Europe moves to curtail US data snooping rights

Free access to financial data may end

By John Oates

Posted in Government, 5th February 2010 15:56 GMT

The European Commission has opened a public consultation on whether the US government should continue to get free access to European bank and financial data under the SWIFT agreement.

The US claims it needs access to our bank accounts in order to fight terrorism - it has had free access since shortly after 11 September 2001. But the Civil Liberties Committee of European MPs yesterday recommended the Parliament reject renewal of the treaty; MEPs only recently got powers over external treaties.

This may sound like just hot air from Brussels, but the treaty is up for a vote next Thursday. MEPs want the data protected in the same way as it would be in Europe.

[,,,]

So when a US firm brings data out of Europe it must still follow EU law. This is now extended so that the data is passed on to an outsourcer, that company must also follow EU law.

The consultation documents are here. You have until 12 March to have your say.

Actually, that European Commission Consultation document is much wider and more general and applies to any data transfers involving Governments / national security / transnational border crime investigations etc:

Consultation on the future EU-US international agreement on personal data protection and information sharing for law enforcement purposes [69 KB .pdf]

Consultation on the future EU-US international agreement on personal data protection and information sharing for law enforcement purposes [25 KB .doc]

• If you are answering this consultation as a citizen, please click here to submit your contribution.
• If you are answering this consultation on behalf of an organisation, please click here to submit your contribution.
• If you are answering this consultation on behalf of a public authority, please click here to submit your contribution.

[...]

Responsible service:

Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security
Unit A2 - External relations and enlargement

E-mail: JLS-CONSULT-DP-AGRM@ec.europa.eu

Postal address :

European Commission
Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security
Unit A2 - External relations and enlargement
B - 1049 Brussels

From the metadata of these documents, the author is listed as our old friend Jonathan Faull (.pdf), Director General of the European Commission's Justice, Freedom and Security department since 15 March 2003, with whom we have corresponded in the past

See our blog category archive EU Plans for internet censorship

The Questions which are asked in this short consultation document, are all well and good, provided that they are actually Answered and Implemented properly.

However, there are a few important Questions which are missing - notably in the areas of:

• mandatory Data Security Breach Notification and Public Reporting,
• mandatory use of strong Encryption to protect such data transfers in transit and storage,
• the principle of Data Minimisation,
• Data Retention and Destruction policies,
• applying the same principles and protections for transfers between countries within the European Union as between any EU state and the USA,
• the publication annually of how much public money is being spent on such data transfers, so that we can gauge whether they are cost effective or not.

See our comments below:

The VX1 Mini-Mobile Phone is a "simple" mobile phone, aimed at people looking for a cheap emergency backup mobile phone. Allegedly, the fashion for tight jeans makes this slimline phone attractive to some female customers.

The dimensions are: 80mm x 50mm x 10.3mm i.e. smaller length and width than a Credit Card (85.60 × 53.98 mm or 3.370 × 2.125 in), but obviously thicker.

Some of the packaging describes this as a "VX1i" model, but only "VX1" appears on the actual phone itself.

We wonder how many of these small devices have already been smuggled into British Prisons ?

This phone is available from Tesco for £18.99 either online via a credit card, or, with less traceable cash at the larger Tesco branches.

Of interest to Spy Blog is the fact that, unlike the other mobile phones offered by the larger Tesco supermarkets, this phone is not locked to any particular network and supposedly accepts any GSM SIM card (obviously not 3G ones though).

By not having any SmartPhone features, there is no way for a Java applet or or other Apple style "Apps" software to be downloaded into the phone to snoop on your voice or SMS text messages, apart from the limited universal SIM Application Toolkit hacks common to all mobile phones.

This makes the VX1 Party Phone attractive to whistleblowers who might want to contact journalists or bloggers or political activists or external regulatory authorities, with less chance of being tracked down during a "mole hunt" or leak investigation - see our Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers guide sub-blog at http://ht4w.co.uk

Remember that the individual International Mobile Equipment Identity(IMEI) of the handset (blanked out in the photos above) is associated with every call or SMS text message made, answered, sent or received by a mobile phone, so do not be tempted to swap your "normal" SIM card into such a "disposable", single purpose mobile phone.Use a "virgin" SIM card, but do not activate it at home or your office or other locations which may help to identify you e.g. ones with lots of CCTV surveillance.

The power adapter seems to be one of the new standard mobile phone micro-USB ones.

The claimed standby battery life is

• Talk time 100 minutes
• Standby 90 hours
• Battery 400mAh

Coupled with the cheap price, this could also make this attractive as a Mobile Phone Location Based Services tracking device, which can be sneakily attached to vehicles, or baggage, or people, and then tracked via a Web based map.

In 2005, Spy Blog spent some time and effort in transcribing and deconstructing his controversial Letter, the anonymous annex to which provided spurious arguments for the NuLabour government's "internment without trial" plans:

Asst. Met Commissioner Andy Hayman's letter trying to justify 90 days detention without charge

Now retired, after some questions over expenses and personal life, he has written a book entitled Cabinet Office Briefing Room A ("COBRA") emergency crisis committee, when faced with serious terrorist plots such as the July 2005 bombings, attempted bombings, killing of the innocent Jean Charles de Menzes by the police, the radioactive Polonium-210 murder of Alexander Litvinenko[ in 2006 and the incompetent terrorist self-immolation attack on Glasgow Airport in 2007.

The mention of a forthcoming terrorism trial, seemed to be used as justification for a temporary legal injunction against the publication of this book, back in July 2009, but this has now lapsed, and - a paperback version of the book was published in October 2009, without any redaction or censorship of the text in question.

Why then, was the £12 hardback edition of this book available yesterday on the shelves of a large Tesco supermarket:

However, when it came to pay for the book at the checkout, the Tesco computer system flashed up a big Legal Warning - Do Not Sell This Book - Remove It From The Shelves Immediately panic messageand they refused to sell it.

Has there been Yet Another Legal Injunction against this book, or is the Tesco stock control computer system not really as efficient as it could be ?

If there is some sort of computerised ban or recall on a product line, how can it make it out of the warehouse, where, presumably the barcode is also checked, and onto the supermarket shelves ? In our mind, this raises serious potential health and safety worries.about Tesco.

It also illustrates a fundamental feature of banning / censorship lists - once you are on one, it is difficult or impossible to be removed in the future, even when the orginal circumstances no longer apply.

This certainly seems to be so for the red tape happy HM Revenue and Customs and their counterproductive attempts to run a secret two tier tax record security system.

Why should there be any Special Categories "of individual for whom security is a higher priority" when it comes to confidential tax records ?

• Who exactly decides which individuals qualify for "special" treatment ?
• What are the selection criteria for this "special" treatment ?
• What are the de-selection criteria for this "special" treatment ?
• How can we be sure that those people who are getting Special Category treatment actually deserve it e.g. because their lives are in danger, and that they are not simply Labour political cronies or people who are buying influence within Whitehall ?

