|
28 ¾: How Constant Age Checks are Infantilising Adults |
|
September 2010, Manifesto Club REPORT
With the coalition government planning tougher penalties for under-age serving, our new report finds that 'Think 25' policies are already penalising thousands of innocent adults. 28 ¾: How Constant Age Checks Are Infantilising Adults, by Dolan Cummings, finds that adults in their late 20s and 30s are being hassled by constant ID checks – and that the new rules will make this problem worse. The report is based on our survey of people's ID check experiences, and argues for the abolition of 'Think 25' policies and other over-cautious age-check rules.
Read more... | Download the full report (pdf)
|
|
|
Business as usual for 'Big Brother state'? |
|
27 August 2010, By Brian Wheeler Political reporter, BBC News
The return of the architect of transformational government, Ian
Watmore, to the heart of government is seen by civil liberties
campaigners as a sign that transformational government could be about
to make a comeback - even though the Cabinet Office insists data
sharing is not part of his remit and there is a government-wide freeze
on new IT spending.
Read more...
|
|
|
Mental disability, state power and the capacity to decide |
|
20 August 2010, Wayne Martin, Liberty Central, guardian.co.uk
The issue of forced contraception raises difficult questions about autonomous decision making under the Mental Capacity Act
Read more...
|
|
|
Don’t tinker with the vetting rules: scrap them |
|
8 July 2010, Josie Appleton, Spiked
The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act is based on a poisonous assumption: that every adult is a potential abuser unless state-approved.
Read more...
|
|
|
8 July 2010, Abelinda Blackbird, Indymedia
Recently in Camberwell various CCTV smart cars have been patrolling residential areas under the publicly known purpose of traffic enforcement. A group of activists who had recently moved to the area observed the Southwark council spy cars recording number plates of all cars passing through their vicinity as well as recording the movements of the local residents and taking footage of people’s houses. This considerable infringement on civil liberties was quite enough for the activists to stand so they went their merry way out onto the streets with their two banners, one reading ‘CCTV free zone’ and another reading ‘freedom not filming’.
Read more...
|
|
|
Coalition should be ashamed of continuing 28-day detention |
|
7 July 2010, Tim Kevan, guardian.co.uk
Just when we had a glimmer of hope on civil liberties, the home
secretary, Theresa May, announces that the government will seek to
renew the 28-day detention period without charge pending a review of
counter-terrorism legislation. The coalition has had no difficulty
reversing plenty of the last government's spending pledges and even,
let's face it, details such as the tax on cider. But when it comes to
something as profound as our very liberty then it's more of the same.
May said the measure allowing terror suspects to be held for 28 days
before charge should be temporarily renewed for six months. She could
very easily have let it revert to its previous length of 14 days, which
even then would have left us with the longest period of such detention
in the western world.
Read more...
|
|
|
We must show we will not tolerate this arrogant policing |
|
3 July 2010, Emily Apple, guardian.co.uk
It has been a week of exposures and embarrassments for the police, revealing the extent of their arrogance towards calls for change. On Friday, the Guardian revealed how the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, one of three domestic extremism units, had logged the Catts – peaceful protesters against the EDO MBM Technology arms factory in Brighton – more than 80 times, including detailing their appearance and slogans on their T-shirts. Further to this, Criminal Intelligence Reports (CRIMINTs) disclosed to Fitwatch, during an appeal against conviction for blocking police cameras, show how the Metropolitan police public order unit, CO11, documented the details of speakers, including MP Jeremy Corbyn, at a legal demonstration against the BBC's refusal to air the Gaza appeal in January 2009. Another speaker noted is the interfaith adviser to Nick Clegg, Fiyaz Mughal, who is also his adviser on extremism – you couldn't make it up.
