But what if you're not a journalist?

David Mery finally gets his apology. I wrote about it here 3 years ago.

It's frightening - and daunting - that it takes a journalist nearly 4 years of bureaucratic and legal rodeo to get an apology for an unlawful arrest, after being stopped and searched under the terrorism act, arrested for 'public nuisance' (for looking suspicious) having his DNA sampled, his home raided, and his belongings confiscated.

It took 4 years even though he's a journalist and the incident was widely publicised. It took 4 years even though the police clearly realised, from the very beginning, that he was totally innocent.

It's not that they never learn, it's that they don't care

Here we go again. According to the BBC:

A controversial database which holds the details of every child in England has now become available for childcare professionals to access.

Ahh, is this sort of like the one where they lost the banking details of every parent in the UK a year or two ago?

A report into the project by auditors Deloitte and Touche said it could never be totally secure. Last summer ministers delayed the database, admitting there were some "issues" identified in testing. It says 390,000 people will have access to the database, but will have gone through stringent security training.

Well I feel better hearing about that stringent training. As long as there are no security bugs in the database software or the computers they run on (presumably not running Windows) and none of those 390,000 people are crooked or stupid, the sensitive details of every child in the UK should be nice and secure.

Crimint those varmints

I guess, living in Britain, there's always a part of you that understands these sorts of things happen routinely. However, to find out that it's real is still a bit shocking:

Police are targeting thousands of political campaigners in surveillance operations and storing their details on a database for at least seven years, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.

Photographs, names and video ­footage of people attending protests are ­routinely obtained by surveillance units and stored on an "intelligence system". The ­Metropolitan police, which has ­pioneered surveillance at demonstrations and advises other forces on the tactic, stores details of protesters on Crimint, the general database used daily by all police staff to catalogue criminal intelligence.

One of the worst things is that when heavyhanded police tactics and surveillance are revealed, it's almost always the case that they've previously denied it or lied about it. Further:

Police surveillance teams are also ­targeting journalists who cover demonstrations, and are believed to have ­monitored members of the press during at least eight protests over the last year.

That seems like a sign of a healthy democracy.

Activists "seen on a regular basis" as well as those deemed on the "periphery" of demonstrations are included on the police databases, regardless of whether they have been convicted or arrested. Names, political associations and photographs of protesters from across the political spectrum – from campaigners against the third runway at Heathrow to anti-war activists – are catalogued.

Well, it's surely nothing to worry about. After all, the government is good. This is a free country. The government is only looking out for our safety. You've got to keep track of peoples' "political associations", right? Political activism is just one step away from terrorism, don't you know.

Flights to Guantanamo were kinda like this (except orange jumpsuit is not included)

BBC: Ryanair mulls charge for toilets:

Michael O'Leary: 'People might have to spend a pound to spend a penny'

Irish budget airline Ryanair has said it is considering charging passengers for using the toilet while flying. Chief executive Michael O'Leary told the BBC that the Dublin-based carrier was looking at maybe installing a "coin slot on the toilet door".

Next up, coin slots on the seatbelts, and extra charges for keeping the cushion on your seat.

Following that, they'll drop the pretense and just do a midflight announcement "pay us £10 more or you're out the door without a parachute"

They've run out of "extras" to charge for, like (ahem) luggage and checking in, and are stooping to demanding money not to deliberately make the experience more craptastic than it already is. Pardon the pun.

It's pretty sad, though, that they'd stoop to extorting a handful of coins per flight from those few passengers who can't 'hold it' for the 2-hour duration of the trip. I think that by leading the industry in this respect, Ryanair will become the guinea pig for finding out just how badly you can treat your customers before they eventually abandon you.

Slipping, sliding, and skiving

From Anne Applebaum in Slate:

LONDON — This column is arriving late this week. It is arriving late because, among other things, my flight out of London Heathrow Airport on Monday was canceled. Not delayed, canceled. So were almost all other flights out of London Heathrow. This stunning disruption to one of the world's busiest transportation hubs was not caused by a terrorist attack or a catastrophic computer failure. It was caused by 5 inches of wet, rapidly melting snow.

Kim and I were left stranded overnight in Majorca on Monday because of the snow (I know, I know: cry me a river, right?). Anne's column seems to assume a genuine inability to cope with snowy weather, but for me, after spending 6 years in the UK it's becoming all too familiar. The problem, I believe, is not that Britons can't handle 5 or 8 inches of snow; it's that they can't be bothered to.

It seems as if people here wake up, see snow, and think, "Whee! Snow day! Chaos! Surely I can't be expected to go to work". Unfortunately when public transit workers think that way (in the UK, they apparently do) it becomes a feedback loop.

At the first sign of trouble — high winds, heavy rain, piles of leaves, and most particularly snow — the people responsible for the UK's transportation infrastructure (even, comically, the Underground variety) simply throw up their hands and surrender*, causing the whole mess to grind to a halt. As a result, any form of extreme weather becomes a valid reason for much of the population to take the day off. The domino effect multiplies the paralysis. Pretty soon there aren't enough workers available to clear snow from runways, or otherwise operate an airport.

Granted, this time there was more snow than usual, but there's roughly the same level of mock panic at least once or twice every winter. The lightest dusting of snow tends to produce approximately the same result.

Many British people seem to accept (even secretly enjoy) this regularly-occurring pantomime of collective meltdown, but it's pretty aggravating when you're trying to get home from your holiday.


[ * Overhearing snippets of conversation amongst my fellow would-be travelers on Monday, it struck me that, as a consequence of the railways' failure to make any effort at coping with bad weather, Britons seem unaware of something that Canadians (for example) take for granted: trains can operate just fine in snow. ]

Small victories

DNA database 'breach of rights':

Two British men should not have had their DNA and fingerprints retained by police, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. The men's information was held by South Yorkshire Police, although neither was convicted of any offence. The judgement could have major implications on how DNA records are stored in the UK's national database. The judges said keeping the information "could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society".

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she was "disappointed" by the European Court of Human Rights' decision.

Gosh, I'm so surprised that Jacqui Smith wants to forcibly keep the DNA records of innocent people in government databases. Like most UK Home Secretaries, she never met an aspect of our lives that she didn't want to record, mandate, tax, or prohibit.

Won't get fooled again

According to xe.com today:

90 PLN (Polish Zloty) = £19.93 (UK Pounds)

But the exchange place at Gatwick airport yesterday gave us £13 and change.

OK, so they ripped us off for nearly 30% this time (and luckily, it was just a small amount of money) but they aren't doing themselves any favours by being blatant ripoff artists. I've always known those guys don't give the best rates, but this is basically predatory.

Perhaps they count on people not checking up on these things? Well we did, and we won't be making that mistake twice. Lesson learned: never exchange money at the airport.

Let me out

Want a summary of the British summer so far? From the Met Office:

Headline: Heavy rain clearing, then sunshine and blustery heavy showers.

Today: Some heavy rain at first ... some sunshine, but also blustery showers, and some of these will be heavy with a risk of thunder ... Maximum temperature 21 °C.

Tonight: Heavy showers ... increasingly windy ... Minimum temperature 11 °C.

Wednesday: Very unsettled and windy with showers or longer spells of rain, these especially heavy in the morning ... risk of gales for a time. Maximum temperature 21 °C.

Thursday to Saturday: It will remain very unsettled with sunshine and showers on Thursday and Friday, with more prolonged spells of rain and brisk winds.

Sunday to Tuesday: Initially it will remain unsettled with either showers or longer spells of rain, some of which will be heavy. Northern areas are most likely to experience the heaviest rain...

You get the picture. Welcome to the British Summer.

I'm hating this. 4 crummy Summers in a row (punctuated, of course, by miserable, cold, wet Winters). I get such infrequent sun-time that I'm starting to feel like I live underground. And these people, the Brits, keep talking about ... wait for it ... droughts. BWAHAHAHA! While there's flooding going on! Hey, let's say you take some of these billions of gallons of water falling on your heads and, instead of letting it flood your towns -- oh I don't know -- channel it into reservoirs?

The Romans gave up on this place nearly 2000 years ago, but I wish they were still in charge. They'd have figured all this out by now.

I don't blame them for being miserable here, though. I'd have gone back to Rome too.

I'm okay, you're not okay

Israel warns on Iran nuclear aims

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz has warned that Iran is near a breakthrough in its nuclear programme.

Perhaps Israel would have more credibility on this subject if it were to come clean about its own nuclear arsenal?

Speaking on a visit to Washington, Mr Mofaz said it was "unacceptable" for Iran to become a nuclear power.

But it's okay for Israel to be one, because...?

It seems funny to me that the most vociferous opponents of nuclear proliferation turn a blind eye to (or even help) their allies' activities, and actively maintain their own arsenals. Do as I say, not as I do.

Who can blame Iran for ignoring the criticism of such hypocrites?

Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit

Unusual circumstances in Northamptonshire:

Customers in 100,000 homes were told by Anglian Water to boil tap water for up to 10 days after the Cryptosporidium outbreak on 25 June.

The firm said a rabbit gaining access to the treatment process led to the bug at Pitsford Treatment works.

"We have already taken steps to ensure this cannot happen again," Peter Simpson, of Anglian Water, said.

"We have concluded that this occurrence was due to a combination of unusual circumstances."

An unauthorised rabbit "gained access"! Did an accomplice on the inside give him a key?

Someone has to ask the question, and it might as well be me: Was this a terrorist rabbit?

Met police vow to arrest Dr. Evil

The British police are at it again, grandstanding for the Hello magazine readership. When my neighbour's shop was broken into, they didn't bother to investigate or, um, show up. But here's what happens when people supposedly spit at one another on television:

Police quiz [Big Brother] 'spit' housemate

Police have interviewed Dennis McHugh, the contestant ejected from Channel 4's Big Brother show for allegedly spitting in the face of a fellow housemate.

So, the police are conducting an investigation, eh?

Police will also speak to Mohamed Mohamed, at whom Dennis allegedly spat, "as and when he leaves the house".

Excuse me? If they're serious about this, why wouldn't they go speak to the alleged victim, say, now? I mean, if the police want to talk to someone, don't they go to that person's home, or workplace or whatever, and speak to them right away? Why wouldn't they do that, in this case? Because the alleged victim is sequestered inside the Big Brother house? On a frigging 'reality' show?

"Goodness, we can't go in there," I imagine P.C. Plod saying to himself, "the contestants aren't allowed to have any contact with the outside world!"

The police are grandstanding for the benefit of the television audience (good P.R.) but don't want to ruin their telly program (bad P.R.). Unbelievable.

Well, not actually unbelievable, because they've done things like this before: When the entertainment-loving public get excited about celebrity shenanigans, the British police are all over it.

Remember Kate Moss's troubles, after photos allegedly showed her taking cocaine? The police made a big performance of that one, too. The problem was, they had no actual evidence that she had been taking an illegal drug (or in any case, which illegal drug). The stuff in the photos could have been anything, as far as reasonable standards of proof are concerned.

Nonetheless, the police had to make a big show of disciplining a wayward celebrity. The police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, made such a public fool of himself (yet again) that the Director of Public Prosecutions was bewildered: "If he is accurately quoted he appears to have completely misunderstood the law."

