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Scientists Decry "Flawed" and "Horrifying" Nationality Tests |
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September 29, 2009, By John Travis, ScienceMag.org
Scientists are greeting with surprise and dismay a project to use DNA and isotope analysis of tissue from asylum seekers to evaluate their nationality and help decide who can enter the United Kingdom. “Horrifying,” “naïve,” and “flawed” are among the adjectives geneticists and isotope specialists have used to describe the “Human Provenance pilot project,” launched quietly in mid-September by the U.K. Border Agency. Their consensus: The project is not scientifically valid--or even sensible.
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Euro project to arrest us for what they think we will do |
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23rd September 2009, By John Ozimek • The Register
Radical Think Tank Open Europe has this week exposed a study by the EU that could lead to the creation of a massive cross-Europe database, amassing vast amounts of personal data on every single citizen in the EU.
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Policing the Public Gaze: The Assault on Citizen Photography |
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17 September 2009, Pauline Hadaway, Manifesto Club
A new report, by Pauline Hadaway, director of Belfast Exposed gallery, reveals the growing restriction of citizen photography. Policing the Public Gaze: The Assault on Citizen Photography shows that although there is no overarching ban, there has been a creeping restriction of everyday photography - by community safety wardens, private security guards, and self-appointed ‘jobsworths’.
Read more... | Download report...
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Photography: a model of lost liberty |
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17 September 2009, Josie Appleton, guardian.co.uk
From nativity plays to fooball matches we must defend amateur photographers from creeping restrictions
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Stand up for liberty and artistic freedom |
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September 17, 2009, David Hare, The Times
A message for politicians of all parties – with your expenses comes a responsibility . . .
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Protecting children: Ed Balls's review on vetting doesn't go far enough |
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14 Sep 2009, Telegraph
Shortly before the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill completed its journey through Parliament in October 2006, the Government tabled no fewer than 25 new clauses, four new schedules and 250 amendments. The Bill had already been debated in the House of Lords and had been before a Commons committee. Because of timetabling restrictions, the flood of last-minute amendments received cursory scrutiny, if any. This is the Bill that established the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), which will decide the suitability of an estimated 11 million people either to work or take part in voluntary activity with children or the infirm.
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CBA: 'Just stop passing laws' |
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1, Sep 2009, By Alex Stevenson, Politics.co.uk
The government's addiction to lawmaking is driving the legal world "mad", the new head of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) has told politics.co.uk. Paul Mendelle QC claimed lawyers have been overwhelmed by the volume of legislation passed by the New Labour government. Accusing ministers of "legislative hyperactivity", he said: "We have been deluged with criminal justice legislation at a rate several times that of the previous decade. "Law should be accessible to the people who are affected by it. Barristers and judges find it increasingly hard to work out exactly what the law says.
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Sinister plans to merge ID database with Criminal Records Bureau checks |
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August 30 2009, Zach Woodham, Our Kingdom
Last month the Home Office announced that the National Identity Card Scheme would no longer be compulsory and that implementation would be delayed until 2011 or 2012. Online magazine The Register has, however, uncovered proposals to merge the National Identity Register with Criminal Records Bureau background checks, potentially forcing millions of people into ‘applying' for an Identity card that they neither want nor need in order to avoid facing unemployment.
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The day I came face to face with our surveillance state |
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19th August 2009, Vince Cable, Daily Mail
A quarter of a century has passed since 1984, the titular year of George Orwell’s novel which described a world constantly spied upon by an all-powerful dictator, the fearsome Big Brother. It never happened. Orwell’s nightmarish vision was realised, for a while, in communist Eastern Europe but the Stasi and similar agencies have now gone. And yet in a quiet, insidious way our own democratic society is producing a surveillance state that Big Brother would have been proud to call his own.
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Authentication of forensic DNA samples |
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July 17 2009, FSI Genetics
Over the past twenty years, DNA analysis has revolutionized forensic science, and has become a dominant tool in law enforcement. Today, DNA evidence is key to the conviction or exoneration of suspects of various types of crime, from theft to rape and murder. However, the disturbing possibility that DNA evidence can be faked has been overlooked. It turns out that standard molecular biology techniques such as PCR, molecular cloning, and recently developed whole genome amplification (WGA), enable anyone with basic equipment and know-how to produce practically unlimited amounts of in vitro synthesized (artificial) DNA with any desired genetic profile.
