civil liberties

The Home Office continue to show themselves as 'not fit for purpose' by losing yet more highly confidential information:

Who is responsible for this? Who would be so daft as to decrypt this information and put it on a memory stick, then lose it?

PA Consulting. Who were appointed by Blunkett to prepare the ID Card scheme.

PA Consulting. Who boast on their website about being a finalist in the Change Management Awards for their work on the project where this data was lost.

Our friend Rachel North is one of Britain's most thoughtful and insightful commentators on terrorism and civil liberties and she's written another excellent article on the subject, this time a speech she delivered during David Davis' successful election campaign.

Ah, the reliable old African Union. Is there anyone out there who is surprised by their support for Mugabe and his election? The AU is the successor to the infamous Organisation of African Unity and that must have been in the running for the most odious organisation on the planet.

No matter how disgusting you are, the OAU will open its arms to you. Members have included mass murderers, genocidists, cannibals, child rapists, the completely insane and the nastiest despots.

Their annual conference was marked by two events every year:

1. A punchup on the conference floor
2. Armed guards patrolling the hotel and conference floors to stop the delegates from killing each other.

The thuggish behaviour of Mugabe's goons at the conference shows that a mere change of name hasn't really altered the brutal culture that the organisation either finds acceptable or is too supine to do anything about.

One only has to look at Mbeki, the Neville Chamberlin of the continent, to see the continent wide failure of leadership the organisation represents, a failure his predecessor accused Mugabe of. It that all, Nelson? Is that all you noticed about Mugabe? Is that all you have to say?

Still at least Mbeki was able to swap tips on curing AIDS with President Jammeh, who had a cure revealed to him in a dream and now treats people himself, but only on Thursdays.

Oh, the Good old Westminster bubble, the small enclosed world of Britain's political class. We noticed that, almost unanimously they pronounced David Davis as a wild nutcase off on a farcical flight of fancy. Indeed it was remarkable at just how slow to react the major parties were.

Then the polls came in. The Great British Public seemed to take a different view. This is a problem for democracy as the 'opinion leaders' and 'policy formers' as they like to style themselves have frequently found themselves on the wrong side of public opinion. now sometimes this is no bad thing, but when it happens so often, one must wonder if those providing 'informed comment' really are informed about anything beyond the bubble.

For politicians to reach out beyond the bubble is vital to keep democracy alive.

This is a general political problem that seems to be some kind on natural phenomenon. In Brussels it is magnified, and so is the problem.

It's glaring, embarrassingly so. I love Brussels, it's a vibrant, quirky, multicultural city - frankly underrated in most tourist guides, but the 'EU Quarter is something very different.

It's almost entirely white. As I wander around the parliament and various Commission buildings, practically the only non-caucasians I see are the cleaners and the dogbodies moving furniture.

I photograph a lot of conferences and I'm faced with a sea of pleasant, intelligent white men in suits. Not a photographers dream. Frankly the EU bubble is about as diverse as a  Ku Klux Klan rally. Secondly, almost everyone involved is taking the EU Shilling in one way or another.

I want to make it plain that I am pro-Europe, but I believe fundamental reform, not just of treaties but of the bubble is the only way forward.

This report from the EU Parliament's Culture Committee has been taking aim at those naughty uncontrolled bloggers.

We've asked Ms Mikko for an interview and have posed a question to the web editor, who asks for feedback:

"Does the Culture Committee regard Commissioner Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the European Commission's blog a threat?

Or Us? "

We'll let you know any reply we get. If any.

A big question and one where the answer is taking a long time to appear. Winning the 42 days vote was an example of politics at its worst, it's most disreputable. By a combination of outright bribery and blackmailing his own side with 'Do you really want a messy leadership election contest with our ratings so low?' being whispered by the whips into the Labour rebels' ears.

This is how civil liberties are overturned, not out of necessity but out of saving one mans political skin, out of a twisted machination to recoup a few points in the polls by painting the Conservatives as being 'weak on terrorism'.

Let's make one thing clear: David Davis has done this on principle. He is serious and genuine. This is not a moment of madness, a foolish move but a brave decision to take a stand.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, accused the Conservatives of being in “total disarray”. Well, that's a subject she has a great deal of experience of!

Will Labour fight to defend their policy or will they be too afraid?