At the time, it seemed pretty obvious to me that the police didn't have a case against Kate Moss. It's pretty shocking that the police commissioner couldn't figure it out. The likely truth is that he knew it was nonsense, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to showboat:

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, who has pledged to tackle middle-class users of cocaine, had said the decision on whether to charge Moss would take into account her effect on "impressionable young people".

You see? A crime is more serious when committed by a celebrity. Perhaps we should have special laws for them so that they can be prosecuted, without proper evidence, for the sake of "impressionable young people".

What a crock of poo.

It would be nice if Commissioner Sir Ian Blair and the British police would do their frigging jobs, make some token effort to solve real-life crimes (such as burglaries at shops), and stop the posturing over celebrities and pointless television non-events.


[ P.S. Big Brother is still the crappiest television show in history, and the British public should make a serious effort to develop some taste. I've seen classier things circling the toilet bowl. The police should get serious and arrest the producers for contributing to the decline of civilization. ]

David Davis: right on, brother

I think I might have to go campaigning for the shadow home secretary. Here's an opinion piece in the Torygraph about the issues in question:

Twenty years ago you would also have been regarded as barmy if you had said innocent people would have their DNA held on a database for criminals; or that there would be one CCTV camera for every 14 people; or that children would be fingerprinted and their records held, as though they were all potential victims of abuse; or that it would be unlawful to stage a silent, one-person protest within one kilometre of the Palace of Westminster without permission from the police; or that trials would be held without juries; or that microchips would be placed in our dustbins; or that there would be 266 separate provisions granting power to enter homes without permission, a symptom of the expanding role of the state in the lives of citizens.

This Labour government has never met a thought or behaviour it didn't want to regulate, outlaw, or mandate.

What's that smell?

Professional douchebag Gordon Ramsay illustrates the danger of the mindset (prominent here in paternalistic Britain) that we can and should legislate for everything:

Ramsay orders seasonal-only menu

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay says British restaurants should be fined if they serve fruit and vegetables which are not in season. He told the BBC that fruit and vegetables should be locally-sourced and only on menus when in season. Mr Ramsay said he had already spoken to Prime Minister Gordon Brown about outlawing out-of-season produce.

"There should be stringent laws, licensing laws, to make sure produce is only used in season and season only," he said.

Listen fella, you're entitled to your opinions and preferences; and since you own several restaurants, go ahead and run those any way you like. However, if I have a craving for asparagus (Tee hee! Funny smell!) in December, that should be between me and the chef, right?

By Ramsay's rationale, importing any food should be illegal. Whee! I for one look forward to the day when we return to dining exclusively on world-renowned British cuisine! Mushy peas are always in season, right?

All your privacy are belong to US

New anti-terrorism rules 'allow US to spy on British motorists'

Routine journeys carried out by millions of British motorists can be monitored by authorities in the United States and other enforcement agencies across the world under anti-terrorism rules introduced discreetly by Jacqui Smith.

The discovery that images of cars captured on road-side cameras, and "personal data" derived from them, including number plates, can be sent overseas, has angered MPs and civil liberties groups concerned by the increasing use of "Big Brother" surveillance tactics.

This is depressingly familiar, and I'm sorry to say, totally expected. That the British government allows its citizens to be arbitrarily spied upon by foreign authorities on the streets of London is nothing new. The American eavesdropping agency, the NSA, has at least one listening post on British soil, at Menwith Hill, Yorkshire. It is claimed that their ECHELON system intercepts nearly every electronic communication in the world. It's more than a little disturbing that they can use our baby monitors, or our mobile phones (even when they're 'off' see also: this) to record the daily, offline conversations of any person. It's a pet peeve of mine that, not only does the US monitor my communications, the British government helps them do it. I'm a British citizen. Is it quaint that I expect my government to be on my side?

Last year I wrote about the police being given blanket, real-time surveillance power over every vehicle in London, and their assurances about its limited scope:

But they will only be able to use the data for national security purposes and not to fight ordinary crime, the Home Office stressed.

I replied:

Yes, I trust them on that score, because it's so believable. Obvious prediction: In a year or two, the system will be hailed as a great success in stopping terrorism, and the government will be pushing a 'scheme' to have the cameras used fight "ordinary crime".

Well, it's been less than a year since then. They haven't admitted to using the cameras to investigate petty crime yet, but in some ways, this is even worse. At the time of writing, last year, the government had already, secretly, given authorization for foreign governments to use the system. They used their usual tactic of 'selling' it to us one way, whilst planning to use it in another.

Whenever the government tells us that some new invasion of privacy is strictly for one thing (usually, protecting us from terrorist bogeymen), remember that they have their fingers crossed behind their backs, OK?

If a capability exists, it will be abused. You can take that to the bank. Just don't deviate from your usual route -- it might look suspicious.

[ Edit: the post title may require some explanation for those who aren't familiar with the "all your base are belong to us" joke: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base ]

In CCTV we trust

Poole council spies on family over school claim

A council has used powers intended for anti-terrorism surveillance to spy on a family who were wrongly accused of lying on a school application form.

Poole borough council disclosed that it had legitimately used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to spy on the family.

The Act was pushed through by the Government in 2000 to allow police and other security agencies to carry out surveillance on serious organised crime and terrorists. It has since been taken up by councils to catch those carrying out any "criminal activity".

I bleat on and on about the emerging British 'surveillance society', so this kind of story brings a mixture of feelings -- both outrage, and also vindication: Who is surprised by this? Not me. Talk about a good example of sliding down the proverbial slippery slope. When I discuss this subject with Brits, they tend to dismiss the potential pitfalls, because they trust their government not to abuse the new powers it regularly gives itself. Will this story give them pause to reconsider? Probably not, even though a followup story reveals that the abuse is already rampant:

More than 1,000 covert surveillance operations are being launched every month to investigate petty offences such as dog fouling, under-age smoking and breaches of planning regulations.

Councils and other public bodies are using legislation designed to combat terrorism in order to spy on people, obtain their telephone records and find out who they are emailing.

Councils are increasingly using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa) to investigate anything that can be classed as a criminal offence. The Home Office website describes the legislation as a tool for "preventing crime, including terrorism".

But it is used to spy on otherwise law-abiding people committing minor offences such as fly-tipping and failing to pick up dog mess and to gather evidence that can be used to instigate fines.

"including terrorism", eh? In a post-9/11 world, every single invasion of privacy and abuse of government power will be hidden behind a smokescreen of fighting terrorism. Police here rarely bother to investigate nonviolent crimes. But what the government really want to do, and what they're really good at, is coming down hard on ordinary citizens for speeding. Or not paying the TV tax. Or [not] fibbing on a school application. Or protesting climate change at Heathrow.

They film our activities hundreds of times per day using CCTV. They log all of our phone calls and text messages. They want to collect DNA samples from every Briton. They record every car journey. They record most public transportation journeys. They track our personal whereabouts using our mobile phones. They can stop us and search our pockets without cause. They want the right to interrogate us on the street. They want the right to fingerprint us on the street. They want to lock up terrorism suspects indefinitely, without charges.

They keep all of this detailed information on ordinary citizens, whilst government ministers make ludicrous claims about their databases being "unhackable", meanwhile losing the bank account details of every parent in Britain. In recent decades, British governments and institutions have not excelled in displays of basic competence. At least when someone screws up, bank account numbers can be changed. DNA and fingerprints are for life.

Still, at least we can trust them not to abuse all this information and power. Can't we?:

Professor Jeffrey Rosen wrote an article in The New York Times in 2001 showing that surveillance cameras in London, which were put up to combat the threat of terrorism from the Irish Republican Army, are actually used to intimidate vagrants and punks -- and, predictably, to ogle women.

-- and, predictably, increasingly, to track and monitor everyone all the time, for any reason at all. Just in case they're terrorists, or in case they 'forget' to pick up their dogs' poops. Ah well, take heart, for as long as you have nothing to hide...

Free what?

Just in case anyone was under the impression that we have free speech and the right of peaceful protest in Britain, read this about the Beijing olympics torch relay in London today:

Before the torch arrived police circulated among Tibetan demonstrators ordering them to remove T-shirts and confiscating Tibetan flags in an apparent breach of a promise from Met commanders that police would not intervene to prevent embarrassment to Beijing.

Yonten Ngama, a Tibetan who has been resident in the UK for four years, was ordered to remove a T-shirt scrawled with three slogans, 'China Stop the Killing', 'No Torch in Tibet' and 'Talk to the Dalai Lama'. "They didn't tell me why, they just said I couldn't wear it," he said. Police on the ground declined to comment on the reasons for confiscating the T-shirt.

Oh, well that's okay then: we wouldn't want to embarass the Chinese by allowing democratic-style demonstrations during their big day. Not only can the police in London order you not wear a T-shirt with the wrong slogan on it, or wave the wrong flag, they won't even bother to tell you why. We did the Chinese proud today.

In the photo above, 10 British police and "Chinese security guards" tackle a woman with a placard.

We'll teach you how to live right, you silly person

A government advisory board in the UK has proposed a smoking permit:

The permit might cost as little as £10, but acquiring it could be made difficult if the forms were sufficiently complex, Le Grand said last night.

His paper says: "Suppose every individual who wanted to buy tobacco had to purchase a permit. And suppose further they had to do this every year. To get a permit would involve filling out a form and supplying a photograph, as well as paying the fee. Permits would only be issued to those over 18 and evidence of age would have to be provided. The money raised would go to the NHS."

Le Grand said the proposal was an example of "libertarian paternalism".

I find the use of the word "libertarian" in this context insulting to the intelligence. This is big-brother-knows-best British nannyism at its finest. Calling it libertarian is positively Orwellian.

Charlie Brooker of the Guardian has a sufficiently sarcastic response to the whole idea here, so I'll refrain from going further with that.

One thought to add, though: What about tourists? I mean, if the government were to implement this scheme we could say goodbye to all those puffing Japanese visitors, for example, and their money as well. People coming to Britain for a holiday couldn't be expected to go through the whole deliberately-difficult application process, of course. But it would be unlikely that they would enjoy their holidays if they were going through withdrawal. They'd probably go to France instead.

It wouldn't do to lose all that business to the Frenchies, so you can bet there would be different rules for tourists. There would have to be easy, temporary permits for them. It wouldn't be fair to subject visitors to the same sorts of indignities endured by the poor saps who live here.

They won't go through with the scheme, I don't think. Instead they'll use the default British method of curtailing every undesirable activity (such as driving, flying, polluting, smoking, drinking, eating unhealthy food, etc.) which is to slap more taxes and fees on it.

In Britain, only rich people can afford to misbehave.

Privacy, what's it good for?

A new international ranking of privacy protections. Britain is the "worst in Europe":

Britain, the country with the world's biggest network of surveillance cameras, has the worst record in Europe for the protection of privacy, according to a report from a London-based international watchdog. The UK is billed as "an endemic surveillance society" alongside Russia, the US, Singapore and China in the survey of 47 countries by Privacy International (PI).

