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This site, MagnaCartaPlus, looks like it could be very useful to the sort of people who read this, and for that matter who write for this.
Mission statement
The purpose of this site is to promote civil liberties and to provide information in pursuit of that objective. It is a watch on any attempts by governments to reduce or interfere with civil liberties and freedoms.
Objectives
1. To make British citizens and the international community aware factually of the content of recent repressive legislation passed by the British Parliament and the effect it is having or will have on the lives, businesses and rights of British citizens and those of their descendents using every legally available means of publicity, including, inter alia, the Internet, international, national and local newspapers and periodicals, television networks and radio stations.
2. To illustrate through the use of history and the identification of patterns the effect that repressive legislation developed in Britain (and other pioneering countries) is having or could have globally and to welcome and publish comments and observations from interested people worldwide.
I’m one of life’s intellectual butterflies; not one of its worker ants. So I’m not going to trawl chew through this site and then tell you whether I think it is really as good as it says it is trying to be. Suffice it to say that this page, entitled An overview of Civil Liberties legislation since 1900, which was the page I first got to (by typing “UK” “Civil Liberties” into Google) certainly seems to live up to the promises. Students of British civil-liberties-hostile legislation will find a blow-by-blow account of all the recent legislation, together with links to more detailed analysis of each Act. It’s not a blog. Sorry. This man is not chattering away three times a day, he’s carving his truths into stone tablets.
The only criticism of Matthew Robb I can come up with in twenty minutes – he seems to be the guy doing most of this – is that despite his best efforts he sometimes muddles the subject of “Civil Liberties” with that of “Civil Liberties in the UK”. That trifling complaint aside, this looks like an excellent resource.
But as I said, I’m only a butterfly, and if some of our worker ant contributors and/or commenters were to take a look … If it looks the part, then maybe a permanent mention of and link to it could be put here, somewhere.
At the advanced age of 41 I have some pretty old fashioned ideas. One of these is an absolute belief in the importance of personal privacy.
Invading the privacy of celebrities is a long-standing media tradition and one could argue they deserve it. The danger is when ordinary individuals start to lose their privacy – and welcome that loss.
It probably started with US daytime TV shows of the Oprah variety. Being “on TV” was so important for people that they were willing to share their most personal secrets with the world. As these shows spread and multiplied, hanging one’s dirty linen out in public started to become a goal in life for some. Privacy was willingly sold for a few minutes of fame.
Reality TV shows took this a stage further. People became used to the idea that privacy was something so unimportant that it could be given up in the name of entertainment. Big Brother worked initially because it was new and shocking; now it is commonplace. Most of the “contestants” are canny enough to know they’re playing to the cameras. The danger is the viewing public who come to accept the whole concept as a harmless bit of fun.
These attitudes spread throughout society as a whole. Michael Jennings wrote an interesting piece about bag searches in Australia. We don’t have those here without probable cause, however we almost got to the stage where they were unnecessary. A while back there was a fad for using transparent carrier bags and rucksacks so that the whole world could see your baggage. Even that most sacred of receptacles the woman’s handbag was being exposed to all.
Why does this matter? What dirty secrets am I trying to hide?
Privacy is essential for individuality and diversity. Lack of privacy makes it more difficult to be “different”, it drives people towards uniformity and conformity. If “no privacy” becomes the norm then those of us who insist on privacy will be automatically branded as “suspicious”.
Lack of privacy leads to a bland, safe, boring world. No colours, just shades of grey. A stagnant society that is easily led – and easily sold to. A perfect world for government and big business.
Which is one reason I’m vehemently against compulsory National Identity Cards. People say “if you’re innocent you’ve nothing to fear”. I fear loss of privacy. Where I go and what I do is not illegal, it’s just no business of the police, the government or anyone else.
I don’t want Big Blunkett watching me.
Cross-posted from An It Harm None
More surveillance, straight from the school locker room to the internet.
More on vehicle tracking, linked to by A Small Victory:
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system (search) that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city.
Dubbed “Combat Zones That See,” the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect troops and fight in cities overseas.
Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans.
The project’s centerpiece is groundbreaking computer software that is capable of automatically identifying vehicles by size, color, shape and license tag, or drivers and passengers by face.
With reservations, I supported the invasion of Iraq, and can see the point also of rescuing other places. But this is exactly the sort of thing that the opponents of such escapades abroad have in mind as the reason why they are opposed, and why I also have reservations.
Governments acquire the habits of despotism in faraway places where it seems to make sense, or maybe just not to matter. Then they do it everywhere. Surveillance is indivisible, you might say.
From an Australian newspaper (of all places) a report on a British company offering parents everywhere peace of mind:
Parents in Britain can check exactly where their children are without having to phone them, thanks to a new service launched yesterday.
The mapAmobile service can pinpoint a child to within 50 yards by using the signal from their mobile phone.
I think it is safe to assume that the technology can be applied just as readily to adults. Apparently, the recipient must agree to be traced by replying to text message but I bet that hurdle will prove surmountable with just a little tweaking.
The Telegraph reports:
A woman who was strip-searched when she went to visit her son in jail asked five law lords yesterday to create a new law of personal privacy. Lawyers for Mary Wainwright, 49, from Leeds, hope the House of Lords will overturn decisions by lower courts that there is no right to privacy in English common law.
Mrs Wainwright visited her elder son Patrick at Armley Prison, Leeds, in January 1997. She was accompanied by her younger son, Alan, who suffers from cerebral palsy with a degree of mental impairment. Before the visit could go ahead, Mrs Wainwright and Alan were strip-searched for concealed drugs. The searches were more intrusive than was permitted by prison guidelines.
