Function Creep And The Congestion Zone

Quite spectacular information from SpyBlog about the way the data gained from the Congestion Zone and Low Emission Zone Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras, plus CCTV cameras can be - and let's face it, probably has been - sent to the US for their "law enforcement agencies" (read NSA, CIA, FBI).

The particular bit of note is this:

"A spokesman for Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, confirmed that the certificate* had been worded so that the images of private cars, as well as registration numbers, could be sent outside to countries such as the USA."

And as the system is live 24hrs a day, the US could - right now - be watching images of your car/van/motorbike. Despite you having done nothing. Oh, and these images could be held for up to five years. Despite you still not having done anything illegal.

* - The certificate (signed by the Home Secretary on July 4 2007) specifically sets out the level of data that can be sent to enforcement authorities outside the European Economic Area (the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) by anti-terrorist officers from the Metropolitan Police. It says: "The certificate relates to the processing of the images taken by the camera, personal data derived from the images, including vehicle registration mark, date, time and camera location."

America Follows UK Lead

Rather interestingly (to me, anyway, your mileage may vary) The Register are reporting that the US of A have started to adopt the UK's policy of collecting DNA from everyone arrested.

This is - like so many things - function creep from what the DNA database was originally introduced for in the US. It was supposed to store only the DNA from people CONVICTED of sexual attacks, murders and serious violent crimes, but the Government now want to expand this to include everyone arrested for anything. Note, you don't have to be convicted of anything, just arrested. For anything.

Unlike the UK though, the US are granting its citizens a 30-day public comment period after being published in the Federal Register. The US also allows people to have their DNA removed from the database if they can prove they were wrongly arrested, but it can take up to two years to get records expunged.

And while the new rules say federal employees may not use the records to identify genealogy, genetic traits or diseases, it's unclear what is to prevent employees from skirting those rules. Seeing as only last month the US State Department admitted that workers had snooped on the supposedly private passport records of all three presidential candidates, once the information is there, people are going to do what they want with it.

Compare And Contrast

US President George W Bush has today made a speech where he hails the "victory" in the war in Iraq. Not for the first time, but I'll let that pass. No, I'm more interested in the synchronicity happening to me at the minute. I seem to have become a probability sink.

Earlier today I read the piece by Evan Davies that I linked to below. In it there are some descriptions of how people will always pay attention to evidence that supports their view of an argument and ignore anything that contradicts.

This afternoon, I wrote an email suggesting that this was what was happening to people in the UK with regard to revolution: people will only pay attention to news that supports their belief that everything will be okay, but at some point they will have to notice the insurmountable contrary evidence (or "the tipping point" as I described it)

And now this! Despite all evidence to the contrary, G W Bush seems intent on telling the world that the Iraq war has all gone swimmingly.

It's almost like he's read this piece and decided that it was all true! And if you have time, do read some more of Heresy Corner, as it is very, very good.

Prince Harry And The Taliban

As you may have been aware, Prince Harry hasn't been doing shots in London clubs as much as usual recently. No, the third in line to the throne has been shooting terrorists in Afghanistan instead.

I shall point you to the following blog piece about the strange glorification of Prince Harry's brief tour abroad. An excellent read, addressing as it does the lack of any questioning of why "we" are in Afghanistan at all and the almost pro-war stance of the media.

Add to Afghanistan the strange situation in Iraq. We in the UK went - despite the protestations of perhaps a million people - to war with a country because they had the capability of launching weapons of mass destruction at us within 45 minutes. Except they didn't and they couldn't. But they did have quite a lot of oil, handily.

And while we were there, we removed a dictator who was a sponsor of the attacks of 9/11 and the Axis of Evil. Except he wasn't and there is no such axis. But he did have quite a lot of oil, handily.

Oh, and now the Iranians are building a nuclear weapon and may need the might of the "world's greatest democracy"(tm) to teach them a lesson or two. Now the question I have is, do they have oil?

Why do we and America need to keep having wars with people? It's almost like that once the population get used to being at war all the time, they'll put up with stuff they wouldn't do in times of peace; like the removal of civil liberties and the branding of anyone not toeing the party line as a traitor.

