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Image of GCHQ donught buildingHuge tech firms have formed the Reform Government Surveillance group to demand changes to excessive surveillance by world governments. The group has published an open letter to President Obama and Congress:

Dear Mr. President and Members of Congress,

We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide. The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It’s time for a change.

For our part, we are focused on keeping users’ data secure — deploying the latest encryption technology to prevent unauthorized surveillance on our networks and by pushing back on government requests to ensure that they are legal and reasonable in scope.

We urge the US to take the lead and make reforms that ensure that government surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law, proportionate to the risks, transparent and subject to independent oversight. To see the full set of principles we support, visit ReformGovernmentSurveillance.com

Sincerely,

AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo

Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee is dismissive of the call:

“So I start off by recognising that, in the modern world, the terrorists use all the technology available to them.

“It would be foolish for the intelligence agencies in free societies not to start by using that technology.

Isn’t there a contradiction there?

Amnesty International is to start legal action against the UK government through the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. While it’s quite clear that Amnesty is not involved in terrorism, that will be used as the justification since it is the normal BS justification.

 

MPs to honour Mandela today.

Iain Duncan Smith again

I watched the 4th episode of The Revolution Will be Televised last night. First broadcast on 1st December, it’s very good.

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Commentary and analysis on recent UK politics news.

The Conservative-Liberal-‘Democrat’-Conservative coalition intends to persecute benefits claimants and (poor) young people.

Jobless young people without basic skills told to learn or lose benefits

The principles of “earn or learn” have been hotly debated within the coalition, after David Cameron used his conference speech in October to float the idea of taking away housing benefit and jobseeker’s allowance from under-25s who were not in work or training.

The Liberal Democrats have not agreed to all those ideas but appear to have relented on some elements of “earn or learn”, as Osborne announced that 18 to 21-year-olds without basic skills would only get their benefit if they undergo 16 hours of training a week.

On top of this, all 18 to 21-year-olds who are unemployed for more than six months will have to undertake compulsory work experience, a traineeship or a full-time community work placement.

The measures appear to be an extension of the government’s controversial “workfare” schemes – or mandatory work activity – where jobseekers are forced to go on a month of work experience in order to qualify for their benefits.

Autumn statement: how are families and individuals affected?

Missing from the autumn statement were figures on welfare benefits, tax credits and child benefit. Under the Welfare Benefits Uprating Act passed earlier this year, rises in most benefits no longer go up by the rate of inflation but are capped at an increase of 1% until 2016. So Jobseekers Allowance, currently £71.70 for the over 25s who have a record of paying National Insurance, should on that basis rise to £72.42 – an increase of 72p, or enough to buy a tin of Heinz baked beans at Tesco and still have 4p left over.

In the 2010 budget, Osborne said child benefit rates would be frozen for three years, taking effect from April 2011. Since then, the rate has been £20.30 a week for the first child and £13.40 for the second or more. Nothing was mentioned about child benefit in the autumn statement, but assuming the provisions of the Uprating bill are applied to child benefit from April next year, expect another 20p for the first child and 15p for the second.

The basic state pension, currently £110.15 a week, will rise by 2.7% – the rate of inflation – to £113.10. George Osborne also confirmed that the state pension age will rise to 68 nearly 15 years earlier than originally planned, starting for people retiring in the mid-2030s, rather than 2046. It will then rise again to 60 by the late 2040s, and 70 in the decades after that, saving £500bn from pension expenditure over the next 50 years. “We have to guarantee that the basic state pension is affordable in the future, even as people live longer and our society grows older. The only way to do that is to ensure the pension age keeps track with life expectancy,” said Osborne.


COMMUNISTS ON OSBORNE STATEMENT: “Good news for the rich, City and big business”

Communist Party of Britain general secretary Robert Griffiths responded as follows to the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement today (December 5)

‘The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement is good news for the super-rich, City speculators and the corporate fat cats. It hands yet more lavish subsidies to big business on top of the tax cuts on high incomes and monopoly profits. There will be extra state finance for exports to China together with tax relief for City speculation in Exchange Traded Funds and for shale gas fracking, business rates and employers’ National Insurance contributions.