Read more...
|
|
|
World known artists protesting for a free Belarus |
|
2 July 2010, Charter97.org
Britain’s theatre community comes out against oppression and censorship in the “last dictatorship of Europe”. Sir Tom Stoppard and actor/director Sam West Has led a protest of high-profile theatre practitioners outside the Belarussian Embassy at 6 Kensington Court, London, W8 5DL on Thursday 1st July at 11.30am. They presentes an open letter to President Alyaksander Lukashenko of Belarus calling for greater democratic freedom and for an end to censorship of the Internet. Other signatories include Mark Ravenhill, Howard Brenton, Alan Rickman, Laura Wade, Caryl Churchill, Henry Goodman, Henry Porter, Simon McBurney, Simon Stephens and Lyndsey Turner.
Read more...
|
|
|
Why are we so cruel to those who seek sanctuary? |
|
20 June 2010, The Observer
That last week's alleged assault on 42 Iraqi men on a plane from Heathrow to Baghdad went largely unreported is a disgrace
Read more...
|
|
|
It's time for legislators to look more closely at familial searches of DNA databases |
|
June 14, 2010, By Natalie Ram and Michael Seringhaus, Slate
The U.S. forensic DNA database has expanded rapidly in recent years. While it was originally authorized to store the DNA profiles of only convicted violent felons, the FBI Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) now includes all federal offenders—including arrestees not yet convicted of any crime—as well as convicts from all 50 states and arrestees from many. Such expansions of the database are troubling, but at least they are explicit. More worrisome is the effective inclusion of many innocent individuals in the database, via novel and almost completely unregulated search techniques called "partial matching" and "familial searching." By adopting one or both of these search techniques, some states are quietly expanding database coverage to "virtually" include the innocent relatives of profiled offenders—nearly always without any legislative oversight.
Read more...
|
|
|
9 June 2010, Damian Green, guardian.co.uk
When the second reading of the Identity Documents bill takes place in the House of Commons later today, the coalition government will meet its commitment to scrap the ID card scheme.This bill is the first step the government will take to reduce control by the state and hand power pack to the people. It is not the job of government to collect and store vast amounts of biographical and biometric data belonging to innocent people.
Read more...
|
|
|
Coalition to leave Summary Care Records little changed? |
|
June 4, 2010, Tony Collins's IT Projects blog, Computer Weekly
In a Parliamentary answer yesterday, the new minister for NHS IT, Conservative MP Simon Burns, appears to confirm that there will be little change to the Summary Care Records scheme.
Read more...
|
|
|
The Coalition has performed a disgraceful u-turn on the Summary Care Record |
|
4 June 2010, Alex Deane, Big Brother Watch
The Government has announced that it will continue building the Summary Care Record database of our medical data. This contradicts the Conservative position outlined last year: 'A Conservative government would "dismantle" central NHS IT infrastructure, halt and renegotiate NPfIT local service provider contracts and introduce interoperable local systems.' It also contradicts the Liberal Democrat position outlined this year, when Norman Lamb, then Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: "The Government needs to end its obsession with massive central databases. The NHS IT scheme has been a disastrous waste of money and the national programme should be abandoned."
Read more...
|
|
|
Got any ID? These checks are out of hand |
|
14 May 2010, Josie Appleton, guardian.co.uk
Challenging the culture of routine checks on British citizens' identities is as crucial as taking on the ID card scheme
Read more...
|
|
|
Have you been ID checked for buying alcohol? |
|
14 May 2010, Manifesto Club SURVEY
The age for ID-checking customers creeps upwards, with people in their late twenties and thirties now frequently checked. Have you been ID checked for buying alcohol, fireworks or bleach? If so, we want to know about it. Fill in this Manifesto Club survey and tell us about your case.
Read more...
|
|
|
Tell your GP a secret - and 900 council staff may have access to it |
|
May 10, 2010, Tony Collins, IT Projects Blog
In 2008 Elizabeth Dove (a pseudonym) saw her GP to ask what could be done about her depression. Some time later Dove had a dispute with her local council, a matter entirely unrelated to her health. Pursuing her complaint to the Isle of Wight council, she submitted a request under the Data Protection Act to be sent all the information the authority held on her. To her dismay, she received sensitive data from her GP health records. It came from officials at the local council's housing department - with whom she had the dispute. It turns out that her health data was held on a joint council and primary care trust system "Swift". She hadn't consented to her health records being shared with the local council...
