We have had a long term interest in constitutions, rights and the legitimacy of government. Now we get a chance to see some people in a country attempting to create a constitution from scratch.

A few people living in a place that is today called ‘Iceland’ have decided, unilaterally, that they want and have the right to lay down the basic law of the place where they happen by chance to live, and that will be binding upon everyone, wether they like it or not. Central to this scheme is the fact that no one will be able to opt out of this new ‘Constitution’, which will be imposed upon all people living there by violent force.

No doubt, people who are for this bogus process will claim that since the new constitution is to be put to a vote, that it is “fair”. Democracy is not fair. It is not just. It is mob rule and nothing more. It is not a justifying balm for immoral acts like stealing (taxation) or war-making. One thing is for sure, this constitution guarantees that the men living on what is called Iceland would be turned into slaves by this constitution. They would be robbed of their property, children and rights, and that is never a good thing.

Here we go…

Preamble

We, the people of Iceland, wish to create a just society with equal opportunities for everyone. Our different origins enrich the whole, and together we are responsible for the heritage of the generations, the land and history, nature, language and culture.

Most of this is a statement of fact. Nothing wrong with that. There is a problem from the off however, with the idea of collective responsibility. People are only responsible for what they agree to be responsible for, and they cannot be made responsible for something by force. If this were not the case, anyone could be held responsible for the crimes of other men. If they had left out the word ‘together’ this problem would not have arisen.

Men are responsible for the works they create, the land they own, the nature they use, and the culture they leave behind as the excrescence of their intellect. Curators of history and art preserve these artefacts for posterity. There is no need to invoke collectivism to make sure that this happens, and in fact, most of the history we have has been preserved and transmitted to us without it, by the charitable acts of good men.

Iceland is a free and sovereign state, resting on the cornerstones of freedom, equality, democracy and human rights.

This is the real start of the problems. Someone, some man, is declaring that there is a place called “Iceland” and that in this fictitious place, the borders of which they have arbitrarily drawn, a “free and sovereign state” exists. They do not define what free means in this context; is the sovereign state free, or are the people who live there free? If the sovereign state is free, does it have an opinion on anything? Is it a living being that can be asked wether or not it is sovereign? Heaven knows there are some environmentalists out there who would seriously consider asking the ground if it consents for humans to live upon it.

Iceland is an island, that rests on a tectonic plate. It does not rest on freedom, equality, democracy and human rights. If you are going to claim that it does this, then you need to be plain about what these words actually mean. Rather than resort to bad preamble poetry, it is far better to speak plainly and carefully about these very important matters.

The precise nature of freedom is something people disagree about. There are some that use this word incorrectly, and use this mis-definition to create false rights, like a “right to the internet”. What if you are unfortunate enough to be born in Iceland and you want to have freedom from taxation? No doubt the people who are drafting this constitution would declare that this is not a valid freedom or right, but all the other things that they are declaring are, are.

The same goes for equality. Equality for them means that an employer must be forced by violence to pay all of his workers the same money no matter what his ideas are or contracts freely entered into specify, or what it means to his profitability and efficiency, or the capacity of the person offering her skills. In fact, this line does not even state what things it deems should be equal; do they mean that 1 should equal 1 in Iceland? Surely this cannot be the case, because their money is printed on and made out of paper and is backed by nothing, so they cannot be so rigorous in their maths.

The government shall work for the welfare of the inhabitants of the country, strengthen their culture and respect the diversity of human life, the land and the biosphere.

The inhabitants of a country should work for their own welfare, and keep the fruits of their own labor. If they are good people, they will reflexively support charities and the weak. They should not need a constitution enshrining a violent, immoral and thieving government that is going to carry out their civic and religious duties for them.

The same thing goes for culture. The Icelandic culture, its language, music arts and people came into being without central planning or ‘support’. It also did not need a State to support the diversity of human life, which is diverse without the help of bungling bureaucrats.

I’m not even going to start on this idea of the ‘biosphere’ which extends beyond the imaginary boundary lines of Iceland into the rest of the world. Is Iceland gong to go to war to stop people on the other side of the world from farting to protect the ‘biosphere’? This sort of lose language is very troubling, and displays a complete lack of understanding of the nature of man, of nature and of the State and the proper role of government.

We wish to promote peace, security, well-being and happiness among ourselves and future generations. We resolve to work with other nations in the interests of peace and respect for the Earth and all Mankind.

In this light we are adopting a new Constitution, the supreme law of the land, to be observed by all.

It is a good thing to wish to promote peace, security, well-being and happiness. The question is how you do it, and can you do it without becoming a violent criminal?

If Iceland doesn’t have an army, it cant participate in wars. This is important, because when these people say they want to promote peace, it really means sending armies to other countries to commit murder. You want to promote peace? Peace where exactly? Iceland is a peaceful place already by all accounts, so what this is doing here without specifics is very odd and ominous. The answer comes a few lines later, where the authors of this document declare that they want to work with other nations interests of all mankind. This actually means more war, more inflation, arbitrary and violent Statist restrictions and insanity. More, “one size fits all”, “our way of life is right and yours isn’t” totalitarianism. Absolutely disgusting.

The same goes for security; security of what and of whom? Wellbeing is a matter for doctors and their patients, and it has no place in a constitution. People are free to seek whatever care they like, on terms and with treatments that are suitable for them and this is no one’s business but yours. It certainly is not something that should be guaranteed in a constitution; healthcare is a good, not a right.

Now for happiness. Sado Masochists are happy when the flesh on their backs is being flayed off by a cat o nine tails. Should the constitution ensure this happiness? What on earth are these people talking about?

Chapter I. Foundations

Article 1 Form of government

Iceland is a Republic governed by parliamentary democracy.

Is it now? And why is it? Whose decision was it? Why not some other form of government, or no government at all? Why a parliamentary democracy and not a democratic republic like the United States of America? Why not a country ruled by the Sharia? Who picked this form above all others? What are their names, and just who do they think they are that they can violently impose this on anyone?

Article 2 Branches of government

The Althing holds legislative powers under a mandate from the nation.

How can the “Icelandic people” remove this mandate? Is there a mechanism? If not, why not? Why this and not some other new body? You are redesigning the way the country is governed, why not throw everything out and start from year zero?

The President of the Republic, Cabinet Ministers and the State government and other government authorities hold executive powers.

What are ‘executive powers’? For those of you who do not know, executive powers are powers what put the executive above the ethics and morality that bind you as a non executive. Executives can order murder and theft without any consequence to themselves, whereas you cannot. They are a class above the law, immune from prosecution and able to wreak bloody havoc without fear of reprisal of any kind. There is no basis for creating a super class that is outside of morality and ethics. They are not super humans; all they need to do is collect enough votes. There is no clean logic behind this; its absurd and offensive that a law exempt group like this can be unleashed to steal, command and murder with impunity.

The Supreme Court of Iceland and other courts of law hold judicial powers.

Just like that, by dint of thirteen words, the power to sit in judgement over men is granted to an unelected body, with an absolute monopoly on dispensing justice. In a free country, men would be able to select whatever court suits them in their philosophies, contracts and dealings. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why the State should have a monopoly on justice, or anything else for that matter. Icelanders are building themselvs a geothermal prison island, pure and simple.

Article 3 Territory

The Icelandic territorial land forms a single and indivisible whole. The boundaries of the Icelandic territorial sea, airspace and economic jurisdiction shall be decided by law.

What this part is saying is that the drafters of this constitution are claiming the island of Iceland for themselves, and they are daring anyone to come and take it from them. They have no authority to claim this land over anyone else, they have no prior claim over the whole territory, and their claim is just as valid as anyone else who decides to whip up their own constitution in a drunken stupor and who can rally enough people to defend their property. This is gorilla chest beating, and nothing more.

Article 4 Citizenship

Persons with a parent of Icelandic nationality shall have the right to Icelandic citizenship. In other respects, citizenship shall be granted in accordance with law.

No one may be deprived of Icelandic citizenship.

There is no “right of Icelandic citizenship”; what they are actually referring to here is the privilege of Icelandic citizenship. Or more accurately, this is a clause consigning all Icelanders and their offspring to perpetual slavery by birth. Note how there is no language here to say what steps can be taken to renounce or escape from Icelandic citizenship.

An Icelandic citizen cannot be barred from entering Iceland nor deported from Iceland. The rights of aliens to enter and reside in Iceland, and the reasons for which they may be deported, shall be laid down by law.

I believe that someone behind this part is a fan of The Pirate Bay. Does this mean that the government of Iceland will never sign extradition treaties with the other nations of the world? They are so keen to promote and, “work with other nations in the interests of peace”, how are they going to refuse to extradite ‘terrorists’ when Uncle Sam comes asking? Their country was already called a terrorist state over the Landsbanki affair; perhaps this is why this clause is in here.

Do you see what I did there? I called it, “Their country”. The Statist disease is very infectious!

Article 5 Duties of citizens

The government is required to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy the rights and freedoms provided for in this Constitution.

Everyone shall observe this Constitution in all respects, as well as legislation, obligations and rights that derive from the Constitution.

This is nothing more than a declaration of war against the free people living in Iceland. What if you are living there and you do not want to enjoy the “rights and freedoms” this scandalous document pretends to confer on you? What if you are philosophically opposed to this constitution, or even a small part of it? You are being told here, if you are “Icelandic”, that you shall observe the Constitution in ALL RESPECTS. Its outrageous, presumptuous, disgusting and extremely violent.

But it gets worse.

Chapter II. Human rights and nature

Article 6 Equality

We are all equal before the law and shall enjoy human rights without discrimination with regard to gender, age, genotype, residence, financial position, disability, sexual orientation, race, opinions, political affiliation, religion, language, origin, family or position in other respects.

Men and women shall enjoy equal rights in all respects.

You cannot have a section like this without defining what ‘human rights’ are. Part of the reason there is such an absurd and long laundry list of what the authors of this scabrous document assume are different types of people is that they do not understand what rights are, where they come from or what a human being is. Anyone who understands what rights are does not have to make a comprehensive list of the different things people can classify, believe and do with themselves. Human beings have rights that encompass all of these things automatically, but in order to understand this, you must know what rights are; the people who wrote this garbage, do not.

Article 7 The right to life

Everyone is born with the right to life.

Article 8 Human dignity

Everyone shall be guaranteed the right to live with dignity. The diversity of human life shall be respected in every regard.

There is no “right to life”. Everyone that is alive has a property right in themselves; this is the true right that these people are trying to and are failing to enumerate. The bogus “right to life” is what men use to stop women from having control over their bodies. Once again, Statists are making up rights that they use as a pretext for their violent State.

Similarly, there is no “right to live with dignity”. What you might think is dignified is anathema to Muslims. Will this Icelandic constitution enshrine arranged marriages, female circumcision, Halal butchers, all of which are considered necessary for Muslims to live lives of dignity? What about the right to commit suicide, home educate your children, live up a tree with birds or down in a hole with snakes? When they talk about the diversity of human life, do they really mean it, or do they mean just the diversity that they find acceptable in the Icelandic culture of their forefathers? What If someone doesn’t like their courts, and wants to set up a Sharia court? Will this be “respected in every regard”? I think not somehow. This is nonsense on stilts, and an invitation to conflict.

Article 9 Protection of rights

The government is at all times required to protect the citizens against violations of human rights, whether committed by public authorities or others.

What are rights, and where do they come from? Do I, as an Icelander have a right to my own property, and if someone from public authority wants to steal from me (taxation) against my will, will the Icelandic State run to my defence? Without defining what rights are, these passages are nothing more than hollow rattling noise. Dangerous nose. Dangerous because any Statist can hang whatever they like on the phrase, “Human Rights” and then use that as a pretext to violate Icelanders.

Article 10 Security

Everyone shall be guaranteed security and protection against violence of any kind, such as sexual violence, inside and outside the home.

Violence of any kind; like theft? And guaranteed? Do these people even know what the word ‘guarantee’ means? And of course, these guarantees are not in force if the theft is done to you by the State of course, when they steal your money, or force your children to attend their vile schools.

By saying that they are going to protect people inside their homes, they are saying that they are claiming the power to enter your home on whatever pretext they can dream up in their nightmare of a system. You are not safe anywhere in Iceland under this constitution, which is an interesting byproduct of this clause that is meant to enshrine your safety.

Article 11 Protection of privacy

The protection of personal privacy and the privacy of home and family shall be guaranteed.

Bodily or personal search, or a search of a person’s premises or possessions, is permitted only in accordance with the decision of a court of law or specific permission by law. The same applies to the examination of documents and mail, communications by telephone and other telecommunications, and to any other comparable interference with a person’s right to privacy.

Notwithstanding the provisions of the first paragraph above, personal privacy and privacy of the home or family may be restricted by a specific provision of law if urgently necessary for the protection of the rights of others.

The only threat to privacy in any country is the State. The State, which has backdoor access to almost everything is the number one violator of privacy world-wide. Iceland has its Icelandic ID number (kennitala) which is forced upon all Iceland dwellers at birth, without a chance to opt out. Without even bothering to check, I will bet that you cannot open a bank account without one, or rent a property or travel outside of Iceland unless you have been issued one. So much for their pipe dreams of privacy being guaranteed. It’s utter rubbish.

Note how they say ‘bodily search’ by whom? They are referring to the police of course, who are also a monopoly service. They are referring to the airport customs officers who can search anyone, not for security, but for revenue generation for the State, and who are also a monopoly. And who makes the laws permitting these violations? Why, the monopoly State of course.

There is no ‘right to privacy’; this is another made up right that has no basis in the nature of man, and even if it did, they claim that Icelanders have this right with their left hand, but then with the right hand they erase this right by saying that the police, customs and other ‘officials’ can violate this right for the purposes of the State. It is as insane as that last passage reads.

And now, the Pièce de résistance…

Article 12 Children’s rights

All children shall be guaranteed by law the protection and care that their well-being requires.

The best interests of the child shall always take precedence when decisions are made regarding a child’s affairs.

A child shall be guaranteed the right to express its views regarding all its affairs, and just account shall be taken of the child’s views in accordance with its age and maturity.

This is nothing more than a Paedophile’s Article, claiming all Icelandic children as the property and chattel of the State.

Parents are the owners of their children, and we have been over this many times on BLOGDIAL with reference to Home Education. This is the sort of clause that destroys human nature, corrupts the human family structure and replaces the parent with the State.

This clause does not define who determines what is in the best interest of any child unfortunate enough to live in the Icelandic prison state, it does not say who makes these decisions, and does not specify what a child’s affairs are as distinct from the lives they live as members of a family.

These people are absolutely horrible, inhuman and disgusting. Its no wonder that there is only one Home Educating family in Iceland.

Children are granted the right to express their views. What? They already have the property right in their own bodies, that includes their mouths, which they can use to utter whatever they like. They do not need the State to give them what they already have. As for “a just account shall be taken”, what exactly does this mean? Who will take a just account, and who decides what is just and what is unjust? How dare these subhumans try and usurp the property of a parent in this disgusting way? Who decides what age is appropriate for what thoughts and desires? Who decides who is mature and who is not?

The people who wrote this are extremely sick and dangerous.

