The Nether-World

The Crisis In Burma

2007-09-27T08:58:00.000+01:00

I was going to write a long link-laden piece about the situation in Burma but I don't think it's really necessary. You'd have to be from another planet to not know what's going on over there and I doubt I could add much more to the excellent series of posts by Ten Percent and Mask of Anarchy who have covered this crisis comprehensively. I urge you to read them and also the information in the useful set of links compiled by Mr Eugenides.

I've been watching the events unfolding in Burma with a growing sense of alarm. It was apparently too much to hope for that the peaceful protests led by the monks would not be put down with the brutality we've come to expect from the thuggish Junta running that country. The people of Burma (Myanmar is the name given to the country by the Junta) have been crying out for democracy for years (silently because of the awful repression) and have largely been ignored. All they ask is that the West stops investing in the corrupt regime and applies strong diplomatic pressure to secure change, something that so far hasn't really happened. The pathetic hand wringing and rhetoric we've heard from the UN and the EU is just that. We can be grateful, however, that the media is reporting reasonably well on the crisis and Burma is now getting the attention it deserves. But the momentum has to be kept up otherwise some other crisis will push Burma down the news agenda and an opportunity to achieve a relatively peaceful regime change will have been lost.

Of course there isn't that much we can do other than to pressure our leaders to isolate the regime and to force the companies investing in Burma to stop. Another (admittedly very small) thing we can do is to sign this petition to Chinese President Hu Jintao and the UN Security Council and get others to do so.

To Chinese President Hu Jintao and the UN Security Council: We stand alongside the citizens of Burma in their peaceful protests. We urge you to oppose a violent crackdown on the demonstrators, and to support genuine reconciliation and democracy in Burma. We pledge to hold you accountable for any further bloodshed.

China is an ally of Burma and both countries have atrocious human rights records. China, however is in a difficult position. Because of the Olympic Games soon to be hosted in Beijing, the country is trying to buff up its international image and supporting a violent crack down on peaceful protesters isn't going to help. China is also keen to be seen as a major player on the world stage and is even sending peace-keepers to Darfur. India too has a role to play in resolving this crisis as does Russia. Both China and Russia are, at the moment opposing meaningful sanctions.

Even president Bush now seems to be belatedly taking the matter a bit more seriously (though he needs to go much further) and Gordon Brown is also calling for tougher sanctions but we've heard Gordon wax lyrical about Burma before without any noticeable effect.

There has been some debate recently about the amount of investment British companies have in Burma. The Foreign Office denies that Britain is the second biggest investor in the country.

Contrary to some reports, the UK is not the second largest investor in Burma. The State Peace and Development Council’s investment records are far from transparent, but we believe the figure they quote for the UK is cumulative, and includes investments by companies such as Premier Oil and British American Tobacco who have since withdrawn. It also includes investments that were agreed but never occurred. The DTI figures for current active UK investment are very low. For example in 2003, the DTI recorded UK foreign direct investment flows into Burma as negligible (i.e. between £0 and £500,000).

This statement is however, misleading as there are British companies abroad trading with Burma. From the Burma Campaign UK (a good source for the latest news) there is a long list of companies (some British) which support the military regime. Among them are:

Abercrombie & Kent
Chevron
Rolls-Royce
Siemens
Suzuki
Total Oil

One thing we can do is to write to some of these companies and pressure them to stop supporting such a vile regime.

The protesters in Burma are showing incredible bravery by continuing with their peaceful protests despite the worsening violence inflicted on them by the authorities who are now launching raids on monasteries. They deserve whatever support we are able to give. This situation is urgent and could turn into a bloodbath very quickly.

*UPDATE*

Much of the news coming out of Burma has been because of bloggers or reporters using the internet. Now the Burmese junta is trying to cut off communications with the outside world by closing off internet access and telephone links. This is bad news and an ominous sign of things to come. So is this.

*UPDATE 2*

One of the monks holed up in a monastery surrounded by soldiers stated what the protesters are asking for. They want three steps to be taken:

The first step is to reduce all commodity prices, fuel prices, rice and cooking oil prices immediately.
The second step – release all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and all detainees arrested during ongoing demonstrations over the fuel price hike.
The third step – enter a dialogue with pro-democracy forces for national reconciliation immediately, to resolve the crisis and difficulties facing and suffered by the people.

Not too unreasonable under the circumstances.

Tags: Freedom, Burma, Myanmar, Protest, Democracy

The War On Democracy: Another Chance To See This Film

2007-08-24T05:07:00.000+01:00

Last Monday ITV showed John Pilger's latest film, The War On Democracy. I posted about this film back in June but unfortunately neglected to mention that it was about to be shown on television. So, for anyone who missed this interesting documentary (here is a trailer), it can be viewed or downloaded from Google or watched here (Complete film 1h 34min).

Thanks to RickB from Ten Percent for the heads up.

Tags: John Pilger, The War On Democracy, Latin America, US Politics, Film, Entertainment

They're Spying On Us - #94

2007-08-20T06:38:00.000+01:00

Anyone who's been following American politics knows that there has been much debate about the government spying on its citizens. That's bad enough but when that same government feels it has a legitimate right to spy on anyone anywhere, including us, then surely it's time for our government to do something about it.

A new law swept through Congress by the US government before the summer recess is to give American security agencies unprecedented powers to spy on British citizens without a warrant.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was approved by Congress earlier this month to help the National Security Agency in the fight against terrorism. But it has now emerged that the bill gives the security services powers to intercept all telephone calls, internet traffic and emails made by British citizens across US-based networks.
Read on

America might be a friend and ally of the UK but last I heard it is still a foreign country. It's laughable that parties like UKIP bang on about the erosion of the sovereignty of the UK when it comes to Europe, but have absolutely nothing to say about the subservience of the UK to the USA. At least some MEPs are asking questions which is more than UK politicians seem to be doing.

Tags: Surveillance, Civil Liberties, US Politics, UK Politics

Another Step Closer To Internment

2007-07-16T06:26:00.000+01:00

Before becoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown made no secret of his support for 90 days detention without charge for suspected terrorists and plans were already being drawn up to revive the idea which resulted in Tony Blair's first parliamentary defeat when it was first tried in 2005. After the spectacularly incompetent car 'bomb' attacks in London and Glasgow at the end of June which thankfully resulted in no loss of life or injury except to one of the would be terrorists, it seemed inevitable that we would be hearing more about 90 days detention or internment without charge. The Government was originally praised for its calm response following the attacks and for the lack of knee-jerk legislation that we were so used to under Blair's premiership. However it was only a matter of time before unnecessary draconian legislation was back on the agenda and lo and behold both 90 days detention and indefinate imprisonment withoout charge are once again being considered. As before, it is a senior police officer lobbying for this plan and the media seem happy to help.

One of Britain's most senior police officers has demanded a return to a form of internment, with the power to lock up terror suspects indefinitely without charge.
The proposal, put forward by the head of the Association of Police Chief Officers (Acpo) and supported by Scotland Yard, is highly controversial. An earlier plan to extend the amount of time suspects can be held without charge to 90 days led to Tony Blair's first Commons defeat as Prime Minister. Eventually, the government was forced to compromise on 28 days, a period which Gordon Brown has already said he wants to extend.
The Observer understands that the Acpo proposal has been discussed in meetings between Brown and senior police officers. Whitehall sources said the PM was receptive to the association's demands, but believes an upper detention limit is essential to avoid a de facto Guantanamo Bay based in the UK.

The officer proposing this controversial plan is Ken Jones, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers. He denies that he wants to introduce internment but when you look up the word "internment" and compare the definition to to what Ken Jones is proposing, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that some sort of internment is what he's asking for. Several issues are being raised here. Firstly, as Shami Chakrabarti, of campaign group Liberty, says:

"We elect politicians to determine legislation and we expect chief constables to uphold the rule of law, not campaign for internment," said Ms Chakrabarti, director of Liberty.
Source

Secondly, extending the amount of time a suspect can be held without charge is unnecessary. In Britain suspects can be held for 28 days without charge and that is longer than most democracies allow. As we've seen in the recent attacks, suspects have either been charged, released or are still being held pending possible charges. Scrapping the time limit on how long a suspect can be held without charge would set a very dangerous precedent and would be a significant erosion of habeas corpus. The way this possible legislation is being pushed follows a familiar pattern with New Labour. A radical and dangerous plan gets proposed, is given favorable coverage in tabloids and then gets watered down a little so that some sort of consesus can be reached and to create the illusion that the Government is taking notice of peoples concerns about civil liberties. After that there will be a short wait and then the measure will be extended in the same way so that eventually we end up with the initial proposal without too many people noticing. Blair did this throughout his premiership. It would be a huge disappointment (though probably not surprising) if Gordon Brown did exactly the same thing after all his talk about change and a new kind of politics.

Spy Blog has more.

Tags: Internment, Gordon Brown, Civil Liberties, UK Politics, Habeas Corpus, Terrorism

Taking Liberties: A Short Review

2007-06-10T19:09:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I finally got to see Taking Liberties after more than a month of watching the trailer, reading various reviews and encouraging people to go and see it. I have to say I was very impressed. It's going to be difficult to say anything vastly different from what Tim over at Bloggerheads has already said but I'll give it a go. The documentary covers in great detail the erosion of civil Liberties in Britain since Tony Blair came to power. It does this by breaking the subject into sections rather than taking a chronological approach. These sections are:

Right to protest
Free speech
Privacy
Detention without Trial
Extradition
Torture

These sections are largely taken from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) set up in 1950 by the Council of Europe in order to prevent the appalling abuses of the Second World War from happening again. Some of these rights though are very ancient like Habeas Corpus which dates back to Magna Carta. Taking Liberties explains these rights and their origins with some entertaining animated sequences.