Read more...
|
|
|
Changing the Rules by Stealth: the UK's Constitution is being written as public follows election |
|
28 April 2010, Andrew Blick, Our Kingdom
While we are distracted by the General Election, the people who remain in power regardless of the outcome - the Civil Service - are busy drafting our constitution for us; and we have not been invited to participate.
Read more...
|
|
|
Personal privacy: This government is too keen to catch us on camera |
|
Sunday 18 April 2010, The Observer
The authors of section 44 of the 2000 Prevention of Terrorism Act did not intend to mandate the systematic harassment of photographers. The law gives police the power to stop and search people, without suspicion of criminal intention, in any area considered a possible target for terrorist attack. Since al-Qaida targets civilians, an area vulnerable to attack can plausibly be defined as a place where people gather. Predictably, that interpretation is the one police seem to prefer when using their power.
Read more...
|
|
|
Digital Economy Act: This means war |
|
16 April 2010, Cory Doctorow, guardian.co.uk
Baking surveillance, control and censorship into the very fabric of our networks, devices and laws is the absolute road to dictatorial hell
Read more...
|
|
|
Hmmm…Software That Predicts If You Will Do Crime & Time |
|
April 14 2010, By Stacey Higginbotham, GigaOm.com
The Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice says it will use predictive analytics software from IBM to foretell which of its juvenile offenders are likely to return to crime. The UK Ministry of Justice also uses IBM’s predictive software on its criminal population, to see which ones pose a greater threat to public safety upon release. IBM clearly plans to take SPSS beyond its former domain of market researchers and scientists and apply it to where the big money is — homeland security in these frightening times.
Read more...
|
|
|
Hang 'em will defy the political class |
|
14 April 2010, Anthony Barnett, guardian.co.uk
Hang 'em is just one campaign seeking to make constitutional change from below. We want our country and democracy back
Read more... | Hang 'em website
|
|
|
Surveillance + detention = £Billions: How Labour’s friends are ‘securing your world’ |
|
13 April 2010, Clare Sambrook, Our Kingdom
At the bustling Counter Terror Expo in London’s Olympia this week they are giving top billing to the security industry’s favourite politician. ‘The most experienced cabinet minister of modern times’, they call him: Dr John Reid. Home office colleagues say Reid — Labour hard man, former secretary of state for health and defence, and home secretary — is the minister who brought business in from the cold. These days relations are warm and cosy. Marketing their wares as vital to the war on terror, while dreaming up everyday applications for intrusive high security kit, Reid’s friends have quietly advanced deep into the public sector — running schools, GP clinics and police investigations. Out of government but still a serving MP, Reid has been taking £50,000 a year from G4S — the Group 4 Securicor giant.
Read more...
|
|
|
UK's discriminatory criminalization of dissent |
|
13 April 2010, Sarah Irving, The Electronic Intifada
"We are very angry, very afraid, very sad, very upset. My wife, she is depressed. When she sees police in the street she's very frightened. They destroyed our life," says Badi Tebani. In January 2009, Tebani's teenage son Yahia was one of tens of thousands of people who joined demonstrations in London against the Israeli bombing of Gaza. At one of those demonstrations Yahia and many others were "kettled" -- surrounded by a police cordon and slowly let out in return for giving their names and addresses and for being filmed. hat was the last Yahia knew of it until the following April, when the family home was raided by 20 to 30 police at 5am. The front door was forced open and Badi Tebani and his family were ordered to lie on the floor
Read more...
|
|
|
Digital Economy Bill: Nine things you can't do any more |
|
9 April 2010, By Rich Trenholm, CNET
The Digital Economy Bill has a number of clauses that, if taken to their logical extremes, could see some pretty horrible outcomes. It's completed its whistle-stop tour of the legislative process, sprinting from Commons to Lords with barely a pause for breath before getting the nod from Her Maj. MPs decided to get the bill into law first and worry about the details later. Until Ofcom hammers out the mechanics of the processes outlined in the bill, it's impossible to say how we'll be affected. We take a look at some of the worst-case scenarios.