Article 13 Right of ownership

The right of private ownership shall be inviolate. No one may be obliged to surrender his property unless required by the public interest. Such a measure requires permission by law, and full compensation shall be paid.

Ownership rights entail obligations as well as restrictions in accordance with law

The right of private ownership is inviolate, unless its your money, your self, or your children, which the Icelandic State is making a de-facto prior claim on if this constitution comes into force. What the public interest is is never defined in this absurd document, which means that it can mean anything at all. Your children can be forced to go to school for the public interest, 90% of your earnings can be stolen for the public interest, you can be forbidden foods and drink in the public interest, your house can be destroyed so that a road can be laid down in the public interest, and so on. Full compensation? For a child’s life? For a lifetime’s work? I think not.

Ownership rights, like any other fake right created by the State, is not a true right at all, but is instead, a noose around your neck. It is a means to justify stealing your money and your children from you. These documents always include leverage points where any law can be passed and subsequently nullified by the constitution, “in accordance with law” which is the phrase that achieves this. It means that the paedophiles, thieves, crony capitalists and scumbags in any future Icelandic parliament simply have to pass a law to sweep away your rights. This is not how decent people think or behave.

[…]

http://stjornarskrarfelagid.is/?page_id=2619

Thats enough; I cant do anymore.

For the record I am not picking on Iceland because Iceland is a particularly bad example, or Icelandic people are inherently evil or anything remotely like that. All of the Icelandic people I have ever met have been perfectly gentlemanly, kind, considerate and peaceful. This is an examination of principles that can be applied to any country with a constitution or that is considering one like it, and this proposed basic law is nothing more than a convenient foil. I could have just as easily chosen Honduras, whose monopoly judiciary has just unilaterally declared that men cannot build a free city, because it would be ‘unconstitutional’. This proposed constitution is but one of many such bad, fundamentally flawed documents, most of them already in force somewhere on the globe, and Iceland drew the short straw because the people there have had the guts to fend off the banksters, and seem to understand that they can build a different sort of country from scratch. This is very brave, and I wish them luck.

What they need to do if they are going to redesign their country is to work from the correct principles, understand what the true meaning of the words they are using are, try and get a grip on Economics, rights and why monopolies in law and security are a bad thing, and then, maybe, just maybe, they will be able to come up with something robust that will increase their prosperity and protect their rights from predation. One thing is for sure; what this proposed constitution is, is as far away from what is needed as you can get.

Sadly, none of the people who are behind its drafting are even named, so that you cant put the blame where it belongs. It also gives you a false sense of consensus; for all we know, it was written by three drunks and a smack addict on a copypasta binge. It makes you wonder what they are frightened of, that they cannot put their names a document they purportedly believe in, which is going to be used to violently control the people of the entire country. The founding fathers of the United States of America, for all their flaws, all put their names to the documents they produced to create that great country. That is the act of men with guts, who actually believed what they were doing was right, and who were willing to die for what they believed in.

In any case, all of this would have been be moot if Peter Theil and the other Libertarians working to create a free country in Honduras had been successful. Everyone with a wish to be free would have fled to that new free country. The entrepreneurs, the creative and the able, fleeing countries like Iceland, would have left only the incapable, the unable, evil, socialist and stupid. No one would have been left to run the economy, make things or operate anything.

Does this sound familiar? If the people shaping Iceland’s future have any sense at all, they should call Peter Theil and ask him how to set up a country for maximum prosperity and liberty, rather than drafting hollow imitations of broken constitutions.

Mint Chip, the Canadian Royal Mint’s attempt to enter the digital money market, is doomed to fail. It is being thoroughly attacked from all sides, the technical, the philosophical and economic.

Via a post on Slashdot, we are reminded of Bruce Schneier’s warning signs of Snake Oil, which the Mint Chip suffers from.

What is ‘Snake Oil’ I hear you ask? In cryptography, snake oil is a term used to describe commercial cryptographic methods and products which are considered bogus or fraudulent. The name derives from snake oil, one type of patent medicine widely available in 19th century United States.

There are several parts of Mint Chip that cause even those with a casual interest in cryptography to smell snake oil. Read the rest of this entry »

As the empire starts to crumble, and the talking heads in the MSM dwindle in influence, replaced by the likes of Alex Jones and Infowars, desperation methods are being rolled out to try and sabotage alternative and social networking media.

It will not work.

The problem they have is one of reputation, and six degrees of separation.

Because everyone is connected to everyone else by only six steps, it is now impossible to inject a lie into the hive mind of The Mass and have that lie survive scrutiny.

We have spoken about The Mass before on BLOGDIAL; it is the accurate prediction of the Twitter mediated hive mind that is impervious to the State and its lies.

Even if this vile attack on the truth through manipulation and lies was successful in any way, countermeasures can be built in software that would completely eradicate the influence of these glove puppet agents provocateurs.

Using the model of the PGP web of trust and the fact of six degrees of separation, it is possible to build a self organising, self healing global network of trusted introducers who can re-tweet only what is known to have not come from a glove puppet.

These trusted introducers and their messages would carry more weight than any glove puppet, and in fact, Twitter almost does this spontaneously through its simple method of people following each other and getting to know the sort of tweets that come out of the people they follow.

Anyone who uses these social networking tools understands that un-following is instant, adaptive network healing; if someone you follow says something that is a lie you either refute them by replying in public or un-following them and never again re tweeting their messages.

These simple actions are like the behaviour of antibodies fighting off infection, in this case, the infection of lies told by lying glove puppets.

These military people simply do not understand the world the are now living in. They cannot use their ridiculous twentieth century PSYOP strategies by ‘upgrading‘ them and superimposing them on Twitter; it simply will not transpose to these media.

What they must now realise is that lying as a strategy is finished. This would be the breakthrough that would put them on a strong footing for total domination of the social networking space. Sadly (or happily) they simply have not got a clue, nor the ethical foundation to make the correct strategic decision.

Lets do this!

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

They will fail.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an “online persona management service” that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

Wait a minute, is it the US Military, or is it some snake-oil salesman in California who made a successful pitch?

The project has been likened by web experts to China’s attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet.

This is utter nonsense, Grauniad style. Censorship has nothing to do with organised glove puppetry; everyone can continue saying whatever it is they like, unimpeded. Can these morons even define the words they are using? Shocking stupidity, and par for the course at the Grauniad!

Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

Critics are nothing more than cry babies whining instead of writing software. As I say above, a web of trust can be built either spontaneously or with software designed to tamp down glove puppetry and MILCOMTROLLS. You can always spot trolls very easily, especially when they use templates or multiple identities to spam comments. The Telegraph comments sections are full of garbage; all you have to do to tune it out however, is to set Disqus to ‘best rated’.

The single act of people rating comments up (and not down, there is no downvote button) crowd-sources the bullshit out of sight. If an organised team of MILCOMTROLLS tries to hijack the comments, it is always the case that the best refuting comment outshines the glove puppetry, and the takeover backfires completely.

The people who put this contract out to tender have absolutely no idea how any of this works, and it is going to backfire on them spectacularly. Just ask Johan Hari about how Google can expose misdeeds in English. Any MILCOMTROLLS that try and poison threads or spin the hash tags will be spotted, outed and crowded out, reinforcing the exact opposite messages that they are trying to push.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as “sock puppets” – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

So what? Its just like other governments wanting nuclear weapons because the USA has them, or countries like India wanting ID Cards because most European countries have them.

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations “without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries”.

This is unfeasible, and if it is feasible, the web of trust can isolate and expunge these glove puppets. Also, consider that when individuals write blog comments or send tweets, they think about what they are writing, instead of working from a script. The only way this MILCOMTROLL plan could possibly work is if they hired individuals to write from the MILCOM point of view, genuinely on a case by case basis, with the target articles distributed to them for attack.

You cannot create a fool proof system where one person can control ten identities and not be crowded out or discovered. Because each of these identities, credible or not, will all be propagating the same point of view, this fact alone would be enough to characterise, isolate, and quarantine them.

Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: “The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the US.”

Ron Paul 2021!

He said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to “address US audiences” with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

Its unlawful to glove puppet in English for American audiences, but its A-OK to ASSASSINATE Americans.

You cant make this stuff up.

Centcom said it was not targeting any US-based web sites, in English or any other language, and specifically said it was not targeting Facebook or Twitter.

Lies lies and more lies.

Once developed, the software could allow US service personnel, working around the clock in one location, to respond to emerging online conversations with any number of co-ordinated messages, blogposts, chatroom posts and other interventions. Details of the contract suggest this location would be MacDill air force base near Tampa, Florida, home of US Special Operations Command.

Once again, coordinated messages will be identified and neutralised. Think about this as a possible way of destroying the effectiveness of this dastardly plan.

Akismet is a distributed tool for eliminating spam. It is 99.99% effective. A system like that could be used to completely eliminate the occurrence of glove puppets and mass up/downvoters.

Since these people will be working in a coordinated way, their acts will be synchronised. It will be possible to identify them as a group and then systematically exclude them from showing up in comments or as up-votes. Digg has some experience in this, where massive groups of paid Diggers were organised to push stories onto the front page. Since these people all work together, it only takes a few instances of them working to simultaneously to generate a unique fingerprint of their behaviour, which can then be tested against when future MILCOMTROLL style attacks are initiated.

Of course, all this happens silently in the software, so like SEOs trying to game Google, they will meet with a very serious problem the instant they roll this programme out. Anyone working with Gmail knows that it is spam free. This proves that distributed, collaborative filtering and secret sauce software can work to keep out the bad guys.

Centcom’s contract requires for each controller the provision of one “virtual private server” located in the United States and others appearing to be outside the US to give the impression the fake personas are real people located in different parts of the world.

These people are not going to be posting in English. This is a big hurdle for the glove puppets who are going to be operating their MILCOMTROLL identities. Online credibility is not just a matter of getting an accurate word for word translation of an idea; there are cultural references, nuances and cues that the American military are notoriously and hopelessly bad at. Can you imagine some shorn headed operative in jungle camo, sitting in an air conditioned room in Tampa Florida, trying to pass herself off as a muslim man in Riyadh? Or ten different people in Riyadh?!

The whole idea is simply ridiculous, and in fact the targets of this rubbish will not need any special software to detect these MILCOMTROLLS, they will give themselves away when they post during prayers or some other stupid (and fatal) basic cultural error.

It also calls for “traffic mixing”, blending the persona controllers’ internet usage with the usage of people outside Centcom in a manner that must offer “excellent cover and powerful deniability”.

This is snake oil straight from the brochure. NO $ALE!

The multiple persona contract is thought to have been awarded as part of a programme called Operation Earnest Voice (OEV), which was first developed in Iraq as a psychological warfare weapon against the online presence of al-Qaida supporters and others ranged against coalition forces.

Ridiculous. There were no al-Qaida in Iraq before the Americans got there. This is pure and utter bullshit, and those with memories longer than goldfish know this. The war of blowing people to bits, and pictures of it, are worth many thousands of MILCOMTROLLS. You cannot win hearts and minds with a gun, or a drone. Period. This is a waste of time and a waste of money, and I strongly suspect that anyone who has been on a tour in Iraq will confirm this. The military are giving more money to Ron Paul; more than all the other candidates combined. This is not an accident; these people know what is really going on, and no amount of snake oil, lies, glove puppets or trolls can stop the truth from coming out.

Since then, OEV is reported to have expanded into a $200m programme and is thought to have been used against jihadists across Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

And its not working, on a purely objective PR level, removing all aspects of right or wrong, who started what or anything other than the measure of mindshare. All you have to do is watch the propaganda that these people produce on LiveLeak. No troll, no commenter no one can counter the stark shock value of what these people are disseminating. They are winning the PR war because their PR is quantitatively better. Once again, this has nothing to do with what you personally think about them and their motives, its a pure matter of mathematical fact.

OEV is seen by senior US commanders as a vital counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation programme. In evidence to the US Senate’s armed services committee last year, General David Petraeus, then commander of Centcom, described the operation as an effort to “counter extremist ideology and propaganda and to ensure that credible voices in the region are heard”. He said the US military’s objective was to be “first with the truth”.

The best counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation programme would be to elect Ron Paul. It is a scientific fact that all terrorism against the USA would cease thirty days after Ron Paul was elected.

Do you think that that is a big claim to make? Very well, dont believe, me take it from someone, the only person in fact, who has done a 100% accurate study of the true nature of terrorism: Professor Robert Pape, in his lecture “Dying to Win”

In this lecture, he will prove to you with unassailable facts that if Ron Paul wins, terrorism goes away.

This month Petraeus’s successor, General James Mattis, told the same committee that OEV “supports all activities associated with degrading the enemy narrative, including web engagement and web-based product distribution capabilities”.

This is utter nonsense on stilts. The ‘enemies narrative’ as outlined by Dr. Pape is that America is occupying other people’s countries. That is the ONLY narrative, and no amount of glove puppetry can alter this fact. Only a complete removal of American forces from foreign lands can change the narrative and end the nightmare.

[…]

Finally, we get to the ‘me too’ part of the article:

It is unclear whether a persona management programme would contravene UK law. Legal experts say it could fall foul of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, which states that “a person is guilty of forgery if he makes a false instrument, with the intention that he or another shall use it to induce somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person’s prejudice”. However, this would apply only if a website or social network could be shown to have suffered “prejudice” as a result.

Is an online identity, a nom de plume a ‘false instrument’? Any website that takes comments from anyone using any name has entered into a contract where such an act is acceptable, and so de-facto, the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 could not apply. The fact is that UK law is not anywhere near being relevant to glove puppetry and where they apply existing law, they nearly always get it horribly wrong, like the recent case of the autistic Troll imprisoned for… trolling.

Trolling is a simple matter of freedom of speech (property rights). The people who own the servers are publishing on their own property. They enter into contracts with people who leave comments. It is as simple as that. There is no space in that contract and interaction for the State to interject itself.

• This article was amended on 18 March 2011 to remove references to Facebook and Twitter, introduced during the editing process, and to add a comment from Centcom, received after publication, that it is not targeting those sites.

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

Yeah, bullshit.

This is so full of fail there is fail spilled all over the floor.

The people who are least susceptible to MILCOMTROLL propaganda are the targets of this insane scheme. They are not going to buy any of this, and any attempt to spin the Twittersphere or blogosphere in English, in the USUK, as they are no doubt trying to do right now, is doomed to failure.

The mass rejects their malignant attempts at influence at every step, and as the economy continues to degrade, all calls to ignore the Federal Reserve, wage more wars, re-elect mobsters and murderers is going to ring so hollow that the sounds will resemble the biggest bell ever cast.

The crony capitalist copyright monopoly has rolled out its latest delusional computer illiterate schizophrenic luddite, Jeremy Hunt, to try and cripple the internets.

First things first.

Culture does not need a secretary. The idea that the State should have a position to ‘have a say’ in matters to do with culture is absurd on its face. Art galleries, artists, authors, music makers, sculptors and anyone involved in culture in any way do not need to be overseen, managed, given ‘guidance’ or ‘represented’ by a ministry. Only States like the USSR have traditionally had such corrosive, totalitarian and frankly, disgusting posts. Actually, France has a Minister of Rock & Roll, but France doesn’t count.

