Congratulations and thanks to all those - be they civilian, police or intelligence services - who were involved in finding and making safe the Haymarket bomb. Had it exploded it would have been an appalling atrocity. The thought makes me shudder all the more because I know Haymarket well from when I lived in London.

Every time the terrorists succeed in murder the authoritarians say it strengthens the argument in favour of repressive measures such as ID Cards.

Every time a terrorist attack is foiled without the use of repressive measures such as ID Cards it strengthens the argument against them.

Technorati: London ID cards UK politics ukpolitics

Labels: civil liberties, ID Cards

I remember election night 1997. I stayed up into the early hours of the morning cheering as the extent of the Tory defeat became apparent. I clearly remember the joy of seeing Michael Portillo defeated by Stephen Twigg. The next morning the sun was shining, Tony Blair was in Downing Street and I really believed that things could only get better.

My one regret was that I couldn't be with Tony Blair to shake his hand.

Where did it all go so wrong?

It began with the economy. During the election Blair had used the rhetoric of the Tories - but few of us believed him. We assumed it was just an election ploy, that he'd discard it once he was Prime Minister. Yet instead he embraced the language of the unfettered market and failed to reverse any of the disastrous Tory privatisations.

Still there were some high points: the introduction of a minimum wage, devolution for Scotland, incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into UK law. So I was a little disappointed with some aspects of Blair's government but generally happy.

Then came 911 and the authoritarian wing of the Blair government seized on it as an opportunity. The talk of compulsory ID Cards began almost immediately.

911 was probably the defining moment of Blair's regime. Would he stand up to authoritarians like David Blunkett and defend our liberties, or would he sacrifice them on the altar of supposed security? He chose the latter - and lost my support. The UK derogated from Article 5 of the ECHR, undermining Blair's greatest achievement and paving the way for internment without trial.

Following 911 George W Bush decided to invade Iraq. It was obvious that 911 had nothing to do with Iraq but simply provided an excuse. For Blair to go along with this seemed unbelievable. The idea that he might do so without a UN resolution - collaborate in an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation - was mind-boggling. I was one of the million people who marched through the streets of London in a protest that Blair simply ignored.

As predicted, the invasion of Iraq didn't make the world a safer place - it made it a much more dangerous one. Blair's response was a steady erosion of our civil liberties, the worst being the ongoing plan to impose compulsory National Identity Cards and a huge, intrusive National Identity Register (NIR).

Apparently emboldened by his success in exploiting the terrorist threat, Blair - initially through Blunkett - extended his attacks on traditional freedoms into other areas: removal of the double jeopardy protection, attempts to restrict the right to trial by jury , constant attacks on the presumption of innocence and much, much more. In the name of protecting British society Blair has ripped up some of its most important foundations - the freedoms which people spent centuries fighting for have been discarded in a decade.

So this afternoon I'll be watching Tony Blair drive to Buckingham Palace and resign as PM. I'll be cheering as loudly as I was ten years ago.

My only regret will be that I can't be with Tony Blair to spit in his face.

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Labels: civil liberties, Tony Blair

According to a BBC report new rules might require owners of a traditional Scottish kilt and sporran to carry a licence!

The regulations have been introduced to bring Scotland in line with EU conservation rules. The reason is that traditionally sporrans were made from the fur of badgers and otters which are endangered species. The licensing scheme would confirm that sporrans were made from legal sources.

Under the proposals, anyone owning any part of any protected animal would be required to have a licence or face a £5000 fine and 6 month prison sentence. This could lead to people being stopped on the streets by police and arrested if they can't produce their sporran licence! The same rules could also apply to anglers. It's a typical example of an all too common equation:

Good intentions - Common sense = Bad law

OK, it's a good silly story about bureaucracy gone mad. Does it really deserve a blog entry?

Yes.

This is a symptom of a wider problem - the move away from the presumption of innocence. It's another case where individuals are being required to prove that they are acting lawfully - rather than the authorities being required to prove otherwise. If there must be a licensing scheme then it should apply to producers, not individuals.

The attitude of the Scottish Executive confirms the problem. A spokeswoman is quoted as saying:

"The licence will allow people who possess artefacts made from these species in circumstances compliant with earlier laws to keep them"

Rubbish. Legal sporrans and fishing flies are legal, full stop. This sort of regulation doesn't "allow" anybody to do anything. It forces people to prove they are acting within the law. This is another small step on the journey of the UK towards a Papieren bitte state.

It's sporrans today - what will it be tomorrow?


Update:
Just to clarify, I'm not opposing moves to ban the use of endangered animals. I'm opposing the requirement to possess a licence to prove compliance with the law.