Does Brown have any balls at all? No. They won't put up a candidate to defend their policies or attempt to justify their actions before the electorate. It seems that the only balls he has is called Ed.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, branded Mr Davis's behaviour "odd" - Well Jack would find sticking to your principles odd. This is a man who had a long standing Labour party member in his eighties arrested for calling him 'rubbish' at the party conference, so we can clearly not trust him or his tired and discredited party to use this new legislation wisely.

The Chinese are, in my view on a PR disaster trail, with the Olympic torch. Today will not be remembered for the torch, but for the 20 35 or so people arrested. The free Tibet campaigner and the 'China is Great' counter campaigners.

One of the main stories I heard from from the 'China is Great' lot, is this, The Tibetans have killed my brothers and family, the thing is, I heard the very same story from far to many of the Chinese contingent. So I can only guess that it's the 'story' to tell any westerner who comes to the protests. Oh and that the BBC tells lies, to that, well, I can agree to at times.

So, here's some photo's of the demo at Trafalgar Square.

click for more image.

The BBC's view on the story here

Some History on the 'torch'  here. Something about a certain Carl Diem. Some link there with the past trying to tell us something. It's just a costly show with no benefit for anyone.

Once again the British government responds to allegations of torture - This time by a former SAS soldier by a serious investigation issuing a gagging order against him.

In this move we turn from being a modern state and debase ourselves down to the standards of a tinpot dictator.

This is not the action of a govenrment with nothing to hide.

*UPDATE* Full Statement

This statement was prepared and read by Ben Griffin, ex-SAS soldier, at a press conference on Monday 25 February 2008.

Our government would have us believe that our involvement in the process known as Extraordinary Rendition is limited to two occasions on which planes carrying detainees landed to refuel on the British Indian Ocean Territory, Diego Garcia. David Miliband has stated that the British Government expects the Government of the United States to “seek permission to render detainees via UK territory and airspace, including Overseas Territories; that we will grant that permission only if we are satisfied that the rendition would accord with UK law and our international obligations; and how we understand our obligations under the UN Convention Against Torture¹.” (Taken from a statement given to the House of Commons by the Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Thursday 21 February 2008)

The use of British Territory and airspace pales into insignificance in light of the fact that it has been British soldiers detaining the victims of Extraordinary Rendition in the first place. Since the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001 UKSF has operated within a joint US/UK Task Force. This Task Force has been responsible for the detention of hundreds if not thousands of individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq. Individuals detained by British soldiers within this Task force have ended up in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, Bagram Theatre Internment Facility, Balad Special Forces Base, Camp Nama BIAP and Abu Ghraib Prison.

Whilst the government has stated its desire that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp be closed, it has remained silent over these other secretive prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. These secretive prisons are part of a global network in which individuals face torture and are held indefinately without charge. All of this is in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions, International Law and the UN Convention Against Torture.

Early involvement of UKSF in the process of Extraordinary Rendition centres around operations carried out in Afghanistan in late 2001. Of note is an incident at the Qalai Janghi fortress, near Mazar-i-Sharif. UKSF fought alongside their US counterparts to put down a bloody revolt by captured Taliban fighters. The surviving Taliban fighters were then rendered to Guantanamo Bay.

After the invasion of Iraq in 2003 this joint US/UK task force appeared. Its primary mission was to kill or capture high value targets. Individuals detained by this Task Force often included non-combatants caught up in the search for high value targets. The use of secret detention centres within Iraq has negated the need to use Guantanamo Bay whilst allowing similar practice to go unnoticed.

I have here an account taken from an interpreter interviewed by the organisation Human Rights Watch (http://hrw.org/reports/2006/us0706/2.htm). He was based at the detention and interrogation facility within Camp Nama at Baghdad International Airport during 2004. This facility was used to interrogate individuals captured by the joint US/UK Task Force. In it are the details of numerous breaches of the Geneva Convention and accounts of torture. These breaches were not the actions of rogue elements the abuse was systematic and sanctioned through the chain of command. This account is corroborated by an investigation carried out by NYT reporters into Camp Nama and the US/UK Task Force, which appeared in the New York Times on March 19 2006. Throughout my time in Iraq I was in no doubt that individuals detained by UKSF and handed over to our American colleagues would be tortured. During my time as member of the US/UK Task Force, three soldiers recounted to me an incident in which they had witnessed the brutal interrogation of two detainees. Partial drowning and an electric cattle prod were used during this interrogation and this amounted to torture. It was the widely held assumption that this would be the fate of any individuals handed over to our America colleagues. My commanding officer at the time expressed his concern to the whole squadron that we were becoming “the secret police of Baghdad”.

