Home Office accounting system scandal - the legacy of Sir John Gieve and David Blunkett ?

| | Comments (0)

The National Audit Office have published a report on 31st January 2006:

Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the Home Office
Resource Accounts 2004-05
(.pdf)

which, despite the obviously toned down language, and the usual claims that "it is all being sorted out now", cannot conceal the utter chaos and mismanagement which the introduction of a new Adelphi computer system, planned for and introduced under the notorious former Home Secretary David Blunkett and Sir John Gieve.

Sir John Bourn, the Comptroller and Auditor General wrote

To inform Parliament that the Home Office has not met the statutory reporting timetable in respect of its 2004-05 resource accounts;

[...]

I cannot form an opinion on the truth and fairness of the Home Office financial statements for 2004-05

[...]

That is as strong a condemnation of incompetent financial management as any auditor is likely to utter.

It is as astonishing as it is unacceptable, that a major Central Government Department like the Home Office cannot be trusted to account for the money it spends on our behalf.

If a private sector organisation had mismanged its financial affairs as badly as this, then the people in charge would be outt of a job forthwith.

Will the Home Secretary Charles Clarke, whom in theory bears resposibility for this David Blunkett legacy, have the honour to resign ?

What about the "Sir Humphrey" , the Permanent Secretary and therfore the Accounting Officer of the Home Department at the time. i.e. SIr John Gieve.

Sir John is now the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, with a vote on the level of the Bankk of England's official Interest Rates, which affect the entire UK economy !

Naturally, as with any largescale cockup these days, the "new computer system" is blamed.

However, this is not a new, bleeding edge technology system such as the proposed centralised biometric database National Identity Register, it is simply:

13. Adelphi is the Home Office’s new, Oracle based, integrated finance, human resource and procurement system. In May 2004, the Home Office implemented the accounting module which was designed to automate manual processes, bring greater efficiency and control and improve the timeliness and quality of information.

It is not as if the Home Office had not been warned of the risks:

14. In my report on the 2002-03 Home Office Resource Accounts I highlighted some of the key risks to the Department which could damage successful implementation of the new accounting system. Not all of these risks were adequately addressed and various problems arose during implementation.

IBM appears to the the "Home Office contractor" who is responsible for supplying the Home Office Adelphi Shared Services Programme"

There are plenty of organisations around the world which handle a similar amount of money and employ a similar number of people, who manage their financial affairs properly with the aid of a computerised system.

The blame obviously does not lie with the technology, but rather with the attitudes of the senior manegers and civil servants at the Home Office.

Th NAO reports that the Home Office:

  • Could not reconcile their cash bank balances, to the tune of £ 3 million or so, but they "do not suspect any fraud" - how, exactly can they tell for sure ?

  • The Adelphi system appeared to be unable to deal properly with failed Bank Automated Clearing System payements i.e. a bog standard function of a large accounting system.

  • There were lax financial controls and insufficient audit trails.

  • Subsequent investigations showd that £946 million of "adjustments" had to be made to the accounts.

    "To illustrate the scale of the movements: the amount owed to the Exchequer by the Home Office of £68 million in the September draft accounts became an amount owed by the Exchequer to the Home Office of £112 million in the December draft accounts".

    If the only aspects of the criticism in the NAO report were to do with a few accounting errors, then that would be bad enough, but there appear to be serious potentiaql security problems as well:

    15. Additionally, reviews carried out by the Home Office's Audit and Assurance Unit (the internal audit function) and by my staff revealed significant control weaknesses within the main accounting systems. The reviews found control weaknesses within key Information Technology applications including access to the system, inadequate segregation of duties, the creation of standing data and the ability to interrogate and monitor changes made. These weaknesses made access to the database by unauthorised staff possible, representing a risk to the integrity of Adelphi data and exposing the Home Office to a greater risk of fraud and error. The Home Office has now taken significant steps to address these weaknesses.

    [....]

    21. As noted earlier, controls over the accounting system during 2004-05 were weak and the Home Office is taking action to address the:

  • Poor controls and weaknesses in the audit trails maintained over the assignment of access rights;

  • Absence of checks made against Human Resources records to ensure that new users are authorised, and leavers are removed promptly; and

  • Absence of controls to detect unauthorised access to the database.

