A new civil liberties controversy has flared up over the news that police chiefs are considering using high-powered microphones to “eavesdrop” – as critics will see it – on crowds at the London 2012 Olympics.

A high-ranking officer told the BBC the proposal to strengthen security by using microphones alongside closed-circuit TV involved “taking public surveillance to an entirely new level”.

But the former home secretary David Blunkett called publicly on the government to block the scheme.

He told BBC Radio Five Live’s Weekend News programme that the suggestion was “simply unacceptable”, and smacked of the “surveillance state”.

As you walk down the street you expect to be able to have a private conversation
David Blunkett

Mr Blunkett said the idea echoed the fictional authoritarian Brave New World of Aldous Huxley’s novel.

“As you walk down the street you expect to be able to have a private conversation,” he said.

“If you can’t guarantee that – and here is someone speaking who has been pretty tough in terms of what should be available to protect society – I believe we have slipped over the edge.”

As you walk down the street, you expect to be able to have a private conversation.

This simply CANNOT be real.

Does the subhuman adulterer actually think this? Is he joking? This is the very same loathsome David Blunkett that did all the evil that we railed against…..

But Mimi Majick chimes in:

Its because he is BLIND; sound to him is equivalent to sight for us. That is why he understands this. It shows you why you shouldn’t have somebody who is disabled in a position like Home Secretary, because they cannot represent us. He cannot possibly understand what having CCTV cameras in the street means, because he has no sight.

And I agree totally, and have said this before; a blind Home Secratary cannot judge what is obscene and what is not obscene because he cannot see porn.

But I digress.

This BASTARD now wants to defect from the dark side (no pun intended) and join the side of what is right?

What utter rubbish.

This proves yet again that the people behind the push for ID cards, biometrics and all that other hogwash simply don’t understand what it is that they are doing. They don’t understand the consequences, the ramifications, the results, and if it all gets rolled out, the police will be in charge and they will have the power to silence any politician that goes up against them because they will be able to see into every bedroom, every bank account and every nook and cranny of this great country. No one in any position of power will dare defy them because it means, as in the case of asshole Blunkett, that adulterous affairs will be exposed, and in the case of Bliar, bribery uncovered.

Told you so!

and this from Bruce’s November newsletter:

We can’t turn back technology; electronic communications are here to stay. But as technology makes our conversations less ephemeral, we need laws to step in and safeguard our privacy. We need a comprehensive data privacy law, protecting our data and communications regardless of where it is stored or how it is processed. We need laws forcing companies to keep it private and to delete it as soon as it is no longer needed.

And we need to remember, whenever we type and send, we’re being watched.

Foley is an anomaly. Most of us do not send instant messages in order to solicit sex with minors. Law enforcement might have a legitimate need to access Foley’s IMs, e-mails and cell phone calling logs, but that’s why there are warrants supported by probable cause–they help ensure that investigations are properly focused on suspected pedophiles, terrorists and other criminals. We saw this in the recent UK terrorist arrests; focused investigations on suspected terrorists foiled the plot, not broad surveillance of everyone without probable cause.

Without legal privacy protections, the world becomes one giant airport security area, where the slightest joke — or comment made years before — lands you in hot water. The world becomes one giant market-research study, where we are all life-long subjects. The world becomes a police state, where we all are assumed to be Foleys and terrorists in the eyes of the government.

http://tinyurl.com/ymmnee

Yes indeed. What you are describing is not a ‘giant airport security area’ but a Prison Planet.

Me too Me too!!!! :

Passengers at Heathrow had their fingerprints taken for the first time yesterday, in tests which could lead to routine biometric scanning at Britain’s airports.

A high-tech scanner was unveiled by the Government and eventually all passengers could be required to have iris and face scans.

Initially, passengers are being invited to have their fingerprints scanned in return for skipping boarding queues. If the scheme, known as miSense, proves succesful, it could be rolled out across the UK…

Telegraph

Copycat imbeciles!

The Times November 02, 2006

DNA pioneer accuses the police of being overzealous By Stewart Tendler, Crime Correspondent

The man who developed DNA testing in the 1980s has attacked the spread of data collection by police as mission creep. Sir Alec Jeffreys said that the tool, which was meant to catch criminals who reoffend, has created a vast database of gene profiles of thousands of innocent citizens.

Professor Jeffreys, who is head of genetics research at Leicester University, said: Now hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent people are populating that database, people who have come to the polices attention, for example by being charged with a crime and subsequently released…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-2433318,00.html

Yet another scientist who’s work is being abused.