War is Peace

Next Census, Senseless.

In quite astounding news, the Government are planning to outsource the collating and retention (but not collection) of census data to a foreign company. Either Deutsche Telekom or, more worryingly, Lockheed Martin.

That would be the same Lockheed Martin who is a major defence contractor for the US Government. And that would be the same US Government whose Patriot Act requires all US firms to hand over any data the Government want without any protections or need for court time for a subpoena.

Angela Eagles, the Treasury Minister, has assured MPs that the data will be safe because "We have received legal advice that there is no risk that that would happen," she told the committee on Wednesday. So that's alright then, isn't it?. She continued;

"Some of the arrangements that would be made would ensure that data was owned and kept within the UK."

Right, because data leaving the country for no apparent reason never happened before, has it?

"There has been no evidence of the US Patriot Act being used to subpoena companies that are not US-based."

And I think the word you may have missed out of this sentence is "yet".

/me checks next available flight out of the UK

US Customs Seize Data

Following on from my predictions of 17th January for what may happen at border control over here, it seems that the Americans have been going through people's data for a while.

The Washington Post is reporting that customs agents are taking mobile phones, mp3 players and, of course, laptops off people arriving into the USA.

The carriers of the laptops (who aren't necessarily the owners) have to give over login and password information at the very minimum, but often the entire laptop. I would suspect that the US then rips all the information off the laptop and then attempts to see why you're a terrorist.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus (two civil liberties groups in San Francisco) plan to file a lawsuit to force the Government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices.

They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.

According to the Post, some companies are so wary of laptops being seized for weeks or more that they are now instructing their staff to travel with hard-drives completely empty of data. While there is obviously a risk that their data can be compromised by being collected online (after passing through customs) they assume there's less risk of it falling into the "wrong hands" than if they entrust it to the Government.

So a bit like over here in that respect then.

Okay, How Did I Miss This?

I was looking online for some information regarding pensioners living in poverty (which hopefully you will see above this), but then remembered we're supposed to call them senior citizens now and searched for that.

But discovered this article instead. Read it (even the headline will do) I'll wait.

Done? Good.

I can only assume that I missed this because it was published on my birthday and I was drunk/dead/abroad at the time.

Let me get this straight: the US Government have argued IN A COURT (The Court of Appeal in London at that!) that it is perfectly legal for them to KIDNAP British citizens from the UK if the person is *suspected* of a crime in the US. And it's legal because the US Supreme Court said it is, "so essentially, fuck off."

I am somewhat stunned by the arrogance of the US. They're not even talking about the extraordinary rendition thing that they usually do, no, they've actually told the UK Government that they will kidnap suspects from UK soil.

And I don't think I heard a murmur out of Gordon Brown. Or the Tory party come to that.

Outrageous.

Perhaps I'm Reading This Wrong

Found an article on Slashdot about an American military plane (B-52) flying over the US with nuclear weapons attached under the wings. So far, so not unusual I thought. Then the kicker: the weapons were only noticed when the plane landed, and for the 3.5hr traveling time were unaccounted for and not missed by the airforce base the plane had taken off from.

The BBC reports the incident but doesn't mention something that was raised on Slashdot, namely that the base the plane flew to is a staging post for flights to the Middle East. The tin-foil hat brigade are split over whether; the fact the nukes weren't missed was because there are so many nukes being transported for use on Iran, or whether; they were moved and then this story leaked deliberately to let Iran/Iraq/Russia/Terrorists know that the US is prepared to use nuclear weapons again.

Now I'm somewhat against the Bush administration's sabre-rattling efforts and their constant attempts to bully the rest of the world into their version of capitalist consumerism (see the late Bill Hicks's routine about America being the Sheriff in the movie Shane, forcing the shepherd to pick up the gun, before shooting him because "he had a gun", sorry this was the only version I could find) and either of the above scenarios scares the crap out of me.

The one that scares me the most, however, is that this was - as is claimed by the USAF - a mistake made by a ground crew when loading a plane. Because for that to be true, the USAF's procedures for the storage, release and movement of nuclear weapons is less secure and rigorous than most company's stationery cabinets.