July 21st 2005 London bomb attack trial - hydrogen peroxide, chapati flour, TATP detonators

| | Comments (14)

No doubt more speculation and some more actual details will emerge from the trial of the six men who are in court over the failed July 21st 2005 bomb attacks on the London Tube and Bus system.

Panic during the ensuing manhunt, led to the shooting to death of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes by the Metropolitan Police.

The Times reports a few details of the home made bombs:

The Times January 16, 2007

How high street ingredients 'could become weapons for mass murder'
Sean O'Neill

The ingredients of the July 21 bombs were acquired in the high street and required little more than a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry to make up. The shopping list of the alleged bombers included hydrogen peroxide — widely used in hairdressing — chapati flour, nail polish remover (acetone), sulphuric acid, batteries, torch bulbs, electrical wires, cardboard and half a dozen food storage tubs, Woolwich Crown Court was told yesterday.

The components were taken to the flat of Yasin Omar for assembly into improvised explosive devices.

That one-bedroom council flat, on the ninth floor of Curtis House, a tower block in New Southgate, North London, was described at the court as the alleged terror cell’s “bomb factory”.

There, three members of the gang are said to have spent long hours sweating over the electric cooker in the small kitchen, boiling huge panfuls of liquid hydrogen peroxide to reduce the chemical into a stronger concentration.

Mr Omar, who has studied for a GNVQ in elementary science at Enfield College, Muktar Said-Ibrahim and Manfo Kwaku Asiedo were said to have worked in shifts from 5am until 11pm each day.

Two large saucepans and a frying pan that were recovered from the building revealed, after scientific examination, clear traces of concentrated hydrogen peroxide.

The liquid peroxide was the most important ingredient. Increasingly it is used in the hairdressing trade as a cream but the gang was said to have identified outlets in Finchley, Tottenham and Finsbury Park where they could buy it as liquid in an 18 per cent concentration. Between the end of April and July 5, 2005, they are alleged to have bought 443 litres in either one-litre or four-litre containers.

Therefore this was not an improvised "copycat attack" following the July 7th bombs.

The peroxide was to form the bulk of what Nigel Sweeney, QC, for the prosecution, described as the main charge of the bombs.

Mr Sweeney said: “The explosive was intended to consist of liquid hydrogen peroxide, concentrated, mixed with chapati flour, the flour being the fuel that would burn and the hydrogen peroxide providing oxygen, so that when fired by a detonator the mixture would explode.”

This concoction was placed inside a series of 6.25-litre plastic kitchen storage tubs that were sealed with a lid. A hole was cut in the bottom of the container, into which a detonator was inserted.

443 litres of 18% hydrogen peroxide solution.

5 x 6.25 litre plastic tubs

Could they have made rather more than 5 bombs with this amount of hydrogen peroxide ?

The detonator was made from a small carboard tube packed with the homemade explosive triacetone triperoxide, better known as TATP.

This was, in turn, to be set off with a small torch bulb attached to one end of the TATP tube and linked by wires to a 9-volt battery, the court was told.

[...]

If they could make TATP for the detonators, why not for the whole bomb like the July 7th bombers ?

There seems to be reports of anything like the industrial refrigerator unit which the July 7th bombers installed in their Leeds bomb factory.

How they did not set themselves on fire just using a saucepan or frying pan and an electric cooker, to concentrate the hydrogen peroxide solution, is a mystery.

Extensive tests were carried out by the Forensic Explosives Laboratory using the bomb recipe that was allegedly deployed on July 21 and a variety of detonators. In all cases the devices proved to be “functional”.

[...]

Is the Forensic Explosives Laboratory still at Fort Halstead near Sevenoaks in Kent , part of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, i.e. the bit of the UK Government's military research and development that was not privatised as Qinetiq ? Conceivably the new Counter Terrorism Centre at Porton Down (.pdf) in Wiltshire, also under the DSTL, might also have been involved in analysing or trying to replicate the bombs.

On July 21, it was alleged, something had gone wrong with the mixture of the main charge in all four bombs that the gang tried to detonate. Another bomb was abandoned.

With one of the accused having left the country 6 weeks before the attack, and another having ditched his bomb on the day of the attack, the possibility of deliberate sabotage of the main explosive charge chapati flour (any finely divided fuel might have done instead) and concentrated hydrogen peroxide oxidising agent should not be ruled out.

