the memo include empowering police to scan postal packages, advancing CCTV systems to monitor individuals, tracking people's movements via the electronic Oyster travel card system already in use in London and a massive extension of the national DNA database. ...

... it is again clear that such moves have nothing to do with increasing security for the Olympic games.

How is it that a British national DNA database is going to keep us secure from any foreign visitors who wish to carry out acts of crime or terror during the global spectacle of the Olympics?

Last November the London Times reported that authorities were also considering the 2012 Olympics as a cover for the introduction of high-powered microphones attached to CCTV cameras.

The microphones, which are already in use in the Netherlands, can pick up "aggressive tones" on the basis of 12 factors, including decibel level, pitch and the speed at which words are spoken. They are so advanced that background noise is filtered out, enabling the camera to focus on specific conversations in public places. ...

Indy Media 08 February 2007

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No terror supremo will overcome public fears of enemies within

Britain's biggest national security problem isn't so much law enforcement as a cycle of mutual hostility and alienation.

Blog in reply to Max Hastings:

buddha9

November 14, 2006 02:14 AM

Max - your interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying article, raises some points which need rebutting -

1 - Why are Muslims the only underclass disaffected by economic deprivation, while white w/class are simply driven by race hatred? Neo-liberalism has created a situation where dissatisfaction is being increasingly felt by everyone (middle class included) and in fact, you could argue this widespread dissatisfaction is precisely what is being averted and headed off by being transformed into race hatred.

2- none of the chattering/political classes of whom you are member, have yet proved why the so called Muslim threat is any different than the much more potent IRA threat - after all that lasted generations, they were citizens of Britain. No one asked why Catholics weren't integrated/ couldn't integrate. Indeed the IRA threat lasted many years and let off more bombs and didn’t require, despite their open threat to UK sovereignty, the sort of exaggerated anti-terrorism legislation which is routinely considered now.

3- Why is it that when Muslims question the official narratives concerning the 9/11 and 7/7 bombings, they are automatically labelled terrorists sympathisers? 40% of Americans according to various polls think the US govt. knew off or sponsored in some form the attacks on the twin Towers. Are they all terrorists? Well perhaps they will be in a few years.

4 it is not Pakistan’s radicals who pose a threat to the population of Britain, but the Pakistan intelligence service as various articles tacitly admit. They are the ones rearming the resurgent Taliban, they are the ones who seem constantly to have some sort of connection to every claimed crazy radical caught in Britain. What do you propose to do about them? Well nothing of course.

5 your ref to the New East End is warranted, its a very good book. The liberals (and we're all liberals now) do dump people in areas of already existing poverty, without consulting the residents and when unrest happens the very same liberals from their sanctuaries in west and north London, utter pious homilies against the racism of the working class. Considering they are confronting the problems and they're under resourced already, I'm amazed (and I've worked in the east end) how little racism there is in these areas. Dump a lot of any sort of foreigners in Hampstead and see what you get.

6 i notice you claim al qaida (al-CIA-da) are indiscriminate, where the IRA weren't. Well Max some of us have long memories, and I don't recall the daily tele discriminating in this manner when the IRA bombs were going off.

Still, after all of that, I’ve seen much worse and more stupid articles about this topic than yours. The standard of the debate is getting better. The problem with your pious ending which of course everyone would wish were true, is that it fails to take into account the officially endorsed and ongoing violence that this system perpetuates on everyone, every day. Until that is resolved violence will occur. It’s just a matter of how you label it.

The first step away from this sort of violence is for the rich to admit that their 20 year endeavour to stuff as much of the GNP cake into their mouths as they possibly can without paying any social cost what so ever, has in fact endangered everyone including them. That's the root course of the problem: neo-liberalism and the rich’s greedy, anti-social behaviour that goes with it. No amount of finger pointing and scapegoating of Muslims will alleviate that. The Guardian 14 November 2006

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Serious Organised Crime & Police Act 2005

The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 has received most publicity for it's ban on unauthorised protests within 1 km of Parliament - widely accepted to have been devised to end the peace protest of Brian Haw.

Brian Haw has maintained a five year protest against the war on Iraq opposite the Houses of Parliament but, in May this year, the police began dismantling his site.

Maya Evans and Milan Rai were arrested at the Cenotaph on Whitehall for reading out the names of UK soldiers and civilians killed in the war in Iraq.

It is unacceptable that security laws should be used to protect Parliamentarians from legitimate protest. This is a significant attack on our traditional rights to free expression and assembly.

SOCPA also makes all offences arrestable, meaning that protesters who might previously have received a warning, could now be arrested.

It widens ASBOs, by allowing unaccountable bodies to seek them against individuals, and creates a new criminal offence of trespass on a 'designated site' on grounds of national security. 'National security' is not defined, which risks the new offence being used against protesters.

