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...

Shameful

...And no, I'm not referring to putting Madonna on the cover.

If you missed this Vanity Fair article earlier in the month, and you care at all about the issue of torturing prisoners, be sure to give it a read. It is a detailed storyline of how the Bush administration's torture regime came to its shameful fruition:

The fingerprints of the most senior lawyers in the administration were all over the design and implementation of the abusive interrogation policies. Addington, Bybee, Gonzales, Haynes, and Yoo became, in effect, a torture team of lawyers, freeing the administration from the constraints of all international rules prohibiting abuse.

Nazi lawyers were executed as war criminals following WWII, for exactly the same sort of behaviour. Was it victor's justice? Or do the same standards apply to Americans? War crimes trials are the only just resolution in this case. But as I predicted here, I'll say it again: it'll never happen. Welcome to the new world order.

Iraq the place: everyone's loss

Just wanted to link to this excellent piece by George Packer, author of "The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq" which I also highly recommend. Key quotes:

The American invasion of Iraq was, above all else, a revolution in the lives of Iraqis. Their institutions, their everyday routines, their futures, their sense of order were all turned upside down. This revolution, which is still ongoing and will play out for years to come, was the opening of a prison. When they staggered out into the light, most Iraqis didn’t know where they were, what they wanted, even who they were, and the Americans who had so quickly and casually broken down the gate were standing around as if they had never even considered what to do next.

And:

“I can never blame the Americans alone,” an Iraqi refugee named Firas told me in early 2007. “It’s the Iraqis who destroyed their country, with the help of the Americans, under the American eye.” To gain this wisdom, Firas had to lose almost everything. What would it take for Americans to understand what Firas already does? A recognition that Iraq was everyone’s loss, whichever side you were on.

Amen.

Failing the test of democracy

S Africa joins Zimbabwe vote call:

South Africa has joined international calls for Zimbabwe's electoral commission to release the results of last month's presidential election.

The call came a day after the head of the UN warned that the credibility of democracy in Africa could be at stake.

Correction: The credibility of Zimbabwe's democracy is at stake. It's becoming pretty clear that Mugabe has no intention of allowing himself to be declared the loser -- the election results were due, by law, within one week of the poll -- at least not in any meaningful way. Since the only real test of a democracy is whether a government will allow itself to be voted out of office, I guess we have to conclude that Zimbabwe is not a democracy, Mugabe is a dictator, and that elections in that country are purely for show -- a la Saddam.

I suppose I'm stating the obvious here, but I think more people need to start saying it out loud, and stop taking this 'election' seriously. The end result looks as though it has been a foregone conclusion all along.

Mi casa no es su casa

Just catching up here on a couple of things I'd wanted to blog about. This is several days old:

Kenya warned by U.S. over Cabinet row

(CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged Kenya's government and opposition party to agree on the composition of their coalition Cabinet after the two sides suspended talks on power-sharing.

"Should the accord not be implemented, however, the United States will form its own judgments regarding responsibility for lack of implementation of the accord, and act accordingly."

Am I reading this correctly? Is the US threatening another sovereign country over an internal political matter? Can you imagine if China or Russia had made such ominous statements during America's last electoral crisis in 2000? What howls of outrage there would have been, and rightly so. America's moments of internal political turmoil are America's business, and no one else's. So should the same standard not apply to other nations? If Kenyan politicians want to haggle over the composition of the cabinet, is that not their own concern?

I know that I'm being slightly obtuse here, in that the US seems to merely be seeking to help stabilize Kenya in the wake of the post-election violence. That's a fine, laudable, and even noble thing. In what remains a mostly uni-polar world, perhaps the lone superpower needs to be able to push other nations in the right direction, on occasion. What bothers me is the (what spin-meisters refer to as) 'optics' of the situation. This is rather indelicate diplomacy -- unfortunately a hallmark of the Bush II administration.

If the US is, at times, resented by people in other countries, look no further than this sort of exceptionalism for an explanation. America would never stand for overt foreign meddling in its political affairs, or intrusions on its borders. For that matter, the US would not look kindly on, say, overt Russian meddling in the Ukraine's internal politics. However, the American government doesn't seem to apply the same standard to itself when it unilaterally sends drones flying into Pakistan or Yemen to fire missiles at its enemies, or threaten Kenyans to form a cabinet. America's sovereignty is sacrosanct. Others' -- not so much.

Can you imagine what would happen if China sent a drone to the coast of California to shoot a missile at Richard Gere?

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.

What we need is a little justice

CIA destroyed interrogation tapes:

The New York Times, which broke the story, quotes current and former government officials as saying the CIA destroyed the tapes in 2005 as it faced Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program.

Officials feared the tapes could have raised doubts about the legality of the CIA's techniques, the newspaper says.

Well of course they did. And we are expected to believe that the government "lost" the interrogation video of Jose Padilla, too. No one likes a war crimes trial.

America's honour will be restored when they a) stop torturing; and b) put those responsible on trial -- and I don't mean the individuals who carried it out, a la Abu Ghraib. The men responsible for the policies need to explain themselves to a jury.

