The costs of ID cards

From the Sunday Telegraph:
People would be fined up to £1,000 for failing to return a dead relative's ID card, while women who marry will have to pay at least £30 for a new card if they want to use their married name, risking a £1,000 fine if they do not comply.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said the fines revelation shows that the scheme "will hit the taxpayer not the terrorists" and is "just another Labour stealth tax".

He said: "It is shocking that the Government is considering charges and fines on people at some of the most sensitive times in life. The Conservatives would scrap this plastic poll tax and invest the savings in practical measures to improve security."

Joan Ryan, the Home Office minister, said that charges would apply "if a person wished to add a married surname to his or her register entry". Based on an estimate of 311,000 marriages a year, that would net up to £9 million a year for the Exchequer.

People would be charged at least £30 for lost or stolen cards. Based on the 930,000 driving licences lost or stolen each year, this would earn the Treasury more than £28 million a year, say the Tories.

In a separate plan that the Tories say could hit millions of students, Mr Reid admitted that applicants will be asked for "all current alternative addresses". Failure to update the register with details such as term-time halls of residence could result in a £1,000 fine.

Just another way to scam the public...

The Telegraph's leader column also states:

Terrorists act by concealing their intentions, not their identities: the three countries in the world that suffer most from terrorist violence [I'm assuming one of them is Israel] all operate ID card schemes.

If there is any doubt in your mind about the efficacy of the proposed system, ponder the following. The one group of people exempt from having to own ID cards will be foreigners who have been in Britain for less than six months. Recall this extraordinary fact the next time you hear a minister blathering about the need to tackle terrorism and control our borders.

ID cards don't prevent terrorism. When will the government take notice?

2006: A Musical Odyessey

Well another year has almost finished. To coincide with this momentous event, once again I’ve decided to review the CDs I’ve got and gigs that I’ve been to over the year.

Albums

Before I list my albums, I must point out that, due to reasons of personal bias, I’ve excluded three albums: (Fiery Furnaces: Bitter Tea, Sonic Youth: Rather Ripped and Thom Yorke: The Eraser) as it’d be unfair to compare the other stuff to my favourite band that no-one’s heard of, my favourite band ever and the solo album of the singer from my favourite current band… Anyway, let’s get the stuff reviewed shall we?

Be your own Pet: Be your own Pet

Noisy, shouty, punky and, er, young-y.

Beck: The Information

Odelay-esque, but with the added bonus of a cover that comes with stickers, so you can make your own unique artwork. Is this helping the fans become creative/show their support, or just laziness on the part of Mr. Hansen?

Cansei de ser Sexy: Cansei de ser Sexy (a. k. a. CSS: CSS)

Fit Brazilian women (one of whom has the appropriate name “Lovefoxxx”!) do NY disco-rock. I wish they would “make love and listen to Death from Above”…
The Fallout Trust: In case of the Flood
No, not a homage to New Orleans, but slightly dramatic indie-pop, with a very nice looking keyboardist…

Flaming Lips: At War with the Mystics
Typical Flaming Lips – weird psychadelia.

Futureheads: News & Tributes
Not as up-front/immediate as their debut, as it takes longer to get into it. It’s still as good though, but a pity their record label dropped them. It happened to BRMC, before coming back with “Howl” so don’t let it get you down!

Hot Chip: The Warning

Slightly nerdy indie-dance electro-pop from the mean streets of Putney! Local band!

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan: Ballad of the Broken Seas

Her who was in Belle & Sebastian with him who was in the Screaming Trees get together and go all folky.

Jeniferever: Choose a Bright Morning

A lot more blessed-out than their live performances (see below), but just as good!

Junior Boys: So this is Goodbye

Canadian electro-pop.

The Knife: Silent Shout

Weird Swedish brother-and-sister duo does even weirder electro/synth stuff. This is possibly why it’s my album of the year. One question: how can you share your mothers’ health?

Larrikin Love: The Freedom Spark

Skiffle, folk and punk mixed together somewhere around the western part of Greater London…

Liars: Drum’s not Dead

So are the tunes! Only kidding, I like albums that consist of stuff which verges on the unlistenable – I’m the sort of person who raves about Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, which probably explains a few things…

Mission of Burma: The Obliterati

New York’s punk/funk veterans go even noisy than before! Yay!

Mystery Jets: Making Dens

Like Larrikin love, but with less folk and more pop. What is it with the area around the western Thames?

Oneida: Happy New Year

Weird US band do an album that appears to be based upon English Mediaeval folk music… but with punky guitars…

Polysics: Now is the Time

Mad Japanese band – a mixture of electro, rock and metal! Fantastic live as well (see below).

The Rapture: Pieces of the People we Love

I didn’t like their debut as they just annoyed me; however, they’ve more than made up for it on this one! Think Radio 4 (when they were good), without the politics, or !!! less the cowbell. “Gotta get myself into it” and they did!

The Secret Machines: Ten Silver Drops

Less shoe-gazing than their debut, more prog.

The Sleepy Jackson: Personality. One was a Spider. One was a Bird

The new Brian Wilson? Well, he’s as mad as him, and his music’s just as orchestral, so who knows?

Spank Rock: Yoyoyoyoyo

If you can’t tell from the title, it’s a hip-hop album! Not NWA-style “Pop a cap in yo’ ass, mutha’fucka”, more party hip-hop.

The Sunshine Underground: Raise the Alarm

Named after a Chemical Brothers’ song (from their Surrender album, if you’re interested), but they don’t sound like them. They’re more indie/dance-rock; think Bloc Party less the politics.

The Strokes: First Impressions of Earth

Are they the forgotten men of New York? Not when they make albums like this!

TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain

I guess the best way to describe this lot is “Shoe-gazing barbershop quartet”…

The Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club: The Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club

They’re right when they say “Ban the Gin” – it’s the devil’s drink… well, OK, it comes second to a Flamin’ Houman (Brandy, Tequila and Tabasco sauce!)

