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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Robert E. Howard’s pulp fiction does not appear to be the stalwart stronghold of libertarianism that one would expect from an Ayn Rand or L. Neil Smith. Nevertheless, writing in Texas when the Wild West was a living memory, not a history book, Howard found plenty of material for his fantasies. The battles of the Aquilonians and the Picts were an odd Old World confection of cowboys and Indians.
The American values of small government and individual freedom have very little to do with Conan’s lax attitude towards property, usually appropriated after cleaving a few skulls. However, as King Of Aquilonia, Conan employed his own brand of statecraft, as he explains to Amalrus, King of Ophir, Strabonus, King of Koth and Tsotha the Wizard as he stands chained and defeated in their hall.
From ‘The Scarlet Citadel’ by Robert E. Howard.
I found Aquilonia in the grip of a pig like you – one who traced his genealogy for a thousand years. The land was torn with the wars of the barons and the people cried out under suppression and taxation. Today no Aquilonian noble dares maltreat the humblest of my subjects, and the taxes of my people are lighter than anywhere else in the world.
What of you? Your brother, Amalrus, hold the eastern half of your kingdom and defies you. And you, Strabonus, your soldiers are even now besieging castles of a dozen or more rebellious barons. The people of both your kingdoms are crushed into the earth by tyrannous taxes and levies, And you would loot mine -ha! Free my hands and I’ll varnish this floor with your brains!
May all those who raise taxes share the same fate!
Medical researchers have condemned the new Human Tissues Bill as an impediment to teaching and research.
But scientists say the changes go too far and will make teaching and medical research extremely difficult.
There is no discrimination between whole organs and a collection of a few cells on a microscope slide, they say.
Cancer charities and the Wellcome Trust are calling on ministers to make changes to the Bill.
Doctors have to obtain written consent if they wish to use any form of human tissue removed from a person living or dead, even if they are checking for the prevalence of a virus in the general population. One can think of the consequences if tests could not have been carried out for AIDS, given the level of stigmatisation that accompanied the virus. There is a quandary since informed consent is surely necessary before the tissues of any individual are extracted, preserved and used for any purpose, even if it is for public health.
However, it is estimated that 3,000,000 samples and 100,000,000 blood samples will require written consent, proving another bureaucratic excess for the NHS. Public health is often used as an argument to override the concerns or refusal of an individual to provide any form of sample. No doubt there is an argument that rational individuals will understand the necessity of acting in concert when faced with an unknown disease or epidemic. However, this is often not the case.
Grappling with the issue of public health and a libertarian society, certain questions have presented themselves: Do individuals who refuse to cooperate with ventures sourced in civil society to track and curb the spread of any disease in a minarchy open themselves to claims of compensation since their actions could be viewed as endangering others? At such times, is the action of ‘opting out’ of a collective venture to track and curb an epidemic by any individual sufficient to trigger claims against that individual on the grounds that their actions placed others in danger?
Perry de Havilland has limited the notion of public health to “communicable diseases”, but even here, it is unclear if such matters require a coercive authority mandated to use the measures necessary to curb any disease. As it stands, the new Human Tissues Law will require written consent before any part of your body is taken and used for another purpose, even if it is in your own interest. Surely an advance on the contemporary thefts by state institutions in the name of ‘research’.
For some years, I have preferred to take my holidays around the Baltic (herewith classified as Eastern Europe, because it is north east of the British Isles and the Finns come from the Urals anyway). Larking about in the Nordic and Baltic countries always includes a visit to the local museum concerning the Second World War and the Resistance. These museums often give a snapshot of the the way these countries view themselves, their place in the world and their history.
The most disappointing museum that I ever came across was in Helsinki, Finland. Their military museum, near the Lutheran Cathedral, included an exhibition covering the Finnish contribution to the Second World War which finished at the end of the Winter War. The wartime alliance with Germany from 1941, which one could view as a necessary defence against Stalinism on the grounds that my enemy’s enemy is my friend was excised from their exhibition. This was the state of play in 2000 and I haven’t been back to the museum since, so they may have extended the scope since but the omission at that time was rather surprising. → Continue reading: Resistance and War Museums
The European Commission has released the latest press release on demographic developments in the European Union during 2003. This shows that the long-awaited time when deaths outweigh births and immigration maintains the population of the European Union is beginning to arrive.
