In risposta al Ministero degli Interni recente la consultazione ha intitolato la protesta in carico del `intorno Parlamento', che ha minacciato ad ulteriore le limitazioni sulle dimostrazioni durante il Regno Unito, un secondo giorno di azione [1] denominato dalla campagna per l'Assemblea libera avverrà sabato il 1° marzo. I sostenitori opposti alle proposte del governo monteranno al quadrato di Trafalgar de Londra (lato del nord) a 1pm.

La consultazione di governo sulla protesta in carico del `intorno al Parlamento', che chiuso il 17 gennaio, ha cominciato come revisione del crimine e della Legge organizzati serii della polizia (SOCPA) 2005, s.132-138, che limita discutibile le dimostrazioni in una zona di 1km intorno al Parlamento [2.3]. Mentre precedentemente era stato segnalato che il colore marrone del Primo Ministro ha inteso abrogare le disposizioni impopolari della legislazione [4], le domande della carta da consultazione sull'armonizzazione possibile del `' della legislazione attuale suggeriscono che il governo progetta estendere le limitazioni correnti sulla protesta intorno al Parlamento fino il paese intero. Ciò significa dare alla polizia l'alimentazione censurare il numero, il formato ed il contenuto di bandiere e di cartelli; e le leggi attuali che richiedono la notifica anteriore di e l'alimentazione imporre le limitazioni sopra e perfino il divieto, marzo di protesta - coperti dalla Legge pubblica 1986 di ordine - potrebbero essere estendere a tutte le dimostrazioni.

Le alimentazioni proposte e quelle già assegnate alla polizia generano un clima del criminalisation di activism politico; con il commonplace arbitrario di arresti e di violenza e di pesante-manualità della polizia alle proteste - livelli quei interamente non-violenti - quale infine il clima di Heathrow dell'estate accampi relativamente. Anche i membri della pressa che documenta le proteste non sono più brutality risparmiato della polizia, come illustrato dalla cassa della vinaccia Vallée [5] del photojournalist. Ancora, malgrado la revisione corrente di SOCPA, è chiaro che venuto a contatto di non ha programmi immediati da smettere di usando per harass ed intimidire gli attivisti, come indicato tramite gli arresti soltanto questa settimana di tre sostenitori di lunga durata di Brian Haw ed il suo Parlamento quadri l'accampamento di pace per Parlamento della parte esterna di protesta non autorizzata del `' [6]. In generale, sembra che tali tattiche sono destinate per impiegare un effetto di gelatura del `', per cui la gente è trattenuta dall'aggancio nel activism dei grassroots per timore delle conseguenze.

Whatever campaign people are involved in, whether it’s for a safer school crossing or to end a war, the new proposals will affect them. Campaign groups who run a weekend stall in their local high street would be moved on, and political rallies and meetings could be broken up.

A spokesperson for the Campaign for Free Assembly said: “We are tired of the Government’s relentless determination to silence the public. We must act now to stop the further erosion of our freedom to assemble, and make it clear that we will not allow our liberties to be consulted away. The plans outlined in the consultation demand a response on the streets. Our message is simple: we claim the freedom to assemble without prior notification or permission, and this is not open to negotiation.”

Notes:

1. On the Campaign for Free Assembly’s first day of action on January 12, 2008, there was a spontaneous tour of sites within the designated area around Parliament, where it is an offence under SOCPA to demonstrate without prior written authorisation from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. The tour included Downing Street, Whitehall, Parliament Square, the Home Office, the Foreign Office, MI5 headquarters and New Scotland Yard.

A number of participants held a sit-down protest in the middle of the road in Parliament Street, and later in Whitehall, directly facing Downing Street, disrupting traffic for a while. There was much pushing and shoving outside Downing Street from the Metropolitan Police riot squad, the Territorial Support Group (TSG). A number of arrests were made, the highest profile being that of Brian Haw. Mr Haw, who had been quietly filming the demonstration, had his camcorder violently shoved into his face by a police officer, causing a bloody gash on his cheek. He was subsequently arrested under Section 5 of the Public Order Act on suspicion of swearing at the officer concerned, and was allegedly assaulted shortly afterwards by a number of officers in the back of a police van whilst in handcuffs. It is understood Mr Haw may well take legal action against the officers concerned.

Reports:

“Brian Haw violently assaulted then arrested at Downing Street today”
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389308.html

“Haw beaten up by police”
 http://www.parliament-square.org.uk/morningstar140108.pdf

“Peace protester injured in demo”
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7186606.stm

2. The following website contains background on SOCPA and the ‘Managing Protest’ consultation:  http://www.repeal-socpa.info

3. Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) 2005:
 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2005/ukpga_20050015_en_1

4. “Brown to allow Iraq protests”
 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1977614.ece

5. “Injured photographer wins settlement, costs and apology from Met Police”
 http://www.epuk.org/News/811/vallee-accepts-met-settlement

6. “SOCPA newsflash”
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392385.html

“SOCPA - update on last night’s arrests”
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392412.html

7. Other resources:

Articles:

“SOCPA Anti-demo Laws Should be Repealed, Not Extended”
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389354.html

“Preserving disorder: freedom to protest and the future of SOCPA”  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386033.html

Indymedia UK topic page on SOCPA:
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2006/socpa/

Films:

Documentary: “SOCPA – the Movie”  http://www.socpa-movie.blogspot.com

Feature-length documentary: “Taking Liberties”  http://www.noliberties.com

Campaign for Free Assembly
freeassembly[at]lists.riseup.net

Claims the Royal Family was being bugged by GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) have been denied at the Princess Diana inquest.