Read more...
|
|
|
Sarah's Law review skewed by handpicked sample |
|
26th March 2010, By John Ozimek • The Register
Home Office jubilation over the "success" of its sex offender disclosure scheme may be premature amid yet more evidence of the Home Office twisting research to suit its own agenda. That is the conclusion of sharp-eyed blogger, Hawktalk, who also questioned whether the way the scheme works in practice might create problems for wholly innocent individuals through the creation of misleading audit trails and over-zealous public officials applying the rule that "there’s no smoke without fire".
Read more...
|
|
|
Broken Records: The worrying lack of security around your medical history |
|
25 March 2010, Big Brother Watch REPORT
New research conducted by Big Brother Watch reveals that there are at least 100,000 non-medical personnel in NHS Trusts across the country with access to confidential medical records. The report - Broken Records - is an analysis of the status of confidential medical records in the UK, the security around access to sensitive personal information and how the Government’s NPfIT and the Conservatives' private sector proposals could change the current situation for the worse.
Read more... | Download the report [pdf]...
|
|
|
A scandalous way to force through constitutional reform |
|
March 25, 2010, David Pannick QC, The Times
Few British politicians are interested in the constitution. They are much more concerned with how to achieve, or retain, power, and what to do with it, than with imposing limits on government. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, which received its second reading in the House of Lords yesterday, confirms that this Government does not understand constitutional norms. Parliament should reject any attempt to force any parts of this Bill through without proper scrutiny.
Read more...
|
|
|
Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights: Bringing Human Rights Back In |
|
25 March 2010, Joint Committee on Human Rights
The Government states that "the protection of human rights is a key principle underpinning all the Government's counter-terrorism work." However, all too often human rights considerations are squeezed out by the imperatives of national security and public safety. Since September 11th 2001 the Government has continuously justified many of its counterterrorism measures on the basis that there is a public emergency threatening the life of the nation. We question whether the country has been in such a state for more than eight years. This permanent state of emergency inevitably has a deleterious effect on public debate about the justification for counter-terrorism measures.
Download report [pdf]...
|
|
|
Taser quarterly statistics to September 2009 |
|
25 March 2010, Home Office
The report provides the figures on the reported and recorded use of taser by police forces in England and Wales.
Read more... | Download PDF...
|
|
|
March 22 2010, Toby Stevens, Privacy, Identity & Consent Blog, Computer Weekly
A very unpleasant little amendment to the Licensing Act (2003) is in front of Ministers for approval as a Statutory Instrument (SI). This ridiculous SI, which is another back-door attempt to undermine civil liberties and bolster the National ID Service, will pass on 6 April unless it is sent back by Parliament.
Read more...
|
|
|
Has Meg Hillier gone mad? |
|
19 March 2010, Clare Sambrook, Our Kingdom
Home Office minister Meg Hillier took a leap into la la land on today’s BBC Daily Politics Programme, claiming that if the government stopped locking up asylum seekers and their children, then the price of trafficked children would rise, putting more children at risk of trafficking. I am not making this up.
Read more...
|
|
|
Bad Laws: Labour has clowned around with our freedom |
|
19 Mar 2010, By Philip Johnston, Telegraph
This nanny-state government's legislative tinkering leaves no one better off, says Philip Johnston in an extract from his new book
Read more...
|
|
|
New Labour’s Iron Curtain for artists |
|
17 March 2010, Manick Govinda, Spiked
Ludicrously strict visa rules for artists and academics from overseas are strangling cultural life in the UK.