No surprise there. On the other hand, not to crow about this too much:

Canada heads the international table, with Argentina, Iceland and Switzerland close behind.

This might help to explain why I care so strongly about the subject. I guess I just grew up in a place where the government and police mostly stayed out of our lives, and that seems 'normal' to me. Here, everything I do is recorded and likely analyzed, even though it's just boring everyday crud. Makes you feel like a suspect, it does. It's always in the back of my mind, and as a result I always make a subconscious effort to do little things like paying in cash, and leaving blank spaces in paperwork when I think it's none of their business. I just assume that any information I allow companies and the government to gather about me will be misused. All the same, they announced just last week that they'd lost some of my personal information.

[ I took the driving theory test between the dates in question ]

The policeman's balls

It takes some cojones and not a little hypocrisy for a man like this to go blazing around country roads in his Audi:

One of Britain's most senior policemen was yesterday banned from driving after pleading guilty to speeding at 90mph. Meredydd Hughes, the former chairman of roads policing at the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), was caught on a speed camera exceeding the 60mph limit on the A5 near Wrexham, north Wales, in May.

I mean, one doesn't want to enjoy this too much; even off-duty policemen get caught speeding. Speed cameras in Britain are supposed to be conspicuous, to deter speeders (as opposed to just catching people out and/or being obvious money spinners). Never mind for the moment that the camera that got me was hidden behind an overpass at the time (since moved in front of the overpass). However, this man wants hidden speed cameras. To make more money, err, to catch more people out, umm... "slow down traffic":

As Acpo's chairman of roads policing, Hughes argued in favour of “less conspicuous” speed cameras as a way of slowing down traffic.

In that case, up yours buddy. Enjoy the bus.

When your American friends are bullies

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

Presumably the US won't make much of a fuss then, if a foreign country abducts Americans from the States. For example, Americans who name their teddy bears Mohammad, could be kidnapped and taken back to Iran or Saudi Arabia for trial, yes?

No? This wouldn't be the umpteenth example of American exceptionalism, would it?

When people like Karen Hughes try to tackle the problem of America's negative image abroad, it's an uphill struggle. No wonder she's giving up. Because, spin it all you want -- it's the substance of America's behaviour in the world that stinks. A good starting point might be showing respect for other countries' sovereignty, just as America expects for its own.

Losing our information

Personal details of every child in UK lost by Revenue & Customs:

The personal details of virtually every child in the UK has been lost by HM Revenue and Customs, the chancellor, Alistair Darling, admitted today.

The missing information includes the names, addresses and dates-of-birth of the children and the national insurance numbers, and in some cases the bank details, of parents claiming child benefits.

This, quite simply, is one of the big practical reasons why the government shouldn't be relentlessly collecting information about us. If the government, or a company for that matter, creates databases with huge amounts of private and personally-identifiable information, then at some point that information will escape. Someone will lose a laptop, or backup tapes, or fail to erase a discarded hard disk properly, and voila! -- the bad guys have got it. Not to mention that hackers get into every system eventually, given sufficient motivation. When the politician says "but this system will be totally secure" he's either lying, or else foolishly believed the vendor who lied to him.

I refuse to give out personal information whenever possible; whether to the government or companies. The only way I can ever be sure that the British government won't leak my DNA profile to profiteers and villains, is to never give them a sample. So that's what I'll do. Can you imagine the implications of future identity theft, involving your DNA signature? When someone cloned my bank card, I got a new card. If someone steals your DNA, it's stolen for life.

I repeat, don't trust governments and companies with sensitive information. I bet the parents of "virtually every child in the UK" will come to wish they hadn't.

Which brings me to all the information, besides DNA samples, that the British government collects on us without our consent. They're keeping information about our movements, the physical location of our mobile phones, and all our phone calls, among other things. That information will leak too (though we may never know it leaked). It's only a matter of time.

Political correctness, hate speech ctd.

Here's a testimonial from the television show in question, "Undercover Mosque":

So what was the police's intervention about? Why did the police and the CPS feel entitled to act as television critics and, in effect, as potential censors of what we could watch? Clues to the motive, I think, lie in the slightly sinister phrase "community cohesion".

Once again, let's get the police out of the business of television censorship and hate speech and community cohesion. Let's get them out on the streets, getting to know people, and policing. I spend a fair bit of time in front of my house; smoking cigars, working on the motorcycles, etc. In the 4 years I've lived at my current address, I don't recall ever seeing a regular policeman walk down my street. I've seen volunteer policepeople a handful of times. I see police vehicles drive past occasionally, but not often. One van full of volunteer policepeople, passing by, stopped to hassle me at length about pushing a motorcycle down to the garage without wearing a helmet.

Can just I say how impressed I'd be if bobbies occasionally strolled down my street, perhaps once per week, said hello, and asked me what's going on?

I'm not against the police, not at all. We need them. I just think they need to readjust their priorities.

Political correctness, hate speech

The police here are being bashed for trying to prosecute some TV producers (and, when that failed, trying to get them "watchdogged"):

Channel 4 has been vindicated by the media watchdog Ofcom after police complained about an investigative programme that exposed extremism in British mosques.

West Midland's police had faced criticism for targeting the producers of the show rather than the controversial preachers depicted in it.

Police claimed that the Dispatches programme had misrepresented the views of Muslim preachers and clerics with misleading editing.

Following today's ruling, the Channel 4 called the police's actions "perverse" and said they had, in some people's eyes, given "legitimacy to people preaching a message of hate".

Can I ask: What are the police doing enforcing political correctness? Why did they feel they needed to get involved one way or another? See, this is what happens when you muddy the free-speech waters with "hate speech" laws. A television show airs undercover footage of nasty things being preached in mosques (read the article for more detail). You then end up with police trying to 'target' the producers for making the preachers look bad, and thereby for the offence of "stirring up racial hatred" against Muslims. So, not the nasty preachers, but the TV producers who tried to expose them. Is all that clear? Furthermore, what would happen if a Christian preacher was filmed giving a sermon filled with blatant hatemongering against Jews and homosexuals? You can bet the police would be going after the preacher.

How about this: The police should get out of the business of enforcing political correctness and perhaps spend a little more time solving actual property crimes, for example, like burglary and vehicle theft. My neighbour had his bicycle shop broken into, and merchandise stolen; the police didn't even show up. He had to go down to the station and fill out some paperwork, and that was the end of it, as far as he knows. There isn't even a presumption that the cops will bother with an actual investigation, and that's just sad.

Perhaps the police should forget about all their surveillance technology, and all this thoughtcrime nonsense, and get back to the old fashioned business of police work. You know, walk the beat. Know the people in the neighbourhood, and by extension, what's going on in the neighborhood. Show up when a crime is committed. That sort of thing.

British liberty ctd.

I'm a little late on this one because I've been travelling this week:

Information about all landline and mobile phone calls made in the UK must be logged and stored for a year under new laws. Data about calls made and received will also be available to 652 public bodies, including the police and councils. The Home Office said the content of calls and texts would not be read and insisted the move was vital to tackle serious crime and terrorism.

Note the fairly waffly statement that "calls and texts would not be read". It doesn't say "can not be read" because we know from common sense that they will be, when the government or police decide that this too has become 'vital'.

Note also the huge number of organizations who'll have access to the information; it will practically be public information. (i.e. what private investigator or hacker won't be able to access it for the right price?).

Note further, if you read the article, that our physical locations will now be officially tracked and recorded when we make calls or send texts.

On the basis of several technologies, including CCTV, automatic number plate recognition (recording all car journeys), Oyster cards (recording all public transit journeys), and this new phone logging, the government will now have a record of where we are and where we go at all times. Clever terrorists and criminals, of course, will evade these methods by doing things like, for example, using anonymous pay-as-you-go SIM cards in their mobile phones (available for a few pounds in the dodgier news agents) and changing them frequently. It will be the rest of us who are effectively tracked by these methods. Feel safer now?

What part of "police state" don't we understand?

Those little perks of democracy

Anyone who visits here once in a while will know that I write a lot of posts about British liberty and our surveillance society. I write about the many different ways our government tracks and spies on us. I also complain a lot about the nearly limitless powers that the British police ask for, and most often get. The nastiest tools at their disposal come from the various incarnations of the Terrorism Act (2000, 2001, 2005, 2006). Under these acts, for example, they've done away with the idea of "unreasonable search". Here's a little lesson on why that's a bad idea:

Armed police will use anti-terrorism powers to "deal robustly" with climate change protesters at Heathrow next week, as confrontations threaten to bring major delays to the already overstretched airport. The police have been told to use stop and search powers against the protesters...

So here is an example of the police having a hammer called the Terrorism Act, but since a protest at Heathrow is inconvenient during "its busiest week of the year", the protesters look like a nail. The police are threatening, in advance, to use the Terrorism Act to intimidate lawful protesters. These laws give the police the right to stop-and-search people without justification (i.e. reasonable suspicion that the person is a terrorist), among other powers.

The police aren't making any serious effort to argue that the protesters are terrorists -- just that they're an annoyance, and so the police are going to use the tools at their disposal.

The Guardian has established that at least two climate change campaigners have been arrested recently at Heathrow by officers using terrorism powers. Cristina Fraser, a student, was stopped when cycling near the airport with a friend and then charged under section 58 of the Terrorism Act. This makes it an offence to make a record of something that could be used in an act of terrorism.

"I was arrested and held in a police cell for 30 hours. I was terrified. No one knew where I was. They knew I was not a terrorist," she said.

Ms Fraser, a first-year London university anthropology student, has been on aviation demonstrations with the Plane Stupid campaign group, but claims she was carrying nothing at all. The police later recharged her with conspiring to cause a public nuisance.

Ah, "public nuisance", the catch-all charge for any person who irritates a policeman. Does "conspiring to cause a public nuisance" mean it's also illegal to seem like you're thinking of being irritating?

Weren't we told that these powers were meant for stopping terrorists? As opposed to climate protesters? We bought it. In retrospect it seems like a bad idea to have given the police unlimited power to arbitrarily stop-and-search people on the streets, but there's nothing we can do about it now.

But for the police it's never enough. They want equivalent stop-and-fingerprint, and stop-and-DNA-test, and the power to hold 'terrorism' suspects indefinitely without charge. We're assured they would never think of abusing these powers. So are we going to grant them? Are we going to buy it yet again, in the face of evidence to the contrary?

I bet we will. Furthermore I bet it won't be long before they're using these new powers to deal with minor nuisances (that means you and me). Put down that placard and behave yourself, if you know what's good for you.

Sir Ben Dover ctd.

Some commentary from the Telegraph about this issue:

The British police, I was bleakly surprised to read in The Daily Telegraph this week, have the biggest single DNA database in the world, with more than five per cent of the population logged, including nearly a million children under 17.

Is that big enough? The police, their response to a Home Office consultation about their powers now tells us, don't think so. If they get their way, next time you're arrested on suspicion of failing to scoop your dog's poop, they will be entitled to keep a permanent record of your DNA. Does that strike you as a bad thing? It does me.