You remember Oppenhiemer and his post Manhattan success ‘Shiva’ quote don’t you? Google it if you haven’t got a clue about what I am talking about.

Secret Cabinet memo admits Iraq is fuelling UK terror

Tony Blair’s claim that there is no link between Britain’s foreign policy and terrorist attacks in this country is blown apart by a secret cabinet memo revealed today.

Ummm we and every other person on the planet already knew this.

A classified paper written by senior Downing Street officials says that everything Britain does overseas for the next decade must have the ultimate aim of reducing “terror activity, especially that in or directed against the UK”.

The memo, circulated in recent weeks to ministers and security chiefs and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, outlines an extraordinary “wish list” of how the Government would like world troublespots to look in 10 years’ time. It also signals a drive to reduce Britain’s military commitments around the globe.

It admits that, in an ideal world, “the Muslim would not perceive the UK and its foreign policies as hostile” – effectively accepting the argument that Britain’s military action in Iraq and Afghanistan has served as a recruiting sergeant for Islamist terrorist groups. Publicly, Mr Blair has resisted this line fiercely. During his final speech as leader to Labour’s annual conference last month, he described such claims as “enemy propaganda”.

His cabinet allies have supported his position. Earlier this year, John Reid, the Home Secretary, said: “I think it is a dreadful misjudgment if we believe the foreign policy of this country should be shaped in part, or in whole, under the threat of terrorist activity, if we do not have a foreign policy with which the terrorists happen to agree.”

But the memo leaves no doubt that all foreign policy must be driven by the goal of thwarting terrorism in Britain. It demands a “significant reduction in the number and intensity of the regional conflicts that fuel terror activity”.

In other words, KNOCK IT OFF, COME BACK HOME and DONT EVER GO BACK.

After a decade, Iraq must have “stable central and local government, accepted by all sectarian groups”. Afghanistan must be “stable, democratic, with all territory under central government control”.

You guys just don’t get it do you?

WHY should Iraq have a central government? ‘What does this have to do with Richmond?’ is the test that you need to apply to every one of these pronouncements. Why should Britain have a say about anything that happens in Iraq? That is what caused this problem in the first place. You are all living on tenter hooks, paranoid, disrupted, humiliated and scorned…and for what? For precisely nothing, since these people have their own ideas about what is right and what is wrong, and they will live by those ways or die and take you with them. They resist living in ‘democracy’ in the same way that we would all resist living under pure Sharia; to the death. Only the most blinkered and uneducated buffoons can not see this.

Similarly, why on earth should Afghanistan be a centrally controlled democratic government? Who are you to make that judgement? You making these proclamations and then acting on them are the sole cause of everyone hating the UK second only to the USA. For the thousandth time, will you KNOCK IT OFF. What those people do has absolutely NOTHING to do with Richmond. You have no right to demand that they live in a democracy. You have no right to dictate anything to anyone. If you DO believe that you have the right to shape the destiny of hundreds of millions of people in other lands, then take the consequences, and don’t whine like babies when people are lining up to slaughter you.

Israel must have “secure borders” and live in “peaceful co-existence” with its Arab neighbours,

sure, but thats up to THEM isn’t it?

while Iran must have a “representative, tolerant government … no nuclear weapons” and “no sponsorship of terrorism”.

There you go again.

The whole reason why there is an Islamic Republic in Iran is because YOU DISMANTLED THE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT that was running there. What the Iranians have now is the government that they want. What happens in Iran is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

The Iranian government doesn’t ‘sponsor terrorism’. The entire cause of ‘terrorism’ is USUKs interference in other people’s countries. Look at this documentary to find out just how IGNORANT Bliar and Bu$h are; the killer part is where the presenter recounts the event where Bu$h took some Shias and Sunnis to the Super Bowl. They talked. Somehow, the discussion came round to Islam, and someone mentioned that Sunnis and Shias sometimes….’don’t get along’, whereupon The Great Satan said, “You mean that there is more than one kind of muslim?”.

You cant make stuff like this up.

A similar story is recounted about Bliar. These people, these ignorant animals have the gall to tell Iran how to run its affairs? It beggars belief.

The document concludes: “If all or most of the above were in place, threats from other sources of Islamic terrorism (eg Indonesia, Philippines, Nigeria) would be manageable or on the way to resolution. Any remaining deployments of the British armed forces should be seen as contributing to international stability and security.”

