ReadNotify tracking journalists and their sources, or being used for disinformation ?

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Following on from our updated Home Office whistleblowers hints and tips, here is an example of the use being made by the attempted "web bug" tracking of emails, apparently using the same Australian ReadNotify email tracking service which was used unsuccessfully by Hewlett Packard to try to spy on journalists and its own executives and insiders.

[ via Martin Ingram, Welcome To The Dark Side. ]
(N.B. the original blog post "The IPCC leak and the Sunday Times story." seems to have been unpublished, but it is still out there in the Bloglines syndication feed cache)

However, we are not convinced that the supposed screenshots from the ReadNotify service do actually reveal any hidden relationship between a Sunday Times journalist and someone in the Independent Police Complaints Commission, in regard to "leaks" etc. about the investigation into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, at Stockwell Tube station in the panic after the bomb attacks and attempted bomb attacks in London in July 2005.

See the Smoke & Mirrors blog:

"The connection between the IPCC & Mr Clarke."

The email details of Liam Clarke, the Sunday Times journalist seem plausible enough::

Reader #1

liam.clarke@sunday-times.co.uk

via a corporate internet gateway at News International, part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire which owns the Sunday Times newspaper:

143.252.80.110 [woki1.newsint.co.uk]

Web browser User Agent: Moz/4.0 (MSIE 6.0; WinNT 5.1; SRV1;), implying the probable use of Windows XP computer.

However

Reader # 5 looks a bit suspicious

rachael.collins@ipcc.gsi.gov.uk

rachael.collin@ipcc.gsi.gov.uk

UPDATE 1st November 2006: see comment by John below, which rightly points out the missing "s" in the email address, i.e. collin rather than collin which casts further doubt on this entry.

Just in case these images disappear from the original blog, here is a copy:

2006_1029ipcc0001-small.jpg
- click for a larger image.
  • Rachael Collins is a Press Officer for the IPCC, whose contact details appear at the bottom of several IPCC Press releases e.g . 22 September 2005, For Immediate Release, IPCC Concludes Andrew Kernan Case:
    Rachael Collins, IPCC Press Officer on 020 7166 3142 or the out-of-hours duty press officer on 07717 851157.

    Rachael Collins
    Press Officer
    Independent Police Complaints Commission
    90 High Holborn
    London
    WC1V 6BH
    Tel: 020 7166 3142

    E: rachael.collins@ipcc.gsi.gov.uk


195.93.21.42 [cache-los-ab10.proxy.aol.com]

and

195.93.21.66 [cache-los-ac02.proxy.aol.com]

This is not normal for UK Government Secure Intranet (.gsi.gov.uk) users, who pop out of various Energis gateways to the internet.

e.g. gateway-201.energis.gsi.gov.uk [195.92.40.48]

GSI emails are also filtered for spam and viruses etc. by the third party Messagelabs service.


Why would an email, allegedly read at 08:48 (British Summer Time) on the 16th June 2006, a Friday, have been read on a computer system which is brreaking the rules for being connected to the Government Secure Intranet, by using AOL, without using a secure Virtual Private Network and firewall etc., which would have prevented the ReadNotify service from tracking the "web bugged" email.
?

Web browser User Agent: Moozilla

This is not normal for AOL users !

We suspect that even if the ReadNotify screenshots are genuine, that does not mean that the Rachael Collins IPCC entry is real, and so the whole foundation of this Smoke and Mirrors blog story seems to be suspect.

However, even if this were all genuine, what would this ReadNotify stuff actually show ?

It supposedly shows that an email with a hidden "web bug" graphic (and / orby use of an initial email read receipt etc.) , tracked by the ReadNotify service, was sent to several email addresses on 3rd June 2006, and that about half a dozen of the recipienst, either directly, or after having had the email forwarded on to them complete with the "web bug", insecurely read the email in HTML format, displaying the hidden graphic, allowing ReadNotify to sneakily glean some information about the proxy server gateway and the web browser which was used to read the email.

What relevance these June 2006 emails have to a Sunday Times story printed in January 2006 is a mystery.

Even if these ReadNotify screenshots did show that a Press Officer and a Journalist were in email contact with each other, which they do not, then so what - isn't that part of their normal activities ?