See our UK FOIA request sub-blog article:

ICO FOIA Decision Notice FS50216168 against HM Revenue and Customs ordering disclosure of tax record Special Categories

The Information Commissioner has now issued a Decision Notice FS50216168 dated 25th January 2010::

6. The complainant wrote to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on 28 January 2008 requesting information about the tax categories of individuals for whom security is a higher priority.

'Regarding the story in the Daily Telegraph newspaper of Saturday 26 January 2008 about the security, privacy and confidentiality of tax returns and the Parliamentary Oral Answer given by the Financial Secretary to HM Treasury

Daily Telegraph 26 January 2008: Online tax system 'too risky' for the famous

1) Please list these special "categories of individual for whom security is a higher priority"
2) Approximately how many people are in each special category?
3)Who exactly makes the decision to to put someone into one of these special categories ?
4) When, if ever, is an individual removed from such a special category?
5) Does a special category extend to an individual's family as well?
6) How long has this policy of special categories been in place ?
7) Who exactly authorised this special category policy?
8) How exactly does adding an extra digit to a tax code or other special markings to a paper tax return, make it less of a target for human snooping or electronic sniffing of the data once it is in digital form? Surely this contravenes the well established security principles for handling 'sensitive' data whilst it is sharing common office or electronic network infrastructure ie that it should be indistinguishable from the rest of the data or documents, to reduce the temptation to casual snoopers ?
9) What about the previous 24 year tax record history of an individual before they become a 'celebrity' or politician etc?
10) Are these special category tax records included in the datasets handed over, through the statutory gateway, to the DWP Longitudinal Study? http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/longitudinal_study/ic_longitudinal_study.asp
11) What is the approximate annual cost of the extra infrastructure and personnel resources needed to handle these special categories?'

This has resulted in:

The Decision

91. The Commissioner's decision is that the public authority did not deal with the request for information in accordance with the Act:
• it breached section 1 (1)(b) by not providing the complainant with the requested information wrongly withheld under sections 36 and 38;
• it breached section 10(1) by not confirming to the complainant within the statutory timescale that it held the requested information;
• it breached section 10(1) by not providing the complainant with information within the statutory timescale;
• it breached section 17(1) by not providing the complainant with a valid refusal notice within the statutory timescale; and
• it breached section 17(1)(b) and (c) by failing to specify and explain exemptions it later relied on.

Steps Required

---

92 The Commissioner requires the public authority to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the Act:

• disclose the list of special categories not exempt by virtue of section 23 or 44;
• disclose the number of people in each special category not exempt by virtue of section 23 or 44:
• disclose the name of the decision maker who makes the decision to put someone in one of the special categories; and
• disclose the information withheld in relation to questions 4, 5 and 9.

93. The public authority must take the steps required by this notice within 35 calendar days of the date of this notice.

Will Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs disclose the requested information,as ordered to by the Information Commissioner, or will they waste public money and our time, by trying to appeal ?

Remember that this Labour government is also trying to sneak in similar two tier systems for their other national database disasters like the Children Database or the National Identity Register etc.

If these systems are inherently insecure, then they should not be implemented in the first place.

If they are properly secure, then there is no need for a "two tier" system for "special" people.

If you are as frightened and appalled by the rise of the Database State under this dismal Labour Government, and you want to keep the political pressure on the Conservatives so that they do not forget their pre-election promises, if they do get into power in May, then please join the cross party NO2ID campaign

title="UK threat level raised - new window">UK threat level raised

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) has changed the UK threat level from international terrorism from SUBSTANTIAL to SEVERE. The current threat level means that the threat of a terrorist attack is considered to be highly likely.

The Home Secretary said in a statement:

"The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre has today raised the threat to the UK from international terrorism from SUBSTANTIAL to SEVERE. This means that a terrorist attack is highly likely, but I should stress that there is no intelligence to suggest than an attack is imminent."

To find out more about the UK's threat level system, see "Threat Levels" on the Security Service's website

We ask, yet again, as we do whenever this "terror alert level" status changes - what exactly are we meant do now, that we were not already doing,in terms of vigilance against suspicious people or objects or events ?

Why is there no mention of the increased threat from "domestic" terrorism, in Northern Ireland, and from crazed racist or animal rights fanatics etc. ?

Will there now be the usual Whitehall and Police "anonymous briefings", as there were in the run up to the last General Election ?

We still remember this scandalously NuLabour biased, scientifically inept, scaremongering nonsense, during the actual General Election campaign in April 2005:

Sir Ian Blair interviewed by Sir David Frost - partial transcript: more terror laws, "bubonic plague threat" and "iris scan" ID cards - partisan comments during the General Election.

Observing History - Heathrow Robbery Trial Starts Without Jury

[...]

This morning I went to the Royal Courts of Justice to personally witness the start of the first modern criminal trial in the UK where the defendants have been denied a jury.

That should probably say "England & Wales" rather than "the UK", given the Diplock courts in Northern Ireland.

My views on this are:

* It a terrible indictment on our police that they are unable to protect jurors and haven't been able to bring those disrupting the judicial process to justice themselves.
* By removing the right to a jury trial a key safeguard against state abuse of power has been eroded.
* I am concerned that this trial may be the first of many. If the police can't deal with jury intimidation connected with a robbery; how would they cope if problems occurred in a terrorist trial, there the consequences of a justice not being done, and not being seen to be done, could itself incite more anger and further terrorist acts. I am concerned that what has started today may ultimately make the UK less safe.

Agreed !

The usual security theatre (metal detectors, X-ray machines) etc. greets those entering the Royal Courts of Justice court complex. Staff were fairly relaxed though; the man who entered in front of me said he was carrying a hard disk containing CCTV footage for use in a trial and asked if the X-Ray machine would damage it. Security officers waved the man straight through without looking in his rucksack.

that is a Security FAILURE, which makes a mockery of the public money spent on the X-Ray machine and the "trained" staff !

[...]
.
The judge said that there had been plans, if the press presence had been larger, to allow the press to sit in the jury seats; the journalists responded with a half-gasp, half-laugh.

[..]

So this "trial without a jury", very nearly started of as "trial by the press and media" !

The judge then asked the prosecution barrister if there were to be any reporting restrictions. In response the prosecutor referred to restrictions imposed by the court of appeal. The press (and I - though the speech was addressed only to the official press) are forbidden from reporting the names of other defendants who are not being tried in the current trial but are alleged to have been involved in the robbery. One effect of this is to make it harder for people identify any further trial from the court lists if / when it takes place. The former home address of a witness - which is to be mentioned at some point in the trial - can also not be reported.

How exactly is a third party blogger or media organisation not physically present in Court, actually meant to know about these reporting restrictions ?

Prosecutor Simon Russell Flint QC then began; passing what he had trouble not calling the "Jury bundle" to the judge. Aided by illustrations, maps, etc. in the bundle Mr Flint outlined the case; starting with the fact that the events occurred six years ago and described them as a "professionally planned, professionally executed robbery". He listed precise amounts in various currencies which were stolen and then, using a 2004 exchange rate to convert to sterling rather pompously announced the full amount down to the penny.

Will the same misleading claims be made by the prosecution and the media about this being "the biggest" attempted armed robbery in the UK ?

