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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As if to address Trevor’s post from Tuesday, QinetiQ gives evidence to Home Affairs Select Committee on ‘ID cards’ promising that cards which hold information confirming an individual’s identity, could be produced for far less than £30. Neil Fisher, QinetiQ’s director of security solutions, who gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee today, outlined the potential ‘benefits’ of an appropriate biometric identity authentication system – one that incorporates a unique physical signature such as facial recognition.
Encapsulating individuals’ biometrics in one or more authentication devices will ensure that their identity cannot be stolen and that they can prove, swiftly and simply, that they are who they say they are. In today’s digital age, this will give them secure access to a huge range of services. Additionally, if a portable data storage device like a barcode is used, it can link people irrefutably to their possessions – to their luggage at an airport, to their cars, and even to their baby in a maternity ward.
Absolutely, just moving the cattle, move along, nothing to see here. But why do I have to prove, ‘swiftly and simply, that I am who I say I am? Missing the point here, Mr Fisher…
We automatically assume that the so-called smart chips, which are relatively expensive, will be used in identity authentication devices such as ID cards. But by using current technologies like 2D barcodes or memory sticks, which cost from fractions of a penny to less than £1 to produce, it is possible to develop low-cost data storage devices without compromising on security.
Yes, tag them all and keep the change. For you, Mr. Big Blunkett, only £5 a piece.
Note: Thanks to Malvern Gazette reporter for alerting us to the story.
Anyone who frequents our comment sections can hardly have failed to notice that several of our serial commenters are profoundly collectivist racists who like to call themselves ‘race realists’, whilst at the same time affecting implausible pretensions to be supporters of liberty. Fortunately this does not seem to fool anyone if the reactions of other commenters are anything to go by. A person may hold whatever prejudices they wish but when they make it clear they value their notions of the good of some collective volk over the rights of individuals to pursue inter-racial relationships, and would use the state to give those notions the force of law, it should be clear that person has little conception of what ‘liberty’ means.
Now as this blog is private property, we can delete comments and/or outright ban people for no better reason than the editorial pantheon simply feels like it. Although we do not use pre-publish comment moderation, just as a newspaper editor can publish (or not) whatever letters are in keeping with the mores of the publication in question, we too have that right post-publish and we do indeed occasionally exercise it when we delete unwelcome comments from spammers or blogroaches.
However although we are within our rights to handle our comment section as we wish, we dislike excluding contrary views to those expressed in our articles unless we see a very good reason to do so. Whilst reader comments are an optional adjunct to blogging (many highly successful blogs do not have them at all), at Samizdata.net we do indeed appreciate the contribution commenters make and thus are loath to over-manage what they write, provided a reasonable degree of civility and topicality to the article are observed.
However when collectivist racists start using Samizdata.net to consistently promote an agenda, and are condescending and misogynistic to boot, it is time to show them the door without insincere regrets. Now I realise that given the personalities involved, this will be seen as proof of the irrefutability of their positions regardless of the fact they have repeatedly had the sand kicked out of them intellectually on many occasions by some very insightful people. To put it bluntly, I am not unduly concerned and a certain Monty Python episode comes to mind.
For me as editor the final straw was hearing that one of our contributors was loath to write on certain topics because of the near certainty that the discussion would be immediately hijacked with the same flawed but stridently put arguments that had been convincingly demolished time and time again in earlier comment threads. Although I always urge our contributing writers, the Samizdatistas, not to actually write with comments in mind but rather what is on their mind, this for me was intolerable and more or less mandated action on my part. Henceforth comments by the people in question will be summarily deleted from the blog.
As you might surmise, I am not writing this article for the people who are being banned from commenting but rather for other readers whose opinions (and disagreements) I value more highly, and also for the Samizdata.net contributors as both an ex cathedra editorial policy statement and a not uninteresting discussion point on the nature of blogs such as Samizdata.net and internet discussion generally in its varied forms.
Only yesterday I had good things to say about “Continental” medical provision, and it was France in particular that I had in mind.
Here on the other hand, is another view:
The French health service, regarded as the world’s best, is falling apart, a petition signed by 286 of its most senior hospital doctors claims. Waiting lists, almost unknown in France five years ago, are becoming common, and there is a severe shortage of doctors and nurses.
However, you need to be aware that this is being said by people who want this to be believed, so that they can be given more money to give to themselves, and each other. When did you last hear of people saying, when their annual grant was being discussed: “Oh, things are fine, really – in fact, we could probably get by with rather less money, if the truth be told” ? Not lately, I should guess.