Yo la Tengo: I am not Afraid of you and will Beat your Ass

Appalling title, but great music! Feedback, ballads and hard rock amongst others. They’re Sonic Youth-esque, but not as good (but I guess that’s unfair, as few/if anyone is).

Young Knives: Voices of Animals and Men

Like a punky, nerdier British Sea Power… they could only be British!

Gigs

!!!: Islington

Pronounced “Chk-chk-chk”. They’re one of many New York disco-punk bands that have been noticed in the past few years, but the gig was more like a late-80s/early 90s rave! Gig of the year.

Bonkersfest: Camberwell Green

Free mid-summer festival. From what I remember, it was a boiling hot Saturday and there was a lot of free-jazz – yay! – and just general noise. I hope they have another one next year.

The Fallout Trust: Islington

See their album review.

Jeniferever: Kilburn and Kingston

A Swedish band who are a mixture of Sigur Ros and My Bloody Valentine. They look like a bunch of physics students, but make a wall of sound! I was so impressed that I saw them twice in under a month and bought their album on top of their performances.

Polysics: Islington

They’re fantastic, but they had the misfortune of having the gig during the spell in the mid-summer when we had the record temperatures, which kinda spoiled it. Also the venue doesn’t have air-conditioning and the venue refused to leave the doors open!

The Stills: Shoreditch

Canadians do miserable mid-80s English indie-band – think Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, but with a bit more of an upbeat side.

Transglobal Underground: Old Street

Davide at Nether World dragged me along to it, as they’re his mates, and I’m glad he did! A mixture of house/rave music and what gets termed “World music”, i.e. that which isn’t based on a rip-off of Chuck Berry riffs. On the down side, due to a lack of public transport in central London (!), I had to walk from the gig venue all the way to Vauxhall station in order to get the bus, instead of getting a bus from Liverpool St to Vauxhall, as was planned… bah!

Yo la Tengo: Kentish Town

2½ hr, including 3 encores, of feedback, indie-pop, piano ballads, and various other types of music.

Also various other obscure bands – so obscure, that I can’t remember their names! – in places in central London and the weekly Thursday gig night in Wimbledon.

UPDATE: See Obsolete for his list, which has a lot more detail than my list....

The Lone Carol Singer

I've stuck photos on Flickr from last night's SCOPA Carol Service/Protest. I'll do a proper write-up over the weekend...

UPDATE: I'll only do a short write-up on what happened as it's been more than adequately covered by Davide, Rachel and Tim, amongst others, and there's not that much to add, apart from the fact that I'd already decided on my SCOPA form to protest against carol singers - I was being seasonal, I didn't know at the time that Tim had this planned!

This was the coldest one yet - guess the freezing fog that's hanging around the Village and south-east England didn't help. It was more a case of keep moving and try and prevent frost-bite, even if you're not actually protesting...

After the usual one hour Tim handed out song sheets and candles and a saxophonist led us in traditional Christmas songs (one of the things I was protesting against!). Tim also passed round a bucket for charity and we raised over £80 plus 75 eurocents.

I should have worn more than one pair of socks - my toes went numb! - but at least we got warmed up in the pub afterwards - yay alcohol! - where Rachel handed out little muffins and I dished out some choccies I had on me (thank you work!).

Hi to the Disillusioned Kid, Rabbit Strike and the Chris from Radio 5's Pods & Blogs site.

The Lone Carol Singer

I've stuck photos on Flickr from last nights SCOPA Carol Service/Protest. I'll do a proper write-up over the weekend...

Not one, but three databases!

From the BBC:

The government has abandoned plans for a giant new computer system to run the national identity cards scheme.

Instead of a single multi-billion pound system, information will be held on three existing, separate databases.

Now the information will be spread across three existing IT systems, including the Department of Work and Pensions' (DWP) Customer Information Service, which holds national insurance records.

This might seem a good thing, but, one of the many reasons I'm opposed to the cards is the fact that the data will be linked together. all they're doing is swapping a big, independent database, for several smaller ones, all of which will be linked together - there's no real difference! On top of that, the information in the databases will have errors - what to do if the data in one conflicts with that in another?

Also, once again, the Tories and Lib Dems have the right idea:

Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, for the Conservatives, said ... the decision to use existing databases was "an admission of what will turn out to be a financial disaster for the taxpayer".

He said Mr Reid "has tried to sneak this announcement out in a written statement that is not subject to scrutiny betrays just how fragile the government's confidence in their own scheme actually is".

Nick Clegg, for the Liberal Democrats, said: "These are sticking plaster measures in which the government is cutting corners to make the increasingly unpopular ID card scheme more palatable.

They can see what a disaster it'll be, why can't Labour?

Non-illegal protests?

According to the Parliament Protest blog comes word of a Bill in the House of Lords (the Public Demonstrations (Repeals) Bill) to repeal, amongst other things, the SCOPA Parliament protest ban. Unsurprisingly, the proposer is a Lib Dem Peer.

I don't think it's likely that it would pass as it'd mean that the government would vote to repeal part of its own Act.

I sent this email to her - hopefully others will do the same:

Dear Lady Miller

I came across a website which mentions your Bill to revoke, amongst other things, the SCOPA Parliament protest ban.

Thank you for proposing this, you have the majority of the public behind you.

I hope it passes as I am only one of many people who have had to waste the Police's time and taxpayers' money by registering in order to use my democratic rights.

Yours sincerely

Let's hope it gets a lot of publicity and passes!

Bliar's not as bad as Hitler!

The NO2ID campaign placed the following advert in the Guardian, which resulted in a total of 8 complaints (it's not known how many were from Labour people):




























Due to the number of complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority were called to make a decision on whether the ad should be removed due to it causing public offence. They said the following:

The ASA noted the ad had been intended to encourage discussion on a sensitive political issue. We considered that, although the ad may have been distasteful to some, it was unlikely to be seen as making a serious comparison between Tony Blair and Hitler but instead as highlighting a lobbying group's opinion that ID cards should not be introduced because of the threat to civil liberty they posed. We concluded that, as such, the ad was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence.

