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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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At my education blog late last night, I found myself putting, in connection with this (which is a story about how two French science students were brutally murdered in London yesterday), this:
It’s somewhat off topic for this blog, but I say: allow non-crims be be armed!
It may yet happen. London, full of disarmed non-crims and armed crims, is rapidly becoming like New York used to be but is now so conspicuously not, a “crime capital”. Any decade now, something might just give. Or, to use the language of this blog, the lesson might be learned.
Something about the extreme savagery of that double murder yesterday made me think that now was the exact time to be saying such a thing, not just to those few of my devoted libertarian friends so devoted that they read that education blog of mine, but also to any eco-friendly home-schoolers or weary school teachers who happen to drop by there. Suddenly, the anti-gun-control message felt very right, like an idea whose time, finally, might have come. → Continue reading: Is gun control about to be rolled back in Britain?
Some splendid person, writing pseudonymously in the obscurity of an open thread on the Guardian’s Comment is Free semiblog, has provided a parallel text translation of the Report of the Independent Scheme Assurance Panel. His discussion begins here. It deserves a wider audience. Excerpt:
DAMN, I really must get back to work, but this is just so wonderful…
3.3 Identity management within Government
Early on, the Panel challenged the assumption that existing sources of identity data should be ignored in favour of a new set.
Like a lot of people, we couldn’t understand why the NI number and its related data wouldn’t do.
However, safe and reliable maintenance and use of a shared asset across multiple parties is a challenge for any organisation, not least Government with its many departments, each with its own priorities, objectives and challenges.
Then somebody showed us the figures that with a total population of 60M people in this country, maybe a sixth of them under 16, there are over 75M currently-issued NI numbers, and we finally started to understand that the entire current system is a complete balls-up.
People say to me, “Don’t worry, it won’t work.” I would like to remind them that grand government schemes that are not working tend to be adopted anyway, and all the suffering they cause is declared a good thing, necessary for the progress of the nation. Lysenko’s ‘winterizeation’ of wheat, did not work. Protectionism does not work. Most of the world’s ‘development’ projects do not work. It did not stop governments implementing them at the expense of humanity. It does not stop massive numbers of politically influential people still believing in the grand reconstruction of deep natural systems and human institutions by government power, and devoting their working lives to promoting it. The National Identity Scheme still has every prospect of being Britain’s ‘Great Leap Forward’.
(Hat-tip: Wendy M. Grossman)
We are marvelling at the multiple possibilities of Oyster, but come back here in 10 years’ time and we will have chips inserted under our skin or inside our heads
– Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, quoted by Computing
[Those foreign readers who are unfamiliar with Oyster should maybe start here. Those unfamiliar with our dear leader, the mayor, can read his official bio here, but Red Ken is a massive subject, and if you can understand his career then you know more about British politics than I do. Here is a recent friendly (!) blog post. Now if you’ll excuse me, it is 6.43am and I am off to vote.]
Laban Tall, blogging at Biased BBC, has posted the latest BBC public service advertisement warning citizens not to fail to pay for a TV licence.
I thought it might be of interest to Samizdata readers.
You should trust us, because we’re trustworthy people who would never do anything wrong (please ignore all we’ve done wrong over the past few years). So, now that that’s settled, let’s get this baby rolling…
-Mike Masnick interprets Department of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff’s response to critics of the planned expansion of the US spy satellite program
“The background to this method of policing is that NuLab became increasingly irritated with the police detecting crime. This tended to militate against the working classes (few question the link between poverty and crime). Being so unutterably incompetent, NuLab were were unable to tackle poverty (unless by increasing it, they can claim to be tackling poverty). One solution to this was to make crime detection a more egalitarian process. By criminalising “anti-social” behavior that was more likely to committed by the middle classes (speeding, hunting etc), then issuing directives for police to ramp up their response to such infractions, the thinking was that this would highlight how criminality was not the preserve of the put upon working classes.
On top of this, there existed a situation whereby the number crunchers claimed that the fear of being a victim of crime far outweighed the reality of being a victim of crime. Hence the emphasis shifted away from tackling crime i.e oppressing the working classes, to tackling the fear of crime. This had a cheap solution: high visibility policing. It is this thinking that lead to the introduction of those decaffeinated police officers known as “PCSOs”, along with the requirement for high visibility vests worn with officers. This type of thinking also results in situations such as the Forest Gate incident, whereby the number of officers present seems to far outweigh the threat and the inclusion of the press in high profile operations. All of these things are designed to tackle the FEAR of crime, not crime itself.”
From one of our readers, “Fed_Up”, commenting on my recent encounter with the police. Thanks for the comments. The one here raises the issue of class. It is sometimes said that these days, the cops, or at least some of them, are the “paramilitary wing of the Guardian newspaper”. This represents a significant shift in the cultural/political standing of the police over my lifetime.
Consider this: there is no doubt that during the 1980s, when the Conservatives were in power, some of the police powers used at the time got on to the statute books with relatively little complaint from what I might loosely call “the right”. Not everyone was complacent, of course. Libertarian Alliance Director Sean Gabb and the LA’s founder, the late Chris R. Tame, were early in pointing out at the time that no consistent defence of liberty makes sense if it is confined purely to economics, a point that some Tories to this day don’t seem to grasp. While coppers were pinching Rastafarians in Brixton and hitting coalminers on the head in Yorkshire, a lot of the middle classes were happy to look the other way. As an unashamed middle class Brit with mortgage, happy marriage and decent job, I am the sort of person, I suppose, that has in a certain way been radicalised by the CCTV state, or “parking warden culture”, as one might call it. It is important to understand, however, that the sort of petty exercise of power has been going on, sometimes unremarked, for years. So I certainly don’t feel sorry for myself. I am, more than anything else, depressed at the fatuity of “security theatre” policing. It must, at one level surely, gnaw away at the morale and self respect of decent coppers. But there is no doubt that the role and status of the police has changed and so has the type of person that might be attracted to making a career in it.
