Nick Clegg's announcement today

Alan Johnson is a nice guy in some ways, he's like your friend's dad from school, you know the dad of that kid who could play football really well, but obviously he's just way way wrong.

In fact former Home Secretary Johnson's response to Nick Clegg's absolutely correct announcement today, much of which this little blog has campaigned for in the past, just goes to show how dangerously out of touch Johnson and Labour have been on this issue.

And this is what we have been saying here in the past.

Johnson actually calls the decisions to reign in Labour's police state as "rampant hyperbole" and suggests that Clegg has 'joined up different issues' re CCTV, ID Cards, DNA database, Contact Point child database etc.

But the problem is, as we've long talked about here in the past, is that these aren't different disperate issues, they are all part of an all too visible rock-solid trend, where one part of the trend, dangerously appears to reinforce the necessity for another, and that overall dehumanizes and degrades.

And if Johnson can't actually see that, it really does make you wonder about the rest of his judgment and what he was doing in office all that time.

By the way, I think this coalition with the Lib Dems, is all quite healthy and I think in principle a good outcome for voters has come out of the general election here. I really have no complaints about it at this time.

And it's absolutely right that Clegg and the Tories start to dismantle this pile of terrifying nonsense that Labour has willfully and dangerously created and put it where it belongs: in the dustbin of history.

CCTV Boom ‘Failing In Fight Against Crime’

From Prison Planet: (Sky News)

"An internal police report has raised serious concerns about whether CCTV is being used effectively in the fight against crime.

The document reveals that CCTV footage was used to solve less than one crime for every 1,000 cameras in London.

Obtained from Scotland Yard using the Freedom of Information Act, the report recommends an overhaul of the way CCTV is handled across the UK.

The criticisms in the study make uncomfortable reading for both senior police officers and politicians alike"

But if you read the article what it's actually saying is CCTV isn't effective enough, and we need more of it.

Another study pours cold water on CCTV

Daily Mail: "The millions of CCTV cameras on Britain's streets have done virtually nothing to cut crime, Home Office-funded research found today. It said that cameras placed in town centres, housing estates and public transport 'did not have a significant effect on crime'.

The only crime that was heavily reduced by the presence of spy cameras was stealing from cars in car parks, the study said"

Which seems to be a repeat of an earlier conclusion to a Home Office study circulated back in 2005, (difficult to get hold the original source of this article by the way which was an Associated Press report in securityinfowatch.com).

But I think everyone knows this anyway. And we don't need studies to justify the notion that blanket CCTV is an absolutely vile, dehumanizing and stupid practice that's now gone totally out of control.

And why these studies should be a surprise to anyone I have no idea. The point is the cameras are not a failure as they are not about crime to begin with. They are about surveillance of the general population, and to make the idea of being watched and logged seem normal so that can be further escalated, and as well so people modify their own behavior in line with knowing they are being watched.

If anything I believe crime, the threat of violent crime is actually a highly favourable state of a social-centrist government to help keep the middle class in check.

CCTV's role in that sense is to remind people there is a threat of violent crime not to prevent it.

Quarter of UK's databases are illegal

I meant to post this from yesterday, the title is (from the Independent):

Quarter of UK's databases are illegal

(And the rest of them are 'merely' degrading, dehumanising, vile and utterly inappropriate - j)

"One in four of the major government databases is almost certainly illegal and should be scrapped, a report says. The national DNA database, the proposed national identity database and the ContactPoint system, which will hold records of all children in England, are among the systems singled out for fundamental reform or abolition.

Researchers called for 11 systems assessed as "almost certainly illegal" under human rights or data protection law to be scrapped or substantially redesigned.

The study, by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, also pointed to significant legal and practical problems with a further 29 databases, including the national childhood obesity one and the planned NHS summary care record system, and said they should be reviewed independently. Privacy experts were asked to compile the report after two discs listing the entire child benefit database went missing in 2007. Researchers said data-sharing should be authorised only for strictly defined purposes, and said sensitive personal information should be collected and shared only with the individual's consent.

The report's co-author, Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge University, said: "Britain's database state has become a financial, ethical and administrative disaster which is penalising some of the most vulnerable members of our society. Often, computerisation has been used as a substitute for public service reform rather than a means of enabling reform. Little thought is given to safety, privacy and value for money."

Researchers highlighted legal problems with systems that held sensitive data where there was "no effective opt-out" such as ContactPoint, the index planned to record English children's relationship with public services. The report said: "Many question the consequences of giving increasing numbers of civil servants daily access to our personal information. Objections range from cost through efficiency to privacy. The emphasis on data capture, form-filling, mechanical assessment and profiling damages professional responsibility and alienates the citizen from the state."

