Sleepwalking into Surveillance

A few years ago, the UK “information commissioner” Richard Thomas warned that the UK could “sleepwalk into a surveillance society” as result of the measures being brought into place (BBC). It seems he was mistaken with this, and the reality is the UK will run headlong into the surveillance society while willingly blinded to the loss of our civil liberties and freedoms.

The news today has been largely dominated by the decision to allow the Metropolitan Police access to a real-time feed from London’s congestion charge cameras. The BBC headlines it:

Road pricing cameras could be used by police to track drivers’ movements in England and Wales under new proposals.

Now this is a fairly innocuous way of presenting the information, and you would be forgiven for thinking it was perfectly normal and a reasonable measure to prevent crime. Sadly, this isn’t the case. For a start, allowing this breaches the law (Data Protection Act demands information only be used for the purposes for which it is collected) so we get caught in the problem of breaking the law to uphold the law.

More importantly (and with due concern over “slippery slope” arguments) this is a worrying sign that governments feel in no way compelled to keep to promises made by previous offices. When Congestion Charging was forced upon the public it was made clear that this would never become a “covert” surveillance method. Yet less than a decade later it is.

We hear similar promises regarding the collection of a national DNA database, of ID Cards and the like. Is it possible to have a more obvious example of why it is important that every right lost is only done so after serious, open and careful deliberation? Even now, the news was heavy with more weasel words from various groups about how important it was that the police have access to this data to help “save lives.”

As a summary of what I feel were key issues today we have:

On Tuesday, the Home Office announced that anti-terror officers in London would be exempted from parts of the Data Protection Act.

Again, we get caught in that wonderful problem of allowing law enforcement to break the law. Not only do these people want to arrest innocent people and detain them almost indefinitely (as long as it takes to make a case against them – what madness), not only are they almost completely immune from public oversight, but what leftovers of the law they do have to follow is now being removed. For a moment, I had a flashback to the late first century Roman Empire and the Praetorian Guard… When my children are adults, will the country be run by the Metropolitan Police?

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the change was needed to deal with the “enduring vehicle-borne terrorist threat to London”.

The words “Yeah, Whatever” spring to mind here. This is the great monster under the bed in recent years. Every bit of law has to be shown to help fight terrorism and if it does, the public will love it no matter how insane it is. The implication from the Home Secretary’s words here is that if the police had full access, they would have prevented the failed bombing attempts recently. For this to have any validity you have to make some assumptions, the most basic of which is that the potential bombers were already high enough on the “radar” to make the police concerned when they entered the congestion zone. I doubt they were but it is possible.

If they were, however, there already exists sufficient legislation and capability for the police to remotely monitor their movements. This would be perfectly legal. The question remains, what aspect of the current law failed? Politicians (and the tabloids) love scary phrases which say nothing but imply so much that people fall over themselves to agree. For example, look at this:

A Home Office spokesman hit back at claims the documents reveal a disregard for public concern over civil liberties.

“The experience of the last few weeks has shown that this is a necessary tool to combat the threat of alleged vehicle-born terrorism.

See what I mean. A tool combat a threat of alleged vehicle born terrorism. An empty phrase – this way the “spokesman” can’t be caught out in the future when people challenge specifics, but it carries enough menace that some people are falling over themselves to support the idea. Even though this is the “tip of the iceberg” in real terms:

…But internal documents mistakenly circulated around Westminster by the Home Office contain details of a more wide-ranging plan to track journeys throughout England and Wales. …

Mistakenly circulated… Basically this means they didn’t want people to know this, even though they were planning it. So much for an accountable government. This is equally worrying when local councils are being “blackmailed into introducing road pricing” which presumably would be monitored by ANPR cameras…

As I said at the start, we aren’t sleepwalking into a surveillance society, we are sprinting.

[tags]Society,Culture, Law, Terrorism, Terror, Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, DPA, Data Protection Act,Philosophy, Surveillance, Big Brother[/tags]

Terror Returns to London

Once more, the actions of the insane, cruel, evil and disturbed make headline news in the UK. Even though I am almost as far from London as you can get in the UK, the news of the Car Bomb outside a London nightclub has been pretty big stuff. Quite understandable as well really, as this is the “purpose” of terrorist attacks – create terror.

Putting a bomb made up off “60 litres of petrol, gas cylinders and nails” outside a busy London nightclub on a Thursday night (often one of the busier nights in the city), strikes me as a pretty effective way to make people frightened. That the bomb did not detonate is certainly amazing (invoke god of choice if you wish, I will stick to the wonders of the bombers ineptitude), and it seems reasonable to assume the police comments about possible casualties are accurate.

It is certainly remarkable that this device was discovered (prior to it announcing itself in a big way) and it is a tribute to the bomb disposal teams who had to render it safe, while retaining forensic evidence. A big well done all round there. Continue reading

Rights or not?