Read more...
|
|
|
What feedback does the government really want on ID cards? |
|
March 16, 2010, Nicole Kobie, IT Pro
My mum — and yours too, I’m sure — used to say this: “If you’ve got nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” That’s not bad advice for six-year-olds, but I’d expect better from the government. Yesterday, I went to a speech delivered by identity minister Meg Hillier, who was telling attendees what’s next for the contentious and expensive programme at an event hosted by think tank the Social Market Forum...
Read more...
|
|
|
Labour has taken 13 years of diabolical liberties with Britain |
|
16 Mar 2010, By Simon Heffer, Telegraph
A danger of the Government's having made such a mess of the economy is that one risks forgetting all the other horrors for which it is responsible. Between now and the election I shall make a point of discussing some of these other factors that an intelligent voter should want to consider before casting his or her ballot. Despite stiff competition from matters like Europe, immigration, law and order and the near-destruction of our education system, one is perhaps worse than all the others: the insidious and at times quite terrifying assault on our civil liberties.
Read more...
|
|
|
ID cards can help fight social exclusion |
|
15 Mar 2010, Progress Magazine
Home Office minister Meg Hillier argues ID cards can provide the foundation for fairer access to services and opportunities
Read more...
|
|
|
My mother, the secret litter lout of Wimpole Street |
|
12.03.10, Stephen Robinson, This is London
My mother is not ready to confess at this early stage. In the manner of an American politician up before a federal grand jury, her settled position is that she has “no recollection” of committing the offence for which she is now under surveillance. For my part, I had no idea of her alleged criminal tendencies until last week, when, in a state of baffled anxiety, she forwarded me a menacing little communication she had received from the City of Westminster.
Read more...
|
|
|
The Twitter “Bomb Hoax” case: worse than we thought? |
|
2 March 2010, Allen Green, The Lawyer
An apparent bomb hoax should be taken seriously. But the charging and prosecution of Paul Chambers for making an ill-conceived joke on Twitter raises serious issues for anyone interested in social media and the role of criminal law; for Paul Chambers was not charged or prosecuted – at least not directly - for making a bomb hoax at all. And what he was charged and prosecuted for suggests that a significant injustice may be occurring, and which may occur again for other bloggers, twitterers, commenters, and other users of the internet. Indeed, it may affect anyone who sends an email, even if there is a delivery failure.
Read more...
|
|
|
Unaccompanied Children Seeking Asylum: Privacy, Consent and Data Protection |
|
February 2010, Terri Dowty and Dr Ian Brown, ARCH
This report focuses on the way in which the data of Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children is handled, and whether information-sharing practices conform to data protection and human rights requirements. The first section considers current practice and the law; the second examines the systems and processes used to support information storage and sharing. When we began our research, we assumed that it would chiefly be about IT systems and processes. At that early stage we had not appreciated the high level of concern amongst local authority staff and refugee organisations about the way in which children’s sensitive data may be shared, both between agencies and with central government, and in particular the scale of the controversy surrounding the process of assessing a child’s age. The handling of the extensive personal information gathered during this process undoubtedly raises many issues for children’s privacy and data protection rights.
Read more... | Download the report (pdf)
|
|
|
'The Bell Ringers' by Henry Porter |
|
February 21, 2010, Alan Cheuse, Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
Every step you take / I'll be watching you ... The refrain from the stalker's love song, "Every Breath You Take," by the Police, might serve as the epigram for this gripping new British thriller. The book tells of the dangers of an overreaching prime minister and his supporters, some of them multibillionaire media and public relations magnates. Over the course of a few years sometime in the near future, they create software programs and camera monitors that make it possible for government to know the private details of the population's hopes, dreams, fears and finances.