Indonesia, The Philippines, Nigeria? listing these countries shows that the person who wrote this memo is as ignorant as Bu$h and Bliar. No muslim in any of these countries gives a damn about the UK, and they would be more than happy to never have any hatred towards anyone. If you however, decide to land troops in their countries, try and stage coups there, stir up trouble and make a nuisance of yourself, you are guaranteed to face fierce resistance. This part of the memo shows that they know nothing and have learned nothing, not even from recent history…and by recent I mean the last five years. There is no problem between Indonesia, Philippines, Nigeria and the UK. My advice to you you JACKASSES is not to start one!

A Downing Street spokesman declined to comment on the memo. However, in an interview, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, played down suggestions that large numbers of British troops may soon be coming home from Iraq. “I think you’re perhaps a little impatient to see a huge change, which I don’t think we are yet in,” she said.

She acknowledged, how-ever, that Britain and America had failed, before going to war, to predict that “there were huge pent-up hatreds and resentments in Iraq which exploded once Saddam Hussein was deposed”.

[…]

Telegraph

You fail again and again. You know nothing about Indonesia, The Philippines, Nigeria and anywhere other than Richmond Upon Thames. Nothing wrong with that; just make sure that you NEVER interfere with any of these countries and how they are run. As soon as you try to interfere, you cause disaster. You always have caused disaster, and always will cause disaster. Solve your own problems, mind your own business and all the ‘terrorism’ will melt away. If you do not, it will be ramped up and your precious ‘democracy’ which you have already partially dismantled, will be utterly destroyed by your own hand.

No one wants your ‘help’ and no one needs your advice. Every educated person can see that you are amongst the biggest hypocrites ever to walk the face of this earth. The British people on an interpersonal basis are the best ambassadors for the UK, because they are decent, peace loving people, and amongst the most tolerant, creative and intelligent in the entire world. The same cannot be said about HMG sadly, and its brief should be confined to garbage collection; that way, no one gets hurt.

Anyone who mentions Iran, who says its ‘intolerant’ who creates and transmits bogus documentaries about, sharia, veiled women blah blah blah; these people are traitors and warmongers and liars and are completely insane.

Enough is enough. Britain has alot of healing to do, and the sooner it starts the sooner Britain will start to look like the place we all loved. The first step is the purging of the war criminals and their bogus anti-democratic legislation.

But thats another blog post!

Reading about John Reid’s visit to Waltham Forest, and it’s ‘critical reception’ I couldn’t help but think of other authoritarian scum, ahem, political figures who have gone to ‘immigrant areas’ in East London.

The Battle of Cable Street or Cable Street Riot took place on Sunday October 4, 1936 in Cable Street in the East End of London. It was a clash between the police, overseeing a lawful march by the British Union of Fascists, on one side and anti-fascists including local Jewish, socialist, and communist groups on the other. The majority of both marchers and counter-protesters travelled into the area for this purpose.

In spite of the East End at that time having a large Jewish population, and the anti-Semitic nature of the B.U.F., the government refused to ban the march.

The anti-fascist groups erected roadblocks in an attempt to prevent the march from taking place. Although the police attempted to clear the road to permit the march to proceed, after a series of running battles between the police and anti-fascist demonstrators, the march did not take place, and the B.U.F. marchers were dispersed towards Hyde Park instead.

(Wikipedia)

Some memories:

Solley Kaye

[…]

The fascists had their strongholds in places like Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, South Hackney, parts of Poplar, all of which were on the edge of Stepney where the large Jewish population lived. So that they could involve people on the basis of envy fear, or whatever, by saying “OVER THERE the Jews, they’ve got your houses, OVER THERE the Jews, they’ve got your jobs.” Even though we were living in bloody poverty with bugs crawling all over us in the night.

[…]

Charlie Goodman

Charlie Goodman’s arrest on 4 October 1936 was notable for two things – the sheer brutality of the police and the guts of this 16 year-old kid who faced up to them.

At one point in the battle at Gardiner’s Corner, when after literally hours of police charges the crowd retreated a bit, Charlie climbed up a lamp post and shouted at the top of his voice: “Don’t be yellow bellies, forward, we are winning”. The police eventually caught up with him in Commercial Road and he was clubbed, punched and kicked all the way to Leman Street police station. (Things have not changed much. How many Asians have suffered similarly at that police station in the last 15 years?)

[…]

“The names change, the streets are the Same, and so are the problems. The glorious struggle of 1936 must be remembered today.”

There will be the 70th anniversary events on the 8th October. What would be an appropriate way to remember it?

You remember the scene from a Simpsons episode, where Bart keeps trying to grab a cake, even though each time he does it he gets an electric shock?

The US government has been accused of trying to undermine the Chávez government in Venezuela by funding anonymous groups via its main international aid agency. …

Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (Coha) in Washington yesterday [said] “The US is waging diplomatic warfare against Venezuela.”

