‘Orwellian’ CCTV in shires alarms senior police officer

· Benefits of wide-ranging surveillance questioned
· Deputy chief constable criticises DNA rules

Rachel Williams
Monday May 21, 2007
The Guardian

Britain risks becoming an “Orwellian” society as CCTV cameras spread to quiet villages with low crime levels, a senior police officer warned yesterday.

Ian Readhead, Hampshire’s deputy chief constable, said he did not want to live in a country where every street corner was fitted with surveillance devices.

And so, at long last, the penny drops.

Even THE POLICE in Britain do not want to live in a country that is a Police State.

You cannot make this stuff up.

He also criticised rules which meant DNA evidence and fingerprints could be kept for the rest of a teenager’s life once they have been arrested for an offence, even if they never get in trouble again, and said there was a danger that speed cameras were seen by the public as a revenue-generating process rather than a genuine effort to reduce casualties.

Everyone deserves a second chance. A country where everything you do is forever marked down against your ‘record’ is not a fit place for human beings. Even the Police, the group that supposedly all of this is being set up to aid, are against it.

What took them so long to come out and SAY ALL OF THIS?!

Mr Readhead highlighted the town of Stockbridge in Hampshire’s rural Test Valley, where parish councillors spent £10,000 installing CCTV, as an example of a situation where the benefits of surveillance were questionable.

Crime went up slightly in the town after the system was installed, Mr Readhead said, although between 2005 and 2006 there were only two violent crimes against people over 60 and no one was injured in either incident. “I have to question: does the camera actually instill in individuals a great feeling of safety and does it present serious offences taking place?” he said in an interview for the BBC’s Politics Show.

Like most people in the UK, these councillors are in the grip of a feverish mania; ‘Security Madness’. They have no understanding of security, what the difference between real security and Security Theatre is. They also clearly have no understanding of what a free country is, and do not value Britain for the country that it has been for generations.

There are plenty of these thick people about sadly, they all speak with the same type of voice, hold the same ignorant opinions and they all have the vote. Sadly.

“I’m struggling with seeing the deployment of cameras in our local village as being a benefit to policing; I understand why the local public say this is what we want, but I’m really concerned about what happens to the product of these cameras, and what comes next? If it’s in our villages – are we really moving towards an Orwellian situation with cameras on every street corner? I really don’t think that’s the kind of country that I want to live in.”

Bravo, at last.

Stockbridge parish council yesterday defended its decision to install CCTV, with its former chairman revealing that police and traders had each contributed £4,000 to the cost of installing the three surveillance cameras in the town.

David Baseley, who was parish council chairman for the past nine years, said he was amazed by Mr Readhead’s comments. “I think a lot of police would disagree with him, the police have paid for some of it and the police have been behind it,” he said. “We were concerned about the vulnerability of the place, although we haven’t had any real crimes.”

The weather used to be the mainstay of conversations in this great country, now, it is ‘security’. ‘Security’ and ‘Health and Safety’ permeate every thought and every corner of everything and every place, to the extent that you cannot even cook food because of “Health and Safety”.

This nauseating mania for everything to be rendered harmless, for every possible eventuality to be covered, to prevent all accidents, no matter what the cost is un-British, inhuman and TOTALLY INSANE.

There are an estimated 4.2m CCTV cameras in the UK.

Not for long there are.

On the retention of DNA evidence, Mr Readhead said: “My concern is this – we are in a society at the moment where the police have the power that if they arrest a 15-year-old for a recordable offence we can retain their DNA and their fingerprints.

“That information would be kept for life unless there were exceptional circumstances, such as it being proved that no crime was committed.

“My real worry is this. Fifteen years from now we are still holding that DNA and that arrest information – should we be doing that?” Mr Readhead asked. “Is it right that that may impede that person – who’s never been arrested again – from getting a job? I’m not sure that sits comfortably with me.”

Well, the question that comes next is, “WHat are you going to do about it Mr. Readhead?”.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, welcomed Mr Readhead’s comments: “Politicians like to present the police as ever hungry for more powers. Yet even the police are concerned that we are losing the value of privacy.”

The Police Federation’s vice-chairman, Alan Gordon, said he shared some of the concerns about the extent of CCTV use. “I have sympathy with members of the public who are not going to be committing crimes and feel they are being spied on. It should be down to consultation with people locally,” he said.

No it should not you imbecile.

The public spaces should not be surveilled, full stop. Surveillance does not prevent crime. In the many decades before the mania for ‘Security’ the crime rate in the UK was very much lower than it is today.

The causes of crime must be addressed. The Surveillance system must be dismantled, because it has destroyed the quality of life that we have in the UK.