Nothing less will make it right. I'm not holding my breath.

I'll show you a big head, Todd

News from the Clinton campaign:

in recent days the Clinton presidential campaign's "official" song -- You And I sung by the Canadian diva [Celine] Dion -- has been replaced at campaign events by Blue Sky, from the Colorado-based band Big Head Todd and the Monsters.

Well, at least they stuck with a big head theme.

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.

Oh, is that so?

Bush to the president of Pakistan:

"You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time," Bush said, describing a telephone call with Musharraf. "I had a very frank discussion with him."

Good point, Mr. commander-in-chief.

Good for the goose

Well, I guess everyone gets to waterboard everyone now. The US seems to have deemed it an acceptable practice, even when the victims are American:

The top legal adviser within the US state department, who counsels the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, on international law, has declined to rule out the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding even if it were applied by foreign intelligence services on US citizens. John Bellinger refused to denounce the technique, which has been condemned by human rights groups as a form of torture, during a debate on the Bush administration's stance on international law held by Guardian America

Strange, given that the US operated and participated in the trials and executions of Nazis for using such techniques. How about we make this simple, and all just go back to not torturing, hmm?

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?

Sweet neo-con, light of humanity

Well I just love this, posted by Jamie Kirchick on Andrew Sullivan's blog:

Today, it seems that a "neo-con" (at least in the fevered imaginations of the net-left) is someone who frequently calls attention to the unprovoked aggression of despotic regimes (e.g. Iran and Syria), the violation of human rights in other countries, and advocates the moral superiority of democratic countries in international affairs. A "neo-con" is now anyone who dares make an issue out of the aggressions and inhumanity of despotisms without explaining them away, and for advocating America do something about these aggressions and inhumanities.

That's it! The 'fevered' people who label the neo-conservatives (as juxtaposed with the sensible, pragmatic, and serene neo-cons themselves) are using the term as a way to denigrate those who see injustice in the world and have the nobility and good-heartedness to want to "do something" about it. The neo-conservatives are the champions of international human rights; With pure hearts, they advocate for the moral superiority of the correct political system, American-style democracy, and stand up for non-aggression and humanity. And yet all they ask is that we "do something" instead of explaining away.

Clearly, people who disparage these latter-day saints as neo-conservatives, in their fevered and addled liberal way, oppose human rights, democracy, peace and humanity. The neo-cons are like Clark Kent in a phone booth. The collective "net-left" are like the Axis of Dr. Evil.

Poor Jamie.

The disingenuousness of this should be self-evident, but I feel like responding so here goes: The neo-conservatives, people who founded organizations like the Project for the New American Century, are self labelled. That's what they call themselves. So, you'll have to excuse everyone else who uses the term. They advocate for the use and projection of American military power to remake the world in America's image. The purpose being to benefit America and American commerce, and to perpetrate a "new American century". All this guff about human rights and peace is packaged on the premise that it will come to pass if necessary through force, intimidation, and (if necessary) torture -- a form of "soft empire".

They are mainly ex-liberals. They support liberal-style interventionism. They called themselves neo-conservatives. They were the 'intellectual' force behind the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and are still pushing for a ludicrous military confrontation with Iran. And they are largely discredited. Think Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Think Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. For the fact that some people use that label as an insult, they have only themselves to blame.

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 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.

Countdown to disaster

According to this piece in the Guardian, the Cheney/Bush white house is planning to attack Iran militarily, with Cheney (as always) playing the role of warmonger in chief:

"The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week.

"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively.

Well, isn't that good news for civilization? Dick Cheney still has the clout to start another war, and apparently has the good judgement to decide what kind of situation the next president should face.

Since common sense dictates that America cannot accomplish some kind of ground invasion/occupation of Iran (a la Iraq), then the options would appear to be a) aerial bombardment with conventional weapons; and b) nuclear attack. Previously I've asked the rhetorical question:

What makes Mr. Lieberman think that Iran -- militant, confrontational Iran -- will respond to a military attack by cowering? By surrendering and backing down?

What makes Dick Cheney think he has the option of "deal[ing] with Iran decisively", short of the nuclear option 'b'? That question scares me, because I don't imagine for one minute that some kind of conventional bombing campaign will defeat Iran, case closed.

Here's a nice nightmare scenario: What if, in response, Iran were to invade Iraq? They've got ~160,000 American soldiers hostage in Iraq, who already have their hands full just dealing with the locals. How big a disaster would it be? How would America hope to repel Iran's half-million-strong army under the circumstances? What would Cheney and Bush do then? Maybe it's a failure of imagination on my part, but I can think of only one answer: Option 'b'. In that case, ladies and gents, we're all screwed.

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).

Take that Osama

Following on from my last post, in which I described how Canada is being seriously underserved by the international terrorist community:

I've come to the hypothesis that Osama has unfairly bought into the "mostly harmless" stereotype of Canadians. And goodness knows, even in Afghanistan, he still hasn't seen a Canadian with a gun [Canadians with guns are still not as mean as Canadians with Hockey sticks though].

