The new administration has done something worthwhile. Or it will if it follows through with it You might say it has justified it’s existence.
More than the previous administration did during its entire tenure anyway.
What? - You may ask.
They are to abolish New Labour’s fascist ID card system and the sinister national Identity Register.
Let's hope they make moves towards dismantling the system designed to nationally track all under 18s too.
Further promising indications towards the restoration personal liberties and freedoms are that they are considering making changes to how the National DNA database is administered and functions.
One hopes that before too long there will be a move to purge the records of innocent people that Labour were so keen to collect. The police never kept innocent people’s fingerprints, elimination prints were disposed of after use. There is no reason why DNA can not be treated the same and it might make people more willing to provide it for elimination purposes if they knew it would be disposed of after.
It looks as if the biometric passport may also go the way of all flesh and public CCTV cameras may be reigned back to some extent.
If the coalition administration actually manages to deliver on any of these it establishes it as more concerned for the citizen’s liberty and rights than the previous authoritarian Labour administration.
Showing posts with label ID. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ID. Show all posts
Friday, 14 May 2010
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
New Labour State Reclassifies Cannabis
It seems the New-Labour State has, in the face of it’s own advisors best advice, decided to reclassify cannabis as a class b drug.
Given that this decision is not based on the merits of the case, especially as having it de classified saw a 4% drop in its use, the immediate question that arises is, “What is their agenda?”
Interestingly, they effectively plan to record a persons details on the first “offence” and fine them on the second “offence”.
I don’t know what the percentage of the UK population is that at some time has tried cannabis but I suspect it is very significant. I would imagine thousands of essentially law abiding otherwise non criminal users are detected by the police every year.
To give an idea of the numbers, when surveyed 10% of people asked actually admitted they had used an illegal drug in the past year, that is around 3,100,000 people. Given that many of the repondants may not have admitted using drugs and that the majority of drug use involves cannabis that is a huge pool of potential cannabis users.
One effect of these new rules is likely to be a massive increase in the number and rate of additions to the New Labour State’s disguised National DNA Database.
Another effect is likely to be a considerable increase in revenue for the State in the form of fixed penalty or so-called “on the spot” fines.
Could either of these considerations influenced a cash strapped government anxious to push through a massively unpopular national DNA database?
Then there is the matter of pretending to be ”tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”…
Given that this decision is not based on the merits of the case, especially as having it de classified saw a 4% drop in its use, the immediate question that arises is, “What is their agenda?”
Interestingly, they effectively plan to record a persons details on the first “offence” and fine them on the second “offence”.
I don’t know what the percentage of the UK population is that at some time has tried cannabis but I suspect it is very significant. I would imagine thousands of essentially law abiding otherwise non criminal users are detected by the police every year.
To give an idea of the numbers, when surveyed 10% of people asked actually admitted they had used an illegal drug in the past year, that is around 3,100,000 people. Given that many of the repondants may not have admitted using drugs and that the majority of drug use involves cannabis that is a huge pool of potential cannabis users.
One effect of these new rules is likely to be a massive increase in the number and rate of additions to the New Labour State’s disguised National DNA Database.
Another effect is likely to be a considerable increase in revenue for the State in the form of fixed penalty or so-called “on the spot” fines.
Could either of these considerations influenced a cash strapped government anxious to push through a massively unpopular national DNA database?
Then there is the matter of pretending to be ”tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”…
Thursday, 27 March 2008
New Report critical of UK asylum system
The independent Asylum Commission haspublished a report critical of the way asylum seekers are treated in the UK.
The system does seem to be far from satisfactory. It takes far too long to make decisions and implement them, keeping people in limbo. It does not appear to consistently implement those decisions when they are made. The decisions do not always seem to make sense to a ‘layman’. It is actually illegal to employ ‘illegals’ and the punishments for doing so appear to be becoming increasingly draconian, so they cannon provide for themselves.
It must be said that many of the cases of asylum seekers that one hears about look far more like economic migration than actual genuine asylum seeking.