    22. In addition, in my opinion, there are weaknesses in the contractual arrangements over the new accounting system in respect of:

    • Over reliance on the Home Office contractor to undertake security checks, and a lack of effective processes to address the risks this exposes the Department to; and

    • Unmonitored access to the database by the Home Office’s contractor, and over reliance on the contractor’s expertise, for example in report production.

      [...]

      Purchase order levels and overall contract amounts can be exceeded without being challenged;

    • Contract letting and extension procedures were not always followed properly. On one significant contract a contract extension was granted at short notice, which was not allowed in the original contract, and serious deficiencies in this contract were not addressed;

    • Key reconciliations such as those between the register of fixed assets and the general ledger, between the payroll system and the general ledger, and headcount had not been performed routinely; and

    • Management did not routinely review key reconciliations and take action where appropriate.

  • None of this gives us any confidence that the Home Office is institutionally capable of implementing or running their proposed National Identity Register / ID Card scheme, without similar project disaters, but on a far larger scale.

  • Leave a comment

    About this blog

    This United Kingdom based blog attempts to draw public attention to, and comments on, some of the current trends in ever cheaper and more widespread surveillance technology being deployed to satisfy the rapacious demand by state and corporate bureaucracies and criminals for your private details, and the technological ignorance of our politicians and civil servants who frame our legal systems.

    The hope is that you the readers, will help to insist that strong safeguards for the privacy of the individual are implemented, especially in these times of increased alert over possible terrorist or criminal activity. If the systems which should help to protect us can be easily abused to supress our freedoms, then the terrorists will have won.

    We know that there are decent, honest, trustworthy individual politicians, civil servants, law enforcement, intelligence agency personnel and broadcast, print and internet journalists etc., who often feel powerless or trapped in the system. They need the assistance of external, detailed, informed, public scrutiny to help them to resist deliberate or unthinking policies, which erode our freedoms and liberties.

    Email Contact

    Please feel free to email your views about this blog, or news about the issues it tries to comment on.

    blog@spy[dot]org[dot]uk

    Our PGP public encryption key is available for those correspondents who wish to send us news or information in confidence, and also for those of you who value your privacy, even if you have got nothing to hide.

    pgp-now.gif
    You can download a free copy of the PGP encryption software from www.pgpi.org
    (available for most of the common computer operating systems, and also in various Open Source versions like GPG)

    We look forward to the day when UK Government Legislation, Press Releases and Emails etc. are Digitally Signed under the HMG PKI Root Certificate hierarchy so that we can be assured that they are not fakes. Trusting that the digitally signed content makes any sense, is another matter entirely.

    Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers and Political Dissidents

    Please take the appropriate precautions if you are planning to blow the whistle on shadowy and powerful people in Government or commerce, and their dubious policies. The mainstream media and bloggers also need to take simple precautions to help preserve the anonymity of their sources e.g. see Spy Blog's Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers - or use this easier to remember link: http://ht4w.co.uk

    BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

    Digital Security & Privacy for Human Rights Defenders manual, by Irish NGO Frontline Defenders.

    Everyone’s Guide to By-Passing Internet Censorship for Citizens Worldwide (.pdf - 31 pages), by the Citizenlab at the University of Toronto.

    Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents - March 2008 version - (2.2 Mb - 80 pages .pdf) by Reporters Without Borders

    Reporters Guide to Covering the Beijing Olympics by Human Rights Watch.

    A Practical Security Handbook for Activists and Campaigns (v 2.6) (.doc - 62 pages), by experienced UK direct action political activists

    Convention on Modern Liberty - 28th Feb 2009

    Convention on Modern Liberty - 28th Feb 2009
    Convention on Modern Liberty - 28th Feb 2009

    The Convention is being held in the Logan Hall and adjoining rooms at the Institute of Education in Bloomsbury, central London.

    Address: >p> The Institute of Education
    20 Bedford Way
    London
    WC1H 0AL

    There are video linked screenings or other parallel meetings being held across the UK in Belfast. Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff and Manchester.

    Convention on Modern Liberty blog

    David Davis for Freedom

    Links

    Watching Them, Watching Us

    London 2600

    Our UK Freedom of Information Act request tracking blog

    WikiLeak.org - ethical and technical discussion about the WikiLeaks.org project for anonymous mass leaking of documents etc.

