The use of cameras to film people in the street is banned in Germany, Canada and several other countries. But it is accepted practice in Britain, which is alone in not having a privacy law that protects people against constant surveillance
Footage from the cameras has also been passed to newspapers and television companies without people's permission. Professor Norris said: "CCTV is generally seen as benign rather than as Big Brother-style surveillance. "We need to have a much wider debate about exactly what CCTV is doing in terms of our privacy and our society. "It is about much more than crime. It enables people to be tracked and monitored and harassed and socially excluded on the basis that they do not fit into the category of people that a council or shopping centre wants to see in a public space."
lupinwick said:Use of RFID technology etc. to track citizens, bank records to check purchases, Internet data to check and record viewing habits, phone data (mobile and landline) to verify calls made. Journey time monitoring could in theory be modified to record where each car was at a given time (at the moment the data is erased when the journey time is computed). Other aspects if life can be monitored (gas, electricity usage etc.). Its does look a lot like a total police state, BUT at best you could only make correlations and form patterns of behviour. The system couldn't spot anything other than obvious intent
Blair lays down framework for police state in Britain
Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (Britain)
10 August 2005
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The measures announced August 5 by Prime Minister Tony Blair under the pretext of combating terrorism show how fully his government views democratic rights to be incompatible with its warmongering internationally and its pro-business agenda at home.
Blair used his monthly press conference to announce measures openly directed against immigrants and Muslims, but which set the stage for attacks on the right to free speech and for the criminalisation of all forms of political dissent.
Prior to Blair’s appearance, Home Secretary Charles Clarke had drawn up new grounds for deportation and exclusion for what the government arbitrarily deems to be a list of “unacceptable behaviours.” These measures encompassed not merely those involved with terrorist groups or those charged with financing terrorism, activities already proscribed, but included anyone seen as presenting an indirect threat to national security, public order, the rule of law in the UK or the UK’s good relations with a third country.
Any non-British citizen or naturalised British citizen living anywhere in the world, using any means whatsoever—including writing, producing, publishing or distributing material, public speaking including preaching, running a website, or using a position of responsibility such as teacher, community or youth leader—to express views which the government considers illegitimate can be targeted.
The list of unacceptable behaviours includes:
Fomenting terrorism or encouraging others to carry out terrorist acts; justifying or glorifying terrorism, fomenting other serious criminal activity or provoking others to serious criminal acts; fostering hatred that may lead to intra-community violence in the UK; and advocating violence in furtherance of particular beliefs.
Anyone not covered by these sweeping criteria could still face deportation or exclusion from the country if he is considered by the government to express “extreme views” that are “in conflict with the UK’s culture of tolerance.”
In announcing his intent to push through these measures in the next parliament, Blair made clear that he would tolerate no constitutional or legal impediment.
“These issues will, of course, be tested in the courts,” he stated, explaining that previous attempts by the government to deport people back to repressive regimes were struck down for contravening Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Blair dismissed such considerations, claiming that following the July 7 bombings in London, “the circumstances of our national security have now self-evidently changed.”
If the judiciary attempted to block deportations, he would “legislate further, including, if necessary amending the Human Rights Act,” which formally commits Britain to upholding the ECHR.
Blair indicated just how extensive the government’s campaign of surveillance would be, adding bookshops to the list of targets previously cited by the home secretary. He also made clear that anti-terrorism legislation criminalising the “condoning or glorifying of terrorism” would have effect anywhere in the world and would be applied retrospectively.
A new court procedure is to be established in which a pre-trial hearing could take place in a closed non-jury court. The government is also sympathetic to police requests that the time limit for detaining those suspected of terrorism without charge be extended from 14 days to three months.
A number of radical Islamic organisations are to be proscribed, including Hizb-ut-Tahrir. This group has never been directly linked to terrorism. Blair declared that the government would “also examine the grounds of proscription to widen them.”
New powers will be brought forward to close mosques and other places of worship “used as a centre for fomenting extremism” and a list of Imams drawn up who are to be banned from preaching in Britain.