This impression is bolstered by the undeniable fact that the UK has many more‘asylum seekers’ than any other state in the EU. The natural question that arises is: If all these people are genuine asylum seekers, then given that many have to travel through large areas of Europe to get here, why do they not claim asylum at the first opportunity, as they are supposed to?
One can’t help but wonder if the welfare state is part of the attraction - and part of the problem. It is the nature of the system that actually makes it a problem. The chance of enjoying the ‘benefits’ of they system is an undeniable magnet. The drain on the system caused by large numbers of people who have never contributed to it is a problem, a serious one in certain areas.
If there were no welfare state, or broadly it could not apply to those who had not significantly contributed to it, this would remove the ‘drain’ and much of the problem. It might also make the UK less likely to be a preferred destination. In addition those who came in reality as economic migrants could be honest about it either working and contributing to society, or go elsewhere, possibly back home.
Surely those willing to work hard to honestly obtain a better life and who want to become British and adopt our values might be considered to be more of an advantage than a disadvantage.
It seems it is only under a social welfare system like ours, designed as if it operates in isolation, that this would be a problem at all, before the advent of the welfare state it would not have been. One wonders if this might be a main driver behind New Labour’s desperate desire for a compulsory national identity card system, that and their apparently compulsive desire to regulate the population, in as many aspects of their lives as possible.
Before the advent of the welfare state incomers who did not contribute to, or preyed on society, would have found it uncomfortable, even impossible to stay and left, or fallen foul of the law and been forced to leave. The Honest and hardworking would have settled and become British. In any even there would have been no ‘drain’.
The system does seem to be far from satisfactory. It takes far too long to make decisions and implement them, keeping people in limbo. It does not appear to consistently implement those decisions when they are made. The decisions do not always seem to make sense to a ‘layman’. It is actually illegal to employ ‘illegals’ and the punishments for doing so appear to be becoming increasingly draconian, so they cannon provide for themselves.
It must be said that many of the cases of asylum seekers that one hears about look far more like economic migration than actual genuine asylum seeking.
This impression is bolstered by the undeniable fact that the UK has many more‘asylum seekers’ than any other state in the EU. The natural question that arises is: If all these people are genuine asylum seekers, then given that many have to travel through large areas of Europe to get here, why do they not claim asylum at the first opportunity, as they are supposed to?
One can’t help but wonder if the welfare state is part of the attraction - and part of the problem. It is the nature of the system that actually makes it a problem. The chance of enjoying the ‘benefits’ of they system is an undeniable magnet. The drain on the system caused by large numbers of people who have never contributed to it is a problem, a serious one in certain areas.
If there were no welfare state, or broadly it could not apply to those who had not significantly contributed to it, this would remove the ‘drain’ and much of the problem. It might also make the UK less likely to be a preferred destination. In addition those who came in reality as economic migrants could be honest about it either working and contributing to society, or go elsewhere, possibly back home.
Surely those willing to work hard to honestly obtain a better life and who want to become British and adopt our values might be considered to be more of an advantage than a disadvantage.
It seems it is only under a social welfare system like ours, designed as if it operates in isolation, that this would be a problem at all, before the advent of the welfare state it would not have been. One wonders if this might be a main driver behind New Labour’s desperate desire for a compulsory national identity card system, that and their apparently compulsive desire to regulate the population, in as many aspects of their lives as possible.
Before the advent of the welfare state incomers who did not contribute to, or preyed on society, would have found it uncomfortable, even impossible to stay and left, or fallen foul of the law and been forced to leave. The Honest and hardworking would have settled and become British. In any even there would have been no ‘drain’.
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Issue of DNA records of the innocent reaches European Court
Did you wonder why Det Supt Stuart Cundy, who led the murder hunt which led to Mark Dixie's conviction, started going on about a compulsory national DNA database the other day? What his agenda might have been?