He said that while the US had accused Mr Chávez of destabilising Latin American countries, the term “destabilisation” more aptly applied to what the US was trying to do to Mr Chávez.

[…]

I would file this under ‘normal service’.

Given the bloody history of US intervention in South/Central American policitcs, not to mention Bush’s previous worldwide, you’d think they’d realize this cake is wired to the mains.

But no. Anything in the name of spreading ‘democracy’: someone awake in 2003 said “In Bush-speak, “democracy” has been perverted to mean U.S. imperial hegemony: nations run by puppet rulers who make all the right noises”

Incredibly, ‘terrorism’ originating in South America against US targets doesn’t seem to exist to any great extent. Who’s betting that will remain the case?

Dear Dr. Waldron, All my life I was affected by the tragic end of Mr. Lumumba. My father could not explain why this very intelligent and lovely man who was the incarnation of our socio-political dreams and hopes was killed with the blessing of the USA president of the time, UN general secretary and the local leaders of the time, My question is why Lumumba was so hated? Why nobody could hear him and understand him objectively? Why king Baudouin who was so intelligent and religious could not take time to discuss with Lumumba to know him better and understand his vision for his home country? From South Africa to Algeria, Egypt to Ivory Coast, I heard similar stories of the best men who were killed to satisfy the international community.

Dear Rev. Doctor, I don’t think anyone in America had anything personal against Lumumba. They did listen to him and they understood very well what he had to say, and that is why Western economic interests killed him. Lumumba was killed by the European and American mining and banking interests because Lumumba was the only person who could hold the Congo together after Independence, and those economic interests wanted to break the Congo apart for their own profit. In order to justify killing Lumumba, they had to create the propaganda lie that he was a Communist. The assassination of Lumumba also suited the Russians who could not control Lumumba alive, but after his death could wrap their man Gizenga in his mantle. Lumumba was doomed. If the West hadn’t killed him, Russia would have, and Lumumba’s Congolese political rivals were equally determined to get rid of him so they could carve out their own little kingdoms within the Congo. This was not just Tshombe in Katanga, but do not forget that Kasa-Vuba originally called himself King Kasa in his election campaign, in which he promised to make his own ethnic group an independent entity. In the months before Independence, most of the Belgians in the Congo knew perfectly well that the Belgian Government, for the sake of the profits of Union Miniere de Haut Katanga and its other economic interests, was already engineering the conditions in which the Congo could not survive as a unified country. The Royal Family of Belgium were major stockholders in Union Miniere de Haut Katanga, and King Baudouin of the Belgians was just as profit motivated as the notorious King Leopold II was when he set up that company to exploit the mineral riches of the Congo. Ordinary born-Congolese Whites and those among the provincial administrators who were caring and honest, were outraged by what the government in Belgium was doing, not just to the African Congolese, but to the White Congolese. You can read more about this in the Luluabourg excerpt from my book THE SECRET IN THE HEART OF DARKNESS; The Sabotaged Independence of the Belgian Congo, which is on this Web site There is a saying in English, that to understand something you “Follow the Money”. Therefore, don’t look for answers to what happened to the Congo in political ethics, or animosities, or misunderstandings of what Lumumba was saying and wanted to do. Look for the answers in who was planning to profit. The people who were behind the chaos and the murder of Lumumba then looted the Congo of all its resources both through taking them directly and through loans to Mabutu at crippling interest rates to have European companies the lenders designated build (or in many cases not actually build) unneeded huge projects while letting the basic infrastructure crumble, impoverishing the country and depriving the people of the necessities of life to service the debts. The people of the Congo need peace, good government, and a viable infrastructure, and I do not know how any of these can be attained in the present conditions of corruption, chaos, war and poverty. A BOOK I RECOMMEND TO SERIOUS SCHOLARS: THE CONGO CABLES THE COLD WAR IN AFRICA–FROM EISENHOWER TO KENNEDY Author: KALB, MADELEINE G MACMILLAN, 1982, These are the actual cables back and forth between Washington, the Congo and the UN.

Source: D’Lynn Waldron

Public libraries are on the verge of extinction warn campaigners. How can they be protected for the future?

Be honest – when did you last use your local library? Do you even know where it is?

[…]

We use our library at least weekly. There is no excuse not to, since:

We can rent CDs and DVDs from the library much cheaper than other places.

They may have a poor stock, but one can order ANY BOOK YOU LIKE and it will be brought to your local library. It takes one minute to fill in a form. Same for CDs and DVDs.
We can check stock and renew items online.

