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Pharma spends more on marketing than development

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Why are pharmaceuticals so expensive? This question has been asked for many years. In fact this was the question asked by Senator Estes Kefauver (D) in the late 1950s. Senator Kefauver was the first to put together an indictment against the business practices of the pharmaceutical industry. In fact he lobbed three charges at the pharmaceutical industry at the time.

They were the following:

1) Patents sustained predatory prices and excessive margins

2) Costs and prices were extravagantly increased by large expenditures in marketing

3) Most of the industry’s new products were no more effective than established drugs on the market(1).

If you look at these charges they are much the same accusations that many people blame the pharmaceutical industry of practicing right now, fifty years later. Has anything changed in the past fifty years?

The core of this debate, especially in the U.S. where direct-to-consumer marketing is legal, is the amount pharmaceutical companies spend on marketing vs. the amount spent on research and development (R&D). Aren’t we all lead to believe that the high cost of research and development is the reason that pharmaceuticals are so incredibly expensive? The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) uses data from IMS, a firm specializing in pharmaceutical market intelligence, to conclude that pharmaceutical companies spend U.S. $29.6 billion on R&D and U.S. $27.7 billion for all promotional activities (data from 2004). Even if these numbers can be trusted, and the pharmaceutical industry is altruistic, why are these expenses so close? An investigative article in the Public Library of Science (PLoS), who used proprietary databases to construct a new, and quite possibly more accurate estimate, states the money goes to marketing twice as often than R&D.

Show me the money.

It is important to note that the PLoS is an open source publication. In fact the publication states that you may use its articles and “download, copy, distribute, and use (with attribution) any way you wish.” This means that the PLoS is not taking money from anyone and so are free to publish articles that go against the mainstream. Most importantly, they are not taking money from pharmaceutical companies and can publish content like this without fear of reprisal. What was published in “The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States” does go against the mainstream – by clearly stating that the pharmaceutical industry is spending more on marketing, much more than most people would expect.

As the U.S. represents 43% of global sales and global promotion expenditures, knowing the amount of money put into marketing is essential. It is also important to note that according to CAM, which is a global company that audits the promotional activities of the pharmaceutical industry, about 30% of promotional spending is not accounted for in their figures. The breakdown is not accurately known of unmonitored promotion, but CAM believes that approximately 10% is due to incomplete disclosure by surveyed physicians and 20% comes from promotion geared towards physicians not surveyed or unmonitored journals. Combining the information gathered from CAM, as well as IMS, the total amount of money spent on marketing by pharmaceuticals was U.S. $57.5 billion for 2004. The total spent on domestic industrial pharmaceutical R&D was U.S. $31.5 billion.

There is quite a bit of difference between the money spent on R&D and marketing. If we exclude direct-to-consumer marketing, of the U.S. $57.5 billion, CAM estimates that 80% of this money is spent on physicians. This means that, with 700,000 practicing physicians in the U.S., the pharmaceutical industry spent nearly U.S. $61,000 in promotion per physician! It is interesting to note that according to the U.S. census the real median household income (2003) was $43,318.

Is Kefauver right?

While knowing that the pharmaceutical industry spends nearly U.S. $57.5 billion on marketing and U.S. $31.5 billion on R&D, those that believe the industry is promotion based, and not entirely altruistic as the industry claims, have some proof to this claim. How can we continue to pump money into, and grant legislation to, an industry that would rather hide the truth than be honest? How far are we from formally proving Kefauver’s other claims to be true? Whether or not we can all agree on the pharmaceutical industry’s place in our society – no industry should go fifty years without ethical restrictions, while claiming they are the champions of society.

References:

1) The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States

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The North American Union - Voting Your Rights Away?

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Barbara L. Minton

One issue that is conspicuously absent from the rhetoric of the presidential candidates is the North American Union (NAU). The questions of immigration and border security are frequently raised and the candidates claim to realize the need for a clear immigration policy and effort to secure the borders of the United States. Yet when you begin to understand the purposes of the North American Union and the agenda of its proponents, you will understand why this will never happen. And you may also begin to see that you are being manipulated by the major candidates.

The NAU, a goal of the Council on Foreign Relations, follows a plan laid out by Robert Pastor. It is currently promoted by the Bush administration to expand the size and scope of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). Its goal is to effectively create a North American trading block by erasing the borders between the U.S., Mexico and Canada resulting in free, unimpeded movement of people and goods across those borders. It is also a political union that would integrate the governments of the three countries. And clearly it is an economic union with the intention of equalizing the wages and standard of living of all but the ruling elitists.

Sounds a lot like the European Union, doesn’t it? There are even plans for a common currency called the amero. But there is one glaring difference. The people of the United States have never been asked if they want to become integrated with Mexico and Canada, two countries of enormously different laws, culture, economic systems, standards of living, and acceptance of the role of government.

The European Union followed years of open debate at all levels, intense coverage of the ramifications and implications in major media, and a vote of the people.

History and Origins of NAU

President Bush signed the Declaration of Quebec City in April, 2001, making a “commitment to hemispheric integration”. After Hugo Chavez of Venezuela voiced opposition, these plans were scaled back to include only North America.

The Independent Task Force on North America, a project organized by the Council on Foreign Relations and co-chaired by Robert Pastor, was launched in October, 2004. This group published two documents: Trinational Call for a North American Economic and Security Community by 2010 (March, 2005), and its final report Building a North American Community (May, 2005). This Task Force had as its central recommendation the establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community. The boundaries of this community would be defined by a common external tariff and outer security perimeter. Also called for is the replacing of all three branches of the US government with a North American version effectively ending U.S. representative government.

In March 2005, at their summit meeting in Waco, Texas; Bush, President Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Martin of Canada issued a joint statement announcing the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). The creation of this agreement was never submitted to Congress for discussion or decision. The U.S. Department of Commerce merely created a new division implementing working groups to advance a North American Union agenda. This agenda included movement of goods, finances, e-commerce, environment, business facilitation, food and agriculture, and health. The result is an action agreement to be implemented immediately and directly by regulations, without any envisioned Congressional debate or oversight.