There has been a quite a bit of reporting and speculation as to what extent the July 7th bombers had been under police or MI5 surveillance, but there has been much less about any actual surveillance of this gang of East African refugees and immigrants.

14 Comments

See Postman Patel re refrigerators etc., Monday 15th 2006.

A search of Postman Patel site using the names of the accused will provide links, information to the defendents, their bank records, previous convictions, etc., etc., trade in Qat.

Look fwd to reply from the JIC about the MI5 e-mail fuck up. Not that anyone expects any sensible answers.

  1. "If they could make TATP for the detonators, why not for the whole bomb like the July 7th bombers ?"

    Extremely good point. (They may something about refrigeration units but that is only part of the answer).

  2. "How they did not set themselves on fire just using a saucepan or frying pan and an electric cooker, to concentrate the hydrogen peroxide solution, is a mystery."
    It would be interesting to do a 'Hazop' on their process.
  3. "any finely divi[e]ded fuel might have done instead"
    You need to distinguish between: explosion; conflagration etc ... There is a difference and it will help with your analysis (as would a hazop).

TATP sublimates at room temperature so it must be kept cool all the time or it simply disappears. It's manufacture has to be done below 10'C. It is highly friction and shock sensitive and cannot be stored in metalic containers or containers with screw tops.
It is utterly unsuitable for the alleged purpose. Far better to compound and use
a fulminate or one of the tetradecanes or diamines. As for using chapati flour as a substrate the less said the better, even cowshit is better than chapati flour and would yield a better deflagration, it's all really quite laughable and just shows that people will believe anything they are told by the powers that be.

Any knowledgeable schoolboy could formulate an IED of far greater efficiency far more easily and safely with less risk to themselves than this fiasco alledges.

You cannot concentrate hydrogen peroxide by boiling it - it decomposes at an accelerated rate with increasing temperature. Addition of organic material to the sort of hydrogen peroxide you can buy causes it to decompose - flour and peroxide will just cause a big wet fizz. You'd have more success trying to explode cow shit.

@ PhDman - conceivably they could have used a retort to try distillation, rather than an open saucepan on the electric cooker, but there do not seem to be any media reports of any such laboratory equipment having been found or purchased.

Hot hydrogen peroxide solution in contact with a metal saucepan seems to be a recipe for disaster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_peroxide

As you point out, if they managed to avoid the H2O2 vapours from igniting anything else in the kitchen, In theory, they could have actually weakened the concentration of the 18% H2O2 hair bleach by simply boiling it.

The Forensic Explosives Laboratory seems to have demonstrated chapati flour and hydrogen peroxide detonations, but, not by using the alleged TATP detonators because that would somehow be "too dangerous".

One would have thought that they could have used remotely controlled robotic devices to assemble such an experiment safely.

Whether they actually demonstrated that the precise concentration of chapati flour and hydrogen peroxide solution, with the impurities and additives present in the 18% hair bleach that the failed bombers used, would actually explode like their experiments shown to the jury on video, is another question, which has been glossed over in the media reports of trial.

Earlier evidence from the forensic scientists demonstrates exactly what one would have expected to happen, i.e. that the some of the water in the chapati flour and hydrogen peroxide mixture preferentially evaporated over time, locally concentrating the H2O2 causing the mixture to nearly catch fire in storage.

I never was any good at science so I shall stand in awe of those who are.I'm just glad his flashpoint wasn't reached. Surely the main issue is that these dangerous people are living amongst us with at last report 1,200 under surveillance from MI5?
The public needs to have confidence in robust government, a government not constantly consulting "community leaders" or the MCB for permission to interview or detain suspects. The police service appears more and more like the old toothless guard dog (no disrespect to individual officers) During the frightening scenes of the cartoon protests they appeared to have perfected that cringing smile dogs have when reprimanded.Political Correctness has reduced the once proud police force to the scourge of motorists and those who sell antique collectable toys now deemed offensive. I feel I'm living in a parallel universe when guardians of the state and the citizen are so shamelessly stupid and ineffective......at worst traitorous.
It appears the government and laughably named "opposition" (which opposes nothing) are in the grip of global warming orgasm while the biggest threat to our traditional freedoms goes unchallenged and positively protected.

