We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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In a letter (scroll down) to the Independent on February 25, Glen Watson, the director of the UK Census, had the following to say
First, it is not true that EU legislation allows for census information to be shared with EU member states. No personal census information has been or will be provided to EU member states or EU institutions; only statistical tables and counts will be provided.
Second, it is not true that raw census data may be acquired by the police, intelligence agencies, immigration authorities etc under the Statistics and Registration Services Act. The UK Statistics Authority and the Office for National Statistics will never volunteer personal information for any non-statistical purpose.
It is particularly lovely we were assured of that last point. However, a literal reading of Section 39 of The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 states that for data it holds, the ONS is not permitted to disclose any personal information (ie on specific individuals) to anyone.
Never ever, that is, except if such a disclosure:
(a) is required or permitted by any enactment,
(b) is required by a Community obligation,
(c) is necessary for the purpose of enabling or assisting the Board to exercise any of its functions,
(d) has already lawfully been made available to the public,
(e) is made in pursuance of an order of a court,
(f) is made for the purposes of a criminal investigation or criminal proceedings (whether or not in the UK),
(g) is made, in the interests of national security, to an Intelligence Service,
(h) is made with the consent of the person to whom it relates, or
(i) is made to an approved researcher.
It is great to have such protections, isn’t it?
There was considerable concern at the time of the census that some or all of these exceptions might apply to census data, which is why Mr Watson felt the need to make such a disclaimer.
If he was going to make such a strong claim, one would hope he was sure of it. One would expect that he or his organisation would have asked for legal advice on the matter perhaps? One wouldn’t want to mislead the public any more than one would want to disclose their data to the EU Agriculture Directorate. The readers of the Independent should not be misled, but should be told the truth, always.
Which is why the results of a recent Freedom of Information request to the ONS are quite interesting. Specifically:
The nearest that ONS came to seeking legal advice or formally discussing this matter with Treasury solicitors was while we were drafting the confidentiality undertakings that were incorporated into the Census Regulations. However there was no formal advice sought or specific discussion held about how Section 39 would cover the census, all of these meetings were un-minuted,
Yes, this is just as bad as it sounds. I for one am glad I did not fill in the form.
Look, I know that firms such as Cisco value the massive potential earnings from China, but this sort of story – if it is true – does leave a nasty taste.
Indeed. A nice (or maybe not) confluence of vehicles, snapped by me this afternoon in Rochester Row, London SW1:
Click on that to get it bigger, and to read the words on the small white vehicle.
Earlier in the week I was visiting family in the old family home, the nearest railway station to which is Egham. And just outside Egham Station, I spotted this rather remarkable sign, erected (I presume) by the local council, Runnymede.
It seems that Lucinda Campbell Jackson of St Cuthbert’s School (see the verbiage top right) did a really quite witty piece of art, on the theme of CCTV surveillance. But the odd bit is Runnymede Council (see the verbiage top left) – and yes that is Runnymede of Magna Carta fame – thinking that using this bit of school art on an official sign is a good way to publicise the fact that everything you do in public in Egham is being recorded on video.
For me, what this illustrates is that all those who still oppose public video surveillance in all public places in Britain (personally I am still rather undecided) have comprehensively lost this argument, insofar as it ever was an argument in the first place. These local councillors know their business. They know that, if there was any serious public opposition to ubiquitous CCTV surveillance, it would not be in their interests to make public jokes about it. As it is, they are extremely keen to advertise their enthusiasm for CCTV surveillance with a bit of humour, knowing that many will laugh, but that very few will grumble, still less complain out loud.
I mean, if you have nothing to hide, you obviously have nothing to fear. Right? Except looking badly dressed.
The greatest passions, however, require privacy, and the good society would not deserve to be so-called if it lacked ample opportunities for seclusion and solitude. In work and in love, creativity requires time alone, to think and plan. Great, passionate works of art are not usually brought into existence by committee. The deepest friendships and loves also need time away from prying eyes to blossom; time to share intimacies not shared with others; time to build a special microcosm of private meaning within the wider, public world. A society devoid of privacy would be a society with no room for great passion, and hence not a place I would want to live. Warrantless wiretaps and extensive networks of closed-circuit television cameras have contributed to the United States and England being ranked alongside other “endemic surveillance societies” like Russia and China, according to Privacy International. But those who say, in defense of such invasive government actions, that people who have done nothing wrong have nothing to hide, reveal a profound misunderstanding of the importance of privacy. Privacy matters not because of the bad that it hides, but because of the good and the great that it nurtures.
– Bradley Doucet
A census – as any social scientist knows – is absolutely essential to modern government. We cannot plan social policy if we don’t know how many people there are, where they are, what they do, how long they live, etc. A non-judgmental collation of information – which is what a census is – is the bedrock of civilised society. Democracy and accountable government depend completely this kind of knowledge. If we lose it, government will be run by gossip, innuendo and Daily Mail after-dinner ‘common sense’ (as if it isn’t already, but hey)
– Guardian commentator tark
Not that I am recommending such behaviour as this to any Samizdata reader, of course.
If you think the previous leaks were amazing, check out this.