In September 2006, Rep. Virgil Goode (Va), Rep. Ron Paul (Tx), Rep. Walter Jones (NC), and Rep. Tom Tancredo (Co) introduced House Concurrent Resolution 487, expressing concerns about the NAU. Resolution was passed by the House of Representatives with the Senate concurring that the U.S. should not enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada; the U.S. should not engage in the construction of the NAFTA Superhighway System, and the President should indicate strong opposition to these or any other proposals that threaten the sovereignty of the U.S.

In October 2006, Congressman Paul formally denounced the formation of the SPP and the plans for the North American Union and the SPP as “an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments”. Paul says that the real issue raised by the SPP is nation sovereignty. “Once again, decisions that affect millions of Americans are not being made by those Americans themselves, or even by their elected representatives in Congress. Instead, a handful of elites use their government connections to bypass national legislatures and ignore our Constitution – which expressly grants Congress the sole authority to regulate international trade.” In this speech Paul predicts that the NAU will become a sleeper issue for the 2008 election, stating that “any movement toward a NAU diminishes the ability of average Americans to influence the laws under which they must live.”

A report authored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIC) was presented to all three governments in September 2007. CSIC is a political influence group of internationalists who have crafted many of the government policies of the past several years. At the core of the report is its plan for America’s future, North American “economic integration” and “labor mobility”. The plan for government integration is also revealed as the report states: “to remain competitive in the global economy, policymakers must devise forward-looking, collaborative policies that integrate governments”. Also called for is the adoption of “unified North American regulatory standards”.

Features of NAU:

The Trans-Texas Corridor and the NAFTA Superhighway

The NAFTA Superhighway and its entry point at the trans-Texas corridor were first proposed in 2002. It consists of a 1,200 foot wide highway that also carries utilities such as electricity, petroleum and water as well as railway tracks and fiber-optic cables. When completed, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the U.S. through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union. With Mexican drivers and without the involvement of the teamsters union, the Mexican trucks will drive straight into the heart of the US, crossing the border in fast lanes, and checked only by a new electronic system. The first customs stop will be the new Smart Port complex in Kansas City. From there the trucks may disperse into the U.S. or continue northward into Canada, again crossing the border with only an electronic checkpoint.

Millions of acres of land for the completion of this highway will be taken under the new laws of eminent domain.

A government pilot program has allowed Mexican trucking companies to make deliveries anywhere in the U.S. since April 2007, even before the completion of the superhighway. There is no limit on the number of trucks the 100 companies in the pilot program can operate. Eventually all Mexican trucking companies are to be granted the same access. These Mexican drivers are paid substantially less that their U.S. counterparts, their operations are not regulated, and they are driving on U.S. taxpayer subsidized roads.

The Amero

This is the name of what may be the North American Union’s counterpart to the euro. It was first proposed by Canadian economist Herbert G. Grubel in his book The Case for the Amero published in 1999, the same year the euro became currency. Robert Pastor supported Grubel’s idea in his book Toward A North American Community published in 2001. If implemented, the Amero’s debut may come later in the progression of the NAU, with exchange rates that depend on market forces at the time, after the economies of the three countries have been integrated and homogenized.

The North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza

Finalized and released at the September 2007 summit of the SPP, this plan calls for a “comprehensive coordinated North American approach during outbreaks of influenza.” It gives authority to international officials “beyond the health sector to include a coordinated approach to critical infrastructure protection,” including “border and transportation issues”.

It sets up a “senior level Coordinating Body to facilitate the effective planning and preparedness within North America for a possible outbreak of avian and/or human influenza pandemic under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).” The SPP is to act as “decision-makers.” “The chair of the SPP Coordinating Body will rotate between each national authority on a yearly basis” resulting in foreign decision making for Americans in two out of every three years.

The plan suggests that these powers will include “the use of antivirals and vaccines… social distancing measures, including school closures and the prohibition of community gatherings, isolation and quarantine.”

Council on Foreign Relations

Since its inception in 1921, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has attracted men and women of power and influence. Its stated intentions are to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty of the national independence of the United States. The ultimate, declared aim of the CFR is to create a one-world government, and to make the U.S. a part of it. The stated intentions of the CFR are clearly treasonous to the U.S. Constitution.

The influence of the CFR is wide. Not only does it have members in the U.S. government, but its influence has also spread to other vital areas of American life. Members have run, or are running, NBC and CBS, the New York Times, and The Washington Post, and many other important newspapers. The leaders of Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Business Week, and numerous other publications are CFR members.

The organization’s members also dominate the political world. U.S. presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have been CFR members with the exception of Ronald Reagan. The organization’s members also dominate
the academic world, top corporations, unions and military. They are on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Rudy Guiliani are all either members of the CFR or have close ties with it. Mike Huckabee is reportedly not a member, but following his interaction with the group in September, he has become a favored candidate in the eyes of the media. Republican Ron Paul is the only remaining significant candidate who does not have ties with the CFR. He has has voiced opposition to the NAU for several years.

Where Do You Stand on This Issue?

There is an ideological battle being waged between the forces supporting globalism and the forces supporting national sovereignty. If you plan to participate in the 2008 presidential election, you will need to answer these questions for yourself: Do you believe in the timelessness of the Constitution, or do you believe that the Constitution has served its usefulness and it’s time for another model for government? Are you in favor of international government and more regulation by the United Nations, or do you favor continuation of the institutions that have served the U.S. in the past? Do you want big government with its attendant costs and regulations, or do you favor small government that allows for self direction?

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Welcome to Big Brother Britain

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Immigrants will give fingerprints, iris scans AND personal details for ID cards … or be thrown out

By JAMES SLACK

Foreigners who repeatedly flout the rules when they are made to apply for ID cards will be thrown out, the Government said yesterday.

Immigrants will have to give two fingerprints, iris scans and a raft of personal details to the Home Office when the scheme is introduced for foreign nationals only later this year.

Ministers said that, if they fail to comply with these “primary requirements”, they could have their permission to stay in the UK revoked.

But papers released yesterday revealed that only serial offenders - who break the rules at least three times in five years - will face removal.

Initially, they will face only fines of £250 per offence. And refugees will face only fines - up to a maximum of £1,000 - as human rights laws bar them from being deported.

A consultation document on penalties under the scheme, which is a fore-runner of the national ID card for all British citizens, also said there was no power to jail anyone who failed to pay the civil fines.

But the offence of contempt, which can carry a jail term, “may be applicable”, it added.

Someone with indefinite leave to remain in Britain would only have their leave cancelled in “compelling circumstances”, the paper went on. Fines would be discounted for people on benefits.

