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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As Gabriel Syme wrote earlier today, the objective on this blog is to argue for a ‘broad front’ push to regain some ground lost to successive governments in the struggle for individual civil liberties. But as a hard core free market individualist who opposes collectivism in all its left and right flavours, it would fair to say that when I write for Samizdata.net, I tend not to make many friends amongst socialists, social democrats or statist conservatives.
And yet… on White Rose I try to leave some of my narrow political views at the door as the aim here is about forming a much broader front in the resistance to the diminution of individual liberty. Gabriel was right to point out the excellent article by Stephen Robinson in the Telegraph in praising left winger John Wadham for his stewardship of the human rights group Liberty.
I have recently been taken to task by libertarians and conservatives for praising George Orwell, because he was a socialist. Yet it would be hard to overestimate the importance of 1984 and Animal Farm in estabishing a popularised meta-context in which the true nature of tyranny could be understood by millions of people across the world. It is my desire that people reach the conclusion that the state is over-mighty and that its actions pose a clear and present danger to individual liberty… I am far less concerned how they reach that conclusion. If Orwell felt his socialist collectivism could be squared with an abhorance for tyranny, well fine. I may not see it that way but Orwell made many of the right arguments nevertheless. We must take our friends where we find them.
The need to resist the tide of the regulatory state’s smothering of individual rights has appeal far beyond the narrow confines of libertarianism or any particular -ism, and if we are to ever roll back the trend towards a panoptic micro-regulated ‘society’, to quote Benjamin Franklin, we must hang together, or surely we will hang separately.
In commemoration of Orwell’s 100th birthday, Neuromancer author William Gibson had an op-ed piece in Wednesday’s New York Times, in which he discussed Orwell’s vision, and how it was influenced by its time. In particular, Gibson believes that Orwell’s vision was influenced by the broadcast nature of the media at the time: radio and the nascent invention of television were highly centralised.
The surveillance scheme (and the totalitarian states) envisioned in 1984 were centralised in the same way, from some giant central security apparatus. Gibson believes that today’s world, and the world of the future, is different. Greater surveillance will be mixed with much greater freedom of information. People with access to all this new information will consist of many non-state as well as state actors. We will live in a world with much less privacy, but not necessarily much less freedom.
Surveillance states without this fancy new technology were pretty effective, and still are pretty effective in places (from North Korea to Burma to Cuba) where old technological paradigms still apply. Would these states have been more oppressive if the people runing them had PCs? It’s hard to say. Would the presence of PCs in the security apparatus in East Germany rather than mountains of paper records have prevented the end of European communism? It’s doubtful. Changing surveillance technology is taking us somewhere new, it may be that the vision of Orwell provides a good guide as to what it is.
After quickly observing that Gibson sounds rather like Brian Micklethwait, I will observe that Gibson is at least partly right. The greater freedom of information that results from many to many communications networks changes things dramatically. We saw glimpses of this in the 1980s with the invention of the fax machine, which more or less removed the mass media’s ability to bury a story that the people were not supposed to know about. (The key story was something tawdry: a transcipt allegedly of the Prince of Wales talking to his mistress). This reached every office in London seemingly in minutes. The media and hence the courts could no longer supress things like that. With the invention of e-mail and SMS text messaging, such communications became more ubiquitous, and no longer tied to the home or office.
We are suddenly in a world where a great deal of information is being collected on us and transmitted to other places, and yet at the same time, we are collecting a lot of information on ourselves, and transmitting it voluntarily, and to some extent this controls the flow. Much of this information is and will continue to be cultural rather than political in content. Like Brian, I am fascinated by this phenomenon, which can also be for the good. Due largely to the use of SMS messaging, the Chinese government this year completely failed to keep information secret about the spread of the SARS virus in China. People throughout the country knew far more about what was going on than the government wanted them to know. The Chinese government now seems to know that it cannot keep things secret like this any more, and as today’s Economist discusses, the consequences could be profound. → Continue reading: William Gibson on Orwell and the surveillance state.
Another opinion piece by Stephen Robinson in the Telegraph, this time about John Wadham who resigned this week as director of the human rights group Liberty. He salutes him for his efforts at Liberty:
Mr Wadham argues that the threat posed by the state to individual liberty transcends political allegiance, so he worked hard to make Liberty less of a sectarian pressure group of the Left since his appointment as director eight years ago. He has been a good friend to the Telegraph’s Free Country campaign, dismissing the protests of some of his allies on the Left, who would prefer to exclude any conservative voice from the debate about the state and individual liberty. Thanks to him, the Telegraph has been welcomed at Liberty conferences to speak out on issues such as foxhunting and gun ownership.