Rumours were rife by 1993 that the Government’s intelligence and security organisation may have been behind the infamous Squidgygate and Camillagate tapes.

Under the law GCHQ would have needed to get the Foreign Secretary to sign off on such a phone tap and no such green light from the Government was sought, the inquest heard.

Sir John Adye, the GCHQ director between 1989 and 1996, said: “It could not have been done without a warrant.”

Ian Burnett QC, for the coroner, said: “And intercepting the Royal Family is simply not within the scope of the intelligence the Government was seeking?”

Sir John replied: “Indeed, it was not.”

Mr Burnett asked: “And there was no such warrant?”

Sir John answered: “I am sure there was no such warrant.”

On the tapes, James Gilbey, who was named as one of the princess’s lovers, repeatedly told her “I love you” and referred to her as “Squidgy” 53 times.

A conversation between the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles (now the Duchess of Cornwall) in the early 1990s was also recorded and came to light around the same time.

Sir John told the jury he was “satisfied” that GCHQ had not been involved in those tapes.

And in an “unprecedented” move, given the intelligence services golden rule never to comment on its operations, a statement was released denying any involvement.

The court heard that ministers were briefed so they could “truthfully” tell Parliament that “none of the security and intelligence agencies had been intercepting the communications of the Royal Family”.

Denials were repeatedly made in the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

In a written statement John Major, the then Prime Minister, said: “There is no substance in the rumours about the involvement of the security and intelligence agencies intercepting the communications of the Royal Family.”

The jury have heard claims that Diana felt she may have been bugged.

Mohamed al Fayed has maintained that the fatal car crash that killed his son Dodi, Diana and driver Henri Paul in Paris’s Alma Tunnel in 1997 was set up by MI6 at the behest of the Duke of Edinburgh.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

Second National Day Of Action For Freedom Of Assembly

Via Urban75

We Own The Streets - Campaign for Freedom of Assembly
Saturday 1st of March, top of Trafalgar Square (North side), 1 pm.

t’s time we had freedom to publicly assemble in the UK. The Campaign for Freedom of Assembly is calling for a second national day of action against the existing legislation restricting our freedom to protest around Parliament and its possible extension to the rest of the country.

We need to respond to continued police repression and the Government’s consultation paper ‘Managing Protest around Parliament’. This consultation, which ended on the 17th of January, began as a review of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) 2005, sections 132-138, which restrict demonstrations in a 1km zone around Parliament. While the review was originally with an eye to possibly repealing these controversial sections of the legislation, it turned into a consultation on ‘managing protest’. The consultation paper’s questions on the possible harmonisation of the existing legislation shows the Government’s intention to extend current restrictions on protest around Parliament to the whole country. This means giving the police powers to censor the content of banners and placards, and the existing laws asserting restrictions and prior notifications to marches - currently covered by the Public Order Act 1986 - being extended to all demonstrations.

The proposed powers and those already given to the police create a climate of criminalisation: a vast confusion of laws are applied arbitrarily so people are arrested simply for standing in the wrong place at the wrong time or having the wrong face. This combines with a police culture that evades accountability even when people are killed, as shown by the Menezes case and others. There should be no complacency that the court system can be relied on to prevent injustice. The ability to exercise effective protest is crucial in order to defend ourselves and others from the abuses of those in power.

Whatever the issues that matter most to you, whether you are concerned about a safer school crossing, a new runway or ending a war, this proposal will affect you.

The government consultation needs a response not on paper but on our streets. The message is simple: we claim the freedom to assemble without prior notification or permission and this freedom is not open to negotiation.

We plan to hold a second national day of action on Saturday 1st of March proclaiming this freedom as the next step in establishing a new era when it will be impossible for our liberties to be consulted away.

We are meeting at 1pm at the top of Trafalgar Square. Come with your mates and discuss with them what you want to do with the day. Bring placards, banners, whistles or anything else you can think of. Let them know you won’t be easily silenced.

Campaign for Freedom of Assembly
- e-mail: freeassembly@lists.riseup.net

blood on their hands

There are serious concerns for the welfare of the three protestors who were arrested by inspector fox outside the gates of parliament last night. Their protest was about about the iraq war, the genocide occuring there, and the war criminals here who still evade justice.

Police have admitted in previous instances that arrests are not a proportionate response to ‘unauthorised protest’, and they generally use ‘report for possible summons’ instead.

However, last night at around 9pm, the three protestors, barbara tucker, stephen jago, and ‘ant’, were taken to belgravia police station. police then tried to search tents to seize ‘evidence’ - they wanted to confiscate barbara’s ‘blood on their hands’ banner - but backed off when brian haw pointed out that it’s been shown in court that police have no power of seizure under SOCPA and that they did not have warrants.

Inquiries for information at belgravia police station this morning were flatly refused by the custody officer, but it was revealed that the three are still in custody, having been held for 14 hours, and are due to be ‘processed’ shortly. Nothing is known about their welfare, whether any additional charges have been laid, or why they have been detained so long.

Any station support is will be welcomed.

To contact, call 020 7730 1212 and ask for belgravia custody suite

http://www.socpa-movie.blogspot.com

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”?

Phone numbers and credit card data to be collected under expanded EU plan

Airline passengers will be monitored at every stage of their journey under the proposals. Photograph: David Levene

Ian Traynor

Passengers travelling between EU countries or taking domestic flights would have to hand over a mass of personal information, including their mobile phone numbers and credit card details, as part of a new package of security measures being demanded by the British government. The data would be stored for 13 years and used to “profile” suspects.

