We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Blair is a liar. But of course the notion any politician does not utter more than the occasional porkie pie is a very uncontroversial one. But as I said in the wellspring of lies yesterday, one can but marvel at the bare faced effrontery of it when our political masters stand up and state something is true when any person not wilfully blind (or David Blunkett) can see it is patently untrue just by reading a few newspapers or one of several thousand blogs and websites.
Mr Blair said political objections had been removed and the only obstacle now was technical. He made clear he wanted the project to “move forward” as soon as it was feasible.
He risked antagonising civil rights campaigners by claiming they no longer objected to the idea, which would see each citizen required to buy a computer-readable card that would record personal details.
Risks antagonising? Civil rights campaigners no longer object to the idea? Excuse the French, but, what the fuck? Blair is a bare faced liar. The only other alternative to that is that he is so ignorant of goings on outside the cloistered world of 10 Downing Street as to be completely deluded.
I will try my damnedest to refuse to get an ID card and I will openly declare that I do not have one when the sun rises on that evil day. I urge as many people as possible to not just resist but to do so openly when the time comes. They will try to make it very difficult to live without one so we must make the system unworkable by using whatever civil disobedience and intelligent resistance is needed. Do not cooperate with your own repression. Time to get creative, people. Time to get angry.
Cross-posted from Samizdata.net
This story from The Register gives a fairly ludicrous story of overreach from some German police. Seeing a young man in a railway station using an Apple iBook plugged into a power outlet belonging to Deutsche Bahn, they came to the conclusion that the laptop must have been stolen and arrested him. Upon discovering that the iBook was not stolen, rather than apologising and letting him go (and maybe leaving themselves open to a lawsuit), they charged him with “voltage rustling”, that is with stealing electricity worth €0.002 from the owners of the railway station. (Actually I would think that “current rustling” or even “power rustling” would better describe that actual physics of it, but that might be just me).
Eventually (and hopefully inevitably) sanity prevailed and the charges were dropped and the man released. All I can say is that however much respect I have for the property rights of German railway companies, and even if he is a “Greenpeace activist”, I have great sympathy for him.
Although battery technology is far better than it was a decade ago, as more and more things go wireless, portable batteries are more and more the weak link in our modern electronic world. And for a certain type of individual (that includes me) keeping an eye out for accessible power sockets is just something you do. If you are the sort of person who spends most of your time at home, at work, or commuting between the two places, you are not likely to be terribly familiar with this problem, but if you are instead the sort of person who travels a lot, or is constantly on the road (or, sadly, who does not presently have a job and likes to work in coffee houses) then this rapidly becomes one of the major problems of modern life. With laptop batteries still running down in only a few hours, accessible power outlets are like clean public toilets in New York City: you take advantage of them when you can. Topping up your laptop batteries when you have the opportunity is just something you do.
If you are not away from home, the key time period is really the time between when you leave the house in the morning and when you come home in the evening. → Continue reading: The new wild west of voltage rustling.
Blair is a liar. But of course the notion any politician does not utter more than the occasional porkie pie is a very uncontroversial one. But as I said in the wellspring of lies yesterday, one can but marvel at the bare faced effrontery of it when our political masters stand up and state something is true when any person not wilfully blind (or David Blunkett) can see it is patently untrue just by reading a few newspapers or one of several thousand blogs and websites.
Mr Blair said political objections had been removed and the only obstacle now was technical. He made clear he wanted the project to “move forward” as soon as it was feasible.
He risked antagonising civil rights campaigners by claiming they no longer objected to the idea, which would see each citizen required to buy a computer-readable card that would record personal details.
Risks antagonising? Civil rights campaigners no longer object to the idea? Excuse the French, but, what the fuck? Blair is a bare faced liar. The only other alternative to that is that he is so ignorant of goings on outside the cloistered world of 10 Downing Street as to be completely deluded.
I will try my damnedest to refuse to get an ID card and I will openly declare that I do not have one when the sun rises on that evil day. I urge as many people as possible to not just resist but to do so openly when the time comes. They will try to make it very difficult to live without one so we must make the system unworkable by using whatever civil disobedience and intelligent resistance is needed. Do not cooperate with your own repression. Time to get creative, people. Time to get angry.
Cross-posted to:
Telegraph reports that Tony Blair brushed aside Cabinet reservations last night and gave the Home Office the go-ahead to introduce compulsory identity cards following the discovery this week of a suspected British Muslim terrorist network.
