Hopeless, Incompetent, Laughable, Finally The Truth About "Terror"

"This was a hopeless, incompetent terrorist attack, I mean when you see the ludicrous situation when none of the bombs were able to be detonated and these guys are then trying to set fire to petrol," O'Connor told CNN.

 

"All they got was a bonfire, they set fire to fuel - well that in its own way is not going to detonate the gas cylinders and it's not going to cause an explosion - it was just a fire, I mean that is so incompetent as to be almost laughable."

Improvised Un-explosive Devices? - July 5/2007

Larry C. Johnson, a former senior US counterterrorist official for the CIA and State Department who works as a consultant to governments on terrorism issues, described the Friday episode as a “crock of crap”

“If we want to set back community-police relations and return to the bad old days of the ‘sus’ laws of the ‘70s and ‘80s, when levels of mistrust between police and public were at record highs and had drastic consequences, then the introduction of a new blank cheque power to stop and question anyone, anywhere, anytime without reasonable grounds for suspicion, is a very quick way of achieving this," Len Duvall, chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said. “Neither the Metropolitan Police Authority nor the Metropolitan Police Service have called for this power because we understand the serious damage it could cause to the police’s relationship with London’s communities."

According to a memo leaked to the Daily Telegraph, Home Office officials are planning to expand the police DNA database to identify suspects and use greater powers to track individuals through advanced closed circuit television (CCTV) technology and the Oyster card used by millions of people on London’s bus and rail network.

The memo discusses different means the government could use to persuade the British public to accept these measures. It asks, “To what extent should the expectation of liberty be eroded by legitimate intrusions in the interests of security of the wider public?” and concludes, “Increasing [public] support could be possible through the piloting of certain approaches in high-profile ways such as the London Olympics.” [full report] [Click here for Canadian Olympics related story]

Official report reveals multiple "failures", raises many questions, calls for heavier police presence in public but Government still will not allow a public inquiry and tells us they can't prevent next attack.

Steve Watson / Infowars | May 12 2006

Downing Street has again ruled out a public inquiry into the July 7 bombings, despite fresh calls from survivors and relatives of victims, reports the Evening Standard here in London.

The ruling came as two official reports into the attacks concluded that the chances of preventing the July 7 atrocities could have increased if extra resources had been in place sooner.

The reports, carried out by The cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) and the Home Office also between them confirmed that two of the bombers had been under MI5 surveillance before the bombings. It was further revealed that a third bomber, Germaine Lindsay, was also known to MI5 who had reports, pictures and even his telephone number in its files.

The ISC report claims that MI5 missed a catalogue of clues that could have prevented the bombings. However, the London Times reported last December that MI5 and MI6 had specifically warned Tony Blair before the July 7 suicide bombings that Al-Qaeda was planning a “high priority” attack specifically aimed at the London underground system.

You can't have it both ways, either they "warned of a high priority attack" or they "missed a catalogue of clues", which is it?

The source of this information was a leaked four-page report by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), signed off by the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, the government eavesdropping centre. This indicates that good people within British Intelligence are desperately trying to get the word out that the official line is hokum.

The ISC report has concluded that more police are needed on the streets of major UK cities and also warned that there would be an "inevitable" rise in intrusive activity by security services in the face of the terror threat.

The report recommended a more transparent threat level and alert system, and called for improvements to the way the Security Service MI5 and Special Branches tackle "home-grown" terrorism. The members said they were "concerned that more was not done sooner" about the terror threat from UK citizens.

No longer is "Al Qaeda" the main threat, now apparently all UK citizens could be terrorists.

The official line on whether the bombers were acting alone or not is however still unclear. This latest report states that they "probably" received expert bombmaking assistance from an unknown individual, and they also had a series of highly suspicious contacts with an unknown individual or individuals in Pakistan for several months before the bombings.

Previous to this the government had stated in April of this year that the bombers HAD definitely acted alone and that there was no Al Qaeda involvement.

However, previous to that, in January of this year, a leaked MI5 report stated that they had "no insight " into whether the bombers acted alone, if there was a wider network connection, and if 7/7 was linked to 21/7.

Yet before that, in August 2005, an inquiry involving MI5, MI6, the listening centre at GCHQ, and the police
concluded DEFINITIVELY that there was no "mastermind" of the operation and it was not linked to the follow up failed operation on 21/7.

And initially, in the weeks after 7/7 it was reported that there WAS an Al Qaeda Mastermind behind both operations, and that he had been caught in Zambia. This turned out to be Haroon Rashid Aswat. As soon as terror experts began to reveal that this man was an asset of MI6, the official line changed and has never been clear since.

How can they go from knowing there was a mastermind, to definitively knowing there wasn't one, that the operations were not linked and the bombers acted alone to then having "no insight" on any of this stuff and then back again?

Furthermore the initial story that the bombs were high powered explosives carefully created by a bomb making mastermind (who was also apparently captured, and has since disappeared), were then altered 180 degrees to the story that the bombs were put together from cheap homemade material. Now, the latest reports seem to have taken this full circle by stating that the bombers "received expert bombmaking assistance".

It has also still not been made clear whether the bombs were on timers or were detonated by the bombers. Both these scenarios have been reported as fact.

It is painfully clear that the authorities have changed the official line again and again according to information that is leaked out in the public domain. Still they will not allow a public inquiry. This is because someone knows that if a truly independent inquiry were held the whole sorry scam would be blown wide open.

All these whitewash reports do is clear the government and the intelligence services of any blame. They have no basis in reality as is confirmed by the fact that they directly contradict previous reports without bringing any new evidence to light.