You should read the full article including their judgement, it's quite interesting, especially the evidence the NO2ID people use.

Thinkpol

From the Guardian:

Police are to demand new powers to arrest protesters for causing offence through the words they chant and the slogans on their placards and even headbands.

The country's biggest force, the Metropolitan police, is to lobby the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, because officers believe that large sections of the population have become increasingly politicised, and there is a growing sense that the current restrictions on demonstrations are too light.

After all, we all know that SCOPA doesn't go far enough...

The civil rights group Liberty said the powers would make the police "censors in chief".

I guess SCOPA isn't enough!

Trouble at recent protests involving Islamic extremists has galvanised the Met's assistant commissioner, Tarique Ghaffur, into planning a crackdown... Mr Ghaffur has previously advocated banning flag burning. But this document would take the police a lot further. Mr Ghaffur says there is a "growing national and international perception" that the police have been too soft on extremist protesters, which has led to rising anger across the country. "The result has been to create an imbalance in public perception that is manifesting itself in passionate responses from elements of the community not traditionally given to publicly protesting. What we are seeing in effect is a rise in the politicisation of middle England and the emergence of a significant challenge for capital city policing."

Aside form the fact that people having opinions is obviously a bad thing in this country, this sort of thing causes "the politicisation of Middle England". As Issac Newton said "For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction".

As well as the absence of a law banning the burning of a flag, there is no law banning the burning of a religious text.

... and? Is just a book - no-one's harmed by it.

"There must be a clear message that we will not allow any extremist group to display banners or make public statements that clearly cause offence within the existing law," the document says.

Someone will always be offended, no matter what you do. What's worse is that some people will claim to be offended. How will you be able to distinguish actual "offence" from feigned "offence"?

A solicitor who has defended protesters, Mike Schwarz, said: "Causing offence, if there is no other ingredient, is not against the law." He said such proposed powers would clash with article 10 of the European convention on human rights which protects freedom of expression.

Damn right it would, although, unfortunately, the Human Rights Act is a bit of a waste (if a law if found to conflict with it, the law is still valid and enforceable, it's up to the politicians to decide whether to change it. Do you really think they'd amend or scrap a law which made it easier for people to protest? Of course they would...)

RFID passports cracked!

From the Guardian:

"The information contained in the chip is not encrypted, but to access it you have to start up an encrypted conversation between the reader and the RFID chip in the passport.

"The reader - I bought one for £250 - has to say hello to the chip and tell it that it is authorised to make contact. The key to that is in the date of birth, etc. Once they communicate, the conversation is encrypted, but I wrote some software in about 48 hours that made sense of it.

"The Home Office has adopted a very high encryption technology called 3DES - that is, to a military-level data-encryption standard times three. So they are using strong cryptography to prevent conversations between the passport and the reader being eavesdropped, but they are then breaking one of the fundamental principles of encryption by using non-secret information actually published in the passport to create a 'secret key'. That is the equivalent of installing a solid steel front door to your house and then putting the key under the mat."

Within minutes of applying the three passports to the reader, the information from all of them has been copied and the holders' images appear on the screen of Laurie's laptop. The passports belong to Booth, and to Laurie's son, Max, and my partner, who have all given their permission.

Booth is staggered. He has undercut Laurie by finding an RFID reader for £174, which also works. "This is simply not supposed to happen," Booth says. "This could provide a bonanza for counterfeiters because drawing the information from the chip, complete with the digital signature it contains, could result in a passport being passed off as the real article. You could make a perfect clone of the passport."

"The problems could get worse when they put fingerprint biometrics on to the passports. There are established ways of making forged fingerprints. In the future, the authorities would like to have automated border controls, and such forged fingerprints [stuck on to fingers] would probably fool them.

"But what about facial recognition systems (your biometric passport contains precise measurements of key points on your face and head)? "Yes," says Grunwald, "but they are not yet in operation at airports and the technology throws up between 20 and 25% false negatives or false positives. It isn't reliable.

It takes around four seconds to suck out the information with a reader; then it can be relayed and unscrambled by an accomplice with a laptop up to 1km away. With a Heath Robinson device we built on Tuesday using a Bluetooth antenna connected to an RFID reader, Laurie relayed details of his son's passport over a distance of 10 metres and through two walls to a laptop.

There's more on Wired:

In other words, electronic passport theft is about as handy as regular, commercial identity theft. The real hell would come if the authorities didn't bother to stare at the passport but simply trusted the signal from the chip. Which was supposed to be the idea in the first place: these arphids are supposed to be making transit SAFER AND FASTER AND MORE CONVENIENT, not just introducing a new level of Rube Goldberg snafu.

If we simply returned to the security situation status quo ante on 9/10 instead of 9/11, it would be like the civilized world suddenly got over a massive, self-inflicted stupidity virus. Furthermore, we'd be a lot safer.

There's always hope...

The People vs ID Cards

From the Mirror:

[R]eaders of the Yorkshire Post were asked in a phone-in poll if Identity Cards should be made compulsory. Seventy-six [%] said "No", and 24 per cent said "Yes".

Tony's wrong about saying people support the things then...

Delays and extra costs

From Computer Weekly:

Computer Weekly has learned that the Identity and Passport Service is running more than a year behind schedule on an online passport system that is far simpler than the ID cards scheme and costs less than one hundredth of its price.

If they can't do it with something a lot simpler, what makes them think they'll succeed with ID cards?

No wonder the government's going to Court to overturn a ruling under the FOIA that it has to release it's costing of the ID cards project. It would also explain why the roll-out for ID cards to those of us who aren't Johnny Foreigner has been put back to 2009.

How things change...