The population of 380.8 million increased by 1,276,000 during 2003, of which three-quarters was due to natural migration. However, there are two worrying trends that suggest Europe’s demographic problems can only worsen in the coming years.
Germany, Italy and Greece would all have faced population declines without immigration. More countries will join this select group in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Secondly, half of the accession countries that are scheduled to join the European Union on the 1st May 2004 are already facing the problem of population decline, a problem that will be exacerbated by migration towards Western Europe.
There always has to be a disclaimer using the figures from Eurostat since demographics are one of the most unreliable of all collected statistics. Neverthless, taking this disclaimer into account, the population decline is beginning to take hold at a rapid pace.
It is the accession countries who probably have most to fear. Enlargement can be viewed as a cannibalisation of the labour markets of the accession countries by existing Member States and the newcomers face huge problems of tightening and declining labour markets in the long run. If they join the Eurozone, they will lose the remainder of the economic flexibility needed to combat this problem, since their adoption of EU laws, known as the acquis communautaire, will lead to far greater regulation from May 1st.
The European solution to the problems that they have created will be further subventions to cushion the blow of joining the European Union and satisfaction at removing a possible ring of economic competitors along their eastern border. Hopefully, Russia and the Ukraine will begin to attract more investment in the next few years and prove too large to swallow.
First of all, the new European arrest warrant was exercised today for the first time. Michael Kurt was wanted in Sweden on drink-driving charges and was arrested in Alicante. He will be taken back to Sweden.
The arrest warrant is valid in eight Member States:
So far only eight states have adopted it: Britain, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
Moreover, another system is being introduced to provide every EU citizen with a smartcard. These health insurance smartcards will replace the E111 and other forms that allow every EU citizen access to the health systems of other Member States.
These smartcards will eventually include the bearer’s medical records and any other information deemed appropriate. The information here is taken from Ireland, and there does not appear to be any corroborating information at the Department of Health in the UK.
The European Public Health Alliance has one or two articles on the new smartcards. The draft regulation that I have not fully read is located here.
This new system standardises the information on citizens’ health held on databases throughout the European Union. In Member States where no cards exist at present within the healthcare system, these will be introduced. In most Member States, a European card will be introduced alongside the existing systems. It is in those countries where no system exists at present, that this proposal can act as a stimulus for standardising government databases and producing another precursor to a formal identity card.
Whilst electronic systems are here to stay, there are few safeguards against the dissemination of personal information. This is not noted in the draft EU regulation and presents another route by which the privacy of individuals may be undermined as ease of administration gains a higher priority than the right of the individual to safeguard and police his personal data.
It was very hard to pick the correct category for this particular (if outdated) story: European Union, Civil Liberties or Biometrics.
The Schengen system is the agreement between European Union Member States that allows individuals to cross borders without hindrance. However, in order to promote the freedom of movement, the EU set up the Schengen Information System, a database of individual’s names and details for the purpose of :
by means of an automated search procedure, to have access to reports on persons and objects for the purposes of border checks and controls and other police and customs checks carried out within the country in accordance with national law and, in the case of the single category of report referred to in Article 96, for the purposes of issuing visas, the issue of residence permits and the administration of aliens in the context of the application of the provisions of this Convention relating to the movement of persons.
The central database for this system is administered in Strasbourg by the French government.
With the accession of ten new Member States, and the inability of the Schengen Information System to be expanded beyond 18 national databases, it is envisaged that a Schengen Information System II will be established.
This new database will store biometric data and digital photographs, and will be integrated with the Visa Information system that will harmonise the issuance of such documents in Europe.
The institutions that will have access to this system include the national authorities of the Member States, Europol and Eurojust. The development of this database also gives an insight into how European policy works – decide the objective and then identify the laws which will legalise the system:
Appropriate legal bases for proposals to develop SIS II
8. It is necessary to identify the appropriate legal instruments in the treaties in order to develop the system, since the purpose of the SIS is to improve police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (covered by Title VI of the Treaty on European Union) and policy as regards visas, immigration and free movement of persons (covered by Title IV of the EC Treaty). In addition, the Council decision authorising the United Kingdom to participate partly in the SIS, like the two Belgian-Swedish initiatives (a decision and a regulation) adopted by the Council on 6 December 2001, confirmed the mixed nature of the SIS [Official Journal L 328, 13.12.2001].
Note how even the United Kingdom is not excluded and future Member States will have to accede to this part of the acquis communautaire.
