Looks like the Tories have started a nasty media campaign

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It’s as if there is an artificially imagined plot to engage all interests so that they will forget the big picture. A desperate attempt to distract?

I find it very strange that it is all so vacuous. But then it is made up

Today’s news carries stories of AI to identify organised gangs of social security benefit fraudsters. I can’t see it really. It’s not going to be organised crime more likely gangmasters that sort of scale of things. It’s likely to be vulnerable people that are exploited.

Handy to distract from the debacle of Universal Credit. UC delay is strange because it’s actually so short. I may be out of date but there was a 3 month delay with JSA and a 2 month delay with ESA. It is always taken to the limit.

Perhaps the differences with UC is that it disrupts peoples’ lives so nastily and that 6 week limit is ignored. It also attacks low-paid self-employed hard-working oh-whats-the-differnce? It attacks people who are so unfortunate to find themselves newly unemployed. The way to move the unemployed into work is to make it as painless as possible. There are 3 month delays for benefit. I can give you a month’s work?

31 Dec 2017

Getting over the writer’s block

Please try to have especially enjoyable sex. Reciprocation? Go on do it for him / her /it / that too

Thoth tarot Devil card

Nah get really down and dirty ;)

2018? What about this for that thing? Love people

1/1/18 Universal Credit being unable to handle 5-week months is simply ridiculous. Are they clowns running this country?

Continue ReadingLooks like the Tories have started a nasty media campaign

Apology and Correction

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A couple of weeks ago I made a ‘Trumpesque’ posting when I accused the Tories of interfering in my private life. I somehow surprisingly do not have a copy of that posting so can’t review the actual details. I apologise for the claims made in that posting which were without foundation.

I’ve been hypnotized against my will and without my consent by a since retired sadistic GP. I didn’t expect it but will be on guard in future. There’s not really any support for the notion that anyone was behind it and the subsequent cover-up other than the sick GP. GPs have traditionally got away with being such cnuts in UK.

Continue ReadingApology and Correction

Wednesday Wisdom

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Shall we try a Wednesday Wisdom series? Commentary and analysis of contemporary British politics.

Priti Patel

International Development Secretary Priti Patel has been having secret meetings with Israelis – including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – accompanied by Lord Polak, honorary president of Conservative Friends of Israel. Patel originally claimed that Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was aware of the meetings.

The main issue with Priti Patel’s visits is missed. Theresa May’s government announced beyond doubt that they are Neo-Conservatives by hosting Netanyahu to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration. Neo-Conservatism is an awkward term and Zionist-supporting may be easier although not exactly the same.

The real issue about Priti Patel’s meetings in Israel is that they were conducted without the presence of civil servants so that there is no official record of what was discussed. It’s an ideal situation for the Zionist and Zionist-supporting governments to brief each other on their situation and intentions, the ideal situation to brief each other on intended spin and military action.

Paradise Papers and the Royal family

The Paradise Papers reveal that the Queen had some ten million pounds invested offshore. Ten million is small change to the Queen and the Queen very likely had no knowledge of it. Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of demanding an apology from the Queen. This is media spin. What Corbyn did was reply to a question concerning the Paradise Papers and the Queen by concentrating on the Paradise Papers.

Prince Charles has been criticised for promoting sustainability, etc while his trust held investments in a business that could benefit. It’s a further non-story. Everybody knows Prince Charle’s commitment to sustainability and it’s hardly a surprise that there are investments in that area. Yet again, Prince Charles is not likely to be involved with management of the trust.

Comments are welcome

Continue ReadingWednesday Wisdom

Labour Party Conference

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UK’s Labour Party conference is being held at Brighton this week. The UK Labour Party is currently enjoying huge support and is likely to form the next government. UK’s Labour Party is a Socialist party.

One aspect of Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell’s speech today is getting reported: his commitment to end Public Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts.The NHS is burdened with many PFI debts.

Continue ReadingLabour Party Conference

Muhammad Rabbani in court for refusing ‘digital strip-search’

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Campaign group director in court for refusing to divulge passwords

The international director of the campaign group Cage has appeared in court charged with obstructing or frustrating an examination under counter-terrorism stop-and-search powers for refusing to hand over passwords.