We wrote about this aspect of the reporting of this case, on May 18, 2004:
Heathrow robbery attempt is NOT the biggest in Britain

Subsequently, in 2006, the Securitas depot robbery involved over £53million in banknotes.

The "story" of the robbery was then outlined in a painfully slow and repetitive manner, adding little to what has been written about in the press. Interesting elements include:

* Heavy reliance by the police on evidence of phone usage (who called who, when and for how long).
* Evidence from "Cell Site" records; was being used to infer "opportunities for meetings" when two phones were near.
* The defendants were alleged to have taken on a plan devised by others.

One thing which struck me was that the police were very closely following this group; they had been recording their conversations and knew their target yet they didn't act to prevent the robbery taking place - a robbery in which a gun was fired multiple times and someone could have been seriously injured or killed.

"Evidence from "Cell Site" records; was being used to infer "opportunities for meetings" when two phones were near."

When used as part of a targeted criminal investigation, where the investigators are fully aware of the background details, then this is a useful investigatory technique.

Whether it provides proper evidence, rather than mere suspicion, of a physical meeting
is not all clear, especially if there is no direct voice phone / SMS text or data call record evidence between the alleged participants.

This technique must not be used to speculatively trawl through the billions of retained Communications Traffic Data records of hundreds of millions of innocent European Union citizens, thereby tarring them with "guilt by association" simply for having been in unwitting close proximity with suspected criminals.

The fact that the alleged armed robbers were already under such intensive surveillance by the Police, means that they were collecting and analysing current and perhaps even near real timeCommunications Traffic Data.

This provides no justification whatsoever for mandatory Communications Data Retention of innocent people's data for at least a year.

While in the UK the doors of courts are almost always open there isn't much transparency in the justice system as:

• It is hard to find out when cases of interest are scheduled. I found out the date and location of this one via a FOI request. As I knew the defendants names I could have watched the official court lists daily and got a few hours notice, but that isn't possible with local magistrates courts.
• Court papers are not published online. Had today's "jury bundle"; been published everyone in court (and outside) could have followed along. As the request from the member of the press highlights the full list of charges was neither read out or made available on paper. The Stockwell Inquest and Diana Inquest show how transcripts, evidence and court papers can be effectively published online making the process accessible.
• As I understand it - while the taxpayer pays for the recording and transcription of court cases the results are not automatically released to the public;

We agree that Justice is not being seen to be done fairly, because of the secrecy and the internet incompetence of the UK Courts system.

Read the European Court of Human Rights Judgment:

CASE OF GILLAN AND QUINTON v. THE UNITED KINGDOM

(Application no. 4158/05)

JUDGMENT

STRASBOURG

12 January 2010

[...]

87. In conclusion, the Court considers that the powers of authorisation and confirmation as well as those of stop and search under sections 44 and 45 of the 2000 Act are neither sufficiently circumscribed nor subject to adequate legal safeguards against abuse. They are not, therefore, "in accordance with the law" and it follows that there has been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.

[...]

The ECHR HUDOCS database is hard to link to, and slow, so here is a copy of the Judgment (.doc)

Will this obstinate, increasingly authoritarian Government and bureaucracy, simply ignore this ECHR Judgment, like they have done with the retention of Innocent people's DNA Marper case, which they lost over a year ago ?

Will some (but not all), Police Constables in Uniform, Police Community Support Officers and jobswoth private security guards, continue to ignore the memos from their superiors, and continue to abuse this counterproductive legal power, to harass Photographers, Tourists, Trianspotters and even Members of Parliament ?

The Information Commissioner's Office has, since mid-November 2009, been preparing a Decision Notice, which should really have been published by now:

See the Spy Blog UK Freedom of Information Act Requests HO Terrorism Act 2000 s44 Authorisations category archive

The annual congress held by the German Chaos Computer Club, between Christmas and the New Year, yet again provided WikiLeakS.org with a chance to communicate some of their activities, in front of an enthusiastic, highly information technology literate audience.

Video of the presentation, in several online formats is now available online:

26C3: Here Be Dragons video recordings

Daniel Schmitt and Julian Assange gave an update of some recent WikiLeakS.org activities:

3567 WikiLeaks Release 1.0 mp4 iProd mp3 ogg

[...]

However, the most interesting part of the WikiLeakS.org talk, was their report on the their trip to Iceland in November.

Julian and Daniel managed to get themselves onto the Icelandic political mainstream media, to talk about the WikiLeakS.org project, because, at the end of August 2009, WikiLeakS.org published the loan book of the failed Kaupthing Bank.

The whistleblower leak allowed the Icelandic public to see where the missing billions were initially siphoned off to, immediately prior to this bank's collapse.The failure of this bank, helped to destroy the current Icelandic economy, and precipitated hitherto unheard of riots in the streets of Reykjavik, and a change in government.

Iceland is trying to restructure its debt laden economy, to take advantage of its almost limitless cheap electricity from green hydro electric and geo-thermal sources, and its small but highly computer literate population of about 300,000 people, and its mid -Atlantic time zone location, by hosting some large computer and internet hosting data centres.

The WikiLeakS.org team suggested that Icelandic legislators should take this opportunity to pass the best free speech, whistleblower protection, personal privacy, data protection, copyright and libel laws etc., modeled on best practice around the world, to allow Iceland to become a Publication Data Haven.

This idea seems to have impressed some Icelandic legislators, who seem to be preparing some legislation for consideration by the end of this month January 2010 (another advantage of a small state).

Daniel and Julian are rightly sceptical that such plans might succeed , if the Icelandic politicians wait until after Iceland attempts to join the European Union, as there are a lot of vested interests, lobbyists and bureaucrats who would oppose such laws.

The incompetent UK Labour Government, which failed to regulate UK banks and financial institutions, and which precipitated the Icelandic banking collapse , by seizing Icelandic financial assets, in the most insulting way possible, by abusing anti-terrorism money laundering legislation, (see Icelanders are NOT terrorists!) together with the governments of the Netherlands and Denmark etc,, are using the carrot of European Union membership, to pressure / blackmail the Icelanders into promising to pay the debts of this and other failed Icelandic banks, to the often greedy or incompetent investors from those countries, who should have been aware of the commercial risks associated with the "too good to be true" high interest rates being offered. The Government / Bank failures in the UK or the Netherlands etc. were much larger than the Icelandic ones, but did not affect all of their ffinancial sector in the same way.

Of equal interest to us here in the United Kingdom, where we are also face internet censorship, disconnection and snooping on peaceful political activists:

Also of interest to WikilLeakS.org whistleblowers and journalists etc.is the presentation by Roger Dingledine.showing how the Tor anonymity cloud helped in last year's increases in censorship of the internet by the control freaks currently in power in Iran and China etc.

3567 Tor and censorship: lessons learned mp4 iProd mp3 ogg

Roger appealed to his audience of Tor users, to please set up some more voluntary Tor Bridge Relays, which do not appear in the main , easily censored or blocked, public Tor Directory.

Note also Roger's hint about the current uncensorability of IPv6 connections.

Will this increasingly repressive, bankrupt Labour government, be replaced by something kinder, more humane and less inept ?