Brussels officials are already considering controversial anti-terror plans that would collect up to 19 pieces of information on every air passenger entering or leaving the EU. Under a controversial agreement reached last summer with the US department of homeland security, the EU already supplies the same information [19 pieces] to Washington for all passengers flying between Europe and the US.

But Britain wants the system extended to sea and rail travel, to be applied to domestic flights and those between EU countries. According to a questionnaire circulated to all EU capitals by the European commission, the UK is the only country of 27 EU member states that wants the system used for “more general public policy purposes” besides fighting terrorism and organised crime.

The so-called passenger name record system, proposed by the commission and supported by most EU governments, has been denounced by civil libertarians and data protection officials as draconian and probably ineffective.

The scheme would work through national agencies collecting and processing the passenger data and then sharing it with other EU states. Britain also wants to be able to exchange the information with third parties outside the EU.

Officials in Brussels and in European capitals admit the proposed system represents a massive intrusion into European civil liberties, but insist it is a necessary part of a battery of new electronic surveillance measures being mooted in the interests of European security. These include proposals unveiled in Brussels last week for fingerprinting and collecting biometric information of all non-EU nationals entering or leaving the union.

All airlines would provide government agencies with 19 pieces of information on every passenger, including mobile phone number and credit card details. The system would work by “running the data against a combination of characteristics and behavioural patterns aimed at creating a risk assessment”, according to the draft legislation.

“When a passenger fits within a certain risk assessment, he could be identified as a high-risk passenger.”

A working party of European data protection officials described the proposal as “a further milestone towards a European surveillance society.

“The draft foresees the collection of a vast amount of personal data of all passengers flying into or out of the EU regardless of whether they are under suspicion or innocent travellers. These data will then be stored for a period of 13 years to allow for profiling. The profiling of all passengers envisaged by the current proposal might raise constitutional concerns in some member states.”

The Liberal Democrat MEP Sarah Ludford said: “Where is this going to stop? There’s no mature discussion of risk. As soon as you question something like this, you’re soft on terrorism in the UK and in the EU.”

Britain is pushing for a more comprehensive system based on the experience of a UK pilot scheme that has been running for the past three years. Officials say Operation Semaphore, monitoring flights from Pakistan and the Middle East, has been highly successful and has resulted in hundreds of arrests.

The scheme has seen one in every 2,200 passengers warranting further investigation, with a tenth of those “being of interest”. British officials say rapists, drug smugglers and child traffickers have been arrested and want the EU scheme to cover “all fugitives from crown court justice”.

But Ludford said: “If you ask the UK government how many terrorists have been picked up, I don’t think you get a very straight answer.”

EU officials have asked the Home Office minister Meg Hillier for information about the arrests of suspected terrorists.

By Sarah Lagan

Journalists, anti war activists and religious groups held a protest outside the Daily Express offices today against a series of stories and headlines in the paper which they say encourage “racist stereotyping and contempt”.

Around forty protesters and journalists turned up to the event organised by Media Workers Against War and the Stop the War Coalition. They waved banners saying “stop media attacks on Muslims” while chanting slogans such as “Daily Express, Daily abuse”.

MWAW sent a letter to Northern and Shell proprietor Richard Desmond and Daily Express editor Peter Hill outlining examples of what they believe are inflammatory headlines published in the Express such as: “Over 860 migrants flood in every day”, “Muslim laws must come to Britain” and “Migrants send our crime rate soaring”.

It appealed to the company to stop “pedalling lies” and to allow journalists to refuse to write stories they believe break the Editors’’ Code of Practice.

The letter said the headlines “do nothing to inform Express readers – on the contrary they encourage racist stereotyping and contempt.”

It states: “Your ‘facts’ are highly selective, you make little attempt to give context or comparisons and you publish no opposing views.”

Chair of MWAW and FT journalist David Crouch said: “We’ve decided to protest here at the Express because since mid-January they have run a series of what we believe are inflammatory front page splashes targeting Muslims and immigrants more generally. So we decided to start with the Express but the interest that has been shown in this protest will encourage us to take the protest elsewhere.”

The Daily Express declined to comment.

The New Statesman 

In July 2003, in the week following the death of David Kelly, a reader contacted the New Statesman and suggested that the media were missing the obvious. The Commons foreign affairs committee had just cleared the government of “sexing up” the September 2002 dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - a claim, first made by Andrew Gilligan on the BBC’s Today programme, for which Dr Kelly may or may not have been the source.

Our caller pointed out that although the Commons committee had said it was satisfied the “first” draft dossier, produced on 10 September for a meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), was the unspun work of intelligence, it had missed the true significance of a meeting the day before, chaired by Alastair Campbell.

Our caller was Chris Ames, whose name will for ever be etched on the memory of all those in government, particularly in the Foreign Office, who have resisted making public what has become known as the Williams draft (after John Williams, the Foreign Office press officer who wrote it). Using the Freedom of Information Act, Ames has doggedly pursued the evidence that he believed would show that the September dossier was the work not of intelligence experts, but of spin doctors whose intention was to “sex up” the known intelligence.

From denying that the document existed, to seeking to have it withheld because publication threatened government confidentiality, to claiming that the Williams draft was an uncommissioned activity by a bored press officer (who just happened to come up with conclusions similar to those of the JIC), the government has ducked and dived and done its utmost to obstruct Ames in his pursuit of the truth.

