human rights

Nothing to hide, sir? Ooh! Suits you sir...

Jock — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:43:52 +0000

I haven't been on a plane for the best part of twenty years now. Thanks to the new weapon in the snooping state's arsenal, it looks like I never will again.

The virtual strip search is here folks. I dare say one day they will have them in Debenhams too. read more »

The BR Brute Squad

Jock — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 16:19:13 +0000

...remember when policemen were people you felt you could go up to and ask for directions?

No longer it seems. In fact, if you have anything like a map with you, you could find yourself staying at Belmarsh (warning, watching the whole of this may cause you to damage your computer in anger!):

H/T Tristan

I am so glad Terence was filming this. Everyone should get the chance to see this kind of thing and have a real good think about the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" attitude that is allowing our country to become a fascist state. The ability to stop at random (I was going to say "take to one side", but clearly they're happy to do this in full view of the entire concourse), with no probable cause whatever, and humiliate them in order to show other passengers "look, we're doing something about your security" is utterly obnoxious. I must say, though, I am amazed that he was allowed to continue filming, considering all that has been going on about photography in public places.

Britain, like never before, needs Fourth Amendment rights enshrined in law: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Olympic ideals?

Jock — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:31:46 +0000

We are always told that the Olympics should not be political. Our government refused to mandate a boycott of Beijing because they have no control over the British Olympic Association. The Iraqi team last I saw was waiting to hear whether they could go because the Iraqi government recently sacked the entire national Olympic committee. We're not supposed to score political points over this "greatest show on earth" of "amateur" sporting prowess.

So why are so many politicians spending fortunes of our money falling over themselves to be in Beijing? Troughs...pigs...hmmm, spare ribs! read more »

If society is broken, it's only following its "leaders"

Jock — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:33:05 +0000

If, as the media and certain politicians seem to want us to believe, we have a "broken society " (whatever on earth that might actually mean), surely it is just reflecting how "broken" its leadership, government, has become. And I don't mean just the current Labour government. I mean government as an institution, even our democracy itself, if you will.

The state and its agents and those who act with its protection have routinely perpetrated force, violence and coercion, against their own citizens, against other countries, for aeons. The whole model is based on us surrendering some of our personal sovereignty. Some would no doubt rather say "pool" than "surrender" but look around you; "pooling" implies much more of a consensual relationship than reality attests to.

From cradle to grave, as they once promised, the state imposes itself on our lives and choices by more or less coercion. From compulsion in education, via criminalizing consensual or victimless behaviour (even thoughts and opinions) and right through to prosecuting wars "in our name", commanding our young men and women to kill or be killed. And most of all perhaps through taxation - it never hurts as hard as on the pocket!

In turns the state seems to infantilise and nanny us, to absolve us of personal responsibilities, and then, moralizing, blame us for all our own ills. Those who would rule us cynically play on our fears and talk up our aspirations according to their need to gain and retain power. And a tiny minority of us in our broken system can make or break that power for them, so have disproportionate influence over our fellow citizens.

That this has always gone on need hardly be stated. The biggest mystery, as Milton Friedman said, is why human-kind seems collectively to submit to authority - especially remarkable really when you consider that every step of human advance has actually arisen from someone stepping beyond the current conventions, bending the rules, exceeding the norm.

Supposedly benign regimes create instruments to comfort us, to fool us into thinking they are prepared to limit their own authority, whether we call them Geneva Conventions, Human Rights Acts or Data Protection, and then seem to break their own principles when it suits them, call it Guantanamo, pre-charge detention and control orders or ID cards and state databases.