Spy Blog's articles published in 2009 appear to have been read by, and perhaps influenced, some mainstream print and broadcast media journalists and commentators, some technical IT publications, Members of Parliament at Westminster, various large blue chip companies, and also by UK and foreign government departments, law enforcement agencies and some of the more overt open source collection arms of intelligence agencies and by various private sector "corporate research" outfits.

Spy Blog has also come across some worrying and interesting stuff, which has not been published.

December 2009

1. 2009.12.31: If Somalia can detect "underwear bombs" without them, why waste money on intrusive "child porn" / "see through your clothes" image scanners at airports ?
2. 2009.12.23: ID Cards / National Identity Register centralised biometric database - further expansion of the Post Code Lottery to inflict the "voluntary" scheme on Liverpool and the North West etc.
3. 2009.12.17: Powerless, part time, interim CCTV "regulator" appointed by the Home Office
4. 2009.12.12: The Sun: Laptop is stolen at MoD HQ - "plus an encryption key to unlock highly sensitive files"
5. 2009.12.12: Mass Gathering in defence of street photography - 12 Noon Saturday 23rd January 2010 Trafalgar Square, London
6. 2009.12.11: Intercept as Evidence Report - £2.5 million spent and still no workable "legal model"
7. 2009.12.02: RIPA Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy and the MPs expenses scandal
8. 2009.12.01: Digital Economy Bill 2009 seeks to crush UK Internet Domain Registry industry with bureaucratic red tape and unfair legal costs

1. 2009.11.29: "JFL" provides some more details about his imprisonment for refusing to divulge his crytptographic keys under a RIPA Part III section 49 notice
2. 2009.11.25: Forced into Prison / Mental Hospital for not revealing cryptographic keys to the Kafkaesque Police and (in)Justice system here in the United Kingdom
3. 2009.11.21: Bribery Bill 2009 clause 12 - some Secret Intelligence Service MI6 or Security Service MI5 exemptions, but why should Local Authority Trading Standards etc. ever be allowed to bribe anyone ?
4. 2009.11.19: Manchester area post codes where the foolish can apply for an ID Card
5. 2009.11.18: Queen's Speech - "mobile phones in prisons" more useless, repetitive, legislation planned
6. 2009.11.05: Home Office summary of responses to the public consultation on "Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000: Consolidating orders and codes of practice"

1. 2009.10.22: United Kingdom (England & Wales) Census Day / Night - Saturday 27th March 2011 - will you boycott the intrusive, snooping questions ?
2. 2009.10.21: Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 conviction statistics
3. 2009.10.19: Does a Registered Post mass mailing in USA = Communications Data / Banking Secrecy law breach in Switzerland ?
4. 2009.10.17: Non-reportable injunctions - Mr. Justice Tugendhat, Mr. Justice Sweeney and Mr. Justice Maddison
5. 2009.10.17: Carter-Ruck's Trafigura scandal non-reportable super- injunctions - Mr. Justice Maddison and Mr.Justice Sweeney
6. 2009.10.15: More illegal Mobile Phones in Prisons, more re-cycled Answers and Policies from the Ministry of (In)Justice
7. 2009.10.13: Manchester Airport "child porn" Rapiscan X-ray scanner trial - why now, after all the other trials at airports or railway stations failed ?
8. 2009.10.13: Who are the Judges who are granting secret injunctions on behalf of Trafigura and Barclays etc. ?
9. 2009.10.10: Is the "Internet Eyes" CCTV web monitoring "game" merely incompetent, or an actual scam ?
10. 2009.10.04: Sunday Times: "recently retired C" lambasts David Miliband for the appointment of Sir John Sawers as the new Chief of SIS / MI6
11. 2009.10.01: Sir David Pepper, retired boss of GCHQ, joins Thales UK advisory board - familiar photo in the press release
12. 2009.10.01: 5 more National Identity Scheme Statutory Instruments - do Thales Group and 3M Company employees realise that they face up to 10 years in prison for any mistakes or strikes?

1. 2009.09.28: China tries to block Tor
2. 2009.09.28: Compulsory dog ID microchips plan - Yet Another National Database of human names and addresses is not acceptable
3. 2009.09.27: Castrol roadside billboard ANPR snoopvertising - another DVLA database privacy scandal
4. 2009.09.26: David Mery gets an apology for his unlawful arrest after 4 years - it should have been 4 days at most
5. 2009.09.21: RIPA Commissioner and illegal Property Interference by the Environment Agency
6. 2009.09.14: Sir Joseph Pilling appointed as National Identity Scheme Commissioner - how can a former Whitehall "Sir Humphrey" be "independent" of the Home Office ?
7. 2009.09.14: How can we have confidence that the HMRC online tax return system is safe to use ?
8. 2009.09.06: News of the World politics blog: alleged CIA intelligence sharing threat and the Operation Pathway intelligence failure
9. 2009.09.06: Why is there a need for a "Big Brother Watch" campaign by the TaxPayers' Alliance ?
10. 2009.09.04: MI5 Security Service web site re-fresh - shadow people and foreign language version inconsistency
11. 2009.09.01: The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Commencement No. 3) Order 2009 - who will be apponted as the National Identity Scheme Commissioner ?

1. 2009.08.27: ACPO eCrime Strategy - no clarity on international Extradition, nor on Collateral Damage to the innocent caused by eCrime investigations
2. 2009.08.25: Climate Camp Twits - 6consulting and the Metropolitan Police Service
3. 2009.08.25: Snooping on the Climate Camp Swoopers via SMS text messages
4. 2009.08.16: International Action Day "Freedom not Fear 2009 - Stop Surveillance Mania!" on 12 September 2009
5. 2009.08.13: I'm a Photographer Not a Terrorist !
6. 2009.08.10: New Enemies - part 3 of BBC Radio 4 - MI6: A century in the shadows
7. 2009.08.02: ACPO policy on ANPR: The Management and Use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition

1. 2009.07.31: Home Office: UK identity card image unveiled
2. 2009.07.29: Which was worse - the MI6 website spelling mistakes or the MI5 website Cross Site Scripting vulnerability ?
3. 2009.07.25: Gordon Brown maintains the dilution the Wilson Doctrine again
4. 2009.07.22: RIPA Commissioners Annual Reports for 2008
5. 2009.07.21: Terrorism Threat Level SEVERE reduced to SUBSTANTIAL - what is anyone doing any different from before ?
6. 2009.07.20: How they do Lawful Interception of mobile phones and broadband internet in Switzerland
7. 2009.07.20: Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill - SOCPA to be replaced by Public Order Act powers in 250 metre Area around Parliament Square
8. 2009.07.20: Satellite jammers in Iran ?
9. 2009.07.17: RIPA Commissioners Annual Reports to be published on Tuesday 21st July 2009, just as Parliament breaks up until 13th October
10. 2009.07.15: National Policing Improvement Agency annual report and accounts 2008-09 - mobile handheld computers, ANPR database, DNA database, PNC, IMPACT, Aircell for the Tube, Prüm
11. 2009.07.12: BBC Radio 4 - MI6: A Century in the Shadows - Monday July 27th 2009
12. 2009.07.11: Metropolitan Police Service incomplete "war on photographers" advice
13. 2009.07.11: "suspect your neighbours" Climate of Fear propaganda posters campaign cost £1.7 million, Terrorism Hotline costs £120,000 a year
14. 2009.07.10: Reminder: Home Office RIPA CoP Con closes today
15. 2009.07.05: Facebook, Mail on Sunday and Sir John Sawers incoming Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service MI6
16. 2009.07.02: Alan Johnson lies about ID Cards and £1.2 billion a year identity fraud