From Peter Black (Lib Dem Member of the Welsh Assembly for SW Wales) on Bliar's comments on ID cards:

In a speech to the Labour Party Conference on 3 October 1995, Tony Blair outlined how he was going to be tough on crime. This included a passage on ID cards:

"We all suffer crime, the poorest and vulnerable most of all, it is the duty of government to protect them. But we can make choices in spending too. And instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demand, let that money provide thousands of extra police officers on the beat in our local communities. But the truth is that the best two crime prevention policies are a job and a stable family."

What made him change his tune?

More technological problems with ID cards

From the Register:

The EU-funded FIDIS (Future of Identity in the Information Society) project has warned that implementation of the current generation of biometric travel ID will dramatically decrease security and privacy, and increase the risk of identity theft. In the Budapest Declaration, which derives from FIDIS' September meeting in Budapest, FIDIS calls for short-term damage control measures to be taken (because biometric ID is already being rolled out), and for "a new convincing and integrated security concept" to be developed within the next three years.

FIDIS points out that the new generation of biometric Machine Readable Travel Document (MRTD) is remotely readable at a distance of 2-10 metres, and that current security simply isn't good enough to protect it.

The most significant problems with these MRTDs are:

• Biometrics in MRTDs currently cannot be revoked and since biometric features of the users such as fingerprints and facial features cannot easily be changed, "stolen" biometrics can be abused for a long period of time
• The key to access data on the RFID tag is stored on the passport itself and can be read by humans and machine scanners.
• Eavesdropping of communication between RFID tag and reader
• Cloning of RFID tags in MRTDs
• Abuse of the remote readability of RFID tags in passports

Even more evidence against ID cards, not that Blair’ll listen of course…

The Citizen Registration Programme II

I've previously mentioned where the ID cards centres will be based.

Well, NO2ID have a list of the locations where the ID card processing centres will be based. There appears to only one for the whole of London, in Victoria. Some of them, e.g. Blackburn, require planning permission. To any one in the area: lodge lots of complains and then there'll be a public enquiry over the location.

CCTV is a waste of time

In my fisking of our Dear Leader yesterday, I questioned the evidence about the effectiveness of CCTV, which our Dear Leader says the public support.

Thanks to Not Sassure, I've come across a report by the Information Commissioner which says:

During the 1990s the Home Office spent 78% of it crime prevention budget on installing CCTV46 and an estimated £500M of public money has been invested in the CCTV infrastructure over the last decade. However a Home Office study concluded that ‘the CCTV schemes that have been assessed had little overall effect on crime levels’.

The Home Office study itself also has the following (on p. vi)

Out of the 13 systems evaluated six showed a relatively substantial reduction in crime in the target area compared with the control area, but only two showed a statistically significant reduction relative to the control, and in one of these cases the change could be explained by the presence of confounding variables. Crime increased in seven areas but this could not be attributed to CCTV. The findings in these seven areas were inconclusive as a range of variables could account for the changes in crime levels, including fluctuations in crime rates caused by seasonal, divisional and national trends and additional initiatives.

and this (p. 48):

[T]he presence of CCTV in an area actually increases worry about crime, possibly because the assumed need for CCTV to be installed makes the area seem more problematic than the respondents had previously thought.

A government report contradicts Blair's own arguments... any other reasons you wanna try, Tone?

Bliar's reasons for ID cards

Our Dear Leader's written an article in the Telegraph: about why we need ID cards. Let's fisk it shall we?

The case for ID cards is a case not about liberty but about the modern world. Biometrics give us the chance to have secure identity and the bulk of the ID cards' cost will have to be spent on the new biometric passports in any event.

Yet..

I am not claiming ID cards, and the national identity database that will make them effective, are a complete solution to these complex problems.

So he admits they're a failure!

Nor is the Government alone in believing that biometrics offer us a massive opportunity to secure our identities.

How about some evidence?

I am convinced, as are our security services, that a secure identity system will help us counter terrorism and international crime.

Speak to people in Madrid about this...

It will also help us tackle the problem of identity fraud, which already costs £1.7 billion annually

By having a big, centralised database of everyone's details?!

The National Identity Register will help improve protection for the vulnerable, enabling more effective and quicker checks on those seeking to work, for example, with children. It should make it much more difficult, as has happened tragically in the past, for people to slip between the cracks.

Praying on the public's fear of Paedophiles & Ian Huntley. Not a reason, barely an excuse... Anyway, what if the data's wrong? Who pays for screwing up people livelihoods?

Crime detection rates, which fell steadily for decades, should also be boosted. Police... will be able to compare 900,000 outstanding crime-scene marks with fingerprints held centrally.

No such thing as a presumption of innocence then... not bad for a Barrister.

Biometric technology will enable us, in a relatively short period of time, to cut delays, improve access and make secure a whole array of services.

See the LSE's ID cards report on the problems involving biometrics...

It should prevent us having to tell every agency individually when we move house. In future, we could be automatically alerted when our passports are running out.

A fantastic use of £X billion! I'm sure people are capable of looking at the inside of their passport for the expiration date...

I know this will outrage some people but, in a world in which we daily provide information to a whole host of companies and organisations and willingly carry a variety of cards to identify us, I don't think the civil liberties argument carries much weight.

A lot of completely separate databases - which are completely voluntary and free - are a hell of a lot better than one costing billions and is compulsory. Also the worst thing about the current ones is junk mail, not thousand pound fines and a criminal record!

Individuals will have the right to see what information is held on them; the register will not contain medical records or tax and benefits information

... at the moment... anyway, Tony, your own government has said medical records WILL be on there!

It was also very clear from last week's arguments about surveillance and the DNA database that the public, when anyone bothers to ask them, are overwhelmingly behind CCTV being used to catch or deter hooligans, or DNA being used to track down those who have committed horrific crimes. And that's what surveys suggest, too, about their position on ID cards.