12. The Schengen acquis and its developments must be accepted in full by all States applying for accession. It should be noted that participation by an applicant State in the SIS is an essential prerequisite to lifting controls at common frontiers. If a priority of the new system is to allow the future Member States to integrate, it is necessary to ensure they are appropriately involved in the implementing activities. The Commission undertakes to inform them regularly of progress and invites them to send any observations they may have.
What does the government have to say about “human rights”: the collective term for its concerns about civil liberties and the rights of the individual. The answer can be found in three departments: the Human Rights Department in the Lord Chancellor’s Officeand the Human Rights Policy Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The administrative distinction between these two departments lies in their location: the former is dedicated to the implementation in law of the European Charter on Human Rights and the latter is focused upon human rights as a strand within British foreign policy.
The latest Audit Committee Report on the implementation of the Human Rights Act for managers within local government is a good place to start examining how the law has become a byword for bureaucratisation and regulation. It also has a useful list of further governmental links. Although the traditional freedoms are all recognised in checklists and tickboxes, they are surrounded by a disciplinary atmosphere that has the potential to prohibit any actions considered offensive. Instead of applying common sense and guidance, this Report promotes a stifling conformity in the form of a “human rights culture” in order to avoid liabilities for not applying the law correctly.
By viewing human rights as a possible liability, institutions and the individuals who work within them will come to see civil liberties as a liability and a hindrance to their primary objective. Thus, the Human Rights Act will have the opposite effect to that intended: engendering a culture of compliance that observes the letter, not the spirit of the law, and bringing the actual purpose of the act, increasing the rights of individuals, into contempt.
Freedom is a basic value but its champions and its expression will appear in many different forms. White Rose, understandably, has recently concentrated on the technological developments that may undermine our civil liberties, in conjunction with the connivance of the authorities.
Other freedoms include the capability of fulfilling one’s desire to pursue research in the sciences, whether natural or social, without suffering repression from the state. Abdolkarim Soroush, a noted Iranian intellectual, can claim to be the founder of studies on the history and philosphy of science in Iran. However, as the biography on this website delicately notes,
Soroush’s lectures in this mosque continued smoothly for six years. Then owing to certain sensitivities, the weekly programme was suspended and attempts to resume them have so far proved unsuccessful.
Soroush was one of the moderate supporters of the 1979 revolution who attempted to find an Islamic structure that would support his religious beliefs and the values of academic research that he had learned in the West – a project similar to that professed by President Mohammed Khatami. However, his historical writings stressed the contingent nature of Islamic knowledge and invited attention… → Continue reading: Reaffirming the Freedom to think
The government has enthusiastically taken up the cause of introducing more ‘flexible’ voting methods in order to increase electoral turnout. The fragility of their new experimental systems was brought home to me when my father asked me to witness his postal vote (a requirement that is now being dropped). I wasn’t too concerned because he was voting for the Residents Association rather than a political party.
I am not the only one. The e-voting systems have been criticised. Dr Ben Fairweather, Research Fellow at De Montford University, has analysed the local elections and found some disturbing results. These involved eighteen elections and 1.5 million voters.
He said the system used in Shrewsbury and Kerrier, Cornwall adopted a CESG security model that called for candidate codes to be sent to voters by post, as a security precaution. But people could request this information online on the day in violation of this security policy.
In Sheffield matters were worse. Many polling stations were without an Internet connection on polling day. As a result voters could get a vote at a poling station while still being able to vote again online from home.
The good fellow is also concerned about inappropriate influences within the home, and one could point to our more tight-knit communities where vulnerable members could be forced to vote for particular candidates. These changes encourage communalism in voting patterns.
“For one thing how do you know who’s in the room with someone when they vote and how can you be sure they are not trying to influence someone’s vote?” he asked.
Dr Fairweather’s work is here. The Foundation for Information Policy Research made similar criticisms.
So far, none of these elections have been rerun, even though their flaws have been documented.
Supermarkets have begun trials on coordinating RFID tags and security cameras in order to reduce theft as the first step in converging logistical and surveillance technologies.
The first step has already been taken through trials at a supermarket in Cambridge, where RFID tags were used to identify a purchaser through a security camera. In this particular case, a second camera at the checkout was used to ensure that the item was purchased legally.
The technology is also utilised on the London Tube.
Transport for London is also using RFID-style chips in its new Oyster smart cards to allow users to travel around the tube network. The intention is that registered users will have information such as their names and addresses stored on the cards, which would eventually replace season tickets.