I should make clear here what I think the police request is about. I do not imagine a cabal of senior police consciously fantasising about a surveillance state in which Plod Is The Master Now. Nor do I imagine that a similarly totalitarian instinct exists among those in government.

Agreed. I don't think it's a conspiracy. The police just want to do their job better. And it's our job (and thus, the job of government) to decide where the line is. When the police reach too far, it's our job to say no. The problem is that in Britain, we don't say no very often.

Sir Ben Dover

But of course, officer! The latest:

"Police are seeking powers to take DNA samples from suspects on the streets and for non-imprisonable offences such as speeding and dropping litter."

Well of course they are. Tony Blair had previously stated his belief that every person in the UK should be in the DNA database (and I've no reason to think that Gordon Brown feels any differently). Since there might be too many legitimate and vociferous arguments against making it mandatory, the 'stealth' way to accomplish the same goal would be exactly, well, this. (They've already been slapped for gathering samples from innocent schoolchildren). How many adults have never been stopped whilst driving, or for jaywalking, or littering, or some other minor, 'ticketable' offence? Raise your hands... Anyone? I thought not.

But notice the phrasing "...suspects on the streets and for non-imprisonable offences..." [emphasis added]. In other words, all you'd really have to do is look suspicious. Just like stop-and-search.

Ultimately the job of the police can be done most easily and efficiently when they have the means of knowing a) each person's identity; and b) where they've been at all times. In the past few years I've been in Britain, they've made great strides toward these goals. They track us when we drive (ANPR), when we ride on public transport (Oyster), and potentially everywhere we go with our mobile phones. Our passports have chips for our biometric data (pictures and fingerprints). They want us to carry mandatory ID cards, also with biometric data. They film us with CCTV from every street corner. Under the "terrorism act" they can stop us and search us on the street, and will soon be given 'wartime' powers to interrogate us on the street as well. If they don't like the answers, they can imprison us for 28 (maybe 50, maybe 90) days without charge. The goal is to be able to know who we are, and where we've been, at any given time. So why not cut to the chase, as they say?

Why not fit each person with an ankle bracelet that continuously broadcasts their identity and location to a police computer? Perhaps you think that's too easily tampered with or spoofed? Take the technology a little farther then, and implant us with RFID chips. That would basically solve the crime problem, no? You'd be right in thinking that the real criminals and terrorists would find ways to beat the system -- but then, they'll always do that. This is about the rest of us. Will you speed if you *know* that a police computer is definitely going to detect it, and send you a ticket?

So why don't we just do that, then? I think the answer lies in what people sometimes call the "yuck factor". Why aren't the police asking for stop-and-cavity-search powers? Yuck factor. Monitoring each one of us all day, every day? It just seems wrong somehow, doesn't it? These are our remaining instincts of privacy and free will, trying to be heard over the increasing din of our fears. Fears of muggers and terrorists who lurk, we are assured by policemen and politicians, around every corner. But tracking all of us, all the time, without fail? That still seems like overkill.

However, we will get used to the idea, over time, that we have no longer have privacy anyway. Some future government study will say, in essence: Look, we're already tracking and monitoring everybody anyway, through all these various means; Let's save the taxpayers a lot of money by just implanting this little chip, which can be used as a debit card, and an ID, and a passport, and which will also be able to do useful things like storing your grocery store loyalty card info, etc. etc.

And someday we'll just finally give in, lured by the promises of a more convenient life and resigned to the fact that the government is going to pass the law anyway. Or perhaps they'll start with an optional version, and gradually subtract from the list of things you can do without having one. Of course, they'll probably charge us a fee to get the chip (they're just that cheeky), but we'll pay without grumbling too much.

Am I being paranoid again? Many of the things I mentioned earlier -- things that have been pushed upon, and accepted by, the people of Britain -- would have seemed pretty far-fetched 15 or 20 years ago. "We'd never stand for that!" And yet, we've come to accept them nonetheless. Have these measures made us any safer? The statistics (not to mention all the warnings from politicians and policemen about criminals and terrorists) would indicate not. But the schemes keep coming. The slippery slope is getting steeper and slipperier every day, but like the frog in slowly-heated water, the British public don't seem to notice what's been happening to them. Or that it's starting to happen faster and faster.

A pledge: I will not voluntarily give a DNA sample to any policeman. They will have to hold me down. I'll go to jail if I have to, but in the grand scheme of things, it would probably be smarter to save myself the trouble by moving away preemptively, to a still-free country. Preferably one with a bill of rights, and maybe a constitution.

When we get carried away

Schoolboy guilty of terrorism offences:

A schoolboy who ran away from home to become a Muslim martyr and three students who recruited him are facing jail after a jury found them guilty of terrorism offences.

Mohammed Irfan Raja was supposed to be on his way to school in Essex when he ran away to join a group of radicalised students in Bradford.

During raids on their homes officers found material on their computers which included al-Qa'eda manuals, speeches by Osama bin Laden and justifications for suicide bombings.

The defendants, who had spent much of the trial laughing and giggling together, looked shocked as the verdicts were announced.

So now we're going to start putting away rebellious kids, under the terrorism act. A 17 year old is going to go to jail for adopting 'jihadi' rhetoric and running away from home. And for downloading stuff from the Internet, and "glorifying terrorism". Look at this goofy teenager. He looks about as sharp as a box of rocks. That could easily have been me at 17. Luckily for me, I didn't choose to rebel in the same way as him. I stuck to music my parents didn't like, and staying out past curfew. I exploded all my little 'bombs' harmlessly, in empty fields.

We're scared as hell and we're not going to take it anymore, I guess. We should probably start jailing little hoodlums for repeating gangsta rap stanzas about guns and 'hos', too. And now that I think about it, those kids in hoodies -- stick them in jail too. They look very suspicious if you ask me.

I read the news today, oh boy

Someone tossed a "newspaper" into my garden today. The Sun. The two "headlines" I saw on the blowing pages littered around my home were:

FLY FLAG ON EVERY BUILDING

and

EXECUTE THE TERROR FIENDS

I mean, I guess I always knew the Sun was a lowbrow, xenophobic, fascist tabloid rag, crossed with a skin mag and a TV guide, but I've never had to actually look at it before. And it's one of the highest-circulation papers in the UK, as I understand it. This is what the "working class" people read every day? Lordy.

I can't even get excited

Maybe it's because I'm tired tonight. Maybe it's because I'm surprised they weren't doing it already. Here it is:

Police are to be given live access to London's congestion charge cameras - allowing them to track all vehicles entering and leaving the zone. Anti-terror officers will be exempted from parts of the Data Protection Act to allow them to see the date, time and location of vehicles in real time. They previously had to apply for access on a case-by-case basis.

Or maybe it's because, finally, I've given up on the concept of privacy in Britain. I'm sure I'll continue to highlight it here, but I may have reached the point of resignation. That's a tough pill to swallow for a North American, with our disinclination to automatically trust "authorities". I drive through the congestion zone every day. This affects me. Being tracked in real time by the police -- when I'm not a suspect in any crime -- strikes me as so fundamentally wrong as to be on the level of a human rights violation. But that's Britain today. I guess you like it or you leave.

But they will only be able to use the data for national security purposes and not to fight ordinary crime, the Home Office stressed.

Yes, I trust them on that score, because it's so believable. Obvious prediction: In a year or two, the system will be hailed as a great success in stopping terrorism, and the government will be pushing a 'scheme' to have the cameras used fight "ordinary crime". Probably, some heinous crime will be paraded about as an example of something that wouldn't have happened if the police had had more access. Then the public will nod, and it will be done.

Meanwhile, the sensible people of New York City are in the process of rejecting congestion charge cameras.

And throw away the key

I was going to write an entry about this:

One of Britain's most senior police officers has demanded a return to a form of internment, with the power to lock up terror suspects indefinitely without charge.

But my friend over at Jen's Den of Iniquity has done an admirable job of beating me to it.

Ho hum, another day, another odious assault on democracy and freedom. This is becoming a way of life in Britain. I don't have too much more to add, except to point out that under the UK's Terrorism Act 2006, even "condoning or glorifying terrorism" is an offence. For that, they'd like to be able to lock people up indefinitely without charge.

Not only is there no guarantee of free speech in this country (indeed, various types of speech are illegal), but apparently there won't be the guarantee of a trial either.

Paranoia, paranoia, la la la.

And there you have it

Ask a stupid question...

The politicians now have to DO SOMETHING! What clever thing will they (our intrepid leaders, not the terrorists) think of next? A crackdown on nails and gas canisters? On parking? On Mercedes sedans? (along with a new tax security charge, undoubtedly?)

...and here's the stupid answer:

Background security checks on foreign doctors and other health workers migrating to Britain are to be stepped up after the weekend bomb scares in London and Glasgow.

(throws hands in air, slumps in chair).

Al Qaeda sure makes crappy bombs

Apparently my skepticism of last week's attempted car bombings has some justification. The Reg has a pair of smackdowns (they're good for that sort of thing):

Beavis and Butthead in London jihad. Good quote:

Today we have news from London, where a "big [explosive] device" was discovered inside a parked car near Piccadilly Circus. The device consisted of petrol, propane gas cylinders, and nails. The car containing it had been abandoned after its driver was observed piloting it erratically, crashing it, then running off, like a true professional.

And another:

"It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been serious injury or loss of life", Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke intoned gravely.

Ah, if it had detonated. Yes, it could have been a real horror. Only, the device could not have detonated. Not under any circumstances. You see, the terrorist wannabe clown who built it left out a crucial element: an oxidiser. The device was pure pre-teen boy fantasy.

"We'll heat up these propane cylinders with burning petrol, and they'll go off like bombs", boys the world over have remarked with glee. They don't realise that air is a poor oxidiser, and the only "explosion" they will get is when gas pressure inside the cylinders is great enough to burst them. Then the propane will ignite, and a nice fireball will blossom. A fireball, not an explosion.

Here's the other razzie (from a former bomb squaddie no less): 'al-Qaeda' puts on big shoes, red nose, takes custard pie. Good quote:

If these guys at the weekend really were anything to do with al-Qaeda, all one can really say is that it looks as though the War on Terror is won. This whole hoo-ha kicked off, remember, with 9/11: an extremely effective attack. Then we had the Bali and Madrid bombings, not by any measure as shocking and bloody but still nasty stuff. Then we had London 7/7, a further significant drop in bodycount but still competently planned and executed (Not too many groups would have been able to mix up that much peroxide-based explosive first try without an own goal).

Now we have this; one terror-clown badly burnt and nobody else hurt at all.

So if these guys are obviously amateur 'terror-clowns', why are the police and politicians trying to spook us again with talk of Al Qaeda and international terrorism?

Another bogus terror plot? This is getting ridiculous -- add it to the long, long list. Ask yourself: Do the British police and government have any credibility left, at all?

Close the barn door (them horses done ran away)

Seems we in Britain are on high terror alert after this week's failed car-bombing attempts.

Can I just say, how much more impressed I'd be if they'd alerted us before the events?

