Archive for the 'The Law' Category

Alternatives to a slave passport

Tuesday, March 14th, 2006

Way back (in internet time) when we took a look at an alternative to your state issued passport. Lets look again at it:

Passport Cover

THE
WORLD
PASSPORT

The World Passport is a 30 page document printed in 7 languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese and Esperanto. Each passport is numbered and each page contains the World Citizen logo as background. Two pages are reserved for affiliate identifications: diplomatic corps, organizations, firms, etc. There are nineteen visa pages. In the inside back cover, there is space for home address, next of kin, doctor, employer, driving license no. and national passport/identity number. The cover is blue with gold lettering.Go to World Passport Application Form


The World Passport represents the inalienable human right of freedom of travel on planet Earth. Therefore it is premised on the fundamental oneness or unity of the human community.In modern times, the passport has become a symbol of national sovereignty and control by each nation-state. That control works both for citizens within a nation and all others outside. All nations thus collude in the system of control of travel rather than its freedom. If freedom of travel is one of the essential marks of the liberated human being, as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then the very acceptance of a national passport is the mark of the slave, serf or subject. The World Passport is therefore a meaningful symbol and sometimes powerful tool for the implementation of the fundamental human right of freedom of travel. By its very existence it challenges the exclusive assumption of sovereignty of the nation-state system. It is designed however to conform to nation-state requirements for travel documents. It does not, however, indicate the nationality of its bearer, only his/her birthplace. It is therefore a neutral, apolitical document of identity and potential travel document.A passport gains credibility only by its acceptance by authorities other than the issuing agent. The World Passport in this respect has a track record of over 50 years acceptance since it was first issued. Today over 150 countries have visaed it on a case-by-case basis. In short, the World Passport represents the one world we all live in and on. No one has the right to tell you you can’t move freely on your natural birthplace! So don’t leave home without one! […]

http://www.worldgovernment.org/docpass.html

So, you can get one of these passports, and then keep it and your expired British passport together when you travel. You leave the UK on your Expired British passport, enter your destination on your World Wassport, and then re-enter the UK on your expired British passport, since they cannot refuse you entry to Britain just because your passport is expired.

OR can they?

Is there a rule saying that you cannot leave the UK on an expired British passport? I know people who have left the UK on expired foreign passports (and then even entered the countries that they were going to on expired passports), so we would have to google that.

Then there is the possibility of getting a passport from another nation. It is presumed that this is harder to do, since normally you have to be a citizen of a country to get its passport. A quick google throws up:

How You Can Have a Second Passport, New Residency & Global Freedom
By Catherine Jones.

Why deal with one nation on its terms; when you can deal with all nations on your terms?

As things continue to deteriorate inside the United States
having a second passport becomes more and more of a priority

The loss of civil liberties in the USA has become chronic – the growing censorship, a stark warning.
Rational people having taken notice – those with their heads in the sand must bury them deeper to block out the obvious.

A new e-book by Catherine Jones – This is the only e-book that will get you a second passport; without the hype, the rip off, the B.S. and the run-around common to most books on this subject. This e-book will also show you how to get residency, work permits, retirement residency, and student visas in every region of the world. Twenty seven nations covered – 241 pages of rock solid facts.

How Do We Get A Second Passport?
This e-book supplies the answers, the methods and the requirements, (the majority of which are not commonly known,) for getting a second passport. This e-book can get you into the EU. This e-book can help you retire in dozens of nations. This e-book covers the subject of gaining legal residency, a second passport, work permits, asylum, honorary passports, retirement visas, and a great deal more, it provides the real facts and the real solutions, which sets this e-book apart from anything else in its category. This is neither a dream book, nor a book about vague ” under the table ” deals; it is an e-book about what it takes to get new residency, a second citizenship and a legal second passport. In fact.

The information complied by the author has never before existed in a unified form. This e-book is a first. The data was all but impossible to compile, even on a case by case basis, as for the most part none of it was posted or publicly available. It had to be extracted, like an elephant’s molar, from each separate government, and then the precise agency within that government, always at great effort; and only after the correct government agency could be found. The immigration offices, their systems and their requirements for conveying information differed absolutely in every nation that was contacted. It was like trying to find a needle in an infinite number of haystacks. […]

http://www.escapeartist.com/

and this, from a firm of specialst lawyers:

Henley & Partners are recognised as the world’s leading specialists for exclusive private residence solutions. We have also built an international reputation for citizenship law of selected countries, comparative citizenship law and the acquisition of alternative citizenship. We advise on all legal possibilities and programmes currently available to acquire an alternative citizenship and to legally obtain a second passport. We give unbiased information and advice on the advantages and disadvantages of the available options. Individual clients as well as other law and consulting firms worldwide rely on us for specialised advice and assistance in this delicate area where our expertise and experience are second to none.