It is often said that ("successful") politicians display many characteristics of psychopathy. How much more "broken" can we get than to submit ourselves to being ruled and represented by smooth talking, self centered, pathological liars? How much more scary than that such people have their hands on both our wallets and on the nuclear triggers? Is it any wonder that life on some of our streets can be vicious? read more »

surveillance state

Data protection and the inexorable march of the snooping state

Jock — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:52:07 +0000

Apparently the Data Protection Act turned ten years old on Wednesday, according to El Reg. But you'd be forgiven for thinking it never existed, or has been repealed, given all the recent stories of data loss by, of all organizations, the government, and the newer suggestions that all our DNA, phone and internet communications records, should be in a database, forever, and instantly accessible to any accredited official (I won't say "qualified" because I suspect they won't be) with an easily contrived excuse.

Fortunately, the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, stands between the state and its ambition to know everything there is to know about its citizens and what they do, consume, learn and who they associate with. But with such a lax attitude to their own obligations under their own Data Protection laws somehow I doubt Mr Thomas will be heard, let alone listened to.

My attachment to a few home comforts prevents me from becoming a survivalist type, and I am too much of a coward to be a martyr. But I do seriously consider at times whether there is a way to opt out of this inexorable creep of the surveillance state. Emigration? Where would be any better though I wonder? Switzerland maybe, but I doubt they'd have me.

And I just do not understand why so many people, it seems from my view anyway, are able passively to accept this state encroachment into our lives. I know plenty who do not even see it going on. Why on earth is it any more acceptable say, for the state to know about all your telephone calls or emails than it would be, say, to open every posted letter somewhere in the postal system, or, creepier still, have someone follow you so they can check out who you talk to in the street or who you visit? I'm sure there have been times when this ability is exactly the reason why the Royal Mail existed - for intelligence purposes - and with a monopoly too, mind you, though in the popular conscience the Royal Mail, USPS and other national mail services are actually supposed to be trusted guarantors that nobody should tinker with private correspondence with impunity.

Of course, such surveillance of physical media communications or personal movements would be impractical on a mass scale whereas electronic communications tend to leave tracks for all sorts of (usually business) reasons. But "just because we can", just because massive scale monitoring is now feasible and manageable with electronic communications does not mean we should. I have a contract with a phone company, and the data even they keep should be limited to as little, and for as short a time as necessary, as needed to deliver me the service they promised. And indeed, that is core to the principles behind the Data Protection Act.

No doubt they will all say that you can breach those principles "in the national interest" or whatever. But at the very worst, such a situation should be the exception and not the rule, and should be subject at all times to proof of probable cause via judicial oversight. After all, the "national interest" could, and usually will be, what the government of the day decide it is if it is left up to them and their agents. I always have a rueful smile when I recall that for years each part of your annual tax return would be dealt with by a different Inland Revenue clerk so that no one government official would actually know what you earned in total. Can we ever hope to resurrect such a level of government respect for our privacy?

I'm not sure I believe any longer that grand government database and surveillance projects do originate in a genuine desire to do something good. I just think it is an innate trait of government and power to want to have as much information about those over whom they wield power or those on whom they are dependent for power as they possibly can. Acton's dictum is writ large in the creep of the surveillance state: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Information brings, and sustains power.

I linked to this post at the Libertarian Party blog the other day, but if you didn't read it then, please go have a look now. It's a light-hearted look at the inconveniences that could beset the most minor activities in your daily lives if all these supposedly beneficial systems actually come to pass. Forget that "if you've nothing to hide" crap, I challenge anyone to say they would not be severely pissed off with this level of "helpful" surveillance.

Yet all of this need not be the end game, just as I am sure today there are thousands of people trying to find new ways of evading the Chinese national firewall, or make a few phone calls without being billed for them, people will continue to develop ways of keeping one step ahead of the voracious information state. Ultimately, I don't believe that the state can win against the advance of the technology. But there is a danger, if we do not start constitutionally protecting our privacy now, that the state will keep trying on any pretext they can muster, and turn truly tyrannical in their desire to control information flows.

surveillance state

Liberal Cornwall? The "Golden Triangle" tarnishes

Jock — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:30:39 +0000

I have no idea what problems Redruth faces with its "yoof". I have no problem with the police taking tough action to end the sort of disturbances that have been seen as the "posh kids" descend on places like Rock for the summer. But a broad brush, "voluntary" (but "we can make orders if parents do not co-operate") curfew is arbitrary and collective punishment affecting innocent and guilty alike.