Are we on alert because the government knows there are more attacks coming? Can I be excused for being skeptical about that? With all their eavesdropping and surveillance, why didn't they warn us in advance? These attempted bombers were clearly amateurs. Of course we're being told it's the work of the usual bogeymen (Al Qaida) but colour me unconvinced; Al Qaida's bombs don't usually fail to explode, do they? And another thing: terrorists don't usually attack us when we're expecting it -- for example on obvious symbolic anniversaries, or holidays, or when we're on high terror alert. They usually wait until we're not expecting it. When we're nice and relaxed. They're clever that way. So what's the point, really?

Now, this isn't just macho talk. I am afraid of terror attacks. But not for the obvious reason. They worry me because of high terror alerts, hair-trigger police, and itchy politicians. The most dangerous thing to be in Britain right now is the proverbial innocent bystander. Terror attacks worry me because I wonder about how the government is going to punish the rest of us.

The politicians now have to DO SOMETHING! What clever thing will they (our intrepid leaders, not the terrorists) think of next? A crackdown on nails and gas canisters? On parking? On Mercedes sedans? (along with a new tax security charge, undoubtedly?)

I'm not being totally facetious. We're still carrying our lipstick and toothpaste in clear plastic bags when we board airplanes, aren't we? Because of a bogus plot.

You can't beat terrorism with oppressive laws and security restrictions (not to mention with fighter jets, M16s, or daisy-cutter bombs). Terrorism isn't a group of people, or a religion, or even an ideology; it's a tactic. The object is to make us afraid, and to make us change our behaviour. So is it working? Every time we react badly, we show our enemies that it is.

Wave of rumination

British Press Fears Wave Of Terrorism!

Alternative view:

British Press Looks Forward To Lots Of Big Headlines About Fears Of Terrorism!

If you've spent much time with the British press, you'll know how often we are regaled with headlines about FEARS and STORMS (controversies) and PANICS and those sorts of things. Sells lots of newspapers I guess. Last year the newspapers were all in a tizzy about an alleged wave of youth knife violence, for a couple of weeks. Every mugging became front page news. Then it was quickly forgotten in the wake of some celebrity news or something -- but not before the politicians could respond with some draconian new knife laws (they had to DO SOMETHING!).

Cynical? Moi?

Pesky terrorists Pt. 5

So most people are probably aware that 2 supposed car bombs were found and disabled today here in London. Good for the police. Something keeps bothering me about this though; the reports persist in referring to the bombs as "potentially viable". That suggests to me that the bombs were not viable. As in, a stunt, or carried off by amateurs. Given the UK's history of hyped-up, bogus terrorism busts (think: big airline terror story from last summer), surely we've learned our lesson by now. This couldn't be yet another example, could it? I don't have any inside information. I'm just saying.

Meanwhile, I went out to lunch today with about a dozen workmates. I don't recall last night's attempted bombing coming up in conversation.

It would seem that we "ain't bothered".

How long till the election?

There's a good piece by Boris Johnson here on the 'Torygraph' (my employer when I first arrived in London) with some sentiments that I want to echo.

First, with regard to the departure of Tony Blair:

Sky News may be treating it like the funeral of Queen Victoria, but I am really feeling quite chipper about the political extinction of Tony Blair. Yes, I was going to say, there are some of us who are bearing up pretty well, on the whole, and there are some of us who can't think of a better fate for Tony than to be carted off to the Middle East.

And on the arrival of Gordon Brown:

Suddenly my mood changed; suddenly I felt a sense of desolation and morosity that we had lost Tony Blair, and I can tell you the exact moment when I caught the bug and joined the national mourning. It was the moment Gordon Brown opened his mouth, and, with every word he uttered, the mercury of my mood started to sink and the clouds rolled in.

Yep. Pretty much the same for me. Perhaps the new Prime Minister will be excellent, but as of speech #1, I already can't stand watching him speak. Perhaps he was just really nervous and emotional. Or else, he's the most wooden, unlikeable politician I've ever seen, and as charming as a bag of poo.

I can already see that I'm going to miss that lovable rogue who walked out on us yesterday. Maybe we can all just forgive him for the Iraq thing, and he'll come back?

Score +1 for Brown, already?

He hasn't yet officially become Prime Minister, but sounds like he's already planning to give us back a bit of the democracy we've recently lost:

Gordon Brown is to hold out an olive branch to opponents of the Iraq war by reinstating the right to demonstrate and march outside the Houses of Parliament, it has been claimed.

Restrictive legislation introduced by Tony Blair will allegedly be reversed by the Chancellor soon after he enters Number 10 next week.

Colour me impressed: The right to peaceful protest might be back! This is certainly a step in the right direction. Keep it up, you cranky, unlikeable fellow, and you just might win my admiration. And win back my vote.

Noisy as ducks

Great quote found here today, on Londoners:

noisy as ducks, eternally drunk. - Verlaine

British liberty Pt. V

We will no longer have the right to remain silent:

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to push through a new anti-terrorism law before he steps down next month giving "wartime" powers to police to stop and question people, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The "stop and question" power would enable police to interrogate people about who they are, where they have been and where they were going, The Sunday Times said. Police would not need to suspect a crime had taken place.

If suspects failed to stop or refused to answer questions, they could be charged with a crime and fined, The Sunday Times said. Police already have the power to stop and search people but have no right to ask them their identity and movements.

Wow. Wartime powers? Did I fail to notice we're at war? Or is it just the permanent, global-war-on-terror, Orwellian kind of war?

So now this, in a supposed liberal democracy. Has it ever been more obvious that a government needs a constitution to keep it in check? Isn't it bad enough that they can stop you on the street without cause and search your pockets? Isn't it bad enough that they'll soon have portable fingerprint scanners to identify us? And how about shouting (and otherwise) CCTV cameras to watch us and give us orders, and biometric ID cards, and a huge national DNA database, and computerized tracking of vehicles and public transport passengers?

And now a policeman will be able to spot-interrogate you, and if you don't give him the answers he (presumably) expects to hear, you can be prosecuted -- and don't forget you'll be giving a DNA sample down at the station, too.

Does anyone think that a terrorist, on his way to a terrorist meeting or whatever, is going to confess because he's afraid of a fine? Of course not. This law is aimed at the rest of us.

Okay, so maybe we can vote. Aside from that, has a human population the size of this country ever been so watched and controlled? I guess we just have to hope we never elect anyone with a hidden totalitarian streak.

Pardon me, are you going to throw that?

Back when I regularly used public transport here in the UK, sometimes I felt like rioting too:

A riot by commuters enraged over delays, who destroyed part of the busiest train station in Buenos Aires, has drawn attention to the profound crisis afflicting Argentina's privatised railways, which have severe shortcomings despite the huge subsidies they receive from the state.

The private UK rail companies run a shoddy system with even shoddier employees, suffer constant delays, tell you obvious lies, and do it glibly, and typically won't give you your money back even when you can't get to the destination you've paid for. And you've really paid for it, too.

On one occasion, I bought a Tube ticket, and started down the escalator just as they announced they were closing the station ('evacuating', because that's more dramatic) for an undisclosed reason. The ticket manager, faced with a small mob of people politely but insistently demanding refunds, simply closed the window and literally went to hide in the office. The British are generally just too reserved for spontaneous rioting, but that felt like a good time for it.

"This was a calamity waiting to happen; we are fed up with the constant delays, the cancellation of services, the mistreatment and disregard of passengers"

Sounds familiar. Hey, the occasional riot really gets things done. It motivates politicians.

Iron chancellor awaits coronation

Our chancellor, future prime minister of Britain (with a newly-discovered, wild-eyed smile now permanently plastered to his "dour Scots visage"), today says:

"Today there are new priorities and I offer a new leadership for this new time," he said. Mr Brown insisted he would welcome a challenge from "any other candidate who wants to stand", and said he would "fight hard" for every single nomination and expression of support.

Translation: Would somebody please run against me for the Labour party leadership (and, obviously, lose) so I can look as if I earned this? And no, he won't call an early election so we, the British people, can have our say. He's got a couple of years to enjoy the power he's longed for and expected, during his long nightmare of Blairite rule.

Based on nothing at all -- at least nothing substantial -- I'll just say I don't like or trust this guy. But, I guess time will tell. Perhaps he's brilliant.

I'm glad to see the back of Blair, with the stain of Bush and Iraq all over him. The shame of it, for me, is that I otherwise like Tony, but can't forgive him for Iraq. So now we'll get this guy Brown. Be careful what you wish for?

Think of the little ones

Concern for the defenseless little ones in peoples' homes when the smoking ban goes into effect this summer. Smoke Ban Is A Threat To Pets:

Millions of pets are at risk from the smoking ban being made law in England in less than two month's time, an insurance firm has warned.

Unable to light up in pubs and restaurants from July 1, more smokers will puff more cigarettes at home, says More Than.

And that means putting pets at more risk of secondhand smoke, it claims.

Yes, it does. More pets are going to be at risk! We need a new animal charity to lobby for pets' right to a smoke-free environment. Something about this is niggling at me though. What could it be...? Oh, there it is on the last line of the article:

There are also fears that children could suffer if people stay at home to smoke and drink, instead of going to pubs.

Right, I forgot about those little guys.

[ Trivia: Did you know that in the UK, people give more money to animal charities than to children's charities? ]

Actual pesky terrorists!

I've written lots of posts about all the bogus terrorism busts here in the UK, which usually result in nothing more than sensational headlines. It seems that after the headline hoopla and speeches, most times people forget to notice when no actual trials result.

More usually, the only result is some new law, loss of privacy, or regulation. Remember the big airline plot from last summer? No convictions, but you still have to board the airplane with your toothpaste in a clear plastic bag.

Anyway, today it seems they actually convicted some pesky terrorists. Strangely though, I don't even remember any sensational headlines about this one:

Five men have been jailed for life for a UK bomb plot linked to al-Qaeda that could have killed hundreds of people.

Well blow me down. We're really are overrun with terrorists, and the police finally caught some.

The national hankie

There's an article by Christopher Hitchens on Slate about last week's shootings at Virginia Tech in America. It's a little hardhearted, but I agree with the general point. The point is to question the need everyone seems to feel to "whip out the national hankie" (in America and elsewhere) when strangers die tragically:

The grisly events at Virginia Tech involved no struggle, no sacrifice, no great principle. They were random and pointless. Those who died were not soldiers in any cause. They were not murdered by our enemies. They were not martyrs.

And getting to the point:

It was my friend Adolph Reed who first pointed out this tendency to what he called "vicarious identification." At the time of the murder of Lisa Steinberg in New York in 1987, he was struck by the tendency of crowds to show up for funerals of people they didn't know, often throwing teddy bears over the railings and in other ways showing that (as well as needing to get a life) they in some bizarre way seemed to need to get a death. The hysteria that followed a traffic accident in Paris involving a disco princess—surely the most hyped non-event of all time—seemed to suggest an even wider surrender to the overwhelming need to emote: The less at stake, the greater the grieving.