As UK soldiers within this Task Force a policy that we would detain individuals but not arrest them was continually enforced. Since it was commonly assumed by my colleagues that anyone we detained would subsequently be tortured this policy of detention and not arrest was regarded as a clumsy legal tool used to distance British soldiers from the whole process.

During the many operations conducted to apprehend high value targets numerous non-combatants were detained and interrogated in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of civilians in occupied territories. I have no doubt in my mind that non-combatants I personally detained were handed over to the Americans and subsequently tortured.

The joint US/UK Task Force has broken International Law, contravened The Geneva Conventions and disregarded the UN Convention Against Torture. British soldiers are intimately involved in the actions of this Task Force. Jack Straw, Margaret Beckett David Miliband, Geoff Hoon, Des Browne, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown. In their respective positions over the last five years they must know that British soldiers have been operating within this joint US/UK task force. They must have been briefed on the actions of this unit.

As the occupiers of Iraq we have a duty to uphold the law, to abide by the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture. We are also responsible for securing the borders of Iraq on all counts we have failed. The British Army once had a reputation for playing by the rules. That reputation has been tarnished over the last seven years. We have accepted illegality as the norm. I have no doubt that over the coming months and years increasing amounts of information concerning the actions of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan will be become public.

Whilst the majority of British Forces have been withdrawn from Iraq, UKSF remain within the US/UK Task Force.

¹Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession.”

Ben Griffin
25 February 2008

POLICE are investigating the discovery of a confidential Home Office disc by computer technicians - which was reportedly in a laptop bought on eBay. Source

From the 'You couldn't make this up' Dept:

The British tax authorities have paid an informant for the bank details of scores of wealthy Britons. The records were stolen from one of the world’s most secretive tax havens.

HM Revenue & Customs paid £100,000 for data that it is using to launch investigations of up to 100 British citizens who have accounts at Liechtenstein’s biggest bank. - Source

More details here. Not a bad deal, the Germans paid 3.2 million quid, the UK handed over 100k and the US an undisclosed amount. Not bad for one DVD.

Just a quick update to the previous buggers story - Nick Robinson is claiming that it was Thames Valley Plod, not the Met, who bugged Mr. Khan and Mr. Ahmad.  Probably reasonable given the location of the prison, so apologies to the incompetent murderous mendacious bastards at the Yard.

However, given that it seems to have been initiated by a TVP copper acting on his own initiative, it's quite possible the Met and indeed every other force in the country is happily reaching for the RIPA 2000 and bugging anyone and everyone without bothering to inform a judge or the Cabinet.  This leads to the following bit of speculation:

If you or I went round blabbing details of anti-terror surveillance operations we'd be in Paddington Green trying to remember Gareth Peirce's phone number* before too long.  Doesn't seem to apply to the Sunday Times and the Tories, however, who evidently both received this information, so who leaked it?  Whose noses would be put out of joint by a lot of ordinary coppers getting in on the domestic surveillance game?  Whose paper is the Sunday Times?  Answers on a postcard (left in a dead letter drop in the Brompton Road) and addressed to 'MI5, Thames House, London'.

OK, so what would the spooky calculation be?  Let slip that the fuzz are bugging MPs and suddenly Straw and the boys (and the Tories, hence the leak to them) are put on the back foot, realise what a monster they've created in allowing the police unchecked surveillance powers, put uppity Plod and his Acme Listening Kit back in his box and go running back to the professionals.  Perhaps.  All seems rather neat, really, but there's a plausible case here to say that genuine MI5 anti-terror surveillance operations (which I'm certainly not opposed to, see Shami Chakrabarti's comments) could easily be badly compromised if there's a police operation unknown to them going on.  If that's the case, the leaker's done us all a favour.

The only unanswered question is what on earth TVP thought they'd pick up - Sadiq Khan MP isn't a terrorist, he's Jack Straw's PPS FFS.  I suggest they did it because they could and because there's no accountability *at all*.  Thus are police states run, you don't have to have a reason to be arbitrary.

Talking of which, Olbermann is in fine form (via ChickYog).  There's more from SpyBlog too, and Tony Benn makes the obvious, if paranoid, point that the Wilson Doctrine never meant that much anyway.

Now for some light relief.  The Metropolitan Police clearly concluded long ago that their job was to enforce the law, but not to follow it.  What other construction can we put on this?