Any chance of evidence of the effectiveness of CCTV? As far as I can tell it just moves crime into another area - this is used an excuse to have more cameras, not scrap 'em on the grounds of being completely ineffective... Surveys, apart from Home Office ones, show that the more the public know more about ID cards, the less they want them!

On present estimates, biometric passports make up 70 per cent – or around £66 – of the cost of the combined passports/ID cards we want. The additional cost of the ID cards will be less than £30 — or £3 a year for their 10-year lifespan.

Any chance of letting us see the evidence for this Tony? after all the innocent have nothing to fear, do they?

He also did a press conference today, which gave another "reason":

But he believed that it was more an issue of "modernity" and of "modern life" - and he backed the use of these new technologies to tackle the new types of crime.

In that case, I want to be Old Skool, mutha'fucka!

But he also confirmed the timetable for Britons' cards has slipped to 2009.

A potential election year - that'll be fun!

The Tories have it right:

"He claims they will deal with benefit fraud, whilst his own minister pointed out that 95% of benefit fraud is caused by people lying about their circumstances, not their identity.

"He claims they will tackle terrorism, whilst his home secretary on the 7th July last year said 'I doubt it would make a difference'.

"...Microsoft tells us it is more likely to trigger identity fraud on a massive scale.... it will almost certainly cost £20bn, will solve very few problems... it will be Labour's final act of ineffective and expensive authoritarianism."

So have the Lib Dems:

"All the evidence from Britain and abroad shows that big government databases just become the favoured target for ever more sophisticated organised criminals."

UPDATE: Reading Bliar's comment about them preventing terrorism reminds me of a quote from the sorely-missed World Weary Detective:

The scene: An anonymous provincial town in middle England somewhere. Four plotters gather together in a darkened room. The year is 2008.

Plotter 1: Right everyone. Today is the day. Is everyone ready?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Is everyone a 'clean skin' that has avoided the attention of the greatest security agencies in the world?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Does everyone have a rucksack packed with explosive?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Is everyone fully aware of our warped religious justification for committing mass murder?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Is everyone suitably brainwashed that they will follow my commands without question?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Is everyone willing to die in the name of their cause?

All: YES!

Plotter 1: Is everyone in possession of their ID cards?

All: Errr...

Plotter 1: What? What if you require access to key services on the way to cause carnage on the transport infrastructure of Britain?

All: Err...

Plotter 1: Right that's it. Take off those bloody suicide belts. No ID card no mass murder. If it wasn't for that blasted Blair we would have got away with it....

Government censors evidence of corruption

From the Guardian:

The government was yesterday scrambling to recover secret documents containing evidence suggesting corrupt payments were made in Britain's biggest arms deal. The documents, published in full today by the Guardian, detail for the first time how the price of Tornado warplanes was inflated by £600m in the 1985 Al Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia. A telegram with the details from the head of the Ministry of Defence's sales unit had been placed in the National Archives. Yesterday it was hastily withdrawn by officials who claimed its release had been "a mistake".

A PDF of the agreement is here.

A telegram relating to the progression of the sale (PDF).

A briefing to the government about the sale is here (PDF).

A PDF of minutes of the meeting between the government & the Saudis.

How much will they cost?

From the Yorkshire Post:

A devastating document slipped out by the Government yesterday revealed that the Home Office believes it is impossible to work out exactly what ID cards will be used for, and what biometric data they should hold, until after they are introduced.

A solution looking for a problem...

Home Office Minister Liam Byrne insisted last week that the scheme would cost £5.4bn over 10 years, close to previous official estimates, and that it would be introduced according to plan from 2008.

But his claims were spectacularly contradicted last night in the Government's official reply to a hard-hitting report published by the Commons Science and Technology Committee addressing flaws in the project.

The reply is in paragraph 32 on pages 23-4.

The cost estimates published are based on a reference design and as such are improved and revised as our understanding of the underlying cost assumptions improves. These will continue to be refined through discussion with the market and comparisons with appropriate benchmark projects throughout the procurement and, therefore, remain flexible... Whilst we are keen to remain open and transparent on the level of detail provided to the public in the cost estimates for the programme, we must also protect the commercially sensitive information of our suppliers. The price that they are charging for the technology services will be commercially sensitive.

Sounds about right for Labour - private profit above public need... How much are they going to waste on them before realising they're an awful idea, which no-one wants? I'm assuming a hell of a lot, as the government are incapable of admitting they're wrong & our only hope is that Labour are thrown out a the next election, and replaced by preferably a Tory-Lib Dem coalition, which won't be until either 2009/10...

I like this reply in paragraph 38 on page 28:

During the development of the Identity Cards Programme there is no evidence that Government has thus far imposed politically-motivated deadlines, and no timetable is dictated by the legislation.

Oh really? See one of my previous posts which had the following from the FT:

Labour plans to race forward with the contentious identity cards scheme to ensure the multi-billion pound infrastructure is up and running before the next election, neutering a Tory pledge to scrap it.

But Andy Burnham, the home office minister responsible for the scheme, said Mr Cameron’s “throwaway line” would be rendered irrelevant by the rapid roll-out of the scheme. He said it would be a fait accompli by the 2008 or 2009 expected date of the next general election. “I’m keen to see plenty of ID cards in circulation come the next election,” he said. “The whole landscape will have changed by the time if – and it’s a big if – the Tories ever get anywhere near power.”

How can they make such a blatant lie in an official reply of all places?

In the Designated Area (III)...

Finally got around to stick up some photos from last Wednesday's protest - sorry it's taken a while, but I've been busy.

I got there slightly late - bloody District Line being delayed & then making me change trains... Anyway, lots of new people there this time, but strangely no Mark Thomas, despite the fact it's his idea!

Unfortunately, I don't have as many photos this time - ther're on Flickr of course - as the batteries in my camera ran out & I didn't have any spares. Kinda pissed me off as there was some old woman in a fantastic costume protesting against the Russians killing journalists. Just wished I'd managed to get a photo of her beforehand...