Back in 1997 I marvelled at the over-the-top grieving for Diana (even while -- I sheepishly admit -- I stayed up late to watch the funeral back in Canada). I wondered for the first time why people seemed to need these triggers; these moments of spontaneous national emotion. Watching the film The Queen recently, I wondered if poor old Elizabeth II didn't get a raw deal, at the time, being pilloried for attempting to demonstrate the famous British stiff upper lip.

Why do we find events like Diana's accident, or the Virgina tech massacre, so much more emotional than other, equally tragic deaths? How many people are murdered each day in America? How many soldiers and civilians die in Iraq each week? (U.S. soldiers dying in by ones-and-twos in Iraq and Afghanistan barely makes the U.S. headlines any more). How many people die in road accidents each day? Do we stop paying attention when the deaths stop being sensational? Since these less famous deaths are no less tragic or senseless, why are they so much less important to the public? Or, more to the point of Chris Hitchens, why are the Virginia Tech murders so much more important?

Is it simply because they're sensational and unusual? I really don't want to be insensitive, but maybe we should ask ourselves: Is it that, deep down, we all love a good tragedy now and then?

Tony Blair to resume acting career

Seems our Prime Minister has some plans for his retirement from politics. He's getting back to his acting career:

Tony Blair has agreed to resurrect his interest in acting when he leaves Number 10 after he was approached about a major stage role by his close friend, the artistic director of the Old Vic, Kevin Spacey, The Observer can reveal.

Good for Tony. I really enjoyed the Comic Relief sketch, he did really well. If only we could keep him harmlessly entertaining us, instead of starting wars. However perhaps he should wait until he's actually out of office:

One senior cabinet minister, who did not wish to be named, said: 'An ambassador arrived at Number 10 the other day to find Tony dressed like a Puritan, waving a crucifix in the air and shouting about chasing out the devil. Fortunately the ambassador had studied The Crucible at UCL.'

Good scoop by Pahli Tarikh and Primera Delmes.

Surveillance society

The British government is at it again. Now they'll be using our mobile phones to listen to our conversations, even when they're sitting in our pockets, apparently inactive:

The home office is seeking to include a potentially controversial new provision in an upcoming extension of the UK Terrorism Act. A section of the draft tabled in the House of Commons last week, expected to see first reading on Tuesday, will include the stipulation that all mobile phones sold in the UK will enable authorities to remotely activate the handset microphone for law enforcement purposes.

Effectively, all mobile customers will be carrying 'bugs' that can be used to eavesdrop on their daily activities and interactions.

The feature, "Passive Listening Mode" is apparently already available, but inactive, in a number of brands of phone and will shortly become mandatory.

Deputy UK privacy commissioner Rila P. Loofs said Saturday "The commissioner is very concerned about this provision. It leaves the door open to serious abuse of citizens' privacy rights and will rightly be seen as yet another step forward toward the surveillance society. How will we be sure our phones aren't helping somebody to eavesdrop on our private conversations?".

Because terrorists apparently aren't smart enough to take out the batteries when they're hatching their evil plots.

Surveillance society

From the article:

We are already a "surveillance society". We are, for the time being, fortunate that the full potential for its abuse is constrained by the pluralist democracy in which we live. However, we do not have to look back very far in history to imagine the use to which such snooping could be put.

Surveillance

When I go on and on (and on) about surveillance, tracking, and other forms of privacy invasion here in Britain, it seems as if -- to many people, especially the British -- I come across as paranoid. People point out all the benefits of the technology, and virtually suggest that I give up my tinfoil hat.

I guess sometimes I don't do a good job of explaining my philosophical problem with all this 'benign' surveillance. Maybe I don't do myself any favours when I phrase my argument too stridently, too emotionally, by calling it the "infrastructure of tyranny". (I do believe that's the case, but I should be a little bit more conscious of using the "soft sell" when I care passionately about a topic).

So, here's a short article about the creep of surveillance technology. One quote:

Professor Jeffrey Rosen wrote an article in The New York Times in 2001 showing that surveillance cameras in London, which were put up to combat the threat of terrorism from the Irish Republican Army, are actually used to intimidate vagrants and punks -- and, predictably, to ogle women.

It's not the ogling or harassment of today that worries me so much: It's the mission creep. It's what might come next. I worry about the future. Every time we voluntarily give up some little piece of our privacy or freedom to secure some benefit, we lose it forever. We lose it to leaders of the future whom we haven't yet met, who will use it to further agendas that we can't yet know. Should we be so trusting?

Pesky terrorist ringleader not a terrorist

As I mentioned in a previous post, the big sensational British Summer terrorism bust (the one about blowing up 10 airliners, and "mass murder on an unimaginable scale") is quietly disappearing. Suspects are being released, bailed, or charged with lesser offenses.

The latest news is that the supposed ringleader has just turned out not to be a terrorist after all:

The arrest of Rashid Rauf in Pakistan triggered arrests in the UK of a number of suspects allegedly plotting to blow up transatlantic flights.

The Pakistani authorities described him as a key figure.

But an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi found no evidence that he had been involved in terrorist activities or that he belonged to a terrorist organisation.

I have previously posted doubts about the whole thing here, here, here, and here.

I don't think the public will notice. Innocent people don't generally make for good headlines. The police and politicians certainly won't be anxious to remind us about the whole affair. All that will remain in the public memory will be some vague, false notion that Tony Blair saved us from terrorists this Summer. All of the UK's big terrorism busts have turned out to be bogus in the end, but the public don't seem to have noticed. We therefore remain as fearful, gullible, and manipulable as ever, and Tony Blair gets to look "tough on terrorists".

Do you spot a pattern? Will you believe them the next time?

I can't believe what you're saying

Excerpt from the article:

The UK's senior counter terrorism police officer has questioned the value of stop-and-search powers.

Andy Hayman, the Metropolitan Police's assistant commissioner responsible for anti-terror probes, said few arrests or charges arose from such searches.

"It is very unlikely that a terrorist is going to be carrying bomb-making equipment around... in the street," he told a London police authority hearing.

It was "a big price to pay" given some people feel unfairly targeted, he said.

It's a shame to be so shocked by this rare dose of common sense and respect for liberty and privacy. If only this was the beginning of a trend. If only something like this was likely to actually change the slippery slope we're currently descending. I have a feeling that in the UK, we (OK, they -- I have no intention of sticking around to find out) are going to be saying a lot of if onlys 10+ years from now.

Still, credit to the guy. And a policeman no less.

Deferred success

Last year educators in the UK proposed the idea that no child should be allowed to think they'd failed something, but were instead experiencing "deferred success".

Luckily, common sense prevailed over the educators' amateur child psychology, and the "deferred success" initiative [ insert obvious joke here ] failed:

Ian Pringle, from Canvey Island, Essex, said: "We'll be ridiculed. Please do not vote for this motion."

So was Tony was having a little fun at George's expense here, by not stopping him from saying this about Iraq?:

With chief war ally Tony Blair of Britain by his side, Bush declared he's "disappointed by the pace of success"

What happened to these pesky terrorists?

Let's not forget about that big terrorist airline plot that British authorities busted up this summer, as it seems to have largely dropped out of the news (just as the bogus "ricin plot" did). I posted doubts about it here, here, here, and here. Considering that the plot promised "mass murder on an unimaginable scale", I find it odd that some of these guys have been quietly bailed or even released outright. I suspect that when politicians want to scare us with terrorist bogeymen who may or may not be legitimately dangerous, they rely on the fact that the public has a really short memory for news stories -- just in case they turn out to be "semi-harmless losers". If these airline plotters had been the proverbial real deal, I expect that Tony Blair and John Reid would still be crowing about it, and that we would now be seeing sensational terrorism trials.

In fact, I know someone who claims to have been acquainted with one of the arrestees; my friend told me that, far from being an Islamist fanatic, the alleged plotter was a petty drug dealer. I suspect (though I have no further inside information) that in the end, he'll be prosecuted for nothing more than whatever drugs charges they can make stick. [ See also the story of the completely innocent alleged terrorist who was shot in his home by 250 armed policemen, and not properly apologized to, but rather head-spinningly charged for the dodgy porn they subsequently found on his computer. ]

British liberty Pt. IV

The march of "big brother" continues relentlessly here in Britain. Seems like there's a new scheme every week. Last week there was talk of a mandatory nationwide DNA database. Here's the latest: police will be able to fingerprint people on the spot in order to determine identity. The Beeb article is here. First quote:

"Screening on the street means they [police] can check an identity and verify it." Currently an officer has to arrest a person and take them to a custody suite to fingerprint them.

Heaven forbid the police would actually have to show cause to arrest someone before the fingerprints and mugshots stage. But you see, in Britain, all of these schemes are presented as innocent tradeoffs: CCTV cameras are only there to protect you from crime, for example. And in every case I've seen, the British are willing to make the tradeoff. Yes, they're always willing to trade privacy and freedom for some short-term benefit, and they always trust the government and police not to abuse the new powers they award themselves month after month. In this case, the tradeoff is sold as "convenience" along with a veiled "so we don't have to make your life miserable" threat:

Inspector Steve Rawlings, based in Luton, said it takes two sets of fingerprints and the fingerprints are not retained. "The encounter can be 15 minutes on the roadside rather than three hours in the police station," he said.

I've been ticketed at the roadside and required to show proof of insurance, etc., at the police station. It took about 10 minutes, rather than 3 hours. Note that the police and politicians promise that the fingerprints won't be retained, but how will they build their database in the first place? In order to be useful, they need to have my fingerprints on file -- which they currently don't. I don't intend to provide them unless I'm forced to. This last quote contains the spot-on prediction that I'm sure describes the future of this scheme:

Mark Wallace, who represents the civil liberties group, the Freedom Association told BBC Radio Five Live that he had "concerns" about the scheme. "I don't think we should be reassured by the fact that at the moment it's voluntary and at the moment they won't be recorded," he said. "Both of those things are actually only happening in the trial because the laws haven't been passed to do this on a national basis compulsorily and with recording."

The trial is being conducted in Hertfordshire, where I work. In modern-day Britain's surveillance state, we can be fairly certain that before long it won't be voluntary (what real use would it be if it remained voluntary?), that the fingerprints will be retained, and that the whole thing will probably be justified as protecting us from terrorists.

Add it to the list: pervasive CCTV surveillance, automatic number-plate recognition used to track all car journeys, 'Oyster' cards tracking journeys on public transport, DNA databases, arbitary police stop-and-search powers, anti-social behaviour orders, mandatory ID cards, biometric RFID passports, legally-enforced political correctness, and on and on. What fun.

More on these subjects here, here, and here.

Pesky terrorists Pt. 4

I've been writing and linking to things expressing my doubts (here, here, and here) about the big alleged air-terrorism plot that emerged this week in London. Today Andrew Sullivan links to an item by Craig Murray, who was the British ambassador to Uzbekistan (and helped expose some nasty goings-on there). A couple of little excerpts:

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

...In all of this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the timing is deeply political. This is more propaganda than plot.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Pesky terrorists Pt. 3

More doubt.

In contrast to previous reports, one senior British official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.

I can tell you from recent experience, that if you're:

• British
• Planning on boarding a plane next week to blow it up; and
• You haven't got your passport yet

Then I'm afraid your friends are going to have to go to martyr's paradise without you. Maybe they'll save you some virgins, but tell them not to expect you for a month or so.

