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The Surveillance Society Does Not Work

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

By Mick Meaney – RINF | Costing in excess of billions of pounds each year, every single area of the British surveillance society has been proven ill effective when dealing with crime, fraud and terrorism – the very reasons government officials implement such measures.

Which begs the question: How can the Government justify such spending when it also imposes an increasing risk to our personal freedom and privacy? What is more, as current technology has failed to live up to the expectations of the British Government they still have widespread plans to advance citizen surveillance like we have never seen before.

Passport Interrogations

The latest statistics are cause for concern. A procedure introduced in 2007 made it compulsory for all passport applicants to attend face-to-face interviews.

We were told this was a necessary measure in fraud prevention but out of 90,000 interviewees not a single criminal had been caught. The cost of the network has run into the hundreds of millions.

DNA Database

More statistics show the DNA database, which contains the details of over one million innocent people, has almost zero effect in solving crimes. On average just 1 in every 800 crimes will be solved and the cost runs into the millions, turning the innocent into suspects. Each DNA sample added to the database cost £3,575 - last year the database held 660,000 samples.

Phil Booth of NO2ID said: “This utterly blows away the myth that the DNA database is the perfect detection tool. It is, in fact, creating-a nation of suspects.”

The British DNA database contains 4.5 million samples and is the largest in the world yet it does not hold the information of terrorist suspects or serious offenders currently in jail.

Police across the EU can access the database creating what civil liberty advocates call a ‘Big Brother Europe’.

CCTV

Just this week it was revealed that only 3% of London street robberies were solved using CCTV. Britain is the most monitored country in the world with an average of one CCTV per ever 14 people.

“Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It’s been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There’s no fear of CCTV. Why don’t people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working,” said Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville.

Still the development of a national facial recognition CCTV database continues at the taxpayer’s expense.

RIPA

What is more worrying still is the use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), a spy law that was introduced in 2000 which gives the police and security services the power to monitor people and their communications. In 2002 the act was extended to include local councils allowing them to commit extensive surveillance of its citizens.

The law was introduced to catch terrorists but is currently being used to stop benefit cheats, anti-social behaviour, graffiti and even poor parking.

The abuse of Government authority is abundantly clear as our privacy and freedoms are needlessly stripped way while the taxpayer is forced to pay for technology which fails to protect us from criminals or terrorists.

A surveillance society simply does not work.

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Government can’t be trusted with our personal information

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

By Margaret Smith | WE have seen only recently just how incompetent the Government is at keeping our personal information secure. Last year, HM Revenue and Customs lost computer discs containing the personal information of about 25 million people, including their bank account details and National Insurance numbers.

This is on top of the DVLA in Northern Ireland losing the personal details of 6000 people and the loss of details of three million theory test candidates.

It is estimated that the market value of these “identities” lost by HMRC was around £1.5 billion, making this a golden opportunity for fraudsters. It serves as a clear demonstration of the dangers of large databases, and the problems with securing personal details, even with “trusted” organisations.

The danger of databases increases with every increase in the amount of data they hold. A comprehensive national identity database, holding 50 pieces of personal information about every person in the UK, would be the most dangerous database of all. Yet the Government are still determined to press ahead with this scheme.

The Home Office expects the cost of introducing the ID card scheme to be £6bn over ten years, while the London School of Economics has estimated that the cards may cost us up to £19bn. I know which estimate I’m more likely to believe and, lest we forget, this is for a card people don’t even want.

The reality is that ID cards will make little or no difference in tackling crime. The police do not generally have a problem identifying the people they arrest – the problem is in catching the criminals in the first place. It is worth remembering that the terrorists who attacked New York and Madrid were all carrying valid ID documents.

And, far from combating identity theft, ID cards will become a target for identity fraudsters. Claims that the cards will be unforgeable are dubious in the light of past experiences.

In war-time 1939, ID cards were brought in for three purposes: conscription, national security and rationing. By 1950, it was found that this had expanded to nearly 40 different functions. So we have no way of knowing what we would be signing ourselves up to.

I believe the money would be much better spent on putting more police on our streets, and on equipping our police forces with new technology to cut the time they spend filling in forms.

My colleagues and I fought hard in the previous Scottish Executive to secure an agreement that ID cards would not be required for access to services controlled by the Scottish Government. I will be continuing to do all I can to oppose the UK Government’s ID card plans and I hope to have the support of the SNP to ensure that this agreement is protected and that ID cards are not imposed in Scotland.