But there will be no windfall taxes on energy and retail monopoly profits and no moves to end tax haven status in British overseas territories. Instead, the extra state pension of £2.95 a week from April will be swallowed up in rising household fuel costs while almost one-third of men and more than one quarter of women today will not live long enough to draw their pensions in the mid-2030s at the age of 68′.

Imran Awan discusses terrorism suggesting that the ConDem coalition government is intending measures that “…  will simply further stigmatise Muslim communities.” Awan raises many issues:

  • ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘war on terror’ are poorly defined
  • ‘Terrorists’ and freedom fighters are not clearly distinguished
  • States sanction the use of the ‘terrorist’ label to stigmatise individuals and small groups e.g. the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
  • Many protest issues are labelled as being of a ‘terrorist’ nature e.g. animal rights activism, anti-capitalism and anti-abortion campaigning
  • States’ use of drones and torture can be regarded as terrorism
  • “[T]he media have vilified and demonised Islam, making it comparable to terrorism”
  • The terrorism label is far less likely to be applied to right-wing terrorism

Image of Guantanamo Bay prisoners

‘Terrorism’ is a wonderfully useful tool for governments engaged in oppression: the huge scale of the surveillance by NSA and partners is justified through the so-called threat of terrorism despite the fact that the fact that the so-called threat cannot justify such oppressive measures. Terrorism permitted the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Terrorism is so important to these oppressive regimes that they have to ensure it’s continuing existence through drone strikes, renditions, the use of torture in prisons such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and by [later edit: the]demonizing of Islam and Muslims.

If terrorism didn’t exist these governments would have to invent it. Actually, they did invent it: Glenn Grenwald reports on research by Remi Brulin that it was invented “… by Israel in the 1960s and early 1970s as a means of universalizing its conflicts (this isn’t our fight against our enemies over land; it’s the Entire World’s Fight against The Terrorists!). The term was then picked up by the neocons in the Reagan administration to justify their covert wars in Central America (in a test run for what they did after 9/11, they continuously exclaimed: we’re fighting against The Terrorists in Central America, even as they themselves armed and funded classic Terror groups in El Salvador and Nicaragua). From the start, the central challenge was how to define the term so as to include the violence used by the enemies of the U.S. and Israel, while excluding the violence the U.S., Israel and their allies used, both historically and presently. That still has not been figured out, which is why there is no fixed, accepted definition of the term, and certainly no consistent application.”

Terrorism is bullshit ideology invented, used, nurtured and maintained by USUK and it’s allies to rule the world.

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Commentary and analysis of recent UK politics events

US is tracking the movements of 5 billion people everyday through their mobile phones

US considered spying on Australian citizens without the knowledge of it’s Australian spying partner

Isa Muazu wins stay of removal
Solicitors were granted the stay pending the outcome of an oral judicial review hearing to be heard by the upper tribunal on December 9th.

The judicial review concerns the challenge to the home secretary’s decision to certify his asylum claim and remove him to Nigeria.

Toufique Hossain, immigration law director at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, which represents Muazu, said: “This is what we wanted all along, and thanks to the home secretary’s incompetence we now have it.”

Mind The Gap

Why there ain’t nothing surer, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.

Most of us now enjoy luxuries that would have been unheard of a hundred years ago – running water, electricity, computers, phones, cheap food and clothing. Yet, despite all this, there is discontent. People are angry.

The problem is inequality. Inequality is everywhere, it is increasing and it comes in many different forms.

There is the wealth gap.

The wealthiest 400 people in the world are worth more than the poorest 140 million.

70% of the land in the UK is owned by less than 1% of the population.

When once CEOs of major corporations earned 20 times more than their employees, now they can earn a thousand times more. A Burberry sales assistant (according to Glassdoor) earns £16-17,000 including commission. The Burberry CEO, Angela Ahrendts, received £16.9 million last year. I shudder to think what the factory worker is getting.

Over fifty per cent of young people believe they will never own a house, while the average age of the first-time buyer in London is now over 40. He or she’ll be a pensioner before they can start a family.