Speaking to the London Guardian, one 7/7 survivor, Rachel North, made clear her dissatisfaction, saying: "These meetings that led to these reports took place behind closed doors ... They were internal investigations and I am not surprised that the politicians and security services have examined their work in secret and subsequently found themselves not to blame."

The latest ISC report also concluded that although some attacks have been prevented since 7/7, the next attack cannot be stopped.

So we have government reports stating that our privacy will be heavily impacted and a greater police presence is needed, but that they cannot prevent the next terror attacks.

No longer are we being told that we must give up liberty for security, we are just simply being told to give up liberty regardless of security.

It is not good enough to say that our liberties need to be restricted because of 7/7 but that we cannot have a public inquiry, and in any case that this will not prevent further attacks. It is also not good enough for the government to investigate itself and conclude that it needs more power and control over the population.

They admit that they completely failed to protect the population yet the spin is that it was because of a lack of resources. So it was due to "a lack of resources" that 4 bombers got on to tube trains, and this requires thousands more armed police everywhere and new laws that simply do away with civil liberties altogether.

The reason behind the decision not to allow a public inquiry according to Tony Blair's official spokesman is that the call for public scrutiny has to be balanced with "the need not to distract from the ongoing work of the security services and agencies".

Funny that because leaked reports by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) have admitted that MI5 "have run out of leads" on the bombings. So they have exhausted their investigation yet we cannot now have a public inquiry because the investigation is ongoing. Again, you cannot have it both ways, which is it?

We were told IMMEDIATELY in the days after the attacks that there was to be no inquiry, despite calls from the opposition party, because it would hinder the investigation.

We were told by Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer that "now is not the time" for an inquiry, but for a decision on what legal steps were needed against terror. Since when do you debate and pass laws into public in response to an event of terrorism before you even know what has happened, who has carried it out or the reasoning behind it?

We were told by ministers "For goodness sake, let's focus on what's important here and that is for the police and the security services to follow up every single lead they've got," . Well evidently they've done that now so can we have an inquiry please?

We were then told AGAIN in December that there was still to be no public enquiry because it would divert attention and resources away from pressing security and community issues, and take too long. There will also never be a criminal trial because the bombers died in the attacks.

More demands from MPs earlier this year told hold an inquiry were also dismissed out of hand. It seems that the government is above the law and only they will tell us what happened, why it happened and what needs to be done about it.

.

The fallout of 7/7 is all around us in the UK now. This is the face of New Labour's "New Britain". Increased numbers of armed police everywhere with the right to now stop and search anyone they choose to under vamped up anti-terror laws. We now live in a Pro-active, police state, where you are a pre-criminal, that is a criminal until proven otherwise.

And this is what our police now look like in "New Britain". They wear black ski masks, combat trousers and army boots, just like SAS agents.

The Huge black machine guns armed police carry are totally impractical and should an incident occur where they would have to use them, the high output of rounds and spray of bullets they would fire would inevitably cause unnecessary casualties in a bustling city like London.

They are purely designed to look effective and put the fear of life into the population, as are the ski-masks and the combat garb. The more immune people become to them, the more frightening and controlling they will become.

This pattern will continue long as we keep letting the government take away our rights whilst fully admitting that they are failing us and thus must have more control over everything we do. In a free society the government is supposed to serve the population, not the other way round. This is precisely why there needs to be a public inquiry into 7/7 now, before more attacks are carried out and this course of action in the aftermath becomes the norm.

What questions need to be raised in a 7/7 public inquiry? Check the London Bombings Archive for evidence of government prior knowledge, cover ups and complicity.

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Reid to gag Whitehall whistle-blowers

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Britons face 11 ID checks a year

And according to the research, by 2010 Britons will be asked to produce ID an average of 17 times a year.

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Police hold mother-of-three for reading 'Independent' outside Downing Street

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Cooked Terror Plot Recycles Politics Of Fear
'Al-Qaeda' plan to fly planes into London skyscrapers concocted by government lobbyists

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Watch a free clip of TerrorStorm (London Bombing Info) High Quality, full movie!

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Protesters in England demand prosecution of killer cops

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7/7 fabricated evidence

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Official version of 7/7 London bombings does not make sense

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Schools to bring in 'airport screening'

3,500 schools now use finger print scanners in 'Big Brother state by stealth'

Headmaster justifies fingerprinting pupils

Anger over fingerprint book scheme

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Police sent 78 to quell lone protester

John Steele / London Telegraph | May 28 2006

A total of 78 police officers were used, at a cost of £7,200, in the night-time operation to crack down on the anti-war protester Brian Haw in Parliament Square, it was disclosed yesterday.

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Big Brother is shouting at you

Big Brother is not only watching you - now he's barking orders too. Britain's first 'talking' CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming offenders into acting more responsibly.

The system allows control room operators who spot any anti-social acts - from dropping litter to late-night brawls - to send out a verbal warning: 'We are watching you'.

Middlesbrough has fitted loudspeakers on seven of its 158 cameras in an experiment already being hailed as a success. Jack Bonner, who manages the system, said: 'It is one hell of a deterrent. It's one thing to know that there are CCTV cameras about, but it's quite another when they loudly point out what you have just done wrong.

Law-abiding shopper Karen Margery, 40, was shocked to hear the speakers spring into action as she walked past them.

Afterwards she said: 'It's quite scary to realise that your every move could be monitored - it really is like Big Brother.

 

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Why am I being hounded like this?

At first, they were in the tone of a polite inquiry: did I have a television and, if I did, had I bought a licence for it? Then they moved on to rebuke: we know you've got one, and we know you haven't licensed it. Finally, they were downright threatening: get a licence, or you're in big trouble.