A spokesperson for TfL said that the entry and exit points of each journey made by Oyster users were recorded and that, technically, it would be possible to track people through the tube network. Nicole Carroll, marketing director for TranSys, the consortium responsible for implementing the system, told the Guardian that all the journeys made by a user would remain stored in a central computer for the lifetime of the card.
The article produced a link to one of the lesser known groups within civil liberties and demonstrates the diversity of organisation that these concerns attracts. The campaign, known as Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy and Invasion and Numbering, or CASPIAN, is opposed to loyalty cards as those who opt out of obtaining a card tend to pay higher prices as the cost of preserving their privacy.
They also provide the answer for that burning question…With all the pain and suffering in the world and people starving in [fill in location here], how can you justify spending your time on supermarket club cards?
The answer includes: My passion happens to be preserving personal freedom, staving off totalitarianism, and resisting Orwellian intrusions.
Sentiments we can all agree with.
Often, we expect curbs on civil liberties to be the desired goal of our own left-wing authoritarians or the unfortunate consequence of some EU directive. It is rare that the demands of the United States may result in one more step towards the “surveillance state”.
EU passports will soon have to incorporate a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip, including biometric data, that would be machine-readable for entering the US. This is a consequence of the US Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2002 that demands all visa-free entrants incorporate biometric information on their passports from October 2004. (Hint: you may want to change your passport if you wish to visit the United States after this date).
In the tension between liberty and security, the demands of this Act appear a prudent measure to curb the use of false passports for perpetrating acts of terrorism. However, the biometric identifiers used will be standardised according to workgroups meeting for the International Civil Aviation Organisation and International Organization for Standardisation.
Their work will be co-opted by the European Union. A European biometric identification strategy was announced in June at the summit in Greece. The European Biometric Forum was established, with major players and strong links to their counterparts in the United States, to ensure that there would a single standard for applications of this technology, pursued by all member states of the EU.
The EBF will be launched on the 21st July in Dublin and the technology is being promoted as an additional protection for the privacy of individuals, although the growth is driven by state institutions and telecom/security companies.
The Guardian has reported on the latest developments in Money Laundering. This is the process whereby you have to prove your identity in order to open a bank account and shows that your money has not been received from an illicit source. Under the Money Laundering rules, enthusiastically expanded by the Financial Services Authority, this process is named as “know your customer”.
This is an example of where the rules provide authority for a particular group, cashiers, who proceed, in certain cases, to abuse it without any form of accountability. It would appear that bank staff have been demanding loudly for proof of identity and where the customer received their cash or cheque. Understandably, the customer finds this distasteful and intrusive.
However, the FSA states that it is only implementing the rules set by Her Majesty’s Government and the European Union.
The other intrusion into the financial privacy of the citizen involves the notification of any transaction above £10,700 in a suspicious activity report to the National Criminal Intelligence Service. There are an expected 100,000 SARs anticipated this year “from banks, financial advisers, estate agents, lawyers, accountants, jewellers and high value car dealers“. New rules on house purchase have resulted in deposits above £10,700, paid in cash, being sent for investigation as a SAR. Most of these SARs will not be examined because the reporting system is overwhelmed and understaffed. There are perverse consequences:
Fraud experts such as Liesel Annible of accountants Bentley Jennison, who is UK president of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, believes the system can actually help criminals.
“What does NCIS do with all these reports? Firms are now disclosing so much because of the fear of prosecution that there is a danger of serious infringements being hidden by and lost under the noise of all the minor problems and unfounded suspicions. All these SARs just gum up the works – the vast majority are just stored”, she says.
One enters a strange world where the Royal Bank of Scotland can be fined £750,000 for breaching these strict rules even though no evidence of money laundering was ever found; and where rules for identity are enforced whilst money laundering often takes place elsewhere. The final consequence of these rules is that those who are unable to provide proof, especially the poor, find that they have an additional hurdle to overcome if they wish to use the financial infrastructure within the United Kingdom.
There are a number of indications from this article that the process of subcontracting the enforcement of regulation to private sector bodies results in unaccountable staff intruding upon the financial privacy of the ordinary citizen. A more positive note is that, where the citizen finds that his expectations of certain freedoms are abrogated, the response is anger rather than apathy.
The money laundering rules have perverse consequences and demonstrate that the financial privacy enjoyed by the British has been sacrificed to observe a set of regulations that have not worked.
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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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