We remain sceptical of this "scoop", but it is an illustration of the dangers for journalists, bloggers and whistleblowers.

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Here we go again with the 90 th edition of those posts that you nominate, the ones you think we all ought to see. Apologies for the late posting, it was indeed necessary to see our boys put to the Read More

25 Comments

Martin Ingram Aka Ian Hurst is a liar.Soldier of Fortune.Mercenary.Only interested in making money.He is a con-man who will sell his lies to anyone who will pay for them.
The person who calls himself Martin ingram but is in fact ex Int Corps SSgt Ian Hurst (known as rocky) is a liar of the highest order. His book STEAKNIFE is almost complete fiction, as are his assertions that Martin McGUINNESS was an agent of the state. He is dementedly lying completely about his past service in FRU. He only ever served in sleepy backwaters of the Province and never came face to face with anyone except low level eyes and ears agents. He never ran STEAKNIFE or even met him. In short, his book is a complete fabrication based on god knows what. He endangers the lives of serving and former soldiers as well as civilians with his ridiculous fairy tales. Hopefully he will appear in court at some of the current inquiries and investigations so he can be shown to be the liar he really is.

This message comes from http://www.jackgrantham.blogspot.com/

@ "Jack Grantham" - so what do you think about the Smoke & Mirrors blog allegations about the Sunday Times and the IPCC ?

What has "Martin Ingram" done to annoy you so much, that you have 2 web blogs devoted to him ?


Jack grantham, Tomy Coldicott, is the one and only " Frank Doherty " The Great Pretender,Frank is obsessed with Martin Ingram, here are link's to covert recordings of Frank, also a blog site that has exposed Frank as the Fraud he is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0bWdEUzxxA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAIz2VxHb28

@ Martin - the first posting on the Frank, Land Grabber & Bullshitter Extraordinaire." blog to which you refer, interestingly also has a reference to ReadNotify style email tracking:

Last week Martin Ingram received an email to his website, this email contained advice from a person, this person warned Martin ingram that.

[...]

The email address used tonycld1213@yahoo.com The email address has now been traced to Frank Doherty, Frank thought he was a smart arse, after Frank sent his email to Ingram's website he ( Frank ) received a number of emails offering him help ( to get dirt on Martin Ingram, Fulton & Rosenfeld, & Willie Frazer of FAIR. ) what Frank didn't know was the emails had a trace inside them. Frank has even revealed the names of his police and British Army contacts.

If the implication that Police and British Army contacts' email addresses are being successfully tracked, by ReadNotify style "web bug" or similar techniques, is true, then this breach of security needs to be sorted out as soon as possible.

It is a pity that these various blogs dedicated to "dishing the dirt on" "revealing the truth" about their dedicated targets, either have Comments turned off, or limited to registered Blogger users only - there appears to be plenty of scope for "lively" discussions, which we might even be tempted to join in !

if you look very close at reader #5 you will see that the email address is for rachael collin, & not rachael collins, the first email address is said by the IPCC to never have existed, also Rachael collins has said she does Not know Liam Clarke, the email that Liam Clarke sent to this address was related to Martin Mc Guinness J118, the day before the story broke, Clarke did two stories in the Sunday Times, on the same day, one to rubbish the document that Martin Ingram had, Clarke did not put his name to this story, the other story he did, he agreed that Mc Guinness was indeed an Informer, you must remember Clarke is doing a book, the main thrust of his book was this same document,

@ John - well spotted !

Martin Ingram Aka Ian Hurst is the biggest bullshit artist on this planet.

@ Tony - that is a bold claim - there are many other candidates for that title.

Do you have any evidence to back it up ?