Even if you accept that the State should have a ‘Culture Secretary’ the internet is a technical brief, not a cultural one. No doubt there are moves afoot to create a new ‘Secretary for Digital’. The State should not be able to produce these new positions willy nilly, since they are public servants.

OK, Lets do this.

Google should join fight on piracy, says Jeremy Hunt

Culture secretary calls on advertisers and search engines to ‘make life more difficult’ for those that ignore copyright laws.

What a disgusting, irrational and ridiculous call; to ‘make life more difficult’ for people. The internet exists to make life easier. What Jeremy Hunt is calling for is to cripple the internet, to make service providers divert capital away from improving their services into something that no one but a tiny group of venal beasts want. This is not the call of a human being, this is a call from a monster that wants to destroy progress, inhibit the utility of the greatest invention since fire, and to harm millions of people all over the world. Absolutely repulsive.

Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, is to tell Google and other search engines that they should play a greater role in the fight against online piracy. Mr Hunt will ask them to “make life more difficult” for pirates.

And they are all going to tell him, politely, to go straight to hell. Jeremy Hunt is in good company; he is spouting the same garbage that Andy Burnham used to on this matter.

Copying music is not piracy. It is not theft. The BBC even said so, in a grovelling apology after they aired a scandalous, unforgivable, stupid, retarded and evil attack on Bittorrent and were taken to task for it:

First though, an apology. File sharing is not theft. It has never been theft. Anyone who says it is theft is wrong and has unthinkingly absorbed too many Recording Industry Association of America press releases. We know that script line was wrong. It was a mistake. We’re very, very sorry.

If copyright infringement was theft then I’d be in jail every time I accidentally used football pix on Newsnight without putting “Pictures from Sky Sport” in the top left corner of the screen. And I’m not. So it isn’t.

No where near enough of an apology, but as far as the BBC goes, this is grovelling, first class.

He is expected to tell the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge Convention that “reasonable steps” will make a significant difference, and also make the suggestion that if the industry does not help the Government it will legislate via the new Communication Bill. “We intend to take measures to make it more and more difficult to access sites that deliberately facilitate infringement, misleading consumers and depriving creators of a fair reward for their creativity,” Mr Hunt will say.

The world is changing. The number of people who know about crony capitalism, the abuses of the RIAA/MPAA and the rest is growing exponentially. Even the scumbag lying State shills at the BBC say that people like Hunt, “..(are) wrong and (have) unthinkingly absorbed too many Recording Industry Association of America press releases”.

Jeremy Hunt is on the wrong side of history, and he hasn’t got the brains to know it. If he does know that what he is saying is unfounded, illogical codswallop, then he is a coward for not stating the plain truth, which is that the internet has changed the way people consume media, these changes are benefits which will bring prosperity to everyone, and the old business models are dead as the Dodo.

The Government wants search engines to penalise website whose content is ruled unlawful. Less prominent results would have a direct effect on revenues from advertisers as well as sales.

If you removed all the links to any torrent site or site that provides links to other sites, what would happen is that someone would write an application that will absorb and re-distribute all those searches. It would spur the creation of a one stop place to find everything you need, and it could be designed in such a way that it can not be shut down. It would make the distribution of links more efficient, and this would mean more file sharing.

The internet sees Jeremy Hunt and his luddite ideas as damage and routes around him and them. Anything that is done to stop people communicating will cause more robust systems to be developed and deployed to bolster communication. We have seen this again and again. Napster was shut down and that caused gnutella to be developed. Then, the Bittorent protocol was developed as a direct answer to the problem of hosting files on central repositories. The same thing can be done with links. A distributed search engine, unstoppable, with no central point of attack will up the stakes and Jeremy Hunt would be the one that caused it to come into being. That is what is called an ‘own goal’ in the UK.

Mr Hunt will argue that online businesses deserve the same legal protection as physical ones. “We do not allow certain products to be sold in the shops on the high street, nor do we allow shops to be set up purely to sell counterfeited products. Neither should we tolerate it online,” he is set to say.

This is a fallacious, straw man argument. Physical goods are not the same as information and it comes right out of the MPAA script. When you copy a file or an idea, nothing is lost, and more to the point, Google does not facilitate copying, it merely points to resources that may or may not ‘infringe copyright’. There is no reason whatsoever to call upon business to take proactive measures against links that potentially point to items that are not even criminal in the first place.

He will add, however, “The government has no business protecting old models or helping industries that have failed to move with the times. But those new models will never be able to prosper if they have to compete with free alternatives based on the illegal distribution of copyrighted material.”

This is double talk. Government is protecting the old business models by insisting that there is such a thing as copyright. It is helping industries that have failed to move with the times, explicitly, the music and film industry. Secondly, Hunt says ‘free alternatives’ are bad; what if the new business model is the free model?. By saying that free is not acceptable, Hunt is picking winners, helping the dinosaur media and failing to move with the times. It is not the place of Jeremy Hunt or any public servant to determine which business models are and are not appropriate. Jeremy Hunt is talking nonsense on stilts.

Despite campaigns from internet freedom activists, the high court ruled in July, after a lengthy process, that the internet service provider BT should block a website that “flagrantly infringed” copyright, called Newzbin. Although the Internet Watch Foundation is able to use a sped-up legal process, it currently can only do so for sites relating to illegal online pornography. Google, however, claims that “takedown requests” from reliable copyright holders are dealt with in four hours. The government moving its pressure from ISPs to search engines marks a new approach to its multi-faceted attack on digital piracy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8759414/Google-should-join-fight-on-piracy-says-Jeremy-Hunt.html

They will fail.

Since the advent of modems running at 14.4k people have been sharing files, and it has grown year on year without fail every year. The mainstream media and the copyright monopoly have lost both the war and the argument. The movie studios still pull in hundreds of millions for their blockbusters, and so the much reported death of their industry has not materialised, as it never does whenever they whine that a new technology is going to wipe them out.

It is nothing short of absurd that Jeremy Hunt and his cohorts want to turn Britain into a leader of all things internets, but in the same breath, they do everything they can to cripple the companies that work with it. You cant have it both ways; either you want your East End Fantasy to take root or you do not. If you do, get out of the way, and let business flourish. If you do not, carry on as you are, making these ridiculous paid promotions for the copyright monopolists and watch everyone write you off as a potential place to locate.

In the past, anyone thinking about writing an innovative service, like a CD Ripping service, would have run a mile from the UK. Only now, as the CD is dying as a format will it become legal for a company like this to set up… or will it? Who knows? What is for sure is that if you plan on starting an internet business in the UK, you are taking a huge risk that Jeremy Hunt & Co. are going to suddenly, at the behest of your competitors, put you out of business either by directly legislating against you, or scaring investors away by giving a speech.

One thing is for certain; the tide is turning against Jeremy Hunt and all the glove puppets who sound suspiciously similar. What do I mean by that? Hmmmm, Which one is Jeremy Hunt, and which one is Andy Burnham? can you tell?:

Hunt or Burnham?:
“We must ensure that copyright delivers maximum benefit to performers and musicians. That’s the test of any model as we go forward”

Hunt or Burnham?:
“Let me be absolutely clear so there are no misconceptions about where the Government is on this. We share a real support for artists and musicians.”

Hunt or Burnham?:
“Music has been hit hard over the last ten years, and if we don’t do something there is a real danger that parts of the music industry will be washed away.”

Hunt or Burnham?:
“Developments in communications have changed the music world and I think we are now at a time that calls for partnership between Government and the music business as a whole: one with rewards for both of us; one with rewards for society as a whole.”

Hunt or Burnham?:
“My job – Government’s job – is to preserve the value in the system.”

Hunt or Burnham?:
“What do we need to do to help our businesses grow and evolve between now and 2025? Where can regulation help and where is it a barrier? What can we do collectively to enhance the whole UK market?”

Hunt or Burnham?:
“We have an extraordinarily strong and diverse media landscape in this country, combined with a remarkable wealth of talent in our creative industries.”

They are indistinguishable are they not?

Honestly, I dont care about what these people think; the only thing that matters is that they have the guns. As long as they have the monopoly on violence, they will be able to distort, destroy, corrupt and damage. If they did not have the monopoly on violence, Jeremy Hunt might be a school teacher somewhere, harmless, quiet and of no concern to anyone.

Thankfully, the market, the internet, and the people on it are more powerful than Jeremy Hunt. No matter what he says, no matter what he asks for, and no matter who he can bully into obeying his luddite wet dreams, the internet and the market will route around him and his disease and the spice will flow!

THe title of this blog post is the number of seconds it took for the hive mind of Anonymous to reach the next iteration that we wrote about in December 2010. Here is the tweet posted around the time of the light bulb moment:

What is so exiting about this is that 229 days (or 329,760 minutes or 5496 hours) is not very long for an iteration, and if the time between iterations is getting shorter and shorter, it will not be long (since Anons are highly intelligent) before they come to the Final Boss of of this game: The idea of the State itself.

When they come to the conclusion that the State is not needed, is the source of all the evils they are railing against, that it is a new cancer and not at all inevitable, Murray Rothbard will spell everything out for them in a tome that is not TL;DR, and which will simply blow their minds.

PayPal’s ridiculous regulations are a product of the State. If if were not for the State, they would not be doing what they are doing, i.e. blocking access to accounts, closing accounts at the behest of the state, restricting the flow of your money etc etc.

If you look behind the curtain at everything that is going wrong, from the insane wars, to the restrictions on free speech, DRM, the ban on vitamins, the RIAA/MPAA, Domain seizures, your money becoming worthless, widespread poverty, the ‘War on Drugs’, the patent trolling, the endemic corruption, the bank bailouts… EVERYTHING – the State is the direct cause of it.

People who are clear thinking are not wedded to any particular idea out of habit. They hold their ideas because they are arrived at by reason, and if by reason they must abandon wrong ideas, they do so immediately.

The idea of the State is a habit, a bad one, like heroin, and anyone who refuses to accept the State as the Final Boss is a brainwashed, drug addled addict.

It looks like the tipping point has been reached. Anonymous and its legion are moving inexorably towards the locus of Libertarianism. They are quickly shedding all operations that are ineffective or that involve disrupting other people’s property (like LOIC). Closing your PayPal account and switching to another service is an incredibly powerful act. By moving to another service, you can ensure that the flow of information (money) is not interrupted. The question then becomes, which service to switch to?

If you switch to any service that is regulated by our enemy, the State, you will be moving from one frying pan into another. What is needed is a way to move information (money) that does not involve a third party. A middlemanless system that is controlled by the masses for the masses.

That means Bitcoin.

The next obvious iteration is to get millions of people to move to Bitcoin as the main way they transact with money on the internet. That means dumping credit cards, PayPal and any other payment system that is regulated by the State.

Even if the number of places where you can buy things with Bitcoin is small now, if millions of new challengers appear holding it and eager to spend it, I guarantee you that Bitcoin will be integrated into every e-commerce package out there in less than a month. This will dramatically bootstrap the Bitcoin economy, decimate PayPal and the credit cards and bring forward the date of the inevitable demise of the State.

Remember; the taint of the State is the root problem. Apply this simple test to anything that you can think of that chafes at your sense of decency and liberty.

“Is there a law or regulation that makes this bad thing happen?”

If the answer is yes, then the State is behind it.

Try it. You will be amazed at how everything bad you can think of can be traced back to and is a direct result of the existence of the State.

The inevitable next question is “what are we to do without a State to tell us what to do?”. Murray Rothbard and the Libertarians have the answer, and this answer is not based on theory alone; it is based only on provable facts.

A critical mass of non violent change is coming where the State will simply cease to exist, just like it did in East Germany. This time it will be different however. There will be no West Germany to fill the void. There will be nothing; nothing but the good will and power of collective non violent voluntarism and the unprecedented prosperity that will follow as day follows night.

One last thing.

Some people say, “this is how you do it, keep it legal and legit”. This is wrong, ‘in the matrix’ thinking.

If you restrict yourself only to what is legal, then you will most certainly fail.

If they outlaw Bitcoin, or any of the other 17 alternatives to PayPal, and remove your ability to change services and stay ‘legal and legit’ how will your boycott end? It will end in total failure.

Your strategy should not be based on doing what is or is not legal, because the State, the enemy, decides unilaterally what is or is not legal. Constraining yourself in this way is thinking inside the box created for you by the State. It will not work.

Your strategy must be based only on what is moral and what is effective. That means refraining from doing anything that is immoral and only doing things that are effective.

If they make payment systems other than PayPal illegal, that is an attack on your liberty that you can respond to without committing an immoral act; in the same way that smoking marijuana, despite it being illegal, is responding to an outrageous infringement of your liberty without committing an immoral act. You simply refuse to obey, en masse.

What has changed is that everyone is connected to everyone else, and withering, debilitating, concentrated, tsunami death blow boycotts can strike with incredible ferocity if the conditions are correct.

Just wait for the critical mass condition to arrive, when the penny drops and the State dies… I imagine that it will be like the change of weather on a day where it has been raining and all of a sudden, the rain stops and beautiful sunshine burst into the day.

The green rain of the State will be stopped!

The BBC has lied yet again about biometrics. Paul Murphy is a BBC propagandist first class; watch him in oily action:

The scheme does free young people from constant requests for proof of age

This is a LIE.

Every time you go into this vile off-license, you will be asked to EITHER show ID OR scan in. Putting your fingerprint in that database does not excuse you from any future request to identify yourself, it merely changes the way that you do it.

This reporter is either mentally retarded or is deliberately lying to make the violation inherent in this system more palatable to the sheeple that get their news from TV.

And did you see the ugly pageant of fat, disgusting, brainwashed pieces of flesh all saying that its a ‘good thing’?

This is the enemy that people who want to be free are up against; brain dead blubber bodies who swallow anything they are told and who are then willing and eager to contribute to violence against anyone that does not believe and act as they do.

its had an enthusiastic response from all the people who have joined

Indeed; what about the response from the people who have NOT joined?

Furthermore, there are ‘young people’ do not have concerns because SCUM LIKE YOU deliberately fail to provide them with the larger picture; you only ever tell them tall tales about convenience and compliance. You peddle propaganda, pure and simple.

Rob Parker should not need a license to sell alcohol, and there should be no age restrictions on who can and cannot buy it. It is no one’s business who he sells his property to PERIOD, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a brainwashed promoter of VIOLENCE.

but people watching say “we don’t want alcohol sold to underage (sic) they’ll actually welcome this; they will say its a positive move”

Some people say?

Now the presenter demonstrates powers of telepathy as well as prognostication.

‘WE’ don’t want? So you use VIOLENCE against people who are not forcing their wares on anyone, just because “WE” want? Who is this “WE” that these BBC subhuman trash monsters keep referring to? For the record, once again, there is no ‘ME’ in your ‘WE’:

These violent scum are the same ones that want to control what you eat, what sort of car you drive, what you can and cannot think, and how you heat your house. They are the same dangerous and repulsive animals that want to force you to send your children into their brainwashing schools so that they can end up fat, brain damaged and turned into cattle like the pitiful creatures in this video clip. They are the same people who have no problem with the state stealing on their behalf for their own benefit. Their way of thinking is the root cause of entire problem, and you can identify it by its smell.

but what is there to worry about? Its a voluntary scheme, nobody’s got to do it

WHOTSITMATAAAAAHH INNIT?