They hold a wealth of local information, both historical and about upcoming events.

They give classes in many things for kids and adults. There are kids story-telling sessions too.

They have computers with free internet access.

What more do you want!?!?!???

Knowledge is sustenance, and here is a font to sup at for free. Fill thy cups, my friends!

Old news department, or a taste of how NIR information will be implemented. I emphasise.

A FYLDE coast student was arrested after posting Christmas cards to his family

Stunned David Atkinson found himself at his local police station under suspicion of stealing the festive greetings he last saw when he put them in a postbox five years ago. Due to fingerprints found on the mail – which was stolen then recovered – police thought they had their man. However, it transpired the “suspect’s” fingerprints were those of the student who had innocently sent the cards to relatives when he was 15.

Mr Atkinson, now 21, of [address omitted – gosh, to think that his address was posted online after this, mm], was arrested because his DNA and fingerprints had been kept on record under controversial Government laws to combat terror.

It was only after Mr Atkinson asked officers to look more deeply into the crime his innocence was proved.

The law student said it has shattered his confidence in the system. He said: “The potential incompetence, laziness, or over enthusiasm of an individual officer means an innocent, law-abiding citizen can never truly have confidence in the giant police database.”

It was the second time Mr Atkinson had been arrested – twice for crimes he did not commit. He has now lent his support to a campaign to force a rethink by the Home Office.

The mix-up began last March when Mr Atkinson was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage – but, when the real culprit gave himself up to police, he was released without charge.

During his short time with the police, he had his fingerprints and DNA taken as part of the arrest procedure but, under recently passed laws, all details – no matter whether the person is innocent or guilty – are kept on a national computer.

Mr Atkinson thought nothing of it until he got a call from officers a month later asking him to go along to the station. He said: “I was arrested as soon as I went in. “The officer told me he had a computer report which had automatically matched my fingerprints with those recovered from a number of items of post which had been stolen from a letter box in December 2000.

“As a result of this report alone, and no further investigation, the officer advised me to ‘get the matter out of the way quickly and take a caution now’.

“After refusing to admit a crime I’d not committed, I was bailed while further investigations were made.”
“The recovered letters were in fact my family Christmas cards which had been taken after I had posted them five years ago.
“This innocent explanation had not even crossed the officer’s mind and, as far as he was concerned, if his computer report said I was guilty then I had to be.”

Mr Atkinson complained to Lancashire Constabulary and eventually received an apology. But, he claims, without the Government’s “menace to our freedom”, he would not have been put through the ordeal. A police spokesman said: “We can confirm that we did receive a complaint in August about a wrongful arrest concerning stolen post. “This was investigated thoroughly under our normal complaints procedure and dealt with locally to the satisfaction of both parties. “Under current legislation, all police forces can retain and record DNA taken for arrestable offences no matter what the eventual outcome of the investigation.”

ben.rossington@blackpoolgazette.co.uk

22 February 2006

Wac?aw Kledzik’s (8.0.1.6) ‘Arbeitskarte’ (work permit), produced for Ignacy Szczygie?, a Pole from eastern borderland.

http://www.kledzik.strony.pl

http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/

http://wwii-militaria.net/civilian_documents.htm

http://www.cottingleyconnect.org.uk/id.htm

POW ID card at Stalag Luft I

www.merkki.com/potterlc.htm

And this is the BEST collection:

http://www.usmbooks.com/index_rare_documents.html

and now, for a blog article…

ID cards part of the World ID project

The ID cards coming into forced usage in the United Kingdom are part of a global project called the World ID project.
Based underground in a military installation in the United States, huge computer mainframes are in place ready to store, catagorise and search a database of information on the whole population of the earth.
Dr. William Deagle a medical doctor who has worked on secret government projects claims to have visited the underground computer mainframe in 1994, underneath Schriever AFB in Colorado Springs.
download here

ID cards have been rolled out across the world over recent years, Pakistan, Brazil, China, India, Czechoslovakia and Italy only being a small sample, have finally reached the UK and been forced through by our wayward government.

Its hard to imagine the contrast, when in Asia 1 billion live in poverty, their governments are only interested in giving them mandatory ID cards to access private services, vote (inevitably), collect social security, open a bank account, travel and like in Italy, show on demand to law enforcement officials.
The US supreme court ruled June 2004 that ID must be shown on demand to law enforcement.
I suppose its all just to cut fraud.

The reality appears to be that some form of global control grid is coming down hard on the people living not just in Asia but all around the world and soon may come to us unsuspecting UK citizens too.
It is quite possible that this ID card the government so forceful pushed through has exactly the same implications for us as it does for those in communist China or fascist Italy.