I was listening to Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 today (yes, I know…) and as always his “phone in” show attracts odd, outspoken members of society, no matter how trivial the topic is. One of today’s odd topics was about the proposed legislation to force “rights of way” along coastal routes, even if the landowner objects. The Radio 2 website even has a “have your say” on the subject.

Now, I have very mixed opinions on this and would probably lump for maintaining the status quo – we currently have about 70% of the UK coast open for “ramblers,” the rest is in private or Ministry of Defence hands. That said, I can see the arguments put by some of the ramblers – and as a big fan of the countryside in general I think it would be nice if there were more places to go. Anyway, from this position of steadfast ambivalence, it amused me to see one of the arguments used on the show (repeatedly).

Basically put, there was an argument that as we are “born on an island” we have a “birthright” to walk the coast. Seriously. Well, when I say seriously, I mean it is not something I have made up for giggles here but I am not 100% sure how serious the people who said it were.

Sadly, the fact that no one seems to have picked up on this during the bits of the show I listened to and the fact people could actually use such a line of nonsense as an argument, highlights the downsides of the UK’s educational policies. Gone are learning classical philosophy and the origins of society. Now people think a “right” to do something comes with no burden of obligation and is identical to wanting to do something.

Unfortunately this watered down idea of what a “right” actually is, means people are less concerned when important rights are lost… So it looks like we will force landowners to allow access to their land at the same time we bring in ID papers, increased CCTV monitoring, longer detention without trial and so on.  Well done Britain.

[tags]Education, Classics, Classical Studies, Philosophy, Culture, Society, UK, Coast, Landscapes, BBC, Radio 2, Jeremy Vine, Civil Rights, Rights[/tags]

Landlords – Public Enemy Number 1

Again, this is a long, non-Atheist, rant. If you are reading on the magnificent Planet Atheism, or have come to the blog looking for philosophical insights into religion, please feel free to skip.

Depending on which sections of the UK media you have access to, you could be mistaken for thinking that, recently, buy to let landlords are the Earthly incarnation of evil itself and that any day now George Bush will declare war on them. As always, this is especially prevalent in the “left” media (what remains of it) but it has echoes all over. An example, is this weeks “Guardian Money” pages which has a massive spread about the evils of Buy-To-Let, along with a page of letters from readers who also think landlords are the definition of scum. The joys of the internet mean you can now read this online.

Highrise StockholmPersonally, I think it is all nonsense. I am pleased about this, as I have noticed a slight left-wing tendency in my previous posts, so hopefully this will bring me back to the centre 😀 .

Blocks of Flats in StockholmThe basic premise, in this article anyway, is that buy-to-let landlords have little regard for the local “community” and allow their properties to fall into disrepair. The secondary premise, and the main reason people hate buy-to-let-landlords in general, is that people who can afford to buy multiple houses are pushing house prices up, beyond the reach of any first time buyer. This is (sort of) supported by the data which shows the average UK house price is now around seven to nine times the average UK salary.

Before I attack some of the nonsense in these premises, I must declare an interest. I own a house which is rented out. I bought the house knowing I was unlikely to live in it for many a year and I still don’t live in it. I don’t even live in the same country the house is in. As a result, I do worry that legislation which affects buy to let landlords will affect me, and this gives me a fairly strong opinion – I may not be fully objective…

Continue reading

Interesting Links

It has been a while since I posted some interesting links, so here goes:

http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm – visual representation of how the size of the Earth relates to other structures in the universe. The last image shows just how small the things we think are large, really are.

http://dmartin.org/weblog/things-i-can-do-in-linux-that-i-cant-do-on-windows – summary of why Linux is better than windows, as if people needed telling 🙂

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ – how to boot and run linux from a USB drive.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/06/appeals_court_r.html – from Wired.com: “Appeals Court Rules Cops Can Steal Cars and Lie to Victims To Conduct a Warrantless Search”

http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M42HeartNMCropM.html – image of the M42 Nebula in Orion.

http://www.religionfacts.com/ – information about the worlds religions, surprisingly detailed from what I have read so far and (also so far) does not call Atheism a religion 😀 .

http://www.forbiddenlibrary.com/ – “Banned and Challenged Books” – while interesting in that it shows what books have been “challenged” in the past, it also shows what wingnuts think they can get away with. Is 1984 pro-communist for example?

http://www.blifaloo.com/info/lies.php – “How to Detect Lies,” another one of those sites which have a little knowledge on a subject. This is one of the better ones, but it is still for entertainment purposes only. Do not rely on any conclusions you draw using the information here.

[tags]Science, Astronomy, Cosmology, Linux, Windows, Technology, Links,Law, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Orion, Nebula, Religion, Books, Body Language, Interrogation, Interview, Philosophy, Culture, Beliefs[/tags]