Mr Blair said the deal he and David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, negotiated with the rest of the Cabinet no longer applied.
There is no longer a civil liberties objection to that. There is a series of vast logistical questions to be resolved and, in my judgment, logistics is the only time delay, otherwise it needs to move forward.
I am surprised. No longer a civil liberties objection to ID cards? That is a lie, as obvious as they get. Now I want to hear the clamour of protest and we shall do our best to add our voice.
So, ladies and gentlement. There we have it. I sincerely hoped that the day would never come. But it is here and what is it to be done?
On behalf of the Samizdata Team, it gives me great pride and pleasure to announce a major change to our readers.
For some days now we have been working feverishly behind the scenes to smooth the path of the imminent merger between Samizdata and the Noam Chomsky Blog.
As I am sure you can all appreciate, this is not just a time of thrilling change but it is also a supremely fitting culmination of all the hard work and endeavour we have put in to this blog. That someone as august, as visionary and brilliant as Professor Chomsky should see fit to share a platform with us, honours us all in a way to profound and moving for me to express with mere words.
This is not merely a collaborative effort. It is a great coming together of like hearts and like minds in a grand joint push to change the world. We know that you, our readers, must be every bit as excited by the prospect as we are.
The newly-merged blog, called Noamizdata will be launched very shortly, so get ready to update your ‘Favourites’ list. We regret that this site will be down for a short period while the changeover is effected but we are working tirelessly to ensure that the interruption to your regular service is kept to a bare minimum.
Samizdata and Chomsky together will be a unstoppable force. The future starts now.
I was watching the early evening news, and there was an interview with and report about the man who is about to provide the legal defence for Saddam Hussein, a person called Jacques Vergès. It so happened that, by pure coincidence, I had been reading about this man earlier today. He makes an appearance in this book about the remarkable life of the remarkable language teacher Michel Thomas, Thomas having been involved as a prosecution witness in the trial of Klaus Barbie, whom Vergès (characteristically) also defended.
It was already clear from the news report this evening that Vergès will be using the same tactics, namely using the trial of his supposed client as a platform to launch attacks against everyone else, in a way that won’t help his client but which will further his own political agenda.
Here is how that Vergès got signed up to defend Barbie, and here is what sort of man Vergès is.
A wealthy Swiss banker, Francois Genoud, who was a declared Nazi both during and after the Second World War, had stepped forward to bankroll Barbie’s defence. Genoud had appealed to the extreme-left lawyer Jacques Vergès for help, and the attorney flew to Geneva to confer with the Nazi paymaster. This unlikely couple had more in common than at first appeared in that they shared a deep and fundamental antipathy towards Israel. Genoud funded Arab liberation movements of the extreme left, while Vergès had defended Arab terrorism. The lawyer had flown to Lyon to meet his new Nazi client and was appointed as the mastermind for the defence. From now on Barbie would merely be a pawn in an elaborate political agenda. → Continue reading: Jacques Vergès will not defend Saddam Hussein – but he is already attacking America
For those who have not yet noticed, there is a new blog set up by one of our illustrious contributors, Trevor Mendham – the RFID Scanner. I guess the name is self-explanatory. Please read the suberb summary and arguments about RFID in the sidebar…
At a recent software conference, Sun Microsystems unveiled new software initiatives in areas related to RFID, 3-D interfaces, game technology and Linux. According to the CTO of Sun, the advances are further proof that “innovation [is] Sun’s DNA.” The article reviews Sun’s upcoming product offerings, noting that the company is actively looking to capitalize on hot new technology trends (e.g. a new RFID test center is on tap for May).
Also, Oracle plans to launch new RFID software offerings in an attempt to give retailers such as Wal-Mart the ability to “handle the deluge of data that RFID systems are expected to produce.” According to Oracle executives, “The IT systems most companies use today are not equipped for a world in which billions of objects report their whereabouts in real-time.” In addition to building in RFID data-processing capabilities in its databases and application servers, Oracle will release new device drivers in its software as well as “device driver frameworks.” Other big-name IT vendors, such as IBM and Microsoft, are also actively exploring new RFID technology offerings.
Finally, Delta Air Lines Inc. starts its second test of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to track bags today in hopes of improving accuracy over the 96.7% to 99.9% it achieved in a test last year. Delta will write information to the RFID bag tags at the request of the Transportation Security Administration, which has backed both tests, Rary said. That information will include the flight number, passenger name and what Rary called a “license plate” – a serial number that identifies each bag.