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ID-cards are ‘theft’ of our civil liberties

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

By Robert and Alison Bell | The indiscriminate invasion of our privacy and the related issue of six weeks’ detention without charge are so serious and far reaching that we should be hammering at the doors of our local MPs, particularly Labour MPs, to insist that these bills are overturned. Every one of us should be exercising what is still our democratic right to exert the maximum pressure on our MPs - by (to paraphrase the words of Henry Porter) bombarding them with letters and e-mails, by confronting them repeatedly at their surgeries, by contributing to blogs and phone-ins, by talking to friends and colleagues, by expressing in no uncertain terms our dismay at, and disapproval of, what is being done by Labour’s centralisers and controllers who manipulate our elected parliament, and by their data men who would invade every aspect of our lives.

If we want to find out our own MPs’ voting record on issues relating to ID cards we can do so by the simple expedient of googling “NO2ID”, following a few simple links, and typing in our post code. Mr Bevan is not alone in his just concerns. Our fear is that, because of recent reverses, Gordon Brown will be misguidedly tempted to make these bills his line in the sand as a test of public confidence in his leadership.

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Iraqi alleges Abu Ghraib torture, sues US contractors

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

AP | An Iraqi man sued two U.S. military contractors, claiming he was repeatedly tortured while being held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison for more than 10 months. Emad al-Janabi’s federal lawsuit, filed Monday in Los Angeles, claims that employees of CACI International Inc. and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. punched him, slammed him into walls, hung him from a bed frame and kept him naked and handcuffed in his cell beginning in September 2003.Also named as a defendant is CACI interrogator Steven Stefanowicz, known as “Big Steve.” The suit claims he directed some of the torture tactics.

Phone messages left for Arlington, Va.-based CACI and New York City-based L-3 Communications, formerly Titan Corp., were not immediately returned Monday. There was no phone number listed for Stefanowicz at his Los Angeles address.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles because Stefanowicz lives there, seeks unspecified monetary damages.

The firms provided interrogators or interpreters to assist U.S. military guards at Abu Ghraib, which became notorious when photos made public in early 2004 showing U.S. soldiers abusing and humiliating detainees. Military investigators later concluded that much of the abuse happened in late 2003 — when CACI and Titan’s interrogators were at the prison.

CACI and L-3 were accused of abusing Abu Ghraib prisoners in earlier lawsuits. In November a federal judge in the District of Columbia dismissed the suit against L-3 but allowed the one against CACI to proceed.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday in Istanbul, Turkey, al-Janabi said he hopes the lawsuit sheds light on what happened to him and other detainees.

“God willing the righteousness will emerge and God willing the criminal will receive his punishment,” al-Janabi said.

Al-Janabi, 43, said he was detained by U.S. troops during a late-night raid in which he and his family were beaten by their captors. He said he was taken to a military base where he was stripped naked, a hood was placed on his head and his hands and legs were chained.

“They (U.S. troops) did not tell me what was the reason behind my arrest … during the interrogation, the American soldier told me I was a terrorist … and I was preparing for an attack against the U.S. forces,” said al-Janabi, who denied the accusation and claims he was forced to give confessions under “savage” intimidation.

The lawsuit also claims the contractors conspired in a cover-up by destroying documents and other information, hid prisoners during periodic checks by the International Red Cross and misled military and government officials about what was happening at Abu Ghraib.

Al-Janabi was released in July 2004 and wasn’t charged with any crime, according to the lawsuit. He also was forced to form a human pyramid in the nude with other prisoners, according to the lawsuit, but his Philadelphia-based attorney Susan Burke said it wasn’t known if he was in the infamous photo that became public.

“Most of this conduct was repeated on more than one occasion,” Burke said.

At one point after passing out, al-Janabi said, he was told by an L-3 translator “welcome to Guantanamo.” He said he even asked a cellmate whether he could see the ocean from a window.

“I lost the sense of time after the prolonged hours of abusive interrogation and thought that I was transported to Guantanamo,” al-Janabi told the AP.

The Abu Ghraib photos drew international criticism about the way detainees were treated and damaged the U.S. military’s image in Arab countries. Eleven U.S. soldiers were convicted of crimes at the prison, which was closed and transferred to Iraqi control.

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Iran rejects nuclear inspections unless Israel allows them

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Associated Press | An Iranian envoy said Monday his government will not submit to extensive nuclear inspections while Israel stays outside the global treaty to curb the spread of atomic weapons.

“The existing double standard shall not be tolerated anymore by non-nuclear-weapon states,” Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told a meeting of the 190 countries that have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Nuclear safeguards are far from universal, he said, adding that more than 30 countries are still without a comprehensive safeguard agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure full cooperation with that U.N. body.