This presenter, without a shadow of doubt, knows that HMG lost the data on millions of people, knows about how these systems are open to abuse now and in the future – he knows that is is presenting a fallacious ‘side to the argument’. We can see this because his questions are all the wrong ones and not the right ones.

He MUST know that this data could be subpoenaed by the police and then stored and abused by them. There is no way that they are not aware of all of this and how it can be used against you.

And yet they continue to lie and lie and lie again.

All we need now is a Climate Gate style release of secrete documents to totally blow away the NIR/ID Cards biometric net / security scam once and for all. As for the funded by theft BBC, their days are numbered, and every lie they tell presses on the accelerator of the engine of their demise.

I can’t wait to see it!

The title of this post comes from a chapter of The Incal, something that you should read if you get a chance. Here we have the members of the Church of Industrial Saints (commonly referred to as the Techno-Technos or the Technopriests, a technocratic cult which worships the Dark Incal) whipped up into a religious frenzy after hearing the words of the Techno Pope:

Which brings us to an interesting article by a medical student on circumcision from Lew Rockwell’s site.

Let’s see…

Circumcision for All; Free Choice for None

by Stephanie R. Murphy

I was shocked, surprised, and flabbergasted to hear it. I’m sure that you’ll never believe it, either. The federal government is – get this, readers – butting into your most personal and private business.

A good start!

[…] The CDC is now considering a campaign for universal circumcision in the US.

This is entirely wrong. It is wrong because the government has no right to tell you what you can put into or take off of your body, or your child’s body.

The reason for pushing this one-size-fits-all policy stems from the results of several studies, all done in Africa, which have demonstrated the benefits of male circumcision for reducing the transmission of HIV.

The studies on circumcision and HIV transmission are very interesting. They are large, randomized, controlled trials; the methodology is solid. They show, on average, a 40–60% reduction in the risk of a circumcised, HIV negative man contracting the virus from an HIV positive woman, as compared to an uncircumcised man. The precise mechanism of circumcision’s protective effect is unknown. […]

The rationale offered for circumcision in this case, based on a well designed scientific study, is entirely irrelevant. This is about rights and the proper role of government, not scientific data. If one day they discover that female students are not as proficient at medicine than male students are, should that be used as a basis for banning females from practicing medicine? I am sure that there are some people out there that would say yes. That does not make it right.

However, when considering the benefits of circumcision, there are some significant caveats. For one, circumcision is not a panacea; it does not completely prevent transmission of HIV, it just lowers the probability that a man will contract the virus during any given sexual encounter with an HIV positive woman. It should be noted that these studies only examined the effect of circumcision on transmission of the virus from an HIV positive woman to an HIV negative man. While this is a relatively common scenario in Sub-Saharan Africa, HIV epidemiology in the US is different. Overall rates of infection are lower. Also, HIV in the US is relatively more common among men who have sex with men (MSM). There is no evidence that circumcision protects against HIV acquisition in MSM. […]

All of this, once again, is irrelevant. Science can be used to demonstrate lots of things. None of them should form the basis of legislation.

Circumcision also has risks and demerits. My personal philosophy on medicine leads me to look skeptically at any procedure that removes a part of the body which is not causing harm, pain, or annoyance to the patient; in other words, don’t mess with success. […]

And here is where we encounter the truth of this matter. Some people have an opinion that circumcision is not right, and so they want the state to use violence to stop other people from doing it. Some people think that circumcision is good, for whatever reason, and they want to use violence to make people do it.

Both of these positions are WRONG. No one has the right to force you to do something that you do not want to do. Libertarians are against the use of force to make people do things, and they are against the use of collective force, which is as illegitimate as force employed by a single person.

As with any surgical procedure, infections and pain after circumcision are both possibilities that should not be ignored. Medical errors should be considered as a legitimate risk during circumcision, too. There are rare case reports of penile amputation that have occurred during botched circumcisions. There are also many more reports of less extreme, but still real, consequences resulting from circumcision mishaps.

This is all irrelevant. Medical mistakes happen. Doctors should study hard and practice their art so that they do not happen often. They should never do their procedures on people who are being forced to have something done to them.

Of course, the question on the minds of many who are considering circumcision is that of whether the procedure impacts sexual enjoyment and satisfaction. That question is, in my opinion, impossible to answer accurately. To distill the immense debate surrounding this issue to its barest essence, choice seems to play a significant role in how men view their foreskins (or lack thereof). Men who choose to get circumcised tend to be happy that they did so; those who did not have a choice in the matter because they were circumcised at birth are more likely to lament it.

It may or may not be the case that men who are circumcised lament it. Once again, this is irrelevant to the core of this, which is who has the right to use force against another person so that their personal opinion is the rule of law that everyone is compelled to obey.

That brings me to my main point in writing about the prospect of universal circumcision: the issue of choice. If my patient asked me about circumcision, I would discuss with him the information above. I would also encourage him to do his own research about the procedure if he felt interested. He would make his own decision about whether he wanted to have the surgery.

Correct.

By contrast, the CDC’s attitude demonstrates a lack of consideration for patient autonomy and consent, two essential elements in all medical decisions.

FALSE. And here we get to the center of this argument; is a child property or is it not property? In a very real sense, children are a special form of property. First, lets look at the unborn child

[…]

This brings us to the more complex case of abortion. For the libertarian, the “Catholic” case against abortion, even if finally rejected as invalid, cannot be dismissed out of hand. For the essence of that case — not really “Catholic” at all in a theological sense — is that abortion destroys a human life and is therefore murder, and hence cannot be condoned. More than that, if abortion is truly murder, then the Catholic — or any other person who shares this view — cannot just shrug his shoulders and say that “Catholic” views should not be imposed upon non-Catholics. Murder is not an expression of religious preference; no sect, in the name of “freedom of religion,” can or should get away with committing murder with the plea that its religion so commands. The vital question then becomes: Should abortion be considered as murder?

Most discussion of the issue bogs down in minutiae about when human life begins, when or if the fetus can be considered to be alive, etc. All this is really irrelevant to the issue of the legality (again, not necessarily the morality) of abortion. The Catholic antiabortionist, for example, declares that all that he wants for the fetus is the rights of any human being — i.e., the right not to be murdered. But there is more involved here, and this is the crucial consideration. If we are to treat the fetus [p. 108] as having the same rights as humans, then let us ask: What human has the right to remain, unbidden, as an unwanted parasite within some other human being’s body? This is the nub of the issue: the absolute right of every person, and hence every woman, to the ownership of her own body. What the mother is doing in an abortion is causing an unwanted entity within her body to be ejected from it: If the fetus dies, this does not rebut the point that no being has a right to live, unbidden, as a parasite within or upon some person’s body.

The common retort that the mother either originally wanted or at least was responsible for placing the fetus within her body is, again, beside the point. Even in the stronger case where the mother originally wanted the child, the mother, as the property owner in her own body, has the right to change her mind and to eject it.

http://mises.org/rothbard/newlibertywhole.asp

[…]

I completely agree with this. A child has no ‘right’ to remain in its mother’s womb, otherwise, the mother becomes property.

When a child is born however, it becomes a human being with all the natural rights that human beings are born with. It cannot fend for itself in any way; it needs special care and nurturing. Since it is the creation of two people, those parents are, naturally, the people with the responsibility of caring for that child; the child is the ward of the parents.

Being a ward in this way is a special form of property. While you are in the care of your parents, they have total responsibility for you and can have procedures performed on you that they feel are for your benefit. Some parents circumcise their children. Many vaccinate them. Some parents have scars cut into their chldren’s bodies. When they are born, some parents allow silver nitrate to be dropped into the eyes of their children, and allow their children to be injected with vitamin K. All of these procedures, when done with the best interest of the child are completely legitimate, and no doctor, or do-gooder or moral crusader has the right to use force to compel a parent to do or refrain from doing any of them.

The CDC would like every baby boy born in America to be circumcised, no matter the opinion of his parents and, more importantly, without the boy’s consent.

Now there are TWO problems in this sentence. The first one is that the CDC wants to mandate a medical procedure. They have no right to do this. The second part of this that is completely wrong is the idea that an infant boy must give his consent to be circumcised. This is totally absurd, and contrary to common sense and the natural relationship between parents and children. This fallacious idea is a part of the move towards ‘children’s rights’ which is a back door way to allow the state to become the ultimate parent of all children, usurping the natural role of the parent. The UN is pushing for it, governments all over the world are picking up this fallacious reasoning as a lever to ban Home Education or even to stop people sailing around the world.

If circumcision were a medically necessary and life-saving procedure with no possible ill effects, things might be different.

This is false reasoning. What is or is not medically necessary, like vaccination or dropping silver nitrate in the eyes of newborns, or injecting them with vitamin K on the day they are born, is a matter of opinion, and it is up to the parent, not the state, or a PhD doctor with the coercive force of the state behind her to make these decisions.

In reality, it is a surgical procedure that is not essential for the health of a normal man;

Wether or not circumcision is essential is irrelevant; circumcision, like piercing the ears of girls is the personal business of parents, and should not be the domain of the personal opinions or prejudices of doctors.

furthermore, it has both risks and benefits.

Everything has risks; it is up to the parent to weigh the risks and make these private family decisions, not doctors or the state.

The relative importance of those risks and benefits is subjective. Every man may value them differently. For that reason, it’s essential that each individual be afforded the choice about what to do with his own foreskin.

FALSE. If we extend this logic, then no infant should be vaccinated, lest when he becomes an adult he should have a religious objection to it. I wonder how many doctors would agree with that?

To be perfectly blunt, I do not see any justification for removing a part of a baby boy’s body without his consent.

Then do not remove the foreskin of your son. If you have a son, I presume that you have not done this. If your husband has no foreskin, he might have had something to say about this. Either way, what you do with your own children is your own business. It is not your place to tell anyone that they should not circumcise their boys, or that what they are doing is wrong and it is entirely immoral to call for the state to stop circumcision.

The people who think that circumcision is correct think that YOU are dead wrong. Both groups can live side by side very happily, as long as one does not try and compel the other to do something, or refrain from doing something, that they do not want to do. This is the very core of Libertarianism. Understandably, emotionalism clouds the thinking of even the best people. When emotionalism and science are mixed together, you get a cocktail that is completely intoxicating; in a drunken stupor the force of the state is then invoked to make sure that, “the right thing is done”. It is however, ALWAYS the wrong thing, and the case of forced circumcision or the banning of circumcision is yet another example.

Men can always get circumcised as adults if they wish; by contrast, once the foreskin is gone, it’s gone forever.

Irrelevant. No child is put onto this world without being created by its parents. If men were self made out of eggs or they grew like fruit from trees neither of which anyone owned, and they could look after themselves from birth like some animals or amoebae do, then you could make an argument like this. The same argument could be made of what a child is fed; if a child wanted to become a pure vegan as a moral response to ‘animal cruelty’, should we refrain from feeding it meat until it becomes an adult? Of course not; what we choose to feed our children is one of the many choices a parent makes, quite legitimately. That also goes for what we feed our children’s minds, and of course, there are ‘experts’ out there who think that children must be taught certain things in a certain way, and these same people are ready to use force to make parents comply with their personal prejudices.

It is all wrong and immoral.

Most people will concede that the procedure is painful even for babies, but they insist that the pain is justified because the baby will not remember it.

It is most certainly painful, and the number of people conceding this is irrelevant. Lots of procedures are painful, like getting a vaccination, one of the 24 that infants up to the age of two receive. Getting a disciplinary slap is also painful; and the pain is one that parents who practice that form of care certainly want a child to remember. There are many things in the world that hurt; hurt cannot be avoided, and the people who try and eliminate all danger and hurt from life either do not understand what life is, or do not have any experience of being a parent.

I wince at the thought of causing pain to a newborn boy. I say that even if he does not remember the physical pain as an adult, he may still suffer from the psychological sting of having had a body part removed without his permission.

This is squeamish emotionalism, and personal weakness. Both of these things have nothing to do with parents and circumcision, and certainly, infants have no concept of giving or withholding permission. Even if they did, children are made to eat things that they do not like every second of the day, ‘for their own good’; should this too be outlawed? Utter nonsense!

Another argument from the advocates of universal circumcision is that it makes good hygiene easier. This is a typical government one-size-fits-all solution: parents are too stupid, in the minds of government agents, to teach their sons good hygiene, so instead we should just circumcise everyone. People are also too stupid to practice safe sex, so we should circumcise them all because they will gain a marginal reduction in the overall risk of contracting HIV. I’ve also heard arguments for circumcision based in religious tradition and cultural norms. Sure, circumcision is common – and a very old tradition in some religions and cultures. But does that make it right?

It does not make it wrong. That is for sure, and it also does not make it any of our business what other people do.

I don’t think that’s for us to decide. I think that each individual, the owner of his own body, should make the call about whether or not circumcision is appropriate for him.

But the subtext here is that infants cannot defend themselves, and so the noble doctor, backed by the force of the state, should step in and protect it, using the ‘rights of the child’ as the pretext. It simply will not wash. And yes, that is why some people circumcise!

It’s difficult for me to assume the mindset of statists who advocate for this kind of thing,

And for the record it is very difficult for me to get into the mindset of people who want to use the state to make other people comply with their personal prejudices. I cannot contemplate going into someone else’s houses and demanding that they eat as I eat, think as I think, or do as I do. It is anathema to me. I also understand what asking for things does in the real world; in the real world, when you ask for something to change, there are consequences in this case, the consequence is, “The federal government butting into your most personal and private business” by telling you that you must, or as this author is advocating, must not, circumcise your boy.

so I raised the issue of universal circumcision in conversation with a few people whose opinions I thought would be unencumbered by that pesky philosophy of leaving others alone and letting them make their own decisions. In addition to the religious and culturally based arguments that several people trotted out, one colleague had an interesting comment. He thought that universal circumcision was a good idea, envisioning a world where no more would awkward teens have to worry about getting teased in the locker room, because “everyone would look the same.” Oh really? The last time I checked, people came in all shapes, colors, and sizes, and that was a good thing!

So is it a good thing that some people are circumcised or not?!

I guess that if everyone looked alike, wore the same clothes, and had the same hairstyles, nobody would ever have to worry about not fitting in. Would this egalitarian also propose to redistribute the wealth from the best-endowed men to those who are not quite as blessed by Mother Nature? Ridiculous.

Many people are brainwashed out there. Some are brainwashed to believe that children have ‘rights’. Since this is the case, it is most logical to not advocate that your personal opinions be made into law. Its hard to do when we are talking about something so wrapped up in emotion, but really, it is the only way to make sure that you do not become the enemy. Follow the non aggression principle; “is what I am asking for going to end up causing force to be used against someone?” If the answer to that is ‘yes’ then you should not do it or ask for it, and you should re-assess your thinking.

I certainly cannot agree with the CDC’s move toward making a blanket recommendation that all boys should undergo a medical procedure at birth, without their consent.