Now, almost five years after he first contacted us, Ames’s efforts have borne fruit. On 18 February, just two days before the deadline set by the Information Tribunal, the Foreign Office released the Williams draft.

Interpretations of its contents will differ, but on many counts the document speaks for itself. From it we learn that the draft was, without question, intended as part of a process of producing a dossier that would persuade the British people and parliament of the case for war. And, importantly, it shows us how much of the final dossier was the work of a spin doctor. Let’s not forget that the Blair government lied repeatedly about this. The draft also reveals the extent to which Williams reworded and rewrote - and occasionally invented - intelligence assessments that were later presented to the public as the work of intelligence experts and “judgements of the JIC”.

We have also learned how raw intelligence was pumped up to make a strongly worded “executive summary”. Thus, a draft report from the JIC which claimed that Iraq had “sought to develop” mobile facilities to produce a biological agent becomes, in Williams’s draft, “has developed transportable laboratories”. The strengthened Williams version fed into the 10 September dossier (still being claimed as the unspun work of intelligence) and the final document. Williams does not attempt to disguise the fact that his task is to produce a document which will persuade. Judge for yourself whether the following is driven by spin or intelligence:

The bombs that fell on Halabja that Friday morning were equipped with (what chemical?). (what does the chemical do to the body - how does it kill? Sorry to be grisly, but this will have real impact on real people, not journalists who take it as read).

As our political editor, Martin Bright, argues on page 10, the release of the Williams draft leaves no room for doubt that the Blair government set out to deceive us. Cynics may shrug. Governments lie. But the consequences of this deception have been catastrophic and tragic. The roll-call of victims runs into tens of thousands and includes that early casualty in July 2003, the government scientist whose suicide started an angry debate over whether the case for war had been “sexed up”.

Thanks to Chris Ames, we at last have an unequivocal answer. And it shames all those involved in the process.

The saints stop marching in

You can’t get to heaven,” went the old song, “in a limousine,/ ‘Cause the Lord don’t sell no gasoline.” Perhaps not, but under the last pope some felt that transport to the upper echelons of heaven was a little too swift. So many saints were created by John Paul II that it did seem as though he was running some form of celestial limo service, or “saint factory”, as others put it: 482 people were canonised and 1,338 beatified (the first stage to sainthood) by the pontiff - more than all his predecessors put together since the current procedures were laid down in 1588.

So news that Benedict XVI is to tighten the rules is to be welcomed by those who take such matters seriously. It may also be a relief, however, that the new rigour is not to be applied retrospectively. It is just possible that not all the “miracles” performed by or attributed to some saints would withstand modern scientific scrutiny.

What, say, are we to make of the Belgian shrine to the 11th-century St Godeliva? Drinking from her well is said to have a powerful, yet curiously specific, effect on sore throats. Or the 15th-century St Francis of Paola? Fame of his miracles spread in his own lifetime, yet they were occasionally of a rather prosaic nature. One involved setting a pot of broad beans boiling: handy if you’d run out of kindling, no doubt, but surely a power more appropriate to a domestic goddess than a holy man. What next - St Nigella? Not under the new rules, thank goodness.

Henry McDonald and Gaby Hinsliff

Police chief Sir Hugh Order confirmed this weekend he had asked the Secretary of State Shaun Woodward to have Gordon Brown’s plans for the introduction of wire-tap evidence in court extended to Northern Ireland.

Asked if Orde regarded wire-taps as bona fide evidence, a spokesman for the PSNI Chief Constable said: ‘In principle, yes. However, as the Prime Minister has said, it is important all the safeguards are in place before it is introduced.

‘It would allow further evidence to be placed before the courts which could help in the prosecution of terrorists and those involved in criminality.’

Senior PSNI officers and retired top policemen involved in major investigations such as the Omagh bombing inquiry have backed the use of intercept evidence. One officer involved in the original Omagh investigation said that if they had been able to use wire-taps they could have brought a number of Real IRA suspects to court for the atrocity.

But the current Chief Constable’s lobbying for wire-tap evidence will be fiercely resisted on the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Sinn Fein member Alex Maskey said yesterday that his party was ‘instinctively opposed’ to the use of such evidence.

‘We would oppose it because it’s not suitable for the new climate in the north of Ireland, and because of the historic abuses of power by the state again and again throughout Irish history,’ he said.

The South Belfast assembly member added that, if policing and justice powers were devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive, then Sinn Fein would seek to block the use of wire-taps in court. Under the 2006 Saint Andrew’s agreement that led to the present power-sharing government at Stormont, the British government promised to hand over policing and justice powers to ministers elected by the assembly in Belfast this May. However, due to opposition from the Democratic Unionists, it is unlikely that these powers will be devolved until later in the year.

Meanwhile, the Rev William McCrea, the Democratic Unionist MP, entered the row over wire-tapping of MPs this weekend by claiming he had been systematically bugged by the security services. The South Antrim MP said he had ‘no doubt’ that both his home and office phones were tapped at the height of negotiations during the peace process. He said he and his colleagues had their offices swept for bugs. ‘We got private persons in to do tests and they found that at that time it seemed very evident that this was going on,’ he said.

‘There is no doubt whatsoever that the authorities were doing it. If you were opposing what was government policy, or were seen as an obstacle or standing in the way, it happened.’

McCrea said that he had routinely taken ‘corrective measures’, such as avoiding using the phone for sensitive political conversations.

The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has already ordered an inquiry into revelations that the Muslim Labour MP Sadiq Khan was taped when he visited a constituent in prison, contravening the Wilson doctrine that supposedly protects elected politicians from secret surveillance.