British nationals not covered by these measures will face the extended use of the control orders announced previously, which amount to a form of house arrest and prohibit any social or political contact not specifically authorised by the state.
With these measures, Blair has laid out the framework for a police state.
Although carried out in the name of the fight against terrorism, there is no responsibility to prove a direct connection with terrorist acts or groups before individuals can be deported or imprisoned and organisations proscribed.
The all-embracing character of what is now proclaimed as unacceptable behaviour means that anyone opposing the British occupation of Iraq, expressing support for the Palestinian struggle, or supporting opposition groups in Saudi Arabia and a host of other regimes allied to Britain could be criminalised. No direct action is required to fall under the sway of these measures. No evidence is ruled out as too flimsy. The Orwellian concept of “thought crime” is to be made the basis of British law.
“Let no one be in any doubt. The rules of the game are changing,” Blair said.
This statement epitomises the prime minister’s utter contempt for democratic rights. Constitutional safeguards protecting civil liberties established over hundreds of years are to be swept aside. A British citizen no longer has any inalienable right to freedom of speech or worship, or protection from arbitrary arrest. All power will now rest with the government.
Even the independence enjoyed by the judiciary, once considered essential to the long-term stability of capitalist rule, is to be challenged. Following the press conference, former Home Secretary David Blunkett warned that the government would not tolerate any judicial attempt to overturn the new anti-terrorist measures. He insisted that the government, and not the courts, were answerable for national security and that “upholding liberty is not a suicide pact.”
Once again, as with 9/11 in the United States, we are told that because of the London bombings of July 7, “everything has changed.” After an admittedly horrible crime, in which 56 people died, it has supposedly become impossible to preserve democratic and constitutional norms that survived two world wars, the threat of Nazi invasion and a terrorist campaign by the IRA that lasted more than three decades.
This does not withstand scrutiny. By the government’s own admission, the influence of the Islamic fundamentalist groups is minimal and the terrorist outrage of July 7, and the subsequent failed bombings of July 21, were carried out by individuals who were not members of a sophisticated terrorist outfit, but were animated by political and religious conviction.
Moreover, the government has already granted itself massive powers to clamp down on Islamic fundamentalists, the activities of which, as a number of media reports have made clear, are well known to the security services.
More fundamentally, it is government policy that is responsible for the increased terror threat. It is Britain’s participation in the invasion of Afghanistan and the illegal war against Iraq that has inflamed the anger of young Muslims and provided a seedbed in which the reactionary influence of the Islamic fundamentalists can germinate.
Although dressing up its repressive measures as a necessary defence of Britain’s “tolerant” society, Blair can provide no democratic channel through which such political disaffection can find expression.
This is not an issue confined to British Muslims. Blair’s government rules on behalf of a narrow financial oligarchy, which has accrued its vast wealth through the exploitation of the world’s resources and peoples. That is why the government can tolerate no opposition to its predatory policies in the Middle East from any quarter.
Matters cannot end there. The government’s foreign policy is directly related to its domestic political agenda. Under Blair’s Labour government, social inequality has widened to unprecedented levels, as welfare and public services have been gutted and wage levels slashed in order to generate super-profits and tax breaks for the major transnational corporations. This agenda has proven to be incompatible with the preservation of democratic norms.
Blair heads a government that has little popular support and is fully aware of the hostility it has engendered both internationally and within Britain. Yet he cannot contemplate the type of reformist measures previously used to secure a measure of political consensus, and so must rely on police methods.
The announcement of these latest proposals follows the state execution of Jean Charles de Menezes in a London subway carriage on July 22. Following the gunning down of this innocent man, the police confirmed that they now operate under shoot-to-kill policies first implemented in Northern Ireland. Since then, every day has brought fresh revelations that the techniques perfected during “the Troubles” are now to be used to police mainland Britain.
At the height of its power, British imperialism carried out its most brutal crimes overseas in order to maintain its rule over the colonial masses, but was able to use the fruits of empire to secure a degree of social peace at home. The decline of British imperialism and the crisis facing capitalism on a world scale mean that this political distinction must now be expunged. The ruling elite must resort to force of arms to enforce its wishes in London, just as surely as it does in Baghdad.