This is a good sign. White Rose has been set in recognition of the need to address civil liberties across the widest political spectrum. As long as the common ground is the concern about the state and its impact on invidual liberty, we welcome those with different political opinions. We also add our voice to that of Stephen Robinson:
It would be much better if an independent or conservative figure could emerge and to make the point that individual liberty cannot be protected so long as it is popularly understood to be a concern only of the Left.
A dispiriting reading by Stephen Robinson in yesterday’s Telegraph:
To mark Orwell’s birthday, I rang around some of the people who have featured in The Daily Telegraph’s Free Country campaign since we launched it two years ago. It seemed a good moment to conduct a sort of “freedom audit” and gauge if those who seek to stem the tide of government encroachment on our liberties are managing to hold the line. It was a depressing experience.
[…]
At the beginning of last year, letters and e-mails began pouring in from unpaid parish councillors around England, enraged at being required to sign up to a new Whitehall Code of Conduct and declare all their business dealings. It is when considering the “best practices” aspects of New Labour’s “modernising agenda” that you pass through the looking glass into a world far weirder than anything Orwell could have imagined.
For the list of individual cases the Telegraph Free Country campaign has publicised or was involved in read the whole article.
Australia has a federal form of government, and there is a division of power between the Federal Government and the various state governments. As in the US, security issues are dealt with federally, while day to day matters of law and order are dealt with at a state level.
The agency which the Australian government uses for internal security in Australia is the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
In the wake of the Bali bombing, which deeply affected Australia, the government has been trying to broaden ASIO’s powers. However, they have not demonstrated how these new laws will actually make Australia safer, nor has there been any demonstrated inadequacies with the already ample powers that ASIO has.
The new law gives the government the right to hold someone for a week. This is not suspects we are talking about, it is dealing with people that might know something about terrorism. They ask you questions, you answer them, we all live happily ever after but they still have the power to detain you for a week.
Moreover, if there is new information that you reveal under questioning, the government have the power to apply for another warrant. There goes another week. And there is no limit to the number of warrants that the government can apply for. This can lead to indefinant confinement.
The provisions of the act are by no means hypothetical; the media is pointing out that journalists can be forced to reveal their sources. Either that, or face a five year jail term.
The key point is that this reform is not aimed solely at those who have committed a terrorism offence. The ASIO plan allows for people to be detained solely because they have information about a terrorism offence – a power even police officers do not have when questioning a suspected murderer.
The police are not given powers to detain people solely to gain information. As a society which respects human rights, this is seen as a power that is just too intrusive.
The issue is dealt with through criminal offences for concealing a major offence. There is no reason to think those laws will not apply to terrorism offences.
Moreover, the powers that the government now enjoy are pretty much unaccountable. The government say that there are sufficient accountability mechanisms in place already, but there’s actually no watchdog for ASIO.
The Australian government has acted very poorly throughout it’s long efforts to get this legislation passed. They haven’t demonstrated why there is such a pressing need for such an oppressive statute. The existing powers at their disposal remain quite adequate to deal with terrorism.
One can’t help but get the suspicion that this bill is a power-grab to take advantage of the troubled times that we live in.
Semi-cross posted from The Eye of the Beholder
The head of civil rights group Liberty, John Wadham, is to take a top job in the new organisation investigating complaints against police. He is to be a deputy chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
The IPCC, which will replace the existing Police Complaints Authority next April, is designed to improve transparency because for the first time civilians will investigate allegations made against the police, rather than inquiries being conducted by other officers.
Telegraph reports that civil liberties campaigners accused the Government last night of compiling a national DNA database “by stealth” as police prepared to enter the two millionth profile into the system. Police powers to keep DNA samples have been strengthened considerably since 2001 when they were first allowed to keep the information indefinitely from suspects who were not convicted.
The new Criminal Justice Bill now before Parliament extends this rule to people who are arrested but never charged. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, said the importance of DNA profiling to criminal detection outweighed the civil liberties objections.
The DNA and fingerprint databases have become vital weapons in law enforcement, making our communities safer by helping to put thousands of repeat criminals behind bars.
That would be fine, no one disputes the usefulness of advanced technology in crime detection. The problem is, as Gareth Crossman, a spokesman for Liberty, points out:
The Government is hell-bent on creating a national DNA database by stealth. It claims that only criminals will be listed, yet is passing legislation so DNA samples will be retained indefinitely for anyone who is ever arrested, whether guilty or innocent.
If you have any doubt about the government’s intention – the new Health Secretary, John Reid, plans to ask the genetics watchdog to consider the case for DNA screening of every newborn baby. All in the best possible taste, of course…
Simon Davies of Privacy International organised an event this evening here in London in order to honour George Orwell and hoist a drink or three to one of England’s greatest writers on the occasion of his birthday.