The roll-out will begin later this year, with the children of foreign nationals also expected to carry the cards.

Opposition MPs said it offered a glimpse into how the ID card scheme for British citizens could work, when it is introduced from 2009.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Chris Huhne said: “This shows the kind of punitive measures that every British citizen can expect when ID cards are eventually rolled out nationally.

“ID cards for foreign nationals are not going to solve the problems of identity fraud and illegal working. All they will do is threaten the immigration status of hard working people who bring benefits to this country.”

But Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said: “Britain’s border security is currently undergoing the biggest shake-up in a generation, ensuring it stays among the toughest in the world.

“ID cards for foreign nationals will cement the triple ring of security protecting our shores, along with fingerprint visas abroad and a single border force here at home.”

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MoD responds to Iraq abuse allegations

Monday, February 25th, 2008

BBC

Panorama asks why the British Army in Iraq used interrogation techniques that were banned over 30 years ago.

Panorama: On Whose Orders? BBC One 8.30pm on Monday 25 February 2008

In 1972 the techniques - hooding, stress positions, constant noise, sleep deprivation and being starved of food and water - were banned by the Heath government which said they would never be used again. Their reintroduction in 2003, whether official or unofficial, could have had serious consequences. Now solicitors are launching claims for compensation on behalf of Iraqis alleging mistreatment.Ministry of Defence (MoD) rules now specifically state the five techniques should never be used. However, immediately after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 British soldiers witnessed Iraqi prisoners hooded and made to stand for hours with no food or sleep.

The Attorney General is responsible for setting the rules under which the British Army operates. Lord Goldsmith held this position during the Iraq war and the resulting occupation.

When we asked him how it was that the ban had been side-stepped, he told Panorama:

“There is no question of anyone in my office, let alone me, advising me that it was legitimate to interrogate whilst hooding or using sleep deprivation or any of those techniques. Full stop.”

When asked why it was happening despite this, he said:

“I think the Ministry of Defence are probably the responsible department to understand with the army what actually took place, to learn the lessons from it to make sure it never happens again.”

In response to the allegations of prisoner abuse in Iraq which went beyond the five techniques and included beatings and in the case of hotel worker Baha Mousa, death, the then Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Michael Jackson commissioned a report.

Brigadier Robert Aitken’s findings were published last month and said that abuse was not widespread.

General Sir Michael Jackson told Panorama:

“Robert Aitken makes the point in his report that he would need another look at why that statement by the Heath government appears to have gone into a black hole… I don’t know the answer to that.”

Jackson continued:

“There was no evidence whatsoever on any endemic behaviour of that nature.”

Allegations

The programme goes on to weigh the evidence from the Battle of Danny Boy, that is at the centre of the latest legal challenge.

Iraqi prisoners have made serious allegations of abuse against the British Army that the MoD is now re- investigating despite previous inquiries that found nobody to be at fault.

Iraqi prisoners captured by the army on 14 May 2004 and taken back to Camp Abu Naji claim other prisoners taken alive with them off the battlefield were killed that night by the British in Camp Abu Naji.

Iraqi medical staff who received the bodies returned by the army the next day say some of the bodies show signs of torture.

They claim that there is evidence that people died later in Camp Abu Naji and not in the battlefield.

Battlefield injuries

The MoD deny the allegations.

They say the injuries are consistent with modern battlefield injuries and that the claims of deaths at the camp may have arisen from an unusual decision to remove bodies from the battlefield and take them to the base. A full statement from the MoD is available above.

Panorama has spent over a year talking to battlefield survivors, medical staff, and Iraqi former prisoners in Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.

The programme critically examines claims made by lawyers who are representing the Iraqis in their action against the British Government and who held a press conference last Friday.

Panorama has seen no proof that prisoners died at the hands of their captors and concludes that the case being brought by solicitors Phil Shiner and Martyn Day represents the most extreme interpretation of a troubling but confusing incident. They are asking for the bodies to be disinterred and evidence to be handed to Scotland Yard.

General Sir Michael Jackson, speaking generally and not about this incident specifically, says that the army’s best defence is the law:

“I would look… what are the facts? If they make an allegation the allegation gets investigated, people don’t always say truthfully as they might such things as I’m afraid some of the court cases revealed but I would say that any allegation of ill treatment should be investigated and the due process of law must take place.”

Whatever the outcome of any potential court case it maybe that bringing back the five techniques - banned as inhuman in 1972 - would appear to have made the army’s position more difficult.

Panorama: On Whose Orders? BBC One 8.30pm on Monday 25 February.

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Ron Paul back on election trail

Monday, February 25th, 2008

The 72-year-old congressman Ron Paul has solemnly vowed to continue his current campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

There has been confusion in recent weeks since the Texan gave the impression that he was withdrawing from the presidential campaign to refocus his political efforts on a well-funded House primary challenge.

“I will stay in as long as my supporters want me to,” the 10-term congressman promised on CNN.

Paul said students around the country believed there existed no novelty in the campaigns of other candidates.

The Texan lawmaker added that in his travels, he had found ’something very significant going on around the country’ saying that he ‘couldn’t stop this movement’ even if he tried.

The re-affirmation of an active candidacy will be exciting news for the hundreds of thousands of Paul’s diverse supporters.

CS/HGH

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Mugging the public

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Harry’s Place

Almost everybody hates paying taxes. I certainly do. But as hard as it might be to part with a wadge of one’s hard-earned cash, one still grudgingly admits that it is necessary to maintain the smooth running of our society, to provide public works and goods, to fund our common health service, and to provide for those unable to provide for themselves, the hallmark of our civilisation.

It is infuriating when those entrusted with the management and distribution of public money - through negligence, incompetence, or plain bad luck - don’t manage to get value for that money or achieve what we, as a society, expected. It is irksome when that money is spent on things we might not personally approve of, but most understand that it is ’swings and roundabouts’ anyway.

However, the one category which is unforgivable, is when those in receipt of public money take the piss with the public purse.

If, as the tabloid press are alleging, House of Commons speaker Michael Martin, has been dipping into the public purse for bogus housing claims, taxi rides for his wife, and free flights for his family, then this is a very serious breach of trust.