Unlike Scotland, where they take their civil liberties a wee bit more seriously, In England and Wales if the police arrest you, even if you have done nothing wrong, like the guy with the MP3 player, they will take your DNA and you will go into New Labour’s National DNA database, never to be removed.
This is unlike the tried and tested system with fingerprints where they only keep them if a person is convicted and people don’t mind giving them for elimination purposes because they know they will be destroyed afterwards.
Now the police’s practices with the DNA database is being challenged in the European Court of human rights as an infringement of an individuals right to privacy and anti-discrimination.
This database is scarily already the largest of it’s kind in the whole world.
If they win then the police will have to remove the DNA records from the system of those who have not been convicted and the system will have to work more like the fingerprint system or the Scottish system.
It is quite probable that a compulsory universal DNA database (that the police appear to be covertly working their way towards already) would indeed probably result in a few extra detections, or earlier detections of crimes.
Then again, so would electronically tagging every citizen, at their own expense, with a mini GPS system, camera and Microphone that relayed the info it recorded to a central database would too.
The question is, is the price paid in the loss of your civil liberties worth the benefits of the illusion of safety. DNA evidence can be spoofed, or compromised, by the savvy criminal and it is not always necessarily as reliable as it is imagined to be by the general public.
If they ever do manage to force a compulsory national DNA database on us by some devious means (Passports? ID Cards?). it will be great for the Authoritarians who want to check our every move.
Then there is the good old mission creep factor. What else would they get up to with the information? - One could do racial profiling in the name of medical research for instance…
One thing is certain - before long every junior civil servant and council worker in the country would have access and you could be sure they could not be trusted not to leave millions of records on a bus somewhere, or just loose them.
Best it is stopped. It comes to something when a UK citizen has to appeal to the European court to protect their civil rights from our own Government.
Unlike Scotland, where they take their civil liberties a wee bit more seriously, In England and Wales if the police arrest you, even if you have done nothing wrong, like the guy with the MP3 player, they will take your DNA and you will go into New Labour’s National DNA database, never to be removed.
This is unlike the tried and tested system with fingerprints where they only keep them if a person is convicted and people don’t mind giving them for elimination purposes because they know they will be destroyed afterwards.
Now the police’s practices with the DNA database is being challenged in the European Court of human rights as an infringement of an individuals right to privacy and anti-discrimination.
This database is scarily already the largest of it’s kind in the whole world.
If they win then the police will have to remove the DNA records from the system of those who have not been convicted and the system will have to work more like the fingerprint system or the Scottish system.
It is quite probable that a compulsory universal DNA database (that the police appear to be covertly working their way towards already) would indeed probably result in a few extra detections, or earlier detections of crimes.
Then again, so would electronically tagging every citizen, at their own expense, with a mini GPS system, camera and Microphone that relayed the info it recorded to a central database would too.
The question is, is the price paid in the loss of your civil liberties worth the benefits of the illusion of safety. DNA evidence can be spoofed, or compromised, by the savvy criminal and it is not always necessarily as reliable as it is imagined to be by the general public.
If they ever do manage to force a compulsory national DNA database on us by some devious means (Passports? ID Cards?). it will be great for the Authoritarians who want to check our every move.
Then there is the good old mission creep factor. What else would they get up to with the information? - One could do racial profiling in the name of medical research for instance…
One thing is certain - before long every junior civil servant and council worker in the country would have access and you could be sure they could not be trusted not to leave millions of records on a bus somewhere, or just loose them.
Best it is stopped. It comes to something when a UK citizen has to appeal to the European court to protect their civil rights from our own Government.
‘Most Wanted Fugitive’ actually innocent German holidaymaker
It just goes to show how much you can rely on facial recognition software.
A German couple on holiday in the Sicilian resort of Taormina last year were mis-identified as James J Bulger, alleged American crime boss, one of the FBI’s most wanted - and his girlfriend Catherine Grieg.