Profile: Stockbridge

Stockbridge’s wide high street has its roots in the ancient market town’s position on a drovers’ road that was once one of the south’s main east-west routes. Some 200 years later it was that same hub-like position – now the junction of the A30, A3057 and A3049 – that helped convince traders, fearful of outsiders raiding their shops and making a swift escape towards Salisbury, Andover, Winchester or Romsey, that they needed a CCTV system. The high street, with its tourist-friendly groceries, tea rooms, and antique shops, rarely suffers from yobbish youths loitering outside convenience stores.

The little crime there is consists largely of break-ins, and in 2004 the chamber of trade, police and local figures stumped up for three cameras. They have not led to any arrests, and crime has not been eradicated. Thieves broke into the Vine Inn in October to take cash from a fruit machine, and across the road the Co-op was targeted twice in a year. […]

Guardian

And there you have it.

Gordon Brown, BACK DOWN!

Cancel the NIR.
Remove all CCTV from public spaces.
Return to non Biometric Passports.
Cancel the ID Cards scheme.
Repeal all Orwellian Blair era legislation.
Remove all Speed Cameras.
Dismantle the Congestion Charging system in London.

and by all means, you can add to this list yourself.

Criminals will target ID cards as the ”gold standard” of identity theft, a police chief said yesterday.

The assumption that they are foolproof will make them more enticing for forgers, said Colin Langham-Fitt, acting chief constable of Suffolk.

He also questioned the erosion of individual liberties and privacy.

“There should be a debate about the ongoing erosion of civil liberties in the name of the fight against terrorism and crime,” he said.

“Are we all happy to have our cards monitored wherever we go, to be on CCTV and to have our shopping tracked?”

Mr Langham-Fitt added: “With all this surveillance available, the question needs to be asked – are we happy with that? Does it make us feel better and safer?

“I haven’t got the answers but I would welcome the debate beyond the cliched response of, ‘If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about’.”

His comments undermine Government claims that the police support ID cards and other surveillance measures.

Mr Langham-Fitt, in an interview with the East Anglian Daily Times, said the cards could become “the gold standard of ID crime” and “it could raise the standards and stakes for those who wish to clone them or subvert the system”.

A Suffolk police spokesman said Mr Langham-Fitt was not representing the views of the force but expressing “personal” opinions.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Government recognises that some people are concerned about the scheme infringing their civil liberties – that is why there are stringent safeguards built into the Identity Cards Act.”

Further questions were raised over the security of confidential information with the disclosure that the personal details of Indians applying for British visas could be obtained via the Foreign Office website. Channel 4 News reported that an identity thief or a terrorist could obtain sensitive information that could be used to apply for an ID card.

Damian Green, the Tory immigration spokesman, said: “This is yet another IT shambles from the Government with serious implications for security.”

Mr Green added: “This Government cannot even run a simple online visa application system without betraying all the sensitive information.

“What hope has it got of protecting the integrity of the National Identity Card Register?”

[…]

Telegraph

I choked on my Espresso when I read this.

When the police come out against something like this you can bet that it is in serious trouble.

He may be expressing his ‘personal opinions’ but it is clear that Mr. Langham-Fitt understands PERFECTLY what the NIR and the ID Card scheme means to ‘The British way of life®’. It means its end.

It is heartening that someone in the police is bucking the current mania for ‘security’ (which in the case of ID Cards is actually Security Theatre) and is actually THINKING about what is really happening. He cannot be the only one. I certainly hope that pieces like the Frances Stonor-Saunders email have been circulated amongst his colleagues. If the police come out against it, it cannot EVER possibly work.

Gordon Brown…BACK DOWN!

You read that phrase here first!

SEATTLE – A man operated a “warehouse bank” out of his suburban home, taking at least $28 million from people around the country who wanted a discrete bank account, according to court documents.

An IRS investigator said Robert Arant had hundreds of customers, many of whom apparently used his bank, Olympic Business Systems LLC, to conceal assets for the purpose of evading taxes.

On his now-defunct Web site, Arant advertised his services to those “who would rather not deal directly with the banking system,” court records said.

Arant took customers’ money – promising to keep their identities private – and pooled it in six accounts at Bank of America, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo Bank, IRS agent Susan Killingsworth said in court papers.

Arant would pay the customers’ bills from those commercial bank accounts, charging about $75 a year in fees for the service, plus fees for wire transfers and for initial account set-up, court record said. For $30, customers could buy debit cards to access their money more easily; otherwise, they could access it by check, money order or wire transfer, she said.

Reached by phone at his home Tuesday, Arant said he intended to represent himself in court, but declined to comment further.