Alternative Citizenship and a Second Passport – Freedom to Travel and to do Business, and Security for Life.


Citizenship and Passports

Citizenship is the relationship between an individual and a sovereign State, defined by the law of that State and with corresponding duties and rights. A passport is a personal identification and travel document for international use issued by a sovereign State. Generally, only passports which are issued based on a person’s citizenship are of any interest and use. Only through the acquisition of full citizenship can you legally acquire the right to a passport. Non-citizen passports and other passports issued to Non-citizen passports and other passports issued to non-citizens are most of the time illegal and/or useless, with certain exceptions such as the Panamanian non-citizens passport issued to persons holding a retiree residence permit in Panama, or diplomatic passports issued to non-citizens, UN and refugee passports and certain other travel documents issued by international organisations or individual States. Diplomatic passports are only legal and useful if issued by the competent authorities within the issuing State or international organisation and if the holder is properly accredited in the receiving State.[…]

http://www.henleyglobal.com/m-citizenship.html

So there are ways to escape, as long as you have the will and some money. All the smart people already have more than one passport.

The Laughing Policeman

Tuesday, March 14th, 2006

Critics claim ministers are breaking an election promise that the ID scheme would be voluntary by insisting that anyone who renews a passport will also have to get an ID card and be entered on the national register.

But Mr Clarke rejected this charge last night to laughter and jeers of derision from the opposition.

“Passports are voluntary documents,” he insisted.No one is forced to renew a passport if they choose not to do so.”

Invertebrates refuse backbones.

So, from this final statement by Dumbo, I infer that there must be no legal requirement for me to have a passport in order to leave this country and return. Otherwise, once again, HMG are stating that I will be under confinement within the UK mainland unless I comply with their ‘voluntary’ ID card scheme.

A quick search on the UK Passport  Service site reveals no page detailing any legal requirement for holding a passport in order to leave the country. Hmmm… I wonder. Don’t you?

Police requests for Oyster data rises

Monday, March 13th, 2006

Oyster data use rises in crime clampdown
Staff and agencies
Monday March 13, 2006

Police hunting criminals are increasingly seeking information from electronically stored travel records, such as those created by users of the popular Oyster card in London.

Figures disclosed today show a huge leap in police requests to Transport for London, which operates the Oyster cards used to travel on buses, trains and the underground.

Just seven information requests were made by police in the whole of 2004, compared with 61 requests made in January this year alone…

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1730002,00.html

This was bound to happen of course.

If you really want to have an Oyster card, (and TFL gives you a good reason to use one; bus fares are £1 with Oyster instead of £1.50 when you pay cash for example) you must:

  • Make sure you have an anonymous Oyster card; you can buy them for £3
  • NEVER fill your Oyster with your credit card or debit card, use only cash. If you update Oyster with a card that is connected to you, your Oyster will be connected to you via the details on the card.
  • Never use someone elses Oyster. If they are a criminal, and you use their card, the police might swipe you coming off or getting on the underground*.

*Now, the last one is not true…yet, but you can guarantee that in the future the police will have realtime access to Oyster touc-ins and touch-outs. That means that when a criminal gets onto a bus, they can tell the driver not to open the doors until they get there. The same with the trains. They can tell the driver to stay in the tunnel until they get to the next station where they can sweep the whole train.

Lordy Lordy!

Monday, March 6th, 2006

A sample ID card

MPs overturned previous Lords defeats on the ID Cards Bill

Government plans to make all passport applicants also have an ID card have been defeated in the Lords.Peers voted by a majority of 61 to overturn the proposal – backed by MPs last month – for a second time.

Opposition peers say the plans break the government’s promise that ID cards will initially be voluntary.

The UK and other countries must introduce biometric passports by October to remain part of the US visa waiver scheme, which makes travel to America easier.
[…]

On this latter point…

Remember: this is the government of my country changing my passport requirements – putting my biometric details on a database – at the request of another country.

And will that country get access to that database when some British mug wants to enter The Land Of The Free?