As The Guardian (a ‘berliner’ not a tabloid… yet) says”

“Dozens of MPs have been accused of expenses irregularities over the years. But Martin is in a different position. As Speaker, he is the public face of the House of Commons and one of his roles is to defend its reputation. As a result, some MPs believe that it is important for him to set an example.”

Though, Michael Martin has always been hostile to watchdogs and scrutineers. The more cynical might, in light of recent events, say “duh!”. In 2001, according to the BBC, Parliament’s standards watchdog, Elizabeth Filkin, accused Martin of undermining her role (which was checking complaints about the financial declarations and interests of MPs) and threatening the independence of her office. Last year he was accused of trying to block the Freedom of Information Act being used to publish details of MP’s travel expenses. More recently, The Guardian reported that Martin, “resisted greater independent scrutiny of MPs’ expenses”, was to chair an in-house inquiry following the Derek Conway scandal last month.

And now even his PR Agent has resigned, angry at not being told the truth and consequently inadvertently telling porkies to the press.

Last year, the BBC reported that Martin spent more than £20,000 of taxpayers’ money on laywer’s fees to challenge negative press stories about him.

Tax evasion is a serious crime. If you evade your duty as a tax-payer to contribute your fair share to the public fund, you can go to jail. Is it not far worse when those entrusted with this money dip into it for private and selfish ends?

If not paying in is such a serious crime, then what is dishonestly spending what others have contributed?

If the allegations are true, Michael Martin should go to prison, and so should all the other sleazy MPs and officials from Westminster, to City Hall, to the local council, who treat yours and my money - entrusted to them - as a personal slush fund.

Indeed, as Yasmin Alibhai-Brown asks in today’s Independent, is corruption “now endemic in our political culture”?

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VIDEO: The Invisible Government

Monday, February 25th, 2008

John Pilger’s talk on “The invisible Goverment” is an education in itself about the role of the media from the 1920’s onward. Pilger explains in clear, concise terms about the role of the “corporate media”, how and why it emerged and it’s dominance as an “invisible government” at the start of the 21st century. After hearing this talk you will not be reading the NYT, Washington Post or listening to the BBC with the same naive gullibility when you realize the role of how “professional journalism” has been indirectly responible for millions of deaths since it was established. We include all 4 parts of John Pilger’s video below, each with his introduction first and his conclusion at the end.

- LMB

By John Pilger

The Invisible Government, by John Pilger

Part I

I wasn’t going to mention The Green Berets when I sat down to write this, until I read the other day that John Wayne was the most influential movie who ever lived. I a saw the Green Berets starring John Wayne on a Saturday night in 1968 in Montgomery Alabama. (I was down there to interview the then-infamous governor George Wallace). I had just come back from Vietnam, and I couldn’t believe how absurd this movie was. So I laughed out loud, and I laughed and laughed. And it wasn’t long before the atmosphere around me grew very cold. My companion, who had been a Freedom Rider in the South, said, “Let’s get the hell out of here and run like hell.”

We were chased all the way back to our hotel, but I doubt if any of our pursuers were aware that John Wayne, their hero, had lied so he wouldn’t have to fight in World War II. And yet the phony role model of Wayne sent thousands of Americans to their deaths in Vietnam, with the notable exceptions of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Last year, in his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the playwright Harold Pinter made an epoch speech. He asked why, and I quote him, “The systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought in Stalinist Russia were well know in the West, while American state crimes were merely superficially recorded, left alone, documented.” And yet across the world the extinction and suffering of countless human beings could be attributed to rampant American power. “But,” said Pinter, “You wouldn’t know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.” Pinter’s words were more than the surreal. The BBC ignored the speech of Britain’s most famous dramatist.

I’ve made a number of documentaries about Cambodia. The first was Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia. It describes the American bombing that provided the catalyst for the rise of Pol Pot. What Nixon and Kissinger had started, Pol Pot completed—CIA files alone leave no doubt of that. I offered Year Zero to PBS and took it to Washington. The PBS executives who saw it were shocked. They whispered among themselves. They asked me to wait outside. One of them finally emerged and said, “John, we admire your film. But we are disturbed that it says the United States prepared the way for Pol Pot.”

I said, “Do you dispute the evidence?” I had quoted a number of CIA documents. “Oh, no,” he replied. “But we’ve decided to call in a journalistic adjudicator.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-uq7O1RqQQ[/youtube]

The Invisible Government Part II

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kA0_xV2QLs[/youtube]

The Invisible Government Part III

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtpU2ORFyeo[/youtube]

The Invisible Government Part IV

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqff-glEqkE[/youtube]

Many people who regard themselves on the left supported Bush’s attack on Afghanistan. That the CIA had supported Osama Bin Laden was ignored, that the Clinton administration had secretly backed the Taliban, even giving them high-level briefings at the CIA, is virtually unknown in the United States. The Taliban were secret partners with the oil giant Unocal in building an oil pipeline across Afghanistan. And when a Clinton official was reminded that the Taliban persecuted women, he said, “We can live with that.” There is compelling evidence that Bush decided to attack the Taliban not as a result of 9-11, but two months earlier, in July of 2001. This is virtually unknown in the United States—publicly. Like the scale of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. To my knowledge only one mainstream reporter, Jonathan Steele of the Guardian in London, has investigated civilian casualties in Afghanistan, and his estimate is 20,000 dead civilians, and that was three years ago.

The enduring tragedy of Palestine is due in great part to the silence and compliance of the so-called liberal left. Hamas is described repeatedly as sworn to the destruction of Israel. The New York Times, the Associated Press, the Boston Globe—take your pick. They all use this line as a standard disclaimer, and it is false. That Hamas has called for a ten-year ceasefire is almost never reported. Even more important, that Hamas has undergone an historic ideological shift in the last few years, which amounts to a recognition of what it calls the reality of Israel, is virtually unknown; and that Israel is sworn to the destruction of Palestine is unspeakable.

There is a pioneering study by Glasgow University on the reporting of Palestine. They interviewed young people who watch TV news in Britain. More than 90 percent thought the illegal settlers were Palestinian. The more they watched, the less they knew—Danny Schecter’s famous phrase.

The current most dangerous silence is over nuclear weapons and the return of the Cold War. The Russians understand clearly that the so-called American defense shield in Eastern Europe is designed to subjugate and humiliate them. Yet the front pages here talk about Putin starting a new Cold War, and there is silence about the development of an entirely new American nuclear system called Reliable Weapons Replacement (RRW), which is designed to blur the distinction between conventional war and nuclear war—a long-held ambition.