“I’m not where I need to be as far as responding to the IRS at this point,” he said.

A civil complaint charges Arant with promoting abusive tax shelters and unlawfully interfering with internal revenue laws. And a federal judge has frozen the assets of Arant’s bank.

Agents seized computers and financial records last month from the home where Arant lives with the property’s owner, Martin F. Dugan.

Killingsworth was initially assigned to investigate Arant’s failure to file income tax returns since 2001.

She said she has been able to identify 13 people who used Arant’s service while underreporting or not reporting their income from 2002, when the bank opened, to 2005.

Arant could face civil penalties of $1,000 per false statement he made in promoting the scheme – typically calculated as one false statement for each of his customers.

Warehouse bank schemes were popular as illegal tax shelters in the 1980s, but several have been busted in more recent years – including one broken up in Boring, Ore., in 2000, involving $186 million in deposits from 900 people over 14 years. The six organizers of that scheme were sentenced to up to four years in prison. (1 image)

[…]

LibertyPost

A long while back, I wrote about the privacy shielding services that are going to and that have now started to appear:

Privacy will be taken very seriously when Nectar is everywhere, and there is very little privacy; in other words, when it becomes scarce. When that happens, people will pay for privacy.

There will be legions of people and services providing privacy, in the same way that there are professional dog walkers in the major cities of the world. You will pay someone to do your shopping for you, in their name though the goods will be going to you. These Dorian Greys will take on all the sin of your shopping, and heap it onto themselves, leaving your record clean and lean. Your ID will show that you never buy anything, except (if you are careless) the services of one or two people, who might not even be real people, who will seem to have the buying power of 100 human economic units.

Don’t worry, this does not mean that you will loose your Nectar points. The Dorian Greys will keep perfect accounts of what was spent on your behalf, anonymously, and your points will be redeemed for you on whatever you desire. You will get it all, the anonymity AND the privacy.

BLOGDIAL

So, what can we infer from this? If you pay someone else’s bills regularly, is this a crime? If you hold on to someone’s cash for them, is that also a crime?

You had better believe that there are many people who do not use these services, but who use other similar services that have no footprint at all.

The point is that people turn to these services because something is wrong with the services currently on offer everywhere.

But you know this!

Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez 23 and Enrico Garza 26, probably believed they would easily overpower a home alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two story home.

It seems the two crooks never learned two things, they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine. Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father’s room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun.

Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buck shot from the 11 year olds knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals. When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive.

It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. The victim, 50 year old David Burien, was not so lucky as he died from stab wounds to the chest.

[…]

LibertyPost

Amazing!

8 results for: sedition

se·di·tion      /s??d???n/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[si-dish–uhn] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation –noun < ="luna-Ent"> =”dn” 1. incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government.

2. any action, esp. in speech or writing, promoting such discontent or rebellion.

3. Archaic. rebellious disorder.

[Origin: 1325–75; < L séditi?n– (s. of séditi?), equiv. to séd- se- + -iti?n- a going (it(us), ptp. of ?re to go + -i?n- -ion); r. ME sedicioun < AF < L, as above] —Synonyms 1. insurrection, mutiny. See treason.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Dictionary.com

Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture – but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.

The country has a population of six million, but there are estimated to be at least two million publicly-owned firearms, including about 600,000 automatic rifles and 500,000 pistols.

This is in a very large part due to Switzerland’s unique system of national defence, developed over the centuries.

Instead of a standing, full-time army, the country requires every man to undergo some form of military training for a few days or weeks a year throughout most of their lives.

Between the ages of 21 and 32 men serve as frontline troops. They are given an M-57 assault rifle and 24 rounds of ammunition which they are required to keep at home.

Once discharged, men serve in the Swiss equivalent of the US National Guard, but still have to train occasionally and are given bolt rifles. Women do not have to own firearms, but are encouraged to.

Few restrictions

In addition to the government-provided arms, there are few restrictions on buying weapons. Some cantons restrict the carrying of firearms – others do not.

The government even sells off surplus weaponry to the general public when new equipment is introduced.

Guns and shooting are popular national pastimes. More than 200,000 Swiss attend national annual marksmanship competitions.

But despite the wide ownership and availability of guns, violent crime is extremely rare. There are only minimal controls at public buildings and politicians rarely have police protection.

Mark Eisenecker, a sociologist from the University of Zurich told BBC News Online that guns are “anchored” in Swiss society and that gun control is simply not an issue.

Some pro-gun groups argue that Switzerland proves their contention that there is not necessarily a link between the availability of guns and violent crime in society.

Low crime

But other commentators suggest that the reality is more complicated.