So obviously, if I put on my passport application that I don’t want to travel to the USA, or that I don’t mind getting a visa, I can opt out of having a biometric passport.

N’est pas?

No, me neither.

Al Quaida strikes again!

Update:

Clunk vows to continue ID battle

“I hope the Lords will recognise that this manifesto commitment, voted through by the elected chamber, should be respected,” Mr Clarke told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

[…]

OK. And the manifesto commitment is (was)…

On page 52 of its 111 pages, under the heading “Strong and Secure Borders”, the Labour 2005 manifesto said:

“We will introduce ID cards, including biometric data like fingerprints, backed up by a national register and rolling out initially on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports.

[…] From David Davis.
As one Lord put it last night, and as this site has said recently…

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury, a Liberal Democrat, said] … describing the ID card scheme as voluntary was stretching the English language to breaking point. He went on: “It’s not often it’s left to the opposition to make sure the government honours its manifesto pledges.”

DRM to be outlawed?

Friday, March 3rd, 2006

via digg (The big DRM mistake)

After it arrived, I took out the first DVD and stuck it in my Linux box, expecting that I could start looking at the collected issues
[…]
It turned out that The New Yorker added DRM to their DjVu files, turning an open format into a closed, proprietary, encrypted format, and forcing consumers to install the special viewer software included on the first DVD. Of course, that software only works on Windows or Mac OS X, so Linux users are out of luck (and no, it doesn’t work under WINE … believe me, I tried).

via Spyblog (re Computer Misuse Act):

For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite intent is an

intent to do the act in question and by so doing—

(a) to impair the operation of any computer,
(b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer, or
(c) to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data,

whether permanently or temporarily.

I’m sure that the DRM problems described in the first story fall into the emboldened sections of the legislation.

Does this mean UK government will be outlawing DRM? It’s a nice thought anyway.

you must be kidding!

Friday, February 24th, 2006
Sudan man forced to ‘marry’ goat

A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his “wife”, after he was caught having sex with the animal.The goat’s owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders.

They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi.

“We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together,” Mr Alifi said.

Mr Alifi, Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and immediately rushed outside to find Mr Tombe with his goat.

When I asked him: ‘What are you doing there?’, he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up”.

Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case.

They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife,” Mr Alifi told the newspaper.

[…]

The second fab ‘justice’ story of the day. Must be the weather…

Let the punishment fit the victim!

Friday, February 24th, 2006

A bicycle courier in Colombia has been given a four-year jail sentence for grabbing a woman pedestrian’s bottom, a TV station has reported.A judge’s ruling – criticised by some as being too harsh – ruled the courier had committed an abusive sexual act.

Diana Marcela Diaz told RCN that the courier had cycled off after groping her, but had been caught by passers-by.

When he was arrested, she was given the option of slapping him, letting him go, or filing a complaint.

[…]

Wow! I was very taken with the idea at the end here. To think, you could be given a choice as to how to punish those who offend against you.

Someone nicks your car, you get to (a) send them to prison, (b) make them do community work (c) punch them in the face 3 times or (d) take any 3 items you like from their home.

Vigilante justice, proscribed by law. What a lovely concept!

Mark Leyner, in ‘Et Tu, Babe’, has the main characters punished for stealing a phial of Abraham Lincoln’s morning breath by random punitive confiscation. At regular intervals, police would turn up and take one item from their home, without telling them what it was. Sometimes it’s obvious, like the TV. Sometimes you don’t find out until you need it, like an ironing board, or a waffle machine. Confiscated items cannot be replaced, under the terms of the punishment.

I like that idea.

My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist is my favourite Leyner book.

Especially the chapter entitled ‘Fugitive from a centrifuge

‘There were no longer Italian neighborhoods, or Cuban neighborhoods, or Irish or Greek neighborhoods. There were Anorexic neighborhoods, and Narcissistic neighborhoods, and Manic And Compulsive neighborhoods.’

ID rather not, thanks.

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006

Road to Guantanamo actors (left)

Actors (from left) Waqar Siddiqui, Rizwan Ahmed and Arfman Usman with Michael Winterbottom and detainee Rhuhel Ahmed

The actors who star in movie The Road to Guantanamo were questioned by police at Luton airport under anti-terrorism legislation, it has emerged.The men, who play British inmates at the detention camp, were returning from the Berlin Film Festival where the movie won a Silver Bear award.