“Israel, with huge nuclear weapons activities, has not concluded” such an agreement or submitted its facilities to the IAEA’s safeguards, Soltanieh said.

Israel, which does not discuss whether it has atomic weapons, did not sign the nonproliferation treaty, which requires all signatories except the major powers to refrain from obtaining nuclear arms. India and Pakistan, which have developed nuclear weapons, also are not signatories.

Iran did sign the treaty and is under U.N. Security Council sanctions meant to pressure the Tehran government into allowing inspections that will ensure it isn’t developing nuclear weapons. Iran insists its atomic program is peaceful, with the sole goal of using reactors to generate electricity.

A U.S. envoy accused Iran of “provocative and destabilizing activities” and said its leaders were responsible for leading the country into the sanctions imposed by the Security Council.

“The path of defiance is also the path of isolation, of continuing and additional sanctions and of further stunted economic opportunities for a proud and sophisticated people already suffering from economic turmoil and mismanagement by its regime’s leaders,” said Christopher A. Ford, U.S. special representative for nuclear nonproliferation.

Ford said Iran joined North Korea and Syria in weakening the nonproliferation treaty.

“This treaty regime faces today the most serious tests it has ever faced: the ongoing nuclear weapons proliferation challenges presented by Iran, by North Korea and now by Syria,” Ford said.

Ford cited U.S. intelligence that North Korea was helping Syria in “secretly constructing a nuclear reactor that we believe was not intended for peaceful purposes.” Syria denied last week that it was working on an undeclared reactor, which purportedly was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike last September.

Soltanieh said nuclear-armed powers like the United States, Britain and France are practicing “nuclear apartheid” by denying or restricting peaceful atomic technology to countries like Iran.

“Access of developing countries to peaceful nuclear materials and technologies has been continuously denied to the extent that they have had no choice than to acquire their requirements for peaceful uses of nuclear energy, including for medical and industrial applications, from open markets,” Soltanieh said.

This usually means the material is more expensive, poorer quality and less safe, he said.

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US Navy Deploys Around Latin America

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

By Lamia Oualalou | It’s now official: The Pentagon is going to resuscitate its Fourth Fleet, with the mission of patrolling Latin American and Caribbean waters. Created during the Second World War to protect traffic in the South Atlantic, the structure was dissolved in 1950. “By reestablishing the Fourth Fleet, we acknowledge the immense importance of maritime security in this region,” declared Adm. Gary Roughead, head of the Pentagon’s naval operations. Based in Mayport, Florida, the fleet will operate under the double orders of the American Navy and the Army’s Southern Command, responsible for Latin America and the Caribbean. Vice Adm. Joseph Kernan will command the fleet, which should include a nuclear aircraft carrier.

According to Alejandro Sanchez, an analyst at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a research center on Latin America based in Washington, “the reestablishment of the Fourth Fleet is more of a political than a military gesture, designed to confront the rise in power of left-leaning governments in the region.” The Pentagon does not trouble to camouflage its intentions: “the message is clear: whether local governments like it or not, the United States is back after the war in Iraq,” Sanchez explains.

“New Threats”

De facto,, Washington’s military influence in the region has diminished considerably since September 11, 2001, and the launch of the “war against terrorism.” Concentrated on the Middle Eastern arc of crisis, the Pentagon did not pay much attention to the political upsets in its own backyard. Leftist governments, now broadly in the majority in Latin America, reproach the United States with the support it gave the dictatorships that reigned over several decades and to the ultra-neo-liberal policies those dictatorships applied.

While Washington assures that its sole interest in the region is combating “new threats” (terrorism, drug trafficking and the Maras gangs of Central America), Latin American people often see it as the pursuit of “imperialist” interests dictated by energy needs. The tensions between Washington and the radical presidents of the sub-continent’s main oil and gas producers (Venezuela, Equator and Bolivia) accentuate that perception.

As a sign of defiance, almost all Latin American countries have refused to sign the American Serviceman Protection Act, a treaty that prevents legal pursuit of American soldiers for crimes committed abroad.

The plan to install a military base in Paraguay, close to Bolivian gas fields, was denounced by Brazil and Argentina. Ecuador has made it known that the American military base installed in Manta until 2009 will not be allowed to renew its mandate. Worse still, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has relaunched the idea of a South American Defense Council, explicitly excluding all United States intervention.

Washington’s sidelining comes at a time when new sources of conflict are arising in the region, as, for example, the one that pits Colombia on one side and Ecuador and Venezuela on the other, or that between Bolivia and Chile over sea access. An arms race is underway in the region, where governments have taken advantage of the economic revival to reequip their armies, neglected since the 1970s.