Reflecting on the Wikileaks issue – see Perry’s post on Samizdata on Saturday – it occurs to me that one group of folk who must be a bit miffed by the leaks are parts of the anti-war side, especially those of a conspiracy theory cast of mind. For example, where is the leaked memo that “proves” there was some evil Jewish/neo-con/international banker/armsdealer/insert villain of choice conspiracy to blow up the WTC and then blame it on bin Laden? And I note that one of the leaked cables suggests that the Saudis are very alarmed by the geo-political ambitions of Iran, and want the West to contain it. Well, that surely fits with what a lot of those supposedly bloodthirsty neocons around George W Bush had been saying. And so on.
The leaks have done damage, no doubt about it, and unlike Perry, I am not so sangine about the overall impact of Wikileaks as far as rolling back the state is concerned. This is one of those things I find hard to be able to prove conclusively one way or the other; generally speaking, the more openness, the better, and the fewer hiding places for governments, the better. I also think, however, that leaks of secrets that may harm self defence efforts of genuinely liberal states against terrorist groups, if they occur, are enough to send such leakers to jail on the grounds of being reckless in offering, however unintentionally, aid to such groups.
But it is, nonetheless interesting that none of the dottier conspiracies swirling around 9/11 have yet to appear. The reason is that such conspiracy theories are bunk.
This started off as a reply to a comment on Samizdata but by the time I reached the fifth paragraph, I realised it might as well be a full blown blog post. Below is the remark to which I was replying but this article is now really about explaining why I have moved from tentative opposition to inescapable support for Wikileaks.
When the Saudi diplomat expressed concern about Iran – something that he would not have done without the presumption of secrecy – that information was intended for the American government and no one else.
This is actually the very core of the ‘systemic attack’ that Assange has made on nation-states. It is precisely by attacking their ability to informally and easily exchange casual and often banal information that has such remarkable implications on the ability of states to act the way states act.
It does not need to be “the date of D-Day” kind of revelations (the kind I too want to remain secret) that can significantly interfere with a state’s ability to act as a ‘conspiracy’ (and not in the “Grassy Knoll” or “Bilderburg” or similar gonzo conspiracy theory sense)… indeed I wish Assange had never used the word ‘conspiracy’… I have long described the Green movement ‘Warmists’ as a ‘confluence of interests’ rather than a ‘conspiracy’… but I actually mean the exact same thing when discussing the Greens as Assange means when he describes Government as a ‘conspiracy’…
But if you are someone of the view that the modern regulatory welfare state has vastly too much power over its subjects, and that these states are unreformable from within the ‘democratic’ systems… the very systems that have been in place during the growth of this overweening state power, then a valid way to oppose that power is to carry out systemic attacks on the very networks that allow that ‘confluence of interests’ to express what those interests are and to thereby find ways to achieve that confluence. → Continue reading: Why I support Wikileaks
Here at Samizdata we’ve only paid rather sporadic attention to this whole TSA grope and change (a phrase we have surely not heard the last of) thing, our most thorough airing of the issue so far having been in this posting and in its comments. But over at Transport Blog there is an excellently link rich posting about it all, compiled by Rob Fisher.
In particular Rob notes a Slashdot commenter (on this) saying something which particularly deserves to get around:
I don’t even think the TSA should be the one scanning the people at all, it should be the individual airlines. That way you can choose to pay for your security if you really want it, and competitive practices can find the optimal solution.
Indeed, and this was mentioned in passing in the comments on that earlier Samizdata posting. Safety doesn’t need to be imposed by governments. People want safety, but they also want other things (fun, convenience, speed, comfort, not to be embarrassed or humiliated by neanderthals, etc.) and it should be up to people to make the trade-offs for themselves.
Personally, I suspect that an under-discussed aspect of all this is that a lot of people in the USA (as in many other places), and in particular just now in positions of authority and influence in the USA, think that air travel is evil and that curtailing it, by whatever method that works, is just terrific. These people are fast losing the argument about why air travel is evil (global warming blah blah blah), but the terrorism thing gives them an excuse to just keep on hacking away at the abomination (as they see it) of regular people regularly taking to the air. And the more that regular people squeal that they ain’t gonna fly no more, the merrier these flying-is-evil killjoys will feel about it all. Protest from the ranks of the newly immobilised is good because that means that it’s really working.
Instapundit quotes an emailer (Ed Stephens), on the subject of the TSA and its intrusive gropings at airports:
Remember how not long ago the President was so upset about the possibility of people being stopped and asked for “their papers” while going to get ice cream? It was the height of living in a police state. Yet we’ve not heard a peep out of him while TSA goons grope the general public (including nuns and little kids) on the way to grandma’s house.
If we are expected to put up with this, asking to see “your papers” suddenly seems a less onerous request.
Which was perhaps always the idea? Getting libertarians to beg to have to show only their papers. How perfectly statist is that?
This is how you get what you want in this world, whether you are trying to expand the powers of the state or to chip away at them. Demand something that is, to your enemies, totally outrageous. Then, with a great show of reluctance, settle for something only moderately outrageous. Repeat indefinitely. Sadly, for the time being, the expanders of the state are more numerous and more powerful than us chippers-away.
The secret of chipping away successfully is to continue to discuss the dynamiting of the whole damn mountain. How might that be contrived? How nice would that be? Then settle for dynamiting only half of it …
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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