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "We recognise the absolute necessity of striking the balance between the rights and privacy of the individual and the ability to disrupt, prevent and investigate crime effectively. That is why the Home Secretary [Jacqui Smith] has made it clear that a 'common sense' test must be applied to every action in this area to make sure it is proportionate, transparent and robust safeguards are in place.

"For example, the National Identity Scheme and ID cards will have independent oversight built in from the start, with every citizen given the right to see their data and who has accessed it. Technology such as DNA and CCTV is providing clear benefits in deterring and detecting crime, securing convictions and reducing fear of crime."

'Criminal' records Singled out for abolition

*National DNA Database

Holds 4 million individual profiles

ContactPoint

A national index of all children in England

*The NHS Secondary Users Service

Summaries of hospital and other treatments

*The Common Assessment Framework

Children's welfare needs

*ONSET

A Home Office system used to determine whether young people are at risk of offending

*Dept for Work and Pensions data sharing programme

Matches data with government and outside agencies

*Audit Commission National Fraud Initiative

Matches data within central and local government bodies to detect fraud and error

*The Prum framework

An international agreement which allows police information to be shared

PROPOSED

*Communications database Would bring together details of emails, telephone calls and web use

*National Identity Register Will store biographical information and biometric data linked to ID cards

*The NHS Detailed Care Record Will hold GP and hospital records "

Information Commissioner warns of surveillance culture

The Times from 27/2/08:

"Laws that allow officials to monitor the behaviour of millions of Britons risk “hardwiring surveillance” into the British way of life, the country's privacy watchdog has warned.

Richard Thomas told The Times that “creeping surveillance” in the public and private sectors had gone “too far, too fast” and risked undermining democracy.

The Information Commissioner warned that proposals to allow widespread data sharing between Whitehall and the private sector were too far-reaching and that plans to create a giant database of every telephone call, e-mail and text message risked turning everyone into a suspect. “In the last 10 or 15 years a great deal of surveillance in public and private places has been extended without sufficient thought to the risks and consequences,” said Mr Thomas, 59. “Our society is based on liberty and democracy. I do not want to see excessive surveillance hardwired into British society.”

He criticised proposals going through Parliament to allow mass data sharing between government departments and the private sector. Campaigners have claimed that Section 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill would enable the transfer of health and tax records to private companies such as insurance firms and medical researchers.

Last year Mr Thomas — who became head of the independent body charged with safeguarding privacy and freedom of information in 2002 — recommended to ministers that data sharing be allowed only in carefully defined circumstances such as law enforcement, improving public services and for research. They ignored his advice. The Bill “needs to be narrowed”, Mr Thomas said. He called on Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, to write into it that “anything to justify a data-sharing order has to come explicitly under one of those headings”.

Whitehall sources told The Times yesterday that Mr Straw would amend the Bill in the next few weeks to meet Mr Thomas's criticisms. Previously Mr Straw's department had maintained that there were sufficient safeguards, including a requirement for parliamentary approval for each data transfer.

The Bill also gives the Information Commissioner the power to investigate public bodies without their consent where there has been a suspected breach of data protection law. Mr Thomas complained that the powers did not extend to private companies.

Other government plans also risked undermining people's right to privacy, Mr Thomas said. Of the Home Secretary's proposal to build a database to store information currently held by internet service providers and telephone companies, Mr Thomas said: “A government-run database of the communications of all citizens, every phone call, every e-mail, every text, every internet use; a database of all those activities held by the Government would be a step too far for the British way of life.”

He dismissed Jacqui Smith's assurances that officials would have access only to data on who had contacted whom, rather than the content of the communication. “That A has telephoned B on a particular date from a particular location is actually quite intrusive,” he said. “If an MP logged on to a site selling Viagra, that tells you quite a lot. If a 16-year-old girl goes on to a website about abortion that tells you an awful lot about her too. I don't think there's a black-and-white distinction between traffic data and content.”

Mr Thomas made clear that he did not object to the monitoring of those suspected of involvement in terrorism and serious crime. “But I think that's a very different situation from monitoring the communications of the entire population,” he said. “We've got to have a much clearer distinction between those who are suspects and everybody else and I think we're at risk of making everybody a suspect if we go too far down this road.”

Security services have insisted that modernising the capacity to store and search telephone and internet information is crucial if Britain's ability to combat terrorists and serious organised crime is to be maintained.

Mr Thomas said that forcing government officials to make specific requests every time they needed information — as they currently have to do - provided a crucial safeguard. “If you have a security service or a policeman making an application [to an internet service provider for records], at least each of those applications has to go through a process and is scrutinised by the ISP. That's very different from it all being done behind the closed doors of a governmental agency.”

His concern about the erosion of the right to privacy extends to social networking sites. People did not realise that information put on sites such as Facebook and MySpace could come “back to haunt them”, he said.