 

Read full Telegraph article HERE

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Suspect Nation

 

Steve Watson / Infowars | April 17 2006

A new poster has been plastered around London over the past few months to remind us that Big Brother is watching in order to keep us all safe.

The poster headline reads simply "Watching over you 24/7" and features giant eyes set into the landscape of the Houses of Parliament in London.

Of course we are being surveilled constantly for our "safety and security" as the sub headline reads. The telephone number below promises unique benefits if you become a member of the London Neighbourhood Watch Association.

Since when was the entirety of London a "neighbourhood"? This is a city with a population of nine million people - do we all need to spy on each other and be constantly watched by cctv cameras in order to be safe and secure?

This new poster is similar in appearance to a previous example that was paraded around bus shelters in London a few years ago.

 

 

The "Secure beneath the watchful eyes" poster featured multiple all seeing Horus eyes. In Egyptian mythology Horus presented his eye to Osiris, the god of death, who experienced rebirth in the underworld.

The symbol of the all seeing eye was adopted by the Bavarian Illuminati and has pervaded modern culture.

How ironic or coincidental that the iconic London red bus would shortly down the line once more appear, this time blown to smithereens, despite the helpful and loving watchful eyes.

Even more farcical was the fact that the "investigation" into the July 7 bombings was hindered when it was discovered the CCTV cameras on the bus that blew up were not working.

Britain is acknowledged as the world leader of Orwellian surveillance. An estimated 4.2 million closed-circuit TV cameras observe people going about their everyday business, from getting on a bus to lining up at the bank to driving around London. It's widely estimated that the average Briton is scrutinized by 300 cameras a day.

Authorities maintain the cameras deter crime, despite the fact that police have admitted that they are 'too busy' to watch CCTV, even AFTER a crime has taken place. The outrage of civil libertarians has fallen on deaf ears as the public seems willing to accept the constant monitoring for the greater good.

The Posters are both eerily similar to shots taken from the film re-productions of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four in which a totalitarian government regime rules over the people with an Iron fist and relies on a total surveillance society to scare the population into submission and docility.

The posters are nothing more than crude and simplistic propaganda informing us that we are all under suspicion in this surveillance society. The fact that the in this latest one they feel the need to add the words "security and safety" is an attempt to play down the immediate aggressive and threatening feeling that is instilled upon its viewing.

Other posters that have gone up all over the UK recently inform the population that should they spit in public, on a bus or train for example, then their DNA will be collected and stored on the national database FOREVER.

Under current UK laws, if you are arrested for any recordable offence, police are allowed to take your fingerprints and a sample your DNA. Even if you are subsequently released and found innocent, police can still keep your DNA, which is added to a PERMANENT database.

Worse still, hundreds of thousands of children aged between 10 and 18 have had their DNA added to the database despite never being cautioned or charged for any offence.

How can all this be to protect freedom and ensure our liberty? Some are awakening, but still no one dares to suggest that on our doorstep is a Police State surveillance society that is worse than Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. We have to speak out now before it's too late, because it can happen and it is happening here.

Flashback: Giant Steps Towards Cashless-Surveilance Society Going On Unnoticed In London

Flashback: Orwellian Doublethink In London

Flashback: New Stasi style UK Anti-Terror campaign encourages reporting your neighbours

Flashback: Stasi London: Fearmongering reaches new heights in England - SPECIAL REPORT

August 03/2007 newsclip reveals police deliberately mislead the public in 7/7 attack.

The gathering and holding of information has permeated into every facet of life in Great Britain and no one batters an eyelid. It's time to reveal what's really going to happen in the UK.

Steve Watson / Infowars | April 20 2006

Click here for Part One

Whilst there is still the semblance of a 'debate", at least among the public, concerning ID cards, there is no debate over the database that will accompany them.

The card is somewhat of of trojan horse, as under a so called government "compromise", anyone who renews a passport will have their details put on the national ID database - but will not have to get a card until 2010.

The government told us that the ID card database would make our information more secure. Blair said this would protect, not infringe our liberties. And how did they propose paying for it? By selling the information of 44 million British citizens to private companies. How secure is that?

Joe public will not be allowed access to the ID database but whichever companies the government sees fit to sell the information to will. And of course the intelligence services will be given unprecedented access.

The database will contain electronic "biometric" eye scans and fingerprints as willing volunteers line up to lick the boots of the government who promise to keep them safe by taking scans of their eyeballs. The government itself has admitted that the information WILL NOT keep us safe from fraud and identity theft, nor will it prevent terrorism. So what is the purpose of a biometric database? The population is willingly entering into the pits of hell in this country.

Even the biometric information is to be outsourced as checks on applications and the like are to be shifted to places as far flung as Mumbai, Delhi and Islamabad.

Of course, if you refuse you will be issued with huge fines, equating to figures beyond the average monthly salary of the majority of people in this country.

Earlier this year the London Telegraph reported how town hall bureaucrats are to be given sweeping new powers to investigate homes for identity card evasion and to impose heavy fines on occupants not registered on the database. The card is completely voluntary of course at this stage, yet if you say No to the ID card, the authorities will SWAT your home and you'll be crippled financially.

You'll also no doubt be denied the right to free health care and free education. Buying and selling will be made almost impossible as cash machines, supermarket checkouts and other everyday items are linked in with the ID card database. The Government has stated at various times that it feels ID card reading capability could be built into future generations of credit card readers and ATMs.

If you wish to participate in the joke that is "voting" in elections in this country you will also have to be linked into the national Identity database as the government is moving ahead with plans to establish a centralised national register of voters, together with central checking and verification of the data held on electoral registers.