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Robbed by the Police: Alcohol confiscation and the hyperregulation of public space |
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June 2009, The Manifesto Club REPORT
The Manifesto Club has launched a report on the police abuse of alcohol confiscation powers. Alcohol control zones were supposedly created to tackle serious public disorder - yet police officers are confiscating alcohol from people who are doing absolutely nothing wrong.
Read more... | Download PDF...
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David Davis: Gordon loses it |
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November 3 2008, David Davis, guardian.co.uk
As the PM admits that the government cannot guarantee data security, going ahead with ID cards means he's lost the plot too
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John Ozimek: Home Office guides plods on photography |
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28th October 2008, By John Ozimek, The Register
Terror Laws due to be passed this autumn, could provide Police with a new and significant power to stop individuals taking photographs.
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Simon Jenkins: My farewell plea to MPs: defend liberty |
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October 26, 2008,
Simon Jenkins, The Sunday Times
Is Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, a pocket dictator? Is there no drop of liberalism in her veins, no concept of personal freedom, no fear of a repressive state?
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Iain Sinclair: Banned in Hackney - for going off-message about the Olympics |
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October 22 2008, Iain Sinclair, The Guardian
A warning to any innocent Hackney writer: question the coming triumph of the 2012 Olympics and, like me, you could achieve the dubious glamour of becoming a banned author.
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Anthony Barnett: What do we do now? |
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Tuesday, July 1 2008, Our Kingdom
A leading Conservative politician in Britain and former shadow home secretary has broken ranks with the political and media establishment to launch a campaign linking government plans to extend the time suspects can be held without charge to a wider erosion of rights and liberties. In a sweeping essay, openDemocracy's founder Anthony Barnett assesses what is at stake and sees this moment as a historic test of democratic commitment for liberals and radicals.
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David Davis: British freedoms are far more precious than the career of any single politician |
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Monday, June 16 2008, conservativehome.blogs.com
David Davis explains why he resigned to fight a by-election on civil liberty issues, and calls for your support in his campaign.
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David Davis: I will fight the slow strangulation of British freedoms |
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Thursday, June 12 2008, guardian.co.uk
This is the text of the speech delivered by the shadow home secretary, announcing his resignation as an MP over 42-day detention.
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Jill Kirby: Councils: they’re watching every move she makes |
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June 8, 2008, The Sunday Times
Every week government departments and other authorities are finding new
ways to spy on us - and passing around even our most personal details,
warns Jill Kirby.
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Jill Kirby: Who do they think we are? |
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January 25, 2008, Centre for Policy Studies REPORT
The proposed introduction of ID cards for British citizens in 2011 represents only the tip of an iceberg of personal information which the Government is collecting
Read more... | Download PDF...
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Centre for Policy Studies: The 2008 Lexicon |
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December 28, 2007, Centre for Policy Studies
Politicians have always manipulated language, often motivated by the desire to create a sense of activity and purpose and thereby to justify their existence. And the language of bureaucracy has long provided a convenient disguise for government action, or inaction. But New Labour has taken this disguise to new heights.
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Labour's attack on legal aid |
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Monday, 17 December 2007, The Guardian
I am a solicitor with more than 20
years' involvement in the legal aid sector. What has happened under
Labour is no less than a sustained attack on an independent legal aid
system that was founded by Labour 60 years ago.
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Simon Jenkins: In the age of leaky data, there is no such thing as a secure online computer |
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Friday, 7 December 2007, The Guardian
PCs have a multitude of uses, but, as a string of recent scandals illustrate, private information storage is not one of them
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Christina Zaba: Data protection won't help once all the data is gone |
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Tuesday, 27 November 2007, The Guardian
Last week's loss of confidential child benefit records has been a wake-up call to 25 million people about the reality of the government's handling of our personal information. But few realise the extent of what lies ahead
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Rachel Sylvester: Coming next... an even bigger database |
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Tuesday, 27 November 2007, The Daily Telegraph
Gordon Brown used to be known as the Macavity of politics, who was
never at the scene of the crime when things went wrong. Now he is in
danger of turning into TS Eliot's other feline creations, Mungojerrie
and Rumpelteazer, who get the blame for every misfortune that occurs,
whether or not it is their fault.