Initially our ID cards (UK) are biometric and will replace our passports but in the future they will be DNA based and the plan appears to be then to have a DNA database for every nation. In the United States ID cards are being introduced through driving licenses as few own passports.

The plan is to integrate this into the new security features for travel. I.e. in the New World you will need to present your approved global standard biometrics ID card to travel abroad. Seeing as this is only the beginning the strategy appears to be to move then down to national travel, railway stations for example, then down to the local level, boarding buses.

The governments claim all sorts of things for these cards one of them is that it will stop fraud, but the technology approved as the global standard “facial biometrics ID” is the least accurate of all biometrics data.
University of Cambridge professor Daugman who developed the international algorithms for Iris recognition claims it fails 5% to 40% of the time.

“Today’s computer algorithms for automatic face recognition have a truly appalling performance, in terms of accuracy,”

The recognition software is currently only capable of checking your face, no criminal database checks anywhere, yet. A human being can do that.

So why has the ICAO “specified facial recognition as the globally interoperable biometric technology for machine-assisted identity confirmation?” (link)
In the technology testing they relied upon (FRVT2002) a New York Times report on it concludes “Cognitec, the leading performer on that test, gained a 77 percent rating but its success rate fell to 56 percent when the watch list grew to 3,000.”

Even the best biometrics technology being rolled out, Iris scans, still fall far short of any kind of security.
In February 2002 the US Department of Defense issued a report that found wide discrepancies between manufacturers’ claims of successful biometrics identification rates and those seen in the field. The report found that iris recognition did better than most but one manufacturer’s claim of a 0.5% false identification rate ballooned to 6% during the DOD tests.
Even 0.5% is not acceptable.

Fingerprints are left everywhere, they are not secure. Also for the estimated 2% of the population who have worn finger pads the scanners wont work. Contact lenses can possibly be manufactured to fool iris scanners. Voice recognition wont work in noisy areas, and can potentially be fooled by computer software.

Current biometirc technology is not only easy to bypass but fundamentally flawed at even checking the real card owner. It is not ready for global secure rollout.
The only conclusion can be that this system is destined to fail, possibly designed that way as a political tool to help bring in DNA databases or microchipping, both of which are firmly on the agenda.

Once again the technology is incapable of working with databases and yet huge amounts of money are being pumped into this.
Makes you wonder what’s going on surely?

The government is only interested in selling your data, using it to make money. The two motives conflict stongly, keeping it secure and selling it for profit! They do not work together.

Ill finish with a quote from the ID World Electronic passport website

“The issuing of machine-readable travel documents will take place in three distinct waves – first ePassports, then National IDs and finally Visas – and 2006 will see the creation of the infrastructure to support this major shift. Such a revolution could be viewed merely as a consequence of the mandatory implementation of a relatively narrow project, but in reality the introduction of electronic travel documents worldwide will pave the way towards the much broader market penetration of RFID and biometric technology in the areas of citizen ID and eGovernment projects.”

[…]

http://unitingthenations.blogspot.com/

But… you know this.

Visitors to the UK’s biggest cities will be tagged and tracked by a network of cameras in a revolutionary system to tighten security while also providing a personalised alibi for the general public.

Police in Manchester will be fitting visitors with wrist bands containing tiny Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips in the ultimate big-brother system.

Visitors will be watched as they use the city and will be filmed on streets.

At the end of the day they will ‘store their alibi’ in a proprietory HDTV format.

Technology experts at Stasi Solutions, the firm behind the project, say it will also make the city more secure, with the tags used to track lost children and cut crime.

Stasi Solutions joined forces with Sony to provide the system, called Your Life, which could also be introduced to Bush Gardens, in Florida and Halliburtonia, Baghdad.

Ali Baba, from YourLife, said: “It will involve cameras being strategically placed along the paths and at crime photo-opportunity locations.

“The cameras will be used to track and video visitors while they experience the city’s attractions.

“These personalised video clips will then be routed, catalogued and digitally stored, ready for the SOCA to pick up in a tailored HD format when they require it.”

He added: “In addition to using Sony video cameras to capture the guest’s experience in the city, the cameras can also be utilised to provide additional security protection in the event of break-ins or acts of vandalism.”

Hans Burger, from Stasi Solutions, said: “Our aim is to give the police the opportunity to view their unique day time and time again through secure digital video footage.”

Original story here and elswhere. Of course ITRW you would only need to install a network of RFID detectors and cross reference with CCTV as and when (to keep costs down).