1. 2009.06.27: UK Cyber Security Strategy - even more bureaucracy, but no financial budget, legislative power or democratic accountibility
2. 2009.06.21: Tor relays and exit nodes for Iran, and for the rest of us
3. 2009.06.17: NightJack blog versus The Times newspaper - are there wider implications for anonymous sources and writers ?
4. 2009.06.17: London School of Economics: Briefing on the Interception Modernisation Programme
5. 2009.06.16: Sir John Sawers KCMG appointed as the new Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service MI6
6. 2009.06.15: ID Card scheme function creep - sneaky compulsory registration of mobile phones by the back door ?
7. 2009.06.14: Will Home Secretary Alan Johnson bother to listen to opponents of the ID Cards scheme, during his supposed review "by the end of the summer" ?
8. 2009.06.11: The Guardian reveals details of the mechanics of the failed Hotmail plot by the anti-Gordon Brown faction of Labour MPs
9. 2009.06.09: HMRC tax records centre left unguarded by Mapeley, who also run the Passport / ID Card interrogation centre buildings
10. 2009.06.09: Postman Patel - Edward Teague - Rest in Peace
11. 2009.06.09: Home Office ministers re-shuffled
12. 2009.06.08: Who's Watching You ? - GCHQ's Sir David Pepper interviewed - but still too many surveillance topics in one tv documentary
13. 2009.06.06: DVLA still selling drivers names and addresses to dodgy Private Wheel Clampers, according to The Times
14. 2009.06.04: signonnow@hotmail.co.uk - The Email Address Most Likely To Be Snooped On ? - Labour in crisis: the Hotmail conspiracy
15. 2009.06.02: Has any other political blogger been spammed by The Jury Team ?
16. 2009.06.02: Steve Moxon - Home Office Immigration whistleblower vindicated by FOIA disclosures about Beverely Hughes
17. 2009.06.02: Jacqui Smith to resign as Home Secretary - but when exactly ?
18. 2009.06.01: Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6 / SIS worries about lost civil liberties

1. 2009.05.30: Richard Tomlinson versus MI6 rapprochement ? Is this due to the amended Terrorism Act ban on eliciting or communicating information about former intelligence agency officers ??
2. 2009.05.26: 38 Degrees - will the data protection issues inhibit sign up ?
3. 2009.05.25: RAF Innsworth stolen personnel security vetting files coverup
4. 2009.05.23: BBC2 tv documentary Who's Watching You ? starts Monday 25th May 9pm
5. 2009.05.23: Illegal retention of Police surveillance photos of innocent people
6. 2009.05.20: Home Office and research about the (lack of) effectiveness of CCTV in reducing crime
7. 2009.05.19: ISC report (again) on the 7th July 2005 London bomb attacks - some jargon explained, but still no blame on MI5 or the Police for intelligence failures
8. 2009.05.17: Naming of the MP Expenses whistleblower leak intermediaries ?
9. 2009.05.14: SOCA Annual Report 2009/09 - Appendix III: SOCA Reports and Assessments 2008/09 - will these be made public ?
10. 2009.05.12: Gordon Brown pretends that "knife crime" is a "new kind of crime"
11. 2009.05.12: National Identity Cards Scheme creep - 4 Draft Orders laid before Parliament under the Identity Cards Act 2006
12. 2009.05.10: UK computer forensics expert Jim Bates wins High Court appeal against a police search warrant
13. 2009.05.09: Operation Algebra child rape convictions in Scotland: open WiFi tracking, digital camera image forensics
14. 2009.05.07: Home Office spinning about 6 and 12 years data retention for innocent people's DNA profiles and Fingerprints
15. 2009.05.04: GCHQ: our Intelligence and Security mission in the Internet age

1. 2009.04.27: Communications Data public "consultation" with only one permitted option
2. 2009.04.22: Jacqui Smith: more weasel words about the harassment of innocent photgraphers
3. 2009.04.21: BBC Radio 4 iPM - Can U See Me ? CCTV camera spotting and sousveillance
4. 2009.04.18: Public Consultation on reforming parts of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
5. 2009.04.18: Damian Green MP arrest - Police tampering with computer evidence or political snooping on civil liberties campaigner Shami Chakrabarti ?
6. 2009.04.17: The arrest of opposition Senator Stuart Syvret in Jersey - another Damian Green MP style scandal ?
7. 2009.04.15: Operation Pathway arrests - where are the explosives or weapons ?
8. 2009.04.04: Re-appointment of the Interception of Communications Commissioner and the Intelligence Services Commissioner

1. 2009.03.29: Is Huawei really more of a security risk to the UK Critical National Infrastructure than other foreign telecommunications equipment companies like Cisco or Ericsson ?
2. 2009.03.23: How much "war on terror" training for "tens of thousands" of people is the Labour government providing ? As little as 3 hours (including a coffee break)
3. 2009.03.23: The state of the UK Database State
4. 2009.03.19: OGC finally publish the two Stage Zero Gateway Reviews of the ID Cards programme - 1510 days = 4 years 1 month 18 days after the initial Freedom of Information Act request
5. 2009.03.19: Passion and Dalliance blog: Why you need balls of steel to operate a Tor exit node
6. 2009.03.17: The Polygraph Rules 2009 - more "Lie Detectors", but not for the politicians and spin doctors
7. 2009.03.16: Metropolitan Police terrorism fear Propaganda Poster lies about bombs, reconnaissance and CCTV cameras - updated 25th March 2009
8. 2009.03.16: The Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2009 come into force on 6th April 2009
9. 2009.03.14: The BBC botnet - UK cyber crime policing is still hopeless
10. 2009.03.10: National Security Forum appointees - why is there no pandemic disease or biotech or financial markets or cyber security expertise ?
11. 2009.03.08: Weekend newspaper briefing spin that the controversial Data Orders Clause 152 of Coroners and Justice Bill is to be abandoned
12. 2009.03.07: Intelligence and Security Committee report for 2007 - 2008 - SCOPE Phase 2 cancelled, even more snooping planned
13. 2009.03.03: MPs vote to try to keep their constituency home addresses secret
14. 2009.03.02: The Convention on Modern Liberty is over - now what are you going to do to save our freedom and liberty ? Get rid of Clause 152 from the Coroners and Justice Bill