Pesky terrorists Pt. 2

A couple of entries ago I decided to just "throw it out there" that I had unformed and unsubstantiated doubts about the big counter-terrorism bust yesterday here in London (the one that involved blowing up a bunch of planes). Today on The Register, they're suggesting that some other folks at the US Department of Homeland Security might possibly have some doubts, too. Here's a couple of choice paragraphs, with some very handy links to articles about the previous big British counter-terror operations of the last few years (all of which have turned out to be fairly or entirely bogus):

In favor of option one, we have a recent history of British eagerness to announce breakthroughs in the struggle against the forces of darkness, with nothing to show for it. We have Jean Charles de Menezes shot to bits at point-blank range for behaving oddly just after the 7/7 atrocity. We have the imaginary ricin plot. We have the imaginary chemical bomb plot. And we have the imaginary red-mercury suitcase nuke plot.

There's been a lot of crying wolf in London, so it should surprise no one to find that the Americans have heard enough of it. (Although, to be fair, Washington has trumpeted its share of counterterrorist breakthroughs involving semi-harmless losers, but that's no reason for them to buy into anyone else's.)

Pesky terrorists

...disrupting everyones' Summer holiday plans. Today British police arrested a load of people, claiming they've foiled a massive terrorist plot to explode airliners headed for the USA:

A plot to blow up planes in flight from the UK to the US and commit "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" has been disrupted, Scotland Yard has said. It is thought the plan was to detonate explosive devices smuggled in hand luggage on to as many as 10 aircraft.

At the moment, details are sparse. So, we all have to take this news at face value, I guess.

However, given the record of the British police and the politicians that motivate them, let just say that I have a small doubt in my mind. Remember the big 'ricin' terrorist plot involving, as it turned out, the dangerous posession of apple cores? (yes, I mean the fruit).

I don't know why I doubt it, I have no specific hunches, and maybe they really did foil a big plot. But still...

Police innovation

The latest suspicious behavior targeted by British police:

Iraqi man 'filmed terror targets'. An Iraqi man filmed video footage of potential targets for a terrorist attack on London, a court was told. Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye were among the sights on tapes made by Rauf Mohammed, Woolwich Crown Court heard on Tuesday. The recordings could be of use to someone "angered" by the West's action in his homeland, prosecutors said.

The stupidity and laughability of this should be self-evident. I have nothing further to add, except to say that I too am angered by the West's actions in Iraq, and I too have photographed London tourist attractions. However, I am not an Arab.

If you have any questions, go to the back of the class.

Serious water crimes division

It's a good thing Britain doesn't have any actual problems. Now games with water guns are a real serious concern for the British police:

British police have condemned a role-playing game where contestants travel all over London armed with water pistols looking to "assassinate" other players, saying it could spark terrorism alerts.

Jeebus people, let's get some common sense and sense of proportion, already. At least the police will probably have more success catching and punishing these baddies (I mean, as opposed to actual terrorists) since they'll tend to be conspicuously carrying large, luminous, orange-and-yellow Super Soakers.

Sorry, I just came back from a relaxing holiday, and I'm finding this place a little hard to take today. Spend a few days away from Brits, and when you return the first things that hit you are the loudness, the coarseness, and the pointless undirected aggression. Then put yourself and the aforementioned unpleasant, grouchy gits in a small, overcrowded country, with miserable weather, and stir...

Spinning the cock-ups better

One way to try and avoid recriminations when you screw something up is: Declare repeatedly that you did the right thing, and lecture everyone that you just need to help them understand you better. This is called spinning (see George Bush and Tony Blair on Iraq). Today, the politicians and police declare that they did everything correctly, and will continue to do things the same way, but that they need better P.R. in the future

The arrests in Forest Gate came after a tip from a credible source, the Metropolitan Police Authority was told.

Maybe not so credible? Since the source was apparently wrong and the police raided, shot, and inappropriately detained an innocent man?

Sir Ian defended the decision to raid the property but said police "did not find what we were looking for and it seems we were wrong". He added: "There will be other raids but the lesson of Forest Gate is that we have to find new methods of engaging with the Muslim community in particular to reassure them of the necessity and appropriateness of police actions."

So, even when the police are wrong and harm innocent people, then focus on damage control instead of justice, what's needed isn't more careful vetting of intelligence, more surveillance of suspects before raids, more evidence, more accountability, and better policing generally. What's needed is "engagement with the community". Better P.R.! Carry on boys, you're doing a heckuva job so far.

Cock-up: Blair's behind it 101%

Don't inhibit police, Blair says. Because obviously, they're good at this sort of thing.

Tony Blair has told anti-terror police not to be "inhibited" in the wake of controversy over the Forest Gate raid. Mr Blair told MPs he fully endorsed the apology given by Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman for the "hurt" caused in the raid. But he said Mr Hayman's team were doing a superb job and he stood "101%" behind them when they acted on intelligence.

By the way, the apology was phrased as follows:

Mr Hayman said: "I am aware that in mounting this operation we have caused disruption and inconvenience to many residents in Newham and more importantly those that reside at 46 and 48 Lansdowne Road. I apologise for the hurt that we may have caused."

"Hurt we may have caused"? "Disruption and inconvenience"? They shot an innocent man for crying out loud. I've heard that getting shot definitely hurts. Never mind the psychological trauma of having your house stormed by 250 armed, masked policemen in the middle of the night. I'm inconvenienced when my train is late; Do you think this goes a little bit beyond disruption and inconvenience?

Mr. Kahar, the innocent brother who was shot in the botched raid, responded:

Is he 101 per cent behind the bullet which went into my chest? I am the same age as his son. I am as innocent as his son.

Well said, Mr. Kahar. I've never been a victim of overzealous British policing the way you have, or the way David Mery has, but I'm with you 101%. I hope you get all the apology you wish for, and plenty of compensation besides. Sue them blind if you have to, we the taxpayers owe you a lot for the bungling of Blair's anti-terrorism police. Thank goodness they didn't shoot you seven times in the head like Jean-Charles.

By my count, in this armed anti-terrorism campaign, it's shot terrorists: 0, shot innocents: 2. Maybe they should start asking questions first and shooting later.

Cock-up: Resignation calls, politicians involved...

Newspapers are calling (again) for Ian Blair, the Met police chief, to resign:

Senior policing and political figures, including the prime minister, have defended police chief Sir Ian Blair amid growing calls for his resignation.

And politicians including Tony Blair and Red Ken are hopping to his defense:

Tony Blair's spokesman said: "The prime minister continues to give his full support to Ian Blair - full stop."

It's a little scary, even to me, how much of this I predicted (all of it, by my reckoning). However I have to confess that I'm not a clairvoyant; This is just how things happen in Britain. Needless to say I absolutely do not apologize for my cynicism:

• The police are incompetent nincompoops with too many powers.
• The police are a political tool.
• The politicians are incompetent, corrupt nincompoops with wayyy too much power.
• The politicians think we're all fools, but they keep getting away with this stuff so maybe they're right.

Cock-up: Recriminations begin

The fallout has begun as it becomes clear the Met police focused their big showy terrorism bust on two innocent men (and shooting one of them during the arrest).

"The men, who had been held under the Terrorism Act 2000 and questioned on suspicion of terrorism involvement, were released shortly before 2030 BST on Friday. Through the week outcry at the arrest of the men developed into a protest about the tactics and the way information was leaked out which may have been misleading. ...Of particular concern, he said was "how we find ourselves with one of the brothers shot and quite a lot of the slander, quite honestly, which has been out in the press""

And the police say that the investigation continues -- that they're still looking for the chemical weapon -- implying that the men aren't really innocent. That's unfair too. Just apologize.

Cock-up confirmed

See my previous predictions. Step 1 in cock-up recovery: release the innocent suspects late on a Friday to minimize news coverage.

"Two men arrested after a raid on a house in east London have been released without charge, Scotland Yard said."

If these innocent men spent more time in jail than necessary, to try to minimize embarrassment to politicians, the politicians should be the ones in jail. But of course that's never going to happen.

Anatomy of a cock-up

So this week 250 Met policemen stormed a house in north London in a massive counter-terrorism operation (you probably saw a headline about it somewhere). One of the two brothers arrested was shot, non-fatally, in the shoulder. Various other people in the adjoining house were also arrested and then released.

I, in my innate cynicism, am convinced we are in the midst of seeing a "cock-up recovery".

The first sign of trouble, for me, was the more-or-less immediate concession that they hadn't found the chemical weapon they were looking for (yet). Nor any weapons, they said.

The second sign of trouble was the wishy-washy suggestion I saw on the television news, from "police sources" that one of the brothers might have shot the other. I thought they hadn't found any weapons!? It occurred to me that the Met police were feeling a bit sheepish about having shot this fellow. (This proposition has quietly disappeared from the news). The unsavoury George Galloway, in reference to this incident, characterized it thusly: "People are shot down by the police and then they're slandered by the police afterwards in an attempt to confuse people about the blunders that have been made."

The third sign of trouble was the fact that the police kept searching and searching and (interrogating and interrogating), yet failed to announce a big terror-fighting breakthrough. At this point, I started to wonder whether there was something going on here.

The fourth sign was politicians (ahem, Tony Blair) and Scotland Yard spokesmen leaping to the -- preemptive -- defense of the police, saying that the raid was "absolutely necessary", and that "we had no choice" [based on the intelligence]. This should immediately cause any skeptic to question whether the raid was absolutely necessary, and whether they really had no choice. At this point, I became pretty sure there was something going on here.

"To do otherwise we would have been failing in our duty to make London safer and protect all Londoners."

Quite.

The fifth sign was the application to extend the detention of the suspects. Initially the police had been granted permission to hold the suspects until Wednesday for interrogation. The subsequent request to extend the detention was for another week, until next Wednesday, or failing that until this Friday. At this point I became convinced that there's something going on here.

(I've seen no word on the BBC today about the outcome of the request. Hmm.)

I anticipate and predict the following:

• That the men are innocent. That the arrest was a mistake.
• That the police know there's going to be fallout, and that they know they will be embarrassed.
• That the police only want to extend the detention time so that they can postpone the embarrassment (and distance it from the big arrest headlines, so that it's not so much in the public consciousness).
• That when the men are released, it will happen late on a Friday if possible (see legal application, above), because that's politically the best time to announce bad news (fewer people are paying attention).
• That Tony Blair has leapt to the defense of the Met police because there are going to be more calls for the resignation of police commissioner Ian Blair (no relation).

Ian Blair has been a dead man walking for a long time. He is a buffoon, and he's been screwing things up politically for a long time. For some reason Tony Blair doesn't want him to resign in disgrace.

When, in the wake of this splashy (botched?) terror bust, Andy Hayman, Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner is saying, "We must all pull together. This is not the time for conflict and anger", that suggests we're about to hear a big mea culpa following "the most significant anti-terror operation this year".