Now I know a lot of you have read Orwell’s sundry works… 1984… Animal Farm… etc… but how many of you have drunk a ‘Black and Tan’ at Orwell’s favorite pub, the Newman Arms on 23 Rathbone Street…
…followed by walk to the Elysee Restaurant, around the corner at 13 Percy Street, which was one of Orwell’s favorite eating places? The default dish here has to be Moussaka, as Orwell ate it on nearly every occasion that he visited this place.
A splendid evening was had by Gabriel Syme and myself (the wicked and iniquitous Johnathan Pearce was a no-show) amidst an impressive collection of privacy and civil liberties activists from across a .. ahem… wide range of the political spectrum.
Cross-posted from Samizdata.net
In a characteristic Samizdata posting, Perry de Havilland regrets the modern use of the phrase “Big Brother” to describe reality TV shows, and harks back to Orwell’s original coinage, with grim pictures of CCTV surveillance cameras outside primary schools, and of propaganda for CCTV cameras in the form of big posters in the London Underground.
All this anti-surveillance thinking over at Samizdata is connected to the recent launch of this new blog, which will be concerned with civil liberties and “intrusive state” issues. I’ve already done a couple of posts here, the most substantial of which concerned organ donorship, and I intend to contribute many more similar efforts. The boss of White Rose is one of my closest friends.
However, I have long been nursing heretical thoughts about this total surveillance stuff, which it makes sense to put on a “culture” blog rather than on a politics blog. Because what I think is at stake here is a sea change not just in state surveillance, but in the culture generally. What is more, it is a sea change which places programmes like Big Brother right at the centre of what is happening. → Continue reading: Reflections on “Big Brother”: the total surveillance society and the prescience of popular culture
The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and except in darkness, every movement scrutinised.
– George Orwell, from 1984
Today is George Orwell’s birthday. Happy birthday George, you were right… just a few years too early. And now we have thermal imagers which means even darkness is no shield from the Panopticon State.
Nah! You must be paranoid! It’ll never happen here!
BBC reports that Home Secretary David Blunkett is to give details on how two million people are about to be listed on a national DNA crime database. The government originally said in 2000 that it wanted to have three million personal profiles on the system by 2004. This was thought to be the whole of the “criminal class”.
The arguments for such a national database are new figures that suggest it is increasingly obvious DNA evidence can be a potent weapon against all categories of crime. The last three years have seen a 50% increase in the crimes solved using DNA samples.
At the moment, only those charged with an offence have their samples taken, but the government’s Criminal Justice Bill plans to give police powers to take samples from anybody who has been arrested.
Both civil liberties campaigners and some scientists warn that with a potentially vast database, the possibility of somebody being wrongly linked to a crime would grow. DNA evidence is not infallible, with forensic experts evidence referring to the probability of match rather than a definite match.
All UK mobile phone operators now track the locations of cellphones, according to this BBC piece. The technology was built in order to provide mobile phone users with information about nearby services: dial a number and ask for the nearest Mexican restaurant, for example. But providers are beginning to offer reverse location lookups, so others can track the location of a particular phone, or send text messages to people in a particular area.
“All the big four operators now offer a commercial service so you can send them a telephone number and they will tell you where it is,” said Colin Bates, chief technology officer at location services company Mobile Commerce.
[…]
But location-based services are going to be much more common, now that locations can be requested for a few pence a time and firms such as Mobile Commerce and Verilocation are springing up to funnel location requests to the various networks.
The location system works best in urban areas covered by lots of base stations that have overlapping coverage. This lets operators give a location fix accurate to about 200 metres.
Providers are quick to point out that they won’t release information about a phone’s location without permission from the owner. Except if you’re a law enforcement officer, of course, or a corrupt employee, or a skilled social engineer, or the rules change..
Soon Verilocation plans to offer a service for families that lets worried parents find out where their offspring are. The service will cost a fixed amount every month and let family members check locations a few times per month.
Mr Overton said Data Protection legislation means that tracking cannot be done without consent of a handset owner.
– BBC, Being tracked down by your mobile.
Verilocation’s web page has some more information on how the process works, but there are no technical details.
The opportunity for abuse of such a capability is particularly alarming in a government-controlled monopoly such as telecommunications. The lengths to which network operators will go to please their state protectors was illustrated recently when it was revealed that UK government departments make 1 million requests for phone records each year. Service providers hand over as many as 100 million call records each year in order to maintain a good relationship with police and other investigatory agencies.
Cross-posted from Vigilant TV
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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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