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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According PR Newswire press release Tim Lord, chief executive of the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association, responded today to the news that EU Health Commissioner David Byrne proposes to use EU Health and Safety Law to impose a blanket ban on public smoking all across Europe.
Everyone, smokers and non-smokers, employees and the rest of us, should have access to clean air. We all agree with that – the issue is how do you deliver it? Commissioner Byrne wants a draconian solution – to ban smoking wherever people may work – and do so via a Brussels directive to all of Europe. The Commissioner should leave health issues to individual countries as envisaged under EU protocol and let them handle their own affairs. He should also note the impact of blanket smoking bans in other countries.
Reuters reports that Britain has become the second country in Europe to criminalise spam, that unwanted barrage of e-mail and mobile phone text messages that promise get-rich-quick schemes, cheap home loans and a better sex life.
The unsolicited messages, which industry groups say account for more than half of all e-mails sent, have become the scourge of Internet users everywhere. Under the new UK law, spammers face a 5,000 pound fine if convicted in a magistrates court. The fine from a jury trial would be unlimited. Spammers would not face prison, according to the new law, which was introduced by Communications Minister Stephen Timms.
The law does not however cover workplace e-mail addresses. Anti-spam proponents had been calling for a blanket law that would criminalise all forms of spam. Steve Linford, founder of anti-spam group Spamhaus Project says:
To say it is permissable to spam somebody at work but not at home could put an extremely large burden on British businesses. It says it’s okay to spam companies.
The biggest spammers are based in the United States and Asia. Strenuous anti-spam laws there are seen as key to shutting off the valve.
The BBC reports that Tesco branches in Sandhurst and Leicester are running trials of the controversial Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips.
These chips – each of which contains a unique identification number – will be attached to the packaging of almost every DVD in the stores.
What makes this trial unacceptable is that the chips will not be deactivated when the customer leaves the shop. Instead they will remain functional and will be broadcasting the customers’ purchase details wherever they go until they dispose of the packaging.
A useful reference regarding RFID is notags.co.uk.
Cross-posted from Chestnut Tree Cafe
The Guardian reports that the charity commission will be given powers to use covert informants, track individuals and obtain email and telephone records under controversial legislation dubbed a “snooper’s charter” by civil liberties groups.
Orders laid before parliament last Friday will include the commission in the list of public bodies given powers under the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).
The orders will allow the commission to mount “directed surveillance operations” – monitoring people’s movements – use “covert human intelligence sources” – undercover agents and informers – and to obtain limited information about email, phone and postal communications, for the purpose of preventing and detecting crime.
Chris Stalker, head of campaigns at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, said:
While NCVO welcome measures that will ensure greater trust, confidence and the integrity of charities, the use of RIPA by the charity commission does cause us some concern.
While the commission’s power to investigate is crucial to its work, we will be monitoring the use of this new legislation closely to ensure it remains proportionate to its role as regulator of the charitable sector.
What does the government know about you? – that’s the title of a piece that starts with this:
WASHINGTON, DC and DALLAS,TX — (MARKET WIRE) — Carl Caldwell, the president of Right-to-Know, released a statement explaining the depth of information that the government collects about its citizens. Right- to-Know helps its clients uncover what the government knows about them.
Here‘s the rest of it.
Here’s an interesting list, from Saturday’s Telegraph:
These are the agencies able to run surveillance operations or “covert human intelligence sources”, for example agents, informants and undercover officers – people allowed to authorise are in brackets:
It starts with “Any police force (superintendent/inspector if urgent)” and it ends with “Royal Pharmaceutical Society (fitness to practice dir)”, with (I counted) thirty five items in between those two.
Quite a list.
Privacy International and the Electronic Privacy Information Center released Privacy and Human Rights 2003 on 5 September. The report reviews the state of privacy in 55 countries around the world. Issues covered include data protection, surveillance, anti-terrorism efforts and new technologies. This is what it has to say about the UK:
The privacy picture in the UK is mixed. There is, at some levels, a strong public recognition and defense of privacy. Proposals to establish a national identity card, for example, have routinely failed to achieve broad political support. On the other hand, crime and public order laws passed in recent years have placed substantial limitations on numerous rights, including freedom of assembly, privacy, freedom of movement, the right of silence, and freedom of speech.
Each year a group called Project Censored releases a list it calls “The Top 25 Censored Media Stories”. The title is a misnomer, however; the articles weren’t censored at all, but “underreported” – meaning that, in the eyes of the judges, the article didn’t receive sufficient attention. All of the articles on this year’s list were widely reported, many in the mainstream media. The #1 item on the list, for example, was published in the Sunday Times, Harper’s Magazine, Mother Jones and Atlantic Journal Constitution, and reportedly “drew more traffic to [the Mother Jones] web site than any other article.”
As a reminder that actual media censorship is still a significant problem around the world, I’d like to propose an alternative list:
The Top 25 Acts of Media Censorship, 2002-2003
#1 – The Cuban government jails 75 pro-democracy activists, including 30 journalists, for writing articles that appeared in the foreign press. They receive sentences between 14 and 27 years for “undermining the state’s independence.”