For the record I do not know Rachel Collins and she is not a source of mine. The only time I have ever sent her an e-mail was after I read the Smoke and Mirrors blog. At that point I e-mailed her asking her what it was all about. I have not recieved a reply.
I sent an e-mail to the bogus Rachel Collin address at the same time but it bounced back.
These claims are indeed bullshit.
It is also claimed about that I wrote two stories in the Sunday Times about J118, putting my name to one and not the other. This is not true. My name appeared on both stories and they did not contradict each other. One said the J118 document was almost certainly a fake. The other discussed the reasons some people thought that McGuinnness might be an informer and might believe the document.
Again for the record my worrking assumption is that the document is a fake and that McGuinness is not, and never was, an informer. However he was in contact with British intelligence for many years, and has admitted as much. As a result of his value as a contact he may well have been given some protection.
I am not working on any book claiming he is an informer or any book based on the J118 document. In fact I am not currently working on any book at all.
My wife Kathy Johnston and I have already written a biography of Martin McGuinness entitled "From Guns to Government" in which we briefly discuss the theory that he was an informer but discount it.

@ Liam - thanks for the clarification.

Have you looked through your emails to see if you were sent a ReadNotify tagged email ?

You may need to view the full message headers and body in plain text, not HTML.

It seems that ReadNotify has been used to help to track down someone involved in the recent Congressman Foley scandal in the USA, something which seems to have had adverse consequences for the whistle-blower, who has lost his job.

http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/13991763.html

http://www.floppingaces.net/2006/10/24/who-is-behind-stopsexpredators/

Liam Clarke said:

"It is also claimed about that I wrote two stories in the Sunday Times about J118, putting my name to one and not the other. This is not true. My name appeared on both stories"

Here is the link to the other Liam Clarke story, His name is Not on it.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-1507-2210039-3048,00.html

This is the story that Liam Clarke did put his name to, let's see you get out of this one Liam !!!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2765-2209998,00.html

These links aren't working for me. Perhaps they are out of date.
However I most certainly did put my name to both articles. It appears on them both on the paper I bought and on the Times Newspapers Editorial database.
Why would I not?
If it was omitted from a story on the website I know nothing about that.
I have pasted both stories from the database below.
++++++++++++
Headline: Security experts discredit claim that McGuinness was MI6 spy
Byline: Liam Clarke
Source: Sunday Times
Issue Date: Sunday June 04, 2006
Page: Eire News 1
Story Text:


A DOCUMENT purporting to show that Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, was an agent for MI6, Britain's secret intelligence service, is a fake, according to senior security sources.

It was obtained by Martin Ingram, a former agent handler with the British Army's force research unit, with the help of Kevin Fulton, a disgruntled former agent who is trying to pressurise his spymasters into paying him a pension.

The document was offered to the Sunday World and The Observer by a journalist who has worked extensively on stories with an intelligence angle. The Observer decided not to run it, neither did The Sunday Times, which obtained the document independently.

Ingram believes it is genuine, but last night Fulton said he knew nothing about it and had no idea whether it was authentic or not.

Ingram said the source of the document was a Special Branch officer who had worked with Fulton. Although Ingram had never met the officer, he had seen him leaving the document at a "dead letter box"
or secret pick-up point.

"I am satisfied by the authenticity of this source, who has provided useful information in the past," Ingram added. He gave the officer's name to The Sunday Times for purposes of authentication. He had been told the officer could not be contacted because he was on holiday abroad.

Inquiries have confirmed that no detective using the name mentioned by Ingram is serving with Special Branch or CID. Neither is this person on the electoral register nor in the phone book. A uniformed constable with a similar name is serving in Northern Ireland but he said he knew nothing of Fulton, Ingram or MI6.

The name was not included on a list of RUC "handlers" that Fulton had previously given to The Sunday Times. This indicates the name, like the document, is a fabrication.

There were no security markings on the document, as would be usual with secret papers. Ingram said there had been MI6 classification on the original document, but this had been removed to protect the source. Ingram, who lives abroad, refused to make the originals available and turned down a Sunday Times offer to fly him to the UK to recover them.

The McGuinness affair may be linked to Fulton's campaign to force the British Army to pay him a pension and a lump sum for the time he was an undercover agent in south Armagh.

In the past he has provided useful intelligence, even giving a possible warning on the Omagh bombing, but Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the former RUC chief constable, has said he is "an intelligence nuisance".

This was a reference to an incident when Fulton burnt a vehicle kitted out with expensive bugging and tracking devices that he had been given for spying missions.

In another incident he sent MI5 on a wild-goose chase looking for IRA arms across the UK. The cost of this exercise, motivated by a dispute with his handlers, was estimated at Pounds 2m (E2.9m).