Switzerland is one of the world’s richest countries, but has remained relatively isolated.

It has none of the social problems associated with gun crime seen in other industrialised countries like drugs or urban deprivation.

Despite the lack of rigid gun laws, firearms are strictly connected to a sense of collective responsibility.

From an early age Swiss men and women associate weaponry with being called to defend their country.

[…]

BBQ

The cuckoo clock and the gun.

And Lindt.

I Like it™.

Penn & teller tell it like it is, in their usual style.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”””God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … And what country can preserve its liberties, if it’s rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

Thomas Jefferson.

Maybe homeschooling has really gone mainstream.

Homeschool Dad and McHenry County Republican precinct committeeman John Ryan of Algonquin knocked off the Carpentersville District 300 School Board President Mary Fioretti.

And up Route 31 in McHenry, Republican precinct committeeman John O’Neill, also from a homeschooling family, won enough votes to capture the third seat on that town’s grade school district.

Both candidates were attacked for not having their children in the public school system in whispering campaigns. O’Neill found this piece of poorly printed literature the weekend before the election. Ryan was under regular internet email attack by the District 300 tax hike committee, Advance 300.

Advance 300 had $42,200 left over from its one-year approximately $150,000 successful referendum effort, but announced it would not support candidates during the election.

There was no doubt from the group’s email blasts, however, that Ryan and his running mate, Monica Clark were not Advance 300 favorites. Ryan, especially, was savaged by Advance 300 spokesman Nancy Zettler in the comment sections below Northwest Herald articles.

Both homeschoolers are fiscal conservatives. Both won a year after their school districts passed large tax rate referendums.

District 300 Board President Fioretti, appointed GOP committeeman by McHenry County Party Chairman Bill LeFew (from the opposite end of the county), is closely aligned with Advance 300, which used about $150,000 in school vendor and developer money to pass both a 55-cent tax rate hike and a huge bond issue a year ago.

One can only guess what caused the backlash for Ryan and his running mate Monica Clark to place first and second.

Maybe it was

• District 300’s use of hugely inflated student population projections.
• conducting school business—like deciding to move a high school graduation site to another location—behind closed doors.
• banishing from school premises Stan Gladbach, a citizens finance committee member and frequent filer of Freedom of Information requests.
• the continuing and penetrating coverage by Daily Herald reporter Jeff Gaunt and, more recently, by the Northwest Herald’s David Fitzgerald.
• good campaigning on the part of the two elected Republican precinct committeemen.
• their Irish names.

And, the assistance provided by Jack Roeser’s Family Taxpayers Network to Ryan and Clark certainly helped, too.

Ryan says his goal is to immediately begin the process of opening the district’s activities to the public. He said he believes the board needs to immediately make the process of delivering information to community members far easier and friendly.

“We should never have a standoff with our community members over the information available to them.”

A third homeschool Dad, David Etling, lost his bid for the Prairie Grove School District 47 Board.

[…]

http://www.mchenrycountyblog.com/

When home schoolers get together, like any other group, they have alot of power. When they become a constituency, then that power can be directly wielded.

The worst thing that home schoolers can do is separate themselves into bickering factions; they all have one thing in common – they are parents who want only the best for their offspring after that, you can have any differences that you like. The overriding principle must be kept uppermost in the minds of all home schoolers, otherwise, the gaps between them will be the points of entry for the enemy.

CBNNews.com — A report from the U.S. State Department on human rights abuses to be released next year will include Germany’s harsh treatment of homeschoolers, CBN News sources say.

Last year’s report, which was just released, does not mention the homeschooling situation in German. Several homeschooling parents have been jailed and fined thousands of euros.

Homeschooling is illegal in Germany. There are estimated to be only about 300 to 500 homeschooling families in the entire nation.Some homeschoolers have lost their homes and businesses, while others have fled the country with their children.

In the most highly publicized case, 15-year-old Melissa Busekros was taken from her homeschooling parents in Bavaria in a SWAT-style police raid and placed in a mental hospital and then put into foster care. A state psychiatric evaluation of the girl claimed she suffered from “school phobia” and was too devoted and obedient to her father. The parents have failed to regain custody.

Concern in the U.S. State Department over Germany’s harsh treatment of homeschoolers follows a United Nations report last month that labeled Germany’s school system “an anachronism.”

The report by Vernor Muñoz Villalobos, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to education, said that Germany’s education system should not include “the suppression of forms of education that do not require attendance in school.” It recommended Germany adopt the necessary measures “to ensure that the home schooling system is properly supervised by the State, thereby upholding the right of the parents to employ this form of education when necessary and appropriate.”

But the U.N. recommendation was rejected by the German government, which issued a press release saying homeschooling is “no model for Germany.”