Gordon Brown was drawn into a dispute yesterday over a claim that police secretly bugged one of his MPs during meetings with a man suspected of links to terror groups.

An inquiry was ordered into the allegation that Sadiq Khan, now a government whip, was covertly recorded during two visits he made to Babar Ahmad in the prison where he is being held. The Conservatives said that they had given warning to Mr Brown six weeks ago that an MP had been subjected to surveillance, in breach of a convention against bugging MPs, and accused him of doing nothing.

Now, I'm not sure what's the more laughable suggestion here, that Sadiq Khan is a prominent campaigner for civil liberties (he *was*, but his voting record since being elected to Parliament hardly does him credit on this, backing ID cards, anti-terror laws and Trident but opposing investigating Iraq), that the Met decide who to bug without asking anyone or that Gordon Brown's administration apparently lose letters from senior opposition politicians (hint: try asking top government couriers TNT).  Possibly none of them are quite as laughable as the case against Mr. Ahmad, a beneficiary of David Blunkett's enlightened attitude to justice and democracy as demonstrated by the 2003 Extradition Act.  In case anyone's not following the Register coverage of the associated trial in the USA, here's a taster:

Abu-jihaad has been charged with e-mailing information on the transit of his naval battle group through the Straits of Hormuz to Babar Ahmad and Azzam Publications in London in 2001. At the time he was serving on the destroyer Benfold. For the purpose of the case, Babar Ahmad - now awaiting a court decision in February on whether or not he is to be extradited to the States - is considered by the US government to be a terrorist. The government alleges Abu-jihaad's communications with Ahmad and the purchase of Chechen resistance videotapes from the Azzam website to be aiding terror, with the defendant an agent of a foreign power.

A glaring problem with the government's case against Abu-jihaad is that the evidence against him is thin. Although the US has submitted e-mails to Azzam which they have claimed are from Abu-jihaad, prosecutors admitted in pre-trial filings this month that "the Government had no recorded statements or testimony personally linking Abu-jihaad to the e-mail account from which [the communications to Azzam in question] were sent."

Of course, SpyBlog have been on the case from the start, in usual exhaustive detail, plus the bugging story.  Useful to correct some bias and poor details in the original Sunday Times story.  Also, remember the old rule, the Sunday Times is MI5's paper, the Sunday Telegraph is MI6's.

Why do they do it? Why are they so inisitent on extending detention? Even in a 'Government of all the Untalent' Jacqui Smith stands out as being particuly undistinguished and has recently been touring the media being completely unconvincing.

Watching her press her case - which amounts to "We might possibly need to do this at some point in the future. Maybe. So it would be perfectly rational to have it in place now, just in case" - under questioning is fascinating. She gives the impression that she's about to break down in tears and desperately sob at the cameras saying "It's not my fault, Gordon's making me do this".

Future crime. How very Orwellian.

There is a possibility that at some point in the future people might steal people's jet packs and use them to frighten ducks. Shouldn't we put in legislation now to prevent this?

Don't we have a pressing need to legislate launching private space rockets? There will come a time when unregulated space launches will cause a serious hazard to aircraft. We MUST legislate now so that we are prepared.

The Police have chosen today to announce a new initiative to fight crime, taken from Minority Report:

Young people who are believed to be at risk of becoming offenders are to be targeted in a new police initiative.

The move is part of a strategy for reducing youth crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, unveiled by the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Acpo says identifying potential young offenders early on could have a dramatic impact on cutting youth crime.

Efforts include sharing information with other services and extending a police presence in some schools.

New Labour: Fighting Tomorrow's Crimes Today. Today's crimes can wait.

The New Yorker has a very interesting podcast interview with Lawrence Wright, author of the highly reccomended The Looming Tower (review).

In this interview he discusses the US Director of National Intelligence's priorities and reforms. He also tells of how he was monitored whilst writing his book and how an basic error in intelligence gathering resulted in his daughter being listed as an al Qaeda contact.

Well, it was fun while it lasted.  Louise 'I'm the Respect Czar and I'll get totally pissed if I want to' Casey and her Blairite crew have been disbanded after it someone realised it was all tabloid-headline-grabbing bullshit:

Ms Casey, who was regarded highly by Mr Blair as a “can do” official, has been commissioned to carry out a cross-departmental review on how best to engage communities in the fight against crime.

That's a pretty tough punishment for being regarded highly by Blair.

Via the Magistrate's Blog