The film opens with the story of bus loads of anti-war protesters at the start of the Iraq war who were wrongfully stopped by police and escorted back to London after being prevented from continuing on to their peaceful protest. It is a good starting point and sets the tone for the rest of the film. Using a mixture of interviews with both politicians and ordinary people along with news footage interspersed with animated sequences, the film shows us the decline of civil liberties from the heady days of Tony Blair's arrival in Downing Street which seemed to promise a bright new era. There are frequent news clips of Blair saying things like:

When I pass protestors every day at Downing Street... I may not like what they call me but I thank God they can. That's called freedom. - Tony Blair 07/04/02

These are followed by other news clips that completely expose Blair's statements for the utter rubbish they are, for example, the arrest of Maya Evans, the manhandling of Walter Wolfgang and the attempts to silence Brian Haw.

For such a serious subject, Taking Liberties does manage to inject just the right degree of humour to make it entertaining without detracting from the film's important message. Much of the film's humour comes from the ingenious ways peaceful protestors try to get around the Draconian restrictions placed on them. Particularly funny were two elderly ladies who defied a police ban on protesting outside an American listening station. I won't say any more but these two ladies seemed to encapsulate 'Britishness' better than Gordon Brown ever could. The film also covers the Mass Lone Protests which take place on a monthly basis to highlight the stupidity of the demonstration esclusion zone. One of the things I liked about the film was the focus on ordinary people caught up in Blair's assault on freedom and not just what politicians say.

For a film which shows Tony Blair and New Labour in such a bad light, Taking Liberties is remarkably non-partisan which is something I really appreciated. Among the politicians interviewed are Clare Short and Tony Benn as well as Ken Clarke and Boris Johnson. This is an important part of the argument because we seem to be moving away from a discourse between 'Right' and 'Left' into a more crucial discourse between 'Libertarian' and 'Authoritarian'.

Where I do perhaps disagree with Tim is on the animated sequences. I don't think they do "stray from the narrative/thrust". For me they break up what might otherwise be too much news footage and interview at any one time and inject some humour as well as covering very dry subjects like the ECHR in an entertaining fashion. However, I wholeheartedly agree with Tim that these animations are spectacular.

If I had to find a quibble about the film, I would say that I would have liked to have seen more emphasis on the role of the media in allowing the attack on civil liberties to go ahead even though, as the film suggests, we all bear some responsibility. The film did allude media manipulation several times with the smear campaign against Mohammed Abdulkahar who was shot by police in the botched Forest Gate raid, the July 7 bombing survivor who was used against his will by The Sun to justify 90 days detention and with the "45 Minutes From Doom" headlines relating to the September dossier prior to the Iraq war. But the death of Dr David Kelly and the subsequent Hutton whitewash which resulted in the BBC being severely punished and which has affected much of its reporting since wasn't mentioned. For me this was the event that removed any lingering doubt I may have still had about the direction in which Britain seems to be heading (not that there were many doubts remaining). The role of the media in bringing about so much knee-jerk legislation and Tony Blair's cosy relationship with Rupert Murdoch, as well as Alistair Campbell's media manipulation deserved a bit more scrutiny in my opinion. However, this is a very tiny quibble in what is a great film. And I realise that it is impossible to cover a decade-long attack on civil liberties fully in two hours. As it is I'm impressed so much was fitted into a couple of hours, from the right to protest to pre-natal ASBOs to ID cards to torture and rendition. Like Tim, I'm just so relieved that a film like this has finally been made...and made well.

Contrary to what Martin Kettle said about this film in The Guardian, I don't think the premise of Taking Liberties is that Labour has turned Britain into a police state...yet. Of course we can't compare what is happening in Britain to the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. To me the film is a warning that unless we stop this erosion of civil liberties and reverse it, we could eventually find ourselves in a similar situation. Civil liberties are very easy to remove if we allow it (as we have seen) but they are much harder to re-introduce. Nazi Germany lost all its freedoms almost overnight. In Britain we have seen the erosion of our freedoms by a sustained decade-long attack, and with this continuous chipping away at civil liberties it's much harder to define the point where we do find ourselves in a police state. New Labour seems to be laying the groundwork for a police state, a point that even Martin Kettle can't avoid making by referring to "the oppression we all suffer under the Blair tyranny".

Not Saussure points out that the Soviet Constitution guaranteed the right to hold demonstrations but that when people did try to protest they were told that they did not have the necessary permits to do so. I would add that in Albania these days people can protest outside their parliament without the need for permission. The fact that at the moment some protests are allowed outside the British Parliament (provided permission is obtained a week in advance) is beside the point. We shouldn't need permission.

Finally, I'd like to pay tribute to the director of Taking Liberties, Chris Atkins, and all those who participated in the film. Once again I urge people to go and see Taking Liberties and help give it the publicity it deserves. Go see this film and take people who might not be aware of what is happening in their name with you. Also, buy the book. I expect it's as entertaining and informative to read as the film is to watch.

Tags: Taking Liberties, Civil Liberties, Blair, Entertainment, Film

Taking Liberties Opens Today

2007-06-08T19:01:00.000+01:00

Just a quick reminder to urge you to go and see this film while you can and to encourage others to see it too. Taking Liberties opens Today (Friday June 8) at selected cinemas. If enough people go and see it on the opening weekend then the distributors will push the film out wider and there is a chance of it reaching more people than just those who are already familiar with what Blair has done to our cherished freedoms. To find out where the nearest cinema showing this film is, check the website's cinema listings. For a review of the film, go over to Bloggerheads, and here are some more reviews from the MSM:

The YouTube trailer is here. If you are concerned about the erosion of civil liberties in Britain since New Labour came into power, then this film is for you.

Tags: Civil Liberties, Blair, Taking Liberties, Film

Ihre Papieren, Bitte!

2007-05-28T07:51:00.000+01:00

Courtesy of Beau Bo D'Or

Warning: Swear blogging alert

So, here I am trying to recover from this awful flu bug which has incapacitated me somewhat, and thinking that as it's a bank holiday weekend it might just be possible to get through it without without Blair or any of his minions managing to enrage me to the point where I have to write something. Fat chance! Anyway, this has pissed me off enough to go into swear blogging mode so apologies for the language, normal service will resume once I calm down.

Before we have digested John Reid's latest attack on the European convention on human rights (ECHR) the stupid cunt has to go even further and try to bring back the racist Sus law. It didn't work then why should it work now?

And as if that wasn't bad enough, Blair has to put his ten pence worth in, turning my incandescence into apoplexy. Look guys, I'm not feeling well and it's supposed to be a holiday. Is it really too much to ask for both of you political has-beens to shut the fuck up at least until Tuesday? Apparently it is. It's hard to know where to start, but seeing as the return of the Sus law has been covered very well here, here and here we may as well move on to the insane rantings of Blair. Before we do though I'd just like to repeat an important point that Devil's Kitchen rightly makes:

Er... Does anyone remember that Identity Cards were not going to be compulsory to carry? You know, various Home office ministers pooh-poohed the idea that Britain was going to become some kind of jack-booted, totalitarian police state because you wouldn't actually have to carry your ID Card with you?

I think this is what DK is referring to:

The bill made no difference to police stop and search powers, he [Charles Clarke] said, and there would be no requirement for people to carry ID cards at all times.

Right, moving on to Blair:

The absconding of three people on control orders because of suspicion of their involvement in terrorism has, once again, thrown into sharp relief the debate about terrorism and civil liberty. Within the next few weeks we will publish new proposals on anti-terror laws. Our aim is to reach a consensus across the main political parties.

Well, if they had been tried for their alleged connections with terrorism using phone tap and other currently disallowed evidence, they would, if found guilty, be behind bars now. The debate about terrorism and civil liberty exists because you are doing the terrorist's job for them by removing the civil liberties we want to defend. Your aim is to push through even more Draconian legislation with the minimum of debate as usual using a relatively minor event as an excuse.

But at the heart of these new proposals will lie the same debate: the balance between protecting the safety of the public and the rights of the individual suspected of being involved with terrorism.

And where exactly is the "balance" here if everyone is now a suspect?

First let us clear away some of the absurd criticism of the police and security service over the three individuals who absconded.

As far as I'm aware no one is criticising the police and security services over this incident. The criticism has been leveled at you and your government for these ridiculous control orders.

After September 11, 2001, in common with many other nations, we passed new antiterror laws. In the aftermath of such an outrage it was relatively easy to do. We gave ourselves the ability, in exceptional circumstances, to detain foreign nationals who we believed were plotting terrorism but against whom there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. It was an important power. They were, of course, free to leave Britain. But we wouldn't let them be free here. The ability to detain foreign nationals gave our services the ability to focus even more resources on the surveillance of British nationals who were a threat. It also sent out a strong signal of intent.

It sent out a strong signal of shoddy law making. If there was insufficient evidence to prosecute foreign nationals then there was no need to incarcerate them without trial, and when that was declared illegal to put them under house arrest. If there was a justifiable suspicion of malicious intent then they should have been kept under surveillance until there was sufficient evidence to prosecute.

In December 2004 these laws were struck down by the courts. In his famous judgment Lord Hoffmann said there was a greater risk to Britain through the abrogation of the foreign suspect’s civil liberties than through terrorism.

That's right, a judge with a far better knowledge of the law than you possess realised that indefinitely imprisoning people without trial is fundamentally wrong in a free society. Not too complicated is it?