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Ben Goldacre: Now for ID cards - and the biometric blues |
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Saturday, 24 November 2007, The Guardian
So will biometrics prevent ID theft? Well, it might make it more
difficult for you to prove your innocence. And once your fingerprints
are stolen, they are harder to replace than your pin number.
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Jenni Russell: Even if you've got nothing to hide, there's plenty to fear |
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Wednesday, 21 November 2007, The Guardian
The blithe trust in the benign power of the state is astonishing - and in Fortress Britain, it is plainly undeserved
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Rod Liddle: Free speech and the ‘lyrical terrorist’ |
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Wednesday, 21 November 2007, The Spectator
The 28 days debate is a red herring compared to this attack on free speech
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Simon Jenkins: It’s one small step from Brown’s paranoid state into a police one |
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Sunday, 18 November 2007, The Sunday Times
Britain is not a police state but a nation with police state tendencies. In any democracy the dictates of freedom wrestle with those of security. Britons are a liberal people who want to be safe. Do they also want to live in a condition of perpetual paranoia?
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Peter Hitchens: Mussolini would have blushed at these laws, Mr Brown |
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Saturday,17 November 2007, The Daily Mail
I've thought for years that I would end up in jail for some offence against political correctness. I have almost got used to the idea of spending my declining years
writing love-letters for skinhead thugs, eating slop with plastic
cutlery and pushing the library trolley from cell to cell.
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Janice Turner: Fortress Britain, a grotesque thought |
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Saturday, 17 November 2007, The Times
We face overzealous security in our daily lives, and are governed by a Prime Minister in a flap
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Timothy Garton Ash: The threat from terrorism does not justify slicing away our freedoms |
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Thursday, 15 November 2007, The Guardian
Britain is now one of the world's most spied-upon societies, where such ancient rights as habeas corpus are hacked to bits
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Fortress Britain and a gift to terrorists |
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Thursday, 15 November 2007, The Daily Mail
As if it's not difficult enough to get through our airports already, foreign travel is about to get even more exasperating
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Frank Rich: The Coup at Home |
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Sunday, 11 November 2007, New York Times
In the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11, our
democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble
the supposedly aspiring democracies we’ve propped up in places like
Islamabad. Time has taken its toll. We’ve become inured to
democracy-lite...
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Philip Johnston: Why I am prepared to break the law |
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Monday, 12 November 2007, The Telegraph
On the issue of ID cards, I would find myself in the dock with, among many others, Shirley Williams, Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne, three leading Liberal Democrats who have said they will refuse to co-operate with the scheme because it is an unwarranted infringement of liberty.
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AC Grayling: Walls to have ears |
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Monday, 6 November 2007, The Guardian CiF
We are already a over-surveilled society: new measures to add microphones to CCTV cameras are a quantum step in the wrong direction
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A C Grayling: Brown's bona fides |
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Monday, 29 October 2007, The Guardian
The real test of whether the prime minister is a sincere defender of civil liberties remains ID cards
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Simon Jenkins: You’re better safe than free - the mantra of the Whitehall Taliban |
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Sunday, 21 October 2007, The Times
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?
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John Kampfner: Labour's steady path to authoritarianism |
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Friday, 19 October 2007, The Telegraph
Oppositions challenge power, governments hoard it. Pre-1997, Labour proclaimed its commitment to civil liberties. ... The issue of liberty cuts across all parties. Labour's steady path to
authoritarianism is a matter of shame for anyone such as myself. It
also presents a tailor-made opportunity for its political opponents,
one that they should have the courage to pursue.
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Peter Oborne: Magna Carta 2007 - an updated version to protect us from an overweening State |
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Wednesday, 27 September 2007, Daily Mail
Today, the growth of the State intrudes everywhere upon our lives and our
liberties. We must set boundaries now, or our ancient freedoms - the
very things which define us as British - will be lost for ever.
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Opinion: Why I fear joined-up government |
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18 January 2007, By Simon Moores, Silicon.com
As government once again considers building a 'super database' linking all our personal details, Simon Moores explains why, though he doesn't oppose the idea in theory, he's uneasy about it in practice.
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John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt: The Israel Lobby |
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23 March 2006, London Review of Books
For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world.
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