Monthly Archives: October 2013

Leaked memos reveal GCHQ efforts to keep mass surveillance secret

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http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/25/leaked-memos-gchq-mass-surveillance-secret-snowden

[Guardian] Exclusive: Edward Snowden papers show UK spy agency fears legal challenge if scale of surveillance is made public

Image of GCHQ donught buildingThe UK intelligence agency GCHQ has repeatedly warned it fears a “damaging public debate” on the scale of its activities because it could lead to legal challenges against its mass-surveillance programmes, classified internal documents reveal.

Memos contained in the cache disclosed by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden detail the agency’s long fight against making intercept evidence admissible as evidence in criminal trials – a policy supported by all three major political parties, but ultimately defeated by the UK’s intelligence community.

Foremost among the reasons was a desire to minimise the potential for challenges against the agency’s large-scale interception programmes, rather than any intrinsic threat to security, the documents show.

The papers also reveal that:

• GCHQ lobbied furiously to keep secret the fact that telecoms firms had gone “well beyond” what they were legally required to do to help intelligence agencies’ mass interception of communications, both in the UK and overseas.

• GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissable in court.

• GCHQ assisted the Home Office in lining up sympathetic people to help with “press handling”, including the Liberal Democrat peer and former intelligence services commissioner Lord Carlile, who this week criticised the Guardian for its coverage of mass surveillance by GCHQ and the US National Security Agency.

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Special advisers to ministers: Salary bill up £1m

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24674247

number-10-downing-streetThe salary bill for ministers’ special advisers has risen by £1m in the last year, according to official figures.

So-called “Spads” are appointed by ministers to provide political advice over and above the impartial work carried out by civil servants.

The Cabinet Office put the increase down to the “unusual” pressures caused by coalition government.

But Labour said David Cameron’s pre-election promise to limit the number of special advisers was in “tatters”.

A leap from 85 to 98 in the number of special advisers – who work directly to ministers and often speak for them – contributed to a 16% rise in the total wage bill in 2012-13.

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Cameron tries to be scary and Fascist like blind old Fascist cnut Blunkett

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Cameron today lied about losing count of terrorist plots foiled by UK intelligence agencies spying on us and that Snowden and the Guardian had put so many lives in danger and made it so much harder to prevent terrrorists blowing up our familes. What bullshit, eh?

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/10/25/david-cameron-angela-merkel_n_4162948.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-politics&ir=UK+Politics

Speaking at a press conference in Brussels on Friday afternoon, the prime minister said the information leaked by Edward Snowden and published by The Guardian and other newspapers had damaged national security and endangered the lives of the public.

He said the leaks had made it “a lot more difficult to keep our countries and our people safe” from terrorists who “want to blow up our families”.

Cameron said as prime minister he could not afford to have a “la-di-da, airy-fairy” view of the work of the intelligence agencies and had “lost count of the plots” that MI5, MI6 and GCHQ had foiled.

However the prime minister repeatedly dodged questions about what Britain did or did not know about the intelligence activities of the United States, including accusations that the Americans had tapped German chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.

The airy-fairy is a reference to blind old Fascist cnut Blunkett’s shortsighted Fascist ranting here when he wanted to lock people up indefinitely without that little formality of an airy-fairy trial.

As far as I can tell the “la-di-da” is original Cameron. He may have been inspired by television for infants. La-la Da-da.

I’ll have to see if I can dig something out about the UK government spying on anti-war protesters [later correction: protesters should read activists] and inciting their murder, etc. I’ve been meaning to look for it for a while.

La-la Cameron. La-la

Continue ReadingCameron tries to be scary and Fascist like blind old Fascist cnut Blunkett

East Coast Line: Ministers launch search for buyer

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24668852

trainReturning the East Coast Main line to the private sector will “revitalise” it, ministers have said as they kick-started the franchising process.

The line has been publicly run since 2009 when National Express handed back the franchise amid financial problems.

Ministers say the line has since been “stabilised” but they now want to “rekindle the spirit of competition”.

Labour and the unions say the move is “ideological” and the line should remain in public ownership.

They say the failure of two successive operators to make the line – which runs from London to Edinburgh, with connected services to Inverness and Aberdeen – commercially viable and its improved performance in recent years show it can succeed under public ownership.

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Medical tourism generates millions for NHS and wider economy, finds study

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http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/24/medical-tourism-generates-millions-nhs-health

‘Foreigners abusing system’ claim contradicted by research that also shows more people go overseas for treatment than arrive

Medical tourism is a lucrative source of income for the NHS, according to a major new study that contradicts many of the assumptions behind the government’s announcement that it will clamp down on foreigners abusing the health service.

Eighteen hospitals – those deemed most likely to be making money from overseas patients – earned £42m in 2010, according to researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and York University. Medical tourists spent an estimated £219m on hotels, restaurants, shopping and transport in the UK.

The researchers also found that more people leave the UK seeking medical treatment abroad than arrive in this country for care: about 63,000 people from the country travelled to hospitals and clinics abroad in 2010, while considerably fewer, about 52,000 people, came here.

The research flies in the face of assertions by Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, that the tourists cost the health service money.

He said on Tuesday: “It’s time for action to ensure the NHS is a national health service – not an international one. With the NHS already under pressure from an ageing population, it cannot be right that large amounts of taxpayers’ money is being lost through treating people who should be paying from foreign countries.”

But the lead author of the new study, Johanna Hanefeld, from the faculty of public health and policy at the LSHTM, said the government-commissioned research published on Tuesday was “much more across the government immigration agenda than anything to do with health”.

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