I must say I am still stunned by the open admission of one commenter on my earlier posting that random searches are good for “fishing expeditions”. We were not very kind to him on the previous thread. Justifiably.
For a good take on what has been going on with policing in the US, Gene Healy of the CATO Institute think tank has a sharp analysis. Several US readers expressed their horror at what is happening here in Britain; I am afraid that things are not so great in parts of the US, either. And as for France, etc…..
Random searches of Britons going about their business are now established features of life in this country. The old refrain – “It could not happen here”, no longer applies. On Saturday, while driving along the side of the Thames towards Westminster, passing by the Tate Gallery, I was flagged down by a policeman.
Officer: “Could you show me your driving licence? This is a section 41 search” (at least I think that is what he said).
Me: “Section 41 or whatever of what?”
Officer: “The Terrorism Act”
Me: “Why have you pulled me and my wife over?”
Officer: “We are doing searches of vehicles in the area.”
Me: “Well obviously you are. Is this a random thing?”
Officer: “Yes. Please hand over your driving licence and we want to search the car.”
They searched the car, called up the driving licence authority, and were able to their enormous satisfaction confirm that I was whom I said I was. I was then asked to sign a document stating that the search had been carried out as it should have been. The officer gave me his name, rank and police station number and address. When I signed the form, he asked me how I wanted to classify myself as there were about 15 options, including “White British”. He was polite. My treatment was fine. The officer and his colleagues told me they were on duty, searching vehicles, for the rest of the day and into the evening.
Now I will spare you a rant about the impertinence of this. You can, gentle reader, assume as a matter of course that I regard such random searches of members of the public as impertinent. What makes me wonder, though, is what on earth the supporters of such searches expect? Do they honestly, really believe that would-be terrorists will be deterred, frightened off or caught? Unless the police put up roadblocks across London, at god-knows what disruption and cost, I do not see how doing this on one of many major roads will cause a blind bit of difference.
This is what has been called “security theatre”: lots of action signifying little. Even the copper who carried out the search had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed.
Update: One commenter has complained that I am getting all upset for no good reason and has used the argument that this sort of behaviour is okay as it can act as a “fishing” expedition to unearth potentially other crimes. It is hard to summon breath to deal with such a brazen argument in favour of abolishing the idea that one is presumed innocent until otherwise.
Update 2: a reader asked for further details on the search. From the time I was pulled over to being let on my way, the process lasted 15 minutes. The police officer’s colleague called up the driving licence authority to give them my licence registration number and the authority took about 10 minutes to get back. An officer opened the car boot, rummaged around some bags and luggage – I was travelling up to Cambridge with my wife – and had a look inside the car. They also inspected my clothes and checked my footwear. They did not ask me to open the glove compartment of the car. They also did not look under the car with a mirror or anything similar, or look under the bonnet.
Apparently they are exclusive alternatives. According to Wired:
Maine is now the lone state not to have been given an extension to long-delayed Real ID regulations, after three fellow protesting states – Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina – got their extensions in the last two weeks despite not pledging allegiance to Real ID.
What was it Maine in particular did to offend? There is no clue. One might suspect being the easiest to blockade has something to do with it. Bullies like to pick on the weakest victim when making an example.
Assuming no actual bombs get on the plane, then it scarcely matters who the passengers are – particularly since the rules did change in one important respect on September 11th 2001 and few are likely to sit quietly and do what a hijacker says, as they were advised to before that date. If someone could explain to me why any identification at all is needed to board a plane – other than that the government just wants to know where you are going – then I’d be most grateful for the explanation.
[* Yes I know that is New Hampshire, but presumably it is in the line for the DHS’s third degree.]
London and the Database State
A mayoral hustings organised by NO2ID
Londoners are among the most watched people on earth. As well as housing Whitehall, Parliament and the other self-protecting security apparatus, London has many information and identity management systems of its own. How do candidates feel about the civil liberties and privacy implications of, among other things, the Oyster Card, congestion charging, telephone parking? Would they support or oppose national ID schemes as mayor? What is their attitude to the database state?
Invitations have been issued to every party with London representation at Westminster, in Strasbourg or in the GLA. Gerrard Batten (UKIP), Sian Berry (Green), Lindsay German (Respect/Left List), Boris Johnson (Conservative), and Brian Paddick (LibDem) are currently expected to participate, and written responses from other invitees will be read from the chair.
Chaired by Christina Zaba, journalist and NO2ID’s Union Liason Officer.
Time: 7pm Tuesday 8th April 2008
Place: Friends House, 173 Euston Road NW1 2BJ
Free and open to all.
[I’d like to take this opportunity to remind EU and commonwealth citizens resident in London, they have a vote in this too.]
There is a great little article in Slashdot about a well known German hacker group, Chaos Computer Club, publishing the fingerprints of German Secretary of the Interior as part of their protest against state use of biometric ID.
The club published 4,000 copies of their magazine Die Datenschleuder including a plastic foil reproducing the minister’s fingerprint – ready to glue to someone else’s finger to provide a false biometric reading. The CCC has a page on their site detailing how to make such a fake fingerprint
Sweet. I suppose that is a ‘hardware hack’ of sorts!
Hackers in Indonesia have defaced a government website in protest over that increasingly authoritarian nation’s plans to block internet access to porn (and what is the internet for if not porn?)… Sadly the site has now been repaired, but nice one, guys. Stick it to them!
And here is a nice list of proxy servers for our Indonesian readers (yes, we do have at least a couple).
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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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