    Privacy and Security

    Privacy International
    Privacy and Human Rights Survey 2004

    Cryptome - censored or leaked government documents etc.

    Identity Project report by the London School of Economics
    Surveillance & Society the fully peer-reviewed transdisciplinary online surveillance studies journal

    Statewatch - monitoring the state and civil liberties in the European Union

    The Policy Laundering Project - attempts by Governments to pretend their repressive surveillance systems, have to be introduced to comply with international agreements, which they themselves have pushed for in the first place

    International Campaign Against Mass Surveillance

    ARCH Action Rights for Children in Education - worried about the planned Children's Bill Database, Connexions Card, fingerprinting of children, CCTV spy cameras in schools etc.

    Foundation for Information Policy Research
    UK Crypto - UK Cryptography Policy Discussion Group email list

    Technical Advisory Board on internet and telecomms interception under RIPA

    European Digital Rights

    Open Rights Group - a UK version of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a clearinghouse to raise digital rights and civil liberties issues with the media and to influence Governments.

    Digital Rights Ireland - legal case against mandatory EU Comms Data Retention etc.

    Blindside - "What’s going to go wrong in our e-enabled world? " blog and wiki and Quarterly Report will supposedly be read by the Cabinet Office Central Sponsor for Information Assurance. Whether the rest of the Government bureaucracy and the Politicians actually listen to the CSIA, is another matter.

    Biometrics in schools - 'A concerned parent who doesn't want her children to live in "1984" type society.'

    Human Rights

    Liberty Human Rights campaigners

    British Institute of Human Rights
    Amnesty International
    Justice

    Prevent Genocide International

    asboconcern - campaign for reform of Anti-Social Behavior Orders

    Front Line Defenders - Irish charity - Defenders of Human Rights Defenders

    Internet Censorship

    OpenNet Initiative - researches and measures the extent of actual state level censorship of the internet. Features a blocked web URL checker and censorship map.

    Committee to Protect Bloggers - "devoted to the protection of bloggers worldwide with a focus on highlighting the plight of bloggers threatened and imprisoned by their government."

    Reporters without Borders internet section - news of internet related censorship and repression of journalists, bloggers and dissidents etc.

    Judicial Links

    British and Irish Legal Information Institute - publishes the full text of major case Judgments

    Her Majesty's Courts Service - publishes forthcoming High Court etc. cases (but only in the next few days !)

    House of Lords - The Law Lords are currently the supreme court in the UK - will be moved to the new Supreme Court in October 2009.

    Information Tribunal - deals with appeals under FOIA, DPA both for and against the Information Commissioner

    Investigatory Powers Tribunal - deals with complaints about interception and snooping under RIPA - has almost never ruled in favour of a complainant.

    Parliamentary Opposition

    Home Office Watch blog, "a single repository of all the shambolic errors and mistakes made by the British Home Office compiled from Parliamentary Questions, news reports, and tip-offs by the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team."

    UK Government

    Home Office - "Not fit for purpose. It is inadequate in terms of its scope, it is inadequate in terms of its information technology, leadership, management systems and processes" - Home Secretary John Reid. 23rd May 2006. Not quite the fount of all evil legislation in the UK, but close.

    No. 10 Downing Street Prime Minister's Official Spindoctors

    Public Bills before Parliament

    United Kingdom Parliament
    Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons.

    House of Commons "Question Book"

    UK Statute Law Database - is the official revised edition of the primary legislation of the United Kingdom made available online, but it is not yet up to date.

    FaxYourMP - identify and then fax your Member of Parliament
    WriteToThem - identify and then contact your Local Councillors, members of devolved assemblies, Member of Parliament, Members of the European Parliament etc.
    They Work For You - House of Commons Hansard made more accessible ? UK Members of the European Parliament

    Read The Bills Act - USA proposal to force politicians to actually read the legislation that they are voting for, something which is badly needed in the UK Parliament.