The government plans to attempt to link together all its databases in a system referred to as CORE Co-ordinated Online Record of Elector, which will tie in the management and control of all facets of life for a UK citizen to one central database.

Another addition to this CORE of databases will be the national DNA database.

The British government has passed legislation to make every offence arrestable. Every suspect arrested, even if proven innocent, has their DNA added to the criminal database and stored forever in perpetuity.

Under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, police can approach any person whatsoever, whether they are acting suspiciously or not, and demand they provide their full details, address and date of birth. This information is kept forever in perpetuity. 119,000 people have already had their details recorded and this figure will skyrocket after the post 7/7 figures are added.

The London independent reported last week that police in Britain hold vastly more DNA samples than any other country in the Western world, and many are from people who have never committed a crime. More than three million samples have been added to the national DNA database - more than 5 per cent of the population, and this is rising exponentially.

And what kind of evil criminals are being swabbed for DNA collection? Well take the case of a 13-year-old schoolgirl who was arrested in Ashford, Kent for throwing a snowball at a police car. As reported by the New Statesman, she was DNA-swabbed and her details were added to the National DNA Database. Thank God the government is protecting us from these snowball throwing subversives.

Without ANY parliamentary debate or legislation, every person in this country is being targeted for inclusion on a DNA database from birth. Hundreds of thousands of children aged between 10 and 18 have had their DNA added to the database despite never being cautioned or charged for any offence.

Worse even still, "do it yourself" ID card and DNA swabbing kits are being aimed at and sold for children. We are witnessing the acclimatization of our children to the biometric surveillance police state, making them think that having your retina scanned and your DNA logged is normal and necessary to keep you safe.

Every week in the 1960's cult series The Prisoner, Britons saw the newly designated authority figure demand the character of Patrick McGoohan hand over information. The program was an attempt at forewarning against the accelerating relationship between science, technology, and tyranny, and how it would be used to enslave a docile population concerned only with mindlessness and convenience.

The Village was a beautiful yet sinister enclave where residents were forcibly placed, kept and watched 24 hours a day by camera surveillance systems. The hierarchy of power was represented by a glowing pyramid with an all-seeing eye in the center of The Village control room.

Just as McGoohan was referred to as a number (six) and not a man in the village, so too will we get our own number with our ID card. Are we to allow ourselves to be "pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed and numbered"? Let's also not forget that the numbering of people should have been resigned to the history books after the Nazi death camps were shut down in 1945, a cause that my own grandfather fought for and survived through, and something that I will simply not tolerate in this supposedly free country.

Is this what we are going to accept in the UK? The climax of the series saw McGoohan escape the prison of The Village and re-enter society only to discover that society itself was the prison and that, in his words, "freedom is a myth." Here we are 40 years on and it seems fiction has been surpassed by reality.

This is an impassioned call to the people of the UK, please do not let our country die, stand up for the freedom our fathers and grandfathers fought and died to protect. Spread this information as far and wide as you can.

Related: Why You Should Resist the National ID Card

 

Anybody who objects to their personal details going on the new "Big Brother" ID cards database

will be banned from having a passport.

 

James Hall, the official in charge of the supposedly-voluntary scheme, said the Government

would allow people to opt out - but in return they must "forgo the ability" to have a travel document.

Canadian Press November 21, 2004

LONDON (AP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government is considering toughening already contentious anti-terrorism powers if it wins another term in office, a senior government minister said Sunday.

Home Secretary David Blunkett said the government is considering allowing wiretap evidence to be used in court and establishing special terrorism courts overseen by judges without a jury.

The changes would not come until after a national election expected next year, Blunkett told ITV television's Jonathan Dimbleby Show, excerpts released in advance by the broadcaster showed.

"It's not my intention to try and push a bill through this side of the general election, whenever the prime minister calls it," he said.

Blunkett said new measures could also include the use of "civil orders" barring suspects from committing certain acts, even if the acts themselves were not criminal. They could, for instance, prevent suspects from using a specified banking network or using the Internet.

Britain introduced tough new anti-terrorism measures after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

The most controversial authorizes the indefinite detention without trial of foreign terrorist suspects if they cannot be safely removed to another country.

That legislation and Blunkett's plans for a national ID card - Britain's first since the Second World War - have angered civil libertarians.

Blunkett has countered by stressing the threat of a major terrorist attack in Britain. Last week, he said al-Qaida is "actually on our doorstep and threatening our lives."

So far, the tough measures have produced few convictions. Of more than 660 people arrested under the Terrorism Act since Sept. 11, 2001, only 17 have been convicted, although several trials are underway or pending.

http://www.canada.com/news/world/story.html?id=7c27925b-d4e7-4aca-98ff-0e16394adb9b

http://www.telegraph.co.uk
23/11/2004

Security is set to be a key theme of the Government's last Queen's Speech before the next general election.

The speech is to showcase a mammoth Government programme including ID legislation, a Credit Bill and an Education Bill.

Security is set to be at the heart of Labour's election campaign, expected next May.

Measures to combat international terror, organised crime and anti-social
behaviour have been trailed ahead of the speech.

The speech comes on the same day it is revealed police thwarted a September 11-style attack on Canary Wharf.

[Actually, this alleged "terror attack" was a planned exercise by British "intelligence" services and the military. No arrests, no names, and no details and/or solid credible evidence that any al Qaeda members were involved has EVER been shown to the public. See story here

Hence this next line in the story gives you a better context for what is REALLY going on.]

But the timing of the revelations on ITV about planned suicide strikes on
London's Canary Wharf and Heathrow Airport provoked some scepticism and accusations that the Government was trying to spread fear.