So we were forced to opt for the much milder remedy of control orders, applicable to both foreign and British nationals. These do not involve detention. They impose some limits on the individual’s freedom. They are better than nothing and have utility - because otherwise the individuals would have to be subject to even more intensive surveillance.

You were forced to do no such thing. You had the option to attempt a prosecution using phone tap and other surveillance evidence as other countries do. You just didn't like the humiliation of a judge telling you you were wrong so you appealed the judgement and lost that too. The control orders were your sour grapes.

They were, however, much weaker than we wanted, perpetually diluted by opposition amendments, constantly attacked on civil liberty grounds.

Yes, there is a good reason they were attacked on civil liberty grounds. House arrest is still a form of imprisonment and there was still no trial to justify such an action. Are we learning yet? Obviously not.

In addition, after September 11, and again after July 7, we have tried continually to deport foreign nationals who were either engaged in or inciting extremism. Again and again in court judgments we were forced to keep them here. The important point is that although of the hundreds we keep under surveillance, many are UK citizens - as with these three individuals - many are not and in any event their influence and the ideas they import from abroad have a significant and radicalising effect. And, of course, we lost the crucial vote on 90 days’ precharge detention, despite offering a week-by-week court hearing throughout the 90 days.

If inciting extremism is illegal, then those who do it can and should be charged, tried and locked up if found guilty. Simple no? If someone is deemed dangerous or suspicious by the security services then surveillance seems the obvious course of action. I don't see what difference it makes whether they are foreign nationals or UK citizens (like the July 7 bombers). Yes, you did lose the vote on 90 days detention without trial and you haven't stopped sulking since. Hopefully, if you try to reintroduce it, you'll lose the vote again because it's damaging to civil liberties (even with a week-by-week court hearing) and completely unnecessary as we have seen.

So when there is an outcry about the three absconding, we should remember that consistently over the past few years, and even after July 7, attempts to introduce stronger powers have been knocked back in parliament and in the courts. Indeed recently it was said, again in a court case, that unless the British government could prove that a foreign national suspect would not be at risk of mistreatment in his own country, we were obliged to keep him here.

Er...outcry? The only outcry I heard came from you and that odious thug John Reid. You just don't get do you Blair? The reason Parliament and the courts knocked back your attempts to introduce stronger powers is because Britain has a strong tradition of protecting civil liberties, and as Prime Minister you have a duty to do that also. Your dismay that the British government should prove that a foreign national suspect would not be at risk of mistreatment in his own country before you deport him is not a great surprise to anyone because we are all too familiar with your ambivalence to torture, whether it's calling the American Guantanamo gulag an "anomaly" or pretending that extraordinary rendition doesn't happen. The fact is, you couldn't give a flying fuck if people are tortured even if they are innocent.

So the fault is not with our services or, in this instance, with the Home Office. We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first.

Yes, the fault is with the Home Office and you. Who else is at fault if your dodgy legislation fails? As you say, we have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first. This is what makes us different from the terrorists and from the totalitarian regimes that you support. Strange as it may seem to you Mr Blair, that's how we like it.

I happen to believe this is misguided and wrong. If a foreign national comes here, and may be at risk in his own country, we should treat him well. But if he then abuses our hospitality and threatens us, I feel he should take his chance back in his own home country.

Oh, fuck off! Civil liberties are not "misguided and wrong" you wanker. If foreign nationals abuse our hospitality we can either deport them (if we know they won't be tortured or worse) or we can imprison them. We just need to prove in a court of law that they have indeed abused our hospitality. I can't believe I have to explain this to a barrister.

As for British nationals who pose a threat to us, we need to be able to monitor them carefully and limit their activities. It is true that the police and security services can engage in surveillance in any event. But this is incredibly time-consuming and expensive, and even with the huge investment we have made since 2001, they simply cannot do it for all suspects. Over the past five or six years, we have decided as a country that except in the most limited of ways, the threat to our public safety does not justify changing radically the legal basis on which we confront this extremism.

You should monitor anyone, foreign or British, who the security services believe pose a threat to us, and activities shouldn't be limited unless a good reason to do so can be shown. Time and money shouldn't be a constraint on justice. What a bloody daft thing to suggest. With that logic you might as well bang everyone up up and dispense with courts all together... Oh, wait a moment... Of course, if ~~your~~ America's foreign policies didn't have half the world wanting us dead then maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have such a terrorist threat to confront.

Their right to traditional civil liberties comes first. I believe this is a dangerous misjudgment. This extremism, operating the world over, is not like anything we have faced before. It needs to be confronted with every means at our disposal. Tougher laws in themselves help, but just as crucial is the signal they send out: that Britain is an inhospitable place to practice this extremism.

Anyone's right to civil liberties comes first. What is dangerous is departing from that stance. The tougher laws don't seem to help. You keep introducing more and more and yet we are constantly being told of ever more numerous heinous plots against us. Saudi Arabia has even more Draconian laws and yet extremism is still practiced. Go figure.

This is part of a bigger picture, in which a considerable part of media and public opinion continues to blame us for causing the extremism.

Hmmm, I wonder why the media and public opinion would think such a thing. Could it be they have a point? Anyway, not all the media do think along those lines. Your masters at The Scum and The Daily Mail certainly don't.

I was stopped by someone the other week who said it was not surprising there was so much terrorism in the world when we invaded their countries (meaning Afghanistan and Iraq). No wonder Muslims felt angry.

Er, yes...?

When he had finished, I said to him: tell me exactly what they feel angry about. We remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes; we replace them with a United Nations-supervised democratic process and the Muslims in both countries get the chance to vote, which incidentally they take in very large numbers. And the only reason it is difficult still is because other Muslims are using terrorism to try to destroy the fledgling democracy and, in doing so, are killing fellow Muslims.

You remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes. In both countries the civilians are being bombed to smithereens by British and American forces. Iraq has been utterly destroyed and is now in the grip of terrorism that didn't exist before the illegal invasion. You lied to the world about Iraq's non-existent WMD because regime change is illegal. The various civil wars are tearing what's left of Iraq to pieces, you made no plans whatsoever for the aftermath of the illegal invasion. There are two million refugees and a further two million internally displaced people and over 600,000 dead. The country is now divided along sectarian lines with a government that seems almost as brutal as Saddam's...but at least they got to vote for the candidates you put forward - Whoop di doo!! And you wonder why Muslims feel angry? You deluded idiot. Oh, and you are losing in Afghanistan too.

What’s more, British troops are risking their lives trying to prevent the killing. Why should anyone feel angry about us? Why aren't’t they angry about the people doing the killing? The odd thing about the conversation is that I could tell it was the first time he had even heard the alternative argument.

Words fail me. So, the British army aren't doing any of the killing, is that what you're saying? Have you asked the family of Baha Musa why they might be angry? You might, by luck or design, managed to have a conversation with someone who perhaps wasn't as well informed as he might be, but I bet there are opponents of your policies who could wipe the floor with you.

This extremism can be defeated. But it will be defeated only by recognising that we have not created it; it cannot be negotiated with; pandering to its sense of grievance will only encourage it; and only by confronting it, the methods and the ideas, will we win.

I think one way of defeating this extremism is by recognising that we have at the very least contributed to causing it, whether in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine or Lebanon. I don't know whether or not it can be negotiated with but we have to acknowledge that there are legitimate grievances that need to be addressed even if we rightly condemn and try to counter the violence, because by dismissing the grievances you are provoking further extremism. Your confrontational attitude has made things worse not better and you seem to have run out of ideas (I'm not sure you had any to begin with). Fortunately for all of us, both here and abroad, you will be out of office soon and we can only hope that your successor is a bit more pragmatic (a forlorn hope I fear).

The continuation of your policies will lead to even more defeat. Your conviction that your bankrupt policies will lead to victory remind me of the claptrap Mussolini came out with during the second world war... Vincere e vinceremo! (To win and we will win!). Well, we all know what happened to him. Here's a reminder. What isn't widely known is that when the bodies were taken down the children of Milan were invited to piss on the corpses (I cite my father as a source for that nugget). You Mr Blair deserve nothing less for your crimes.

*UPDATE*

More bloggage on this from Not Saussure and Obsolete

Tags: John Reid, Tony Blair, Civil Liberties, Stop And Search, Control Orders

Under The Weather

2007-05-26T05:26:00.000+01:00

Sorry about the lack of posts. I seem to have come down with some nasty lurgy which is making staring at a computer screen for any great length of time give me a headache (not to mention the blocked sinuses, fever, aching muscles and hacking cough), and stringing a coherent sentence together is difficult. So as a total cop-out, here are ten other stories collected over the week (in no rational order) that are worth reading:

Ministry of Truth on John Reid's latest attack on our freedoms.
Mask of Anarchy on McDonald's efforts to to have the word "McJob" removed from the dictionary.
Rachel has returned from her honeymoon only to face yet more abuse from a batshit cyber-stalker and is asking for help.
Grimmerupnorth on why Jon Cruddas is a dishonourable hypocrite who should not be elected to the Deputy Leadership.
Not Saussure on yet another attack on our civil liberties by our wonderful government.
Blood & Treasure on the latest ratcheting up of the hate campaign against Iran.
Ten Percent on America's renewed sabre rattling against Iran and on just who is really supporting Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon.
Lenin's Tomb on the secret air war in Iraq.
Tears for Lebanon on the misery that the Lebanese people are facing.
Obsolete on Margaret Hodge's latest outburst in favour of the BNP (supported by Hazel Blears no less).

Hopefully I'll be back to 'normal' blogging as soon as I feel a bit better.