American arms manufacturers are no longer alone in this market: some European countries, but especially China, Russia and Iran, are trying to get a footing in a region that also attracts them for its natural resource and energy potential.

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Report: U.S. Not as ‘Free’ as Touted

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

By Betsy Pisik | The U.S. political system is, at best, “a work in progress” according to an evaluation from the pro-democracy group Freedom House, which finds significant flaws in the U.S. criminal justice system, counterterrorism strategies and the treatment of minorities and immigrants.

In a 300-page report, titled “Today’s American: How Free?”, to be released tomorrow, the group subjects the United States to the scrutiny it more often applies to the Belaruses and Tajikistans of the world.

Despite concerns, today’s America is “quite free,” according to group, which constantly places the United States in the top tier with two dozen other nations based on civil liberties and political rights in its annual reports on freedoms around the world.

In the United States, “challenges to those freedoms by government officials or other actors encounter vigorous and often successful resistance from civil society and the press, the political opposition, and a judiciary that is mindful of its role as a restraint on executive and legislative excess,” the authors say.

“Indeed, the dynamic, self-correcting nature of American democracy — the resilience of its core institutions and habits even in a time of military conflict — is the most significant finding.”

The study, however, expresses “grave concern” about the Bush administration’s attempt to extend the White House’s power without congressional or judicial review.

“Generally speaking, the controversies over counterterrorism policies can be traced to the Bush administration’s assertion of a degree of executive authority that is extraordinary even in wartime,” says the report, which finds that broad electronic surveillance affects millions, and law enforcement has “overreached” in terrorism cases.

Deputy Executive Director Thomas Melia said this is the perfect time for Freedom House — founded by Eleanor Roosevelt — to turn its sights on the United States. Not only is it an election year, but also the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“The U.S. is the most important country in the world, and if we do reports on every country, we think from time to time it might be useful to look at our own country,” Mr. Melia told The Washington Times yesterday.

“In recent years the freedom agenda of the Bush administration has made the most conspicuous … effort to promote democracy across the world, and it’s prompted a lot of people around the world to look at us.”

In detailed examination, the authors evaluated 20 aspects of U.S. civil society, from America’s robust press and religious freedoms to the increasingly corrosive role of money in political spheres.

The United States gets mixed reviews, for example, when looking at the situation of African-Americans and minorities in general.

The report notes that over the decades the government has undertaken steps to expunge racism from the law, public institutions, economic life and popular culture. It has mandated affirmative action and adopted policies to encourage political and educational participation.

“These measures have changed America in fundamental ways. But they have not contributed significantly to an improvement in the state of the inner-city poor,” the report concludes.

Freedom House finds that U.S. incarceration rates are “jarring,” rising by more than 300 percent since 1980.

Mr. Melia said many of the authors originally focused on the post-Sept. 11 limitations on civil liberties in the country. However, it became clear in the editing process that the prison camp holding terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and monitoring of individuals under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, don’t impact as many Americans as the political process, the criminal justice system and religious freedoms.

“We famously know there are flaws in our ability to keep a voter role and count the votes properly,” he said. “But there have been historical improvements.”

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CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, say police

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

By Owen Bowcott | Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

The warning comes from the head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) at New Scotland Yard as the force launches a series of initiatives to try to boost conviction rates using CCTV evidence. They include:

· A new database of images which is expected to use technology developed by the sports advertising industry to track and identify offenders.

· Putting images of suspects in muggings, rape and robbery cases out on the internet from next month.

· Building a national CCTV database, incorporating pictures of convicted offenders as well as unidentified suspects. The plans for this have been drawn up, but are on hold while the technology required to carry out automated searches is refined.

Use of CCTV images for court evidence has so far been very poor, according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit. “CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure,” Neville told the Security Document World Conference in London. “Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It’s been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There’s no fear of CCTV. Why don’t people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working.”

More training was needed for officers, he said. Often they do not want to find CCTV images “because it’s hard work”. Sometimes the police did not bother inquiring beyond local councils to find out whether CCTV cameras monitored a particular street incident.

“CCTV operators need feedback. If you call them back, they feel valued and are more helpful. We want to develop a career path for CCTV [police] inquirers.”

The Viido unit is beginning to establish a London-wide database of images of suspects that are cross-referenced by written descriptions. Interest in the technology has been enhanced by recent police work, in which officers back-tracked through video tapes to pick out terrorist suspects. In districts where the Viido scheme is working, CCTV is now helping police in 15-20% of street robberies.

“We are [beginning] to collate images from across London,” Neville said. “This has got to be balanced against any Big Brother concerns, with safeguards. The images are from thefts, robberies and more serious crimes. Possibly the [database] could be national in future.”