More on the ICAO story first noted by Trevor. An international aviation group is completing new passport standards this week, setting the groundwork for all passports issued worldwide to include digitized photographs that a computer can read remotely and compare to the face of the traveler or to a database of mug shots.
Supporters hope the system will banish fake passports and help fight terrorism. But critics say the standards will enable a global infrastructure for surveillance and lead to a host of national biometric databases, including ones run by countries with troubling human rights records.
The ICAO has already settled on facial recognition as the standard biometric identifier, though countries may add fingerprints or iris scans if they wish. The standards body will vote on Friday whether to adopt radio-frequency ID chips, such as those used in Fast Pass toll systems, as the standard method of storing and transmitting the digitized information.
Simon Davies, director of human rights group Privacy International, said the ICAO hasn’t consulted with human rights groups and shouldn’t be involved at all.
The most troubling aspect of international standard setting is that it often occurs without any national dialogue through the diplomatic process. Governments merely use the standards bodies as a convenient means of implementing controversial policy.
Privacy International suggested that the ICAO should have adopted a standard that would allow computers at a border to match the traveler to the digital photo on a passport, but that did not permit any government to keep a central database of photos.
The group argued that facial recognition is not the most accurate identification benchmark, and that matching a person to an old photograph is problematic.
As a follow up on the issue of privacy and personal data protection, here is an article that is a part of a special report on Protecting your ID by Silicon.com. Their conclusion is on the timid side but deserves to be noted:
It is tempting to say data will leak, as sure as vulnerabilities in complex software will be discovered or spam will be sent. But let’s not be fooled. Sensible data protection regimes around the world – and the UK should be applauded for its progress in this area – can make a difference. They will do much to protect some of our most valuable assets – the information that relates to us.
Over the last couple of days in days I have in the North West of England. Or rather two bits of it – Bolton and Manchester.
Bolton did not seem to be the hell-on-Earth that it is normally presented as. The people did not seem very poor (although the local ‘everything for a pound’ shop was crowded) and the local Muslim (mostly brown) folk did not seem to be about to fight to the death with the local non Muslim (mostly pinkish-gray “white”) folk.
The town seemed fairly clean and the town hall, art gallery and museum were quite nice.
One thing that sticks in my mind was a church in Bolton (St George’s I think) that has been turned into some shops. As an Anglican (one of the few left) and a cultural conservative I should have been offended by this – but I was not. It “worked” – seeing the pulpit and stained glass windows (and so on) all still there, next to stores selling various nice things was actually quite nice (perhaps the decline of the Church of England can, in part, be blamed on too many Anglicans being like me).
As for Manchester.
Well first a word of explanation. Manchester in Britain is not famous for the old “Manchester School” of Free Trade (as it is overseas), although one can still find statues of Cobden and Bright and even the Conservative Peel who repealed the Corn Laws (there is also a statue of the Duke of Wellington – but that is another matter).
However, the Manchester of free markets is long gone (even the Free Trade Hall is now gone). Since the late 19th century Manchester has become famous for “social reform” (statism) – the same passion to help the poor and weak, but seeing the state (or “the community” in a sense that includes the public authority) rather than voluntarism as the way to do it. → Continue reading: Trip to the North West of England
Mark Cornish of Adam Smith Blog has a post on privacy with very pertinent comments on consumer loyalty cards.
Rather than worrying about businesses using data in order to make their shopping experience more tailored to individual customers, we should be worrying about the number of civil servants allowed to snoop on their fellow citizens. According to the Foundation for Information Policy Research police and other officials are making around a million requests for access to data held by net and telephone companies each year. Customs and Excise have 200 staff authorised to use the snooping authority and had sought access 35000 times in the last year. The Inland Revenue accessing such data a further 11700 times in the last year. Do we allow too much snooping, or is it important for fighting crime?
I have not yet got around to everyday bashing of these everyday invasions of privacy. Some would say it is a trade-off – you get a discount and they get your data – but the balance of power is certainly not even. I especially detest the Nectar card that is a joint effort to collect customer data by Sainsbury’s, BP, Debenhams and Barclaycard, with Vodafone, Ford, Threshers, Victoria Wine, Wine Rack, Bottoms Up and Adams, Childrenswear, London Energy, Seeboard Energy, SWEB energy, All:sports joining gradually.
You can see why this line of apparel appeals to me…
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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