This is Swansea

Almost a quarter of the Dyfed-Powys force’s 1,200 police officers have been investigated for allegations of misconduct, corruption or failure in duty in less than a year.Over around 11 months in 2007, 283 constables, sergeants, and inspectors faced a probe by the force’s Professional Standards Department (PSD).

The shock figures were revealed after a Post reporter requested details under the Freedom of Information Act.

The revelations have sparked a strong reaction from Llanelli AM Helen Mary Jones, who said the figures were disappointing.

“I am extremely concerned about these findings,” she said.

Oxford Times

PARLIAMENT Square peace protester Brian Haw took his campaign on the road by walking 60 miles from London to Oxford.

Mr Haw, who began a peace camp outside the Houses of Parliament in 2001, reached the city last night, pictured, to address the Oxford Union.

In a recreation of the famous 1933 debate entitled This house would under no circumstance fight for its King and country, Mr Haw spoke in favour of the motion.

A group of about 20 supporters, aged from eight to 61, walked with Mr Haw since Monday, staying in churches and with Quakers along the way.

Mr Haw said: “Oxford is an important city and a great place to come for a debate. I want to get people together and walking for peace all over the country - hopefully this will be the first of many.

“We’ve all had blisters but everyone does when you do a walk like this.

“I’ve had a very pleasant reaction from people passing by and it has been a lovely walk along the A40, although the footpaths need to be upgraded.”

Richard Ford, Home Correspondent and Sean O’Neill

Video briefing: who is Babar Ahmad?

Bugging devices planted in a prison telephone were illegally used to record privileged conversations between an inmate and his solicitor, The Times has learnt.

Defence lawyers said last night that the breach confirms long-held suspicions that the recording of legal visits is widespread. Security experts told The Times that they believed that dozens of prisoners are routinely the subject of covert surveillance.

The revelation comes days after it emerged that an MP’s meeting with a jailed constituent had been recorded. However the taping of legal meetings is considered far more serious because it may breach a defendant’s rights and has the potential to collapse criminal trials.

The full transcripts of the taped conversations with a 71-year-old man who is serving life for murder only came to light because they were disclosed to Simon Creighton, the solicitor who was caught up in the surveillance.

The revelation will bring demands for Jack Straw to widen the official inquiry into the bugging of Sadiq Khan, a Muslim MP visiting a terror suspect, to investigate the extent of covert surveillance in Britain’s prisons.

Mr Straw, the Justice Secretary, told MPs yesterday that Sir Christopher Rose, the Chief Surveillance Commissioner, is to head an inquiry into the bugging of a conversation involving Mr Khan and Babar Ahmad when the MP visited him in Woodhill jail.

Mr Creighton’s case involves Harry Roberts, who was convicted of the murder of three police officers in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, in 1966. Last night the solicitor said: “If they are prepared to go to these lengths in this case, it makes one wonder what they are prepared to do with other prisoners, particularly those convicted of serious offences.”

Roberts, currently in Littlehey prison in Cambridgeshire, is involved in a long battle to be released on parole. His 30-year minimum term expired 11 years ago.

His parole hearings have been held in secret but in documents sent to his solicitor, a government-appointed lawyer included transcripts of bugged telephone conversations. Two transcripts of discussions betweeen Mr Creighton and Roberts when he was in Channings Wood jail were found with other legal documents.

The transcripts of calls made in 2005 and 2006 include every word spoken from the moment that a receptionist at Mr Creighton’s firm answers the phone to Roberts and he asks: “Can I speak to Simon”.

Mr Creighton said that the transcripts included discussions of legal tactics that he was going to employ in court proceedings planned as part of Roberts’s struggle to win parole. They also included discussions about problems that Roberts was having in jail.

Mr Creighton, of Bhatt Murphy solicitors in London, said: “I am deeply shocked by this breach of such an important and fundamental right. It is especially worrying that it occurred in this case where there were already heightened sensitivities because of the decision made by the parole board to receive secret evidence.

“Had the secrecy order not been lifted it would never have come to light and it makes me wonder whether this is a more common practice than anyone has previously dared to imagine.”

He said that the bugging of legal telephone calls was a breach of common law and the European Convention of Human Rights.

It is not clear whether the bugging operation was being operated by the police or prison service.

The telephone calls of all prisoners are subject to monitoring but the recording or monitoring of calls to legal advisers is banned.

Prisoners have expressed concerns frequently that telephone calls with their lawyers and legal visits are being bugged. Mr Creighton said: “There has always been a degree of paranoia among prisoners that their calls are recorded. Sometimes they say that clicks heard during conversations are recordings being switched off. Whenever this has been raised with the authorities they have always denied it.”

Gareth Peirce, Mr Ahmad’s solicitor, said that defence lawyers had written to the governors of Woodhill and Belmarsh prisons on a number of occasions seeking assurances that legal visits were not being bugged.

Ms Peirce said: “Many prisoners . . . believe that their visits are being listened to and defence lawyers are concerned that they are not able to reassure them on that score.

“The position is very disturbing. Bugging of legal visits would be a serious intrusion. There is an absolute right to confidentiality when it comes to legal visits. To justify such a thing happening would need the Home Secretary to authorise it. If it were found to have happened, that would have the most enormous consequences.”.

The Ministry of Justice said last night: “The Justice Secretary was not previously aware of this matter.

We will consider what further steps are needed once we have more information.”