    Bichard Inquiry delving into criminal records and "soft intelligence" policies highlighted by the Soham murders. (taken offline by the Home Office)

    ACPO - Association of Chief Police Officers - England, Wales and Northern Ireland
    ACPOS Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland

    Online Media

    Boing Boing

    Need To Know [now defunct]

    The Register

    NewsNow Encryption and Security aggregate news feed
    KableNet - UK Government IT project news
    PublicTechnology.net - UK eGovernment and public sector IT news
    eGov Monitor

    Ideal Government - debate about UK eGovernment

    NIR and ID cards

    Stand - email and fax campaign on ID Cards etc. [Now defunct]. The people who supported stand.org.uk have gone on to set up other online tools like WriteToThem.com. The Government's contemptuous dismissal of over 5,000 individual responses via the stand.org website to the Home Office public consultation on Entitlement Cards is one of the factors which later led directly to the formation of the the NO2ID Campaign who have been marshalling cross party opposition to Labour's dreadful National Identity Register compulsory centralised national biometric database and ID Card plans, at the expense of simpler, cheaper, less repressive, more effective, nore secure and more privacy friendly alternative identity schemes.

    NO2ID - opposition to the Home Office's Compulsory Biometric ID Card
    NO2ID bulletin board discussion forum

    Home Office Identity Cards website
    No compulsory national Identity Cards (ID Cards) BBC iCan campaign site
    UK ID Cards blog
    NO2ID press clippings blog
    CASNIC - Campaign to STOP the National Identity Card.
    Defy-ID active meetings and protests in Glasgow
    www.idcards-uk.info - New Alliance's ID Cards page
    irefuse.org - total rejection of any UK ID Card

    International Civil Aviation Organisation - Machine Readable Travel Documents standards for Biometric Passports etc.
    Anti National ID Japan - controversial and insecure Jukinet National ID registry in Japan
    UK Biometrics Working Group run by CESG/GCHQ experts etc. the UK Government on Biometrics issues feasability
    Citizen Information Project feasability study population register plans by the Treasury and Office of National Statistics

    CommentOnThis.com - comments and links to each paragraph of the Home Office's "Strategic Action Plan for the National Identity Scheme".

    De-Materialised ID - "The voluntary alternative to material ID cards, A Proposal by David Moss of Business Consultancy Services Ltd (BCSL)" - well researched analysis of the current Home Office scheme, and a potentially viable alternative.

    Surveillance Infrastructures

    National Roads Telecommunications Services project - infrastruture for various mass surveillance systems, CCTV, ANPR, PMMR imaging etc.

    CameraWatch - independent UK CCTV industry lobby group - like us, they also want more regulation of CCTV surveillance systems.

    Every Step You Take a documentary about CCTV surveillance in the Uk by Austrian film maker Nino Leitner.

    Transport for London an attempt at a technological panopticon - London Congestion Charge, London Low-Emission Zone, Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras, tens of thousands of CCTV cameras on buses, thousands of CCTV cameras on London Underground, realtime road traffic CCTV, Iyster smart cards - all handed over to the Metropolitan Police for "national security" purposes, in real time, in bulk, without any public accountibility, for secret data mining, exempt from even the usual weak protections of the Data Protection Act 1998.

    RFID Links

    RFID tag privacy concerns - our own original article updated with photos

    NoTags - campaign against individual item RFID tags
    Position Statement on the Use of RFID on Consumer Products has been endorsed by a large number of privacy and human rights organisations.
    RFID Privacy Happenings at MIT
    Surpriv: RFID Surveillance and Privacy
    RFID Scanner blog
    RFID Gazette
    The Sorting Door Project

    RFIDBuzz.com blog - where we sometimes crosspost RFID articles

    Genetic Links

    DNA Profiles - analysis by Paul Nutteing
    GeneWatch UK monitors genetic privacy and other issues
    Postnote February 2006 Number 258 - National DNA Database (.pdf) - Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology

    The National DNA Database Annual Report 2004/5 (.pdf) - published by the NDNAD Board and ACPO.

    Miscellanous Links

    Michael Field - Pacific Island news - no longer a paradise
    freetotravel.org - John Gilmore versus USA internal flight passports and passenger profiling etc.

    The BUPA Seven - whistleblowers badly let down by the system.

    Tax Credit Overpayment - the near suicidal despair inflicted on poor, vulnerable people by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown's disasterous Inland Revenue IT system.