Muhammad Rabbani was stopped coming back into Heathrow by police, who had advance information of his travel plans, Westminster magistrates court was told.

Rabbani, 36, was arrested at the airport on 20 November last year under the Terrorism Act. He refused to hand over passwords to an iPhone and laptop he was carrying.

Rabbani said that to hand over such details would breach his privacy, and that schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 did not give officers the right to demand that he hand over the passwords.

The director of Cage has pleaded not guilty to a charge that “on 20 November 2016, at Heathrow airport, he did wilfully obstruct, or sought to frustrate, an examination or search”.

Airport Police Demanded an Activist’s Passwords. He Refused. Now He Faces Prison in the U.K.

 

 

9.30pm update

Activist Found Guilty of Terror-Related Crime for Refusing to Disclose Passwords to U.K. Police

Rabbani said in a statement after the verdict that the judgment highlighted the “absurdity of the Schedule 7 law” and called for it to be reformed. “If privacy and confidentiality are crimes, then the law stands condemned,” he said. “They accept that at no point was I under suspicion, and that ultimately this was a matter of having been profiled at a port … Schedule 7 actively discriminates, and this will hopefully be the start of a number of legal challenges as more people take courage to come forward.”

During the trial, Rabbani’s lawyer, Henry Blaxland, questioned three police officers who were responsible for carrying out the search at the airport. The most senior officer acknowledged that Rabbani had not been randomly stopped, and was instead deliberately targeted for reasons that were not disclosed. Prior to the trial, Rabbani had told The Intercept he believed the authorities may have wanted to obtain a copy of the information provided to him by his contact in the Middle East. He had been searched on several prior occasions, he said, but never before had police seemed so determined to gain access to his electronic devices.

Schedule 7 is supposed to be used solely to determine whether a person is directly involved in the “commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.” In 2013, however, the power was used to detain David Miranda, the partner of Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald, in an effort to impede reporting on documents leaked by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Miranda’s detention caused controversy in the U.K., and aspects of Schedule 7 were subsequently changed. Police were issued with a revised code of practice that told them they must not review or copy information which they have grounds to believe is attorney-client privileged, is journalistic material, or is another kind of information held in confidence, which a person has “acquired or created in the course of any trade, business, profession or other occupation.”

Continue ReadingMuhammad Rabbani in court for refusing ‘digital strip-search’

Diane Abbott received half of all abusive tweets sent to women MPs

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Image of Dianne Abbot

by Emma Bean

The shadow home secretary experienced the vast majority of online abuse sent to women MPs, and had 10 times more abusive tweets sent to her than any other figure in the run up to the election. She also suffered eight times more abuse in the whole six month period which was analysed.

The research, conducted by Amnesty International, looked at messages sent in the period between January 1 and June 8. In this time she received almost a third of all the abuse directed at women political figures.

The list of the five female politicians who received the most abuse included two other Labour MPs, with Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, and Jess Phillips, chair of the women’s PLP, coming in third and fourth respectively. Joanna Cherry, SNP MP, got the second most abuse and Anna Soubry, Conservative MP for Broxtowe and a prominent Europhile, being placed fifth in the ranking.

However, Abbott’s level of abuse far outstrips those mentioned, with the trailblazing Hackney North MP receiving 31.6 per cent of abusive tweets, and the rest of the top five getting nearer three per cent of abusive tweets. She also received more abusive tweets than all the women in the SNP and Conservative party combined in the six month period.

Ethnic minority women politicians, excluding Abbott, received 35 per cent more abuse than white women. Some 5.8 per cent of all tweets sent mentioning Abbott’s twitter handle were classified as abusive.

The report found that “intersectional discrimination” meant that a figure who had more than one identity, e.g. if LGBT, BAME or disabled, meant that they were then more likely to face abuse.

In a New Statesman article describing the report, Amnesty’s researcher in technology and human rights Azmina Dhrodia writes: “Diane Abbott standing out in our analysis is an acute example of how intersectional discrimination works. The abuse that she faces is not just sexist and misogynistic; it’s also incredibly racist.”

“Nearly 90 years after women won the right to vote, there is a real danger that the high levels of online abuse against women MPs will have a chilling effect on women taking part in public life  —  particularly women of colour. This is not only detrimental in terms of the possible long-term effect on the representation of women in politics in the UK but also continues to deepen societal inequality between genders.”