CBN

Well well well.

The Germans are fond of telling people to go back and vote until you get it right when anyone in the EU disagrees with them, maybe the UN will tell them to go back and remove Hitler’s anti Home Schooling law, and keep telling them to go back until they get it right.

It is interesting how they say homeschooling is “no model for Germany.”. Home Schooling is something that individual families choose it may or may not be right for individual families, and that is their choice, but what is ‘good for Germany’ is not the issue (or at least it should not be) because families are not the property of the state in a democratic country. Privatized railways can be good or bad for Germany. Speed limits on the motor-ways can be good or bad for Germany… you get the picture.

There are several problems with this story, the main ones concerning the stubborn and ignorant Germans, whom we have discussed before.

The other ones that are new to us are the statements of Vernor Muñoz Villalobos. Now, I am not saying that Mr. Villalobos is biased, but in his home country of Costa Rica Home Schooling is illegal. This might be the reason why he used the phrase:

thereby upholding the right of the parents to employ this form of education when necessary and appropriate.”

What he SHOULD have said was, “Uphold the right of the parents to employ this form of education should it be their choice for whatever reason”.

Also, it is completely wrong for him to suggest that Germany, “(adopt the necessary measures) to ensure that the home schooling system is properly supervised by the State”. Home Schooling should not be supervised by the state. Many people choose Home Schooling precisely to get away from state interference in education; the state of Nevada is showing clear headed and informed thinking by introducing legislation to make it easier to Home School. The state should be backing away from this area, not trying to get entrenched in it.

Vernor Muñoz Villalobos and all ministers responsible for education need to take the facts into consideration, stay away from trying to control Home Schooling, and stop behaving as if this is the 1970s. Home Schooling is an unstoppable and positive force that is improving the lives of children and families.

Any educator that is against Home Schooling doesn’t know the facts about Home Schooling – it is as simple as that. After seeing the results and getting to grips with how Home Schooling works, all reasonable people are for it and not against it.

Unless of course, you are from the party that claims that day is night.

update…

Here is the crucial part of the UN report by Vernor Muñoz Villalobos, which is more important than the philosophically erroneous recommendation:

62. According to reports received, it is possible that, in some Länder, education is understood exclusively to mean school attendance. Even though the Special Rapporteur is a strong advocate of public, free and compulsory education, it should be noted that education may not be reduced to mere school attendance and that educational processes should be strengthened to ensure that they always and primarily serve the best interests of the child. Distance learning methods and home schooling represent valid options which could be developed in certain circumstances, bearing in mind that parents have the right to choose the appropriate type of education for their children, as stipulated in article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The promotion and development of a system of public, government-funded education should not entail the suppression of forms of education that do not require attendance at a school. In this context, the Special Rapporteur received complaints about threats to withdraw the parental rights of parents who chose home-schooling methods for their children.

!!!

Robert Winnett and David Leppard

The government is predicting that some 15m people will revolt against Tony Blairs controversial ID card scheme by refusing to produce the new cards or provide personal data on demand.

The forecast is made in documents released by the Home Office under the Freedom of Information Act. The papers show ministers expect national protests similar to the poll tax rebellions of the Thatcher era, with millions prepared to risk criminal prosecution..

The documents, quietly released during parliaments Easter break, also show that the government is planning to make ID cards compulsory in 2014, despite the expected revolt.

The first cards are due in 2009, alongside new passports. Labour has said it will make the scheme compulsory if it wins the next election.

[…]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1626768.ece

Nice try Robert and David, but you fail it.

First of all, MILLIONS are going to refuse to provide fingerprints and information for the NIR, which is the true evil and backbone of the system.

As we have been saying for years, once you are registered in the system, your body becomes the card. The physical card is just a vestigial token that everyone will eventually be weaned off of once they innately understand how the system really works…or at least, thats the plan if they manage to pull it off, which they will not.

Secondly, you failed to mention that the Tories will scrap the entire system if they are elected. I say ‘entire system’ because any failure to scrap the NIR is a failure to scrap the real heart of the system; the biometric net.

Michael Pakaluk is a professor of philosophy in Cambridge, Mass. who is currently helping to homeschool his 16-year-old daughter.

Over 2 million children are now homeschooled in the United States. On standardized tests, homeschooled children outperform matched peers in the public schools by a wide margin, and they are comparatively more successful in getting admitted to competitive colleges.

Strikingly, homeschooled children do not show the “black/white” test-score gap that is the bane of public and private schools. Likewise, homeschooled children perform equally well regardless of gender.