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US to set ‘binding’ climate goals, finally

Monday, February 25th, 2008

By Richard Black

The US is ready to accept “binding international obligations” on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, officials say, if other nations do the same.

The comments came in a news conference in Paris given by James Connaughton and Daniel Price, environmental and economics advisers to President Bush.

The US hopes the world’s major economies will conclude a “leaders’ declaration” before the July G8 summit.

There was no indication of how much the US might be prepared to cut emissions.

But the Bush administration is clearly looking for some kind of binding commitment from major developing countries such as China, India and Brazil.

“The US is prepared to enter into binding international obligations to reduce greenhouse gases as part of a global agreement in which all major economies similarly undertake binding international obligations,” said Mr Price, the president’s deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs.

The United Nations climate process emphasises that different countries have “common but differentiated responsibilities” for climate change, which in practice has meant industrialised nations promising to cut emissions while developing countries do not.

But the US officials suggested the phrase should mean something different - supporting the poorest nations, while expecting those that are developing successfully to take on some kind of obligation to cut emissions.

“An effective framework requires the participation of all major economies, developed and developing alike,” said Mr Price.

“Europe and the US could turn out the lights today, and come 2030 or 2050 we would not have addressed the problem of climate change.”

Some countries might commit to firm emissions targets while others promised energy efficiency gains, he suggested. Commitments could cover a country’s entire economy, or just certain sectors.

Shuffling the decks

The notion that major developing countries might take on binding targets might prove politically difficult, suggested Philip Clapp, deputy managing director of the Pew Environment Group

The US wants to conclude talks before the G8 summit in Japan

“The White House knows that taking a binding target of comparable size [to that taken by the US or EU] is neither a negotiating option nor a physical possibility for the Chinese government,” he told BBC News.

He also suggested that an acid test of a leaders’ declaration would be the timescale for making cuts.

At the last G8 summit, Japan proposed setting the goal of reducing emissions globally by 50% by 2050, a target which Daniel Price said could potentially form part of the declaration.

“It’s become increasingly apparent that the Bush administration is willing to agree to a target that would take effect 40 years from now, and wants to portray that as a major accomplishment,” said Mr Clapp.

“A key question is whether the administration is willing to accept binding targets that take effect before 2020, because a binding commitment that doesn’t take effect for 40 years is really just shuffling the problem off one more time.”

Trading plans

The US comments stem largely from a process initiated by President Bush last year, a series of talks involving 17 nations that together account for about 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The “major economies” or “big emitters” group had its second meeting in Hawaii last month, and the next is scheduled for Paris in April.

Environmental groups have criticised the process as a distraction from the UN negotiations, and because the developing countries involved have much lower per capita emissions than the US.

But European delegates involved in the Hawaii meeting described the mood as frank and engaging.

The EU and US are working together within the World Trade Organization (WTO) on a proposal that all countries should slash tarriffs on trade in clean energy equipment.

“Some countries, in particular the major developing countries, have tarriff schedules as high as 70%,” said Mr Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

“We’re trying to get the world to eliminate tarriffs, and that could increase global trade in clean energy technologies and services by up to 14% per year.

“This is the single largest step we could take immediately to transfer available technologies to the developing world at very low cost.”

Mr Price suggested the style of dialogue between the EU and US, which he categorised as “the EU berating the US to do more”, needed to change, with both blocs working together to ensure the participation of major developing countries.

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Questions Remain About Rove’s CIA Leak Email

Monday, February 25th, 2008

by Jason Leopold

It’s been nearly five years since former White House political adviser Karl Rove sent an incriminating email to then Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley indicating that Rove had a candid conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, and her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence.

Rove had insisted publicly and privately that he was not the source for a story Cooper wrote that unmasked Plame’s affiliation with the CIA in July 2003 nor, Rove said, was he the source who provided syndicated columnist with the same information for a column that was published a few days before Cooper’s. The email Rove sent to Hadley on July 11, 2003, just three months before the start of a federal probe into the leak clearly contradicted Rove’s account.

Questions about Rove’s email to Hadley resurfaced after the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) revealed last April that thousands of emails Rove sent over a four-year period via an email account maintained by the Republican National Committee might have been destroyed. Many of the emails Rove sent using his RNC account pertained to White House business and the fact that it was not archived is said to be a violation of the Presidential Records Act.

Additionally, CREW said it conducted an investigation that discovered the White House lost as many as 10 million emails. The White House said in a court document that it erased backup tapes containing the email archives, some of which relate to a wide-range of administration scandals, including the role of White House officials in the Plame leak.

In late September 2003, three months after he told Hadley in an email that he spoke with Cooper, Rove and about 1,000 other White House staffers were ordered to turn over all email correspondence that contained references to Plame and Wilson to then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales when the leak of Plame’s undercover status was referred to federal investigators.

But the Hadley email was never turned over to Gonzales during the early stages of the Plame investigation.

Robert Luskin, Rove’s attorney, had long maintained that the email was never found during the initial search because the right “search words” weren’t used. Some reporters and bloggers have opined the Rove/Hadley email did not turn up because Rove sent it using his Republican National Committee account. But according to a little known story published in The Washington Post in December 2005, Rove used his government account click here when he sent Hadley an email describing his conversation with Time’s Matthew Cooper.

Luskin stated several years ago during an interview with Newsweek that the email did not surface because “right search words weren’t used.”

In an email exchange a couple of weeks ago requesting that he clarify his position, Luskin said he “speculated that the [Hadley] email was overlooked because of a gap in search terms, but I have no direct knowledge.” That contradicts his previous statements http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5345 to Newsweek in which Luskin stated unequivocally that the email was not found because the wrong search terms were used.

“Neither Mr. Rove nor I was involved in any manner in the collection of emails or other electronic documents in response to subpoenas from the Special Counsel [Patrick Fitzgerald],” Luskin said. “Mr. Fitzgerald’s staff worked directly with the White House counsel and the IT folks from the White House. However, Mr. Fitzgerald did advise me that Mr. Rove had absolutely no responsibility for the oversight and that he has never regarded the failure to turn over the [Hadley] email as ‘culpable’ by anyone.”