    Fassit UK - resources and help for those abused by the Social Services Childrens Care bureaucracy

    Former Spies

    MI6 v Tomlinson - Richard Tomlinson - still being harassed by his former employer MI6

    Martin Ingram, Welcome To The Dark Side - former British Army Intelligence operative in Northern Ireland.

    Operation Billiards - Mitrokhin or Oshchenko ? Michael John Smith - seeking to overturn his Official Secrets Act conviction in the GEC case.

    The Dirty Secrets of MI5 & MI6 - Tony Holland, Michael John Smith and John Symond - stories and chronologies.

    Naked Spygirl - Olivia Frank

    Blog Links

    e-nsecure.net blog - Comments on IT security and Privacy or the lack thereof.
    Rat's Blog -The Reverend Rat writes about London street life and technology
    Duncan Drury - wired adventures in Tanzania & London
    Dr. K's blog - Hacker, Author, Musician, Philosopher

    David Mery - falsely arrested on the London Tube - you could be next.

    James Hammerton
    White Rose - a thorn in the side of Big Brother
    Big Blunkett
    Into The Machine - formerly "David Blunkett is an Arse" by Charlie Williams and Scribe
    infinite ideas machine - Phil Booth
    Louise Ferguson - City of Bits
    Chris Lightfoot
    Oblomovka - Danny O'Brien

    Liberty Central

    dropsafe - Alec Muffett
    The Identity Corner - Stefan Brands
    Kim Cameron - Microsoft's Identity Architect
    Schneier on Security - Bruce Schneier
    Politics of Privacy Blog - Andreas Busch
    solarider blog

    Richard Allan - former Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam
    Boris Johnson Conservative MP for Henley
    Craig Murray - former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, "outsourced torture" whistleblower

    Howard Rheingold - SmartMobs
    Global Guerrillas - John Robb
    Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends

    Vmyths - debunking computer security hype

    Nick Leaton - Random Ramblings
    The Periscope - Companion weblog to Euro-correspondent.com journalist network.
    The Practical Nomad Blog Edward Hasbrouck on Privacy and Travel
    Policeman's Blog
    World Weary Detective

    Martin Stabe
    Longrider
    B2fxxx - Ray Corrigan
    Matt Sellers
    Grits for Breakfast - Scott Henson in Texas
    The Green Ribbon - Tom Griffin
    Guido Fawkes blog - Parliamentary plots, rumours and conspiracy.
    The Last Ditch - Tom Paine
    Murky.org
    The (e)State of Tim - Tim Hicks
    Ilkley Against CCTV
    Tim Worstall
    Bill's Comment Page - Bill Cameron
    The Society of Qualified Archivists
    The Streeb-Greebling Diaries - Bob Mottram

    Your Right To Know - Heather Brooke - Freedom off Information campaigning journalist

    Ministry of Truth _ Unity's V for Vendetta styled blog.

    Bloggerheads - Tim Ireland

    W. David Stephenson blogs on homeland security et al.
    EUrophobia - Nosemonkey

    Blogzilla - Ian Brown

    BlairWatch - Chronicling the demise of the New Labour Project

    dreamfish - Robert Longstaff

    Informaticopia - Rod Ward

    War-on-Freedom

    The Musings of Harry

    Chicken Yoghurt - Justin McKeating

    The Red Tape Chronicles - Bob Sullivan MSNBC

    Campaign Against the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

    Stop the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

    Rob Wilton's esoterica

    panGloss - Innovation, Technology and the Law

    Arch Rights - Action on Rights for Children blog

    Database Masterclass - frequently asked questions and answers about the several centralised national databases of children in the UK.

    Shaphan

    Moving On

    Steve Moxon blog - former Home Office whistleblower and author.

    Al-Muhajabah's Sundries - anglophile blog

    Architectures of Control in Design - Dan Lockton

    rabenhorst - Kai Billen (mostly in German)

    Nearly Perfect Privacy - Tiffany and Morpheus

    Iain Dale's Diary - a popular Conservative political blog

    Brit Watch - Public Surveillance in the UK - Web - Email - Databases - CCTV - Telephony - RFID - Banking - DNA

    BLOGDIAL

    MySecured.com - smart mobile phone forensics, information security, computer security and digital forensics by a couple of Australian researchers

    Ralph Bendrath

    Financial Cryptography - Ian Grigg et al.