In case you think traces of data on your hard disk is an unlikely source of ID theft here’s a couple of easy ways NIR information can be gathered with minimal effort (and therefore maximum profit!!!!). And remember because NIR information will be ‘valid’ in perpetuity it can be traded long after the information is stolen (and even if it is encrypted it will be just like futures options on the stock exchange, people will be willing to bet on whether the encryption can be readily broken or bypassed).

Scenario 1:
You’re 21 looking 18.
You’re at the off license.
You have an NIR linked ID card.
You have a credit card.

You let your card be verified against the NIR, he asks you to take a fingerprint scan
The retailer has a recorder box between the RFID scanner and the NIR connection and skims the RFID & fingerprint data, he has also put some thin film on the fingerprint scanner which now has your fingerprint on it.

You pay with your credit card
The retailer skims your credit card information

You get your beer
The retailer gets the information transmitted by your ID card, the NIR ready data from your fingerprint, a valid fingerprint for the ID card, your credit card details – he can use these directly or sell this information to someone else (or both)

—

Scenario 2:

You are at a restaurant
You leave your coat with the waiter
Your wallet is in your coat

Your ID & credit cards are in your wallet
The waiter skims all your cards with a stand alone reader while you are at your table

You are handed a laminated menu
You leave your fingerprints all over the menu, the waiter takes care to only touch the top edge of the menu

You go home having a nice meal
The waiter lifts your prints off the menu and sells this with your card information

—

Although card skimming can be done now it is simple to invalidate your current credit card number and get a new one.
You cannot get new fingerprints, and you cannot invalidate them if access to public services and your own money depends on them.

Are you inspired yet?

Chirac backs down on employment law

Staff and agencies
Monday April 10, 2006

The French government today bowed to weeks of protests and said it would replace a controversial employment law which made it easier to fire workers aged under 26.

Stunned by the biggest street demonstrations in almost 40 years, the office of the president, Jacques Chirac, said a new plan focusing on youths from troubled backgrounds would replace the “first job contract”.

“The president of the republic has decided to replace article 8 of the equal opportunities law with measures to help disadvantaged young people find work,” said a statement from the presidency.

[…]

And, of course, I know you haven’t forgotten this…

A few people deciding enough is enough, refusing to put up with an unfair law and doing something about it.

And the governments changed the laws. 

The new UK Identity and Passport Service, spawned out of the Passport Service after the ID Cards Act became law on Saturday, has celebrated its birth by trying to stop people renewing their passports whenever they want to, whether or not the passport is about to expire. The change in terms and conditions has been slipped into the website without announcement, and is quite clearly ID card related. [The Register]

Basically you can guarantee that if your ‘strategy’ is to look for loopholes in current legislation you are a sitting target and being as useful as going on a demonstration.
The government are making certain that you will have to *fight* for your rights if you want to return this country to a free, peaceable, libertarian democracy.

Edit:
The IPS site now has the fact you can renew your passport at any time on it. But the points above stand, legislation can and most likely will be amended to suit the government – loopholes are pretty trivial to close especially so if the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill is enacted.

So cock-up or a symptom of the endemic bullying of the Home Office?

The truth seeps through grasping fingers across forked-tongued mouths… and dribbles away, unseen by the many, reviled by the few…

Ministers also announced that the new agency will operate a passport verification service so that businesses can guard against identity fraud by checking the credentials of their customers against the biometric database. The Home Office claims this could be worth £325m in benefits to business.

And the benefits to individuals…. ?
There you go. You will be asked for your ID card by anyone who wishes to ask. And you will be denied service if you refuse to comply.

This was tagged on the end of a piece in the Grauniad noting that the Safety Elephant will charge you the full price of an ID card plus passport, even if you ‘opt out’ of having the physical card itself. This is to make having the card seem like a bargain, obviously!

One notable thing is that the Guardian (not alone, but…), while obviously opposed to ID cards, appears to be doing nothing to spell out their danger. They pick up on minor quibbles, like cost, and ignore major stuff like unfettered database access to anyone who will pay! Government charging people for data-rape, and then selling access to the data!! Ignored!!!

Why am I surprised? I’m not. Just very disappointed.

So instead, be inspired. Remember the wise people who came before us and Got Things Done. Remember those who despised the way things were, the way they were going, and got up and changed them themselves.

Today, I remember Margaret Mead.

Remeber what she knew to be truth:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Instead of an Iron Duke, we have a Rubber Poodle. Instead of an ultra-Tory in opposition, we have have an MOR pseudo-Tony. No more pistols at dawn , just press releases over lunch….