We need to send him a message. Change our image. Here are some ideas:

• Put some big, visible guns on the CN Tower.
• Stop killing seals with clubs, and start using machine guns or bombs instead. Or behead them (It's probably quicker and more humane anyway). Actually, I don't think the Qur'an has any bad things to say about seals, so Osama probably already thinks we're just being cruel.
• Do a better job of publicising just how tough beavers actually are. I've heard about one trying to pick a fight with a bulldozer. No kidding.
  
• Put some knuckles on either side of the CN Tower, so that it becomes the world's largest free-standing middle finger.

I know I keep coming back to the CN Tower but it seems like the best tool in our arsenal.

Wallowing in the fear

Of the many overhyped, fear-mongering terrorism headlines I've seen in the past few days -- though not strictly related to the London "car bombs" -- this one takes the cake. Ready?!:

Dirty bombs missing in Canada
Numerous have been lost or stolen since 9-11

That's right folks, Canada is positively awash in missing dirty bombs!:

At least 76 radioactive devices - several of which could be used in a terrorist attack - have gone missing in Canada over the last five years, newly compiled figures show.

Now wait just a cotton-pickin'. "Radioactive devices" doesn't sound quite like a dirty bomb. They couldn't be trying to stir us up with that breathless headline, could they? What are these dirty bombs?

Turns out, they're pretty much anything that's radioactive. You have to keep reading for quite a while before you get good idea of the actual, less-than-sensational devices in question: "nuclear gauges", "radioactive tools" (used in oil and gas discovery), "nuclear medicine markers", and a "vial of sodium iodide":

the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said it's "quite surprising" terrorists have not already set off a crude radioactive bomb.

"We are positively overdue" for such an attack, CSIS said.

Nothing much exciting happens in Canada. Sometimes I think we Canadians feel a little left out of this whole war on terror thing. Subconsciously, it seems we're gagging for some big news to call our own -- after 9/11 I had friends who were convinced Calgary or Edmonton was the next big terrorist target, you know, 'cause there's oil there. Why don't the terrorists pay us any attention?! We're totally a real country!! Look, we have the CN Tower ("Canada's wonder of the world!" -- see photo); it would make a great target! Of course, we did have those teenage terror masterminds with the frighteningly plausible plan to cut off the Prime Minister's head and blow up the CN Tower, but those hosers didn't even get a chance to try anything, eh? To be fair, though, Australia has totally done more to deserve their own terror attack, but they're still waiting.

JIM BRONSKILL AND SUE BAILEY, stand up and collect your razzie for irresponsible journalism.

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.

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?

How to cook an occupation

How bad is it when they stop taking you seriously? In Bob Woodward's book "State Of Denial: Bush At War Part III" there is an anecdote relating America's attempt to set up a TV channel promoting America's perspective in Iraq "so that the coalition message could get on the air":

Eventually there was a U.S.-sponsored television network set up. To fill out its schedule, it broadcast Arabic-language reruns from elsewhere in the Middle East. As a result, some Iraqis took to calling it the "Lebanese Cooking Channel," especially after one day when most other major networks, like Qatar-based Al Jazeera, covered a significant news event live but the U.S.-sponsored network ran a foreign program on how to cook a rabbit.

Definitionally speaking

Referring to new revelations about Dick Cheney's role in promoting the use of torture, Andrew Sullivan writes today:

The only defense by Bush and Cheney against charges of war crimes is that a president definitionally cannot commit war crimes, if he's acting as he sees fit in the defense of the nation.

A president cannot commit war crimes by definition? I think I'm missing something here. So, for example, a president Hussein, or president Milosevic cannot be guilty of war crimes? Oh no, I know what he means. An American president cannot be guilty of war crimes.

Okay, to be fair, it would seem that Andrew is writing from a purely American context. He's talking about war crimes as defined under US law and in relation to the president's constitutional commander-in-chief role.

But come on. Enough with the exceptionalism already.

The new US "Detainee Treatment Act" and its amendments, which by consensus effectively allows the president -- but nobody else, honest -- to authorize "torture light", and which retroactively exempts government personnel (i.e. the CIA) from war crimes charges, should be regarded with contempt.

Let's imagine hypothetically that General E.L. Presidente, of the Great Bananian Republic, orders up a law that authorizes his intelligence service to torture prisoners of war. Does anyone suppose that this law would make the resulting atrocities legal, in the eyes of the world? Do war crimes stop being war crimes, just because the laws of the 'GBR', the offending nation, say they aren't? How about the laws of the USA? Is it different then?

Torture is evil. If the "good guys" use it, it doesn't make the torture good; it makes the "good guys" evil. And if Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld commanded or authorized torture or other war crimes, they should stand trial in the Hague just like anyone else.

I know, I'm dreaming. Not gonna happen.

Score +1 for Brown, already?

He hasn't yet officially become Prime Minister, but sounds like he's already planning to