There is the subtext again. The next step is using the state and the medical industrial complex to STOP circumcision under the false pretext of ‘children’s rights’. We could also extend this logic to the very act of birth itself; no child asks to be born – should we seek the permission of a child before it is created wether or not it wants to be created? After all, being born is a sentence to live out up to eighty years in a world full of brainwashed, state loving, warmongering, fear soaked squeamish busy bodies who all have designs on your body and mind from day one. Certainly, some people would rather not be born; life itself is a far bigger pain to suffer than circumcision.

And there you have it; FALSE REASONING.

I want each man to have the opportunity to make his own decision about what to do with his foreskin when he reaches an age at which he is capable of doing so,

“I WANT” hmmm. If you want this, then when you have children, make sure that you have them with a man who is not circumcised, and who does not come from a culture where they do it. Then you can leave YOUR son’s foreskin for him to chop or not chop. What YOU WANT has NOTHING to do with ANYONE ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD, PERIOD.

based on his understanding of the risks and benefits, and how much he personally values each. The bloated, overreaching federal government apparently does not want the same.

[…]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/murphy-s/murphy-s12.1.html

But in fact, what they want is EXACTLY THE SAME AS WHAT YOU WANT; they want to CONTROL OTHER PEOPLE based on their PERSONAL PREJUDICES. They just happen to be on the ‘other side’ of the argument.

People are waking up to what all of this really means, and how all the dots join up.

By Chris Buratta

A father has refused permission for his daughter's Oxford school to take her fingerprints – fearing it is step towards a 'Big Brother' state.

IT IS a step towards exactly that, and even if this library system is self contained, i.e. does not connect to any other database anywhere, the very fact that they have it serves to soften up the students into accepting this sort of technology as a part of ordinary life, when it is not. It is a total invasion and violation, and as we can see below, even the ignorant pigs administering it do not know how it works.

Ben Emlyn-Jones's daughter Louisa, 12, attends St Gregory the Great School in Cowley – which is planning to use fingerprint recognition software in its library.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that Windale Primary School, Glory Farm Primary School, Matthew Arnold Secondary School and The Cherwell School currently use fingerprint systems in libraries and Cheney School uses the technology to register pupils.

Absolutely ridiculous. Whats more, I would like to know how much this system cost the school. I wonder how many BOOKS you could buy with the same money….hmmmmmm!

Mr Emlyn-Jones said: "I am really quite disturbed about it, it reminds me of a Big Brother state.

"There may be advantages in having a fingerprint database, but the price you pay is too high."

There is NO advantage to it. Library books in a school, where all the pupils are known and where only pupils can enter has no need to install a system whose purpose is to uniquely identify an individual. The people who allowed this to be introduced into the school simply cannot THINK.

He refused to allow his daughter's fingerprints to be taken and was also concerned that the school had not contacted parents.

Well done Mr Emlyn-Jones, you are a hero, and a good parent.

He added: "It is as if they know it is wrong and have done it secretly, hoping no-one finds out."

That is EXACTLY what they are doing, otherwise, they would have contacted everyone in advance. The amount of time, effort to explain and money to roll this out is a complete waste of scarce resources.

Mr Emlyn-Jones said he was opposed to the principle of biometric data being used by schools.

"Once people are on a computer then the world's your oyster as far as the Government is concerned.

Exactly right.

"It also desensitises kids. When they're grown up and they apply for a passport and apply for jobs they won't bat an eyelid about having fingerprints taken or a laser being shined in their eyes."

This man's brain is switched to 'ON'. And what is great is that his daughter will also have her brain switched on also.

This week, Liberal Democrats called for Government guidelines to be introduced to control the use of the technology in schools.

But Mr Emlyn-Jones said that would not satisfy his concerns.

He said: "Once the infrastructure is in place those guidelines could be abolished. That's my concern."

Once people have their brains working, its impossible to placate them with doubletalk and weasel words, at which the Liberal Democrats are masters. They want to cancel ID cards because of the 'privacy concerns' but then want to replace the rates with a local income tax which would mean the council getting into far more of your private affairs than they do now, either by having data shared with them or by collecting it to calculate your new 'more fair' rates. You see? COMPLETELY STUPID. But I digress…

Now comes the ignorant pig part:

St Gregory the Great's learning resources manager Hilja Bassett said the library system, which would be operational next term, was very efficient and secure.

Just because it is efficient, that does not make it right. And in what way is it more efficient? By what measure? Does that library exist for the convenience of the students or the convenience of the staff? As for 'secure' how does she know it is secure? Did she design the system? Does she know wether or not it connects to any other computers over the internets? Does she know ANYTHING ABOUT IT AT ALL? Or is she just repeating verbatim from the sales pitch?

She added: "It can only be used in this one place, in this one way, for this purpose."

And that one way and one purpose are illegitimate.

She said fingerprints were not stored, just certain data taken from the print.

And there is the proof that Hilja Bassett is a completely ignorant pig, computer illiterate student violating jackass. NO biometric fingerprint system stores the ENTIRE PRINT. They ALL work by mapping the print, finding points to store and then storing those points; that is enough to (90% of the time) uniquely identify the person whose finger it is on the scanner. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT YOU STUPID RETARD its not about actual images of the fingerprints, its about being identified by a part of your body that is unique to you. And of course once it is in the database it can then be transferred (along with all the prints and the names and addresses of the other students) to other databases and systems where if the admins are corrupt, your UNIQUE IDENTIFIER can be placed alongside a criminal profile turing YOU into the criminal, even though you have never done anything whatsoever. Don't believe me? IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING:

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

http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=304

And there you have it. These systems are EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, and should not be in schools for any reason WHATSOEVER.

Parents had been informed through a newsletter, she added, and pupils who did not wish to use the system could still make use of library services.

Oxford Mail

So out the window goes Mutterschwein Hilja Bassett’s claim that it is for efficiency; if people can opt out of the system, that means they will be running two concurrent systems, the old and venerable Library card system and the new one, causing inefficiency.

And apologies to all Mutterschwein out there; calling Hilja Bassett a pig is an insult to pigs.

If you are a Home Schooler, you never have to deal with any of this of course!

FURTHERMORE

This courtesy of Home Ed Forums:

The truth about biometric systems used in schools (using verifiable references)

“People have to be stark, raving mad to use conventional biometrics to improve the efficiency of a children’s lunch line.” Kim Cameron , Microsoft’s Identity Architect, 05 April 2007 (read more from Kim Cameron)

“If a child has never touched a fingerprint scanner, there is zero probability of being incorrectly investigated for a crime. Once a child has touched a scanner they will be at the mercy of the matching algorithm for the rest of their lives.” Brian Drury , IT security consultant, 12 March 2007 (read more from Brian Drury)

Schools that introduce fingerprinting usually try to reassure parents by saying “the system does not store a fingerprint, just a number. It is not possible to reconstruct an image of a fingerprint from what is stored”.

• The short answer is that fingerprint templates are what is stored on these systems. These are the equivalent of fingerprints – rather like the difference between a drawing and a photo – otherwise the systems simply wouldn’t work.
• Police, the security services, and governments use fingerprint templates to identify criminals.
• There are international standards to ensure that biometric templates from different manufacturers are compatible – so what’s stored on one system can be read by any other, including government systems.
• Where fingerprint templates are stored in an encrypted form, it is impossible for anyone to guarantee that this won’t be broken during a person’s entire lifetime. A PIN number can easily be changed. A fingerprint, and the template dervived from it, cannot ever be changed.
• Moreover, the Government has the power to demand encryption keys from the system supplier, under the terms of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 Part III.
• In the future, fingerprint templates will be used to authenticate passports, bank accounts, etc. Thus biometric templates are extremely valuable and need to be kept in a highly secure environment.
• In addition, fingerprint templates can be used to rapidly link different databases and to build up a disturbingly accurate profile of an individual without their knowledge or consent.
• The US government’s official National Science & Technology Council says you CAN reconstruct a fingerprint image from a fingerprint template.
• Government security experts have successfully hacked the fingerprint scanners used in schools.
• Schools cannot possibly provide the level of security necessary to protect children’s data.
• A school might not even be aware that children’s data had been compromised until it was far too late.

“If you want to find out who owns a fingerprint, just convert the fingerprint to a template and do a search for the template in one of these databases. Call the template a binary number if you want to. The point is that all you need to save in the database is the number. Later, when you come across a “fingerprint of interest”, you just convert it to a number and search for it. Law enforcement can use this information – and so can criminals.”

Kim Cameron , architect of identity and access in Microsoft’s connected systems division, 09 May 2007

http://www.leavethemkidsalone.com/facts.htm

Nick Clegg chimes in on the Guardian with a well crafted piece demonstrating his complete lack of understanding of what the real problem is. I was going to entitle this post ‘Foxes call for chicken coop redesign’. But thought better of it.

Nick Clegg: Bar the gates. No summer holiday before the overhaul
Warm words and rhetoric are easy. We must seize the mood and enact a radical programme of reform within 100 days

Why the rush nick? The British Form of Government^®, whatever your opinion of it, took ONE THOUSAND YEARS to get to this state. Do you really think that you have not only the right, but the capability to redesign it in ONE HUNDRED DAYS. That is the very definition of conceit. You people are so full of FAIL, so terrible, so spineless, murderous, rudderless and worthless that you could not be trusted to design a new milk bottle, let alone a form of government that is ancient.

Furthermore, if everything is to be torn up, why should YOUR voice be louder than anyone else’s? Just who the hell do you think you are?

Finally the dam has broken, and everyone is talking about changing Britain’s political system. For decades reformers have been thwarted by Westminster inertia. But the MPs’ expenses scandal has overturned old certainties and made change possible.

As bad as it may seem this ‘crisis’ is not enough of a reason to destroy something that is 1000 years old, wether you agree with it or not, and certainly the insane people who sit there should not be the ones who ‘reimagine’ it.

This moment must be seized by all who want a different kind of politics. Warm words, rhetoric and consideration are not enough; indeed, they are a guarantee that little will happen. So let us bar the gates of Westminster and stop MPs leaving for their summer holidays until this crisis has been sorted out, and every nook and cranny of our political system has been reformed.

This is so ridiculous that I laughed out loud.

You want to reform Parliament, while all of the electorate in the country are away on THEIR holidays, sunning themselves in Dubai, while you make everything WORSE without anyone watching…..ROTFL!

Today I’m setting out a plan of action to get all the changes we need delivered in just 100 days

What’s the rush? The evil that has been emanating from that house has been going on for years; why the need to act quickly? If you want to do something quickly, why not remove all laws from the statute books that are the cause of everyones anger? The expenses scandal is merely the pin that has popped the boil. It is the final straw. How is it that you cannot see this?!

– making it possible for MPs to be sacked by constituents,

Irrelevant; if your MP sits and votes your rights away, and then you sack her, what does that do to the legislation she voted for? NOTHING. Nick Clegg and his party of FAIL are sour grape class warriors, interested in punishing everyone and not in the real things that matter

abolishing the House of Lords,

See what I mean? 70’s style class war that is the hallmark of the sour graper. No one cares that there is an unelected upper house; in fact, they have been useful in resisting the excesses of the lower house. This obsession with abolishing the lords is like journalists interviewing journalists about journalism. The only thing that matters in this, the real crisis, is the killing of the British people by the incredible burden of laws and the police state. A house of lords in a country where everyone’s rights are respected is completely tolerable; after all, someone has to organize the street sweepers. As long as that is all they are doing, who cares how they got there?

getting corrupt money out of politics and changing the electoral system to give everyone a voice.

Proportional representation; this will benefit only Nick Clegg’s party. It is a non issue when put against the core problem; power itself. A proportionally represented parliament that votes for illegal wars, ID Cards and ContactPoint is just as bad as one that is elected the old way.

People will say it isn’t possible – parliament can’t act that quickly.

‘Some people say‘? Actually, we say that it doesn’t matter wether or not it is possible. But you read that.

I say the innate conservatism that marks out our political establishment is part of the problem. Let’s stop all this self-congratulatory hype about the mother of parliaments and get on with improving it.

No one cares. Dismantle the police state and the 3000+ police state laws of Tony Bliar and everything else, using the old system, before you start tearing down parliament and replacing it with Parliament 2.0.

Momentum will ebb away unless we act quickly.

Its always best to act after careful thought and never in haste. This demonstrates that you are not fit to lead a donkey.

Delay would be a victory for those who want to confine change to the bare minimum – the two establishment parties who will talk up reform long enough for the storm to pass, then kick it into the long grass for good.

The whole thing is over…. that is what you DO NOT UNDERSTAND Mr FAIL!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/27/nick-clegg-a-new-politics

Who is the ‘We’ in this? In this case, it means the foxes who want to design a streamlined chicken coop with racing lines on the outside.

No thanks Nick Clegg… 100% FAIL.

We’re living in an age where technology can put information that was previously held by a few into the hands of almost every one. So the argument that has applied for well over a century – that in every area of life we need people at the centre to make sense of the world for us and make decisions on our behalf – simply falls down. In its place rises up a vision of real people power. This is what we mean by the Post-Bureaucratic Age.

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/25/david-cameron-a-new-politics3

David Cameron is trying, but he still doesn’t get it.

“The Post Bureaucratic Age” actually and literally means ‘a time after bureaucracy’ in order to achieve this, we need an elimination of Bureaucracy. It means reversing the creation of the ultimate bureaucratic system of total control; the NIR and the ID Card and all the other databases that central government is trying to foist upon the British people.

No matter who is in charge, wether they are at the center or in distributed mini centres; if there is a national high tech control grid made of monolithic databases that watch your every move, catalogue your children and violate your privacy, then THAT system and the people who have access to it are the true centre of power. That is the ultimate force for evil, that can be wielded by any present or future government to commit atrocities on a nation wide scale, wether that government rules from a single place or many places.

No one cares about how Parliament runs. No one cares about the minutiae of how Parliament does what it does. Everyone is fed up with it, and no matter what he says, unless they completely back off of what they are doing, they will be made to back off.

Everyone wants a simple list of things that once they are fulfilled, will satisfy them permanently. The thrust of this list can be summed up with a single sentence:

Leave everyone alone.

Shifting the the responsibility for running the nanny state from the centre and distributing this vile power to the regions does not solve the actual problem, which is that people are tired of being interfered with by power itself.

The monster state needs to be dismantled. Laws need to be removed from the statute books, and this should be the sole purpose of any new parliament; to remove legislation, not create new legislation. And it had better happen very quickly.

Nothing less than this is acceptable. The palpable rage that has swept this country is just the beginning. David Cameron may find himself in a position to be the man who restored Britain to something looking like sanity. If he doesn’t have the guts or the brains to do it, then its going to be done without him or his party. No one really cares who does it as long as it is done. The fact that he is not asking for a list of things that need to be changed and is instead, offering double talk phrases like ‘The Post-Bureaucratic Age’ does not bode well for him.

That David Cameron has no idea of the seismic rage in Britain is astonishing. That he doesn’t have the wherewithal to harness it is astonishing. Other people seem to get it. Some of them get it and can even write about it. Whatever. There are many people in the UK who have the strong hands needed to tear up the statutes, treaties and contracts that have destroyed this beautiful country. Their hands will be raw and bleeding at the end of it, but it will be worth it.