#2 – Nigeria’s Zamfara State issues a fatwa calling for the death of fashion writer Isioma Daniel, after she published an article suggesting the Prophet Muhammed would have approved of the Miss World pageant. The local office of the newspaper This Day, which initially published the article, was subsequently destroyed in riots that left more than 200 dead.
#3 – The Tongan government declares the Times of Tonga newspaper, which is published in New Zealand, to be a prohibited import, for campaigning against the government. Officials claim that allowing the newspaper to be imported would be a human rights violation. King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV later bans possession of the newspaper, and finally even prohibits discussion of the ban.
#4 – The Australian High Court rules that Barron’s magazine may be sued in Victoria over an article published in New Jersey. Other Commonwealth nations subsequently consider adopting the decision.
#5 – The Chinese government orders journalists to undergo Communist Party propaganda tests in order to obtain licenses. Unlicensed journalists are not tolerated – for example the 10 photographers beaten by police while attempting to cover an education bureau meeting. → Continue reading: The real “Project Censored”
This Associated Press article discusses how the US Department of Justice has been using its increased powers granted under the Patriot Act just after September 11. Suffice to say that the DOJ and state prosecutors managed to get many items that had nothing to do with terrorism but which had been on its wish list for years into the bill, and it is now being used to tap phones, seize assets, and intrude on people’s liberties in ways that weren’t possible before.
Civil liberties and legal defense groups are bothered by the string of cases, and say the government soon will be routinely using harsh anti-terrorism laws against run-of-the-mill lawbreakers.
“Within six months of passing the Patriot Act, the Justice Department was conducting seminars on how to stretch the new wiretapping provisions to extend them beyond terror cases,” said Dan Dodson, a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. “They say they want the Patriot Act to fight terrorism, then, within six months, they are teaching their people how to use it on ordinary citizens.”
More from today’s New York Times, this time about a high tech company which makes its mega-bucks by betting that future security/Patriot Act legislation will be more intrusive than it is now. This is the Security-Industrial Complex getting into its stride, and its vested interests getting dug in.
This company makes X-ray snooping kit. There must be hundreds more doing similar stuff which we aren’t necessarily ever going to hear about.
This from the New York Times speaks for itself:
WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 – For months, President Bush’s advisers have assured a skittish public that law-abiding Americans have no reason to fear the long reach of the antiterrorism law known as the Patriot Act because its most intrusive measures would require a judge’s sign-off.
But in a plan announced this week to expand counterterrorism powers, President Bush adopted a very different tack. In a three-point presidential plan that critics are already dubbing Patriot Act II, Mr. Bush is seeking broad new authority to allow federal agents – without the approval of a judge or even a federal prosecutor – to demand private records and compel testimony.
This may not be quite so central to the White Rose agenda. I don’t know. Are more severe punishments part of our beat?
Mr. Bush also wants to expand the use of the death penalty in crimes like terrorist financing, and he wants to make it tougher for defendants in such cases to be freed on bail before trial. These proposals are also sure to prompt sharp debate, even among Republicans.
But this is definitely for us:
Opponents say that the proposal to allow federal agents to issue subpoenas without the approval of a judge or grand jury will significantly expand the law enforcement powers granted by Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And they say it will also allow the Justice Department – after months of growing friction with some judges – to limit the role of the judiciary still further in terrorism cases.
Indeed, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who is sponsoring the measure to broaden the death penalty, said in an interview that he was troubled by the other elements of Mr. Bush’s plan. He said he wanted to hold hearings on the president’s call for strengthening the Justice Department’s subpoena power “because I’m concerned that it may be too sweeping.” The no-bail proposal concerns him too, the senator said, because “the Justice Department has gone too far. You have to have a reason to detain.”
There’s a lot more. My thanks to David Sucher for the email that made sure we noticed this, and which definitely got us noticing it quicker than otherwise.
CNN reports that America’s top security official has urged European leaders to cooperate with U.S. demands to share information on airline passengers such as names, place of birth and date of birth, saying European resistance was hampering anti-terrorism efforts.
Tom Ridge, secretary for homeland security, said the European Union’s demand to protect passengers’ privacy must be balanced by the right of those passengers to travel safely. He noted that the United States wasn’t requesting information on health or religion.
The new U.S. law came into effect March 5. It requires airlines to provide the U.S. government with passenger details such names, phone and credit card numbers as well as meal choices. Because of the EU law banning the sharing of such information, European airlines face fines of up to $6,000 a passenger and the loss of landing rights if they fail to comply.
The EU Internal Market Commissioner, Frits Bolkstein, warned Ridge in June that if negotiations to bridge the two laws failed, a “highly charged trans-Atlantic confrontation” could ensue. If there is no deal, EU officials have said the EU would have to instruct national data agencies to stop sharing data with Washington and fine carriers that do so, leaving airlines caught in the middle.
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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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