Revealed: British plan to build training camp for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan

By Jerome Starkey in Kabul

Britain planned to build a Taliban training camp for 2,000 fighters in southern Afghanistan, as part of a top-secret deal to make them swap sides, intelligence sources in Kabul have revealed. The plans were discovered on a memory stick seized by Afghan secret police in December.

The Afghan government claims they prove British agents were talking to the Taliban without permission from the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, despite Gordon Brown’s pledge that Britain will not negotiate. The Prime Minister told Parliament on 12 December: “Our objective is to defeat the insurgency by isolating and eliminating their leaders. We will not enter into any negotiations with these people.”

The British insist President Karzai’s office knew what was going on. But Mr Karzai has expelled two top diplomats amid accusations they were part of a plot to buy-off the insurgents.

The row was the first in a series of spectacular diplomatic spats which has seen Anglo-Afghan relations sink to a new low. Since December, President Karzai has blocked the appointment of Paddy Ashdown to the top UN job in Kabul and he has blamed British troops for losing control of Helmand.

It has also soured relations between Kabul and Washington, where State Department officials were instrumental in pushing Lord Ashdown for the UN role.

President Karzai’s political mentor, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, endorsed a death sentence for blasphemy on the student journalist Sayed Pervez Kambaksh last week, and two British contractors have been arrested in Kabul on, it is claimed, trumped up weapons charges. The developments are seen as a deliberate defiance of the British.

An Afghan government source said the training camp was part of a British plan to use bands of reconciled Taliban, called Community Defence Volunteers, to fight the remaining insurgents. “The camp would provide military training for 1,800 ordinary Taliban fighters and 200 low-level commanders,” he said.

The computer memory stick at the centre of the row was impounded by officers from Afghanistan’s KGB-trained National Directorate of Security after they moved against a party of international diplomats who were visiting Helmand.

A ministry insider said: “When they were arrested, the British said the Ministry of the Interior and the National Security Council knew about it, but no one knew anything. That’s why the President was so angry.”

Details of how much President Karzai was told remain murky. Some analysts believe Afghan officials were briefed about the plan, but that it later evolved.

The camp was due to be built outside Musa Qala, in Helmand. It was part of a package of reconstruction and development incentives designed to win trust and support in the aftermath of the British-led battle to retake the stronghold last year.

But the Afghans feared the British were training a militia with no loyalty to the central government. Intercepted Taliban communications suggested they thought the British were trying to help them, the Afghan official said.

The Western delegates, Michael Semple and Mervyn Patterson, were given 48 hours to leave the country. Their Afghan colleagues, including a former army general, were jailed. The expulsions coincided with a row within the Taliban’s ranks which saw a senior commander, Mansoor Dadullah, sacked for talking to British spies. One official claimed the camp was planned for Mansoor and his men.

The computer stick contained a three-stage plan, called the European Union Peace Building Programme. The third stage covered military training.

Curiously, the European Union says the programme did not exist and there were no EU funds to run it.

Afghan government officials insist it was bankrolled by the British. UK diplomats, the UN, Western officials and senior Afghan officials have all confirmed the outline of the plan, which they agree is entirely British-led, but all refused to talk about it on the record. President Karzai’s office claimed it was “a matter of national security”.

The memory stick revealed that $125,000 (£64,000) had been spent on preparing the camp and a further $200,000 was earmarked to run it in 2008, an Afghan official said. The figures sparked allegations that British agents were paying the Taliban.

President Karzai’s spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, accused Mr Semple and Mr Patterson of being “involved in some activities that were not their jobs.”

The camp would also have provided vocational training, including farming and irrigation techniques, to offer people a viable alternative to growing opium. But the Afghan government took issue with plans to provide military training, to turn the insurgents into a defence force.

Afghan government staff also claimed the “EU peace-builders” had handed over mobile phones, laptops and airtime credit to insurgents. They said the memory stick revealed plans to train the Taliban to use secure satellite phones, so they could communicate directly with UK officials.

Mr Patterson, a Briton, was the third-ranking UN diplomat when he was held. Mr Semple, an Irishman, was the acting head of the EU mission. Officially, the British embassy remains tight-lipped, fuelling speculation that the plan may have been part of a wider clandestine operation.

A spokesman repeated the line used since Christmas: “The EU and UN have responded to inquiries on this. We have nothing further to add.”

But privately, the UN maintains it had no role in setting up the camp. Meanwhile, Mr Semple’s EU boss, Francesc Vendrell, admitted he had very little idea what was going on.

Yet the British ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, cut short his Christmas holiday to meet President Karzai and “spell out the Foreign Office paper-trail” which diplomats claim proves his government had agreed. They met twice, but it was not enough to stop Mr Semple and Mr Patterson being forced to leave.

Gordon Brown has also said Britain would increase its support for “community defence initiatives, where local volunteers are recruited to defend homes and families modelled on traditional Afghan arbakai”.

Background to the proposal

* December 11

British and Afghan troops take Musa Qala, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand, after President Hamid Karzai reveals that a senior Taliban commander swapped sides.

* December 23-24

The acting head of the EU mission, Michael Semple, and the third-ranking UN diplomat in Afghanistan, Mervyn Patterson, hold talks with local dignitaries and Taliban sympathisers in Helmand. Afghan secret police arrest their colleague, General Stanikzai, and seize a memory stick containing plans for training camps.

* December 25

Semple and Patterson are given 48 hours in which to leave Kabul.

* December 27

The two diplomats fly out of the Afghan capital, despite international appeals to let them stay.

Sunday Times: illegal bugging of Muslim MP - Wilson Doctrine breached ?