One of the actors, Rizwan Ahmed, said a police officer asked him if he intended to make any more “political” films.

….

‘Excuse me sir, is that your beard? Come with me, please.’

The idiots stopping people like this do nothing but exhibit themselves as stoopid, blinkered bigots.

Feeling safer now?

….

I have been wondering about my freedom to travel in the near future. I just got a new passport, valid until 2016. Under current proposals, I won’t have to submit to the NIR until 2016 when I renew this passport. Voluntarilry, of course!

So when I get a new passport, I assume I will be able to opt out of ID carding, as the system is voluntary.

Except we all know I won’t be able to opt out, as voluntary is only a word bandied around to appease the spineless gimps on the Labour backbenches who apparently cannot distinguish between ‘voluntary’ and ‘must submit to data-rape if you apply for a passport’.

So, it’s voluntary unless I wish to leave the country.

So far so clear. Now, we all know I won’t be getting an ID card. But where does that leave me regarding international travel? Is my government, the people who serve me, going to keep me under ‘home-nation arrest’ until I let them scan my retina and sample my DNA?

Does this infringe european human rights legislation?

Is an passport any less of a valid travel document just because it has an arbitratry expiration date? One day in 2016 I can go where I like, the next I am a prisoner.

This post is vague. It was in my head as I couldn’t sleep last night.

Bu tit’s the thought that counts.

The Death Rattle of the Dinosaurs

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006

Someone clever said:

It’s NOT stealing you fascist brainwashed cocktards! Stealing is me coming and nicking your car. To make a real world comparison, ED2k, BT etc… Is the equivalent of me making an exact duplicate of your car, without depriving you the use of it. So keep your real world bullshit comparisons to yourself.

Up the end of the 1970’s, the BBC used to regular pillage their archives for tapes and wipe whole chunks of shows. To fill the gaps in the archives, especially for their radio, they’ve used off-air recordings of shows. Copyright violation, clearly, that ultimately has proven beneficial.

What I find hilarious is the amount of stuff I’ve downloaded, that I’ve ultimately wound up buying. Had I not had the opportunity to do so, I would never have bought it. I own 200 DVD’s. A clear third were bought after downloading them first.

Reminds me of an old episode of a show called “Tales of the Unexpected”. It was from when i was quite young. This guy resurfaces his basement while his wife is away. His friends spend the whole episode saying “You buried your wife down there didn’t you? You killed her and you buried her.” For the whole episode, they’re on and on and on at him. Very much like the **AA constantly calling P2P users thieves… So at the end of the episode, what does he do? His wife returns, he digs a hole in his new floor, kills his wife, and buries her. He was brainwashed into it by his friends constantly badgering him. Eventually the lie became the reality.

You think that with the fucking industries saying we’re all pirates, that they aren’t basically causing people to say.”Well fuck it then” and fulfilling the lie?

And all you butter-wouldnt-melt-in-their-mouths types… You’re all fucking hypocrites. You ever taped a song off the radio? Photocopied anything?

Plus, all you hypocrites, care to explain how me taping a show off TV and giving it to a friend is ignored, but me capturing the show and letting the friend download it makes me akin to Satan?

From Digg

MPA press release provided to Slyck.com:

“Razorback2 was not just an enormous index for Internet users engaged in illegal file swapping, it was a menace to society,” said Executive Vice President and Worldwide Anti-Piracy Director John G. Malcolm. “I applaud the Swiss and Belgian authorities for their actions which are helping thwart Internet piracy around the world.”

The MPA and its member companies, working with the local film industries, have a multi-pronged approach to fighting piracy, which includes educating people about the consequences of piracy, taking action against Internet thieves, working with law enforcement authorities around the world to root out pirate operations and working to ensure movies are available legally using advanced technology. “

Somehow, it appears to me that they have totally lost the propaganda battle. Everyone that matters understands that copying files is not in any way stealing, and each time the MPA, MPAA, RIAA take down a part of a service, it acts as a vaccination to the services, causing them to become stronger and more resistant to attack.

These attacks. and the infantile press releases that accompany them are the death rattle of these dinosaurs.

Illegal links and linking

Sunday, February 19th, 2006

http://maxxuss.hotbox.ru/

The site OSx86 Project has removed all links to the above site at the request of apple. This is completely absurd. Links to content or software are not the same as hosting software, making a link is an act of publishing, and anyone that obeys DCMA requests to remove links to sites is as stupid as the law that requires them to de-link.