The bogus document at the centre of the McGuinness affair purports to show McGuinness, code named J118, and an MI6 officer referred to as G, planning a series of proxy bomb attacks on British Army checkpoints across the province. The attacks, which took place at the end of 1990, claimed six lives.

The document is a transcript of a conversation but MI5, MI6, military intelligence and RUC Special Branch reports only ever contain summaries of what is said. "It is like no report I have ever seen,"
said a senior intelligence officer. He added that, to his knowledge, McGuinness did not work for MI6.

McGuinness in new spy claims, page 5


Headline: McGuinness hit by new spy claims
Byline: Liam Clarke
Source: Sunday Times
Issue Date: Sunday June 04, 2006
Page: News 12
Picture Caption: McGuinness at an IRA funeral. Gilmour suspects the hawk was
in fact a British agent who protected him and promoted
other infiltrators to positions where they could do most
damage. Photograph by Pacemaker;Gilmour: infiltrated IRA Story Text:


The document that first raised suspicions was a forgery, but new sources are coming forward to allege the IRA leader was linked to MI5, says his biographer Liam Clarke Sunday Times Northern Ireland Editor.

RAYMOND GILMOUR, a "supergrass" who infiltrated the IRA early in the Troubles, used to wake up screaming after nightmares that Martin McGuinness was about to shoot him. Now he suspects his life was protected by his former IRA commander and that McGuinness, like him, was a British agent.

"I could never understand how I was allowed to run so long and do so much damage.

Now I can see McGuinness was looking out for me," said Gilmour, who penetrated the IRA and the smaller INLA between 1977 and 1982.

Gilmour is not alone in his suspicions. A retired Special Branch detective has said he believes McGuinness, now a Sinn Fein MP, worked for MI5, the security service, under the codename Fisherman. Others have claimed Fisherman was someone else close to McGuinness.

All over Northern Ireland observers are now reassessing the career of McGuinness, Sinn Fein's chief negotiator and a former chief of staff of the IRA.

He was once seen as a leading hawk, but many republican veterans now point to the "charmed existence" enjoyed by McGuinness.

He has held every senior position in the Provisional IRA since its inception.

While those around him were killed or jailed, he was never shot or injured and has never served a long prison sentence. Supergrasses such as Gilmour were never asked to testify against him.

The speculation over his links with the British were sparked by a document that allegedly showed McGuinness worked for MI6, the secret intelligence service. In Londonderry, graffiti have appeared interlocking the abbreviations PIRA and MI6.

The allegations were denounced by McGuinness as "hooey of the worst kind" and he said he was "a million per cent confident no one will ever produce anything against me".

Paradoxically, while speculation over McGuinness has grown, it now seems clear that the document is a forgery.

It was given to Martin Ingram, a former military intelligence officer, who believes it is genuine.

It purports to show McGuinness, referred to by the codename J118, planning a series of bomb attacks on army checkpoints across Northern Ireland with an MI6 officer codenamed G. The attacks, which took place at the end of 1990, claimed six lives.

"Everyone will go along with it. It's right up their street," says J118, after which G asks: "This will leave no questions in doubt, you know that?" J118 replies: "I know our fella ... has everyone geared up for it. He thinks it's his idea."

The document appears to date from 1990, but MI6 was not allowed to run agents in Northern Ireland after 1979. Even if it had made an exception for a senior figure such as McGuinness, it is hardly credible that an MI6 officer would not only plan such carnage but even write an official report documenting the fact.

Ingram was told a named "serving Special Branch officer" was the source of the document, but The Sunday Times has established that no detective of that name works in Northern Ireland.

Security sources add that notations such as J118 are not used by any of the intelligence services.

"It is like no report I have ever seen," said a senior intelligence officer, who added that, to his knowledge, McGuinness had not worked for MI6.

In the past, claims that senior republican figures worked for the British were routinely dismissed by the IRA as "black propaganda".

Recently, however, observers have become more ready to countenance them. Denis Donaldson, a senior Sinn Fein administrator, and Freddie Scappaticci, the IRA's deputy head of security, have both been unmasked as informers.

Scappaticci disappeared after it emerged he was the highly placed agent codenamed Stakeknife.