Tags: Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, UK Politics, Civil Liberties

Taking Liberties

2007-05-15T17:24:00.000+01:00

This film is at the top of my 'must see' list. As the title suggests, Taking Liberties is about the attack on civil liberties that Britain has experienced since 1997 when Tony Blair came to power. Other than the various plugs for it I've seen on numerous blogs of all political persuasions and, of course, the information on the film's website along with the trailer, I don't know that much about it but it certainly seems to be a very interesting documentary and a fitting tribute to the Blair years. The film covers the following topics:

Tim Ireland over at Bloggerheads has seen the press screening and has written a positive review. Here's the trailer on YouTube:

Taking Liberties will be in cinemas from June 8. It is very unlikely to get anything like the same publicity that Hollywood bockbusters get and it will only be shown in a few selected cinemas so check the website's cinema listings to find out where it's showing.

Tags: Taking Liberties, Films, Civil Liberties, Entertainment, Blair

Mass Lone Demonstration and Carol Service

2006-12-21T07:54:00.000Z

The last Mass Lone Demonstration of 2006 was as much fun as the others I've attended only much, much colder. It really was freezing but that didn't stop a bunch of die-hard democracy fans assembling in Parliament Square once again to make a mockery of the idiotic SOCPA law which forbids protest in the vicinity of the Prime Minister's office without written permission from the police which has to be obtained a week beforehand. There was the usual amusing array of diverse protests; from "Fair Pay For Elves" to my own "Stop the Surveillance Society".

After protesting for an hour, we gathered under the statue of Winston Churchill to break the law by singing Christmas carols, an event organised by Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads. Veteran peace protester Brian Haw was presented with a new and more powerful loudspeaker and then the singing commenced in candle light, and very tuneful it was too. Pausing only briefly for some mince pies, we sang:

O Come All Ye Faithful
Away In A Manger
Little Drummer Boy
The Twelve Days of Christmas
Deck The Halls
Good King Wenceslas
The First Noel
Joy To The World
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Jingle Bells
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer
Santa Clause Is Coming To Town
Amazing Grace
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Silent Night

Sorry, I didn't record any of it. Christmas carols aren't usually my sort of thing but this was really quite charming and it again highlighted the utter stupidity of a repressive law. A collection was made for sick children in Iraq and we also had a minute's silent reflection. The police were nowhere to be seen. Obviously they decided to keep an even lower profile than they did last year.

By eight o clock it was all over and we took our frozen bodies down to the Red Lion to thaw out before moving on to another pub to continue the festivities. Among the revellers were Rachel, Gareth from D-Notice, the Disillusioned Kid and of course Tim. As soon as they post something on the Mass Lone Protest, I'll link to it. You can see higher resolution versions of these photos here and Gareth has some more over here. I expect Indymedia will have some more pictures soon.

*UPDATE*
Here are the links to the reports from some of the other bloggers who attended:

If I find any more I'll update this post again. Oh, and we managed to raise £85.93 (and 70 euro-cents) for Medical Aid for Iraqi Children.

Tags: Mass Lone Demonstration, Protest, Democracy, Civil Liberties

More ID Card Mayhem

2006-11-17T07:34:00.000Z

Tony Blair yesterday in an interview on the Downing Street website:

Prime Minister:
Obviously all the normal protections will apply, but the important thing about this data is that the data that you have in your passport isn't fantastically confidential to people, and the key for this thing is not actually the data about you, it is the fact that you have the biometric data of your fingerprint and your iris scan, that is the data that matters and that data is peculiar to you.
Will Hutton:
But who has access to it and how will citizens know that it is absolutely ring fenced and that only appropriate people will have access to it?
Prime Minister:
Because in the laws that we have put through on this, there are only certain people that are allowed access to it and that access, as I say, it is your actual biological data. And I think the confusion that people have here is they kind of think well you know the taxman can go in and get this information also, there is no information other than the same information you get in your passport, the key thing is the biometrics that are there and the reason for that is that this new technology, the biometric technology, and this is why the whole argument has changed, gives you a far better and more secure way of identifying people.
Source

Today's Guardian:

The government was facing demands to recall 3m micro-chipped biometric passports last night after a Guardian investigation which found that they could be electronically attacked and cloned with a £174 microchip reader.
Biometric data was transferred to a PC after gaining access to the chips in three passports. The findings are likely to put pressure on John Reid, the home secretary, to rethink plans for ID cards.
The Identity and Passport Service has spent £60m on new passport production lines for the £66 documents, which were introduced in March.
Source

And whilst on the subject of ID Cards I can't let this little beauty go un noticed (via Nosemonkey)

"ID Cards will reduce the threat of the Surveillance Society and help safeguard civil liberties"
Source

The comment from Antipholus Papps is superb:

Concentration camps will reduce the threat of genocidal holocaust and help safeguard cultural diversity.

Fantastic! So ID Cards are going to save us from this are they? Just look at what can happen in America if you are careless enough to forget your ID card.

"A cell phone captured video of a 23-year-old student being administered multiple Taser shocks by UCLA police on Tuesday. The UCLA student was hit with the Taser shocks multiple times while he was in the Powell Library Computer Lab. According to the paper, (Mostafa) Tabatabainejad did not show ID to community service officers who were conducting a random check," reports NBC.

John Reid will be green with envy. Time for another petition I think. And while on the petition page you may as well sign this one too (via Justin).

Tags: ID Cards, Civil Liberties, Surveillance Society, Blair

Waking up to the Surveillance Society

2006-10-30T06:44:00.000Z

Back in February I wrote a post entitled "Fascist Britain" in which I outlined numerous ways in which our freedoms are being eroded. Since then the situation seems to have worsened. The British are now the most spied-on people in western world.

BRITISH people are now more spied upon by their political leaders than any other population in the free world, according to an official report.
Thomas said: “Many of these schemes are public sector driven, and the individual has no choice over whether or not to take part. People are being scrutinised and having their lives tracked, and are not even aware of it.
“They don’t know, for instance, that a record is kept of every internet site they visit. They don’t realise that when identity cards come in, there will be a record of their movements and every time they have engaged with any public service.”
Read on

The intrusions into our privacy go even further than those outlined in the above article. For instance, Tony Blair wants as many people as possible to have their DNA stored on a national database. Not to be outdone, Gordon Brown is planning to allow shops to share confidential information with police databases with the ID card scheme. Even our household wheelie bins are being secretly tagged with hidden electronic "bugs" and innocent children are to be subjected to compulsory fingerprinting.

How could we let things get so bad? There are several possible answers to this. Most obviously is the climate of fear that is being spread by our Government which uses the so called "War on Terror" to scare us into accepting ever more draconian restrictions on our freedoms... in order to preserve them. John Reid is particularly prone to using this absurd argument as is Tony Blair. But there is more to the phenomenon of the surveillance society than just scare mongering. One way we allow this to happen is to be sold the idea that all this surveillance makes our lives easier. By allowing private businesses in on the act, the Government can avoid taking responsibility for what happens and just calling it 'progress'. For example, the idea that shoppers may one day be able to pay their grocery bills using a microchip implanted in their body is being sold to us as a quicker and more secure way of purchasing goods. By falling for this trick we willingly participate in our own enslavement. In other words we are responsible for how free we are and governments and businesses can only intrude on our privacy because we let them. We reverse this process only by refusing to be terrorised into accepting these initiatives; boycotting businesses that participate and protesting. It may well be too late, but do we really want to sleepwalk into a fascist state?

*UPDATE*

I just found news of a conference on Data Protection and Privacy whilst reading Spyblog. The theme is:

"A Surveillance Society?" - 28th International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners' Conference, London 2nd - 3rd November 2006

I was struck by the welcome address by The United Kingdom's Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas:

Whilst I cannot promise the sunshine of Buenos Aires, I can promise that by coming to the United Kingdom you will be visiting a country with over 4 million CCTV cameras. Visiting London, you will be staying in a city able to monitor its citizens as they travel around the capital by car or on the Underground system. But London is also a city that has witnessed the kind of terrorist atrocities that spark calls for governments to do more and more to protect its citizens.

I'd be interested in reading a report from anyone going.

*ANOTHER UPDATE*

Antipholus Papps makes a very good point in the comments.

It's also worth mentioning the Big Brother/reality TV propaganda offensive that has accompanied this. Constant surveillance is being sold to the podlings as a lark. A sign of importance and celebrity.

And whilst I'm updating this post again, I should include some other articles that have just come out and are very relevant to this post. First this:

The man who developed DNA testing in the 1980s has attacked the spread of data collection by police as “mission creep”.
Sir Alec Jeffreys said that the tool, which was meant to catch criminals who reoffend, has created a vast database of gene profiles of thousands of innocent citizens.
Source

And more alarming still there is this:

By 2016, they'll be able to watch you everywhere

Surveillance systems installed to fight crime and terrorism track us as we go about our lives. It may be too late to halt Big Brother.

Britain is becoming a “Big Brother” surveillance society with millions of people being tracked throughout their lives, according to a report published today.

Shopping habits, travel movements and car and train journeys are being monitored increasingly as part of the fabric of daily life.

The report gives warning that funding from the War on Terror is being used to explore the opportunity of connecting data-gathering systems to track “the movements and behaviour” of millions of people.

Massive surveillance systems now underpin modern life and are set to transform the ability of the Government, law and order agencies and companies to keep a closer check on citizens.
Read on

It's worth reading the whole article as it paints a very scary and accurate picture of what is going on in our society. Also there is this article from The Independent:

Britain has sleepwalked into becoming a surveillance society that increasingly intrudes into our private lives and impacts on everyday activities, the head of the information watchdog warns.
New technology and "invisible" techniques are being used to gather a growing amount of information about UK citizens. The level of surveillance will grow even further in the next 10 years, which could result in a growing number of people being discriminated against and excluded from society, says a report by the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas.
Future developments could include microchip implants to identify and track individuals; facial recognition cameras fitted into lamp posts; and unmanned surveillance aircraft, predict the report's authors.

