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(mostly in German)
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notes from the ubiquitous surveillance society - blog by Dr. David Murakami Wood, editor of the online academic journal Surveillance and Society
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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.
There are also figures for three Prisons in Northern Ireland in the last year:
Commons Hansard 5 Dec 2007 : Column 1215W
Totals for December 2006 to November 2007:
Maghaberry: 28
Maghilligan: 41
Hydebank: 2
I'm not sure that it would be trivial for the mobile phone networks to detect any unauthorised mobile phones physically within Prisons.
To start with, how would you distinguish between phones in Visitor or prison officer area's vs phones in the prison.
What about people just outside of the prison?
Thinking ahead, the best way to do this would be to filter out IMSI's used outside of the prison area. Phones that don't have the mobility would be suspicious.
It's one thing to find out that people are using phones inside a prison area, but another as to finding who's they are.
@ Chris -
What is so hard about forcing all visitors without exception, to hand in their phones at the gate ?
Any emergency mobile phones used by prison staff should be pre-registered ones only.
From the figures, the prison authorities obviously do detect and seize phones, but the fact that they continue to have to do so, month after month, shows that there must be ongoing corruption or ineptitude, or both.
Finding out who calls whom is just involves a routine Communications Traffic Data request under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 - drug dealing or planning an escape etc. are easily serious enough crimes to justify this.
Since the number of SIMs obviously exceeds the number of handsets, a check on the IMEI is also required (although, obviously, that can be forged, depending on the model of phone)
Wandsworth Prison Independent Monitoring Board Report is quoted by The Times
The Independent Monitoring Board report for Wansdworth is available online as a .pdf file.
http://www.imb.gov.uk/annual-reports/07-annual-reports/Wandsworth_2006-2007.pdf
No need for all this technology really. All it needs is a few officers in each prison to be issued with a near field receiver. These cost around £10 to make (so probably a £1000 for the govt to buy !). In short they are a short range radio receiver that receives all radio broadcasts within a few tens of metres and GSM cell phones make a distinctive sound on them. If there was a suspicion of illicit cell phone use within a wing one of these receivers would soon find it.
@ 1327 - presumably the illegal mobile phones are not powered up for very long, to save batteries etc. which might make it hard for short range equipment to detect them, assuming that there the usual human lookouts watching out for patrols.
If certain wings, in certain prisons have become "no go" areas for Prison Officers, then the arrogant criminals may keep their phones on for longer.
The Irish Independent reports that
Given the relative sizes of the Irish and English prison populations, does this mean that the English seizure figures only repreent a small fraction of the number of phones
The Economist notes the expense and long queues for the monitored landline prison phone service, run by British Telecom
B.O.S.S (Body Orifice Security Scanner) chair - see photos and prices and some technical specifications
This metal detector configured in a chair is in use at Wandsworth and perhaps at some, but not all, other UK prisons.
BBC Radio 4 IPM programme and blog featured this story today.
We will be watching our webserver logfiles for visits to Spy Blog from the Ministry of (in)Justice or other Labour Government political spin doctors, probably on Monday morning.
It was worrying to hear from the Chairman of the Wandsworth Prison Independent Monitoring Board, that, as we suspected, the number of seizures is just the tip of the iceberg, and that there are lots more illegal mobile phones being operated within prisons.
The spokesman from the Prison Officers' Association was rightly worried about mobile phones being used to threaten and intimidate inmates and possibly Prison Officers or their families (who are also at risk from the HMRC missing CD discs data disaster).
He also pointed out that Ministry of Justice response that they were doing various things (including trying out the BOSS system, mobile detection equipment, search dogs etc.) is all very well and good, except that the patches of good practice, do not appear to
extend to the entire Prison estate in England and Wales - over 150 prisons.
The report of the incident whereby a prisoner was beaten up by gang inmates and his injuries were photographed on a mobile phone camera, with the threat that the images would be sent to his family is another foreseeable consequence of allowing mobile phones to have become so prevalent in prison,
Remember that crude jamming or Faraday cage shielding of mobile phone signals could easily affect mobile phone services well outside the perimeter of a prison, if done stupidly or on the cheap.
Unless appropriate micro or pico cell transmitters or repeaters are also installed, then the shielding or jamming of a prison, will create a mobile phone reception "dead zone" shadow, which will prevent normal mobile phone use where the prison happens to be directly between a Cell Phone Mast and a mobile phone handset.
This includes a "dead zone" for
ringing the Emergency Services, so inappropriate jamming or shielding done on the cheap could contribute to injuries or loss of life.
BBC News has followed up this story with a report -Care to sit on the Boss chair? which involved a visit to HMP Woodhill high security prison near Milton Keynes, focusing on the Body Orifice Scanner chair.
The Labour Prisons Minister David Hanson is quoted as vaguely promising to see if these will be installed in every prison.
Given the other broken promises and calculated political lies (e.g. announcing the building of 3 new "Titan" prisons each with a capacity of 2,500 inmates, without the actual budget to do this), we remain to be convinced that sufficient numbers of such scanner equipment will actually be installed in every prison.
Mobile Phones are being brought into prisons by corrupt prison officers. Having visited Belmarsh recently, my son advised me that prison officers bring in drugs and mobiles for large sums of cash paid to them by people on the outside for prisoners.
The Government Response to the Wandsworth Prison Independent Monitoring Board Annual Report for 2007, published 5th November 2007, mentions some Mobile Phone blocking trials:
http://www.imb.gov.uk/annual-reports/10-ministers-replies/Reply-Wandsworth_2006-2007.pdf
Right at the end of this image only .pdf (no copy and paste of text allowed !) is a section entitled:
[...]
What is the "callateral damage" effect on mobile phones in the immediate area outside of the prison ? Are emergency services 999 / 112 calls affected ?
Mobile phones are specifically mentioned, as are cameras and sound-recording devices etc.
Strangely, no other radio devices seem to be banned by statute, although they might be in individual prison regulations, especially if those devices are not specifically being used to plan or aid an escape, but "only" to help conduct outside criminal activities etc. What about WiFi, BlueTooth or even USB 3G data devices (not technically mobile phones) etc. ?
See the Offender Management Act 2007 section 22 Conveyance of prohibited articles into or out of prison which amend s the schedule of prohibited articles under the section 40 of the Prison Act 1952, and comes with a penalty of up to 2 years in prison and / or a fine up to level 3 on the standard scale (currently £1000)
This section 22 came into force on 1st April 2008 though SI 2008/504 The Offender Management Act 2007 (Commencement No. 2 and Transitional Provision) Order 2008