 

More later – busy

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Image of GCHQ donught building

Following Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger appearance yesterday, MI5 boss Andrew Parker is called to the home select affairs committee. Andrew Parker has previously appeared before the Intelligence and Security Committee with advance notice of questions. The committee is expected to ask Parker to justify his severe criticism of the Guardian for publishing articles sourced from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden i.e. essentially that publication by the Guardian endangered national security and that terrorists are now able to evade government snooping (spying).

Food poverty in UK has reached level of ‘public health emergency’, warn experts

Young people to be allowed to remain in foster care until age 21

The lies behind this transatlantic trade deal

From the outset, the transatlantic partnership has been driven by corporations and their lobby groups, who boast of being able to “co-write” it. Persistent digging by the Corporate Europe Observatory reveals that the commission has held eight meetings on the issue with civil society groups, and 119 with corporations and their lobbyists. Unlike the civil society meetings, these have taken place behind closed doors and have not been disclosed online.

Though the commission now tells the public that it will protect “the state’s right to regulate”, this isn’t the message the corporations have been hearing. In an interview last week, Stuart Eizenstat, co-chair of the Transatlantic Business Council – instrumental in driving the process – was asked if companies whose products had been banned by regulators would be able to sue. Yes. “If a suit like that was brought and was successful, it would mean that the country banning the product would have to pay compensation to the industry involved or let the product in.” Would that apply to the European ban on chicken carcasses washed with chlorine, a controversial practice permitted in the US? “That’s one example where it might.”

What the commission and its member governments fail to explain is why we need offshore arbitration at all. It insists that domestic courts “might be biased or lack independence”, but which courts is it talking about? It won’t say. Last month, while trying to defend the treaty, the British minister Kenneth Clarke said something revealing: “Investor protection is a standard part of free-trade agreements – it was designed to support businesses investing in countries where the rule of law is unpredictable, to say the least.” So what is it doing in an EU-US deal? Why are we using measures designed to protect corporate interests in failed states in countries with a functioning judicial system? Perhaps it’s because functioning courts are less useful to corporations than opaque and unjust arbitration by corporate lawyers.

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Commentary and analysis of recent UK political events

 

Charities criticise David Cameron for repeated misleading statements about the bedroom tax.

Charities Turn ‘Bedroom Tax’ Attack On PM

Charities have accused the Prime Minister of giving “inaccurate” statements and raising “false hopes” by suggesting that disabled people who need an extra room are exempt from the so-called “bedroom tax”.

Eighteen chief executives of leading disabled charities have written to David Cameron criticising comments he made during Prime Minister’s Questions last Wednesday.

Mr Cameron was asked about calls to exempt disabled people from the spare room subsidy and responded: “Obviously, what we have done is to exempt disabled people who need an extra room.”

The charities, which include Carers UK, the RNIB and and Sense, say he has made similar remarks twice this year.

The letter states: “None of these situations reflect the reality of the Government’s policy. We are now even more concerned that the effects the policy is having on disabled people and their families are not understood in Government.”

The government redefines fuel poverty to look better

Fuel poverty: Ministers ‘shifting goal posts’

A committee of MPs has accused ministers of “shifting the goal posts” to reduce the number of households in England classed as in fuel poverty.

The definition of fuel poverty would be changed by amendments to the Energy Bill so that 2.4 million were classed as fuel poor rather than 3.2 million.

The Environmental Audit Committee says that is unacceptable.

The government insists the changes help “to get a better understanding of the causes and depth of fuel poverty”.

The cross-party committee’s report said families were currently classed as fuel poor if they spent more than 10% of income on fuel “to maintain an adequate level of warmth”.

Under the new definition, families would only be deemed to be in hardship if they had “above average fuel costs” leaving them with “a residual income below the official poverty line”.

Spy Blog asks which UK politician, if any, authorised NSA snooping on “un-minimized” data of innocent people in UK ?

I would hazzard the guess Tony Blair and Jack Straw although it’s important to remember that the entire cabinet shares legal responsibility. In Blair’s cabinet that would mean that ministers are responsible for actions that they had absolutely no knowledge about.

 

Home Secretary Theresa May is asked for explanations about the Ifa Muaza 20-hour deportation round-trip. [Ifa Muaza or Isa Muazu?]