This accounts for the extraordinary political consensus of the opposition parties behind the government’s measures. Blair told the press that since July 7, “To be fair, the Conservative leadership has responded with a genuine desire to work together for the good of the country, as have the Liberal Democrats.”
Neither party has disappointed Blair. Conservative leader Michael Howard said his party has been calling for the measures for years, adding, “It is important a united front is maintained in the face of the terror threat.”
Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said that Blair’s announcement “put the cross-party consensus under serious strain,” but promised only that his party would “reserve our position until we have consulted properly ourselves.”
Most of the media has also been supportive, with the Telegraph expressing its hope that Blair was “firing the first shots in an arguably overdue battle for supremacy between the legislative and judicial branches of government—with implications that go well beyond counter-terrorism or immigration policy.”
Equally significant is the feeble character of the protests Blair’s announcement has evoked from the liberal press and civil rights groups, which focus on concerns that the Blair government’s authoritarianism will endanger national unity and political consensus.
In a society riven by class antagonisms, such appeals to national unity only hand the initiative to the government. The defence of democratic rights demands a struggle against the capitalist ruling elite that launched war on Iraq in order to seize control of its oil resources, and that now seek to eliminate all possibility of opposing their criminal actions.
All of those who oppose militarism and war must renew and reinvigorate a political campaign of protests and demonstrations, linking the demand for an end to the occupation of Iraq with the fight to preserve civil liberties. Such a movement must demand that Blair and all those responsible for authoring the war be held legally and politically accountable for its consequences, including the July 7 terror attack and the draconian measures enacted in its wake.
To end the threat of terrorism, it is necessary to end the imperialist policies that have created the conditions for the growth of terrorist movements among the most impoverished and oppressed populations in the Middle East, Central Asia and elsewhere. British capitalism has long supported semi-feudal despotisms, such as the Saudi sheikdom, in order to secure its access to oil and its other strategic interests, while defending the brutal suppression of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state. Its illegal invasion and subjugation of Iraq represents the outcome of this imperialist policy.
To end the predatory policies of British imperialism, it is above all necessary to establish the political independence of the working class by building a mass socialist movement that fights for the international unity of the working class.
TERRORISM BILL: Defeat Blair’s police-state measures!
THE Labour government’s new Terrorism Bill, published yesterday, will be debated by MPs in the House of Commons today.
For the past few days, Prime Minister Tony Blair and Home Secretary Charles Clarke have taken every opportunity to sing the praises of this draconian Bill.
At Prime Minister’s Question Time in Parliament yesterday, Blair made clear that he intends to give the police everything they request, in particular police imprisonment for three months without charge. He claimed ‘the reasons the police have given for this request are compelling’.
Once again we see that when Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair says ‘jump’, the Labour leader merely asks ‘how high’?!
There are six major provisions in the Terrorism Bill and these propose –
1) To outlaw encouragement or glorification of terrorism
2) To create a new offence to tackle extremist bookshops who disseminate radical material
3) To make it illegal to give or receive terrorist training or attending a ‘terrorist training camp’
4) To create a new offence to catch those planning or preparing to commit terrorist acts
5) To extend the maximum limit of pre-charge detention in terrorist cases to three months
6) To widen the grounds for proscription to include groups which glorify terrorism.
Even under existing Terrorism laws, 82-year-old pensioner Walter Wolfgang was detained by police at the Labour Party Conference after shouting ‘nonsense’ during Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s speech.
This new Bill gives the police carte blanche to do to anybody what they did to the pensioner, except they could disappear for three months!
It is clear that anyone who supports national liberation fighters in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and anywhere else in the world could be locked up without charge for giving ‘encouragement to terrorism’.
Any newspaper, magazine, publisher or bookshop distributing material supporting these struggles could end up in jail.
Members of political movements here, which support national liberation struggles, face the threat of imprisonment.