    UK Liberty - A blog on issues relating to liberty in the UK

    Big Brother State - "a small act of resistance" to the "sustained and systematic attack on our personal freedom, privacy and legal system"

    HosReport - "Crisis. Conspiraciones. Enigmas. Conflictos. Espionaje." - Carlos Eduardo Hos (in Spanish)

    "Give 'em hell Pike!" - Frank Fisher

    Corruption-free Anguilla - Good Governance and Corruption in Public Office Issues in the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla in the West Indies - Don Mitchell CBE QC

    geeklawyer - intellectual property, civil liberties and the legal system

    PJC Journal - I am not a number, I am a free Man - The Prisoner

    Charlie's Diary - Charlie Stross

    The Caucus House - blog of the Chicago International Model United Nations

    Famous for 15 Megapixels

    Postman Patel

    The 4th Bomb: Tavistock Sq Daniel's 7:7 Revelations - Daniel Obachike

    OurKingdom - part of OpenDemocracy - " will discuss Britain’s nations, institutions, constitution, administration, liberties, justice, peoples and media and their principles, identity and character"

    Beau Bo D'Or blog by an increasingly famous digital political cartoonist.

    Between Both Worlds - "Thoughts & Ideas that Reflect the Concerns of Our Conscious Evolution" - Kingsley Dennis

    Bloggerheads: The Alisher Usmanov Affair - the rich Uzbek businessman and his shyster lawyers Schillings really made a huge counterproductive error in trying to censor the blogs of Tim Ireland, of all people.

    Matt Wardman political blog analysis

    Henry Porter on Liberty - a leading mainstream media commentator and opinion former who is doing more than most to help preserve our freedom and liberty.

    HMRC is shite - "dedicated to the taxpayers of Britain, and the employees of the HMRC, who have to endure the monumental shambles that is Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC)."

    Head of Legal - Carl Gardner a former legal advisor to the Government

    The Landed Underclass - Voice of the Banana Republic of Great Britain

    Henrik Alexandersson - Swedish blogger threatened with censorship by the Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA), the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishement, their equivalent of the UK GCHQ or the US NSA.

    World's First Fascist Democracy - blog with link to a Google map - "This map is an attempt to take a UK wide, geographical view, of both the public and the personal effect of State sponsored fear and distrust as seen through the twisted technological lens of petty officials and would be bureaucrats nationwide."

    Blogoir - Charles Crawford - former UK Ambassodor to Poland etc.

    No CCTV - The Campaign against CCTV

    Barcode Nation - keeping two eyes on the database state.

    Other Links

    Spam Huntress - The Norwegian Spam Huntress - Ann Elisabeth

    Fuel Crisis Blog - Petrol over £1 per litre ! Protest !
    Mayor of London Blog
    London Olympics 2012 - NO !!!!

    Cool Britannia

    Identity Cards Bill clause by clause analysis and comments

    NuLabour

    Free Gary McKinnon - UK citizen facing extradition to the USA for "hacking" over 90 US Military computer systems.

    Parliament Protest - information and discussion on peaceful resistance to the arbitrary curtailment of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, in the excessive Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 Designated Area around Parliament Square in London.

    RIPA Consultations

    RIPA Part III consultation blog - Government access to Encrypted Information and Encryption Keys.

    RIPA Part I Chapter II consultation blog - Government access and disclosure of Communications Traffic Data

    Syndicate this site (XML):

    January 2009

    Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1 2 3
    4 5 6 7 8 9 10
    11 12 13 14 15 16 17
    18 19 20 21 22 23 24
    25 26 27 28 29 30 31

    UK Legislation

    The United Kingdom suffers from tens of thousands of pages of complicated criminal laws, and thousands of new, often unenforceable criminal offences, which have been created as a "Pretend to be Seen to Be Doing Something" response to tabloid media hype and hysteria, and political social engineering dogmas. These overbroad, catch-all laws, which remove the scope for any judicial appeals process, have been rubber stamped, often without being read, let alone properly understood, by Members of Parliament.

    The text of many of these Acts of Parliament are now online, but it is still too difficult for most people, including the police and criminal justice system, to work out the cumulative effect of all the amendments, even for the most serious offences involving national security or terrorism or serious crime.

    Many MPs do not seem to bother to even to actually read the details of the legislation which they vote to inflict on us.