[Actually, the "planned strike" at Heathrow was a man who had some loose bullets in his pocket while entering Heathrow.

Talk about creating mountains out of mole hills. Not only did the police confirm he was not on ANY terrorist lists, the man had no idea he had the bullets, and was in any case unable to do much more with them than throw them, like marbles. See story here]

The Queen is expected to announce up to 37 bills in her traditional address in the House of Lords.

However, many stand little chance of becoming law for years.

Moves towards the introduction of ID cards will be among the most
controversial measures.

Plans for a nationwide serious crime agency - dubbed the British FBI - will also be included.

Other Bills will deal with the seemingly less serious problems that blights
people's lives such as youth sentencing, graffiti, litter and other
nuisances.

David Blunkett's more controversial proposals to combat al-Qa'eda and other Islamist groups will be left out.

Measures such as using wire tap evidence in court cases are now expected after the election.

A Credit Bill allowing people to claim back cash after falling victim to
extortionate lenders is also among the expected measures.

All lenders, including banks and credit card companies, will have to explain charges before and during an agreement.

An Education Bill giving schools greater freedom is also expected.

The Government's opponents are instead likely seize on the ministers'
determination to press ahead with the Gambling Bill, which will carry
through to the new session.

Many object to the expansion of the betting industry despite concessions
limiting the number of the new super-casinos.

Renewed controversy over the EU constitution will also be provoked by
legislation paving the way for a referendum on the treaty.
 

Herald Sun | December 19 2004

MILLIONS of e-mails to British government staff will be automatically wiped out on Monday, 11 days before freedom of information laws come into force, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The Cabinet Office, which supports Prime Minister Tony Blair and co-ordinates government policy, has ruled that e-mails more than three months old must be deleted from December 20, according to The Times.

Its 2,000 civil servants are being told to print and file e-mails that should be disclosed under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act, the newspaper said.

It will be up to the individual which e-mails are printed, with no monitoring from heads of department. Many officials, who receive about 100 e-mails a day, will have at least 3,000 items in their mailboxes, it said.

Although the deleted e-mails will be stored on back-up systems, these have been declared off limits to freedom of information requests because of the cost of accessing them, it added.Mo< The Conservative opposition party said Blair's Labour government was deliberately trying to destroy embarrassing information.

"This begs the question how much more does the Labour administration need to hide," Michael Fabricant, the Shadow Minister for Industry and Technology, was quoted as saying.

The decision also raises questions about whether the trail of correspondence which brought down David Blunkett, the former home secretary, would have surfaced.

The Cabinet Office insisted that the exercise was not related to the Freedom of Information Act but was "good records management practice," to stop files blocking the system.
 

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2004/191204emailpurge.htm

 Battle over 'secret' Iraq dossier

London Guardian | January 28 2005

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs said yesterday.

George Churchill-Coleman, who headed Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad as they worked to counter the IRA during their mainland attacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said Mr Clarke's proposals to extend powers, such as indefinite house arrest, were "not practical" and threatened to further marginalise minority communities.

Mr Churchill-Coleman told the Guardian: "I have a horrible feeling that we are sinking into a police state, and that's not good for anybody. We live in a democracy and we should police on those standards.

He added: "I have serious worries and concerns about these ideas on both ethical and practical terms. You cannot lock people up just because someone says they are terrorists. Internment didn't work in Northern Ireland, it won't work now. You need evidence."

Mr Churchill-Coleman's team had to counter IRA cells which mounted the 1991 mortar attack on Downing Street. His criticism comes as Mr Clarke attempts to convince cabinet colleagues about the need for new powers.

The home secretary has already shown an appetite for the kind of political language favoured by his predecessor, David Blunkett, to justify the tools he says the state needs to fight the ongoing war against terror.

In an interview in today's Daily Telegraph, he warns of the need to monitor not only alleged terror suspects but their family, friends and acquaintances. They could be subjected to potentially daily searches even though they are not accused of any crime, he said.

He said: My first responsibility is to protect people. I don't regard their rights as absolute. There are serious people and serious organisations trying to destroy our society. We are in a state of emergency."

Mr Clarke appeared to be digging in for a long and potentially turbulent fight to achieve his new powers.

As criticism of the proposals grew, Mr Clarke gave a lengthy cabinet presentation on the plans. It is believed that some of the government's own law officers have reservations about the details of the new powers, which are needed to ensure it survives any expected legal challenge under the human rights convention.

Guy Mansfield QC, the chairman of the Bar Council, said yesterday that house arrest without trial was as damaging as imprisonment without trial and would breed resentment among ethnic minorities.

The leftwing Labour MP and QC, Bob Marshall-Andrews, called the proposals "the most substantial extension of the state's executive powers over the citizen for 300 years".

He predicted the bill could face a Labour backbench revolt of up to 70 MPs.

Tony Blair mounted a strong defence of the plans.

Speaking from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said: "I pay great attention to the civil liberties of the country. But on the other hand, it is also right that there is a new form of global terrorism in our country, in every other European country and most countries around the world."

Some of the 11 foreign terror suspects held in Belmarsh and Woodhill prisons and Broadmoor high security hospital could be released under strict bail conditions within weeks or even days.

Lawyers will be pressing for three of them to be freed from detention under restrictions similar to the proposed new control order in a series of bail hearings starting on Monday.

The applications, on behalf of the detainees known as A, C and P, could be heard partly in open court at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.

The men's lawyers will argue that the home secretary had accepted that imprisonment was unnecessary to protect the public when he announced this week that it would be replaced by a new control order imposing restrictions on suspects in the community, up to and including house arrest. The Home Office refused to say yesterday whether Mr Clarke would oppose bail. But lawyers said it would be virtually impossible for him now to argue that imprisonment was necessary for public protection when he himself was proposing a maximum restriction of house arrest.