A judge in Leeds decided that their privacy had been infringed but this ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal in December 2001. Three judges, headed by the Lord Chief Justice, held that there was no right to personal privacy in English law.
Reason’s Hit and Run blog links to this article in the Washington Post about companies who promise not to sell information about you. And they keep their promise. They don’t. They rent it instead.
Original link here.
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For as long as I can remember I have been an enthusiastic supporter of the principle of road pricing, for much the same reasons that I favour the pricing of any other scarce and desirable product or service. Reduce queueing caused by underpricing. Encourage the construction of better roads, more suited to the desires of drivers, more creatively designed. Pricing will enable road ownership, and that will enable better environmental policies, because owners will then be responsible for environmental impact. Etc.
However, there are two different ways of doing road pricing, both of which have big advantages and big disadvantages.
One. Anonymous Charging. Charge each vehicle to go past certain barriers, physical or electrical. Either the man at the wheel chucks some coins down a shute, or the place has a machine which debits the vehicle as it goes by, by debiting a box on the vehicle which has been filled up with money, gas meter style.
Advantage: Anonymity! The vehicle user is no more spied on than he is when he buys a pair of socks in a shop. If the vehicle user consents to the transaction tracking inherent in the use of a credit card, fair enough. But money remains an option, and money is freedom, because money is anonymous. (I remember once a trader in a street market shouting at me: “You don’t ask me where I got the stuff I’m selling, and I won’t ask you where you got your money.”)
Disadvantage: Cumbersomeness. Every barrier becomes a huge Thames Flood Barrier for cars. Installing machines in cars is complicated and expensive, and what if different cities use different systems? A different box for each system? Until the same system wins a battle of the gauges, it’s a nightmare either of delay or of incompatible equipment. → Continue reading: Total Surveillance versus Anonymous Charging: the road pricing dilemma
When Hong Kong was handed over to Communist China by the British state, to much joy and acclamation by credulous Chinese and Gweilos alike, the totalitarian gerontocracy in Peking pronounced soothingly that Hong Hong would retain its relatively liberal order under a doctrine ‘One nation, two systems’.
Tens of thousands of people have marched in protest at a planned anti-subversion law aimed at an EU style ‘harmonizing’ of Hong Kong law with that of the rest of Communist China. One nation, one system it would seem.
…the government is pushing through the national-security legislation, known as the “Article 23” measures, too quickly, and without enough public debate. The proposal is in many ways an attempt to bring Hong Kong’s laws regarding subversion, treason, sedition and the theft of “state secrets” in line with China’s.
Well it comes as no surprise to me that these patent lies only took six years to be revealed. I look forward to hearing the people who rejoiced at the surrender of Hong Kong’s people to China recanting their folly. I am not holding my breath however.
The Chinese way of dealing with effective protests
(WSJ link via Combustable Boy)
Exactly a year ago, Melanie Phillips has written an excellent article ID cards are not the British way. Alas, her arguments are as necessary and relevant as they were then.
She addresses every point in the debate, from the increased need for security, terrorism, mass immigration, problems with ‘compulsory’ entitlement cards, personal information on ‘smart card’, causes of rising crime etc.
The most central argument, though, is difference between the British concept of liberty and the European one:
Britain is not the same as Europe. We have a very different approach to liberty. Here, everything is permitted unless it is forbidden. People can go about their business without being expected to give an account of themselves.
By contrast, in Europe freedom is something that has to be codified and granted from above. So Europeans have always been used to producing ‘papers’ to prove themselves, a practice that we have always found unacceptable.
And her last paragraph certainly belongs here, on White Rose:
Now, thrashing around in panic to show that it is getting on top of our social problems, it is not coming up with policies that actually work but is proposing instead to nail down still further the coffin of British liberty.
The Telegraph has an update about the vote in the House of Lords on the European Union curbs on the sale of vitamins and mineral food supplements.
Peers voted by a majority of 53 last night to call upon ministers to revoke regulations due to implement the EU’s Food Supplements Directive in August 2005. But Health Minister Lord Warner said the vote would make no difference.
The UK is obliged to implement the directive. Failure to transpose its requirements properly would be a serious breach of our obligations under the EC Treaty and would result in infraction proceedings against the UK and in the likelihood of our facing heavy fines. Ultimately, implementation would be forced upon us.
If you walk into a large store of virtually any kind in Australia, you will see a sign just outside the door saying. “It is a condition of entry to this story that customers allow us to inspect the contents of their bags on leaving the shop”. Typically, when you leave the shop, there is a security guard outside the door who asks to inspect the contents of your bag. Virtually all customers open their bag, the guard looks inside the bag, and then the customers go on their way.
When growing up in Australia, I simply thought that this was the natural order of things. I never really thought about this as a violation of my privacy until I spent some time living in England in the 1990s. In England, such searches do not occur, presumably because either the British interpretation of the law is that they are not legal or the law is different. (I think that we are likely dealing different interpretations of the same common law here). When I returned to Australia, I suddenly became much more aware of bag searches in stores than had been the case before. And I became much more protective of my rights. I found that I was very unwilling to let anyone look in whatever bags I might be carrying.
Legally, the case for allowing such bag searches is flimsy. Without probable cause (which in practice usually means someone will have to have seen you take something off the shelf of the shop and put it in your bag) the shop has no right to detain you or to look in your bag. However, they can ask to look in your bag. You then have the right to refuse. If you refuse the shop can then ask you to not come back to the shop again, but they have no way of actually compelling you to open your bag for them.
→ Continue reading: Bag searches in Australian stores
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