Iron Duke fights duel over Catholics

Saturday March 28, 1829
The Guardian

It is our duty to announce to the public an event which fortunately has not been attended with fatal consequences to the personages concerned. A meeting took place yesterday morning in Battersea-fields between the Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchilsea.

[…] From the Duke to Lord Winchilsea: “My Lord – is a gentleman who happens to be the king’s first minister, to submit to being insulted by any gentleman who thinks proper to attributed to him disgraceful or criminal motives for his behaviour? Your lordship is alone responsible for the consequences. I call upon your lordship to give me that satisfaction for your conduct which a gentleman never refuses to give.”

From Lord Winchilsea. “My Lord – the satisfaction which your grace has demanded, it is of course impossible for me to decline.”

The Duke of Wellington and Lord Winchilsea met at the appointed place. The parties having taken their ground, Lord Winchilsea received the Duke of Wellington’s fire [apparently not aimed at him] and fired in the air. After some discussion the accompanying memorandum was accepted as a satisfactory reparation to the Duke of Wellington. […]
There is no honour in politics any longer. There is little enough in British life altogether, for that matter. I would rant about the ‘respect’ culture Herr Blair insists we must engender, when he commands so little of it himself… but I wither at the thought. I would rail against the ‘professional politician’ as an invasive species detrimental to the natives of these Isles, for the evidence lies clear around us… these new, mutant isoforms of human beings falling somewhere between parasites and saprophytes, feeding both from the remaining living Britains and sucking the vitality from those millions already mentally dead. I long for truth, and look for someone to trust, someone to inspire, but today the clouds are low and dark and there is a sickness in my stomach and a stench in my nostrils. The sounds of Wellington’s gunshots have long since died, and in their place only the slither of snakes crawling over the rotten, bloated corpse of a once Great Britain.

The only solution, pick up your metaphorical pistols and challenge these whimpering political dogs to a fight! I will see you, Sir, at dawn, and the choice of weapons shall be mine!

‘Youre always so happy, how the hell…

You’re like a dumb dumb patriot

If youre supposed to be so angry, why dont you fight

Let me benefit from your right?

Dont you know the only way to change things

Is to shoot men who arrange things

Robin I would try and explain but you’d never see in a million years.‘

What with the cold weather and assorted other things I’ve noticed if I’m not smiling (or on the positive side of neutral) when I’m wearing earphones the sound is much flatter and deadened. It must be because smiling pushes your ears out slightly and changes the resonant space in your ear slightly.
Maybe the ‘iPod effect’ is owners of new toys being happy whilst listening to their music and noticing the improvement in the sound. Maybe it’s not smugness after all, just satisfaction.

Talking of which I think African Head Charge’s ‘Hymn’ must be the happiest piece of music I’ve heard.

Compulsory ID cards are nothing new in the UK. They were issued to all British civilians during World War II. That is until one ordinary man said no.

Clarence Willcock, a 54-year-old dry cleaner from suburban north London, must rank as one of the unlikeliest Davids ever to take on a Goliath.

Mr Willcock was stopped on December 7 1950 while driving his car along Ballard’s Lane by uniformed police constable Harold Muckle, who demanded to see the motorist’s identity card.

Mr Willcock refused. Pc Muckle told him to produce the compulsory card at the local station with 48 hours. “I will not produce it at any police station,” Mr Willcock replied.

With this act of defiance, Mr Willcock brought crashing down a giant bureaucracy which had, since the outbreak of World War II in 1939, forced an identity card on every civilian in the UK – man, woman and child.

When Willcock v Muckle eventually reached the High Court in 1951, Lord Chief Justice Goddard said the continuation of the wartime ID card scheme was an “annoyance” to much of the public and “tended to turn law-abiding subjects into law breakers”. […]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3129302.stm

[…]

A BLOGDIAL post from April 24th 2004
And I add today, from the same article:

“Let us have the credit for ‘setting the people free’,” wrote one Treasury minister in 1952, though he was really gleefully looking forward to “the consequential staff economies”.

The demise of the system was forecast while the fight against Hitler was still fierce. In October 1944, Registrar General Sir Earnest Holderness said that he did “not believe that public opinion will stand for the retention of [national registration] in its present form”.

Sir Ernest reasoned that once law-abiding citizens no longer needed to provide details of their address to ensure their ration allowances, they would not bother to keep their ID cards up to date merely because the government asked them to.

And what, my dear friends, is the difference between the British of 1952 and the British of 2006? Just what is it that they have been putting in the water that has turned a population of real people into sheeple?

How did they do it?

How much lower can they all sink before they are literally turned into cattle?

Everything says “this should not be happening” but it is, and…I can’t wake up!