Lawyers believe the chances are strong that Mahmoud Abu Rideh, a Palestinian detainee whose bail application was heard in December, will be released when the commission delivers its judgment, which is expected imminently.

Mr Clarke's proposals face a hazardous passage through both houses of parliament as MPs and peers seek to condemn what some regard as a draconian extension of state power.
 

John Lettice / The Register | March 13 2006

By using both compulsion and a central identity register in its ID card scheme the UK Government has opted for the combination least popular with the public, according to a study carried out by the Open University. The results of the study, Privacy Attitudes and the Acceptance of Identity Cards in the UK, are due to be published in the Journal of Information Science, and show increased levels of suspicion in the public over both of these key aspects to the ID scheme.

According to OU senior lecturer Dr Adam Joinson, who led the study, "The combination of compulsion with a centralised database led to significant drops in support for ID cards. When this scenario was presented, even those who had been categorised as 'privacy unconcerned' moved strongly against them.

The results of the study suggest that removing people's choice about whether or not to have an identity card not only reduces public support, but also leads to a 'tipping point' where those ambivalent to the arguments of privacy and civil liberty campaigners begin to oppose ID cards in increasing numbers."

That second point will be of particular significance if the ID scheme goes ahead as planned, because the compulsory nature of the scheme will become all too apparent as people begin to renew their passports and find themselves summoned to biometric enrolment centres. The general public's knowledge of the ID scheme remains vague, and will quite possibly remain so as ID cards roll out, but when they're forced to have one, the antipathy to compulsion Joinson identifies will begin to kick-in.

The study itself used Westin privacy segmentation (placing the sample population in categories running from 'Privacy Fundamentalists' to 'Privacy Un concerned') and tested reaction to various permutations of scheme, effectively playing off the Government scheme against the LSE's suggested alternative. General hostility to compulsion was surely predictable, given that people tend not to like being told what to do, but that's one the Government would have to take on the chin, even if it did listen (yes, we know...), as compulsion will be necessary if it's to achieve the universality it thinks is necessary for the scheme to succeed.

Hostility to the central register is however interesting. The LSE recommends a decentralised scheme using trusted third parties, and the Government has argued against this by claiming that use of third parties would make the scheme inherently less reliable and less secure than the centralised version. At this juncture we could of course clear our throats and point out that Home Office documentation for would-be contractors indicates that it itself plans to use data centres hosted by, er, third parties. But no, we'll press on.

We can presume that the public at large has not as yet wrapped its head sufficiently around IT security concepts to have developed a detailed and reasoned argument against the notion of a central register. The study's results, however, would seem to suggest that scepticism over the Government's ability to build IT systems and doubt over its fitness to act as a custodian of personal data produce the same kind of answer as the experts arrive at.

Which, if the scheme does go ahead, perhaps gives us some indication of how it will come to grief. Because of the fatally-flawed nature of the design concept the ID scheme will be prone to outages, failures and security breaches. As these occur its existence will be coming more forcefully to the attention of the voters as they first, are forced to get ID cards, second, begin to experience the failures themselves, and third, begin to read the headlines about disasters and cost overruns. That kind of spiral would within a couple of years have a powerful effect on what appears to be at the moment merely a tendency towards hostility. But by then, what will we be able to do about it?

The ID Cards Bill itself returns to the Commons today to have compulsion put back into it, and subsequently will be back in the Lords so that (we hope) it can be removed again, and we can go ahead with the constitutional crisis. The OU study, which is part of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded project called 'Privacy and Self-Disclosure Online' (prisd.net), is available here.

 

Politics.co.uk | March 16 2006

Civil liberty and privacy campaigners this morning ridiculed the Home Office’s ‘bad news day’ announcement that ID cards will use a PIN number rather than biometrics for many transactions.

Phil Booth, NO2ID’s National Coordinator, said:

“So the Home Office’s ‘gold standard’ of identity is to be little more than a bog standard chip and PIN card. Identity theft will become as easy as a glance over your shoulder.

“After all its overblown claims about the infallibility of biometrics and how highly secure its ID system will be, it turns out our identities are to be protected by nothing more than a four digit PIN. The Home Office may as well give away all our personal data to organised criminals and fraudsters, who will always target the weakest point in a system.

“The Government lied about ID cards being voluntary, now it turns out they’ve been lying about making them secure. They’ll fob the public off with anything just so long as they get to build their Big Brother database.”

BBC | March 30 2006

Identity cards will be made compulsory if Labour wins the next election, Home Secretary Charles Clarke has said.

Under the current scheme all passport applicants from 2008 will have to get an ID card - although there will be a brief opt-out period until 2010.

But Mr Clarke said he plans legislation after the next election to make it compulsory for everyone to get a card, whether or not they have a passport.

The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats both oppose ID cards.

But Mr Clarke said he did not think the opposition would be able to stop the scheme because by 2010 a "large number of people... should either have cards or hope to have cards".

"I would be very surprised if the next Conservative manifesto said 'stop the scheme'. It would be very difficult to do," he said.

'Foolish'

Between 2008 and summer 2010 people applying for a passport will be able to opt-out of having an identity card, but not from having their details entered on the ID card database.

And although Mr Clarke stressed prices had yet to be worked out there will be no discount for those who opt out.

He said the opt-out had been introduced to allay fears expressed in the House of Lords that cards would be "foisted" on people, but he added: "Anyone who opts out in my opinon is foolish."

He said he believed there was an "appetite" among the public for ID cards, which he said would bring "massive benefits" for banks, law enforcement agencies and "the individual citizen".

