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.

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...

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 ]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Feedback

My Dad writes:

An interesting read, although I haven't been through it all yet. I admire your intelligent analysis of the events that concern you and your single-mindedness in expressing your thoughts and opinions.

Hey, that's the beauty of a blog -- it's a one-sided conversation! Well, I guess people can leave comments if they want to argue a point. It's useful to have an outlet when I get a "bee in my bonnet" about something.

Just so long as you don't allow your natural (and no doubt healthy) skepticism to prejudice - in the actions of politicians, for example - consideration of the possibility both of good intent, and even sometimes justifiable cause.

Good point. I worry sometimes about coming across as a conspiracy nut when I write about some things (particularly the 'British liberty' stuff). I don't think it's all a conspiracy, and I don't think our politicians are specifically out to harm or oppress us. Politics here are very populist -- they pander transparently to the latest headlines in the Sun and the Mirror. Being tough on terrorism and crime (and playing on fears of same) is a big vote-getter, and of course the police really just want to be good at catching bad guys.

The problem is that in Britain, they just don't either understand or care about the "slippery slope" side of privacy, police powers, and the like. Authorities (even benign, well-meaning ones) have a natural tendency to want to increase their power and control over people. One of the beautiful things about the American constitution and mindset is that they recognize this and structure their branches of government accordingly, so that there are "checks and balances" in a somewhat adversarial system. Canadians have the same kind of mindset I think, but not the formal structure to address it. The British have neither and I think they'll come to regret it eventually.

I try to explain to people here that sure, it's not so terrible now because we have an essentially well-meaning government, and the "if you're not doing anything wrong..." argument holds some water at the present time. But we're building the infrastructure of tyranny in Britain. All that needs to happen is, we accidentally elect the tyrant who'll really harness all this power -- this detailed knowledge of our daily lives and movements -- we're going to hand him. I like to point out to people that since there's no formal constitution and no guarantee of free speech here, it is theoretically and practically possible for a majority government to pass laws governing political speech, and make it illegal to criticize the Prime Minister, for example. And with all the surveillance we've got, they'll be able to spot when you're being 'subversive', communicating or meeting with the wrong sorts of people, etc. I'm not saying it will ever happen, but it really could. Brits just aren't concerned by it, but I think they should be.

On the policing side, I think the police here are essentially lazy; they don't much like spending time doing old-fashioned police work -- they much prefer when computers can tell them who was where and who did what. Thus we're on this path of computerized data-gathering of everything we do.

PS: I wonder how thick your file is with the CIA.

I guess we'll find out when we land in New York in a couple of weeks! >8^}

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.

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.

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.

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.