If these suspects are innocent, and have their detentions extended -- particularly so that their release comes on a Friday afternoon -- then they have been deliberately deprived of their liberty by people who would knowingly stoop to such things to protect their careers (anyone say politicians?). I don't know if that's actually a crime in Britain -- probably not -- but it damn well should be.

All of this remains to be seen; this is just the way it looks right now. Maybe there'll be more to write tomorrow. Maybe the police will announce a big terror breakthrough. Maybe the suspects will be charged with "public nuisance" (a.k.a. annoying the police) or some other misdemeanor, just to imply that they're not really innocent victims. Maybe they'll be released tomorrow afternoon, shortly after we've all left work and headed for the pub to watch the World Cup and start our weekends. That last possibility sounds like a good bet.

I'll apologize for my cynicism if my predictions turn out to be wrong.

Will the meddling never end?

Here's the latest social engineering experiment in Britain, "rights for cohabitees". There is no concept here of "common law marriage" as there is in N.A. Generally speaking common law marriage means that if you live with your partner for some continuous period -- often 2 years -- you are considered "common law spouses" and are technically legally married, and as such can claim various rights.

Now, Britain also wants to make you legally obligated to your partner if you live with them.

"Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips told the BBC changing the law would undermine marriage.

She said: "This idea that society is changing and therefore the law has to change to keep up with it is wrong, in my view, historically the law has led the progressive dismemberment of marriage by stripping it progressively of meaning."

I think Melanie is wrong that this undermines marriage; One reason people might not get married is that they don't want the legal obligations that can go along with that. If simply living together creates those same obligations, then heck, might as well get married (because ultimately everyone in our culture really expects you to do so -- if you don't it's a bit odd, isn't it?). However, then she says:

"The law is based on justice; justice requires that you don't get something for nothing. You don't claim rights if you don't enter into obligations."

There I can agree. And by the way, could the UK government please stop meddling in our lives? People who want to get married get married. That's most people. Speaking for the rest of us, please let us have our personal lives, and make our choices, in peace.

British Liberty Pt. III

With the confluence of access to modern technology and suspicion of its citizens, Britain has recently commenced down the road of "total information awareness" with computerized tracking of most (virtually all) of its residents at all times. Here are four major ways they accomplish this:

1. Pervasive CCTV (closed-circuit television cameras, A.K.A. surveillance cameras). From Wikipedia:

"based on a small sample in Putney High Street, "guesstimated" the number of surveillance cameras in private premises in London as around 400,000 and the total number of cameras in the UK as around 4,000,000. The UK has 20% of the world's CCTV and one camera for every 14 people."

This article goes into a bit more detail:

"Londoners can each expect to be captured on CCTV cameras up to 300 times a day - the secret state can now follow you from your home, onto the bus, on the bus, getting off the bus and then follow you along the street, and in some areas of the city of London, constantly monitor your movements."

"Barry Hugill, a spokesman for the human rights and civil liberties organization Liberty, said: "This proliferation of cameras is simply astounding. The use of CCTV has just exploded in the last few years, and what is terrifying is that we are alone in the world for not even having a debate about what it means for our privacy."

Automatic computerized facial recognition for these cameras is still in its infancy, but is being tested in various venues including airports and sports stadiums, particularly in the US. Rest assured that Britain will lead the world in deploying this technology nationwide.

2. Automatic number plate recognition systems (license plates). Beginning in earnest this Spring, there are cameras being installed throughout Britain, linked to a central database, which track and record the movements of all vehicles for at least 2 years.

3. Transport For London's Oyster Card, used on buses and trains. It's just an easy payment method, honest. Except they record all your journeys, and keep the records for a couple of years. If you don't use one, you have to pay significantly higher fares. And they've deliberately removed some of the most common ticket options from the cash ticket machines in stations. Want a single journey in central London? Well, now you have to queue at the ticket window for that -- where a belligerently unmotivated person will eventually get around to selling you a ticket, but not before making you feel like you've really inconvenienced them. Now, how about getting one of these handy cards?! You can just swipe it and walk through!

4. Mobile phone tracking. Here, we have a serious problem. In Britain, this is a wholly unregulated activity. Check out the web page for this commercial company in the UK, who gleefully offer, "track your family!" and "track your employees!". Here another company emotes "You can't be with your loved ones every minute of every day, but with [...] you'll always know where they are!". Touching! If this sort of thing doesn't appeal to the worst instincts of every jealous spouse, every paedophile, and every smothering parent, I don't know what will. This is a commercial free-for-all, unrestrained by laws (only a "voluntary industry code of conduct" -- i.e. they want to avoid attracting legislative regulation). Intuitively, all it takes is for one unscrupulous operator to corner the market on "unauthorized" tracking, and become the instant favourite of identity thieves, predators, private investigators, and stalkers everywhere. It wouldn't even be illegal. Taxi companies here can locate you from your call. Of course, it goes without saying that the government and police have access to the same data.

In Britain, if your mobile phone is turned on, any halfway competent police detective or private investigator could tell you where you are, right this moment, without leaving his office. If you drove anywhere today, they could probably tell where you went. If you used public transit, they could probably tell you where you went. If you walked the streets, computers will soon be able to tell them where you went. And if you cowered at home in fear and despair from all this surveillance, well, they know where you live obviously.

But in Britain we have faith that anything the authorities do with this information will be legitimate, and they will protect us from criminals, terrorists, and jealous spouses too.

If I was a criminal trying to avoid being tracked, I'd wear a "hoodie", use pay phones, get a fake number plate (trivial to obtain), and pay a bit more for a cash ticket on the train. Any halfwit criminal has already figured this stuff out, and so has every terrorist -- but at least the authorities can keep a close eye on the rest of us.

British Liberty Pt. II

There is no concept of "unreasonable search" in Britain. For the most part, if a police officer doesn't like the look of you -- regardless of where you are or what you're doing -- that officer can demand to search you. The police don't even have to be looking for any particular thing; they can search you and then prosecute you for whatever they find.

Of course, they can (like police in any authoritarian country) make your life miserable even if you weren't doing or carrying anything illegal. Take a couple of minutes and read David Mery's personal account of his Terrorism Act arrest in a Tube station (he is not a terrorist). They arrested him because:

• they found my behaviour suspicious from direct observation and then from watching me on the CCTV system;
• I went into the station without looking at the police officers at the entrance or by the gates;
• two other men entered the station at about the same time as me;
• I am wearing a jacket "too warm for the season";
• I am carrying a bulky rucksack, and kept my rucksack with me at all times;
• I looked at people coming on the platform;
• I played with my phone and then took a paper from inside my jacket.

However, despite the fact that the police were able to search him and swiftly determine that he was not a suicide bomber, they persisted:

"Arrested for suspicious behaviour and public nuisance, I am driven to Walworth police station. I am given a form about my rights. ...I empty my pockets of the few things they had given me back at the tube station, and am searched again. My possessions are put in evidence bags. They take Polaroid photographs of me. A police officer fingerprints me and takes DNA swabs from each side of my mouth."

They then searched his home, taking lots of "evidence" with them. Note that in Britain, DNA samples taken from suspects who are mistakenly arrested, innocent, never charged, etc., are nonetheless retained in the national DNA database. If you are unlucky enough to fall under suspicion, or just meet a policeman who's a power-tripping bully (surely such a thing doesn't exist!) you have just permanently lost another piece of your privacy.

The bar for this kind of police behaviour is very low in Britain. We are living in a strange kind of hybrid here: a democratic surveillance/police state. The British people I've talked to about it don't see anything wrong with it; in fact it makes them feel safer. They inherently trust their government and police to always do the right thing, as if overreaching, coercion, corruption, bullying, and the potential for abuse didn't exist.

Naturally as a North American I culturally, fundamentally, don't share this instinct. The police and government in this country possess extensive knowledge of our lives, and the power to use it for whatever means they determine. Every day we read news stories in which they demonstrate their inclination to exercise this knowledge and power, right or wrong -- whether for the sake of catching evildoers (great and small), or just finding innovative new ways to tax and regulate us. And virtually no one protests.

I fear and predict that one day Britain wake up with a government they weren't expecting, and find out too late that resistance is futile. Remember, a nation of reasonable, rational people once democratically elected a man named Adolf.

Britishness

A clever little quiz: http://www.nakedtranslations.com/en/2005/06/000428.php

British Liberty Pt. I

I couldn't have said it better myself. Andrew Sullivan writes*:

"Tony Blair has never seen a free act he doesn't want to constrain, subsidize, tax, regulate or inspire."

*(I have been in violent disagreement with Andrew on many occasions, particularly because of his single-minded support of the Iraq war, but this apology really restored my respect for him.)

I would take this further, and say it applies to most of modern British life and politics.

From a North American's perspective, coming to grips with civil liberties in Britain can be a tough task. Most of us agree with free speech as an overriding principle, and with perhaps a few extreme exceptions, believe that free speech must be absolute: if you have too many "buts", it's a slippery slope, and then the question is -- as with any form of censorship -- "who gets to make the decision?". That's why the U.S. has a constitution that guarantees free speech by default. Canada at least tries to follow along the same lines, with varying degrees of success.

Contrast this with free speech in Britain. Free speech exists here only insofar as the current government hasn't deemed particular speech illegal. People here will tend to pooh-pooh this hypothetical, but in theory the current majority government could vote a law tomorrow making it illegal to criticize Tony Blair. And henceforth, until such law was repealed by some theoretical future government, criticizing Tony Blair would be illegal (I'm not sure why Labour hasn't tried this yet).

For example, in conversation you can ask a British person whether they believe in free speech, and of course they will answer in the affirmative. However if you then ask them, hypothetically, whether it should be okay for you to say publicly "I hate Japanese people" (I choose Japanese people randomly here, sorry) they will tend to be taken aback and answer something like "of course not", as if it's common sense. You see, racism and bigotry of various sorts are technically illegal in Britain. Saying things like that could get you in trouble. "Political correctness" has actually become law here. The problem is that what's politically correct changes all the time.

I contend that with free speech, as with several other areas of civil liberties, the British have progressed so far down the proverbial slippery slope that they don't recognize it any more.

If you believe in civil liberties and free speech, you have to defend the principle even when you don't agree with someone else's politics (even if they aren't nice). Unfortunately the British pay lip service to principles they don't faithfully believe in.

Hosepipe bans

So here's some stupid stuff:

In much of England, including London where I live, we are now under what is called here a "hosepipe ban".

For North Americans and others who haven't heard the term, this means you can't use your garden hose for making things wet. In particular, you can't do things like water gardens or wash your car with the hose (you can do these things with buckets of water if you want, just not with a hose).

So. This is the wettest country you've ever seen. The stuff is falling from the skies by the bucketload. It rains here more-or-less nine months out of the year. The idea that there's a shortage is so typically, amusingly British. They've got more rain than the rest of the world put together (well okay, but you get my point) and they can't seem to capture it for human consumption.

I've heard people say they put rain barrels in their gardens, for watering purposes, and they're perpetually full. You don't have to do anything special to collect a lot of water in Britain, just put out containers big enough to hold as much water as you want. Couldn't they dig some nice big reservoirs? People have been living here for several millennia -- you'd think they'd have mastered this by now.