Henry Porter has now completely discredited himself, with a shameful piece of luddite nonsense masquerading as a call for justice:

If indeed a new era of global responsibility has come into being with measures that actually restrain banks and isolate tax havens,

See this. The politics of sour grapes is alive and well at the grauniad. Irrational, illogical and destructive, like the rest of the ideas in this misguided, buggy whip cracking article.

it may be time for the planet’s dominant economic powers to focus on the destructive, anti-civic forces of the internet.

The greatest invention of the 21st century, equivalent in importance to the invention of the printing press, characterized as ‘destructive’ and ‘anti-civic’. The greatest force for empowering the little guy, thanks to which the playing field is made forever flatter; this is a ‘bad thing’. A set of devices and protocols that allow you to have a private conversation with anyone, anywhere in the world for free…and all the other myriad things it can do and will do. This is something ‘to be stopped’.

Only a total computer illiterate, luddite, anti-freedom, anti-human imbecile could believe such a thing.

Exactly 20 years after Sir Tim Berners-Lee wrote the blueprint for the world wide web, the internet has become the host to a small number of dangerous WWMs – worldwide monopolies that sweep all before them with exuberant contempt for people’s rights, their property and the past.

The internet and the World Wide Web are two separate things, as this commenter points out:

1) Tim Berners-Lee created the WORLD WIDE WEB, which is a distinctly different thing than the Internet. The World Wide Web is a layer on top of the internet that provides the websites that we see, but the largest portion of the internet is not visible, and does not interact with home computers. The internet is hardware, software, protocols, servers, undersea cables, standards, repeaters, satellites and so forth, all operating on the same protocols (IP, Internet Protocol). Tim Berners-Lee certainly created a revolution with the World Wide Web, but the creation of the Internet is an even grander achievement, which took decades, cost billions, and was mostly the responsibility of three groups: AT&T, Cisco Systems, and The United States Department of Defense.

In the strictest sense, the internet was born in 1971, just under 20 years before Sir Berner-Lee’s breakthrough, when many of the standards and theories that became Internet Protocol were developed.

2) Google is at the very center of the information-economy, and to say it produces nothing is ridiculous. They’re purpose is to effectively organize, catalog and make searchable the sum of the information of mankind. Everything they have constructed has been purposed about this goal, from their basic search engines to Google Earth.

One day we will live in a world where everything that is quantifiable knowledge will be contained and indexed by Google. And it will be a good day for mankind, because all that information will be equally available, so long as you speak the English language.

What Google does, to put it stiffly, is vastly more important than some novelist exploring how much the human condition absolutely sucks.

Thanks to the commenter called ‘Netwrk’.

Google is the most prominent WWM,

Is that something like WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) I wonder? Hmmmmmmm…. Guilt by acronym association!

but let’s start with an American site that is making a name for itself in straightforward misappropriation. Scribd.com offers free downloads of every kind of book, magazine, brochure, guide, research paper and pamphlet to 55 million readers every month. Many have been uploaded illegally. Last week the publishers of JK Rowling, Ken Follett and Aravind Adiga took action to remove books that had been illegally published on the site.

First of all, Scribd is a wonderful service. It is being used by the computer literate to disseminate knowledge. Only the completely ignorant, imagination-less luddites are against it.

Mr. Porter, you are on the wrong side of history. You need, as a matter of priority, to read ‘Against Intellectual Monopoly‘. The arguments you put forward against ‘piracy’ are from an imaginary world before the internet (like buggy whip salesmen before the motor car). The ‘community’ you speak of would be much better off living in a world without patents and copyrights, and Against Intellectual Monopoly proves it. The new services like Scribd, are clearly more beneficial than harmful, even with the present copyright regime in place. No matter how loud you shout, and complain, copyright, like alcohol prohibition is dead, and we are all better off for it.

To add injury to insult, your type of ‘thinking’ is disrupting the flow of materials that are out of copyright. Our own Scribd account was the subject of an attack from your lobby this last week.

On our Scribd account, I publish some of our works, and other historical works that are free of copyright. Because Scribd is under attack from mentally retarded luddites, we were sent the following:

Subject:

Copyright notification

From Jason Bentley, on 2009-04-03:

Message:

Dear Irdial-Discs,

We have removed your document “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” because our text matching system determined that it was very similar to a work that has been marked as copyrighted and not permitted on Scribd.

Like all automated matching systems, our system is not perfect and occasionally makes mistakes. If you believe that your document is not infringing, please contact us at copyright@scribd.com and we will investigate the matter.

As stated in our terms of use, repeated incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your Scribd.com account and prohibit you from uploading material to Scribd.com in the future. To prevent us from having to take these steps, please delete from scribd.com any material you have uploaded to which you do not own the necessary rights and refrain from uploading any material you are not entitled to upload. For more information about Scribd.com’s copyright policy, please read the Terms of Use located at http://www.scribd.com/terms

Jason Bentley
Directory of Community Development
jason@scribd.com

People like you might believe that all works should be copyrighted forever no matter how old they are. The fact of the matter is that copyrights were originally tolerated in the belief that they served society, and rewarded the creators of content whilst promoting innovation and creativity. This is why the term of protection was short, so that the works would pass into the public domain, where they could spread and be of benefit to the public after the creators had reaped the benefit of protection via a state sanctioned monopoly over their ideas and how they could be used and copied.

The work in question above is by Adam Smith, published in 1776:

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist Adam Smith. It is a clearly written account of economics at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, as well as a rhetorical piece written for the generally educated individual of the 18th century – advocating a free market economy as more productive and more beneficial to society.

The work is credited as a watershed in history and economics due to its comprehensive, largely accurate characterization of economic mechanisms that survive in modern economics; and also for its effective use of rhetorical technique, including structuring the work to contrast real world examples of free and fettered markets.

[…]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations

In case you are unfamiliar with it.

I replied:

From Irdial-Discs,
on 2009-04-03:

Please restore this deleted document. It is in the public domain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations

It would be an interesting project for Scribd to add the entire contents of the Project Guttenberg texts to your checking system, so that you can exclude documents like this from being flagged.

./akin
./irdial

Scribd.com complied:

Jason Bentley, Apr 04 10:33 pm:

Hi,

I’m sorry that our automated copyright protection system misidentified your document as infringing. We try very hard to protect the rights of authors, and sometimes our copyright robot get a little oversensitive.

I’ve restored your document and removed all references from your account.

Cheers,

Jason

***

Jason Bentley
Community Director and Copyright Agent
Scribd, Inc.

This is the sort of world Henry Porter wants; a world where everything is unavailable because of the incredibly small number of giant publishers and their prostitute luddite lackeys whining that the old days are over. At the very least, Porter is calling for a web where everything must be screened by copyright police before it is posted. This is the same voice that wants ‘civil liberties’; the very voice that is calling for a fascist regime to enforce the insanity of copyright transposed to the web.

Scribd.com complied, but what is interesting is the company’s institutional lack of guilt when the piracy was exposed.

‘Piracy’ (as it is defined today) only takes place when someone sells a book or movie; a ‘movie pirate’ is someone who copies movies onto DVDs and then sells them instead of buying discs from the manufacturer and re-selling them. People who copy movies are not ‘Pirates’, what they do is not ‘piracy’ and in fact the act of copying music, books and movies is beneficial to society even if they sell copies. Furthermore, the people who make movies, music and who write books are able to make a living without copyright laws (state enforced monopolies) in place. This might come as a shock to people like Henry Porter, who writes in the bosom of a nest of copyright brainwashed computer illiterate vipers, but it is a fact nonetheless. Against Intellectual Monopoly has some illuminating examples of why (in this case patents) are a bad thing:

In most histories, James Watt is a heroic inventor,responsible for the beginning of the industrial revolution. The facts above suggest a different interpretation. Watt is a clever inventor who, after getting one step ahead of the pack, remains ahead not by superior innovation, but by clever exploitation of the legal system. The fact that his business partner is a wealthy man with strong connections in Parliament, is not a minor help.

The evidence suggests that Watt’s efforts to use the legal system to inhibit competition set back the industrial revolution by a decade or two. The granting of the 1769 and, especially, of the 1775 patents likely delayed the mass adoption of the steam engine:innovation is stifled until his patents expire; and very few steam engines are built during the period of Watt’s legal monopoly. From the number of innovations that occur immediately after the expiration of the patent, it appears that Watt’s competitors simply waited until then before releasing their own innovations in an effort to avoid the fate of Hornblower. Also, we see that Watt’s inventive skills are badly allocated: we find him spending as much time engaging in legal action in an effort to establish and preserve a monopoly as he does in actual invention.

Indeed, this story contains most of the important elements of our argument Against Intellectual Monopoly. The sort of wasteful effort to suppress competition and obtain special privileges we have seen in Watt is one of the greatest dangers of monopoly. It is commonly referred to as rent-seeking behavior. Watt’s attempt to extend the duration of his 1769 patent is an especially egregious example of rent seeking: the patent extension is clearly unnecessary to provide incentive for the original invention, which had already taken place. On top of this, we see Watt using patents as a tool to suppress innovation by his competitors, such as Hornblower, Wasborough and others. Finally,there is the slow rate at which the steam engine was adopted be for the expiration of Watt’s patent. By keeping prices high and preventing other from producing cheaper steam engines, Boulton and Watt hampered capital accumulation and slowed economic growth. Intellectual property, as it is currently conceived, has other damaging social effects but the three listed here and exemplified in Watt’s story are the most serious ones: rent-seeking, innovation suppression, and slow-down in the process of economic growth. We shall see that Watt’s experience is the rule, not the exception.

[…]

Against Intellectual Monopoly

Anyone with even one brain cell can see the parallels between this story and the others in Against Intellectual Monopoly in the context of Google, Scribd, the services that run on the Bittorrent ecosystem and the other internet services today. The world, ‘the community’ that Porter is so eager to protect and serve would have been far better served if Watt had not been able to use government force to stop other inventors from improving the steam engine. As soon as Watt’s government granted monopoly ended, the efficiency and power of steam engines increased at a rate far greater than when Watt was able to stifle innovation with his patent, and what’s more, when his patent expired, Watt’s profits continued undiminished.

This is a very important lesson for everyone involved in any sort of creativity. We at Irdial knew instinctively that releasing our catalogue for free would benefit us more than keeping it locked up. That is why we freed our works for non commercial use in 1999. If we lived in a society where there were no copyrights at all we would gladly give up the commercial use rights in an instant.

Instead of fighting the reality, resisting the new tools and clinging on to broken models, it made sense to us to embrace it all and use it to get our works in as many places as possible. To us, it’s obvious. To people like Henry Porter, the future and its wondrous tools are a threat to be destroyed, and he doesn’t care about all the historical works that are burned in his insane quest to cleanse the internet of copyrighted works. We see the direct result of people like him in the erasure of Adam Smith’s work from Scribd.

Instead of admitting it and apologising, it issued a statement claiming Scribd possessed “industry-leading copyright management system which goes above and beyond requirements of Digital Millennium Copyright Act”.

So, Scribd should now apologize for innovating, for bringing millions of documents to millions of people, for nothing. They should apologize for having to invent a piece of filtering software thanks to lobbyist bought government pressure, which might never work accurately and which diverts time away from the software developers improving Scribd, and which diverts capital away from improving Scribd. This is totally insane, and exactly what is described in Against Intellectual Monopoly. Thanks to the luddites like Henry Porter and his distant cousin Watt, innovation is being retarded, as companies divert resources to satisfy monopolists.

That’s like a drunk driver protesting innocence because he’s covered by the best insurance company. What matters is the crime, the theft of someone else’s content, which has taken care, labour, money and expertise to publish.

This is wrong. What you are doing is protesting that the internet should not exist so that you can continue to collect a rent on your works at the expense of the entire world’s population and at the expense of the progress of mankind itself.

What matters here is that copying books is in no way ‘a crime’, is entirely beneficial to society, and in no way detracts from an authors ability to make money on the works that they have taken care, labour money and expertise to create. I have no doubt that some non-BLOGDIAL readers will not believe that this is even possible. Not only is it possible, but we have made money from giving our works away for free, and Against Intellectual Monopoly has examples in it where works that are not copyrighted have made millions for publishers; look at the case of the title The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States where the publisher (Norton) printed this rather large book at a huge profit, despite there being no copyright on the text and it being downloaded world-wide by millions of people:

[…] To be clear: what Norton received from the government was the right to publish first, and the right to use the word “authorized” in the title. What they did not get was the usual copyright – the right to exclusively publish the book. Because it is a U.S. government document, the moment it was released, other individuals, and more important, publishing houses, had the right to buy or download copies and to make and resell additional copies– electronically or in print, at a price of their choosing

[…]

Assuming that St. Martin’s has some idea of how to price a book to avoid losing money, this suggests Norton made at the very least on the order of a million dollars. We also know that their contract with the government called upon them to donate their “profits” to charity – and we know that they did in fact “donate $600,000 to support the study of emergency preparedness and terrorism prevention.”

Against Intellectual Monopoly

[…]

The point is that even if Scribd removes books, it still allows individuals to advertise services for delivering pirated books by email, which must make it the enemy of every writer and publisher in the world. In effect it has turned copyright law on its head: instead of asking publishers for permission, it requires them to object if and when they become aware of a breach.

Advertising a service is everyone’s right. The right to publish (or ‘freedom of the press’) is not ‘the right of newspapers and journalists to write what they like without restriction’. In this case, ‘The Press’ means not ‘the press corps’ but THE PRINTING PRESS as in a device to disseminate writing to a large audience. Journalists always make this mistake; they go berserk when their newspapers face censorship, but when its Bloggers or individuals who claim their right to print and distribute whatever they like, then it’s another story. Shameful.

Scribd is the friend of every writer and publisher in the world, wether they know it or not. Copyright law needs to be abolished, not just turned on its head, and the internet has made this progress begin to happen. If it does not take place before hand, the deaths of the luddites like Henry Porter and his employers and their replacement by ‘The Pirate Generation’ will spell the end of copyright, and the removal of all related legislation from the statute books. As it is, if these laws remain on the books, hundreds of millions of people will be and are being criminalized at the behest of luddites, lobbyists and the corporations they serve…people like Henry Porter.

Google presents a far greater threat to the livelihood of individuals and the future of commercial institutions important to the community.

This is so absurd I actually LOL’d. Google makes it easy to find authors; easier than it has ever been before. It makes all sorts of research easier by orders of magnitude; every link on this page was found for me by Google. Henry Porter wants a world where this, the greatest research tool ever invented is deliberately broken, just like Scribd is being broken. This is the ‘benefit’ he wants to bring to ‘the community’, and it is laughable that he thinks that ‘commercial institutions’ work for the benefit of ‘the community’… only when they work for HIS benefit… which community PRECISELY is he talking about? I think it’s the community of published authors and publishing houses; the intellectual monopolists, who want to strangle innovation and hold humanity back.

One case emerged last week when a letter from Billy Bragg, Robin Gibb and other songwriters was published in the Times explaining that Google was playing very rough with those who appeared on its subsidiary, YouTube. When the Performing Rights Society demanded more money for music videos streamed from the website, Google reacted by refusing to pay the requested 0.22p per play and took down the videos of the artists concerned.