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Yet more internet censorship from Cameron and the LibDems

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David Cameron and UK’s ConDem coalition government return to the issue of web censorship with an announcement that the UK government is to order ISPs to censor ‘extremist’ websites.

The crime and security minister, James Brokenshire, said on Wednesday that measures for censoring extremist content would be announced shortly. The initiative is likely to be controversial, with broadband companies already warning that freedom of speech could be compromised.

Ministers are understood to want to follow the model used to crack down on online child abuse. The Internet Watch Foundation, which is partly industry-funded, investigates reports of illegal child abuse images online; it can then ask service providers to block or take down websites.

David Cameron has previously announced the censorship of internet search engines. This latest announcement represents a second tier of censorship at the point of internet access.

It is expected that David Cameron’s UK ConDem coalition government will censor such extremist sites as the Guardian newspaper that has published seditious material sourced by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the wikileaks site.

Guardian: NSA files live

Continue ReadingYet more internet censorship from Cameron and the LibDems

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A few links to UK political news stories accompanied by a few comments.

Inventor of the world wide web Tim Berners-Lee warns that … “a growing tide of surveillance and censorship now threatens the future of democracy.”

“Bold steps are needed now to protect our fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of opinion and association online.”

There’s a good account of Labour party / Unite / selection / membership troubles in Falkirk here. Looks like all sides are calling on Labour’s inquiry to be published.

Bankers’ clients make millions from dirt-cheap taxpayer-robbing sale of Royal Mail.

Paul Flowers: police arrest former Co-Op Bank chairman in drug inquiry

Image of Former Co-Op Bank Chairman Paul Flowers West Yorkshire police said a man aged 63 had been arrested on Thursday night in the Merseyside area in connection with an ongoing drugs supply investigation.

“He has been taken to a police station in West Yorkshire where detectives will continue their inquiries,” the force announced.

The escalating controversy surrounding Flowers after a video allegedly showed him handing over money for cocaine has prompted turmoil in the Co-operative Group and prompted its overall chairman, Len Wardle, to announce he will retire early from the job.

Allegations have emerged during the week, including claims surrounding Flowers’s resignation from Bradford council after pornography was found on his work laptop. Flowers is a Methodist minister and has been suspended by the church.

Conservatives are targeting Labour, which has a close relationship with the Co-op, claiming that senior party figures must have known of Flowers’s chequered past. Flowers was a Labour member and has been suspended since the allegations against him came to light, as well as being suspended from his role as a minister in the Methodist church.

Former Co-operative Bank Chairman Paul Flowers was a Methodist minister, took shovel-fulls of drugs, resigned as a councillor after gay porn was found on his official laptop and had gay orgies with expensive young rent-boys. Quite a colorful character.

Prime Minister David Cameron is trying to profit politically from the revelations about Paul Flowers because the Co-operative Group supports the Labour Party and sponsors Labour MPs and the Co-operative Bank makes ‘soft’ loans to the Labour Party.

Countless – five or six – inquiries have been initiated into the appointment of Paul Flowers and the running of the Co-op bank. A rescue deal to save the Co-op Bank by getting finance from nasty US hedge funds is intended. [24/11/13 http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2013/11/three-reasons-for-the-conservatives-to-be-careful-with-their-co-op-campaigning.html “Indeed, there are now no fewer than seven inquiries under way into aspects of the Co-op’s woes …”]

There is no need for these inquiries because I know how Paul Flowers was appointed Chairman of the Co-op bank after ten minutes online research. He rose through the active membership side of the Co-op and was appointed as a titular Chairman on condition that two able Vice-Chairmen were also appointed.

Paul Flowers is linked to dead paedo Cyril Smith. Money, drugs, religion, expensive young rent-boys … I want to know what contacts he had with Tony Blair.

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Blair’s government allowed USA to spy on UK citizens

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Traitor Tony Blair receives the Congressional Gold Medal of Honour from George 'Dubya' Bush
Traitor Tony Blair receives the Congressional Gold Medal of Honour from George ‘Dubya’ Bush

The Guardian and Channel4 – in a joint investigation – have released documents sourced by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The documents reveal that US intelligence agencies were given far greater powers to spy on UK citizens by UK intelligence agency GCHQ in 2004. It is extremely unlikely that this move would be taken without treasonous ministerial approval by Tony Blair’s government.