Donaldson was murdered, apparently by republicans, while taking refuge in a remote cottage in County Donegal earlier this year.

Rumours over McGuinness have been given added impetus by his contacts with MI6 in secret talks with the government before the peace process came into the open.

He had a hotline to Michael Oatley, MI6's head of anti-terrorism operations between 1985 and 1991. Oatley had negotiated an IRA ceasefire in 1974-5 through secret meetings with the IRA's army council. After this deal broke down, he left a secret channel of communication with two intermediaries in Londonderry, Brendan Duddy and Denis Bradley, through whom messages could be passed to the IRA and to McGuinness personally.

However, Oatley did not meet McGuinness until February 1991, shortly before he retired, when they talked for three hours. This was a crucial meeting in the lead-up to the first IRA ceasefire in 1994.

Those who have looked at McGuinness's career closely note that, far from being the IRA hawk of republican legend, he wound down the campaign in the area under his command far sooner than anywhere else.
He also presided over an organisation riddled with informers, many of whom he had promoted to positions of influence while he operated secret channels of communication with the British.

His accommodation with the British may have dated back decades. In a
1995 interview, Sean MacStiofain, the Provisional IRA's first chief of staff, claimed to Anthony McIntyre, a former republican prisoner, that McGuinness was lobbying for a ceasefire as far back as 1972.

IRA veterans and Ingram agree with Gilmour that McGuinness often promoted police and army agents in the terrorist organisation to positions where they could do most damage. One example is Frank Hegarty, who was suspected of being an informer but who was promoted to a position where he was in charge of hiding imported Libyan weaponry.

After the weapons were seized, Hegarty was given a new life in England by his handlers but returned home and was shot dead after a series of phone calls with McGuinness.

Suspicion was also aroused in 1979 when Brian Keenan, a terrorist who was running a bombing campaign in Britain and Northern Ireland, was arrested after being flagged down by McGuinness on the motorway and having a brief conversation with him.

Keenan at the time claimed McGuinness had betrayed him, but he never pursued the matter after being released from jail.

There are times when McGuinness's value to the British -whether as a political contact or something else -appears to have saved him. In November 1994, for instance, Operation Taurus, a police investigation in which three witnesses were prepared to implicate him for directing terrorism, was halted.

In the police file, there is a note pointing out that McGuinness would shortly be in talks with the government about the future of Northern Ireland.

For some republicans, this political value, underlined by his hotline to Oatley, may be enough to explain why McGuinness has seemed protected.

For others, the questions over the true nature of his links to the British will not stop.

It's worth a mention to all the spy watchers out there, that there is a libel case in the pipeline for the courts, a Sunday Times journalist names his source for a story, another journalist from another paper, this same Times journalist has pooped all over a number of people, now they are all waiting to give evidence against him. A journalist should check the facts, ( not write what he thinks is the truth, or just to bully someone ) Someones credibility is going to take a nose dive. It's a murky world with spy's & informers. ( especially when new ones are exposed in court. )

Out of curiosity I checked NUZHOUND the site that records all the Media reports on NI affairs.

Liam Clarke appears to be wrong in this respect. Indeed I remember Kathy Johnston ( His wife ) starting a thread on Slugger Otoole about source protection. Martin Ingram made one post challenging both Johnston and clarke about these matters and the response was not forthcoming. I.E They started the thread and then refused to participate.

Liam is clearly rattled on these matters. My understanding is Read Notified is authenticated for court use! clearly somebody from Clarkes computer sent this e mail . It is upto the readers to judge who did it but Clarke is not well respected in the Journalist world. He recently named Hugh Jordan as a SOURCE in legal papers yet he says he protects sources in same breath.

He clearly is a man who tells lies, the papers did not contain his name, I have checked and for him to claim otherwise is a clear lie? what else is he lying about.

Dont be silly Liam and stop digging a deeper hole here, you should concentrate on your legal action defending your inaccurate reporting of Peter Kerstin, did your MI5 Handler ask you to carry that Falsehood? thought so .LOL

@ Intelligence Insider -

My understanding is Read Notified is authenticated for court use! clearly somebody from Clarkes computer sent this e mail .