Spy Blog

The Sunday Times leads with an interesting scoop, involving two topics about which we have written about here on Spy Blog, namely the Wilson Doctrine executive administrative prohibition on tapping or bugging the communications of Members of Parliament, and the controversial attempt by the US government to extradite British Muslim IT technician Babar Ahmad to the USA, without presenting any prima facie evidence to a British Court.

From The Sunday Times February 3, 2008 Police bugged Muslim MP Sadiq KhanInsight: Michael Gillard and Jonathan Calvert

SCOTLAND YARD’S anti-terrorist squad secretly bugged a high-profile Labour Muslim MP during private meetings with one of his constituents.

Sadiq Khan, now a government whip, was recorded by an electronic listening device hidden in a table during visits to the constituent in prison.

Sadiq Khan MP for Tooting has an almost perfect record of supporting and voting in the most repressive Labour legislation e.g. Terrorism, Extradition, and ID Cards etc.

A document seen by The Sunday Times shows there was internal concern about the propriety of bugging an MP, who was also a lawyer, but the operation nevertheless went ahead.The disclosure will put further pressure on Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, who will be asked to explain why his officers apparently breached government rules by bugging the MP – and if he authorised it.

The bugging of MPs is a breach of a government edict that has barred law agencies from eavesdropping on politicians since the bugging scandal of Harold Wilson’s government. There was no suspicion of criminal conduct by Khan to justify the operation.

The original Wilson Doctrine only applied to to landline telephone conversation of Members of the House of Commons (mobile phones and internet email had net yet even been invented back in 1966).

However the Wilson Doctrine seems to have been extended slightly under Tony Blair in 2000 to also cover electronic surveillance i.e. “bugging”, as well.

Written answers Wednesday, 27 September 2000Lord Roper (Liberal Democrat)

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

[…]

Whether they will extend the prohibition on tapping the telephones of Members of Parliament to the interception of any form of electronic communication.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office) |

[…]

Further, pursuant to the answers given to the Lord Balfour of Inchrye by The Lord Privy Seal on 22 November 1966 (Official Report, col. 122) stating that, exceptionally, the statement made by the Prime Minister extends to the House of Lords, the Government can confirm that the policy described in previous answers applies in relation to the use of electronic surveillance as well as to telephone interception.

See our Wilson Doctrine category archive for more blog articles and transcripts.

[…]

Last night Jack Straw, the justice secretary, said that he had ordered an immediate inquiry and added that it would be “unacceptable” for such a bugging operation to take place.

Jack Straw’s Ministry of Justice is in charge of Prisons (see below), but he has no power of the Police, especially not over the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, as they are now called.

There was no mention of this intrusive electronic surveillance of a Member of Parliament in the relevant Annual Reports of the then Chief Surveillance Commissioner, the Rt. Hon. Sir Andrew Leggatt, whose office is supposed to sanction each request to use such bugging devices.

If the bugging was done without informing the Office of the Chief Surveillance Commissioner, then it was illegal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

Will the current Chief Surveillance Commissioner, the Rt Hon Sir Christopher Rose investigate these Sunday Times allegations ?

Will the Independent Police Complaints Commission conduct an investigation ?

Will the House of Commons investigate this breach of Parliamentary Privilege ?

Will anyone actually shoulder the responsibility for this scandal ?

[…]The bugging operation recorded conversations with his constituent, Babar Ahmad, who is facing deportation to the United States under new extradition laws. Khan has been a friend of Ahmad since childhood and has been a prominent campaigner against his extradition. He met the home secretary to discuss the case and handed over a petition of 18,000 signatures calling for Ahmad’s release.

The US government has accused Ahmad of running a website that raised funds for Taliban and Chechen terrorists in the late 1990s. He faces no charges in Britain but is wanted in the United States because his website was registered there.

Neither the Chechen rebels nor the Taliban were illegal organisations in the UK at the time, and even today, scandalously, they are still not on the List of Proscribed Terrorist Groups under the Terrorism Act 2000 !

See also

• Babar Ahmad extradition - the US authorities seem to be clutching at straws
• Babar Ahmad and PGP encryption
• Why is Babar Ahmad being extradited to the USA and not being charged in the UK ?

Khan made two visits to Ahmad in 2005 and 2006 while he was on remand at Woodhill prison in Milton Keynes. Both meetings were secretly recorded. Ahmad’s family say he arranged the meetings because he was no longer free to go Khan’s constituency office in Tooting, south London, and wanted to see his MP.Knowing that Khan was coming, the antiterrorist squad requested the bugging. Senior officers had already granted authori-sation to bug Ahmad’s guests before Khan first visited. The officers had previously recorded family members who were leading the campaign to free him.

On what grounds was the bugging of Babar Ahmad’s family visits authorised by the anti-terrorism Police ?

The meetings took place in the main visitors’ hall where each inmate is allocated an identical wooden table. Underneath the tables is a solid wood partition that separates prisoners from their visitors.However, The Sunday Times has learnt that at least six of the tables have had their panels hollowed out to hide bugging equipment. They are known as “talking tables” . Inside each panel is a microphone, a battery, an antenna and a transmitter.

Such is the secrecy surrounding these tables that even the prison officers are said to be unaware of them. They are operated and maintained by specialist detectives permanently based at the prison.

The second meeting between Khan and Ahmad took place on the Saturday morning of June 24, 2006, during a crucial period for his campaign and legal case. Khan bought cups of tea and chocolate bars and joined Ahmad who had already been seated at one of the “talking tables”.