Clearly "liberal" Cornwall has a different version of the Human Rights Act down there. Are we to assume that the black in the Cornish nationalist flag commemorates the death of freedom?

And now we hear that nine out of ten parents nationwide - the mainland as well as Cornwall that is - would welcome a curfew. That's okay then.

In a liberal world view government exists to temper the tyranny of the majority rather than allow it adversely to affect the lives of a minority. I suppose at least children, whether domesticated or feral, grow out of their minority status, so are only temporarily affected. That's okay then.

What a fekking nonsense. I hear one of our MPs for the People's Democratic Enclave of Cornwall actually supports this idea, not only that but the person concerned has a portfolio that deals with similar such issues nationwide. That's okay then.

In what world view is a curfew, an arbitrary and collective punishment, "liberal"?

On the plus side, all those children will be safely at home in time to see all the post-watershed violence, sex and sweariness on TV. That's okay then! read more »

Dear Andrew: 42 days

Jock — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:48:54 +0000

No doubt there'll be lots of Labour MPs muttering something about "none of my constituents lobbied me over 42 days" so I set about today just to write a quick note to my NuLabour MP Andrew Smith to ensure that he cannot in all honesty say that:

Jock Coats
OXFORD
OX3

Email: jock_nospam@jockcoats.org.uk

Tuesday 10 June 2008

Dear Andrew,

Whilst I expect it will actually make precious little difference -
shoring up a failing Labour leadership is more important than long
fought for civil liberties after all - but in case you currently find
yourself in the unlikely position of being able to say that nobody has
lobbied you to vote against the 42 day detention limit, let me rectify
that!

Despite polling claims that "65% of the population favours" the 42 day
limit, for myself, I do not know of a single person amongst my friends
in your constitutency that do agree with it. All regard it as an
unacceptable trampling over our ancient rights of habeas corpus and of
the very principle of innocent until proven guilty.

If I were being asked or told to vote in favour I would be examining
closely why people like the former Attorney General appears to be
against it. Wht British police require four times as long as other
countries' counterparts even before the extension to do similar work
(computers cannot be easier to crack just because they are in Italy
which maintains a 2 day charge or release regime).

Every change this government has imposed in the name of fighting
terrorism has been an erosion of existing liberties and protections.
Your job is to examine whether each proposal respects the balance
between liberties and the threat it is trying to counter-act. I
believe this one tips the balance and even if twenty eight days was
acceptable (it wasn't) extending it further requires extraordinary
justification that have not so far been forthcoming. Please vote
against 42 day detention, whatever "safeguards" you are offered by way
of "concessions".

Yours sincerely,

Jock Coats read more »

42 days again: just who are all these people?

Jock — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 10:08:34 +0000

So an ICM poll for the Telegraph today claims that:

"Sunday's survey provides some good news for Mr Brown - 65 per cent of those questioned support his 42-day plan, with backing coming from voters across the political spectrum.

Thirty per cent think the limit should stay at 28 days, the position favoured by the Conservatives."

Now, aside from the fact that I must be in the five per cent not even mentioned there, because I support no extension on the 2 days before charging that applies for other crime, I don't think I know a single person that supports any extension on the 28 days already permitted.

In his acceptance speech when he took over the leadership, Nick Clegg suggested (and I do believe) that most people in Britain were inherently liberal. So just who are the 65% that support this gross extension of the state's ability to "disappear" people. This is not Chile of the seventies for goodness' sake.