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Labels: Scotland, Scottish Executive

Since the government first suggested compulsory ID Cards and the National Identity Register (NIR) some of us have been complaining about "function creep". Civil liberty campaigners and privacy advocates have argued that the use of ID Cards would seep into every facet of our lives.

Such worries have normally been dismissed as paranoid fears, with the government claiming that using ID Cards would in some way be "voluntary". Yet now we have official government recognition that our worries were and are justified.

Liam Byrne MP, the Minister of State for Immigration, Citizenship & Nationality, has made a speech entitled Securing Our Identity: A 21st Century Public Good. Before tackling the details of the speech, let's look at the key message. Byrne maintains he can already see how: "secure identity will suffuse working life, private life and our use of public services". In other words, the NIR will become the all-pervasive surveillence system many of us have been warning about.

According to Byrne:

"Like the railways in the 19th century and the national grid in the 20th century, I think there are strong arguments for thinking of the National Identity System as a modern day public good - that very quickly becomes part and parcel of everyday life in Britain."

How does he reach this bizarre conclusion? By some very dodgy arguments.

Most puzzling is that he seems to think the ID Card will somehow help prevent online credit card fraud - he sprinkles his speech with words like "internet", "online" and "e-commerce". Yet the government's proposed plan would do nothing to prevent online credit card fraud - or any other form of "customer not present" fraud.

He claims that some 282,000 people in the UK have been victims of ID fraud during the last six years - again failing to specify how many of those were victims of old-fashioned credit card fraud that would not have been prevented by ID Cards.

He trots out the discredited estimates for the cost of ID Fraud, estimates which were soundly demolished by The Register.

He states that "In the US there are already 120,000 customers registered to pay at checkouts using biometric technology". In a country of over 300 million people that number is insignificant. The UK government wants to fingerprint 100% of the British population - with or without consent.

Byrne's main argument for the National Identity Scheme appears to be that at the moment we have a number of incompatible schemes springing up for specific purposes - instead he believes we should have one vast central system. I doubt that many security experts would agree that setting up such a "honey pot" is a good idea. He complains about "Systems with different technologies and languages that don't talk to each other" - which from a security perspective is a good thing. Making it difficult to link up information from different systems is the best way to protect that information. Identity theft becomes much easier when every system is keyed on the same unique, lifelong personal ID number.

Byrne goes on to list three attributes that he says any ID system must have: it must be useful, accessible and accountable. The government's plan would certainly be accessible, but useful? Only to solve problems that the government is creating. As to accountable, the level of oversight proposed for the scheme is minimal.

A highly desirable attribute Byrne fails to include is a way of ensuring the individual remains in control of their own information. There's also no mention of personal privacy. The word "privacy" doesn't appear once in the speech.

Byrne concludes with this frightening prediction:

"In 20 years time, I suspect that the National Identity Scheme will be just a normal part of British life – another great British institution without which modern life, whatever it looks like in 2020, would be quite unthinkable"

That's not a Britain I want to see. Which is why I'm a member of NO2ID.


Technorati: ID cards identity cards Liam Byrne NIR UK politics ukpolitics

Labels: ID Cards, Liam Byrne, NIR, privacy

I have a lot of respect for Simon Davies of Privacy International (PI). So when PI issues research giving Google a "hostile to privacy" rating I take notice.

I have a lot of respect for Matt Cutts of Google. So when he argues that Google takes privacy seriously I take notice.

How to resolve these two positons?

I think the key is in Matt Cutts's counter-argument. He is essentially defending Google by comparing it with common practice on the net. He argues - accurately - that compared with many companies (including your ISP) Google is relatively benign.

PI on the other hand is looking at the absolute picture. The fact that Google is better than industry standard practice doesn't count for much when industry standard practice is so bad.

I take Matt and co at their word when they say they care about privacy. Unfortunately they do so in a world where privacy standards are already very poor. For Google to say "We could be worse" really isn't good enough.

For example Google takes pride in anonymizing user data after 18 months. 18 months?!? 18 days would be more reasonable. No, on second thoughts let's make that 18 minutes.

It says a lot about the appalling state of net privacy that Google take it as read that they can record user searches and associate them via IP address and/or a persistent cookie without the need for user opt-in. Opt in, not out, and not making such an opt-in a prerequisite for using services. If I want the extra facilities Google claims to give me by knowing my search history then I can choose to exchange my privacy for these.

And what about gmail? Ads in gmail are based on an analysis of the content of the email. I know, I know: any email provider, web based or otherwise, has access to the content of your email anyway. That's not the point. The point is that Gmail is giving acceptability to the concept of your personal email being contextually analysed. That sort of thing undermines the larger scale fight for personal privacy to be respected.