In light of these ever more widely appreciated facts, perhaps you have considered homeschooling your own children. If you have, a good place to look for assistance would be the Web site of the Home School Legal Defense Fund. But here I simply wish to state the case for homeschooling. Why should you consider it?

From my own experience, I count the following reasons as the most important:

1. It’s efficient. A homeschooled child typically finishes in 2-3 hours the work done in an entire day of public schooling. He can spend the rest of the day reading, playing sports, doing hobbies, practicing a musical instrument, and even helping out with chores.

2. It’s inexpensive. A mere fraction of the tuition of a typical private school is sufficient to pay for a homeschooler’s supplies, books, music lessons, foreign language instruction, gymnastics instruction, pilgrimages — and a cultural excursion to Paris or Rome.

3. Homeschooling tends to develop good habits of reading. Because of the influence of electronic media (television, radio, iPods, Internet, cell phones, video games), few public school students are now developing good reading habits. In contrast, homeschoolers display almost an opposite trend: on average they read widely and voraciously. Yet reading is the most important single determinant of the quality of a child’s education.

4. Homeschooled children more easily become friends with their parents. It’s natural of course for children to grow up admiring, respecting, and eventually becoming friends with their parents. But this natural process is frequently blocked when children are sent to common schools, where, because of peer pressure, they are taught to view their parents as overbearing, uncool and unreasonable.

5. Homeschooling requires that the father play the role that he really should play in his children’s education. The experience of homeschoolers is that the mother’s efforts during the day need to be reinforced by the father’s assistance in the evening — perhaps by his teaching a more rigorous subject, by checking homework. This ‘‘reintroduction of the father’’ into education proves tremendously helpful for children to become serious about their studies.

6. Unity of studying and religious belief. The best education is one in which there is no strict compartmentalization. Homeschooled children are free at any point of the day to consider the relationship between faith and reason, between what they believe as Christians and what they are learning about the world. In contrast, the practice in public schools, where children are effectively taught that there is something “wrong” in speaking publicly about God, does tremendous damage to children, and leads them to suppose that there is no truth in matters of religion.

7. Homeschooling tends to foster a lively patriotism. The reason for this, I think, is that homeschoolers often regard themselves as reasserting, in their own lives, the reality of rights that are prior to the state: the right of parents to educate their own children; the right of religious believers to seek an education which is integrated with their faith. Homeschooling parents will therefore turn to the Founding Fathers as sources of inspiration. Homeschoolers believe what the Founding Fathers taught, and they teach these things to their children as truths that are vitally important to believe.

8. Homeschooled children can enjoy the innocence of childhood longer. Let me put the point bluntly. If you would prefer that your child not learn about (say) oral sex and condoms, then nowadays you should consider taking your child out of common schools before the third grade (more or less), because by that age there will be children in the class whose parents let them watch sit-coms which regularly deal with such things, and who will talk about them in school.

9. Homeschooled children socialize better. Yes, the truth is actually the opposite of the common criticism, that “homeschooled children do not socialize well.” Homeschooled children learn to deal easily with people of all ages — babies, parents, friends of parents, and the elderly. They acquire a mature, “adult” mentality from an early age. (I know I’m in a homeschooling household when I sit down to talk with a friend and find that his teenage children actually want to sit with us and listen to our conversation!) In contrast, there is absolutely nothing less well-suited to good “socialization” than placing a child with hundreds of other children who are exactly the same in age. Remember that “homeschooling” has been the norm for nearly all of human history; compulsory education in common schools is a recent phenomenon, dating from about 1850.

What am I advocating then? Am I advocating that all children should be homeschooled? No, the parents’ decision about their children’s education should be made on a case-by-case basis, and reviewed each year. What suits some children will not suit others. What works in some households will not work in others.

What I am saying is that homeschooling is a very good thing, and that every parent should give it careful consideration as possibly the best option for their child.

[…]

The Pilot

FireGPG is a Firefox extension under GPL which brings an interface to encrypt, decrypt, sign or verify the signature of a text in any web page using GnuPG.

[…]

http://firegpg.tuxfamily.org/index.php?page=home&lang=en

Its about time.

If you use this with Gmail, no matter what happens, no one can read your email on the server. Not that Google will do that of course.

Quite why Google didnt do this themselves is a good question. They have the expertise, and the understanding to do it. Certainly the Bad Guys® would discourage them from releasing a tool like this to all Gmail users; it would mean email messages going dark to ECHELON, and then the sky falling.

Irdial’s foolproof secure passport system has been mentioned on numerous occasions, although only in relation to border control. Last night an application came to mind which would be an easy way of demonstrating the principles of the system in a real world, small-scale situation.