Specific provisions were also brought in against animal rights protesters. The crime of 'economic sabotage' not only extended the criminalisation of violent and unlawful protesters, but was so broadly drafted as to make criminals of many peaceful protestors who were simply calling for boycotts.

Liberty

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We don't live in a police state yet, but we're heading there

The argument for social control goes like this: if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear from a national data bank of identity/the terrorism act/the tapping of MPs' phones/the use of the public-order act to control protest and limit free expression/the new powers of arrest/the retention of DNA samples taken from innocent juveniles. ...

If you put to one side Blair's addiction to summary justice and focus on the measures carried out in the name of security, you find two streams: those devoted to reduction of free speech and the right to protest, and those that concentrate on the surveillance and monitoring of innocent citizens.

The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (Socpa) falls in the first category. Apart from increasing the police's powers of arrest, it removed the right to demonstrate within one kilometre of parliament, a right people still possess in Serbia and Ukraine.

Section 44 of the 2000 Terrorism Act, meanwhile, allows police to stop and search anyone in a designated area. This has been used to obstruct demonstrations against the Iraq war, global capitalism and arms fairs and even those who heckled speakers at last year's Labour party conference. Linked with issuing Asbos, it has proved highly effective in controlling demonstrations which offend the government.

To limit what can be said in public, the government also inserted a provision in Socpa that criminalises opinions that are held to stir up religious hatred. You may not make a joke about Islam, Judaism or Christianity without risking a criminal record. And section 5 of the Public Order Act allows police to prosecute if they believe a hate crime has been committed. ...

If anything, the strand of Blair's campaign devoted to surveillance and bugging is much more worrying. He has already granted MI5 and the police powers to pry on people's email and text messages. According to the Independent on Sunday, he now plans to allow MPs' communications to be intercepted by MI5. It is astonishing that parliament did not erupt.

If US senators and members of Congress were being bugged, there would be an outcry.

The constitution would be flourished, as it is now by Greenpeace, the Council for American-Islamic Relations and a number of well-known writers such as Christopher Hitchens and James Bamford in a case claiming the Bush administration's use of wiretaps is a violation of privacy and free speech. ...

Does anyone care about the proposals to extend the automatic numberplate recognition system throughout Britain's motorway network so that the details of every journey by every innocent member of the public are retained? I spent an entire day last week being batted from the Home Office to the Department of Transport and the Highways Agency trying to determine what legislation enables this scheme.

The answer is none.

I spoke to the pleasant chief constable of Hertfordshire, Frank Whiteley, who advocates this system on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers. He made points about the detection of criminals and terrorists, but conceded there was indeed a cost to civil liberties.

Piece by piece, that system is being built because the CCTV cameras already in place can also read numberplates. Yet there has been no debate in parliament, no special powers enacted, no one questioning the cost or the privacy issues. Make no mistake - we are wiring up for the police state.

Henry Porter, The Observer, Sunday January 22, 2006

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All UK 'must be on DNA database'

The whole population and every UK visitor should be added to the national DNA database, a senior judge has said.

The present database in England and Wales holds details of 4m people who are guilty or cleared of a crime.

Lord Justice Sedley said this was indefensible and biased against ethnic minorities, and it would be fairer to include everyone, guilty or innocent. ...

Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said there was "no earthly reason" why someone who has committed no crime should be on the database - "yet the government is shoving thousands of innocent people's DNA details on to the database every month".

The DNA database - which is 12 years old - grows by 30,000 samples a month taken from suspects or recovered from crime scenes.

There has already been criticism of the database - the largest in the world - because people who are found innocent usually cannot get their details removed. ...

BBC NEWS 05 September 2007

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'Sleepwalking into Stasi state'

Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, has warned that Britain could be sleepwalking into an East German-style surveillance society, holding extensive but secret files on all citizens.

Mr Thomas said the government was planning three population databases that would make more personal information quickly available to more officials, yet citizens would not be able to find out what the government knew about them.

The projects, he said, were the home secretary's identity card scheme, the citizens' information project (a population register proposed by the Office for National Statistics), and a planned database of every child in the country from birth to the age of 18.

"My anxiety is that we don't sleepwalk into a surveillance society where much more information is collected about people, accessible to far more people shared across many more boundaries, than British society would feel comfortable with," he told The Times. ...

The Guardian 16 August 2004

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Police State Britain: More Links

DNA evidence is far from foolproof

SOCPA

The Children's Index

The NHS Spine

Building Big Brother

We are already at the gates of the surveillance society

Britain's surveillance future

Britain: the most spied on nation in the world

The Surveillance Society - pdf

You ARE being Watched

Your Life in Their Lens

Surveillance Society - 2016

The most spied on society in Europe

Implant Tagging

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