Please clarify exactly which email tracked by ReadNotify you are talking about.

The graphic published on the Smoke & Mirrors blog above does not show which computer originated the ReadNotify tracked email.

ReadNotify does offer a service, by mutual prior agreement between, say, a company and one of its suppliers, whereby receipt of an order or invoice etc. via email might well hold up in court.

However, using it in a sneaky attempt to track emails in secret looks impossible to prove.

Even ReadNotify themselves only give a "probability" rating in their tracking reports, and many email systems simply will not register i.e. they block the "web bug" graphics and ignore the optional, not mandatory, read / display receipts requests.

Even when ReadNotify appears to work, it often only reveals the IP address to the level of an Internet Service Provider (like AOL) or Corporate (like News International) or Government (like the UK Government Secure Intranet) Proxy server, and not an individual computer behind the Proxy server / Internet gateway.

Going to court with only a few, easily forged, screenshots of alleged ReadNotify reports must surely be a waste of time ?

I understand that these and OTHER receipts have been authenticated and a sworn statement prepared for court use. Liam knows that a case is pending because he received legal papers last week? is that not true Liam?

In respect of the court case, these papers form a very, very small part of the claim.

The fact is an e mail was sent from Clarkes computer about J118 martin McGUINNESS and it WAS OPENED 100% on the secure Govt server by a NOW DEFUNCT email address by Proxy to a AOL account.

The court will be informed as to the ID of that AOL account and that will be very revealing I assure you.

The fact that Liam is a repeat Liar will undoubtedly count against him, this e mail about McGuinness was sent from his computer just like the one to his legal team was. Both were tracked and both can and will be authenticated.

Liam , I am told does not believe the e mail is fabricated, he believes and has suggested someone else sent the offending e mail.

The last senetence says it all, someone else sent it not me?

you make up your own mind.Cos the courts will.


Intelligence Insider.

PS. I note that Liamn has not responded to the protecting Sources issues raised earlier. My prediction is he wont, nor will he come back upon the Newshound aspect because he has been caught out telling Porkie Pies.He told porky Pies about kerstin and will no doubt lose his job over this, his stock within journalism is at Zero, the Irish News and others had to print a public retraction of one of his recent stories because of factual errors .

Come on Liam lets debate these issues nobody is watching? EXCEPT half of all Northern Ireland Hacks. LOL

@ Intelligence Insider -

The fact is an e mail was sent from Clarkes computer about J118 martin McGUINNESS and it WAS OPENED 100% on the secure Govt server by a NOW DEFUNCT email address by Proxy to a AOL account.

Unless someone has been breaking the rules and the standard configuration for, say, remote access to the IPCC's email system via the Government Secure Intranet, then that seems unlikely.

If true, that is a breach of security which should already have been investigated.

A read receipt which says "opened" or "displayed" does not necessarily prove that an email was actually read - it could have been "opened" by an automatic anti-virus scanning or junk email spam filtering system.

How do you know that this did not happen when, presumbly, the IPCC email server "bounced" the ReadNotify tracked email sent to a non-existant account i.e. "rachael.collin" rather than "raechel.collins @ ipcc.gsi.gov.uk as the screenshot graphic appears to show ?



The court will be informed as to the ID of that AOL account and that will be very revealing I assure you.

Have you secured the cooperation of AOL for this Communications Traffic Data, or is this by inference from the same AOL screename being used in emails or AOL discussion groups ?

ReadNotify claim that their email "web bug" tracking can also work with Microsoft Word .doc and Adobe .pdf email attachments and, with emails which have been forwarded to others with the "web bug" (hidden and obscured 1 pixel graphic called via HTML from ReadNotify's servers) still attached.

However, you need to pay for the premium rate service for this to work sneakily, and, obviously, read receipts will not go back to ReadNotify from forwarded emails.

Or are you saying that a ReadNotify tracked email was sent from Liam Clarke's computer, e.g. in the format

blog@spy.org.uk.readnotify.com

and someone else has managed to get access to the ReadNotify tracking reports account ?

For those of us not so well informed, is there a URL link which explains who Peter Kerstin is ?

The email did exist at that time, it does not exist today.

The email was sent from Clarke`s computer.