The scheme would "enable every citizen in this country, over time, to protect their identity from people who seek to defraud," he said.

Interviews

Banks will be able to check people are who they say they are on the government's national identity database - potentially saving them £425m a year, said Mr Clarke.

The Department of Work and Pensions would also be able to use the register to check the identity of benefit claimants and combat fraud.

The government is launching a new Identity and Passport Service on 1 April, incorporating the existing UK Passport Service, to administer the scheme.

Interviews will begin "later this year" for passport applicants.

People applying for passports will have to visit their local passport office where they will be interviewed, fingerprinted and have "background checks" carried out on them.

'Take-up'

Their details will be entered on to the database and they will be issued with an identity card, although they will not be forced by law to carry it.

About 80% of the UK population has a passport and all will have to be renewed within the next 10 years, at an initial rate of about 7 million people a year, a Home Office spokesman said.

Mr Clarke was not willing to set a date when ID cards would become compulsory, saying it would depend on the rate at which passports were renewed.

"We don't know how fast take up will be," he told reporters in a briefing at the Home Office as the current plans became law.

From 2008 foreign nationals wishing to enter the UK will have to apply for "biometric residence permits" or "biometric visas" and will be entered on the national ID database.

Home Office minister Andy Burnham said people will be able to use ID cards as passports within the EU.

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ID card laws gain Royal Assent in return to the wartime past

 

John Lettice / The Register | April 3 2006

Comment: The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggestion that the UK's illegal immigrant population should be offered amnesty (full report here) does not on the surface look entirely helpful to the Government. Could it be that one of the top Blairite think tanks has joined those sinking their fangs into Mr Tony? Perhaps - but The Register's department of strange coincidences sees a strong possibility that this is a lifeboat whose time is coming.

The Identity Cards Act finally (but one still hopes, temporarily) made it onto the statute book yesterday, and the Passport Service and all of its ultra vires identity-related activities will magically transform itself into the Identity and Passport Service tomorrow. We still don't accept that this is entirely legal, but phase one of the Government's incredible, improbable and unworkable joined-up border-watch, security and immigration policing system has now been given the Parliamentary green light, and immigration is one of the areas where it should bite first.

So consider how it's supposed to work vis a vis immigration, and while doing so suspend disbelief, because as we will shortly explain it isn't really necessary for it to work to any significant extent for the IPPR's shock suggestions to acquire a certain attractiveness and utility. All that is needed is for the Government to claim that it's working; and claiming things are working when they are patently not is something of a special skill of this regime.

The theory behind the system runs approximately as follows. Overseas visa applicants have their biometrics read as part of the application and can therefore be positively identified on entry to the country. Because their biometrics are on record, the chances of intercepting and deporting overstayers increases, at least in theory. Biometrics are also taken from new asylum applicants, so again they're on record and can theoretically be nicked and returned. Non-UK EU citizens will in the future have to have an ID card if they're resident in the UK for longer than three months; this one won't be in place for a while yet as compulsion can only be applied to them when it is also applied to UK citizens (EU law talking here), but it's an important aspect of the 'ring of steel' in that it provides a means of differentiation between say, Underpaid Polish cockle-picking EU citizens (good) and underpaid Ukrainian cockle-picking non-EU citizens (bad).

Yes, we all know that the system will never work to specification and that a future New labour Government (should there ever be one) will find itself in search of a face-saving escape route. But in the interim there will be a period where the biometric border and immigration policy will be claimed to be working, and where the Government can claim that thanks to its tough measures and foresight it is now really, really difficult for illegal immigrants to get into the country without being caught. So what about the anomalies, the difficult cases, the ones we can probably blame the Tories for?

After several years of teeth-pulling the Government finally confessed last year that it was possible after all to estimate how many illegal immigrants were at large in the UK and that the number was, um, maybe as high as 570,000. It could be lower (but probably isn't), it could be higher, but we'll be nice and for the sake of argument call it 500,000 people that it's going to be exceedingly difficult to do anything about under either the current or the planned immigration regime. Rounding them all up and deporting them would take forever, cost a fortune and alienate large sections of the population, but amnestying them (as Spain did recently) would send the popular press ballistic, not least because (as Immigration Ministers have frequently said) illegal immigrants would be more likely to come to the UK if they felt they'd eventually be allowed to stay.

The arguments in the US concerning the Mexican border and illegal immigration cover similar territory, as do arguments raging right across the developed world (there's a moral here, but we'll skip it for today). The typical outcome is that the Government talks tough on immigration measures and tries to shut off the routes that continually top up the numbers of in-country illegals, but tiptoes away from confronting the question of what you do about all of the ones who've got here already.

But one day they're going to have to. IPPR director Nick Pearce points out that "It is inconceivable that these people will all be deported, even in the wildest fantasies of the anti-immigration right. The Immigration Service has more than enough on its hands policing our borders and removing newly arrived failed asylum-seekers. To go round the country finding, detaining and then deporting up to half a million people who don't have regular status simply will not happen." Which is sensible enough, and it's worth noting that he's not arguing the point from any kind of bleeding heart liberal perspective - he's saying we can't afford it and it wouldn't work.

The IPPR stresses that no single policy will prevent all forms of what it calls "irregular migration", and most of the policy options it lists, including tightening border controls, toughening employment legislation and encouraging voluntary returns, are already being tried to some extent by the UK Government. But only one option, regularisation or amnesty, stands any chance of significantly reducing the size of the illegal/irregular population. A regularisation process, the IPPR argues, would raise £1 billion for the Treasury through tax revenues, and "could be combined with the issuing of ID cards to foreign nationals in 2008."