That statement, or at least part of it, does not appear to be entirely accurate. In a May 10, 2007 deposition before investigators working for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rove’s former assistant, Susan Ralston, testified that during the leak investigation she and Rove were instructed “to go and do keyword searches based on the subpoena that we got, and search all of his folders for keywords.” Ralston said during her deposition that there were “six or seven” subpoenas Rove received from Fitzgerald for documents in Plame leak. Any documents that were found were turned over to Gonzales. Yet the email Rove sent to Hadley was never turned over to Fitzgerald.

Luskin would not provide a copy of that email, which has never been released publicly. He said the contents of the exchange have been “widely reported.” Luskin added that he had no interest in providing either the Hadley email “or any other documents,” including a copy of a letter Fitzgerald sent Luskin that purportedly cleared Rove of criminal exposure in the leak case, to me because of a story I reported two years ago that stated Rove was indicted by Fitzgerald. Luskin added that I “played a despicable role in circulating false allegations concerning an indictment of Mr. Rove and persisted with the story even after it was demonstrated to be false” and he therefore would not provide documentary evidence that could demonstrate his client’s innocence.

Fair enough. But Luskin also refused to voluntarily provide Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with the Hadley email and other electronic messages that Rove and Luskin turned over to Fitzgerald. Last May, Leahy issued a subpoena to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for the documents.

The subpoena covered a wide range of emails Rove sent over four years, some of which related to Congressional investigations into the firings of nine US attorneys two years ago that Rove is widely believed to have played a hands-on role in.

Gonzales never met Leahy’s May 15, 2007 deadline to turn over the emails. So on May 24, 2007, Leahy wrote to Luskin asking if he would forfeit the emails to his committee Luskin and Rove turned over to Fitzgerald. Luskin politely refused, according to a copy of a June 4, 2007 letter he sent to Leahy, obtained by this reporter.

“As you are aware, Mr. Rove cooperated fully with the investigation by the Special Counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, into the disclosure of the identity of a CIA employee. As part of that cooperation, in April 2004, Mr. Rove made available to Mr. Fitzgerald two personal computers, a Blackberry, and a computer furnished to Mr. Rove by the Republican National Committee,” Luskin wrote. “Mr. Fitzgerald arranged for the FBI to image all of the data on these computers. Without any constraint by Mr. Rove, Mr. Fitzgerald reviewed all of this data and made and retained copies of any information relevant to his investigation. Because the computers also contained confidential personal information and attorney client communications, Mr. Fitzgerald returned to me for safekeeping the imaged copies made by the FBI.”

“The electronic copies made by the FBI, which I retain in their sealed form, only contain information created before early April 2004, when the FBI made the copies,” Luskin added. “I have reviewed the documents and testimony made publicly available by this and other congressional committees investigating the termination of the United States Attorneys. I am unaware of any evidence suggesting that Mr. Rove may have played any role whatsoever in this matter before April 2004. Accordingly, I have no reason to believe that the materials in my possession contain any information relevant to this Committee’s inquiry.”

So what happened? And why didn’t investigators, who searched Rove’s emails and computers during the early days of the leak probe, find a copy of the email Rove sent Hadley?

A fascinating new book provides some possible answers.

David Gewirtz, a former computer science professor, a former product management director for Symantec who also held the title of “Godfather” at Apple Computer, Inc., and has written more than 600 articles about email, is the author of “Where Have All the Emails Gone?” (at www.http://emailsgone.com <http://www.http://emailsgone.com> ), the definitive account about the circumstances that led to the loss of administration emails. A detective story that reads like a “Dummies” book for the technically challenged, “Where Have All The Emails Gone” relied upon good old fashioned shoe-leather reporting to tell the story of the missing emails and using the public record in attempting to solve the mystery.

In an interview, Gewirtz said the one possibility that the Rove/Hadley email never surfaced was that it was sent during a time when the White House had switched its email over from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange, an issue in and of itself the author finds suspicious. The Rove/Hadley email may have been lost during the transition to the new email system.

“Why did they migrate at this time? The country was getting ready for war.” Gewirtz, who said he has been speaking with Senate and Congressional staffers probing the loss of White House emails. “It doesn’t make sense that you would want to yank out your communications structure when you’re building up toward war. It’s crucial for our government to have qualified communications at a critical juncture. It’s just mind bogglingly questionable that the White House would change its communication structure at that time period. Why did they need to do it then? It certainly provides a lot of plausible deniability for when emails are scrutinized.”

“Another plausible reason, and this is the conspiracy theory, if you yank out an email system there goes your compliance with the Presidential Records act and there’s the “my dog ate it” excuse,” Gewirtz said. “There’s really no net loss other than a PR loss.”

Gewirtz said his biggest concern about the loss of White House emails is the national security implications.

“There’s a separate server for political activity. The server is not located or managed by security experts,” Gewirtz said. “Emails are sent by White House staffers using an unsecured server. Hundreds of millions of emails are sent through the open Internet. An email message sent by a low level political employee says where the president is traveling. That can be seen by anyone and can put the president at risk. It’s something of a disturbing experience talking to Washington politicians Technical issue takes a back seat based on what the political goal is. The potential loss through homeland security is pretty profound.”

In addressing Luskin’s explanation that the Hadley email did not turn up because the wrong search terms were used, Gewirtz said that it’s a possibility, but a poor excuse for not locating an email.

“You can type search terms that should but won’t pick things up directly,” he said. “You can choose to spell something wrong. Especially if there is no record of what you are searching.”

Congressman Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has been trying to unravel these complicated technical issues for the past seven months. Last July, Waxman wrote Fitzgerald seeking “transcripts, reports, notes, and other documents relating to any interviews outside the presence of the grand jury of” Rove, Hadley, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and other former White House officials.

In addition to his search for documents and questions surrounding the Plame leak, Waxman is also investigating how the White House lost millions of emails and why steps were not taken to preserve the electronic messages earlier. His committee is scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday morning on the matter.

Gewirtz says that if Congressional investigators are serious about tracking down missing White House emails, particularly emails related to the US attorney purge, then they need to start looking in the right place.

“There is a vast amount of email has gone through the Republican National Committee,” Gewirtz said. “If they’re looking for a smoking gun on the firing of US attorneys then its most likely [White House officials who played a role in the dismissals] sent the emails through the RNC system and not the EOP [Executive Office of the President] system. Meanwhile, everyone is looking for emails on the EOP sever because its sexier. I think they are looking in the wrong place. If i were a betting man I would say its in the RNC system.”

