Director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (C Bowden) describes how blanket data retention is unlikely to be effective. I know hes talking with the (RIP) Act 2000 in mind. I wonder how far removed it is?


"surveillance via ISP and telephone traffic data can easily be evaded by using pre-paid (or stolen) mobile phones and web-based e-mail from public terminals to avoid identification. Organized criminals already routinely use the former, and reports of the modus operandi of the 9/11 terrorists indicate they used the latter. Web-based e-mail services can be provided via any website and will leave no trace with the ISP. They can be set-up on any computer with an always-on connection (domestic broadband is ideal), and there are thousands of examples large and small."

Even with:

"compel logging and retention extends beyond ISPs and telephone companies"

However

"Even such drastic measures would not eliminate possibilities for undetectable communication. The stealthy techniques of steganography (information hiding) allow messages to be camouflaged in sound, pictures, or other routine content in ways analogous to hiding a pebble on a shingle beach."

Brings up the question if these types of blanket data retention is next to useless against terrorism what is it for?

http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1046&context=dltr

Hope everyone in the US has a great 4th of July. I very much look forward to when Scotland will be joining you.

LOL

Corrupt Manchester police conducted hate campaign against Scots 'vermin' in 1960s, admits former detective

A FORMER detective has admitted Scots who moved to Manchester in the 1960s were routinely battered and framed by corrupt police in a bid to eradicate them from the city.

Stephen Hayes – who served as with Greater Manchester Police for 13 years – describes Glaswegians as “vermin” in his new book.

The ex-detective constable goes on to claim he and his colleagues mounted a sustained hate campaign against Scots aimed at “ridding the city” of the “wandering horde of thieving nobodies”.

Hayes, whose shocking book The Biggest Gang In Britain is published this week, tells how the incomers would be beaten up just for walking down the street, and charged with “an assortment of fabricated offences”.

continue reading here: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/corrupt-manchester-police-conducted-hate-1942908

Most people are

follow up from "What kind of Asian are you?"

Love Ken Tanaka BTW

Nahikari Otaegi, a young Basque mother of two children, is getting ready to go to jail. She will be bringing her seven month-old daughter Oihana with her but will have to leave her three year-old son

She has been sentenced to six years of prison for alleged membership of SEGI – the banned Basque pro-independence left youth organisation. According to the Spanish state, to be a member of SEGI is to be helping ETA, the armed Basque resistance group; however no “terrorist” action was proved against either Nahikari or her seven male co-sentenced, no possession of arms, no plans, maps – nothing like that.

The evidence against them consisted of T-shirts, CDs and posters which indicated that they are pro-Basque independence and for socialism, in accordance with which they have been doing open political work for years. But according to the Spanish state, as in the infamous words of a previous harrier of pro-independence Basques, the 'liberal' judge Garzón: “everything is ETA”.




http://www.indymedia.ie/article/103585

Eight Donostia/San Sebastian youths have been sentenced in Madrid to six years in jail and today, Tuesday 16th April, an arrest warrant has been issued against them. They could be arrested any time now. What’s the reason to sentence them to such prison terms? Quite simply, for having been members of the Basque pro-independence youth organization Segi. The sentence states “membership of terrorist organization.” The only evidences produced against them were CD’s, t-shirts, books and posters. They want to imprison them for their political work.

Most of the youths denounced before the judge that they had been tortured while held in incommunicado detention and had been forced to sign self-incrimination statements. 20 months later they were released on bail after paying thousands of euros. Now that the final judgement has been passed they want to imprison them. Before them many more young people have been imprisoned for the same reason in the Basque Country. The Spanish authorities have the will to continue doing so. Nowadays there are more than 200 people awaiting trial in the Basque Country for being members of community and political organizations. That this happens in a 21st century state it’s an absolute outrage.

Basque activist Maria Atxabal can't hold the tears at a press conference where it was announced that the United Nations' Human Rights Committee stated she was tortured by Spanish police in 1996. She was arrested and accused of being an ETA member. Years later she was acquitted of the charges. As a consequence of the torture inflicted upon her she still suffers post-trauma stress. Yesterday she said she feels justice has come at last. The UN's report demands the Spanish state puts an end to the incommunicado regime and the practice of torture. According to Basque human rights organizations up to 10,000 Basques have been tortured by Spanish police over the past four decades.

Interview #9 Caroline Lucas MP "This is not a Democracy" with The Artist Taxi Driver.



Caroline Lucas was the current leader till 2012 of the Green Party in England and Wales.

I've been asked before, if I lived in England. Who I'd vote for? Its easy I'd vote Greens.


edit: correction in bold