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Best of the Web: UK State to 'spy' on every phone call, email and web search

Richard Edwards
The Daily Telegraph
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:17 EST

Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies.

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer's personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.

Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

Shelly Roche
Bytestyle.tv
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:14 EST

Tom Burghardt
Global Research
Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:00 EST

President Barack Obama instructed Justice Department attorneys to argue last week in San Francisco before Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker, that he must toss out the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Shubert v. Bush lawsuit challenging the secret state's driftnet surveillance of Americans' electronic communications.

This latest move by the administration follows a pattern replicated countless times by Obama since assuming the presidency in January: denounce the lawless behavior of his Oval Office predecessor while continuing, even expanding, the reach of unaccountable security agencies that subvert constitutional guarantees barring "unreasonable searches and seizures." EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston wrote:

Best of the Web: US Resistance to Speed Cameras goes Mainstream

Neely Tucker
Washington Post
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:45 EST

You rip open the envelope and there it is: Another darned photo-enforcement traffic ticket.

The photograph, the zoom-in on the tag, it's you, baby. Your car. Two weeks ago. Forty-one in a 30-mph zone.

It's from your favorite municipality. You can pay $40 now or $80 later. You can also contest it, the infraction letter says, and that's a laugh. You remember seeing that the folks who went down to fight their automated tickets in Montgomery County got convicted 99.7 percent of the time. Like a Soviet election, you think, a sham, a joke, and you, the chump in the parade.

There's something that doesn't smell right about these tickets, but you're not quite sure what.

Is it the huge profits the government and their cohorts, the camera manufacturers, make on them? The District doubling the number of tickets it issued just two years ago, raking in $36 million last fiscal year? The fact that Redflex, one of the big manufacturers of these cameras, posted a 48 percent jump in revenue last year while the rest of the economy tanked?

People get worked up. Put these cyborgs on a ballot, and the voters beat them to the pavement.

Comment: It is interesting for the Washington Post to present compelling statistical evidence for the ineffectiveness of speed camera's in reducing road injuries. It is true that as soon as the camera is behind a reckless driver they put their foot down again. These camera's have been introduced as easy profit generating machines and it is encouraging to see some success stories of the people fighting back against the machines.

Tim Shipman
The Mail Online
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:38 EST

Labour's plans to build Big Brother databases of everyone's phone calls, text messages and internet activity have been put on hold..

Ministers kicked the £2billion surveillance state proposals into the long grass, so they will not now be enacted before the next election.

The Home Office announced yesterday that plans to force internet and phone companies to store billions of pieces of personal data on everyone in Britain will not now feature in the Queen's speech next week.

The move was welcomed by civil liberties campaigners, who believe the technology would be a 'snooper's charter' that would be misused by ministers to spy on innocent citizens.

The U-turn means that the most intrusive elements of Labour's plans may now never happen.

Disguising the detention of children

Henry Porter
The Guardian
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:35 EST

It is difficult to think of two more sinister New Labour figures than Phil Woolas, minister for immigration, and Lady Delyth Morgan, parliamentary under-secretary for children. They are joined in unholy alliance in the foreword to the new government guidelines on safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009.

This baleful document is not of course about safeguarding children at all - it's about handling innocent kids over long periods of detention, which often exceed the 28-day maximum period a terror suspect can be held without charge.

Dripping with hypocrisy, the ministers' opener makes no mention of this. It's all about benevolence and care and agencies working together for the best outcomes. Armando Iannucci might have written it. "The UK Border Agency undertakes difficult and sensitive work on behalf of a society as a whole. Working with children presents particular challenges. To meet these challenges effectively the UK Border Agency needs the support of all those with an interest in children."

Privacylives.com
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:33 EST

Last year, the Poole Borough Council in the UK targeted for surveillance a family suspected of living in the wrong school zone. The council used powers it had under the 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), a law targeted toward terrorism and organized crime. I've written before about this disturbing trend of local councils in the United Kingdom using RIPA powers to track or prosecute minor offenses, such as littering.

Jenny Rizzo, Kyla Igoe, Susan James, Allen Leight, Jennifer Stanonis, Ginger Geoffery, John Borsa, and Sharon Osorio
MSNBC
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:13 EST

Tuesday's election marked a new era in Erie county. It was the first time new electronic voting equipment was used in a general election in the county. It's the first change in voting machines locally in nearly 100 years, but not everyone is a fan of the new technology. It did not lead to faster election results Tuesday night, and it created new privacy issues.

With the new system voters mark paper ballots and then the ballots are scanned electronically. Short three-sided cardboard partitions are the only protection voters have from prying eyes while they're marking their ballots. That left many voters with an uncomfortable feeling on Tuesday.

"We recognize that we have lots of work to do," says Erie County Board of Elections Democratic Commissioner Dennis Ward.

Computing.co.uk
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:23 EST

Suppliers will be forced to retain details of all electronic communications for use by law enforcement and security services

The government is proceeding with plans to compel communications service providers [CSPs] to retain electronic data beyond that required for commercial purposes, and make it available to the security services, police and other public authorities, despite substantial opposition.

The Home Office admitted a tiny majority - just 53 per cent - of those consulted back the approach and a large minority - 38 per cent - are opposed to any enhancement of surveillance powers. The plan will see CSPs retaining details of all emails, phone calls, texts and other electronic communications - but not their content.

The proposals are expected to cost £2bn to implement over 10 years, with no indication of any payments to CSPs to offset costs.

The Herald Scotland
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:25 EST

'Orwellian' moves aimed at reducing blackmail risk

Thousands of staff at UK nuclear power stations have been told to spy on the private lives of workmates and inform on colleagues who might be "vulnerable" to blackmail or bribery by terrorists intent on getting access to Britain's nuclear secrets and stocks of weapon-grade plutonium.

As part of the "security measures" nuclear power station staff are being asked to keep a watch on their colleagues' love lives. They are also being told to keep tabs on colleagues they think may be using illegal drugs and even those travelling abroad.

The moves by the government's nuclear security agency to step up the vetting of civilian nuclear workers have been condemned by trade unionists and critics as "Orwellian". But the agency insists the measures are justified by the threat of terrorism.

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"The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty" Adlai E. Stevenson

"There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle." Bill Moyers

"This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths." Simon Heffer in The Daily Mail, 7 June 2000

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823

"A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the right of the people to know.": Murray I. Gurfein

One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to steadily convince them with propaganda that they're still free. N.A. Scott