The application involves the issuing of a secure card that authorises the user to access a service. The card can then be checked by a different individual to access the service. This is analogous to IPS issuing a secure passport and passing through border control.

The application is a secure and anonymous mailbox/deposit box company.

Issuing

The client registers in one office and has a digital photgraph taken, they also have the option to include a passphrase and PIN. Becaus ethis is a commercial application the company assigns client ID and box number and key. All this information is encrypted and put on the card.
No information needs to be printed onto the plastic card so its function remains unknown to a third party (although for a passport various bits of information could be displayed), the information on the chip cann only be decrypted by the issuer who only needs to database the client ID and box number (for billing purposes).

The client is unknown to the company except for the client ID, a third party can use the card to pay bills (a remote card reader and secure website could be used to send bill payment and the the encrypted ID to the mailbox company) but not access the mailbox (as the photograph they cannot access would not fit), furthermore the client can pay in cash and thus remain anonymous whilst continuing to access the service.

Validation

The mailbox room has a security guard to control access, the client presents their card to the guard who can then use a terminal to display the photograph and any additional measures the client wanted to be included. The client ID can be read and sent to the accounts database so access can be denied if they have not payed their bills.

If the validation is successful the client can use the encrypted key on their card to access the mailbox and retreive their mail.

Er.. that’s it.

This would be a good demonstration because:
It is directly analogous to how passports should be issued and validated.
It allows cash payment and so can provide a client base whose identity could not be otherwise compromised.
It is scalable.
It is open to competition without compromising security (analogous to different countries being able to use the system).
It provides a useful service in itself.

There have been some great demos in the post recently. A DVD:

and a cassette:

are two examples.

Both of these were intriguing in content and presentation. Neither had begging letters in them with attached ‘band’ photos, shitty lyrics, sob stories, threats or other nonsense that we throw straight into the bin. The DVD came by itself in the Jiffy® bag you see, in a plain black case. The cassette came in a hand cut cardboard box. The case had a hand folded liner on fine paper and the only writing in the whole package was the stamp that you see on the body of one side of the housing.

This is more like what we want!

The Australian State of Queensland seems to have laws about homeschooling that are similar to Germany’s. The approach to enforcement is however very different

An attempt by the State Government to overhaul home-schooling registration requirements appears to have failed. A new system was introduced in January to make it easier for parents teaching their children at home to legally report to the state without fear of being forced to send them to school. But Eleanor Sparks of Education Choices Magazine for home-schoolers said thousands of parents were reluctant to register with the Government “There is still a lot of distrust there. A lot of parents don’t want to sign up and then have the department try to change the way they choose to educate their children,” she said.

At last, someone somewhere acting like they have some brains!

An Education Queensland report estimates up to 10,500 children are being home-schooled, but just 260 of them are officially registered with the State Government.

Excellent!

Education Minister Rod Welford does not accept the figure though it comes from his own department’s Home Schooling Review.

Isn’t it interesting that these bureaucrats have the same attitude all over the world? They do not know the first thing not only about their jobs or their proper position as servants of the public, but they don’t even have a grasp on their own research. Can we really trust these people with all the details of our children? These people who are pathologically defensive, idiotically single minded and just plain stupid?

I think not.

We all know the huge support Home Schooling has, and its inexorable momentum. People like Rod Welford are on the wrong side of history, and are against families, against education and are for…heavens knows what.

He said he believed parents who have registered under the department’s distance education scheme (4800 students) and the 260 students under the new system represented the “overwhelming majority”. “There may be one or two hundred who we still haven’t captured because we don’t know precisely the number of children who are not in school,” he said.

And a liar to boot. What I detest most of all is the lack of humility, the posture that is the polar opposite of what it should be; that of a servant.

He said he believed the “home-school industry” had an interest in exaggerating its numbers. “I want to spread the message that it is against the law not to be registered, and secondly that it is in their interests to do that,” he said. “It is not a question of bludgeoning parents into some sort of Big Brother control system. “By registering those students we can give them support such as advice on teaching text and give them some assistance through nearby schools if they want to access that.”

It is abundantly clear that this is precisely about bludgeoning and Big Brother control systems. We already know that home schooled children outperform state schooled children in every metric; the home schoolers of Australia don’t need your support you simpleton, and if and when they do want something from you, they will pull the bell and you should come running in your butlers uniform.

And by the way, just WHAT ON EARTH is ‘teaching text’?!?!? Do you, Australian parents, REALLY want this mans advice on teaching anything?

Parents who reject the school system say they do so for many reasons. There are financial benefits to home schooling as parents do not have to worry about fees. uniforms, text books or trips. But parents say the decision to home-school also means financial sacrifices, as at least one parent must spend all their time with their children.