This information may help. Media reports on the exact make-up of the bombs have been deliberately kept vague as to the proportions and concentrations of ingredients (particularly of the hydrogen peroxide) to prevent anyone getting hold of a recipe easily. And the 7/7 bombs were not made entirely of TATP, they were in fact quite similar to the 21/7 devices. Again, full information has not been released in the interests of public safety.

@ Bob - There is no evidence that the two sets of bombs were very similar in construction at all, except that they come under the heading of Improvised Explosive Devices, carried in rucksacks.

Unlike the 21st July 2005 bomb trial, there has never been any mention of chapatti flour as the fuel for the main charges of 7th of July 2005 bombs. The implication has been that they were entirely made of TATP "Mother of Satan" or perhaps HMTD.

It seems that "full information" about effective bomb making recipes is already widely available via the internet, mostly on websites in the USA, which will present John Reid and Franco Frattini with insuperable problems if they try to censor them via existing UK or proposed European Union laws.

The properties of Hydrogen Peroxide, and what it does at various concentrations, and in contact with various organic substances, with and without the presence of metal ion catalysts, is well known, and is uncensorable, unless you want to create industrial and laboratory accidents, by banning all the legally mandated Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) information and other health and safety regulations.

@ wtwu: What you say is true, full information can be found elsewhere. But that doesn't stop the prosecution in the 21st July case asking national newspapers not to print the full details in the interests of not making it even more available than it already is. Media organisations have so far complied, given that to get into detailed discussion of whether 58 per cent hydrogen peroxide mixed with chapatti flour will explode using 5g of TATP.
And for your information, the 7/7 bombs involved hydrogen peroxide mixed with 'a different organic material' (as said in court), detonated with TATP.
The reason being that TATP is very unstable and it's not a good idea to wander around with large amounts of it (ie more than 5g) because you will probably blow up before you get to your proposed target.

Hi Bob

If I said that the 'different organic material' used in the 7/7 bombs was pepper would you collapse laughing or agree?

Yeah pepper. Well thats what I heard too, but I don't know for definite. Then again you could be the person who told me that in the first place... [ie someone in the media]. We might finally find out when the new 7/7 suspects go on trial (probably not until 2009 at this rate).

The original charges in this case were reported as:

CHARGES
1. That, between 1 Jan and 30 July 2005, the men conspired together "and with other persons unknown to murder other persons"

2. That they "maliciously conspired together" to cause "explosions of a nature likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property"

source:BBC 15/01/07

The second charge of 'conspiracy to cause explosions' was dropped towards the end of the court trial, a fact that only the BBC reported in its report of expert (defence) witness testimony of Professor Hans Michels of Imperial College London (who apparently funded his own experiments - because "he wanted justice to take place").

So if the 'conspiracy to cause explosions' charge was not viable (as the explosive devices themselves were not 'viable'), what was the murder weapon?

And who are these 'persons unknown'? They cannot be any of the other 'known' 37 persons charged & detained as a result of the police investigations into this case.

I find it amazing that citizens rebuke the police and intelligence agencies but do nothing to help them. If the government is inefficient and not doing the job the people need to stand up and fight for what is right on their own behalf. Arguing about whether a bomb is equal to cow shit or not serves no purpose and is an example of academic anemia. The larger issue being overlooked is the people who drive and perform acts against the UK. Most are not rocket scientists, just martyrs. Remember the word martyr. It has nothing to do with logic, science or normalcy.

@ Brian - true enough, however, by stoking up mainstream media hysteria with "anonymous briefings" by Whitehall or Police or Security sources, and by exaggerating the actual danger posed by the evil if incompetent plotters, the "police and intelligence agencies" or their political masters, are actually helping the terrorists to terrorise the public.

Leave a comment

About this blog

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

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

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

Email Contact

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

blog@spy[dot]org[dot]uk

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

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

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

Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers and Political Dissidents

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

BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

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

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

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

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

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

Convention on Modern Liberty - 28th Feb 2009

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

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

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

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

Convention on Modern Liberty blog

David Davis for Freedom

Links

Watching Them, Watching Us

London 2600

Our UK Freedom of Information Act request tracking blog

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

Privacy and Security

Privacy International
Privacy and Human Rights Survey 2004

Cryptome - censored or leaked government documents etc.