Still, Waxman said in an interview at his office in late December that he is determined to get answers to some of the lingering questions about Rove’s role in the Plame leak, why the Hadley email never turned up, and whether there is a direct connection between that and the loss of millions of White House emails.

In the first of two letters Waxman sent Attorney General Michael Mukasey in December, the congressman said, “Fitzgerald and his staff have cooperated with the Committee’s investigation and have produced a number of responsive documents to the Committee. Among the documents that Mr. Fitzgerald has produced to the Committee are “FBI 302 reports” of interviews with CIA and State Department officials and other individuals. Unfortunately, the White House has been blocking Mr. Fitzgerald from providing key documents to the Committee.”

I met with Waxman in late December during an interview conducted by Truthout executive director Marc Ash at Waxman’s West Los Angeles office. Waxman said two of the key documents his staff had been trying to obtain were a copy of the letter Fitzgerald sent to Luskin that apparently indicated that Rove was no longer under investigation as well as the email Rove sent to Hadley. At the time of our meeting, Waxman had already sent Mukasey a second letter because the attorney general never responded to his first request. Waxman set a deadline of January 8 for the Plame investigation documents to be turned over to his committee.

The documents have yet to be handed over, but an aide to Waxman said the congressman has been “working” with Attorney General Mukasey over the past several weeks in hopes that an agreement may be reached.

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US intelligence to spy on virtual worlds

Monday, February 25th, 2008

By Ryan Singel

Be careful who you frag. Having eliminated all terrorism in the real world, the U.S. intelligence community is working to develop software that will detect violent extremists infiltrating World of Warcraft and other massive multiplayer games, according to a data-mining report from the Director of National Intelligence.

The Reynard project will begin by profiling online gaming behavior, then potentially move on to its ultimate goal of “automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world.”

The cultural and behavioral norms of virtual worlds and gaming are generally unstudied. Therefore, Reynard will seek to identify the emerging social, behavioral and cultural norms in virtual worlds and gaming environments. The project would then apply the lessons learned to determine the feasibility of automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world.

If it shows early promise, this small seedling effort may increase its scope to a full project.

Reynard will conduct unclassified research in a public virtual world environment. The research will use publicly available data and will begin with observational studies to establish baseline normative behaviors.

The publicly available report — which was mandated by Congress following earlier concerns over data-mining programs — also mentions several other data-mining initiatives. These include:

Video Analysis and Content Extraction - software to automatically identify faces, events and objects in video
Tangram - A system that wants to create surveillance and threat warning system that evaluates known threats and finds unknown threats to issue warnings ahead of an attack
Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination - This tool is reminiscent of the supposedly-defunct Total Information Awareness program. It seeks to access disparate databases to find patterns of known bad behavior. The program plans to work with domestic law enforcement and Homeland Security.

The report gives no indication why the find-a-terrorist cell in Sims project is called Reynard, though that is a traditional trickster figure in literature.

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Are Biometrics the Future of Credit Cards?

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Credit and debit cards have taken the place of cash for most modern transactions. What’s next? According to research from Emme Kozloff, a Sanford Bernstein analyst, the power to buy groceries will soon be at your fingertips.

Wal Mart and Costco are looking into biometric payment systems. These work by recognizing the fingerprint of registered users. The customers place their fingertip on a pad, then select which form of payment they would like to use — check, debit, or credit. Proponents of the new system applaud its benefits to customer security and faster checkout speeds.

Critics of biometric payment point out that fingerprints are left on everything a person touches. It would be fairly easy to take a piece of tape and “lift” these latent fingerprints for fraudulent use. There is also concern about having one’s fingerprint images stored in a computer, but biometric vendors insist that the prints themselves are not stored. Instead, encrypted measurements of the prints are kept. These do not permit recreation of a full print.

Customers are advised to keep their hands clean when making biometric transactions. If hands are too dirty, the machine might not be able to read the fingerprint.

Credit Card Blog

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IBM scientists look to DNA to build future chips

Monday, February 25th, 2008

DNA strings could become the template for nanotubes and nanowires by 2028

By Sharon Gaudin

Looking for a way to continually shrink computer chips while still squeezing more transistors onto them, IBM scientists are working on a whole new way to build processors — using DNA.

For the past year and a half, researchers at IBM have been working on creating a new way to make the patterns used to lay out the transistors and wires that go on a chip. Today, semiconductor manufacturers use optical lithography, which uses light to transfer the pattern. The problem, according to Joe Gordon, senior manager for materials for advanced technology at IBM, is that it’s difficult to shrink the pattern using today’s techniques.

And since Gordon said 50% of the improvement in processor performance comes from shrinking the pattern, scientists need to come up with a new way to create the patterns.

That’s where the DNA strands come into play.

“Right now, the industry road map is [that] we’ll get down to 22 nanometer-size features on a chip,” said Gordon. “We’re looking at ways to go down beyond that. It’s very clear it will be difficult to go smaller than that using the optical lithography we know today. Using DNA will help us do that.”

Greg Wallraff, a staff scientist at IBM, explained that the researchers are laying single molecules of DNA onto the chip’s surface and using them as a template for assembling electronic components, like nanotubes and nanowires. The DNA used by the researchers comes from a virus, he added.

Wallraff said the IBM research team is working with California Institute of Technology scientist Paul Rothemund, who has developed a way to assemble single molecules of DNA into complex structures. Building on that research, the IBM scientists are trying to wrangle the DNA into usable templates.

“People say DNA is the blueprint for life,” said Wallraff. “The specific structure of DNA has unique features. It’s basically programmable. You can design DNA into unique shapes, with specific attachment sites. Then we pour this DNA solution onto a silicon substrate, and the DNA assembles itself exactly where we want it to on the chip, and then we assemble the components on top of that.”

The attachment sites on DNA, which is where the nanowires and transistors would attach on the template, can be made much closer together than with traditional pattern manufacturing techniques. With DNA, the attachment sites are 4nm to 6nm apart. Normally, they’re about 45nm apart.

“Think of it as tiling a floor. These DNA pieces are like tiles,” explained Gordon. “Each tile has some array of electronic components. Those tiles are placed on a chip in a larger array so there are thousands or millions on a chip. The second step, which we don’t know how to do yet, would be to wire them all together. We’ve got sizes well below conventional lithography.”