And if the police want to take people out of circulation for three months they can do so without charge, or even a hint of a ‘crime’.
Such draconian police state measures have shaken even some conservative forces within the capitalist state itself, like the judiciary.
On Tuesday, the new Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips said: ‘Occasionally one feels an individual politician is trying to browbeat the judiciary and that is wholly inappropriate.’ He made clear that there was ‘no question of judges trimming their approach’. ‘There is no scope for bending the law or trimming sails.’
What the Labour government is proposing is that the police also become judge, jury and executioner, with the right to imprison people for three months.
This breaks with a tradition of citizens’ rights going back hundreds of years. Only the king had such blanket powers to lock people up before the 17th century English Revolution and since that time nobody has had that power, certainly not the police.
The disquiet expressed by the judiciary is a measure of the fundamental historic attack on basic democratic rights mounted by the Labour government.
It is not so-called ‘terrorists’ that are trying to ‘destroy our society, our way of life and our freedoms’, as Clarke maintained yesterday, it is Blair and company, and the political policemen, like Sir Ian Blair.
This attack on democratic rights is part of Blair’s programme to preserve decrepit British capitalism, alongside the occupation of Iraq, the dismantling of the welfare state and the privatisation of the NHS.
Only by defending democratic rights, like the right to free speech and assembly, can the working class movement mount a struggle to defend all the other gains won in the past.
This is why trade unionists must organise within their unions and the Trades Union Congress for a general strike to bring down the Blair government and replace it with a workers’ government, that will defend basic rights and implement socialist policies.
What we are seeing in Britain is the rise of the “democratic” police state. Should you be tempted to dismiss all this as esoteric or merely mad, travel to any Muslim community in Britain, especially in the north-west of England, and sense the state of siege and fear.
On July 15, Blair's Britain of the future was glimpsed when the police raided the Iqra Learning Centre and bookshop near Leeds. The Iqra Trust is a well-known charity that promotes Islam worldwide as “a peaceful religion which covers every walk of life”. The police smashed down the door, wrecked the shop and took away anti-war literature which they described as “anti-Western”.
Among this was, reportedly, a DVD of the Respect party MP George Galloway addressing the US Senate and a New Statesman article of mine illustrated by a much-published photograph of a Palestinian man in Gaza attempting to shield his son from Israeli bullets before the boy was shot to death. The photograph was said to be “working people up”, meaning Muslim people. Clearly, David Gibbons, this journal's esteemed art director, who chose this illustration, will be called before the Blair Incitement Tribunal.
I was making a point in that Police states and capitalism can exist at the same time.
and that I,m not the only mad man with these Idea's
techybloke666 said:Go and shake your finger at EMPS Jerry
techybloke666 said:I was making a point in that Police states and capitalism can exist at the same time.
and that I,m not the only mad man with these Idea's
escargot1 said:I keep telling Techy to take his golf clubs out of the boot. Give himself a bit of room for when he's found in there bound and gagged after the car's been burned out on a deserted airstrip.
VeriChip Named Among Top 20 New Products of the Year by Access Control & Security Systems Magazine
Related Vendor
VeriChip Corporation
Printable version
[10/06/05]
VeriChip Corporation, a subsidiary of Applied Digital and the world's premier RFID company for people, announced that VeriChip was named as a finalist in Access Control & Security Systems magazine's 2005 Top 20 New Products competition.
Although the final determination of the winner is made by a panel of judges, the top 20 finalists can be viewed and voted for in the magazine's current print issue, as well as online at http://securitysolutions.com/productoft ... 005-top20/. The winner is expected to be announced in the December issue of the magazine, the Company said.
About VeriChip -- "RFID for people"
VeriChip is a subsidiary of Applied Digital and provides state-of-the-art RFID security solutions that identify, locate, and protect people, their assets, and their environments. From the world's first and only FDA-cleared, human-implantable RFID microchip to the only active RFID tag with patented skin sensing capabilities, VeriChip's technology ensures the safety and security organizations are looking for. Its market-leading infant protection, wander prevention, asset tracking, and patient identification applications make VeriChip the predominant RFID solutions provider in the healthcare industry. And , VeriChip systems are installed in over 4,000 locations worldwide in healthcare, security, industrial, and government markets making it the world's premier RFID company for people. For more information on VeriChip, please visit www.verichipcorp.com.