I've saved the article as a pdf file which you can access here when the on-line version expires. The Guardian is also reporting on this phenomenon as is The Telegraph. This creeping surveillance has been steadily increasing and, as the article says, we have been sleepwalking into it. How many people remember this sinister poster campaign from the Mayor of London?

I don't know about you dear reader but when I saw these posters crop up all over London I felt far less secure; and yet we accepted it despite the Orwellian implication of the message. If Richard Thomas, the UK Infomation Commissioner is concerned then we should be as well.

*YET ANOTHER UPDATE*

Oh, one more thing. The NHS database will soon be on line. This means that:

Millions of personal medical records are to be uploaded regardless of patients' wishes to a central national database from where information can be made available to police and security services, the Guardian has learned.
Details of mental illnesses, abortions, pregnancy, HIV status, drug-taking, or alcoholism may also be included, and there are no laws to prevent DNA profiles being added. The uploading is planned under Whitehall's bedevilled £12bn scheme to computerise the health service.
Read on

In fact, better still, read the same article via this post by Obsolete. It's worth it.

Tags: Surveillance Society, Civil Liberties, Blair, Nu Labour

Stupid Security Awards

2006-08-23T10:42:00.000+01:00

This is a damned good idea! (Via Blairwatch.) Privacy International is running a competition open to anyone from any country to discover the world’s most pointless, intrusive, annoying and self-serving security measures. The Stupid Security Awards have been staged every year since 2003. Nominations can be sent in for the 2006 awards. Entries are put into the followong categories.

Most Egregiously Stupid Award
Most Inexplicably Stupid Award
Most Annoyingly Stupid Award
Most Flagrantly Intrusive Award
Most Stupidly Counter Productive Award

The winning entries are judged by a panel of well-known security experts, public policy specialists, privacy advocates and journalists.

I'm sure we can all think of cases of security measures that are completely daft, offensive or ineffective etc. Just thinking about some of the recent measures put in place in British airports is a start. Why is a laptp bag more safe than another bag of the same size? Here is a good example of the sort of thing that should qualify. Someone had a book confiscated at Luton airport, a particular book which is available in any good bookshop (the other books were deemed to be safe). The offending book was "Murder in Samarkand" by Craig Murray. How is this a security measure?

But it doesn't just have to be airport horror stories. Unfortunately we are all being increasingly blighted by stupid security measures that intrude on every aspect of our lives without doing much to keep us safer.

So send your entries to: stupidsecurity@privacy.org. Here are some previous winners.

Tags: Security, Civil Liberties

A couple of things to do in London on Thursday

2006-08-22T03:48:00.000+01:00

1. Defend Freedom of Speech by participating in this clever little stunt:

(via Rachel from whom I'm cheekily lifting most of this because I can't put it any better.)

A Simultaneous lone demonstration

This is a great idea and well worth doing... [Now over to Rachel]

A recent damn-fool law has made it illegal to protest anywhere near Parliament without official police permission, and comedian Mark Thomas is organising a stunt to highlight the danger and stupidity of having this law in a democracy.

Please note that taking part in this is 100% LEGAL, and the whole purpose of the stunt is to overload the system by dozens of people all asking for permission to protest all at the same time.

The law: Under section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (.PDF) it is an offence to organise or take part in a demonstration in a public place within the “designated area” (up to 1 km around parliament) if authorisation has not been given by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.Participants may be subject to a fine of up to £1000 and “organizers” face up to a year in Jail.Tsk! We haven't enough space for this nonsense in our jails. It's an outrage!

DESIGNATED AREA: Dozens of people have been arrested for not complying with the law even when they are taking part in “Lone Demonstrations” - i.e. if they are one person with a placard.

Many people see this legislation as an assault on our civil liberties and human rights. It’s not always practical to plan a week in advance what government activities you may or may not disagree with. Sometimes a spontaneous response is called for. And surely the most appropriate place to demonstrate against the government’s actions is within the newly “Designated Area”, at the very core of this country’s democratic foundation.

And why is New Labour so concerned about peaceful protestors anyway?If you apply for permission 6 days in advance for a lone protest (ie 1 person) they cannot refuse permission, so in order to highlight the ridiculousness of having to ask for police permission to hold a peaceful demonstration, Mark Thomas is organising a mass lone demonstration evening.

Anyone who wants to demonstrate about any issue can come along, or even if you just want to demonstrate your disgust at having to ask for permission to protest in a supposedly free country. Remember. This will NOT be breaking the law in any way!

In fact the purpose of this is to get as many people as possible complying with a ridiculous law. All at the very same time! Huzzah!

Stage 1 - Decide on your protest!
This can be something you feel strongly about or something very silly – it’s up to you. Then you need to fill in the official SCOPA application form (which is very simple) and there is a copy of the form attached. You can get it from here.

Stage 2 - Meet on Thursday 24th August outside Charing Cross police station any time between: 5.30pm-6pm to hand in your SOCPA forms.
The address is Agar Street, London, WC2N 4JP and a map is attached. You have to fill in form and hand it in to the police 1 week before you protest, so everyone has to turn up at the same time to give their forms to>the Police. This will mean if 100 people turn up and apply for permission, then the unfortunate police have to license and approve 100 lone demonstrations. (Yes, I know they have more imprtant things to do. That's the whole point. It's for the long term good that we do this, so they can get on with catching baddies instead of wasting their time with this nonsense.) If you can’t make it to hand the forms in but want to demonstrate on the 31st, post them to: Ben Stern S2S Suite Z009 Old Truman Brewery 1 Brick Lane London E1 6QL.

Stage 3 - The mass lone demonstrations will be 1 week later on Thursday 31st August and will again be at 6:00pm for 1 hour, so this event is open to those with day jobs. Come along! Join in! Exercise your democratic rights! The more people who come the bigger an impression this will make!

EASY-PEASY STEP BY STEP

STEP 1 Forward this on to any friends who have a burning issue that they might need to protest about and persuade them to come as well. This is also for anyone who finds it terrible that we have to ask for permission from the Police to peacefully protest outside Parliament.

STEP 2 Print out form

STEP 3 Fill in form with the issue that you wish to protest about.

STEP 4 5.30 - 6pm Thursday 24th August, show up at the same time as other>lone protesters at Charing Cross Police Station.

STEP 5 6pm Thursday 31st August, show up and protest about your personal issue in Parliament Square.

STEP 6 Consider continuing your protest again at a later date.

Again a group session for shy lone protesters will almost certainly be scheduled. Once again this is COMPLETELY LEGAL – in fact we are encouraging as many people as we can to apply to the letter of law simultaneously. Dozens of people have already agreed to do this so don’t worry that you’ll be doing this on your own. See the links below to learn more about SOCPA, the groups it has angered and the people it has affected. This is also likely to be covered by the press. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about this event.

Links:

Parliament Square.org.uk
Spy.org.uk
Bloggerheads

2. Reward yourself by coming to this:

(Please note that this has absolutely nothing to do with the above protest apart from the fact that I'm trying to get to both events and I'm helping out some friends, as well as cleverly combining politics and entertainment in one long blog post.)

Kamel Nitrate, the embassadors of global psychedelic sexy funk break beat dub, will be performing live at Darbucka this thursday, bringing with them the lovely Scarlet Sahara, carrying light in her shimmering waist and rainbows in her silk veil.

Kamel Nitrate will be performing new tracks from their upcoming album, extending their live shows for over one hour of indulgent sounds. Making a debut on the night with the Kamels, guest percussionist and man of international rhythms, Barnaby Green.

The enchanted evening will be taking place at Darbucka, a lovely venue where you can just sit back and feel like the Kings and Queens of Arabia and indulge yourself on delicious food and try some of the varied perfumed shishas. Or you can dance the night away with the global exotic rhythms of DJ Karim and feast your eyes on the exquisite tribal belly dance group Atalanta, with most tantalizing and gracious Hannah and her friends.

Either way, spoilt for choice I'd say but you have it all under one roof.

This is a night for magic to happen, leave your worries outside, come and get pampered....

182 Basement, St John Street,
Clerkenwell,
London, EC1V 4JZ

7pm - 1am £5 Entrance

Tags: Freedom of Speech, Civil Liberties, Protest, Entertainment

Craig Murray forced to remove documents from his website

2006-07-12T20:06:00.000+01:00

Craig Murray has head to remove the some of the documents he put on his website to support the claims he made in his book ‘Murder in Samarkand’. From Craig’s Website:

"We need another Dickens"
New Labour are not as stupid as they seem. I have now had a chance to take legal advice, and that advice is as follows. To defend this case would cost the price of a London house. I don't have a house, in London or anywhere else. I am therefore obliged to give in to force majeure and remove some of the documents from my own site. This reeking government is therefore able to mask its stink on this particular miniscule corner of the internet.

Here is another piece of legal advice I received. Copyright cases cover one instance of publication in one place. Anyone else who has published any government documents that might be Crown Copyright, or not, (and I believe there are hundreds of thousands of documents on the web on which the government could, by the argument in Mr Buttrill's letter, claim copyright), is an individual case and can wait to hear from Mr Buttrill.Force Majeure wields a two-edged sword.

Craig

But never mind, these documents are spread so far and wide over the internet now that Mr Buttrill will never be able to stop people seeing them. If you haven’t seen the documents yet, they’re available from here here, here, here, here, here, here, and as a bittorrent here. Also as an Edonkey File and here is a Magnet link for the Bittorent share. There is also a .torrent of the documents on mininova.