Peter is a well known property developer in Belfast, one of the biggest. Clarke wrote a few pieces claiming information proving Peter was funded by the IRA.

The story has no merrit and is untrue, Peter is suiing and the Times are very very anoyed at Clarke for this story which was and is widely accepted today to be without any foundation.It suited certain individuals at the time and had a political edge.

Lets see what Clarke says when comes back, I understand the most sensitive evidence is being withheld for court, I would do the same.

Insider.

PS.

Did you check Nuzhound to see clearly Clarkes disinformation?

The Smoke & Mirrors blog now seems to have re-edited their original post
"The connection between the IPCC & Liam Clarke.Sunday Times. ( some of the computer data )"

and the graphics of alleged screenshots from the ReadNotify system.

The "detailed evidence" graphical
image (published above) has been replaced with a screenshot of an October email describing a change of private work email address by the Sunday Times journalist Liam Clarke, "for spam blocking" purposes.

The post has been edited to ask

"One must ask, Why did Liam Clarke change his email address ( Spam ) ?"

which seems to be a pointless question, unless it is meant to imply that "The Doctor" has been sending spam email to this old email address.

We are still not convinced by the Smoke & Mirrors blog.

Martin Ingram Aka Ian Hurst is a liar.Soldier of Fortune.Mercenary.Only interested in making money.He is a con-man who will sell his lies to anyone who will pay for them.
The person who calls himself Martin ingram but is in fact ex Int Corps SSgt Ian Hurst (known as rocky) is a liar of the highest order. His book STEAKNIFE is almost complete fiction, as are his assertions that Martin McGUINNESS was an agent of the state. He is dementedly lying completely about his past service in FRU. He only ever served in sleepy backwaters of the Province and never came face to face with anyone except low level eyes and ears agents. He never ran STEAKNIFE or even met him. In short, his book is a complete fabrication based on god knows what. He endangers the lives of serving and former soldiers as well as civilians with his ridiculous fairy tales. Hopefully he will appear in court at some of the current inquiries and investigations so he can be shown to be the liar he really is.

Nelson Mandela,Mi5 Agent Liam Clarke,The Times Newspaper and British Intelligence

It is unknown at the moment whether Liam Clarke is an Mi5 Agent or a Dummy or Both.He has lost his job as the Northern Ireland[Ulster] Editor for Sunday Times as the Times is closing down its Northern Ireland Operation.He works for Rupert Murdoch the owner of the Times Newspaper.As well as his journalism work for the Times he is involved in a Vendetta against Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness.As well as writing for the Times Newspaper he publishes his Vendetta Material at Cryptome.org, Indymedia, Wikpedia, Blogger.com and numerous other online publications including The Times.He is working closely with Martin Ingram Aka Ian Hurst and other persons unknown.Some of the Vendetta material is published in his own name but some of it is anonymous as you will see in these two links from wikiscanner.virgil.gr where he is updating these two web pages.
1.Martin Ingram[Ian Hurst]
2.Denis Donaldson

Mary Benson [was one of the many British Intelligence Agents who ran The Anti-Apartheid Movement]

Mary Benson was born on 8 December 1919 in Pretoria, South Africa and was educated there and in Great Britain. Before the Second World War she was a secretary in the High Commission Territories Office of the British High Commission in South Africa. Between 1941-1945 she joined the South African women's army, rising to the rank of Captain and serving as Personal Assistant to various British generals in Egypt and Italy.After the war she joined UNRRA and then became personal assistant to the film director David Lean. In 1950 she became secretary to Michael Scott and first became involved in the field of race relations. In 1951 she became secretary to Tshekedi Khama, and in 1952, together with Scott and David Astor, she helped to found the Africa Bureau in London. She was its secretary until 1957 and travelled widely on its behalf. In 1957 she became secretary to the Treason Trials Defence Fund in Johannesburg. She became a close friend of Nelson Mandela, and assisted with smuggling him out of South Africa in 1962. In February 1966 she was served with a banning order under the Suppression of Communism Act and she left South Africa for London later that year.In London she continued to work tirelessly against apartheid, writing to newspapers and corresponding with fellow activists in South Africa. In April 1999 Mandela visited her at her home during his state visit to Britain and later that year an 80th birthday party was staged for her at South Africa House.Mary Benson died on 20 June 2000.Among her writings are South Africa: the Struggle for a Birthright, Chief Albert Luthuli, The History of Robben Island, Nelson Mandela: the Man and the Movement, the autobiographical A Far Cry and radio plays on Mandela and the Rivonia trial.

http://nelsonmandela2.blogspot.com/

@ Jack Grantham - what exactly are you alleging about Nelson Mandela and Liam Clarke ?