The unit is now investigating whether it can use software - developed to track advertising during televised football games - to follow distinctive brand logos on the clothing of unidentified suspects. “Sometimes you are looking for a picture, for example, of someone with a red top and a green dragon on it,” he explained. “That technology could be used to track logos.” By back-tracking, officers have often found earlier pictures, for example, of suspects with their hoods down, in which they can be identified.

“We are also going to start putting out [pictures] on the internet, on the Met police website, asking ‘who is this guy?’. If criminals see that CCTV works they are less likely to commit crimes.”

Cheshire deputy chief constable Graham Gerrard, who chairs the CCTV working group of the Association of Chief Police Officers, told the Guardian, that it made no sense to have a national DNA and fingerprint database, but to have to approach 43 separate forces for images of suspects and offenders. A scheme called the Facial Identification National Database (Find), which began collecting offenders’ images from their prison pictures and elsewhere, has been put on hold.

He said that there were discussions with biometric companies “on a regular basis” about developing the technology to search digitised databases and match suspects’ images with known offenders. “Sometimes when they put their [equipment] in operational practice, it’s not as wonderful as they said it would be, ” he said. “I suspect [Find] has been put on hold until the technology matures. Before you can digitise every offender’s image you have to make sure the lighting is right and it’s a good picture. It’s a major project. We are still some way from a national database. There are still ethical and technical issues to consider.”

Asked about the development of a CCTV database, the office of the UK’s information commissioner, Richard Thomas, said: “CCTV can play an important role in helping to prevent and detect crime. However we would expect adequate safeguards to be put in place to ensure the images are only used for crime detection purposes, stored securely and that access to images is restricted to authorised individuals. We would have concerns if CCTV images of individuals going about their daily lives were retained as part of the initiative.”

The charity Victim’s Voice, which supports relatives of those who have been murdered, said it supported more effective use of CCTV systems. “Our view is that anything that helps get criminals off the street and prevents crime is good,” said Ed Usher, one of the organisation’s trustees. “If handled properly it can be a superb preventative tool.”

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Brian Haw Arrested Again - SOCPA

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Rikki - Indymedia | At around 1.30 this afternoon, a community support officer started hassling Aqil Shaerer who is a pro-Palestinian protestor associated with Brian Haw and often around Parliament Square. It is unclear what grounds they had for this. Brian became involved and explained to them that Aqil was part of his authorised demonstration. Two more CSO officers became involved, but then they all left.

A short while later a police van arrived and they immediately homed in on Brian, claiming that he was harassing them. Before anyone realised what was happening, one of the youngest of the cops kicked Brian’s legs from under him, wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him behind his back.

In years of dealings with the police, Brian has never ever been violent towards them, although he has suffered at their hands on many occasions, including a very violent and pre-meditated attack by a TSG officer, U1019, on the 12th January this year.

Rear handcuffing is normally reserved for violent offenders, or is sometimes used where police have no knowledge of the person arrested and cannot guarantee their safety. of course, neither situation relates to Brian Haw.

Brian was manhandled into the police van, and the police waved jauntily at protestors as they drove him away to belgravia police station.

At first the custody officers told supporters brian was being held for ‘disorderly conduct’ but when his solicitor, Maggie Peters from Bindmans, became involved, they said he was being held for a section 5 public order offence. They allege that he had shouted at a passing vehicle “get a job you fat bastard”. This seems quite unlikely, and the only witness the police appear to be relying on is one of their own policemen. They admit the passer-by has not made any complaint.

Section 5 is not an imprisonable offence and can in fact be dealt with by a fixed penalty notice. Despite this, police have now held brian for more than four hours.

There seems to be a sinister pattern emerging. recently, the parliament square protestors have launched legal challenges against the police and courts, and these have taken the form of lodging judicial reviews at the high court, and adding “addendums” as new events occur. Each time something is lodged, within a matter of days, the police target one of the protestors at the square, violently arrest them and then hold them for a disproportionate time. It just this friday that Brian Haw and Barbara Tucker lodged a new addendum to their judicial review at the high court, detailing recent legal travesties for judicial consideration. Within two days this new outrage has been perpertrated.

There is much talk of the repeal of socpa, but in the meantime, the war against the Parliament Square peace camp is continuing. It is clear the authorities will stop at nothing to harass and intimidate the peaceful protest which was the original reason for the socpa law. Two and a half years after the introduction of socpa the protestors are still there, and I think this is the real reason socpa may be withdrawn. It has failed in its primary purpose, and the authorities are looking for any other ways to be rid of the ‘Brian problem’.

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