Home schooling costs parents more than sending them to state schools, firstly because the person who does the teaching cannot go to work full time. I’ll leave it to you to imagine just how expensive home schooling is!

Amanda from Ipswich told The Sunday Mail she opted out of schools because she feared exposing her children to peer groups there. “I know that a lot of people out there think that people like us are weirdos who want to live outside society but we’re not. We just don’t believe that schools are the best place to put your children.” Amanda, who asked that her full name not be revealed, has not registered any of her children with Education Queensland and has never followed a structured learning system.

Amanda is doing the right thing. So are the people who send their children to the school that she rejects. This is not about who is a better parent, this is about your right to educate your child in the way that you see fit, without interference from anyone. I support anyone who sends their child to school, and I also support people who Home Educate. This is where the education ministers both in the UK and Australia have it totally wrong; they are against families, against high quality education, and are for Orwellian control, forced curricula and the dismantling of society.

Her eldest child, Gabby, 15, did not start reading until she was nine but is studying for a bachelor of arts at the Open University (an online higher education service that does not require any entry grades). “I enjoyed it. It was a fun way to learn and now that I am at university I don’t find the work too hard. I am able to handle it,” Gabby said. […]

Yet another example of how Home Schoolers perform brilliantly.

Parents must send their children to school unless they receive special dispensation from Education Queensland. But Ms Sparks says governments have turned a blind eye to thousands of parents who choose to school their children ast home.

I think that in the UK, all the Home Educating families will simply ignore any new legislation that is introduced, should the government be foolish enough to try and do that. If the Australians can do it, so can the British. Just as the hunters are now ignoring bad law, so will the Home Educators should it come to that. Obviously it would be better if it didn’t.

The trend is toward home schooling not away from it. It is totally beneficial to all parties. Being against it is irrational, immoral, inappropriate and irresponsible.

The article above by Edmund Burke appeared in the Brisbane “Sunday Mail” on March 25, 2007

Snarfed from this blog.

Adderuppa, a new app to help you keep track of time is now online: www.adderuppa.com. While its being tested out, you can try it for free. Please let us know what you think of it!

Some Seattle school children are being told to be skeptical of private property rights. This lesson is being taught by banning Legos.

A ban was initiated at the Hilltop Children’s Center in Seattle. According to an article in the winter 2006-07 issue of “Rethinking Schools” magazine, the teachers at the private school wanted their students to learn that private property ownership is evil.

According to the article, the students had been building an elaborate “Legotown,” but it was accidentally demolished. The teachers decided its destruction was an opportunity to explore “the inequities of private ownership.” According to the teachers, “Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation.”

The children were allegedly incorporating into Legotown “their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys.” These assumptions “mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive.”

They claimed as their role shaping the children’s “social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity … from a perspective of social justice.”

So they first explored with the children the issue of ownership. Not all of the students shared the teachers’ anathema to private property ownership. “If I buy it, I own it,” one child is quoted saying. The teachers then explored with the students concepts of fairness, equity, power, and other issues over a period of several months.

At the end of that time, Legos returned to the classroom after the children agreed to several guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that “All structures are public structures” and “All structures will be standard sizes.” The teachers quote the children:

“A house is good because it is a community house.”

“We should have equal houses. They should be standard sizes.”

“It’s important to have the same amount of power as other people over your building.”

Given some recent history in Washington state with respect to private property protections, perhaps this should not come as a surprise. Municipal officials in Washington have long known how to condemn one person’s private property and sell it to another for the “public use” of private economic development. Even prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut, which sanctioned such a use of eminent domain, Washington state officials acting under their state constitution were already proceeding full speed ahead with such transactions.

Officials in Bremerton, for example, condemned a house where a widow had lived for 55 years so her property could be used for a car lot, according to the Institute for Justice. And Seattle successfully condemned nine properties and turned them over to a private developer for retail shops and hotel parking, IJ reports. Attempts to do the same thing in Vancouver (for mixed use development) and Lakewood (for an amusement park) failed for reasons unrelated to property confiscation issues.

The court’s ruling in Kelo, however, whetted municipal condemnation appetites even further. The Institute for Justice reports 272 takings for private use are pending or threatened in the state as of last summer. It’s unclear if Legos will be targeted. But given what’s being taught in some schools, perhaps it’s just a matter of time.

Maureen Martin, an attorney, is senior fellow for legal affairs at The Heartland Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Chicago that promotes free-market solutions to social and economic problems. […]

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=022107C

“If I buy it, I own it”.

The logic of children…its the best!

I feel a T-Shirt coming on…

And if you buy it, you will own it!