White people are terrorists too!!!!!!

A mate emailed this story from the Nelson News:

TWO Pendle men have appeared before Pennine magistrates accused of having "a master plan" after what is believed to be a record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs was found in Colne.

Robert Cottage (49), of Talbot Street, Colne, and David Bolus Jackson (62)...

The 22 chemical components recovered by police are believed to be the largest haul ever found at a house in this country.

Cottage is an ex-BNP member who stood as a candidate in the Pendle Council elections in May.

To quote my mate's email:

Funny how this didn't get coverage - but if their names had been Abdul and Mohammed it may have been different...

In the Designated Area (II)...

On Friday I went along to the Parliament protest to register my disgust at various items:

































There seemed to be slightly less people this time - only about 100 - but there was a lot of different people from last time, so maybe the word is spreading...

Some of my favourites:



We also had some political representation in the name of London's Lib Dem MEP Sarah Luford.



































Hopefully at the next one there'll be more of our elected representatives...

I've got a load more photos over on Flickr.

From now on it’s a monthly thing, taking place the third Wednesday of the month. The next one is on 18^th October, with the forms being handed in on 11^th October.

I’m actually thinking of going along to the next one, but not getting permission in advance. What I’ve noticed with the other two that I’ve been to is that the police don’t check whether you have the forms, as long as there’s quite a big group of you present. So, what I’m thinking of doing is not getting permission, but still go and protest, just to see what the police actually do… anyone else interested? Of course, there can’t bee too many of us without permission, as it’d ruin it completely, and, obviously, the police would have a record of the number of people who’ve been given permission and the numbers actually present.

Applying for Permission...

I went and handed in my form for next week’s protest – this time you have to protest against two things:

1. “Radiohead”: their song “No Surprises” contains the lyrics “Bring down the government/They don’t, they don’t speak for us” which I feel is apt…
2. “Pointless bureaucracy”: the fact that I have to spend my precious free time filling in a form and then having to traipse along to the police station to get them to sign and authorise it which also wastes their time.

While I was doing this I bumped into Davide of Nether-World and Blairwatch and we went to the pub for a few drinks and talked about various things…

On my way home, I got a call off the police! They said that they were unable to authorise my protest as I’d asked for permission to protest within the entire “Designate Area” which they said was not allowed! I then said “In that case, please can you change it to Parliament Square?” which was acceptable…

In the Designated Area...

Last week, I queued up to hand in my form for the Lone Protest (for which I was given permission). Unknown to me was that people were taking photos of us handing in our forms, and that one picture (from Davide on The Nether-World) did capture me in all my “glory”. There was one woman who gave her permission on a cake – I like it. Next time I’ll do summat other than fill in the form – anyone got a suggestion?

On Wednesday evening – sat at home killing time on the Internet, as it was the day before payday – I got an email off Tim Bloggerheads inviting me for a piss-up afterwards. After spending a few seconds considering the consequences: give up the (relative) anonymity he has built up over the past 16 months to meet people whose rantings and ravings he reads in exchange for alcohol. I realised, to quote that great philosopher Homer, “Ahh, beer! My one true weakness, my Achilles-heel if you will”, so, yeah!

On Thursday, after a “busy day” at work, I run to the train station to make my date with destiny. I got to the protest at 5:45pm but due to my permission letter, I’m unable to bring out my sign, as the permitted time hasn’t yet started, so I was just talking to people…

At 6pm Big Ben chimes and it starts – 200 people, all protesting different things, but at the same time and in the same place – lots of noise, from Brian Haw – who needs a car battery for his megaphone; has anyone got one they don’t need? – through to me “No to ID Cards”, as per my sign. Others I enjoyed were the campaign to ban Robbie Williams for crimes against music – which I wholeheartedly agree with – demanding improvements in public transport, namely the North London Line, people showing the absurdity of the law as people have been arrested for reading newspapers and the Socialist Wanker.

The other bloggers who I spoke to were Justin – protesting to ban everything, as well as to legalise everything [I’m now in possession of it. Justin left it in the pub and, as it would have been a waste of all the time and effort he put in, I decided to rescue it (this isn’t theft as he gave me permission to do it!). I got quite a lot of looks when I was walking back to the train station and I’m a bit surprised as I was holding it up on my shoulder within the Designated Area and so this could have been classed as an illegal protest]; Tim – demanding his £2000 from Transparent Tony (see here for the background), Rachel – demanding an inquiry to the 7^th July bombs and Davide – protesting against invasions of our privacy [I can't seem to find a photo with your sign, sorry!].

See here for my photos, while other people have put theirs on here, London Daily Photo, Chris King or on the official Mark Thomas website).

BBC London were there doing a report (I’m briefly in the background at 1:27.2) which has an argument between the organiser Mark Thomas and Brian Coleman, the Tory member of the London Assembly for Barnet & Camden (his view boils down to “Money is more important than freedom of expression.” Please, if he is your “elected representative” vote this guy out)

At 6:45 Tim announced that he had permission to march on Downing Street, in order to collect his money off our Dear Leader. We sent off and Tim used Rachel’s banner as a loudspeaker to get Bliar’s attention (stolen from Justin’s moblog). Unfortunately, our Dear Leader is too much of a deadbeat to pay up. [Tim, how about sticking an ASBO on him? Or, as you’re claiming money for services provided for him, sue his arse for breach of contract! Free legal advice: you’ve got 7 years from when the breach occurred to issue court proceedings. As you sent the invoice in 2003, you’ve got plenty of time!].

Then we went to Bliar’s local, the Red Lion – the pub opposite Downing Street – for many a drink, where we discussed politics and blogging (Chris King seems to have taken photos of the gang itself! Yay!). Nice to see that real-life is no different to t’internet life ;-)

Not everyone was impressed by our actions: the Devil’s Kitchen, who slags off the government more than anyone, is having a go at those of us who dare to protest against the government! Dickhead… all talk, no action…

Oh yeah, everyone there got a badge of honour. I wonder how many have gone on eBay?