Yes, Google stood up to the US Department of Justice (DoJ) when it demanded user query records. Full marks for that. But how many users really understood that Google was collecting that data?

Why is there no big "expunge my personal data" button at the top of the Google home page? Trivial to implement.

Of course most other search engines and other sites fail to provide such a button. There's a question as to whether Google should be held to a higher standard than their competitors. Yes, they should. The reason is that they are bigger, they have more personal user data, they matter. Anything Google does - for better or worse - has a bigger impact than anything most of the rest of the industry does. The same goes for Microsoft.

And it staggers belief that any company claiming to be privacy conscious could roll out Street View.

So I respect those in Google who are fighting the corner for privacy as far as they can. Unfortunately they are in the position of being a well-meaning minority in an industry of sinners. Sinning a little less doesn't make Google a saint.

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Labels: Google, privacy

The death of a police officer in the line of duty is a dreadful thing and a great tragedy for all concerned. Anger is an understandable reaction and this anger is frequently "expressed" as a call to arm all British police.

Would that be a good idea? Well, here's a quick set of thought experiments. For each question answer "a", "b" or "c":

1: You're a criminal planning a serious crime. How would knowing that the police would be armed affect the likelihood of you also carrying a gun?

a) Make you more likely to carry a gun
b) Make no difference
c) Make you less likely to carry a gun


2: You are an armed robber. The police appear in the middle of the job. How would knowing that they are armed affect the likelihood of you firing at them?

a) Make you more likely to fire
b) Make no difference
c) Make you less likely to fire


3: You are an innocent civilian. In the unlikely event that the police wrongly mistake you for a dangerous criminal, would you feel safer with them armed or not?

a) Safer with them unarmed
b) No preference
c) Safer with them armed.


If you answered mostly "a":
You realise that arming all British police would be to pander to the ravings of the tabloids and would probably make life more dangerous for both the police and innocent citizens.

If you answered mostly "b":
You realise that there is no justification for arming all British police and we shouldn't make knee-jerk reactions just to keep the tabloid newspapers happy

If you answered mostly "c":
You're seriously deluding yourself and/or you edit a tabloid newspaper.

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Labels: guns, police

The BBC reports an idea I find rather worrying: it's apparently been suggested that psychometric personality assessment could be made part of the UK driving test. Those who "fail" the personality test will, presumably, be denied a driving licence. The idea is to improve safety by identifying those who are likely to be dangerous drivers.

Now I can see why the idea appeals, there are many dangerous drivers on the road. I'd certainly approve the use of such tests as part of driving instruction to teach self-control behind the wheel. Better education, including psychological techniques for dealing with stress etc, would definitely be welcome. Psychometric tools could be useful as a method of improving self-awareness.

When it comes to more general psychological analysis as part of the driving test I'm deeply uneasy. For a start such psychometric tests are very crude - people behave differently in different situations. Because someone identifies themselves as a "risk-taker" doesn't necessarily mean they'll take risks behind the wheel. People who indulge in extreme sports are by definition risk-takers yet often some of the most careful people around; their lives depend on it.

More worrying is the suggestion in the BBC report that such tests could be used "to root out drivers prone to breaking rules". Once such non-conformists were identified by "picking up their underlying values", "instructors and examiners would then be able to modify the person's behaviour".

Emergency stop!

Are we saying that a driving licence - which most people need - could be linked to a psychological attitude of submission to authority? That people who refuse to comply and conform will be "rooted out" and psychologically reconditioned?

If such tests become a routine part of the governmental apparatus, how much further could they be extended? Could your psychological profile - adjusted or otherwise - be stored on the DVLA database? To be linked to your National Identity Register Number (NIRN) on your ID Card?

As always, I hope that I'm over-reacting and it would never come to that. Hopefully this is just a silly-season story on a slow news day. But the language being used is extremely worrying. When seen in the context of the Mental Health Bill it all has a nasty psikhushka feel about it.

It says something about our society today that people could even suggest such testing.

And it says a lot about our government that it's reportedly keeping "an open mind" on the idea.


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Labels: civil liberties, mental health

The Jesuits reportedly say "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man". It's a wise motto that applies to more than just religion. If you want to indoctrinate people into anything then the time to do it is when they're young.

One example is acceptance of the surveillance state. To many adults the idea of being routinely fingerprinted, scanned and tracked is repugnant. But if you can get the youngsters to accept it as a matter of course, turn it into a game, then they'll grow up with no understanding of the importance of privacy.

From NO2ID Coventry & Warwickshire via David Nikel I learned of a wonderful family fun event in Ohio. The Summit County Park Safety Day boasts various jolly activities for kids - including "child fingerprinting and iris scans".