1. 2009.02.28: Convention on Modern Liberty video streams
2. 2009.02.26: Liberal Democrats - Freedom Bill 2009
3. 2009.02.25: Sir David Omand on Protint - 'protected information' data mining of personal sensitive data by intelligence agencies
4. 2009.02.23: Practical things to do and bring to the Convention on Modern Liberty
5. 2009.02.20: Privy Council Intercept as Evidence Advisory Group interim progress report 9th February 2009
6. 2009.02.20: Information Tribunal orders publication of the early ID Cards Programme Gateway Reviews, again
7. 2009.02.17: Former MI5 Director General Stella Rimington's interview with La Vanguardia
8. 2009.02.16: Where are all the Home Office press releases ? 177 spin doctors but only 5 press releases a week ?
9. 2009.02.14: Chilcot Advisory Group on Intercept Evidence (lack of) Progress Report
10. 2009.02.12: A couple of photos of some Police officers and VIP vehicles - whilst we still can
11. 2009.02.12: Home Office response to Consultation on second phase of EU Comms Data Retention Regulations (internet email, internet telephony etc.) coming into force on 6th April 2009
12. 2009.02.12: Sir James Crosby's Review on Identity Assurance being written out of history by Gordon Brown ?
13. 2009.02.10: Serious Crime Act 2007 used to harass Indymedia server colocation administrator - updated
14. 2009.02.09: Mass photography protest - 11 am Monday 16th February 2009, Metropolitan Police HQ, New Scotland Yard
15. 2009.02.08: Sunday Telegraph - British Jobs For British Spies ? MI5 overwhelmed, or lobbying for even more resources ?
16. 2009.02.07: Surveillance: Citizens and the State - HoL Constitution Committee report
17. 2009.02.06: Exactly what correspondence or communications between MPs and their Constituents is protected by Parliamentary Privilege ?
18. 2009.02.05: Lords Constitution Committee report "Surveillance: Citizens and the State" to be published on Friday 6th February 2009
19. 2009.02.03: Metropolitan Police seeking MPs Parliamentary privileged emails without a warrant
20. 2009.02.03: London Calling Photographers debate - Know your rights: Facing the police crackdown on public photography

1. 2009.01.29: Ralph Bendrath: Privacy in Germany 2008: A new fundamental right, a privacy mass movement, and the usual surveillance suspects
2. 2009.01.26: How sneakily are Blue State Digital tracking NGO political campaign emails ?
3. 2009.01.26: Do not donate money via the Disasters Emergency Committee DEC website
4. 2009.01.26: Coroners and Justice Bill - Information Sharing Orders and other controversies
5. 2009.01.23: Counter Terrorism Act 2008 - "attempting to elicit information" and secret DNA sampling and data sharing etc. come into force on February 16th 2009
6. 2009.01.21: Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski - parliamentary office searched and constituency correspondence handed over to the Police, without a warrant - updated
7. 2009.01.20: A plague on The Sun ?
8. 2009.01.20: Lobby your MP to vote against the Freedom of Information (Parliament) Order 2009 this Thursday - update - have we won ?
9. 2009.01.17: Rest in Peace: Patrick McGoohan and Sir John Mortimer QC
10. 2009.01.15: Coroners and Justice Bill - a further crippling of the Data Protection Act
11. 2009.01.14: ICO Guidance on FOIA requests name and address for correspondence - another attack on Anonymity
12. 2009.01.10: Communications Data snooping - MI5 Jonathan Evans, BBC, DPP Kier Starmer
13. 2009.01.05: Remote Searching of Computer Hard Disks - remember that RIPA etc. do not protect business premises from arbitrary intrusive surveillance, property interference etc.
14. 2009.01.04: Google.co.uk - politically insensitive and inaccurate Metropolitan Police Service "Extremist" Sponsored Links and AdWords campaign
15. 2009.01.02: Tom Watson and the US Air Force Blog Response Flowchart

The unpopular Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has responded, presumably only because President Obama has been on television, with a rambling, turgid and repetitive article on the Number 10 Dowing Street website, which hops about thematically as if it had been stitched together from some SMS text messages via Twitter by Gordon Brown's spin doctors:: Vigilance key to tackling terrorist threat - PM

However, to be fair, if you actually read what the inept Gordon Brown or his henchmen have actually written, there is only one single mention of "full body scanners".

We need, therefore, to continually explore the most sophisticated devices capable of identifying explosives, guns, knives and other such items anywhere on the body.

So - in cooperation with President Obama and the Americans - we will examine a range of new techniques to enhance airport security systems beyond the traditional measures, such as pat-down searches and sniffer dogs.

These could include advancing our use of explosive trace technology, full body scanners and advanced x-ray technology.

As you can see from this Wordle analysis of the text of his article, it is mostly not about "full body scanners" at all:

Is this the start of the cynical "Climate of Fear" propaganda and media spin, which we can expect from the Labour government in the run up to the forthcoming General Election , exactly as they did in the 2005 election ? Hopefully the British public will not tolerate a repeat of manipulative political tactic again.

However, Gordon Brown's vague promise to perhaps further examine full body scanners" is what the BBC and other broadcast media such as Sky News have seized upon, as if this is the only, inevitable solution, without bothering to question or analyse it in any detail.

Such reports are also "livened up" visually with images of, or taken from, privacy intrusive / illegal child porn capable full body image scanners, which are falsely being held out as being the only possible technology which might have magically prevented the attack.

So desperate is the BBC TV News for some suitably "action packed", or "visually interesting" images to illustrate this story with, that they have even broadcast footage of chemical analysis sniffer portals, which are even more expensive and even slower than "see through your clothes" scanners, thereby causing even longer queues at airports, without bothering to explain that this is an entirely different technology.

The media voyeurism, appears to be pushing Government and Opposition politicians in the direction of the military security equipment lobby, who stand to profit from selling these expensive, intrusive, repressive devices, at public expense.

Will none of these politicians display any leadership, and tell the media voyeurs and corporate profiteers and the failed extremists, that we will not be terrorised by them ?

See also the previous Spy Blog article -

If Somalia can detect "underwear bombs" without them, why waste money on intrusive "child porn" / "see through your clothes" image scanners at airports ?

for an example of a less "visually interesting", but potentially more effective device, which uses the same physics as the "see through your clothes" passive millimetre wave imagers, without the same intrusive privacy problems, but with a higher likelihood of being used on you illegally or sneakily, without your knowledge or consent.

The Daily Telegraph appears to be hyping up "see through your clothes" / perv scans, as if they were some sort of magical solution to the perceived problem, even though there is no guarantee that the presence of such equipment would actually have prevented the attempted attack.

Detroit terror attack: hesitation over x-ray scanners risking lives

Ministers have been accused of putting lives at risk by failing to order X-ray style body scanners at British airports despite fears that al-Qaeda is planning a wave of syringe bomb attacks on planes.

By Gordon Rayner and David Millward
Published: 10:00PM GMT 30 Dec 2009

The scanners, which could have thwarted the attack by the Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, are already in use in countries including America and Germany, and yesterday the Netherlands and Nigeria announced they would follow suit.

But the Government said it had "no immediate plans" to deploy them, leading to accusations that ministers had been "caught napping".

Note the weasel words "leading to accusations that..." - accusations by which authoritative source, exactly ? Only this Daily Telegraph article and / or briefings by people who stand to make a lot of money out of the debacle.

The Daily Telegraph has learned that four of the £100,000 full body scanners are in storage at Heathrow Airport, following a previous trial, but airport staff are not authorised to use them.