I've asked before, and the point was made by Shami Chakrabarti on Question Time on Thursday night with some force (she really laid into the boy Milliband to my delight!) why it is the British police and prosecution services are unable to get far enough on with their investigative work within two or four times the amount of time other countries have to charge people with something that could keep the accused on remand if necessary, with the introduction if necessary, as they do in many European jurisdictions, of post charge questioning.

I don't have the prescience to know where this country is heading, but with that 65% for one of the most egregious attacks on our civil liberties - remember we're talking about effectively disappearing people for up to six weeks without even telling them why, leaving families in limbo, probably losing the victim of the disappearing their jobs and so on, but I don't like it.

I've not left this sceptered isle for about twenty years (and then it was only a work trip to the emerald one next door) having had the travel bug knocked out of me by twenty four hour journeys to Tanzania, Kenya and Nigeria as a youngster. I don't even have a valid passport at the moment, and was content not getting one now that the intrusive questioning to get one has started, but I'm afraid I'm thinking that now I have to think about making plans for somewhere else to go when this country eventually becomes such an affront to civil liberties that I can no longer stomach being here. read more »

The supreme sacrifice?

Jock — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:32:32 +0000

All this brouhaha about the Olympics, torches, boycotts and so on has not passed me by. I hear all sorts of stuff from the "athletes' side" about how the Olympics is not political, about how people have trained all their lives to get to this supreme test of their skills and abilities against others from every nation on earth. I have some sympathy with that. I was once quite a competitive fencer. I used to love the competitions (second in the West Midlands under 16s foil if you're interested and can believe it!) and I can only imagine the excitement and satisfaction of having made it to the very top on the planet in your discipline.

But saying that the Olympics is not political seems to me nowadays like saying it's non-commercial and strictly amateur - at least the latter has been the case within my life time. But, as we all saw on 7th July 2005 (when there wasn't other news on that day), the choice of venue is intensely political, certainly in the sense that politicians are deeply involved in it. It can (and has already in the case of London) make people fortunes, that others pay for.

I admit to having had misgivings when Beijing was awarded the games - I don't like the fact that Formula One has a race there, though in a sense that's less of an issue because F1 is an unashamedly commercial, big money, oligarchic event that pays but lip service to the troubles of "little people" and with no loftier ideals such as the Olympic movement professes. But I, along with many others it seems, did hope that having such a high profile international event, together with their growing commercial and economic presence in the world, would focus minds in China on reform. Until I think it was last year sometime that someone high up in the Chinese government said something to the effect that China would never be a liberal democracy ("over my dead body" by implication). I accept that moving such a huge population to full democracy would take time, but this was a "never, never, never" type of statement.

Ever since I have thought that "we" should somehow object to the whole shebang and the credence it gives to the veneer of acceptability. I know that in 1980 the Moscow regime was pretty similar to Beijing's and that the boycott then was a specific protest about the invasion of Afghanistan (oh how we can now ruefully laugh about that!) and it did no good whatever so far as I can remember - though even then, China joined the boycott. So as an organized thing, I'm not sure a "national" boycott will do any good this time either. However, as in 1980, there are other symbolic objections we in the democratic world can make. Athletes could attend and take part under the flag of the Olympic movement rather than their national flags and anthems for example.

But it is pure fantasy to say that the Olympics are non-political - they never have been in reality, even long before they became a festival for junk food vendors and sweat shop employers to tout their tawdry wares and part of a professional athlete's career progression. The Soviet Union - and other countries within their sphere of influence - didn't take part from 1928 till 1952. African nations withdrew in protest at South Africa and Rhodesia being allowed to take part in the seventies. If it really were apolitical, why does the torch even go anywhere near Downing Street - surely if it's all above politics it should be a royal occasion.

Personally, if any athlete choses voluntarily, having gained a place in the team, not to attend, putting lives in Darfur, Tibet or, so far little mentioned despite last year's riots and crackdown, Burma before their personal attainment, they'll have my full support and they ought not to be punished or denigrated for making that sacrifice. read more »