Fortunately the FBI appear to have adopted a more sensible approach since they had pensioner Derek Bond arrested at gunpoint and clapped in irons whilst on a wine tasting holiday in South Africa. They misidentified him as one Derek Sykes, on their most wanted list. It was days before they even bothered to go look at him. He had to agree to extradition to try and sort it out.
It could have been far worse, he could have been in real trouble as happened to a German businessman in 2005, whilst off on holiday going to Macedonia.
He was allegedly arrested, held captive, flown to Afghanistan and tortured - by U.S. government agents after being mistakenly identified as an associate of one of the 7/11 Hijackers.
Oops! Sorry…
Presumably this is the same vaunted biometric technology to be included in Passports and New Labour’s beloved ID card system and database. The same facial recognition software that was trialled last year as a part of a airport security and hailed as a success.
Knowing it’s going to be there ready to misidentify you as a dangerous gangster, or a terrorist should make you feel so much more secure – doesn’t it?
A German couple on holiday in the Sicilian resort of Taormina last year were mis-identified as James J Bulger, alleged American crime boss, one of the FBI’s most wanted - and his girlfriend Catherine Grieg.
Fortunately the FBI appear to have adopted a more sensible approach since they had pensioner Derek Bond arrested at gunpoint and clapped in irons whilst on a wine tasting holiday in South Africa. They misidentified him as one Derek Sykes, on their most wanted list. It was days before they even bothered to go look at him. He had to agree to extradition to try and sort it out.
It could have been far worse, he could have been in real trouble as happened to a German businessman in 2005, whilst off on holiday going to Macedonia.
He was allegedly arrested, held captive, flown to Afghanistan and tortured - by U.S. government agents after being mistakenly identified as an associate of one of the 7/11 Hijackers.
Oops! Sorry…
Presumably this is the same vaunted biometric technology to be included in Passports and New Labour’s beloved ID card system and database. The same facial recognition software that was trialled last year as a part of a airport security and hailed as a success.
Knowing it’s going to be there ready to misidentify you as a dangerous gangster, or a terrorist should make you feel so much more secure – doesn’t it?
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Innocent until proven guilty? Not in the UK anymore it seems
I was channel hopping last night and I saw one of those ‘enforcement’ programs where they follow police and bailiffs.
One incident struck me. Liverpool police were trying out this piece of kit that appeared to combine an automated number plate recognition camera with a database, or databases.
A car registered on their system driven by a woman on the way to help arrange her mother’s birthday party, she had the cake and children with her.
This wonderful piece of kit flagged her up as uninsured, the last one had recently expired.
When they spoke to her she was adamant they had cover. Her husband had arranged it with a different insurer. What insurer? Could she prove it?, they asked. Not right there and thenshe couldn't.
There did not appear to be any doubt as to her identity. They knew where she lived. The vehicle had current tax and you can’t get that without insurance.
Given her strenuous and obviously sincere insistence that they had insurance the sensible thing would surely have been to ask her to produce her documents within seven days at a police station and let her go on the way to arrangeing the party.
Not these boys though. Maybe they were performing for the camera - maybe not.
The computer says No!
So I presume the presumption of the law of the land is no longer ‘innocent until proven guilty’, certainly not according to the Liverpool Police.
They turned her out of her vehicle together with her children and the cake and stuck big stickers all over the windscreens saying the vehicle was uninsured.
At the end of the program it was mentioned that she had been insured all along. Her husband had changed companies and the new details had not found it’s way onto the clearly inadequate database.
So here we have a perfectly law abiding person forbidden from lawfully going about her business, on the whim of a police officer with a discretion (and common sense) bypass, on the basis of an inadequate incomplete database.
Presumably causing her considerable inconvenience, stress, embarrassment and some expense. Her only 'crime' bing her husband changed insurance companies.
A database is not definitive proof someone is uninsured. She could and did easily prove she was insured given the opportunity, but surely it should be the job of the police to prove she was uninsured, not the other way round and their precious database did not and could not do that.