Permission granted!

As you know I went to the Charing Cross Station on Thursday.

Well, this morning I received the following letter from the Metropolitan Police Force:

Re: Demonstration – ID Cards received 24 August 2006-08-26

Dear Mr. D-Notice,

I, Superintendent [some Copper], give authority under s. 134 Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 for your demonstration to proceed on 31 August 2006 between 6pm and 7pm in Parliament Square.

I do not intend to impose any conditions on your event.

In the event that your demonstration causes any of the following, the senior police officer in attendance may impose conditions on you and the participants

(a) Hindrance to any person wishing to enter or leave the Palace of Westminster,

(b) Hindrance to the proper operation of Parliament,

(c) Serious public disorder,

(d) Serious damage to property,

(e) Disruption to life in the community,

(f) A security risk in any part of the Designated Area

(g) Risk to safety of members of the public (including any taking part in the demonstration)

Yours sincerely,

[some Copper]

Yay!

Let’s see what happens!

Protest

Well, as promised, I went to the Charing Cross Police Station to apply for a protest within the "Designated Area", i.e. within 1 km of Parliament.

After being in the queue for 1 hour, briefly speaking to Mark Thomas and others - hello to the guy protesting to highlight the plight of the crayfish - I managed to get my form signed and stamped to enable me to protest aainst ID cards next Thursday, at 6 pm.

Now all I have to do is wait for the poice to send me a letter authorising my protest and seeing what restriction they put on it. I'm assuming only one placard and no loud-speakers...

Let's see what happens!

The Citizen Registration Programme

I know this is late – going on the date of the article, it was just after I’d moved down to the Village and so was without the t’internet – but I’ve only just discovered – via Blair Watch – the locations of the ID card registration centres.

Of interest to me are the ones for London, as well as the ones for back home Oop t’North-west and also north Wales, which are as follows:

Blackburn

I gown up in east Lancashire and I can have a real go at this.

They’re expecting one office – in Jack Straw’s constituency – to serve not only east Lancashire (Blackburn, Burnley, surrounding areas, total pop. approx 250,000), but it appears they’re also expecting it to serve central Lancashire (Preston, Chorley and possibly Bolton), which will have a greater population, and it appears they also want it to Blackpool (pop. 125,000), Morecambe and Lancaster (total pop. 200,000) which will be a real bastard to get to Blackburn from. From experience I know it’ll take the best part of an hour from Blackpool on the train, but at least it’s direct; for Morecambe and Lancaster you’re expecting people to travel for more than an hour and a half on the train (the road is a no-no, as it’s the M6!) with at least one change in Preston! That or they’re expecting you to travel to Kendal, i.e. the Lake District, which will be even worse for public transport, due to it being a rural area!

In total they expecting one office, in an area with bad public transport, to serve the best part of 1 million people!

Liverpool

Manchester

Obvious choices: biggest cities in the area and can catch a lot of the out-lying areas.

Wrexham

This is a bit of a strange choice. Yes it’d be useful for Chester & western Cheshire and north-Staffordshire, but what about people in the rest of north Wales? I’ve got family in north Wales and so I know how bad the public transport is: small, crappy buses, very slow trains (where they exist, i.e. not everywhere). Anywhere west of Rhyl and you’re fucked with this office, especially if you’re one of the island-dwellers (Anglsey/Ynys Mon). There is the possibility of using the one in Aberystwyth, but, again, the problems with public transport apply, possibly more so. They could use the “Remote Communities Service” which will consist of a webcam – nothing like using a secure system, with high resolution pictures! It’s ideal for ID cards!

As for the Village:

London

One centre?! One fucking centre?! One fucking centre to serve 8 million plus people?! As well as the out-lying suburbs? Are they serious? Fair enough there is the (very slight) possibility of those in western London using the Reading centre and those in the far south of London and Surrey using the Crawley one, but come on…

There’s a map on the locations of centres here.

The Lone Protestor

There's a plan to have simultaneous "lone demonstrations" within the 1 km SCOPA "Designated Area" from Rachel (also here):

A recent damn-fool law has made it illegal to protest anywhere near Parliament without official police permission, and comedian Mark Thomas is organising a stunt to highlight the danger and stupidity of having this law in a democracy.

Please note that taking part in this is 100% LEGAL, and the whole purpose of the stunt is to overload the system by dozens of people all asking for permission to protest all at the same time.

The law: Under section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 [PDF] it is an offence to organise or take part in a demonstration in a public place within the “designated area” if authorisation has not been given by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Participants may be subject to a fine of up to £1000 and “organizers” face up to a year in Jail...

Many people see this legislation as an assault on our civil liberties and human rights. It’s not always practical to plan a week in advance what government activities you may or may not disagree with. Sometimes a spontaneous response is called for. And surely the most appropriate place to demonstrate against the government’s actions is within the newly “Designated Area”, at the very core of this country’s democratic foundation.

Get the application form here (word document).

Meet on Thursday 24th August outside Charing Cross police station any time between: 5.30pm-6pm to hand in your SOCPA forms. The address is Agar Street, London, WC2N 4JP and a map is attached. You have to fill in form and hand it in to the police 1 week before you protest, so everyone has to turn up at the same time to give their forms to the Police. This will mean if 100 people turn up and apply for permission, then the unfortunate police have to license and approve 100 lone demonstrations... If you can’t make it to hand the forms in but want to demonstrate on the 31st, post them to: Ben Stern S2S Suite Z009 Old Truman Brewery 1 Brick Lane London E1 6QL.

The mass lone demonstrations will be 1 week later on Thursday 31st August and will again be at 6:00pm for 1 hour.

5.30 - 6pm Thursday 24th August, show up at the same time as other "lone protesters" at Charing Cross Police Station.

6pm Thursday 31st August, show up and protest about your personal issue in Parliament Square.