    UK Legislation Links

    UK Statute Law Database - is the official revised edition of the primary legislation of the United Kingdom made available online, but it is not yet up to date.

    UK Commissioners

    UK Commissioners some of whom are meant to protect your privacy and investigate abuses by the bureaucrats.

    UK Intelligence Agencies

    intelligence_gov_uk_150.gif
    Intelligence.gov.uk - Cabinet Office hosted portal website to various UK Intelligence Agencies and UK Government intelligence committees and Commissioners etc.

    0800 789 321 free, confidential, Anti-Terrorist Hotline (use 999 or 112 to report immediate threats)
    Anti-terrorism hotline 0800 789 321 free and confidential - use 999 or 112 to report immediate threats.

    MI5 encrypted contact web form use 999 or 112 to report immediate threats
    Encrypted MI5 web response form NuLabour's "Climate of Fear" is not the same as the real fight against terror.

    syf_logo_120.gif Secure Your Ferliliser logo
    Secure Your Fertiliser - advice on ammonium nitrate and urea fertiliser security

    cpni_logo_150.gif Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure
    Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure - "CPNI provides expert advice to the critical national infrastructure on physical, personnel and information security, to protect against terrorism and other threats."

    SIS MI6 careers_logo_sis.gif
    Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) recruitment.

    gchq_logo.gif
    Government Communications Headquarters GCHQ

    careers_logo_sis.gif
    Serious Organised Crime Agency - have cut themselves off from direct contact with the public and businesses - no phone - no email

    da_notice_system_150.gif
    Defence Advisory (DA) Notice system - voluntary self censorship by the established UK press and broadcast media regarding defence and intelligence topics via the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee.

    netcu_logo_150.gif National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit
    National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit - keeps a watch on animal extremists, genetically modified crop protesters, peace protesters etc.
    (some people think that the word salad of acronyms means that NETCU is a spoof website)

    Campaign Button Links

    Watching Them, Watching Us - UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign
    UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign

    NO2ID Campaign - cross party opposition to the NuLabour Compulsory Biometric ID Card
    NO2ID Campaign - cross party opposition to the NuLabour Compulsory Biometric ID Card and National Identity Register centralised database.

    Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.
    Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.

    FreeFarid_150.jpg
    FreeFarid.com - Kafkaesque extradition of Farid Hilali under the European Arrest Warrant to Spain

    Peaceful resistance to the curtailment of our rights to Free Assembly and Free Speech in the SOCPA Designated Area around Parliament Square and beyond
    Parliament Protest blog - resistance to the Designated Area restricting peaceful demonstrations or lobbying in the vicinity of Parliament.

    Petition to the European Commission and European Parliament against their vague Data Retention plans
    Data Retention is No Solution - Petition to the European Commission and European Parliament against their vague Data Retention plans.

    Save Parliament: Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)
    Save Parliament - Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)

    Open_Rights_Group.png
    Open Rights Group

    The Big Opt Out Campaign - opt out of having your NHS Care Record medical records and personal details stored insecurely on a massive national centralised database.

    Tor - the onion routing network
    Tor - the onion routing network - "Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves."

    irrepressible_banner_03.gif
    Amnesty International's irrepressible.info campaign

    anoniblog_150.png
    BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

    ngoiab_150.png
    NGO in a box - Security Edition privacy and security software tools

    homeofficewatch_150.jpg
    Home Office Watch blog, "a single repository of all the shambolic errors and mistakes made by the British Home Office compiled from Parliamentary Questions, news reports, and tip-offs by the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team."

    rsf_logo_150.gif
    Reporters Without Borders - Reporters Sans Frontières - campaign for journalists 'and bloggers' freedom in repressive countries and war zones.

    committee_to_protect_bloggers_150.gif
    Committee to Protect Bloggers - "devoted to the protection of bloggers worldwide with a focus on highlighting the plight of bloggers threatened and imprisoned by their government."

    Icelanders_are_NOT_Terrorists_logo_150.jpg
    Icelanders are NOT terrorists ! - despite Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling's use of anti-terrorism legislation to seize the assets of Icelandic banks.

    nocctv.gif
    No CCTV - The Campaign Against CCTV

    Technorati

    Technorati search

    » Blogs that link here