Talk about indoctrination. Now, I'm sure that those involved in this particular event have the best of motives. This is simply an example of how far the surveillance state is infiltrating our lives. This event is - however unwittingly - helping to train a new generation that biometric invasion of privacy is something to be welcomed rather than resisted.

Of course, that's America. Routine fingerprinting of kids couldn't happen here in the UK.

Oh yes it could.

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Labels: biometrics, children

The Home Secretary John Reid today launched his discussion document proposing new powers to combat terrorism in Britain. Despite his softer presentation and calls for cross-party consensus the substance of his proposals still contains elements that are totally unacceptable.

Firstly, Reid refused to rule out suggestions that police might be given powers to stop and interrogate people without reasonable cause. The new powers aren't included in the current document but are the subject of an "internal consultation".

More immediately Reid also wants to have another go at increasing the length of time a suspect can be held without charge - previously this government has pushed for 90 days.

This is nothing short of internment without charge.

Let's do a quick thought experiment. Relax for a second. Imagine yourself asleep in you bed, at peace with the world. You feel warm, comfortable and safe.


Suddenly you're woken by a crashing sound. Your bedroom door bursts open. Armed police rush. They shout at you to get out of bed. They handcuff you at gunpoint.

You demand to know what's going on and they say you've been arrested on suspicion of terrorist activity. You tell them this is nonsense - they tell you to shut up. Ignoring your protestations they bundle you out through the remains of your smashed in front door.

You're thrown into the back of a police van which drives for hours. Eventually you arrive at a police station, they won't tell you where. When you demand access to a solicitor it's denied. They won't let you contact anyone. They refuse to tell you what you are suspected of having done. Instead they question you relentlessly. They ask about your religion, your politics, your friends and family. They ask you about names you've never heard of and show you photos of people you don't know. They repeat the same questions again and again and again.

This goes on day after day. You're kept in solitary confinement except when being questioned. After two days of interrogation you're finally allowed to see a solicitor - who knows little more than you. You aren't allowed to contact family or friends.

You're totally innocent yet they won't believe you. They just keep on and on and on with the same questions that you can't answer. They won't tell you why you're being held or what's going to happen to you.

The days turn into weeks, then months. Eventually after three months of internment you're released. You can tell that the police are reluctant to let you go and still refuse even tell you why you were being questioned. Three months of your life are gone, you've probably lost your job. There is no apology and no compensation.


If Reid gets his way that Kafkaesque nightmare could become real for any one of us at any time. It'll be unlikely, but not impossible. All it will take is one incorrect piece of information, one mix-up of names, one coincidence of you being in the wrong place at the wrong time.


John Reid said in the Commons today:

"I believe that terrorism remains the greatest threat to the life and liberty of this nation and of the many individuals who make up this country"

He's half right. The greatest threat to life is indeed from the terrorists. But the greatest threat to liberty is from government.

Techorati: civil liberties John Reid UK politics ukpolitics

Labels: civil liberties, John Reid

Another weekend, another attack on our freedom. Early hopes that Gordon Brown might be less authoritarian than Tony Blair are fading fast. It appears that the new Prime Minister will simply take a different approach to stripping us of our liberties. The same old stuff with a different type of spin.

We've already heard that Brown won't be scrapping ID Cards after all. He's known to support extending the period of questioning by the police of terror suspects to 90 days (that's three months internment without charge). The BBC reports Brown speaking yesterday in Glasgow where he said:

"Because we are a country that believes in civil liberties of the individual, every time you have to strengthen the security measures that are necessary to protect our country, you also have to strengthen the accountability to parliament and the independent oversight of what police and other authorities are doing."

This is clever stuff, very different to Blair's "trust me" approach. And just as dangerous.

First, Brown starts by paying lip service to the thing he's attacking - civil liberties of the individual. Then he loads a long, rambling sentence with phrases like "you have to", "are necessary" and "to protect". These are embedded. They're not part of the main argument but are taken as given - thus avoiding debate on them. It's classic sales/NLP/hypnosis technique.

Then there's the thrust of the point: That removing our civil liberties is somehow justified if it's accompanied by accountability.

It's not. Our liberties aren't removed at the moment we're wrongly arrested. Our liberties aren't removed at the moment when some judge looks at our situation.

Our liberties are removed at the moment authoritarian laws are passed.

The vast majority of us will never suffer under these laws, will never be victims of wrongful suspicion, will never be locked up for three months without charge. Yet we might. That's the danger - authoritarian laws could affect any one of us and hence erode the freedom of us all.

Yes, oversight and accountability are necessary when giving the state powers over the individual. That doesn't mean that - as Brown implies - they are sufficient.

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Labels: civil liberties, Gordon Brown