Read more...
|
|
|
It is not very nice to be mistaken for a paedophile |
|
February 15th, 2010, By Andrew M Brown, Telegraph
This afternoon I was assumed to be a paedophile – not for that long, but still it was an uncomfortable sensation. I was sitting next to my wife in the audience at the Young Vic theatre, waiting to watch the National Theatre production of The Cat in the Hat. Our children were sitting on the floor in front of us.
Read more...
|
|
|
Alex Deane: Demolish the myth that safety, in and of itself, is an absolute good |
|
12 February 2010, Alex Deane, Independent
In arguing against airport body scanners, I've been met with variations on an increasingly prevalent fallacy: "if it makes us a little safer, it's worth it"; "if it saves one life, stops one crime..." What a specious argument that is.
Read more...
|
|
|
Dark thriller in an Orwellian police state |
|
February 7 2010, Anna Mundow interviews Henry Porter, Boston Globe
Henry Porter, political columnist for The Observer and UK editor of
Vanity Fair, is the author of five novels including “Brandenburg Gate,”
which was set during the fall of the Berlin Wall. Porter’s new novel,
“The Bell Ringers” is a dark counterpoint to that previously optimistic
vision. This superb political thriller depicts England in the near
future as a place where fabricated security threats, state
surveillance, and antiterrorist legislation advance political ambitions
and control. Porter spoke from his home in London.
Read more at The Boston Globe...
|
|
|
He stepped out of the dark with a gun… |
|
7 February 2010, Victoria Coren, The Observer
We were so proud of our unarmed police force. Now they're like so many Schwarzeneggers
Read more...
|
|
|
Terror and academic freedom |
|
5 February 2010, Rizwaan Sabir, guardian.co.uk
Draconian anti-terror laws are blocking the serious study of terrorism and counter-terrorism at UK universities
Read more...
|
|
|
‘We’re afraid of our kids, and we’re afraid for them’ |
|
3 February 2010, Jennie Bristow, Spiked
Anthony Horowitz, author of the bestselling teenage spy novels, talks to Jennie Bristow about vetting and the poisoning of adult-child relations.
Read more...
|
|
|
Patrick Anderson reviews 'The Bell Ringers' by Henry Porter |
|
February 1, 2010, By Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post
English journalist Henry Porter's "The Bell Ringers" (published in England last year as "The Dying Light") is one of many novels that have attempted to update "Nineteen Eighty-Four" -- and one of the more impressive. But while Orwell offered a worst-case scenario of what could happen 35 years in the future, Porter is writing about what, as he sees it, is already starting to happen... This
is a sophisticated, engrossing and important political thriller. Porter
wants us to see that the same technological tools that can be used to
fight terrorism or to make government more efficient can also, in the
wrong hands, be used to destroy freedom.
Read more at The Washington Post...
|
|
|
The assault on our civil liberties has been long and laboured |
|
31 January 2010, Mark George QC, The Observer
A noted Manchester QC writes to Observer columnist Henry Porter in support of his campaign
Read more...
|
|
|
Terrorism and child pornography used to justify surveillance society, says academic |
|
23 Jan 2010, Urmee Khan and Martin Beckford, Telegraph
Internet users are being spied on in their own home as the Government uses the threat of terrorism and the spread of child pornography to justify launching a dramatic expansion of surveillance society, according to a leading academic.
Read more...
|
|
|
Do you think you deserve sex? |
|
20 Jan 2010, Richard Vize, Editor's blog, Health Service Journal
The vetting and barring scheme - introduced by the government in the wake of the Soham murders - will cost the NHS millions, put managers under intense pressure to report staff to the Independent Safeguarding Authority to cover their own backs, and could all too easily lead to innocent staff being barred from working with vulnerable adults and children. As HSJ reports this week, the widely criticised scheme will force managers to make moral judgments about staff behaviour and lifestyles. Draft guidance from the ISA circulated this month and being considered by the Department of Health identifies a wide range of personal characteristics which should prompt managers to consider whether to trigger an alert.
Read more...
|
|
|
1 2 3