Every word was transmitted to a receiver in the domed ceiling above them and then routed to a nearby office. The digital recording was picked up by an antiterrorist branch officer the next Monday morning.

If there was nobody bothering to listen in to the conversations “live”", they cannot have suspected any sort of imminent criminal conspiracy such as a prison escape or some terrorist attack

During the conversation the two men discussed the latest developments in the campaign against extradition. Khan up-dated Ahmad on a meeting in the House of Commons against the 2003 Extradition Act.The Commons gathering had drawn support from politicians of all parties who had objected to changes in the law that allowed the United States to extradite suspects without first testing the case in a British court.

The antiterrorist officers would have heard Khan and Ahmad discussing tactics for his appeal, which was due to start shortly. The two men also talked about the civil case he was taking against the police, alleging that he was physically assaulted by officers when he was first arrested in December 2003 and released without charge.

[…]

Meanwhile, Khan was promoted to assistant government whip in the Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for prisons.

The Sunday Times told him about the bugging operation last week. A friend said the disclosure might further undermine the government’s attempt to “reengage” the Muslim community. He said: “If he was not a Muslim MP would they be doing this? If it had been some ordinary white middle-class MP, would they have been bugged?” He added that this was a violation of an MP’s relationship with his constituent: “If you have not got the confidence to see your MP and know it is privileged, then that raises serious questions. It is f****** outrageous.”

The bugging is a probable breach of the Wilson doctrine that has protected politicians from eavesdropping by the security services for more than 40 years. It was introduced by Harold Wilson, then prime minister, and was reaffirmed in the Commons by Tony Blair as recently as March 2006.

That is poor research by the Sunday Time’s supposedly elite investigative journalism Insight team. They should have mentioned that the Wilson Doctrine was also reaffirmed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown on 17th July 2007 and again on 17th September 2007

Yesterday a senior Scotland Yard officer said Khan’s work as a defence lawyer had generated “ill feeling” in the Metropolitan police and questioned whether the force had legitimate grounds for the bugging. The officer said: “To do this you have to suspect the MP of being involved in some sort of conspiracy.”He added that the operation may have breached Ahmad’s legal privilege: “The officers in charge would have known that because Khan is an MP and a lawyer there was a grave danger that the legal professional privilege would be breached.”

Ahmad remains in jail having lost his appeals in Britain and is awaiting a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. He has also lodged a civil claim against Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner. Ahmad’s wife Maryam has called for the home secretary to investigate the police bugging operation.

Last week an official report suggested that authorities, including local councils, were launching bugging operations against 1,000 people a day.

More poor research by the Insight team !

There is a big difference between “bugging operations” like the one described in this article, involving hidden microphones or video cameras and radio transmitters, and the interception of electronic or postal communications e.g. the contents of telephones calls or emails etc.

Last week’s “official report” was the delayed Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner for 2006 by the Rt. Hon. Sir Paul Kennedy.

That report does not make any such claim, it gives a figure for requests for Communications Traffic Data by local councils end other Government quangos and the Police and intelligence agencies, but the vast majority of these are for telephone number subscriber details, not for the contents of the conversations, - this is not “bugging”.

[…]

Will the medium level (Superintendent) Police officers who authorised this bugging, or the junior operatives who carried it out, be made to take the blame for this scandal, or will someone senior actually do the honourable thing and resign ?

Jason BeattieThe Labour Party received thousands of pounds from an offshoot of Scientology, the Evening Standard reveals today.

The decision to accept money from a charity linked to the controversial cult was taken at the highest level by members of the National Executive Committee.

They allowed the charity, the Association for Better Living and Education (ABLE), to take a stall at the party’s annual conference in Manchester.

Exhibitors at the conference have to pay up to Pounds 13,500.

The stand was part of an extensive lobbying operation by Scientology members to promote its drug treatment programme, Narconon, and the criminal rehabilitation scheme Criminon.

Correspondence obtained by the Evening Standard under the Freedom of Information Act reveals how Graeme Wilson of the Church of Scientology met Baroness Scotland - then a Home Office minister - in Manchester in September.

Baroness Scotland was later invited to attend the opening of the Scientology’s new base in London and was handed information about Narconon.

The invitation was passed to drugs minister Vernon Coaker who declined it to “due to diary commitments”. Critics of Narconon claim it is a front for Scientology, a “religion” founded by science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard which counts John Travolta and Tom Cruise among its devotees.

Labour allowed ABLE to exhibit despite concerns about Scientology and its offshoots. The director of the Prison Service has said that Narconon is not a “validated programme” and has advised against its use as a treatment.

Drugs charity Addaction also opposes the programme saying it is “not scientifically sound”.

Labour confirmed he decision to accept money from the Scientologists to exhibit was taken by a committee of the NEC.

NEC members include Gordon Brown and party chairman Hazel Blears.

A Labour Party conference spokesman said the money received was a business transaction and did not constitute a donation. He added: “Approval for organisationslooking to attend conferences is made after careful consideration by the NEC board. We do reserve the right to exclude an organisation but in this case approval was given.”

He added: “We do not comment on individual exhibitors but every year exhibitors represent a range of views and opinions. Their policies may not always reflect those of the Labour Party.”

In addition to the conference stand, ABLE staged a “state-of-the- art exhibition” in a hotel near the Manchester centre “for Members of Parliament and others attending the conference”.

Scientology’s lobbying follows revelations that followers arranged talks on drugs at schools through Narconon. A Home Office spokeswoman said it did not meet the standards required by the National Offender Management Service.

“The view is that drug treatment needs to be evidence based,” she said.