Which is the punchline. As it tiptoes away from the problem the Government is aware, has always been aware, that some day a Government is going to have to let these people stay. It has been politically impossible for Governments which have made tough immigration policy a key election plank to be seen to "reward" illegal immigrants, so historically the policies implemented have been heavy on symbolism, light on effect. But, if a Government can claim that its e-Borders and biometric ID measures are shutting off the entry points, that there are clear economic benefits to bringing illegal workers into the tax system, and that this is a one time, 'give yourself up or you're out' offer, maybe it can sell it.

The IPPR's suggested policy option covering ID cards, incidentally, is that "Internal controls (e.g. ID cards)" will make it easier for police to "identify irregular migrants" and provide "disincentives to enter a country as it is more difficult to live and work there." Figure out for yourself where on the road to pass laws these "internal controls" will take us. But you could see how a truly cynical and despicable Home Secretary could play this. The IPPR's suggestion that regularisation "could" be combined with ID cards is a little silly, because given that we've got an ID card scheme rolling and given that migrants of all kinds are going to get ID cards, quite clearly regularised illegal immigrants will get ID cards. Could has nothing to do with it.

But if we accept that regularisation has an inevitability to it, then the aforementioned cynical and despicable Home Secretary needs to judge the optimum moment when it will be most politically acceptable. Such a moment approaches around 2008, when ID cards will exist but will not have sufficient penetration among the UK citizen population to have become really annoying, and when tag all the foreigners and make 'em pay their fair share of taxes could provide justification (albeit temporary) for ID cards. Play your cards right, you evil, evil man, and you might even get the tabloid editors to sell it for you.*

And, you'll note, there is no need for the ID card scheme to be finished or to work for this route to be feasible. Au contaire, it simply has to be presented as being on the point of working (cf practically any Government system where the published stats look awful, but Ministers cite more recent, not yet published stats that 'show' how much better things are getting). And if in a few more years time the jig's going to be up, it's actually extremely important to get the move through before it's patently obvious to everybody that the system's a wreck.

The IPPR doesn't quite put it like that. It makes a reasonable statement of the current situation, and presents a plausible economic case for taking the regularisation route. It does however presuppose that the various Government immigration control policy routes will actually work (But it would do, wouldn't it? As a Blairite think tank it helped think quite a lot of them up). Taking into account the ineffectiveness of much of immigration policy so far and Government's grisly track record on IT projects, you may well take The Register's view that it all definitely won't work. But what happens if/when it doesn't?

More of the same. Think of historical immigration policy as largely consisting of symbolism, barely implemented in the real world and largely unworkable if anybody every seriously tried to implement it. A future unworkable immigration policy could just as easily proceed on the basis of symbolism with nobody admitting that it doesn't work (say it doesn't exist and somewhere, an Immigration Minister dies) and Governments announcing new tough measures and systems that will make it better Real Soon Now. People outside of the developed world will continue to come here for as long as the crappiest, most desperate and dangerous job available here is still more attractive than what's on offer at home. British business will still need people in low-paid, crappy and desperate jobs, but will obviously prefer having legal people in these jobs (same wages) than illegal ones. But it will continue to be shocked and appalled whenever it learns of the employment practices of some of its contractors ('We're shocked, shocked... We've begun a thoroughgoing review of all of our suppliers').** You weren't looking for anything like a happy ending, were you?

Related Link: Mexican Invaders in US...

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | April 4 2006

Any UK citizen who refuses to be marked as cattle of the state and carry a national ID card must leave the country before 2008 or face fines and prison sentences as the government cracks down on refusniks.

Up until now Britons were able to renew their passports for periods of ten years at any time. This meant that many (including me) were planning to renew right before it became compulsory to be issued with an ID card when renewing your passport in 2008, giving us ten years of ID free existence.

The government has put the brakes on such tactics by simply announcing, with no debate or legislation, that passports can now only be renewed for 9 months in advance.

Today's Register piece anticipates that an entire propaganda campaign has already been carefully prepared to target anyone considering becoming an ID card refusnik. Highly publicized police crackdowns and arrests of people who intentionally lose or destroy their passports before the 2008 ID deadline will be made to frighten people into submission.

The legislation already states that if you lose your ID card you will have to immediately report it to the government or face a £1000 fine.

Government council spies have already been deployed in Scotland to follow smokers who flout the new law to their own homes and then notify the police. Will the same tattle-tale squads be used to target refusniks?

But the ID card will still be voluntary! You just won't be able to leave the country, own a house or a car, have a doctor, a bank account, a mobile phone, get an education, own a business, rent a room in a hotel, or have a job. You won't officially be authorized to live or die. But it's still voluntary! Oh, and did we mention your iris scan will still be in the national database anyway?

When ID cards were introduced in the UK during World War II, they had three functions. By the time they were abolished in 1952 they had 39 administrative uses. What else is going to be added? Political persuasion? Day to day activities? Likes? Dislikes? Thoughts?

The Nazis used the earliest ID card technology, the IBM punch card model, to catalogue and compile a database of subversives, homosexuals, gypsies and Jews before the round ups began.

The British government is unrelenting in its role to impose the ID card program as a key cornerstone of the worldwide tracking, surveillance and control grid but it will have to throw millions of refusniks in jail who will reject high-tech slavery to the bitter end. The only question is whether they do it incrementally or stage their own night of the long knives and rapidly enforce a crackdown en masse, a move that could easily backfire and lead to the collapse of the entire stinking infrastructure.

Related: Why You Should Resist the National ID Card

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China city learns from UK about surveillance

B.Y. Wong and John Ruwitch / Reuters | April 10 2006