About Applied Digital -- "The Power of Identification Technology"
Applied Digital develops innovative identification and security products for consumer, commercial, and government sectors worldwide. The Company's unique and often proprietary products provide identification and security systems for people, animals, the food supply, government/military arena, and commercial assets. Included in this diversified product line are RFID applications, end-to-end food safety systems, GPS/Satellite communications, and telecomm and security infrastructure, positioning Applied Digital as the leader in identification technology. Applied Digital is the owner of a majority position in Digital Angel Corporation.
escargot1 said:I went to a talk on organised crime last week (by Alan Wright) and afterwards asked the question, does the concept of high-level organised crime sometimes seem to shade into conspiracy theory?
Indeed it does, came the reply. There followed a long and enthusiastic explanation of the role of conspiracy nuts in that particular narrow field of criminology. 8)
By far the most interesting part of the lecture.
techybloke666 said:Please note the reference to the active RFID !
These are the ones to be used in tracking etc.
What do you mean by 'tracking etc.'? And also, what do you mean by 'to be used'? Are you implying that mass implantation is on it's way?
Mighty_Emperor said:escargot1 said:I went to a talk on organised crime last week (by Alan Wright) and afterwards asked the question, does the concept of high-level organised crime sometimes seem to shade into conspiracy theory?
Indeed it does, came the reply. There followed a long and enthusiastic explanation of the role of conspiracy nuts in that particular narrow field of criminology. 8)
By far the most interesting part of the lecture.
Worth another thread as it does sound interesting?
escargot1 said:Mighty_Emperor said:escargot1 said:I went to a talk on organised crime last week (by Alan Wright) and afterwards asked the question, does the concept of high-level organised crime sometimes seem to shade into conspiracy theory?
Indeed it does, came the reply. There followed a long and enthusiastic explanation of the role of conspiracy nuts in that particular narrow field of criminology. 8)
By far the most interesting part of the lecture.
Worth another thread as it does sound interesting?
Yup, it is fascinating. I can't do it though, partly becasue of time constraints and partly because of the burning-car-with-bound-corpse-in-the-boot scenario.
Mighty_Emperor said:escargot1 said:Mighty_Emperor said:escargot1 said:I went to a talk on organised crime last week (by Alan Wright) and afterwards asked the question, does the concept of high-level organised crime sometimes seem to shade into conspiracy theory?
Indeed it does, came the reply. There followed a long and enthusiastic explanation of the role of conspiracy nuts in that particular narrow field of criminology. 8)
By far the most interesting part of the lecture.
Worth another thread as it does sound interesting?
Yup, it is fascinating. I can't do it though, partly becasue of time constraints and partly because of the burning-car-with-bound-corpse-in-the-boot scenario.
Ah well - I could lend a fire extinguisher if that'd help
http://www.wnymedia.net/index.php?optio ... &Itemid=35Written by http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=104
Tuesday, 15 November 2005
Surrender Your DNA to the State
Tuesday November 08th 2005, 10:59 am By Kurt Nimmo
New York governor George Pataki is an enemy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In particular, Amendment IV, which states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Pataki wants your DNA if you are convicted of jaywalking or speeding, commonly known as misdemeanors. Pataki believes your bodily fluid is owned by the state and if you are arrested and convicted for the crime of holding up a placard in opposition to Bush as his motorcade wings past your neighborhood you will surrender a bit of salvia on a swab. Of course, salvia and DNA are not specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights, even though the amendment declares Americans shall be “secure in their persons,” that is to say our salvia and DNA is our business and not the property of the state. Pataki and the bureaucrats in New York want your salvia, so they say, just in case you happened to be on the scene of a more serious crime sometime in the past. In other words, you are a suspect to a multitude of crimes, even if there is no probable cause.