Another area of concern for Mr Thomas is the use of surveillance cameras: he criticised the police for pressing to have closed-circuit television cameras installed in pubs. “We've come out against the requirement for pub licensees to fit CCTV as a condition of their licence,” he said. “This is hardwiring surveillance into British pubs. It is unacceptable.”

He also expressed concern that even some schools were now installing cameras in the classroom. He said that it might be acceptable in the case of a particularly unruly class, “but to roll out cameras in all classrooms is unacceptable”.

The Information Commissioner added his voice to criticism of ContactPoint, a computer database containing details on every child in the country.

“I can see the benefits of a national database of children at risk ... I'm less convinced that you need to have a database of every child in the country. Is it not better to have fuller details of children known to be at risk and make sure that information is used properly?”

Other key government surveillance measures had been “pushed through” without proper scrutiny or parliamentary debate. Of a database of DNA gathered from crime suspects, he said: “Clearly, the DNA database was set up with insufficient public debate. Part of the problem was that such debate took place on the assumption that it would be expensive to run DNA tests. The costs have absolutely fallen and it has become a matter of routine. We have to re-examine the issue in the light of current technology.”

He also lamented the lack of debate over the creation of a North London database that records details of car numberplates for up to five years. Mr Thomas questioned whether the Government had the legal authority for this and asked whether the public recognised that millions of their daily journeys were now being monitored. “We have to scrutinise every proposal very closely indeed to ensure that none involves a step too far.”

Labour government trying to make CCTV mandatory

Apologies for the lapse here. I'm just gonna pick a few things from the Mail yesterday.

And we'll start with this.

"Big Brother CCTV cameras are to be fitted inside shops and supermarkets on the orders of the state to keep track on anybody buying alcohol. A law is being quietly pushed through Parliament giving councils the power to order licensed premises to fit the surveillance cameras. Pubs will also be covered.

The footage of people innocently buying a bottle of wine in a shop or a pint of beer in a bar must be stored for at least 60 days, and be handed over to the police on demand"

I haven't covered the police state machinery stuff for a while, and there will be nuances in it I'm not currently up on, but it's well.. it's really bizarre, it's like it just still can't stop itself.

In spite of whatever critique is offered, no matter from whom, from the public itself or even when the media has started (and it has for some time now) to actually get concerned about this, or the government's own data tzars and even the European Court of Human Rights and so on, it doesn't seem to make to a lot of difference.

No matter who is ostensibly in charge the Labour regime remains like a child in an insane tantrum, it's totally unreasonable, and thinks every conceivable moment of existence is just another opportunity to inflict the machinery of the police state, no matter what else is going on around it.

We talked about this a lot a couple of years ago, in end you're just not in the territory of normal, appropriate, adult rational behavior, but behavior that's transparently about looking for ways to deploy this kind of thing no matter what, because it wants to change society into something very different.

And what's been demonstrated here very clearly is the extremely real danger of compliance. In the end the government will claim a mandatory status for the very culture of snooping, spying and fear they themselves have created and encouraged amongst the public and I think the writing was on the wall for this a long time ago.

'Ealing council' put cameras in baked bean cans to spy on residents say the Daily Mail

Daily Mail: "A local council is to use hidden cameras to catch residents who leave rubbish out on the wrong day. CCTV devices will be disguised inside objects such as baked bean cans and house bricks to film offenders"

Here we go again, look I would advise residents of Ealing to just crush these cans, but it's an interesting story that ties into the rubbish spying in general story. You will remember that was promoted as something that local councils were doing to appease EU rubbish targets, turns out of course as we speculated correctly here that wasn't quite the full story at all.

Now this case with Ealing and putting cameras in baked bean cans to spy on people putting their rubbish out is interesting, the Daily Mail spend their entire life shifting the blame for this stuff onto subordinates and cretins, in this case 'Will Brooks, the Tory councilor responsible for environment and transport'

So the question here is what power does a local councilor have ? Well very little really. And who is telling Will Brooks to endorse this ?

Now I do think the Daily Mail does some good work, but at the same time you get the firm impression on many issues, that the Daily Mail while appearing to complain about them, is just not telling us the full truth about anything that is really going on this country.

It is posing as a 'conservative' popular newspaper and on one level it kind of is, but at the same time it seems to be stripping out various personalities from stories and other times it is skewing and misdirecting the public about who is doing what, an example would be the headline 'Germans to put bugs in wheelie bins'.

At other times it (and its sister paper the Evening Standard) seem to be feeding the government with a mandate by complaining about things like crime and immigration which it must surely know that the regime will only use to declare legitimacy for things like ID cards, CCTV and ever-more draconian laws and so on. And there has been no other newspaper that has done more to feed the Blair/Brown domestic police-state agenda than the Daily Mail, which makes its frequent complaints about that seem almost ludicrous.

spying Ealing rubbish Daily Mail