GCHQ and the cabinet office are not commenting.

Image of GCHQ donught buildingUS and UK struck secret deal to allow NSA to ‘unmask’ Britons’ personal data

Documents show Blair government let US spy on Britons

1pm update: The important issue about these revelations is that UK allowed US authorities to spy on UK subjects who are not guilty or even suspected of any crime. Further, the scale of those subjected to such spying without any legal oversight is astonishingly wide. While it is reported as contacts-of-contacts or friends-of-friends of suspects it may be more practical to just consider it as being all UK subjects. [2.20pm Most news sources are reporting contacts-of-contacts. The Guardian say that it’s ‘”three hops” from its targets — who could be people who talk to people who talk to people who talk to you.’ That does look like all UK subjects. ]

This post subject to change

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Surveillance technology out of control, says Lord Ashdown

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/surveillance-technology-out-of-control-ashdown

Image of GCHQ donught building

The technology used by Britain’s spy agencies to conduct mass surveillance is “out of control”, raising fears about the erosion of civil liberties at a time of diminished trust in the intelligence services, according to the former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown.

The peer said it was time for a high-level inquiry to address fundamental questions about privacy in the 21st century, and railed against “lazy politicians” who frighten people into thinking “al-Qaida is about to jump out from behind every bush and therefore it is legitimate to forget about civil liberties”. “Well it isn’t,” he added.

Ashdown talks frequently to the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, and is chair of the the Liberal Democrats‘ general election team. Though he said he was speaking for himself, his views are understood to be shared by other senior members of the Liberal Democrats in government, who are also keen for some kind of broad inquiry into the subject.

This idea is also supported by Sir David Omand, a former director of GCHQ. He told the Guardian he was in favour of an inquiry and thought it would be wrong to “dismiss the idea of a royal commission out of hand”. It was important to balance the need for the agencies to have powerful capabilities, and the necessity of ensuring they did not use them in a way parliament had not intended, Omand added.

Ashdown is the latest senior politician to demand a review of the powers of Britain’s intelligence agencies – GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 – and the laws and oversight which underpin their activities.

In an interview with the Guardian, Ashdown said surveillance should only be conducted against specific targets when there was evidence against them. Dragnet surveillance was unacceptable, he added.

Ashdown made clear revelations in the Guardian about GCHQ and its American counterpart, the National Security Agency, had raised important issues that “could not be ignored or swept aside in a barrage of insults”.

He also criticised the Labour party, which was in power when the agencies began testing and building many of their most powerful surveillance capabilities. Labour’s former home secretary Jack Straw was responsible for introducing the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act 2000 (Ripa), which made the programmes legal.

“Ripa was a disgraceful piece of legislation,” Ashdown said. “Nobody put any thought into it. Labour just took the words they were given by the intelligence agencies. I don’t blame the intelligence agencies.

Pantsdown continues in the article to discuss witnessing the steaming open of envelopes by spooks. In line with the full disclosure policy of this blog I can reveal that nowadays they use endescopes to read letters. The tell-tale sign is a small rip to the seal of the envelope at one end.

[19/11/13  The tell-tell sign of the use of an endescope will usually be on the right-hand side of the envelope’s seal and occasionally on the left-hand side. Why is that?

Continue ReadingSurveillance technology out of control, says Lord Ashdown

Guardian editor to face MPs over Snowden intelligence leaks

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24876725

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger is to be questioned by MPs over the newspaper’s publication of leaks by ex-US security contractor Edward Snowden.

Mr Rusbridger will give evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee next month, a Guardian spokesman confirmed.

The Guardian has published information about how British and US spy agencies monitor communications.

The decision to publish the leaks was criticised by the leaders of UK security services on Thursday.

Documents leaked to the Guardian newspaper by Mr Snowden – who is currently in Moscow where he has sought asylum – revealed that agencies are able to tap into the internet communications of millions of ordinary citizens through GCHQ’s Tempora programme.

Continue ReadingGuardian editor to face MPs over Snowden intelligence leaks