See you at the Police Station!

Cloned Biometric Passports/ID cards

From Wired:

A German computer security consultant has shown that he can clone the electronic passports that the United States and other countries are beginning to distribute this year.

The controversial e-passports contain radio frequency ID, or RFID, chips that the U.S. State Department and others say will help thwart document forgery. But Lukas Grunwald, a security consultant with DN-Systems in Germany and an RFID expert, says the data in the chips is easy to copy.

Grunwald says it took him only two weeks to figure out how to clone the passport chip. Most of that time he spent reading the standards for e-passports that are posted on a website for the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations body that developed the standard. He tested the attack on a new European Union German passport, but the method would work on any country's e-passport, since all of them will be adhering to the same ICAO standard.

I've already posted that this has been done to the Dutch ID cards, so corroboration about how they're a complete waste of time.

Meet the new boss...

From the Observer:

Gordon Brown is planning a massive expansion of the ID cards project that would widen surveillance of everyday life by allowing high-street businesses to share confidential information with police databases.

The government doesn’t seem to listen to anyone: no-one wants ID cards.

Far from intending to dump ID cards once he is in Downing Street, Brown is quietly studying how biometric technology - identifying people by unique markers such as fingerprints and iris patterns - could be expanded over the next 20 years to fight crime.

So much for Gordy being different to the Dear Leader… time for a new government.

The plan would make the ID cards scheme cheaper, since companies would pay for access to the national identity register - a government database of biometric information being compiled for the ID cards programme. Brown's plans belie reports that the Treasury, concerned about the cost of ID cards, would ditch them when he became Prime Minister. 'It's almost the opposite - Gordon's thinking about ID cards is that it's part of the answer but there's a much wider picture,' said a source close to him.

Well that’s one way to back the millions… er, sorry, BILLIONS they’re going to spend on them before the whole thing falls apart…

Deja-vu, all over again...

From the Sunday Times:

IRAN is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, an investigation has revealed.

A United Nations report, dated July 18, said there was “no doubt” that a huge shipment of smuggled uranium 238, uncovered by customs officials in Tanzania, was transported from the Lubumbashi mines in the Congo.

Iraq was alleged to be obtaining uranium – the old “Yellow cake” – from Niger…

It has also emerged that terror cells backed by Iran may be prepared to mount attacks against nuclear power plants in Britain. Intelligence circulating in Whitehall suggests that sleeper cells linked to Tehran have been conducting reconnaissance at some nuclear sites in preparation for a possible attack.

The build up seems to be underway…

Iran

From Op-Ed News:

In the last few days, I learned from a credible and informed source that a former senior Labour government Minister, who continues to be well-connected to British military and security officials, confirms that Britain and the United States"... will go to war with Iran before the end of the year."

Yay! That’ll learn ‘em for having a Euro-denominated oil bourse!

ID Cards are a balls-up: Official!

From the Sunday Times:

TONY BLAIR’S flagship identity cards scheme is set to fail and may not be introduced for a generation, according to leaked Whitehall e-mails from the senior officials responsible for the multi-billion-pound project.

The problems are so serious that ministers have been forced to draw up plans for a scaled-down “face-saving” version to meet their pledge of phasing in the cards from 2008.

However, civil servants say there is no evidence that even this compromise is “remotely feasible” and accuse ministers of “ignoring reality” by pressing ahead.

One official warns of a “botched operation” that could put back the introduction of ID cards for a generation. He added: “I conclude that we are setting ourselves up to fail.” Another admits he is planning Home Office strategy around the possibility that the scheme could be “canned completely”.
In one e-mail the prime minister is personally blamed for the fiasco with his proposal for a scaled-down or “early variant” version. “It was a Mr Blair apparently who wanted the ‘early variant’ card. Not my idea,” writes a top Home Office civil servant.

They reveal that the government is “rethinking” the entire scheme with an alternative “face-saving” compromise, which Smith blames on Blair. This “early variant” plan appears to involve collecting and storing biometric data on a temporary ID register but makes no mention of actually using it on cards.

However, officials doubt that this will work. Foord writes: “Just because ministers say do something does not mean we ignore reality — which is what seems to have happened on ID cards until [the contracts were due] to be issued and then reality could not be ignored any longer.”

The emails in question are available here.

Blairwatch has a good analysis. As they say, this must be why they’re stopping Government reports from being published and are trying to clamp down on people leaking things to the media – shoot the messenger and all that…

Craig Murray vs the Foreign Office

Craig Murray, the UK’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan and for of Blackburn’s beloved MP, Jack Straw, has finally managed to publish his book.

However, due to copyright laws, the juiciest documents are not in the printed version, only on the Internet (as per his torture memos). As a result, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office are trying to get an injunction to get them removed, not that they’ve owt to hide, of course…

A defence in an attempted suppression of information is that the information is publicly available… which is where blogs come in. In response to the Government’s actions, various blogs are publishing the documents on their site.

Due to technical reasons, I'm not able to publish them on here (i.e. i don't know how to, but if someone's wants to email me with instructions I'd be grateful.). Until then I suggest you go to Many Angry Gerbils and get 'em off there.

UPDATE: Thanks to a comment by A Big Carrot & a Small Stick on the Blairwatch site, I’ve come across this free uploading site, so I’m able to help out. Yay!

1. FCO Comment
   
2. IMF Telegram
   
3. Declaration
4. Speech
5. Hill negotiation
6. Michael Woods memo of 13th March 2003
7. Telegram of 18th March 2003 – US Foreign Policy
8. Letter from Simon Butt dated 26th June 2003
9. Exchange of emails with Linda Duffield
10. Colin Reynolds report of 26th June 2003
11. Minutes of meeting with Howard Drake
12. Letter from British businessmen in Tashkent
13. Email to Kate Smith
14. Minute of 26th September 2003
15. Telegram

The whole lot are also available as a Torrent file.