I remember thinking as I watched the segment unfold, that if the family had changed insurers the new details may have been slow finding their way onto the system. Why could the police officer not have worked that out.
More worryingly, one fears it is a taste of things to come. God help us all if New-Lab do introduce their precious Fascist ID cards and almost certainly unreliable (just like other systems they have introduced) database to go with it.
“Don’t have your ‘voluntary’ ID with you card? Can’t prove who you are then, can you? Must be an illegal immigrant. You’re nicked.”
One incident struck me. Liverpool police were trying out this piece of kit that appeared to combine an automated number plate recognition camera with a database, or databases.
A car registered on their system driven by a woman on the way to help arrange her mother’s birthday party, she had the cake and children with her.
This wonderful piece of kit flagged her up as uninsured, the last one had recently expired.
When they spoke to her she was adamant they had cover. Her husband had arranged it with a different insurer. What insurer? Could she prove it?, they asked. Not right there and thenshe couldn't.
There did not appear to be any doubt as to her identity. They knew where she lived. The vehicle had current tax and you can’t get that without insurance.
Given her strenuous and obviously sincere insistence that they had insurance the sensible thing would surely have been to ask her to produce her documents within seven days at a police station and let her go on the way to arrangeing the party.
Not these boys though. Maybe they were performing for the camera - maybe not.
The computer says No!
So I presume the presumption of the law of the land is no longer ‘innocent until proven guilty’, certainly not according to the Liverpool Police.
They turned her out of her vehicle together with her children and the cake and stuck big stickers all over the windscreens saying the vehicle was uninsured.
At the end of the program it was mentioned that she had been insured all along. Her husband had changed companies and the new details had not found it’s way onto the clearly inadequate database.
So here we have a perfectly law abiding person forbidden from lawfully going about her business, on the whim of a police officer with a discretion (and common sense) bypass, on the basis of an inadequate incomplete database.
Presumably causing her considerable inconvenience, stress, embarrassment and some expense. Her only 'crime' bing her husband changed insurance companies.
A database is not definitive proof someone is uninsured. She could and did easily prove she was insured given the opportunity, but surely it should be the job of the police to prove she was uninsured, not the other way round and their precious database did not and could not do that.
I remember thinking as I watched the segment unfold, that if the family had changed insurers the new details may have been slow finding their way onto the system. Why could the police officer not have worked that out.
More worryingly, one fears it is a taste of things to come. God help us all if New-Lab do introduce their precious Fascist ID cards and almost certainly unreliable (just like other systems they have introduced) database to go with it.
“Don’t have your ‘voluntary’ ID with you card? Can’t prove who you are then, can you? Must be an illegal immigrant. You’re nicked.”
Sunday, 14 October 2007
The UK asylum system unable to cope.
The Government’s obsession with it’s ill judged and useless targets chalks up another resounding success – not!
Despite the fact that, according to the figures (yes I know you can’t trust them – but for the sake of argument) so-called ’refugees’ are at a 14 year low, never-the-less our wonderful Government and it’s highly effective and ever expanding army of client employees have somehow contrived to foul up the asylum system so badly it is in turmoil.
According to a leaked memo the Telegraph got sight of the Home Office has been set a Government target of resolving 40% of all next year's asylum claims within 6 months.
This would in all likelihood result in all the older cases being put on the ‘back burner’. In recognition of this the home office are trawling staff for "quick win" ideas to tackle the problem. Amnesties anyone?
Already they are conducting an exercise to clear 450,000 ‘legacy’ cases by more-or-less just granting them amnesty.
It seems there is unrest in detention centres (Why? They are safe and being fed and clothed) and also claimants are just doing a runner before cases their cases are decided.
On top of that it seems fewer and fewer bogus/failed asylum seekers are actually being deported.
What is the actual point of an asylum ‘system’, if the Government grants amnesties at the drop of a hat when it becomes too much bother to process asylum seekers?