©LabourList

Continue ReadingDiane Abbott received half of all abusive tweets sent to women MPs

FAKE, MANUFACTURED TERRORISM: FBI fake, manufactured terrorism

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Related to my recent post What it’s like to be a suspected terrorist

The article quoted below reports that the FBI creates terrorists and promotes the false narrative of a terrorist threat.

I think that it’s done differently in UK and Europe – it’s more about staging an act and attributing the blame to suspected terrorists. Suspected terrorists can be arrested  apprehended beforehand or the act can be set to coincide with his/her arrival (fancy that, there may even be CCTV in such a case). later edit: Jean Charles de Menezes returned onto the bus and travelled to Stockwell tube station where he was murdered because Brixton tube station was closed.

Once you’re arrested in UK e.g. for criminal damage which can be quite minor, your home is routinely searched. They’re going to be straight round there in an apparent terrorism case to get your passport for when you’re shot dead to avoid any awkward trials.

They know your every movement and intended movement of course because they following  your every move in real-time. You routinely go to the pub every Saturday afternoon, then it will be on the way to the pub. You text or ring someone “I’ll meet you there at 3.30”.

Gathered surveillance data is shared far and wide almost instantly. The US and Mossad will have it probably within seconds. This is what is meant when terrorist anti-terrorist spooks and politicians talk about information sharing to defeat the terrorist threat.

ed: I didn’t emphasize enough how widely surveillance data is shared almost instantly. Everyone and their dog will have it – it will be available to all UK, US and other allied states agencies concerned with terrorism.

David Murdoch-Cameron: Poisonous ideologues, conspiracy theorists are extremists …

 

Government agents ‘directly involved’ in most high-profile US terror plots

Nearly all of the highest-profile domestic terrorism plots in the United States since 9/11 featured the “direct involvement” of government agents or informants, a new report says.

Some of the controversial “sting” operations “were proposed or led by informants”, bordering on entrapment by law enforcement. Yet the courtroom obstacles to proving entrapment are significant, one of the reasons the stings persist.

The lengthy report, released on Monday by Human Rights Watch, raises questions about the US criminal justice system’s ability to respect civil rights and due process in post-9/11 terrorism cases. It portrays a system that features not just the sting operations but secret evidence, anonymous juries, extensive pretrial detentions and convictions significantly removed from actual plots.

“In some cases the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to act,” the report alleges.

Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Fishman explain the pattern followed by the FBI

The known facts from this latest case seem to fit well within a now-familiar FBI pattern whereby the agency does not disrupt planned domestic terror attacks but rather creates them, then publicly praises itself for stopping its own plots.

First, they target a Muslim: not due to any evidence of intent or capability to engage in terrorism, but rather for the “radical” political views he expresses. In most cases, the Muslim targeted by the FBI is a very young (late teens, early 20s), adrift, unemployed loner who has shown no signs of mastering basic life functions, let alone carrying out a serious terror attack, and has no known involvement with actual terrorist groups.

They then find another Muslim who is highly motivated to help disrupt a “terror plot”: either because they’re being paid substantial sums of money by the FBI or because (as appears to be the case here) they are charged with some unrelated crime and are desperate to please the FBI in exchange for leniency (or both). The FBI then gives the informant a detailed attack plan, and sometimes even the money and other instruments to carry it out, and the informant then shares all of that with the target. Typically, the informant also induces, lures, cajoles, and persuades the target to agree to carry out the FBI-designed plot. In some instances where the target refuses to go along, they have their informant offer huge cash inducements to the impoverished target.

Once they finally get the target to agree, the FBI swoops in at the last minute, arrests the target, issues a press release praising themselves for disrupting a dangerous attack (which it conceived of, funded, and recruited the operatives for), and the DOJ and federal judges send their target to prison for years or even decades (where they are kept in special GITMO-like units). Subservient U.S. courts uphold the charges by applying such a broad and permissive interpretation of “entrapment” that it could almost never be successfully invoked.

Continue ReadingFAKE, MANUFACTURED TERRORISM: FBI fake, manufactured terrorism