“In a state where 15,000 DNA profiles have been extracted from unsolved crimes and where cold cases are reopened daily on the basis of DNA evidence, proponents say a database including all offenders will give police the tool they need to track down thousands of attackers, rapists and murderers,” reports the Poughkeepsie Journal. In other words, even jaywalkers—and Bush protesters—are potential serial rapists and murderers. In fact, the entire country is suspect.
Of course, this is simply an excuse. It is the nature of the state to surveil, probe, tax, appropriate, and ultimately profile every citizen in sprawling databases—and not specifically for any crime committed in the past. It is all part of a “global registration and surveillance infrastructure,” as Richard Norton-Taylor pointed out in the Guardian last April, heeding the warnings of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, including the American Civil Liberties Union, and Statewatch, a UK-based bulletin which tracks developments in the EU. “The US and EU governments are expanding legal powers to eavesdrop and to store the product of intercepted personal communications,” and obviously salvia as well. “To achieve their ends, they say, governments have suspended judicial oversight over law enforcement agents and public officials, concentrated unprecedented power in the hands of the executive arm of government, and rolled back criminal law and due process protections that balance the rights of individuals against the power of the state.”
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) would go even further than Pataki. In September, they attempted to add an amendment to the Violence Against Women Act that “would create a national registry of DNA taken from any person who has been detained by the police, even if the person is not arrested or convicted,” according to Declan McCullagh. Senator Patrick Leahy “said that he is worried that whole classes of people, such as Latinos or Muslims, will be rounded up and their DNA will be recorded in the registry.”
Of course, if the state has its way, rounding folks up and forcing them to surrender bodily fluid will not be limited to Muslims and Latinos—all of us will have our computerized profiles with biometric data and, eventually, our own little subdermal VeriChip, easily inserted in our increasingly Amendment IV unprotected bodies in conjunction with a routine vaccination. “About the size of a grain of rice, each VeriChip product contains a unique verification number that is captured by briefly passing a proprietary scanner over the VeriChip,” notes Applied Digital Solutions, the manufacturer of the VeriChip. “The standard location of the microchip is in the triceps area between the elbow and the shoulder of the right arm. The brief outpatient ‘chipping’ procedure lasts just a few minutes and involves only local anesthetic followed by quick, painless insertion of the VeriChip. Once inserted just under the skin, the VeriChip is inconspicuous to the naked eye. A small amount of radio frequency energy passes from the scanner energizing the dormant VeriChip, which then emits a radio frequency signal transmitting the verification number.”
In other words, in the not too distant future (after taking our DNA samples in lieu of fingerprints at the local grocery store check-out lane), cops may be armed with VeriChip injectors along with their 9mms, Tasers, and Mace and will microchip “any person who has been detained … even if the person is not arrested or convicted.” If you’d like a preview of our Brave New Future, rent Minority Report on DVD.
I exaggerate, of course, but not a whole lot. Pataki has the people of New York on a slippery slope—and the neocon senators Cornyn and Kyl have the rest of us here in America on one as well. Note that the Senate Judiciary Committee approved taking genetic material from “detainees in the ‘war on terror’ and a number of others never charged or convicted of a crime” on a voice vote. Of course, any number of us may eventually become “detainees” in the so-called “war on terror,” especially if we refuse to believe our town is quarantined due to the spread of bird flu confined to poultry in China.
Hurrah! For technology!Link:
BBC News Online: Gel battery boost for radio tags
20 December 2005
By Lakshmi Sandhana
Japanese company NEC has developed a lightweight, flexible battery that is less than a millimetre thick and can be recharged in half a minute.
It is called the Organic Radical Battery (ORB) and is based on a type of plastic that exists in a gel state.
The gel allows the battery to be extremely pliant, with a thickness of 300 microns.
ORBs could eventually be embedded into devices such as smart cards, wearable computers and intelligent paper.
Currently the battery, when in card form, can be recharged with a card reader device in 30 seconds.
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