If the system functioned, no one should be allowed to stay once asylum was refused and all claims should be properly processed with no amnesties. Any offences committed in detention centres should have some influence on any asylum claim made by the perpetrator.
If the system, as it exists, is to be taken seriously then surely very few should be granted asylum in the UK if they have travelled through other countries that they could have claimed asylum in to get to the UK. The whole point of the idea is that they are supposed to be seeking safety not picking and choosing somewhere they particularly fancy living.
Why is this a problem with all this in the first place? The welfare State.
It makes the UK very attractive to asylum seekers/economic migrants. It also makes them a problem because too many of them could be a drain on the system.
What will this be used to help justify? ID cards that won’t actually be compulsory to start with for citizens - just impossible to do a lot of things without, and the ‘soft’ fascist state.
See where Government ‘incompetence’ leads to…
Despite the fact that, according to the figures (yes I know you can’t trust them – but for the sake of argument) so-called ’refugees’ are at a 14 year low, never-the-less our wonderful Government and it’s highly effective and ever expanding army of client employees have somehow contrived to foul up the asylum system so badly it is in turmoil.
According to a leaked memo the Telegraph got sight of the Home Office has been set a Government target of resolving 40% of all next year's asylum claims within 6 months.
This would in all likelihood result in all the older cases being put on the ‘back burner’. In recognition of this the home office are trawling staff for "quick win" ideas to tackle the problem. Amnesties anyone?
Already they are conducting an exercise to clear 450,000 ‘legacy’ cases by more-or-less just granting them amnesty.
It seems there is unrest in detention centres (Why? They are safe and being fed and clothed) and also claimants are just doing a runner before cases their cases are decided.
On top of that it seems fewer and fewer bogus/failed asylum seekers are actually being deported.
What is the actual point of an asylum ‘system’, if the Government grants amnesties at the drop of a hat when it becomes too much bother to process asylum seekers?
If the system functioned, no one should be allowed to stay once asylum was refused and all claims should be properly processed with no amnesties. Any offences committed in detention centres should have some influence on any asylum claim made by the perpetrator.
If the system, as it exists, is to be taken seriously then surely very few should be granted asylum in the UK if they have travelled through other countries that they could have claimed asylum in to get to the UK. The whole point of the idea is that they are supposed to be seeking safety not picking and choosing somewhere they particularly fancy living.
Why is this a problem with all this in the first place? The welfare State.
It makes the UK very attractive to asylum seekers/economic migrants. It also makes them a problem because too many of them could be a drain on the system.
What will this be used to help justify? ID cards that won’t actually be compulsory to start with for citizens - just impossible to do a lot of things without, and the ‘soft’ fascist state.
See where Government ‘incompetence’ leads to…
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Cheap as chips? Will the UK ePassport work for more than a couple of years?
Remember the ePassport introduced in 2006, to comply with new international requirements? An absolute rip off snip at only £72 and rising.
The Home Office's Identity and Passport Service (IPS) are no doubt congratulating themselves for apparently accomplishing the unlikely feat of bringing in the scheme, on time and on budget. Note 'Identity' in the name – another brick in the wall of Nu-Lab's total surveillance society.
But wait – These are ten year ePassports and they contain a microchip with your data on it.
That microchip is only guaranteed for, wait for it, two years.
That’ll be fun then, when it packs up after 6 years while you are trying to go through US customs and they think you are a terrorist sneaking in on a fake passport.
And exactly who is going to pay for a new one when it stops working?
The Home Office's Identity and Passport Service (IPS) are no doubt congratulating themselves for apparently accomplishing the unlikely feat of bringing in the scheme, on time and on budget. Note 'Identity' in the name – another brick in the wall of Nu-Lab's total surveillance society.
But wait – These are ten year ePassports and they contain a microchip with your data on it.
That microchip is only guaranteed for, wait for it, two years.
That’ll be fun then, when it packs up after 6 years while you are trying to go through US customs and they think you are a terrorist sneaking in on a fake passport.
And exactly who is going to pay for a new one when it stops working?
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