Good !

That is because they do not work anywhere nearly fast enough - it takes over 10 seconds per person, per scan, to be used at airports without creating massive, vulnerable, queues or crowds of passengers

The United Kingdom's stupidly inflexible and catch-all without exceptions laws on Child Pornography also apply to such imaging scanners, when they are used on your children - defined as anyone under Eighteen years of age.

It emerged yesterday that a Somali man was arrested in Mogadishu last month as he tried to board an aircraft bound for Dubai carrying powdered chemicals and a syringe, in what appears to be an almost identical method to the one used by Abdulmutallab.

[...]

The Dutch government announced yesterday that full body scanners, which are already being trialled there with EU approval, will be introduced on US-bound flights within three weeks at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, where Abdulmutallab caught his connecting flight to Detroit on Christmas Day.

Even Nigeria, where Abdulmutallab began his journey, is to introduce them within weeks.

The company which makes the scanners told The Daily Telegraph that it could have 50 scanners installed at UK airports within three months.

The mainstream media really should examine the claims of companies with a large financial interest in selling such expensive and imperfect equipment to Governments and transport monopolies, at the taxpayer and general public's expense, with more than a pinch of salt.

Remember that US companies such as Rapiscan Systems which make Back Scatter X-Ray imagers, or US subsidiaries of UK companies like Qinetiq plc or the Smiths Detection division of Smiths Industries plc, which make Passive Milimetre Wave imagers etc., are immune from criminal or civil prosecution in the USA, if they are registered with the Department of Homeland Security, and their "security products" or "qualified anti-terrorism technologies" fail to detect a bomb, or if their devices actually harm the health of passengers or security staff, under the "Subtitle G" part of the misleadingly, Orwellian newspeak named "PATRIOT Act law, called the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act of 2002 (SAFETY Act)

Within Whitehall, officials believe that the Nigerian and Dutch authorities have announced the use of scanners in an attempt to mask security failings which enabled the syringe-bomber to board two aircraft without the device being detected.

Since even these imaging scanners are only a sop to the US media and authorities, and will not be used on every flight or on every passenger on a selected flight, this is more, expensive "security theatre".

Guns and explosives and illegal drugs are far more easily available in the USA, than anywhere in the European Union, so what measures are in place to protect the United Kingdom from United States originated flights ?

At the very least , the security measures should be reciprocal and identical at both ends of the transatlantic route.

The Times has more details on this November 13th incident.

Passengers to be scanned after details emerge about Somali bomb plot

The Times
December 31, 2009

Sean O'Neill, Rory Watson, Michael Evans, Philip Pank

A man was arrested last month when he attempted to board an aircraft in Somalia carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe, in a potential forerunner of the Christmas Day bomb plot.

Somali police said yesterday that they were still holding the man who was arrested by African Union troops at Mogadishu airport on November 13. He was trying to board a Daallo Airlines flight that was bound for the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then Djibouti before landing in Dubai, which is a hub for international travel.

He tried to bribe his way on to the aircraft after being stopped.

Abdulahi Hassan Barise, a police spokesman in Mogadishu, said: "We don't know whether he's linked with al-Qaeda or other foreign organisations but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed."

If even Mogadishu airport security can catch someone "red handed" like this, obviously without access to any expensive "see through your clothes" image scanners, then what additional safety margin does such an imaging scanner actually provide, at vast expense and unnecessary privacy intrusion ? None.

The technology actually exists to exploit the "see through your clothes" parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, but without the "child porn" / adult privacy intrusion aspects of image scanners e.g. the QInetiq SPO-7 Standoff Passive Object Detector.

Were the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Executive, the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government consulted on this decision by the politicians and civil servants in Westminster ?

Presumably the "success criterion", which they have used to give the go ahead for this next phase of the rollout of the scheme, is simply the fact that the citizens of Manchester have not actually bothered to rise up and burn down the local Identity and Passport Service offices.

They have, instead,by all accounts simply not been interested in submitting to this "voluntary" scheme, and the Government has resorted to unsubstantiated propaganda statements about how "useful" these ID cards are meant to be, without daring to provide any quantitative evidence of their "success".

Even if the Manchester area ID Cards rollout had somehow been a huge success, it would still be too early to properly evaluate this as a pilot scheme after it had been running for only15 days from the 30th of November 2009.

However, on 15th December 2009, Meg "I've left my ID Card at home" Hillier, the hapless junior Home Office Minister, who has been lumbered with the task of pretending to believe in the the scheme, has signed another Order, which extends the Post Code Lottery to inflict the "voluntary" National Identity Scheme on the rest of the people in North West England from the 4th January 2010.

Statutory Instruments

2009 No. 3323 (C. 150)

Identity Cards

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Commencement No. 6) Order 2009

[..]

Commencement

2.--(1) Section 2(1) and (2), and section 5(1)(b), of the Identity Cards Act 2006 shall come into force on 4th January 2010 in relation to any person to whom paragraph (2) applies, except to the extent that those provisions are already in force in respect of such persons.

What is the rate determining steps, or the critical resources which are behind this staggered rollout of the "voluntary" National Identity Scheme ?

It cannot be Training of Travel Company Staff to recognise and accept what the new ID Cards look like, simply on the printed "look and feel".

Without looking it up online, can you tell at a glance, which of the 3 colour schemes (
turquoise and green, blue and pink, lilac and salmon) has been arbitrarily chosen for the 3 types of ID Card, (identity card for British citizens, identification card for EU or EEA citizens living in the UK, Identity card for foreign nationals) and whether or not they are valid for foreign travel ?

There is still no online Verification Service in operation for private sector companies to be able to actually check the biometrics or to check that the information on the contactless / RFID chip has not been tampered with or forged.

There are no Biometric Readers linked to the National identity Scheme anywhere except in the Home Office's IT sub-contractor's testing laboratories and, presumably, in the couple of ID card applicant interrogation centres.

The new ID Card Post Code Lottery will now cover these areas:

This time, the announced role of "Interim CCTV Regulator" is a part time one, given , without any public competition or scrutiny, to Andrew Rennison who should really be busy full time in regulating the Forensic Science Service and the various centralised biometric databases and evidence collection and analysis procedures e,.g. the National DNA Database and the IDENT1 criminal fingerprint database etc.

HC Deb, 15 December 2009, c113WS

Interim CCTV Regulator

Home Department
Written answers and statements, 15 December 2009

David Hanson (Minister of State (Crime and Policing), Home Office; Delyn, Labour)

I am today announcing the arrangements we are putting in place to take forward implementation of the national CCTV strategy and to approve an interim CCTV regulator with immediate effect.

CCTV enjoys a high level of public confidence in tackling crime.

Note the weasel words "tackling crime" - that does not mean successfully preventing or deterring crime.

Home Office research published in 2005 showed that over 80 per cent. of respondents supported the use of CCTV to deal with crime in their neighbourhood. A similar high level of confidence is reflected in the Ipsos MORI poll conducted last year and which we will be publishing shortly. CCTV played a key role in a number of investigations including the London terrorist outrages in July 2005

CCTV was a spectacular failure in preventing the terrorist suicide bomb murders and attempted murders in July 2005.