This is called ‘rent seeking‘; the artists concerned, Socialist Billy Bragg and his strange bedfellow, falsetto Robin Gibb, intellectual monopolists both, threatened Google that if they did not pay the rent for videos on YouTube they would face action. Google removes the videos, the infringement, and then is accused of ‘playing very rough’. Do they want their material infringed or do they not? They complained, and their wishes were acceded to; why are they complaining? The fact of the matter is that they want to collect rent. They would like their music to be posted and hosted on YouTube without them having to lift a finger, but they want the rent also. 22p per play is absolutely ridiculous, and if every rent seeker asked for and recieved this money, there would be no YouTube. YouTube is turning out to be one of the most potent political tools available from, the UK to Saudi Arabia. Henry Porter wants it killed so that his (completely irrational) rent seeking socialist friends can make money they do not deserve.

Socialists really are ridiculous creatures; they claim that they are for the masses being empowered, but when something comes along that gives them more power than anyone has ever had EVER, they are AGAINST IT, and want to DESTROY it. The fact is that Socialists are not for anyone other than themselves; they want to be the bosses, the controllers with absolute power. Billy Bragg is a perfect example of this. A luddite that would smash the internet so he can collect rent. Robin Gibb is at least consistent; he is a rich man who doesn’t want the party to end – at least he is honest.

It does this with impunity because it is dominant worldwide and knows the songwriters have nowhere else to go. Google is the portal to a massive audience: you comply with its terms or feel the weight of its boot on your windpipe.

This is total garbage. Google can in no way be characterized as putting a boot on anyone’s windpipe…though in the case of Billy Bragg, that would save us from hearing his ‘singing’.

Secondly, songwriters have everywhere else to go. This is because the internet is essentially infinite; they can set up their own site and sell their wares; they have had over a decade to do it, and have failed miserably to meet this new challenge. Instead of buying Napster, they destroyed it. Instead of working with Mininova and The Pirate Bay, they are trying to outlaw them. Even Apples iTunes store, where they were making money, met with fierce resistance from them. The fact of the matter is, these people, Henry Porter, Billy Bragg and the entertainment industry are collectively unintelligent and unimaginative. Were this not the case, they would have seen the opportunity for super-distribution of their works and embraced the internet at the beginning.

Despite the aura of heroic young enterprise that still miraculously attaches to the web, what we are seeing is a much older and toxic capitalist model – the classic monopoly that destroys industries and individual enterprise in its bid for ever greater profits.

That is incorrect; what we are seeing IS heroic young enterprise, being misunderstood and slandered by old rent seeking luddites, who are the REAL monopolists in this story, the Intellectual Monopolists. It is Henry Porter that is trying to destroy industry’s enterprise – new industries – Google, Scribd and all the other content services empower individual enterprise by allowing the creative to circumnavigate the luddite gatekeepers at the Guardian and the major record labels.

Google make profits and the entire world benefits from a tool unprecedented in human history, that no one has to pay for to use, and which helps authors and publishers make more money and reach more people than they ever dreamed possible. Only a total fool would be against it, and given the facts of the history and nature of copyright and patents, only the evil and utterly selfish would try to destroy it.

Despite its diversification, Google is in the final analysis a parasite that creates nothing, merely offering little aggregation, lists and the ordering of information generated by people who have invested their capital, skill and time.

This is covered by the comments on this very bad and revealing article:

2) Google is at the very center of the information-economy, and to say it produces nothing is ridiculous. They’re purpose is to effectively organize, catalog and make searchable the sum of the information of mankind. Everything they have constructed has been purposed about this goal, from their basic search engines to Google Earth.

[…]

To say that Google produces nothing is ridiculous. As many people have mentioned the search algorithms they have developed make the internet useful for millions. One might as well dismiss Dr Johnson for compiling a book of other people’s words.

Beyond search they have produced some of the easiest to use and most compelling software available. GMail, Google Maps, Google Docs and Google Calendar have reset expectations for what can be done in internet applications.

They may not be the perfect institution and I love to know if one ever existed. I want to live in a world of Newspapers and Google but if Newspapers don’t survive it won’t be Google’s fault.

[…]

“… Google is in the final analysis a parasite that creates nothing, merely offering little aggregation, lists and the ordering of information generated by people who have invested their capital, skill and time”.

This is utter blindness. It’s like arguing that the Ordinance Survey have never done anything useful, because everything on their maps was created by other people, or that Henry Ford added no value because he only shuffled around metals, wood and leather into different shapes.

Google have made searching on a vast scale incredibly easy, and they are the only company who has done so, covering everything from Ethiopian restaurants to the notebooks of Leonardo, at any time, from anywhere. In fact, for absolutely nothing, they provide me with a service worth several times more than any other company does, bar none. If this puts them in a position to earn a lot of money, good on them. If Billy Bragg would still prefer to be back in the workers’ paradise of the GDR, he’s welcome to it.

Closer to home, I note that 95+% of what the Guardian provides overlaps several times over with what is provided by the Daily Telegraph, the Irish Times, the Economist, etc, and that the marginal value of any one of these is minimal. The challenge for newspapers is to make themselves distinctively useful, (e.g. the New Yorker’s employment of Sy Hersh), rather than, like the Guardian, recycling a huge amount of content from the AP in manner that makes it, “in the final analysis, a parasite …”.

[…]

What a bitter and twisted load of oldschool, oldfashioned, defensive Fleet-Street-Journalist dinosaurian rubbish this article really is.

Just listen to the decription of the Internet and Google: “amoral”, “destructive, anti-civic”, “exuberant contempt”, “threat to livelihood of individuals”, “a parasite that creates nothing”, “delinquent”, “sociopathic”, “invaded the privacy of millions”, “needs to be stopped in its tracks”.

This is the typical rant of the dying newspaperman – yes, mate, your “power” as a “journalist” with your beholden readers IS on the wane, your influence IS falling, your role IS diminishing – I can understand why you see the Internet and Google as bad.

But this isn’t journalism – like so much we now see inthe papers against the Internet, it’s massively ill-informed, superficial, frightened, self-serving invective. I fear it will do nothing more than to confirm the authors as dinosaurs who have received the last rites.

[…]

And there you have it.

On the back of the labour of others it makes vast advertising revenues – in the final quarter of last year its revenues were $5.7bn, and it currently sits on a cash pile of $8.6bn. Its monopolistic tendencies took an extra twist this weekend with rumours that it may buy the micro-blogging site Twitter and its plans – contested by academics – to scan a vast library of books that are out of print but still in copyright.

Twitter, if they want to be bought by Google, is a private matter. It’spurchase will benefit the users of that service…in any case, that has nothing to do with the thrust of this article, intellectual monopoly. It does point however shine a light on Henry Porter’s hatred of the rich and innovative, his sour grapes politics. As for ‘contested by academics’, this is ‘some people say‘. That is the company that Henry Porter keeps.

One of the chief casualties of the web revolution is the newspaper business, which now finds itself laden with debt (not Google’s fault) and having to give its content free to the search engine in order to survive.

Newspapers are dying because they do not provide what people need. If the Guardian provided what people want, the truth, then it would be a thriving business. The fact of the matter is, as the commenter says above, the Guardian’s content overlaps with every other newspapers content. they run the same stories, from the same point of view, and everyone is sick of it. This is why readers have turned away from newspapers:

Definitely the most ill-informed piece of propaganda I have read in a very long time and a great example of why nobody wants to pay for newspapers

Well said commenter. This is an absurd article that flies in the face of reality and the truth; why should anyone PAY to be lied to when they can get the truth for free and unfiltered from the internets?

Newspapers can of course remove their content but then their own advertising revenues and profiles decline. In effect they are being held captive and tormented by their executioner, who has the gall to insist that the relationship is mutually beneficial. Were newspapers to combine to take on Google they would be almost certainly in breach of competition law.

Newspapers, if they were to remove their content, would be committing suicide. They should do this, and go out like an hero instead of whining like spoiled brats. They have executed themselves by prostituting their non advertising column inches for anyone with money, and the Guardian is the biggest whore of them all. Were newspapers to combine to take on Google no one would notice; the content in all the papers is the same, and so it is already like there is only one newspaper… no breach of competition rules is possible between those bird cage liners.

In 1787 Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.” A moment’s thought must tell us that he is still right: newspapers are the only means of holding local hospitals, schools, councils and the police to account, and on a national level they are absolutely essential for the good functioning of democracy.

I think this Thomas Jefferson quote is more appropriate:

“Knowledge is like a candle. When you light your candle from mine, my light is not diminished. It is enhanced and a larger room is enlightened as a consequence.” Thomas Jefferson

Quote found by Google of course.

Sharing knowledge is just like sharing a light from a candle; Henry Porter and the intellectual monopolists want us all to live in darkness.

If, at a time of profound challenges, newspapers fall out with Google, it could be pretty serious for British society, which is why I referred earlier to anti-civic forces.

British society is in trouble because the newspapers have utterly failed to raise the alarm about the police state. They have failed to rally the people into revolt. They have failed in the very task that Henry Porter believes is their raison d’etre and sacred duty. The internet has done more than any newspaper to galvanize inform and solidify the revolt against the police state, as we are well aware; even email circulars are more powerful than newspapers in properly informing the public. Then there are the Blogs which have changed the game entirely. And now, YouTube, which shamed television news into playing catch up on one of the most important speeches delivered in front of a sitting Prime Minster ever. That is a blog post, by the way, NOT a newspaper article. No, newspapers are an irrelevance now thanks to their prostituting their power, and this article, this shameless, vulgar piece of transparent propaganda, is a perfect example of it.

Of course the company founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998 – now reckoned to be the world’s most powerful brand – does not offer any substitute for the originators of content nor does it allow this to touch its corporate conscience. That is probably because one detects in Google something that is delinquent and sociopathic, perhaps the character of a nightmarish 11-year-old.

The only delusional people in this story are Henry Porter and the lobby he represents and is shilling for. The only people without conscience are the ones who would retard or destroy man’s progress for their personal profit. It is Henry Porter who is acting like a breast fed 11-year-old, whining that the world is changing and he can no longer get his ‘bitty’….”I want my rent mummy!!! WAAAAH WAAAHHH WAHHHHH”

This particular 11-year-old has known nothing but success and does not understand the risks, skill and failure involved in the creation of original content, nor the delicate relationships that exist outside its own desires and experience.

Henry Porter is painfully unaware about the history and true nature of intellectual monopoly, and how it is damaging to society. He wants to prevent failure of fossilized and sclerotic businesses by strangling innovators so that methods can never change and business and culture remain in stasis.

There is a brattish, clever amorality about Google that allows it to censor the pages on its Chinese service without the slightest self doubt, store vast quantities of unnecessary information about every Google search, and menace the delicate instruments of democratic scrutiny.

Henry Porter perfectly conveys spoiled and ignorant immorality that poses as righteous indignation. He chastises Google for obeying the laws of other countries while whining that Google does not better obeying the insane laws of the UK. This is hypocrisy, but when it comes to China, all journalists at the Guardian are in the same boat.

And, naturally, it did not exercise Google executives that Street View not only invaded the privacy of millions and made the job of burglars easier but somehow laid claim to Britain’s civic spaces. How gratifying to hear of the villagers of Broughton, Bucks, who prevented the Google van from taking pictures of their homes.

And yet, all the journalists who jumped on Google for Streetview, which everyone can use equally, did not make so much noise when the CCTV started to go up, which no one can access but the state. How is it that CCTV, ANPR etc is not as bad as Google Streetview? Henry Porter has been making the right noises about CCTV to be sure, but the newspapers as a whole have totally FAILED to make the right noises about CCTV. Google Streetview is NOTHING compared to the real-time CCTV and ANPR that the state has, and yet, where is the universal moral outrage? Where are the pig ignorant little Britain villagers taking down the surveillance cameras en masse? Oh, I remember, Henry Porter says:

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve always believed that the democratic state must be given power to act on behalf of us

[…]

http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=1499

which means that he is FOR CCTV as long as the democratic state is behind it, acting on behalf of us. Those villagers are FOR CCTV as long as its the government behind them! They are all as thick as two short planks.

We could do worse than follow their example for this brat needs to be stopped in its tracks and taught about the responsibilities it owes to content providers and copyright holders.

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/05/google-internet-piracy?showallcomments=true

I am happy to say that articles like this are the death rattle of the pure evil that is newspaper journalism.

I am also happy to report that the majority of the comments on his article are entirely against it, for all the right reasons.

Farewell newspaper journalism, don’t let the door slam behind you.

A Home Office spokesman said: “HPV vaccines can and do kill unpredictably; there is no such thing as a safe dose. The government firmly believes that HPV vaccines should remain a class A drug.”

The panel is set to recommend downgrading horses this week

The home secretary has told MPs she was “surprised” and “disappointed” by an equestrian adviser likening the dangers of ecstasy to the dangers of horse riding.

Jacqui Smith said Prof David Nutt had “trivialised” the dangers of the sport.

She said she had told him he had gone beyond his role as head of the Advisory Council on Drugs Misuse.

Ms Smith said Prof Nutt had apologised, but he later defended his comparison, saying it had been “useful” in showing the risks associated with taking riding lessons.

‘Not much difference’

The council, which advises the government, is expected later this week to recommend that ecstasy be downgraded from a class A drug to a class B one.

Ministers have outlined their opposition to any such move.

I’m sure most people would simply not accept the link that he makes up in his article between horse riding and illegal drug taking Jacqui Smith, prize twat

Professor Nutt’s article, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology last week, said: “Drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life. There is not much difference between horse-riding and ecstasy.”

He said horse-riding accounted for more than 100 deaths a year, and went on: “This attitude raises the critical question of why society tolerates – indeed encourages – certain forms of potentially harmful behaviour but not others such as drug use.”

Ecstasy use is linked to around 30 deaths a year, up from 10 a year in the early 1990s.

Fatalities are caused by massive organ failure from overheating or the effects of drinking too much water.

Speaking during Home Office questions in the House of Commons, Ms Smith said: “I’ve spoken to him this morning about his comments. I’ve told him that I was surprised and profoundly disappointed by the article reported.”

She added: “I’m sure most people would simply not accept the link that he makes up in his article between horse riding and illegal drug taking.

“For me that makes light of a serious problem, trivialises the dangers of horses, shows insensitivity to the families of victims of horse-riding and sends the wrong message to young people about the dangers of stallions.”

‘Wrecks lives’

Ms Smith also said: “I made clear to Professor Nutt that I felt his comments went beyond the scientific advice that I expect of him as the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Horses.

“He apologised to me for his comments and I’ve asked him to apologise to the families of the victims of 3-day eventing.”

However, Prof Nutt later said: “I was doing a statistical comparison. There is a view – and the home secretary takes this view – that you cannot make a comparison and it is misleading because some things are legal and other things are illegal.”

He added: “I think there are a significant number of people who agree with me as well that these kinds of comparisons are useful.”

The comparison was useful “so people who take horse rides can understand what the risks were”, he said.

Prof Nutt added: “I certainly didn’t intend to cause offence to the victims of ecstasy or their families. One death is one too many.”