Hat-Tip to Chicken Yoghurt

Tags: Craig Murray, Murder in Samarkand, Torture, Rendition, Freedom of Information

"Isn't British justice good enough?"

2006-07-12T07:56:00.000+01:00

Apparently not! Perhaps, like our Home Office, British justice is not ‘fit for purpose’. The question above was on a banner being waved by demonstrators protesting at the extradition of Babar Ahmad and Haroon Aswat, two British Muslims accused of terrorist activities. If there is a case against these two men, then surely it aught to be heard in the UK, and if they are found guilty of a crime, they should be punished under British law.

But no, America commands and Britain obeys. Under the extradition treaty that Tony Blair thinks is so fair and reciprocal, they are to be sent to that bastion of fair-play and justice, the United States, where there is a possibility they will be sent on to Guantánamo Bay or some other gulag far away from away from those pesky human rights campaigners. It is revealing that the men’s barrister doesn’t believe US assurances that they won’t be sent to Guantánamo or a third country by ‘extraordinary rendition’ and has urged the judge to be sceptical about such promises.

Washington has promised that the two British men will not be sent to Guantánamo or turned over to a third country, but Mr Fitzgerald urged the high court judges not to rely on US assurances.
Source

The US administration believes these men to be ‘enemy combatants’ and because America is always right even when it is demonstrably wrong, there is no need at all for outdated concepts like evidence or a presumption of innocence. This is also what is happening with the so-called ‘NatWest Three’, the bankers who are also to be extradited to America, again without any evidence against them under an extradition treaty which was drafted for suspected terrorists. The alleged crimes, if committed, were committed in the UK, by UK citizens. The best commentary on this issue that I have read so far can be seen here.

Are we just a poodle? No, a super-poodle
Yes, but why? Why are we so pathetic? Britain is so grovellingly submissive to America as to make lapdogs look positively butch and poodles like keen independent spirits. We are all, by now, familiar with the craven manner in which we have decided to hand over British subjects for trial in America.

The baffling question is why? We beg, we fetch, we sit, we look up adoringly and wait to have our mangy old ears tickled by Uncle Sam, and it is not at all clear to the casual observer what we are getting in return.
Read the rest

This isn’t some rabid anti-American peace protester; this is Boris Johnson the Tory Member of Parliament for Henley on Thames. In another excellent post Boris explains what will happen to these men when they arrive in the USA

Tony Blair and the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith have been defending this disgraceful treaty which America has not even ratified. But for all their talk, the fact remains that British citizens can be extradited to the USA without as much as a shred of evidence against them, merely an assertion by the US. Obviously if Britain wants to extradite US citizens to face charges in this country then plenty of evidence is required. America, for all its faults, looks after its citizens (at least when they are accused of crimes abroad) and Tony Blair does absolutely nothing to protect a British citizen which is his duty as Prime Minister. This puts him completely out-of-touch with just about everyone else in the UK. MPs, peers, business leaders, the media, lawyers and bloggers, both from the left and the right seem extraordinarily united in their revulsion at this treaty, although why there wasn’t a sufficient protest in 2003 when David Blunkett passed this awful treaty is beyond me.

Back in June Tony Blair invited his subjects to ask him questions. This was too good an opportunity for many bloggers to miss and one blogger was fortunate enough to have his question not answered by the Prime Minister. Here is the question he asked:

Dear Prime Minister,

There have been several allegations of sexual harrassment made against the Deputy Prime Minister, notably from Linda McDougall, the wife of MP Austin Mitchell who alleges, in 1978, that he “pushed me quite forcefully against the wall and put his hand up my skirt”.

Were these allegations to be made against a teacher, social worker, a doctor or anyone else, do you think they should be treated as “a private matter”, as you regard the Deputy Prime Minister’s conduct, or do you think that person should face disciplinary proceedings?

Kinds regards

Justin McKeating

And here is a revealing part of the Prime Minister’s non-answer: (you can read the whole response here)

But I think the most important thing is that if we do something wrong, fair enough, but I think like everybody else we shouldn’t be assumed to have done certain things just because people make allegations about us.

Can you see what I’m getting at here? If it’s Blair, his ministers or American citizens who are accused of anything then mere allegations are not enough. If it’s the security services or the US government accusing us of any wrong-doing then mere allegations are more than enough.

The Treasury took action yesterday to stop the households of people suspected of links to al-Qa'eda and the Taliban from receiving state benefits and tax credits.[My emphasis]
Source

This theme crops up frequently these days with Blair’s preference for "speedy, simple summary justice" and rebalancing of the justice system. On a more positive note, if Babar Ahmad and Haroon Aswat do end up being rendered to Guantánamo (this time with Blair’s very obvious collusion), then they will now have to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

Tags: Civil Liberties, Justice, UK Politics

Has Blair’s ID Card scheme hit the buffers?

2006-07-09T06:36:00.000+01:00

The answer seems to be “yes” according to some leaked emails from the officials who have been assigned the task of realising the intrusive scheme.

TONY BLAIR’S flagship identity cards scheme is set to fail and may not be introduced for a generation, according to leaked Whitehall e-mails from the senior officials responsible for the multi-billion-pound project.

The problems are so serious that ministers have been forced to draw up plans for a scaled-down “face-saving” version to meet their pledge of phasing in the cards from 2008.

However, civil servants say there is no evidence that even this compromise is “remotely feasible” and accuse ministers of “ignoring reality” by pressing ahead.

One official warns of a “botched operation” that could put back the introduction of ID cards for a generation. He added: “I conclude that we are setting ourselves up to fail.” Another admits he is planning Home Office strategy around the possibility that the scheme could be “canned completely”.
Source

The leaked emails can be seen here. If this is the end of the ID Card fiasco then it is good news. But Blair does seem determined to foist this burden upon us one way or another even if it means he has to do it “incrementally”. People renewing their passports to avoid being put on the database are already being issued with biometric passports. (My effort to ‘Renew for Freedom’ met with much more success; I opted to apply for an Italian passport which has no electronic chip… so far. It cost less too.)

In our favour is the notorious incompetence of the Government with any IT project (now proved yet again), and the likelihood that New Labour will not be in power long enough to complete this imposition on us.

*UPDATE*

More details on Blairwatch.

Tags: ID Cards, Civil Liberties, New Labour

Murder in Samarkand - Documents:

2006-07-08T07:25:00.000+01:00

The former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has finally managed to publish his book Murder in Samarkand in which he describes the appalling human rights abuses by the US-funded regime of President Islam Karimov, and what happened when Craig tried to expose those abuses and the British and US complicity with the Karimov regime over torture.

The UK Government has tried to prevent the book being published and in order to get around the censorship Craig has put the supporting documents on his website.

In publishing "Murder in Samarkand" I had wanted to publish the supporting documentation in the book to cooroborate my story, especially as the FCO is claiming that the story is essentially untrue. In that sense, perhaps the most interesting link in the documents below is the very first document, which is a table of detailed amendments the FCO insisted be made to the text. This is fascinating if you consider just how much it confirms was true, particularly in the conversations it refers to between officials. - More and suppporting documents

The Government is now trying to silence Craig using the Crown Copyright Laws because he is not contravening the Official Secret's Act by publishing the documents on-line. They are threatening legal action and it is uncertain how much longer the documents will be available on his site.

Click on image for larger version or download pdf here

Blairwatch is mirroring the site here in the UK and several sites in the USA are also mirroring the documents and they should be unreachable by the UK Government. However the more bloggers who publish these documents, the less likely it is that the Government can succeed in stopping them spreading, so I am publishing them here. If this site does get shut down, then Dahr Jamail in the USA has a torrent file to share, and a zip to download of all the documents directly. You can also download a zip file from Polizeros.

An introduction to the documents, by Craig Murray:
In publishing "Murder in Samarkand" I had wanted to publish the supporting Documentation in the book to cooroborate my story, especially as the FCO is claiming that the story is essentially untrue. In that sense, perhaps the most interesting link in the Documents below is the very first Document, which is a table of detailed amendments the FCO insisted be made to the text. This is fascinating if you consider just how much it confirms was true, particularly in the conversations it refers to between officials.

Many of the other Documents I managed to have released under the Freedom of Information Act or Data Protection Act. I was astonished when the FCO announced that they would still take legal action against me if I published them. They argue that, and this astonished me, even if a Document is released under the DPA or FoIA, it is still copyright of the Crown and so cannot be published. I was even more amazed when the lawyers of the publisher said that this was probably true, and certainly could not be fought without potentially a million pound legal case.

It appears that, among so many attacks on civil liberties in recent years, the Blair government has managed to administratively negate its own Freedom of Information Act. Robin Cook must be spinning in his grave.

So we have made Murder in Samarkand an interactive bookthe Documents are published here, and referenced by URL in the text. Net posting is not breaching copyright because there is no charge to access the Documents. This site may, of course, be subject to technical attack, so I would be grateful if those who can mirror these documents on their own sites, do so.

These are contemporary Documents from my time as Ambassador in Uzbekistan. They do I believe include the real smoking gun on Britain's, and the CIA's, use of intelligence obtained by torture abroad. They also show the FCO getting increasingly angry with me over my being "over-focussed on human rights", rahter than building good relationships with Karimov, our ally in the War on Terror.

They do not give a smoking gun that proves that the allegations brought against me, of which I was eventually cleared, were trumped-up and motivated by a desire to get rid of me for policy reasons. Being internal FCO Documents, they are written to maintain the facade of a proper disciplinary investigation. You need to be prepared to read between the lines - and read the book!