Once the nanotubes and wires are laid onto the template, the DNA would be extracted. Wallraff said millions of the DNA templates would be needed for a single chip.

Gordon noted that the research team is far from figuring out the whole process needed to make the DNA model work. “We don’t have a good picture of exactly how you would do everything,” he said. “How do we make the tiles stick together in the right places? Can we get the nanowires to attach to the tiles in the right places? Can we wire them up?”

Wallraff said the next steps will be connect all the tiles together and check the defect levels during assembly.

Actually using this pattern technique is probably 10 to 20 years away, he noted.

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MPs must thwart the dark plans of the state

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Parliament has never been less vigilant about the many measures to increase Home Office power. In the name of the great democrats of the past, act now

Henry Porter

Following the convictions of Steve Wright for the murder of five women in Ipswich and of Mark Dixie for the murder of Sally Anne Bowman it was inevitable that one or two MPs would seek to defy the obscurity of their careers with public calls for a full compulsory DNA collection from every living soul in Britain.

Martin Salter for Labour said a mandatory database was a logical extension of biometric passports, and a Tory foot soldier, Philip Davies, declared that he was not averse to a national database if it would help police clear up crime. With that kind of mental process it is astonishing that this pair can dress themselves in the morning let alone find their way to Parliament.

The point which must be evident to anyone who looks at the Wright and Dixie convictions for more than a few minutes is that both men had form. In Wright’s case, DNA had been collected and retained by police because of a conviction for theft. In the case of Dixie, DNA was removed after his part in a pub brawl and quickly matched with the sample he left on the body of his victim. If his previous sexual offences had been committed during the operation of the database he would have been found more quickly.

But does this support the argument for a mandatory database? Clearly not, because the damage done to the liberty and privacy of 60 million people would be out of proportion to any gain, to say nothing of the administrative nightmare of collecting everyone’s DNA and the flaws already in the system, which are obscured by the police and the Home Office.

The DNA database is not a perfect weapon. Last year 1,500 administrative mistakes were discovered and at least 100 inaccuracies pertaining to individuals. That means there is a real possibility of people being convicted of crimes they did not commit. Given the chaotic state of government databases, it must be obvious even to Salter and Davies that administrative errors would be vastly increased if the database were to be expanded by a factor of about 13, from 4.5m to 60m.

What the Wright and Dixie cases do is undermine Liberty’s argument that DNA should only be taken and retained from those who have committed sexual and violent crimes. Admirable though it is, that position is now untenable. Those that see the dangers of the database should withdraw to fight the principle that innocent people, which includes more than 100,000 children, must be allowed to have their DNA removed from the database. This issue is due to come before the European Court of Human Rights and there is real hope that Britain will be ordered to remove some 565,700 individuals on privacy grounds. At this news another Tory nincompoop, Richard Ottaway, piped up on Friday to say that we need a national database.

Maybe he was doing no more than addressing the anger of his constituency, where Dixie’s victim lived, yet his comment is evidence that the first principles of a truly free state are little understood by the run-of-the-mill MPs on both sides of the house.

We have an incorrigible, corrupt and incompetent government which - as with so much of the apparatus of the database state - has never even sought to place the DNA database on statutory basis. The principles of DNA collection have never been debated or put to the vote. How can that be? The answer is that the database state is part of a long-term project devised by the civil service and the high command of New Labour. It is far easier to allow a stealthy expansion of surveillance and data collection than bring the issues to parliament and alert us all to the profound threat to our liberty and privacy. That is why our gravest contempt must be reserved for opposition MPs such as Davies and Ottaway, whose duty must be to publicise and fight the drastic changes being wrought by New Labour on British democracy. Instead, they dance to the tune of the Murdoch press and lift their skirts to the sinister forces in the Home Office. Pathetic.

An absence of two months from these pages has made me step back and see the changes to our society with even greater anxiety. Only yesterday it was revealed in our sister paper, the Guardian, that the British government, alone among 27 members of the EU, wants the system of data collection - including mobile phone numbers and credit card details - affecting travellers in Europe to include sea and rail travel, all domestic flights and those between EU countries. The crucial point is that Britain wants this information not just for fighting terror and organised crime but for general surveillance. The phrase used by our government in the questionnaire circulated to all member states is ‘more general public policy purposes’.

I have always sought to make the distinction between the controlled state being brought about by New Labour and ideas of a police state. But the thought of these ‘general public policy purposes’ causes a shiver to pass up my spine and makes me wonder if I have mistaken the urges that lurk in the dark heart of the political establishment. So let’s be quite clear. This phrase predicates a police state.

In the name of the great democrats who have occupied the benches in the House of Commons down the ages, what right has the government to know my credit card number, my cell phone number, my destination, or even when I take a trip abroad, or catch the plane to Inverness? Has this been debated in Parliament? No. Are there plans to drag ministers and civil servants in front of the select committees to examine and expose them. Not as far as I can discover, and that is what gives me these dreadful intimations of the future. Parliament has never been less vigilant or more feckless in the face of these numerous unsanctioned measures that steadily accumulate to increase state power.

If you want to know how Britain will be in 20 years’ time, the best place to look is the legislation affecting children. An excellent report produced by, among others, Action on Rights for Children, Liberty, the Open Rights Group and No2ID, paints a horrific picture of the intensive surveillance of our children who are being conditioned to tolerate the collection of biometric data (fingerprints for library use) and the endless attention of these faceless monitors.

A new database is planned which will contain the details of every 14-year-old child in England and Wales, his or her exam results, difficulties within and outside the family - literally everything. And by the time they all reach adulthood, the databases will have merged to give the state complete access to their most personal information. No child will be able to escape his past, or the judgment and watchfulness of the bureaucrats who may decide their destiny. Little wonder that in his dim way the Martin Salter concluded that DNA ought to be added to this great pool of information. The state will know everything about us so why not allow it dominion over our biological essence too?

I estimate that we have just one chance to turn the tide on these trends - the next general election. We can rely on the Liberal Democrats but it will be important to know where the Conservatives stand. Let’s hope that real democrats in their number, such as David Davis and Dominic Grieve, will persuade the likes of Ottaway and Philip Davies to think before they speak, or at least shut the hell up.

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