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

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

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

International Campaign Against Mass Surveillance

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

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

Technical Advisory Board on internet and telecomms interception under RIPA

European Digital Rights

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

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

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

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

Human Rights

Liberty Human Rights campaigners

British Institute of Human Rights
Amnesty International
Justice

Prevent Genocide International

asboconcern - campaign for reform of Anti-Social Behavior Orders

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

Internet Censorship

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

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

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

Judicial Links

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

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

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

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

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

Parliamentary Opposition

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

UK Government

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

No. 10 Downing Street Prime Minister's Official Spindoctors

Public Bills before Parliament

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

House of Commons "Question Book"

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

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

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

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

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

Online Media

Boing Boing

Need To Know [now defunct]

The Register

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

Ideal Government - debate about UK eGovernment

NIR and ID cards

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surveillance Infrastructures

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

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

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

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

RFID Links

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

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

RFIDBuzz.com blog - where we sometimes crosspost RFID articles

Genetic Links

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

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

Miscellanous Links

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

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

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

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

Former Spies

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

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

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

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

Naked Spygirl - Olivia Frank

Blog Links

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

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

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

Liberty Central

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

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

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

Vmyths - debunking computer security hype

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

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

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

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

Bloggerheads - Tim Ireland

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

Blogzilla - Ian Brown

BlairWatch - Chronicling the demise of the New Labour Project

dreamfish - Robert Longstaff

Informaticopia - Rod Ward

War-on-Freedom

The Musings of Harry

Chicken Yoghurt - Justin McKeating

The Red Tape Chronicles - Bob Sullivan MSNBC

Campaign Against the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

Stop the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

Rob Wilton's esoterica

panGloss - Innovation, Technology and the Law

Arch Rights - Action on Rights for Children blog

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

Shaphan

Moving On

Steve Moxon blog - former Home Office whistleblower and author.

Al-Muhajabah's Sundries - anglophile blog

Architectures of Control in Design - Dan Lockton

rabenhorst - Kai Billen (mostly in German)

Nearly Perfect Privacy - Tiffany and Morpheus

Iain Dale's Diary - a popular Conservative political blog

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

BLOGDIAL

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

Ralph Bendrath

Financial Cryptography - Ian Grigg et al.

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

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

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

"Give 'em hell Pike!" - Frank Fisher

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

geeklawyer - intellectual property, civil liberties and the legal system

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

Charlie's Diary - Charlie Stross

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

Famous for 15 Megapixels

Postman Patel

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

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

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

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

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

Matt Wardman political blog analysis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No CCTV - The Campaign against CCTV

Barcode Nation - keeping two eyes on the database state.

Other Links

Spam Huntress - The Norwegian Spam Huntress - Ann Elisabeth

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

Cool Britannia

Identity Cards Bill clause by clause analysis and comments

NuLabour

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

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

RIPA Consultations

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

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

Syndicate this site (XML):

Recent Comments

  • wtwu: @ Brian - true enough, however, by stoking up mainstream read more
  • Brian: I find it amazing that citizens rebuke the police and read more
  • Sinclair: The original charges in this case were reported as: CHARGES read more
  • Bob: Yeah pepper. Well thats what I heard too, but I read more
  • Numeral: Hi Bob If I said that the 'different organic material' read more
  • bob: @ wtwu: What you say is true, full information can read more
  • wtwu: @ Bob - There is no evidence that the two read more
  • Bob: This information may help. Media reports on the exact make-up read more
  • Cathy: I never was any good at science so I shall read more
  • wtwu: @ PhDman - conceivably they could have used a retort read more

January 2009

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

UK Legislation

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

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

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

UK Legislation Links

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

UK Commissioners

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

UK Intelligence Agencies

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

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

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

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

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

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

gchq_logo.gif
Government Communications Headquarters GCHQ

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

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

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

Campaign Button Links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Open_Rights_Group.png
Open Rights Group

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

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

irrepressible_banner_03.gif
Amnesty International's irrepressible.info campaign

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

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

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

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

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

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

nocctv.gif
No CCTV - The Campaign Against CCTV

Technorati

Technorati search

» Blogs that link here