Craig

Here are the Documents:

FCO Comment

IMF Telegram

Declaration

Speech

Hill Negotiation

Michael Wood memo of 13 March

Telegram of 18 March ‘2003 US Foreign Policy’

Letter from Simon Butt dated 16 April 2003

Exchange of emails with Linda Duffield

Colin Reynolds Report of 26 June 2003

Minute of my meeting with Howard Drake

Letter from British Businessmen in Tashkent

Email to Kate Smith

Minute of 26 September 2003

Tags: Torture, Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, Nu Labour

Internet in danger part 2

2006-07-02T05:54:00.000+01:00

Just over a couple of months ago I posted a report about the threat to the internet posed by telecommunications giants in America wanting to put “toll booths” on the information superhighway, creating a two-tiered system in which those who pay more get faster access. The issue of Net Neutrality, at the time of that post, was limited to the United States and to a certain extent it still is. However, I warned in April that if the telecommunication companies in America get their way, it won’t be long before Britain follows suit.

Well, it is starting to look like the threat is coming closer to Britain now, with the UK media finally picking up the story.

Millions of people will be forced to pay a 'congestion charge' for sending email under plans being developed by American telephone companies to create a 'two-tier' internet.

In a move which campaigners warn will destroy the openness and equality of the worldwide web, the US telecommunications group AT&T is lobbying politicians to allow the development of 'fast' and 'slow' internet services.

All data moving around the net is now treated equally and moves at the same speed, whether it is a personal blog or the website of a multinational corporation. But with the quantity of traffic soaring by the day, there are fears that the network could become clogged and slow down. American internet service providers argue that they should be allowed to charge customers to use a 'fast lane' giving their data priority.

Industry experts say a 'two-tier internet' could see individuals and businesses charged a penny for each email they send, or asked to pay a premium for services such as online TV or an annual subscription for constant preferential treatment. This could leave less well-off users in the 'slow lane' of the information superhighway with an inferior service, as emails take longer to arrive and websites work more slowly.

[...]

Analysts say it is too early to know how such a change in the US would affect Britain, although anyone who does business there or visits an American website might be affected. In the longer term they predict that BT and other service providers could follow the example of their US counterparts by seeking to create a two-tier network for the UK.

David Tansley, a technology specialist at the UK consulting firm Deloitte, said: 'The question is, how do you marshall a finite resource where demand exceeds supply? Do you just keep adding lanes to the motorway or do you look for a way of disincentivising some of the motorists? Unless you can defy the laws of physics, you have to consider a congestion charge. I think BT will do the same as the American telecoms companies.'
Source

I think it’s worth drawing more attention to this problem before it becomes impossible to defeat. It will affect what we can and can’t say on the internet as well as how much it will cost us to say what we are allowed to. The way things tend to work in Britain these days is first we get an assurance that some awful initiative won’t happen, followed by the promise of a debate which never materialises or turns out to be just an insistence that there is no alternative, to the thing just happening without much (or enough) opposition. This is what has happened with wars, ID card legislation, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, the nuclear issue… you name it. Nearly everybody uses the internet these days for all sorts of reasons and we are already paying for it. This is just pure corporate greed and control freakery… again.

Tags: Internet, Blogging, Net Freedom

Two blows against illegal legislation

2006-06-30T01:51:00.000+01:00

The governments of both Britain and America were dealt blows from their respective judiciaries yesterday. In Britain the High Court Judge Mr Justice Sullivan ruled that Government’s control orders were unlawful and breached Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), prompting John Denham the chairman of the Home Affairs Committee to speak of a looming constitutional crisis.

"There is a constitutional crisis emerging here I think about the way in which the judges and the courts are approaching these issues.

"When many of us, as I did, supported the Human Rights Act and indeed still support it, we thought that on great matters of state of this sort, if the elected Parliament had taken a careful view of what was in the wider public interest that would be given considerable weight by the courts.

"That doesn’t seem to be what’s happening at the moment and that’s why I don’t think it’s over the top to talk about an emerging constitutional crisis.

"We have got to have a serious discussion between law makers in Parliament, ministers and judges about the way through here. Before we get into too big a conflict, sensible people have got to get round the table and explore the way in which this is going to be handled."
Source

The control orders were brought in after the imprisonment of suspected terrorists without charge or access to the evidence against them was also ruled to be illegal. For the second time in as many weeks, a battle of wills has erupted between the Government and the judiciary with an angry John Reid has saying that the Government will now appeal the ruling. The appeal hearing next Monday will be interesting. If the Government loses, much of its anti-terror policy will be in shreds.

Article 5 of the ECHR is quite clear, it prohibits indefinite detention without trial. The Government will no doubt argue that the six foreigners affected by the control orders were not actually behind bars. However, all but one of them had to leave their homes and live in special Home Office-approved accommodation which they were required to remain in for 18 hours a day; they were also electronically tagged, and were unable to communicate with anyone without Home Office permission. Mr Justice Sullivan called this "the antithesis of liberty and equivalent to imprisonment".

What John Denham is calling a “crisis” is really just the judiciary doing its job and pointing out that it is the Government that is breaking the law. Michael Mansfield QC said:

"We are not on the verge of a constitutional crisis; what we are on the verge of is recognising at long last that the courts are performing the role they were always there to do.

"Although the government has been elected, the elected democracy has put in place a judiciary whose job it is to monitor the extent to which legislation is incompatible with human rights.

"That's exactly what the judges are doing and as soon as they do their job then in comes the government and says 'oh we don't like this, we wish to lock up people we think are suspects and subversive'.

"We can't tolerate a society in which a government is allowed that view untrammelled."
Source

While some politicians may use Mr Justice Sullivan's ruling as an excuse for abandoning the ECHR (which British lawyers and civil servants played a large part in drafting), the root of the problem is Tony Blair’s aversion to any legal system which differs from his own idea of "speedy, simple summary justice" which has little room for niceties such as evidence and the presumption of innocence and sees the role of judges as bureaucrats to rubber-stamp the decisions of the Government and the police.
His talk of rebalancing the justice system in favour of victims of crime is completely at odds with the idea of everyone being equal under the law and just panders to the unelected Murdoch tabloids which seem to be the real power in the country.

Across the Atlantic George Bush received a similar blow to his plans to use military tribunals to try the detainees at the Guantanamo gulag. The US Supreme Court has ruled that the military tribunals due to be held at the camp which were suspended after three detainees committed suicide are illegal. The ruling came after Salim Ahmed Hamdan, an inmate accused of being Osama Bin Laden’s driver challenged Bush’s right to try him under a military tribunal without the protections afforded military prisoners under the Geneva Conventions or US courts.

The US supreme court ruled today that the US president, George Bush, overstepped his authority in creating military war crimes trials for detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

In a rebuke to the Bush administration, Justice John Paul Stevens said the proposed trials were illegal under US law and Geneva conventions.

[…]

Justice Anthony M Kennedy, regarded as a moderate conservative, joined the court's liberal members in most of the ruling against the Bush administration.

"Trial by military commission raises separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order," Mr Kennedy wrote in his opinion.

"Concentration of power [in the executive branch] puts personal liberty in peril of arbitrary action by officials, an incursion the constitution's three-part system is designed to avoid."
Source

The rebuke echoes that given almost simultaneously to Tony Blair by the British High Court. The US ruling does not mean that Guantanamo will close just yet, but it does mean that the day of its eventual closure has been brought forward and that the detainees will either have to be given a fair trial or be released. It also puts limits on the power of the President to do as he pleases in a time of war.

By declaring the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals illegal, the U.S. Supreme Court put fresh curbs on President George W. Bush’s powers in the war on terrorism and gave ammunition to those demanding the prison be closed.

[…]

"The administration was asserting incredibly broad, essentially plenary, executive authority in this very broadly and very nebulously defined context of the war on terror," said retired Air Force lawyer, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Walker. "This is nothing but a slap in the face of the administration."
Source

So the two world leaders who continuously wax lyrical about the rule of law have both been found to be flouting it by their own judiciaries. “Shoulder to shoulder” indeed.

Tags: Terrorism, Bush, Blair, Civil Liberties

Emergency Demonstration at American Embassy

2006-06-25T07:11:00.000+01:00

Click on image for larger version

Sorry about the short notice but I just found this on the Liberty website. Today, Sunday 25 June, there will be an emergency demonstration outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, W1 from 12-2 pm, demanding an end to CIA torture flights. If you are able to, please go down there and give them some support.

Tags: Torture, Extraordinary Rendition

British Government slammed by Amnesty International

2006-05-24T04:26:00.000+01:00

The British Government has been accused by Amnesty International of forcing through legislation which causes "serious human rights violations" using the war on terror as an excuse.

The charity condemned Tony Blair for introducing "control orders" for terror suspects. It said yesterday that the system of house arrest was "tantamount to the executive 'charging', 'trying' and 'sentencing' a person" without a fair trial.
"The Government continued to erode fundamental human rights, the rule of law and independence of the judiciary," Amnesty said in the UK section of its annual report.
The report criticised the new Terrorism Act - which increased the maximum time police can detain terror suspects without charge from 14 to 28 days - for its "sweeping and vague" provisions.
Independent article. Download as a pdf here.

According to Amnesty International's UK director, Kate Allen, this is the first time the UK has not been congratulated by the charity for its work on torture. The report also criticised Britain and America for their "grave" abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq over 10,000 people have had their human rights breached by being interned without charge by American and British forces. Amnesty's secretary general, Irene Kahn said that:

"Governments ... sacrificed principles in the name of the 'war on terror' and turned a blind eye to massive human rights violations. The world has paid a heavy price in terms of erosion of fundamental principles and the enormous damage done to the lives of ordinary people... When the powerful are too arrogant to review and reassess their strategies, the heaviest price is paid by the poor and powerless, ordinary Iraqi women, men and children"

She also said that Tony Blair's "rebalancing" of rights to give priority to the community over individuals was an attempt to divert attention away from human rights abuses.