Reliance on poor quality CCTV images contributed to the mis-identification and shooting to death by the Police, of the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes. The failures of CCTV on the heavily surveilled London Transport Buses and Tube stations and Tube trains, gave the impression of a coverup by the state

and the Steven Wright murders in Ipswich as well as offences such as burglaries, robberies, violence and antisocial behaviour across the country. The changes are aimed at ensuring that those involved across the CCTV industry, whether from the public or the private sector, can be actively involved in the development and implementation of national standards on the installation and use of CCTV. Importantly, it also aims to maximise public engagement by raising public awareness of the benefits of CCTV and accountability of owners and users of CCTV systems.

We might believe that, if some CCTV systems were actually removed after they have been proven to be ineffective in reducing or preventing crime, or which constitute a disproportionate invasion of people's privacy or security in a particular location.

It is important that we retain and build on that high level of public confidence by demonstrating the important contribution to preventing and detecting crime and antisocial behaviour which CCTV can make.

Does that mean even more expensive, stupid, counterproductive propaganda, like the controversial, and heavily satirised Metropolitan Police terrorism fear Propaganda Poster lies about bombs, reconnaissance and CCTV cameras - updated 25th March 2009 ?

We have already announced in Building Britain's Future that we will make sure that local people have a say on the use of CCTV in their area and will be publishing guidance for crime and disorder reduction partnerships next year on communicating with their community on the role of CCTV in public protection.

Building Britain's Future is the failed Labour Government propaganda campaign, paid for by the taxpayer, launched in June 2009. Can you remember a single initiative or promise it made, without following the web link ?

It is also important that we address public concern about how CCTV is used. I am, therefore, pleased to announce the appointment of the Forensic Science Regulator, Andrew Rennison, as the interim CCTV regulator with immediate effect. The interim CCTV regulator will advise the Government on matters surrounding the use of CCTV in public places, including the need for a regulatory framework overseen by a permanent CCTV regulator, which enables the police, local authorities and other agencies to help deliver safer neighbourhoods while ensuring that personal privacy considerations are appropriately taken into account with supporting safeguards and protections. The establishment of a permanent CCTV regulator would rightly be a matter for Parliament. That is why we are, at this stage, considering the regulatory arrangements function through an interim appointment and the revised governance structure for implementation of the national CCTV strategy.

The interim appointment will be for a period of up to 12 months. The appointment is an important step in implementation of the national CCTV strategy. The interim regulator will work with the national CCTV strategy board on six key areas. These are to:

• develop national standards for the installation and use of CCTV in public space;
• determine training requirements for users and practitioners;
• engage with the public and private sector in determining the need for and potential content of any regulatory framework;
• raise public awareness and understanding of how CCTV operates and how it contributes to tackling crime and increasing public protection;
• review the existing recommendations of the national CCTV strategy and advise the strategy board on implementation, timelines and cost and development of an effective evidence base;
• and promote public awareness of the complaints process and criteria for complaints to the relevant agencies ( for example, Information Commissioner, local authority or private organisation) or how to deal with complaints relating to technical standards.

The appointment of the Forensic Science Regulator will bring to his CCTV role the expertise, knowledge, and standing he has gained in operating a suitable framework for forensic services.

The role of the Forensic Science Regulator does not involve dealing directly with complaints from the public, or censuring and punishing failures in various government and private sector forensic science laboratories and police forces etc. either., only in setting overall standards.

He will play a leading role in identifying and helping meet the needs of both users and the public.

While the interim CCTV regulator will not have responsibility for deciding whether individual cameras are appropriately sited or how they are used, he will be able to help explain to the public how they can complain about intrusive or ineffective CCTV placement or usage.

Therefore the CCTV "Regulator" has no power or staff or budget to investigate complaints and abuses, and no veto powers, or criminal sanctions to deploy against CCTV abusers.

So this is not, in fact, an independent Regulator, it is more of a part time official Government propaganda role, to try to fob off any members of the public who might complain.

Part of the process of promoting greater accountability is engaging directly with key stakeholders. We will shortly be establishing an independent advisory group with representatives from business, CCTV operators, community and third sector groups to monitor and provide direction on implementing the national strategy. The advisory group will advise the interim CCTV regulator and the national CCTV strategy board.

According to the National CCTV Oversight Body announcement (.pdf)

The National CCTV Strategy Programme Board is made up of representatives from Association of Chief Police Officers, Home Office, the National Policing Improvement Agency, the Local Government Association, the Ministry of Justice, Information Commissioners Office, British Security Industry Association, Security Industry Authority, Department for Transport, Office of Security & Counter Terrorism, Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office Scientific Development Branch. The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) is responsible for managing the delivery of the recommendations of the National CCTV Strategy.

None of these public bodies have a good record on the privacy, security or cost effectiveness of CCTV systems, have they ?

These arrangements provide for partnership working at strategic and neighbourhood level. Through these new arrangements, we intend to ensure that CCTV continues to be an important tool available to communities to help tackle crime and antisocial behaviour.

So why have these people not been properly consulted in previous years, before the massive expansion of intrusive CCTV installations was allowed to take place ?

Note that the Interim Regulator is not even tasked with producing, let alone making public, even an Interim Report, about these alleged "consultations" about CCTV, within his 12 months in office.

Exclusive

Laptop is stolen at MoD HQ

By JOHN KAY

Published: 12th December 2009

A MAJOR hunt was in progress last night after a laptop crammed with secret data was stolen from inside the Ministry of Defence nerve centre.

The machine, plus an encryption key to unlock highly sensitive files, vanished from the heart of the MoD's London HQ.

It sparked fears that a "mole" is operating there.

Last night a source said: "This has the potential to become one of the most serious security breaches at the Ministry for a very long time.

If that anonymous statement is true, then given the scale and sensitivity of the IT privacy and security breaches of recent years, it must be a real disaster.

"Laptops have been mislaid before, but not with encryption keys."

Too many of the previously lost or stolen laptop computers had no encryption whatsoever.

The computer was left in the HQ by a high-ranking RAF officer.

He was removed from the maximum security building and posted to another station while the incident is investigated.

MoD cops have been drafted in to probe the loss.

A Ministry spokesperson said: "An investigation is ongoing."

The Ministry of Defence still do not appear to have implemented their own Action Plan for securing laptop computers etc.: Report into the Loss of MOD Personal Data - Sir Edmund Burton Review and MOD's action plan in response to the Burton Report.

The I'm a Photographer Not A Terrorist ! campaign is organising a

Mass Gathering in defence of street photography

12 Noon
Saturday 23rd January 2010
Trafalgar Square

I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! invite all Photographers to a mass photo gathering in defence of street photography.

Following a series of high profile detentions under s44 of the terrorism act including 7 armed police detaining an award winning architectural photographer in the City of London, the arrest of a press photographer covering campaigning santas at City Airport and the stop and search of a BBC photographer at St Pauls Cathedral and many others. PHNAT feels now is the time for a mass turnout of Photographers, professional and amateur to defend our rights and stop the abuse of the terror laws.