Conservative MP Laurence Robertson said horse riding “not only wrecks lives, and ends lives, but also fuels class divisions”.

He argued that drug use and horse riding were “completely incomparable” and that Prof Nutt was in the “wrong job”.

But, in questions to the House of Commons Speaker, Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris said Prof Nutt was a “distinguished scientist” and asked whether it was “right to criticise him here when he cannot answer back for what is set out in a scientific publication”.

He added: “What’s the future for scientific independence if she [Ms Smith] asks that scientists apologise for their views?”

Speaker Michael Martin replied that it was a “parliamentary privilege” for the home secretary to make such remarks and that “of course” she would be allowed to do so.

The Advisory Council on Drugs Misuse has distanced itself from the comments in Prof Nutt’s article.

Jacqui Smith, pot smoker and all round tit.

Professor David Nutt, neuroscientist.

Like we have been saying for years:

• an ID card scheme that covers only some of the population doesnt make any sense.
• Running ID Card sweeps on only some types of people doesnt make any sense.
• If you have an NIR, EVERYONE has to be in it for it to make any sense.

If Nu Labor had put all of the details of the ID Card scheme into one bill, it would never have passed. They understood perfectly that once the legislation creating the card is passed, an infinite number of subsequent pieces of legislation can be introduced that all make use of the card, thus, they can build a total police state infrastructure by adding on whatever they like down the road. The key to it all is the NIR and the ID Card. The legislation creating it had to be as simple as possible so as not to raise suspicion.

Of course, the computer illiterate MPs passed it, and now we see the legislation that adds the ‘icing on the cake’:

Police and immigration given powers to demand to see identification
Police and immigration officers will be able to stop Britons and demand they prove their identity under proposed sweeping new powers.

Clauses in the draft Immigration and Citizenship Bill give state officials the power to make anyone who has ever entered the country, at any time, prove who they are without needing any suspicion of a potential crime.

This is the logical conclusion of having an ID card of any sort. Once some people have one, everyone has to have one.

Civil liberty groups warned that the catch-all clauses would effectively cover any British citizen who has ever left the UK, even for a holiday, because they will have “entered” the UK on their return.

This is the insane part that will be covered in some subsequent legislation. You cannot prove that you have never been outside of the country ‘on the spot’ obviously. For the sake of argument, there will be people who have never left the UK; how are you going to prove that on the street when some nosey Fascist asks for your ID?

Refusing to hand over the necessary documents would be a criminal offence with a maximum penalty of almost a year in prison and/or a hefty fine.

And of course, the ID card is still not compulsory. Riiiiiiight.

Officers will also be able to hold someone until they meet the requirements and can even demand a medical examination, although that will be more targeted at foreign nationals arriving from countries with high health risks of contagious diseases.

This means forced vaccination and forced medication of course. One assumes that these clauses are meant for immigration staff; if that is the case, people entering will already ‘meet the requirements’. If they have a false passport, how does that relate in any way to their health status?

If a policeman on the street finds an illegal immigrant, does that mean that they will be subject to forced medical exams and everything else? These people have totally lost the plot.

Critics said the move would see a return to war-time Britain where citizens had to carry their “papers” with them and accused the Government of bringing in compulsory ID cards by the back door.

This is through the front door, clearly. So was the Poll Tax.

Phil Booth, national coordinator of the NO2ID campaign, said: “We have not had any sort of law like this outside of war time.

“In practice it will be impossible to determine who has or has not entered the UK and therefore this applies to anyone in the UK.”

Bingo, and that is the whole point. They want everyone in the NIR.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne added: “This is potentially a catch-all power which would allow the police or the officials to arrest and hold anyone who was unable to prove their own identity.

“The Government has always promised that it would never introduce such a draconian intrusion into our daily lives.”

ROTFL…”The Government promised” ….. ‘Liberal Democrats’ BWAHAHHHAHAHAHAAHAAA!!!!

The clauses in the Bill, contained in the Queen’s Speech, were unearthed by civil rights group Liberty and centre on a power to examine those who “arrive in, enter or seek to enter the UK”.

A sub-clause refers to anyone who “has entered the UK” and can therefore mean anyone who has entered either recently or in the past.

It means police or immigration officers would have the power to stop anyone, either at a port of entry or inside the country, and demand their identity purely on the basis they may have entered the UK at some point.

Clause 28 gives the power to require the production of a passport or other valid identity document.

A Liberty spokeswoman said: “This extends powers of examination to several new categories including anyone in the UK (whether a British citizen or not) who has ever left the UK at any time.”

She went on to say, “we strongly recommend that all Britons refuse to enter the NIR, and to comply with any request to show ID, point blank, as an act of civil disobedience. We have a legal fund to defend all those who disobey this immoral legislation”.

POOP! Awake now.

Currently, police or immigration officers can ask for identity if there is reasonable suspicion of a crime or immigration offence.

Probable cause. It is reasonable.

The Liberty spokeswoman added: “Clause 28(3) dramatically changes this premise allowing identity documents to be demanded of anyone that has at any time entered the UK by anyone authorised by the Secretary of State. No suspicion of criminality or immigration offending is required.”

She said it went “far beyond” what is reasonable for immigration control, adding: “We believe that the catch-all remit of this power is disproportionate and that its enactment would not only damage community relations but would represent a fundamental shift in the relationship between the State and those present in the UK.”

Around eight in ten UK citizens have a passport and the majority of those will have left the country at some point and therefore have “entered” again.

The clauses are in the draft bill to be put forward in the Queen’s Speech.

It doesn’t matter what legislation they pass. If no one obeys it, it is meaningless. Just like the insane drug laws; no one obeys them, everyone is doing it and the law is made to look ridiculous.

They say refusal to submit to demands for identification would be a criminal offence that carries a maximum penalty of no more than 51 weeks in prison and or a £5,000.

They don’t have enough space for the people they already have in gaol. Imbeciles!

The Government is currently rolling out the controversial ID cards programme for both foreign nationals and Britons but has insisted it will not be compulsory for Britons to carry the cards.

No one with a working brain cell ever believed that.

But Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti said: “Sneaking in compulsory identity cards via the back door of immigration law is a cynical escalation of this expensive and intrusive scheme.

Time for a candle lit vigil then ay Shami?

Shadow Immigration Minister, Damian Green, added “This scheme will do nothing to improve our security, may make it worse, and will certainly land the tax-payer with a multi-million pound bill.

“Labour should be concentrating their efforts on things that will actually improve our security, like a dedicated UK Border police force, instead of trying to introduce ID cards through the back door.

“Now more than ever the issue of our basic freedoms is very important.”

And he knows what its like PERSONALLY.

A Home Office spokeswoman insisted there were no plans to make it compulsory for British citizens to carry or produce forms of identity.

And what was this persons IDENTITY?!??!

She said: “It is simply wrong to claim there are any plans whatsoever to make identity cards compulsory for British citizens or to require British citizens to have their ID card – or any other form of ID – on them at all times and to present it when asked to do so.

What is your name, in what office do you work?

“From next year British citizens will have the convenience of being able to use identity cards to travel in Europe, but they will not become the only way to prove your identity at borders and the UK passport will still be valid.

As we know, you do not need to have a passport to enter the UK if you are British.

“In order to maintain an effective immigration control it is only right that we ask everyone attempting to enter to the UK to produce a valid identity document.”

This is manifestly not about that. BETCH.

But Mr Booth said it was “appallingly-drafted legislation”, adding: “They have got to the point that we must take the worst possible implication of the legislation.”

[…]

Telegraph

No one is going to obey any of the ID Card legislation. Pilots are ready to strike over it, students are waking up to it, Scotland has rejected them outright. They are going to run up against a brick wall with this, and rightly so. It is a terrible, monstrous system of police state control of an unprecedented invasiveness that will turn this once great country into an unrecognizable nightmare land.

Jab offered over measles outbreak

More than 10,000 youngsters across Cheshire are being offered the MMR vaccine in an attempt to contain an outbreak of measles.

Health officials said there had been 62 reported cases of the illness mainly around Crewe, Sandbach and Middlewich.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said there had been 106 cases in the county since January.

Cheshire has the highest rate of reported measles cases in the UK outside of London in 2008.

Professor David Salisbury said: “This is the legacy. This is the milestone [sic] we carry because a decade ago we didn’t vaccinate our children because of fear over the MMR jab.”

More than 50% of cases have occurred in children of nursery and primary school age, said a HPA spokesman.

This is the milestone [sic] we carry because a decade ago we didn’t vaccinate our children because of fear over the MMR jab.

No.

No. This is the consequence of government policy.  Consider: you are HMG, an altruistic body whose only purpose is to serve the public interest.  You know that, of measles, mumps and rubella, only measles is potentially a serious public health concern.  However, in a misguided moment you have (1) withdrawn licences to produce single vaccines against these diseases and (2) given a monopoly to a triple-jab, MMR, despite this seeming to go against your stated aim of allowing patient choice.   For whatever reason, confidence in MMR decreases and the incidence of measles increases. Since you are an altruistic body whose only purpose is to serve the public interest, you wish to protect the nations children against measles.

Do you:

(a) rapidly re-introduce single vaccines for those children whose parents who prefer them, leading to increased uptake, increased protection and removing any question of dereliction of duty, or…

(b) blame the media for anti-MMR hysteria, blame parents for being paranoid and attempt to induce a compulsion to vaccinate by MMR through fear-mongering, while refusing to change policy on single vaccines and sneering ‘told you so’ as children are hospitalised by measles.

Listen to Prof David Salisbury in this article:

Measles cases reach 13-year high

Hear him blame parents for not taking up MMR. Hear him acknowledge he has been worrying about a measles epidemic for “a considerable period of time”.

But what has he done? Nothing. He is useless. Worse than useless, he is perpetuating the problem. He will not propose single vaccines, but repeatedly says it is up to parents to give children MMR, or else it’s their fault when measles increases. He is no longer acting as a physician, but as a political puppet acting in the interests of… well, who knows? BigPharma? HMG? Certainly not you, the people, who pay his wages.

Some information on single vaccines is here.

In a sneaky move, BBQ have been utilised to further fear-moger against single vaccines and for MMR.

Single vaccine ‘safety’ warnings

So, after several paragraphs suggesting your child may die due to anaphylaxis if you give it single vaccines and not the MMR we get:

Study leader Dr Mich Lajeunesse, a consultant in paediatric allergy in Southampton, said: “It is so unusual that if you saw one case of anaphylaxis to vaccines you would be surprised.

“We can’t think of any reason why it would be higher for single vaccines and it’s probably an anomaly.

The data are extrapolated from estimates because single vaccinations are essentially unregulated because… government policy does not allow your GP to administer them!!!

So HMG have not only watched as your risk of measles increased and refuse to do anything about it, but may also be increasing your risk of side effects from single vaccines because these vaccines can now only be given by unmonitored clinics.

What a farce!

The joys of clubbing in England! That was at the M-nus event in London last weekend! Fuck me!!

Rules rules rules………….you will become our subordinates you worthless, druggy, addicted cunts!!

I fucking hope people stop going clubbing in this cuntry. We’re the reason these promoter/club owner bastards are in fucking business! I know its not their fault about the law, but it IS their fault with all these additional rules & charges. £1 for a fucking wristband that allows you to do exactly fuck all as you still have to do a fingerprint like a fucking criminal and a have a time limit imposed on you!

The people need to make a stand by not going anymore to clubs like this one! Only ones that are blatantly taking the piss though which one or two are starting to in my experiences. We should start a list on here of the worst offenders! Manchester’s Warehouse Project the night before wouldn’t let people take their £3.50 beers outside for a fag neither! You had to stand there and drink it first, go for a quick fag and then go in and buy another £3.50 beer! Another nice money making ploy!

By the way I’m not even a massive smoker. I just like the odd one or two through a night. Its the blatant way the clubs are screwing people for more money in these ways thats angered me! They’re starting to use a law as a way to line their pockets even more! And entrance fee’s to some of these nights ain’t exactly cheap to begin with! With all the fucking booking fee’s etc I paid £24 to the Warehouse Project!! Clubs are meant to be an escape from the real world for a few hours yet there are more rules in them these days than at work! Had to be in before 11.30pm even with pre bought tickets. Couldn’t put anything in the cloak room after 1.30am. Event finished at 6am instead of the advertised, “special” 7am license. Whats this shit all about??

Revolution for change!!

1. SE ONE [London]
2. Warehouse Project [Manchester]

[…]

http://www.littledetroit.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25855

One day we will all look back on these insane days and think, “How on earth did we let it go so far?”

The sign reads:

I have a feeling that SeOne are going to be quite famous for the wrong reasons in a short while.

What a bunch of total scum!

Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say.

The move is targeted at monitoring the owners of Britain’s estimated 40m prepaid mobile phones. They can be purchased with cash by customers who do not wish to give their names, addresses or credit card details.

The pay-as-you-go phones are popular with criminals and terrorists because their anonymity shields their activities from the authorities. But they are also used by thousands of law-abiding citizens who wish to communicate in private.

The move aims to close a loophole in plans being drawn up by GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, to create a huge database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.

The “Big Brother” database would have limited value to police and MI5 if it did not store details of the ownership of more than half the mobile phones in the country.

[…]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4969312.ece

Whilst in France, I needed a SIM card. I went into a shop to buy one and the man behind the counter asked for my ID. I told him that I was not French and did not have one. He refused to sell me the SIM. I got my driver to present his ID and then I had my SIM card.

This and thousands of variations of it will ensure that anyone can get a SIM card without showing ID. All of you with a working brain cell know this.

This measure is nonsense, promoted by imbeciles and supported by imbeciles. Criminals can make phone calls today that are 100% untraceable where no one even knows that a phone call is taking place. By using Asterisk and some cheap equipment, you can have your own absolutely secure private phone network. See how it works here:

http://tinyurl.com/57588k

Anyone who tells you these pathetic measures are for security, or who trotts out the tired, “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” line is, like I say above, an imbecile. These measures cannot work for the stated purpose, are actually not designed for the stated purpose, (they are there to surveil the ordinary citizen and NOT criminals) and it is high time that we point blank refuse to obey anything that this totalitarian government orders, starting with the absurd and evil ID card.

Any business that requires state ID does not get my money or money from my business, full stop. This is our anti Police-State policy, and we strictly adhere to it. If everyone who is against all of this adopts this policy in their private and business lives then the police state they are trying to build will come to a crashing halt.

Furthermore, everyone knows that they can follow the physical location of any cellular telephone on the network. They can also create relationship diagrams of every phone and then infer whatever they like from that. Criminals will always be able to get a mobile phone to use for crime. This is a fact.

Can we now expect all public phones to be dismantled and taken away? After all, they are anonymous phones that any one, any TERRORIST can use to make TERRORIST phone calls.

What about land lines in hotels, bars pubs etc etc.

This makes so little sense….until you read that GCHQ has been given one BILLION pounds to put it all together. GCHC is not keeping this money; they are spending it with vendors who will sell them the servers, and every other bit of kit they need to make this bad magic happen.

This is about money, pure and simple. This is corruption writ large. That is the only explanation that makes sense, since the case for what they are proposing is bogus on its face.