Your confusing blog posting does not seem to link them in any way, except through the dubious title.


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

Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress & Tor - useful step by step guide with software configuration screenshots by Ethan Zuckerman at Global Voices Advocacy. (updated March 10th 2009 with the latest Tor / Vidalia bundle details)

House of Lords Constitution Committee - Surveillance: Citizens and the State

House of Lords Constitution Committee 2008-2009 session - Second Report: Surveillance: Citizens and the State

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.

Eeclaim Your DNA from Britain's National DNA Database - model letters and advice on how to have your DNA samples and profiles removed from the National DNA Database,in spite of all of the nureacratic obstacles which try to prevent this, even if you are innocent.

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.

Lords of the Blog - group blog by half a dozen or so Peers sitting in the House of Lords.

notes from the ubiquitous surveillance society - blog by Dr. David Murakami Wood, editor of the online academic journal Surveillance and Society

Justin Wylie's political blog

Panopticon blog - by Timothy Pitt-Payne and Anya Proops. Timothy Pitt-Payne is probably the leading legal expert on the UK's Freedom of Information Act law, often appearing on behlaf of the Information Commissioner's Office at the Information Tribunal.

Armed and Dangerous - Sex, software, politics, and firearms. Life’s simple pleasures… - by Open Source Software advocate Eric S. Raymond.

Georgetown Security Law Brief - group blog by the Georgetown Law Center on National Security and the Law , at Georgtown University, Washington D.C, USA.

Big Brother Watch - well connected with the mainstream media, this is a campaign blog by the TaxPayersAlliance, which thankfully does not seem to have spawned Yet Another Campaign Organisation as many Civil Liberties groups had feared.

Spy on Moseley - "Sparkbrook, Springfield, Washwood Heath and Bordesley Green. An MI5 Intelligence-gathering operation to spy on Muslim communities in Birmingham is taking liberties in every sense" - about 150 ANPR CCTV cameras funded by Home Office via the secretive Terrorism and Allied Matters (TAM) section of ACPO.

FitWatch blog - keeps an eye on the activities of some of the controversial Police Forward Intelligence Teams, who supposedly only target "known troublemakers" for photo and video surveillance, at otherwise legal, peaceful protests and demonstrations.

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

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.

Brian Burnell's British / US nuclear weapons history at http://nuclear-weapons.info

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

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Recent Comments

  • wtwu: @ Jack Grantham - what exactly are you alleging about read more
  • Jack Grantham: Nelson Mandela,Mi5 Agent Liam Clarke,The Times Newspaper and British Intelligence read more
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  • wtwu: The Smoke & Mirrors blog now seems to have re-edited read more
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Monthly Archives

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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

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

Anti-terrorism hotline - links removed in protestClimate of Fear propaganda posters

MI5 Security Service
MI5 Security Service - links to encrypted reporting form removed in protest at the Climate of Fear propaganda posters

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."

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Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) recruitment.

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Government Communications Headquarters GCHQ

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

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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.

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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)

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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."

Tor - the onion routing network
Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress and Tor - useful Guide published by Global Voices Advocacy with step by step software configuration screenshots (updated March 10th 2009).

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Amnesty International's irrepressible.info campaign

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BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

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

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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."

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

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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."

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

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No CCTV - The Campaign Against CCTV

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I'm a Photographer Not a Terrorist !

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Power 2010 cross party, political reform campaign

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Cracking the Black Box - "aims to expose technology that is being used in inappropriate ways. We hope to bring together the insights of experts and whistleblowers to shine a light into the dark recesses of systems that are responsible for causing many of the privacy problems faced by millions of people."

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Open Rights Group - Petition against the renewal of the Interception Modernisation Programme