It really instills a sense of pride in Britain doesn't it?

Tags: Blair, Torture, Human Rights

Damage Limitation

2006-05-02T08:58:00.000+01:00

Tony Blair is desperately trying to plug the holes in his sinking New Labour ship. Knowing that his party is going to do very badly in Thursday’s elections, the Prime Minister is out on the campaign trail in an attempt to improve Labour’s prospects. He’s got his work cut out. Labour is expecting its worst results since 1968.

Tony Blair wants us to think about Labour’s achievements. Well, that shouldn’t take too long. He also wants us to put aside the Government’s current difficulties, you know, sleaze, incompetence and sex scandals, and focus on the “bigger picture” before the vote. I wonder what he means when he speaks of the ‘bigger picture’. Iraq? Extraordinary rendition? Support for and complicity in torture? Or maybe ID cards and the loss of our civil liberties are part of “bigger picture” along with the curtailing of democracy. No, I doubt he wants us to think about those things. Maybe he wants us to think about his successes with the NHS and education. Hmm, that might be a bit tricky too.

No, it has to be purely local, ‘bread and butter’ issues that we must think about. Things like Council Tax, or crime perhaps. Oh dear, not much luck there either. Maybe he should just call the whole thing off.

Tags: Blair, Nu Labour

Charlie the Safety Elephant’s Intellectual Laziness

2006-04-26T04:14:00.000+01:00

"I would impose restrictions on those suspected of being involved in organised crime. In fact, I would generally harry, hassle and hound them until they give up or leave the country." - Tony Blair April 2006

Less than 24 hours after the well publicised rant in which Charles Clarke lambasted the media for it's “intellectual laziness” over reports that his illiberal policies were removing civil liberties, the tables were spectacularly turned when it transpired that 1,023 foreign prisoners, after finishing their sentences, walked free instead of being deported and are now at large with the Home Office having no idea where many of them are. In many cases judges had expressly recommended deportation for the prisoners at their sentencing.

Such is the chaos in the system for dealing with "foreign national prisoners" that Home Office officials were unable to say last night whether they had found three foreign murderers - who should be on life-long licence - nine rapists and five paedophiles among the 1,023 prisoners released since 1999.
Telegraph

Mr Clarke said he was not going to start pointing the finger at who was to blame for the error.

The Home Secretary then proceeded to do just that, pointing his finger at the Prison Service and the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) and promising that he would not resign over the Home Office incompetence as it is his responsibility to clear it up. He did however accept his responsibility as the Minister in charge of the Home Office.

"I do take responsibility for this," he said. "It is a shocking state of affairs. I take it extremely, extremely seriously in every respect. The concern, possibly anger, that people will feel is entirely understandable. It was a basic administrative failure."
Mr Clarke could not say "hand on heart" that all those involved would be found. He refused to resign and said he did not expect others to go either. "I do not think it is a resigning matter," he said.
Downing Street supported him, adding that it did not expect ministers "to know what is going on in every nook and cranny in their department". But it was hardly welcome news to Tony Blair in the middle of a local election campaign.
The Guardian

Tony Blair might be backing him up on his decision not to resign but one has to wonder how long Charlie can hang on now that a major hunt is underway to find these ex convicts.

The fiasco - which only came to light after repeated questions from a Tory MP - plunged Mr Clarke into the worst crisis of his 16-month spell in charge of the department and dismayed Labour chiefs hoping to highlight the party's law and order credentials in next week's local elections. The pressure on him intensified last night when it emerged that 288 of the prisoners were freed after August 2005 when MPs first alerted the Home Office to the problem.
Independent Article

In other words the worst of this was happening on his watch when he was aware of the problem and was supposedly dealing with it. Not only that, but the full scale of the blunder had to be prized out of him by MPs and journalists. What an honourable way to behave!

Poor Charlie isn't going to like the newspaper headlines today and this time he’s going to have to take it on the chin.

While the tabloids will obviously have a lot of fun with this story and use it to reinforce their generally xenophobic views with over simplifications and assumptions that all those prisoners should have been deported, which might not be the case, the fact that the Home Office is guilty of huge incompetence remains true. It could be argued (and probably will be by the Government) that this story is being overblown as the prisoners had finished their sentences and were released as many British ex convicts are. The Home Office, however, should have been aware of the particulars of each case and known whether deportation was necessary or not. I also wonder what the reaction would be if this had happened to another Home Secretary (in a way it has because this started on David Blunkett's watch and he seems to be calling for heads to roll). Charles Clarke's well deserved unpopularity earned by his lack of manners and illiberal agenda may cause this issue to be his undoing. A more sensible Home Seretary might have received more sypmathy. But then a more sensible Home Secretary would have dealt with the problem properly in the first place.

Blairwatch has more on this with links to a very worried looking Charlie giving abysmal performances on Channel 4 News and Newsnight.

Tags: Blair, Nu Labour, Charles Clarke

The Pernicious Poison in the Government

2006-04-25T03:25:00.000+01:00

Following the media debate on the erosion of civil liberties started by The Observer’s Henry Porter, the government is striking back, apparently stung and offended by the temerity of a small hand full of journalists who dared to suggest that their policies are overly authoritarian and bringing Britain closer to becoming a police state. New Labour has come out on the offensive in an attempt to convince us either that they are not removing our civil liberties or that removing our civil liberties is the only way to preserve them.

First up was Tony Blair on Sunday telling us that he

“would widen the police powers to seize the cash of suspected drug dealers, the cars they drive round in, and require them to prove they came by them, lawfully. I would impose restrictions on those suspected of being involved in organised crime. In fact, I would generally harry, hassle and hound them until they give up or leave the country.” (my emphasis)

No amount of spin can alter the fact that this is completely contrary to the long-established principle of being innocent until proven guilty. It gets worse; The Observer also reported that:

Even if they are not convicted of a crime and there is insufficient evidence to try them, suspects could be banned from associating with certain individuals or travelling to certain places, in order to disrupt trades such as human trafficking.

So that is the end of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is it? Not according to the Safety Elephant who at the end of a speech yesterday said:

“And let me conclude with one of the more ridiculous statements: "The presumption of innocence is no longer a fixed legal principal". This is complete nonsense. In this country that you are innocent of an offence until proven guilty.”

Sorry Mr Clarke, the only response to that is “Bullshit!” Not only does that statement contradict what the Prime Minister said, it contradicts the facts on the ground. Control orders, for example, where people have been put under house arrest without having been charged with a crime let alone been found guilty of one. And that was only because the Home Secretary was forced to have them released from Belmarsh where they had been illegally incarcerated.

Mr Clarke’s speech was a response to articles in The Observer and The Independent which reasonably pointed out that New Labour’s policies are increasingly authoritarian and are attacking civil liberties. ID cards, the ‘anti-terror’ legislation, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, DNA database, ASBOs, severe limits on ‘unauthorised’ demonstrations, tapping the phones of MPs, the depressing list goes on.

“But I believe that a pernicious and even dangerous poison is now slipping into at least some parts of this media view of the world. In the absence of many of the genuinely dangerous and evil totalitarian dictatorships to fight - since they've gone - the media has steadily rhetorically transferred to some of the existing democracies, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, some of the characteristics of those dictatorships.”

That’s because The United States and the United Kingdom now share some of the characteristics of the old dictatorships. I never dreamed that America and Britain would support torture, ‘extraordinary rendition’, illegal wars, anti-democratic legislation and even changing the Geneva Convention. Don’t shoot the messenger Mr Clarke; look at what you are doing!

“So some commentators routinely use language like 'police state', 'fascist', 'hijacking our democracy', 'creeping authoritarianism', 'destruction of the rule of law', whilst words like 'holocaust', 'gulag' and 'apartheid' are regularly used descriptively of our society in ways which must be truly offensive to those who experienced those realities.”
Full Speech

Yes, that’s right; it’s calling a spade a spade. And yes it is offensive; it is as offensive now as it was then. What else is this if not ‘destruction of the rule of law’?

In this case, the judge said, Charles Clarke had made his decision to issue the order based on "one-sided information", but he was "unable to envisage the circumstances" allowing the court to quash the home secretary's decision. As a result, the judge said, he would have to leave the order in place, even though he ruled that it contravened human rights law ... "Controlees' rights ... are being determined not by an independent court ... but by executive decision making untrammelled by any prospect of effective judicial supervision ... If you erect a structure where people in the position of your client, to be frank, don't have a chance, the secretary of state is always going to win."
Source

And the pictures of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib make the term ‘gulag’ seem mild to me. Bringing in legislation that allows laws can to made, altered and changed by a Minister WITHOUT having to go through parliament for a vote or even a debate, cannot be anything else but ‘hijacking our democracy'.

Attacking the media for belatedly expressing concern for what is happening is further proof of the fascist direction this government is taking us in. Thankfully, at the moment at least, we still do have a robust relatively free media, but from the tone of Charles Clarke’s speech I doubt it will stay that way for long. I say ‘relatively’ because the mainstream media too has been guilty of gross media distortions which do not seem to attract the ire of the Government when they support their position.

Unsurprisingly, many blogs have commented on this important issue and will continue to do so, unless they too are somehow silenced. There is more excellent coverage from (amongst many):

Blairwatch, Bloggerheads, Chicken Yoghurt, Curious Hamster and Devil's Kitchen

Tags: Blair, New Labour, Civil Liberties, Democracy