“In casualty units, sick people have to wait for hours, sometimes even days, on stretchers, because there are no beds for them in the hospital,” said the doctors’ petition, sent to the newspaper Le Monde.
Nevertheless, that does sound rather anglais.
The recently appointed Health Minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, has said the public health service budget would be €12bn (£8bn) in the red this year, €1bn more than the previous forecast.
The two events are closely connected. The doctors’ petition was a shot across the bows of the unpopular centre-right French government, which is expected to announce plans next month for the most radical reform of the health service in more than 50 years.
Battle-lines are being drawn for what is likely to be the most bitterly contested domestic political issue in France this year, the future of a €130bn-a-year health service which is regularly named by the World Health Organisation as the world’s finest.
A committee of inquiry reported in January that the “health insurance” section of the nation’s social security system faces a €66bn deficit by 2020 unless something is done to increase its revenues or reduce its spending, or both. Half of public spending on health goes on the state hospital service, which was originally to be excluded from the reforms.
The argument is all about money in other words. Suddenly the French system looks good, yes, but rather expensive. The health equivalent of Concorde. And they want, if not to cancel it, then to clip its wings rather severely.
Most Americans do not care about exposing themselves to massive data surveillance but they should, says George Washington University law professor and New Republic legal affairs editor Jeffrey Rosen in his new book, “The Naked Crowd.” Rosen discussed technology and the uneasy balance between security and privacy on April 20 at 2 p.m. on washingtonpost.com.
Jeffrey Rosen: The book is a response to a challenge by my friend and teacher Lawrence Lessig, who writes about cyberspace. We were on a panel about liberty and security after 9/11, and I denounced the British surveillance cameras, which I had just written about for the New York Times magazine, as a feel good technology that violated privacy without increasing security. Lessig politely but firmly called me a Luddite. These technologies will proliferate whether you like it or not, he said, and you should learn enough about them to be able to describe how they can be designed in ways that protect privacy rather than threatening it. I took Lessig’s challenge seriously, and spent a year learning about the technologies and describing the legal and architectural choices they pose. The rest of the book followed naturally, and it’s an attempt to think through the behavior of the relevant actors who will decide whether good or bad technologies are adopted — that is, the public, the executive, the courts, and the Congress.
A French-based imam who preached polygamy, the right of husbands to beat their wives, the stoning of adulterous women, and the eventual conversion of the whole planet to Islam was bundled on a flight to Algeria at 9.20 this morning (European Summer Time). Abdelkader Bouziane, a father of 16 children who hold French citizenship was arrested at Lyon airport on Tuesday.
The expulsion was justified by the French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkhozy (since moved to the Finance Ministry) in a ministerial decree dated 26 February 2004 on the grounds of incitement of violence, especially against women, as well as because the imam was allegedly “an apologist for terrorism”, a charge disputed by Mr Bouziane’s lawyers.
A complaint had been submitted to the French government by the Deputy Mayor of Lyon following remarks published in a local paper, which are the subject of dispute.
In unrelated news, official unemployment figures in France suggest that unemployment reached 2,707,000 in December or 9.9 per cent of the workforce. Meanwhile a proposed law – which would prohibit the wearing of the Islamic veil and other visible religious symbols in state schools – now proposes that bandanas would be exempt if worn as a fashion accessory but banned if worn as a religious statement.
Many sound folks are already rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of the long sought UK referendum on adopting the terrifying EU constitution. The general received wisdom is that the anti-Constitution faction will win and that will be the end of Tony Blair’s political career… and certainly if it was held today it is hard to see any outcome other that a crushing victory for the anti-EU side and political ruin for Teflon Tony given that the latest YouGov poll (pdf file) shows only 16% would vote for the UK adopting the EU constitution, 28% were unsure and a whooping 53% would vote against it. Rule Britannia indeed!
But the promised referendum will not be today but rather at a tactical moment of Tony Blair’s choosing. People who see this ‘surrender’ to the idea of a referendum as a fortuitous laps of judgement of epic proportions would do well to ponder the effect that having notoriously Eurosceptic Britain go to the polls will have on the current negotiations with Britain more Federalist European ‘partners’ regarding the so called ‘red line’ issues of foreign policy, defence, social security and the British budget rebate.
Knowing that only if Blair can return home with ostensible triumph on those issues will he be able to credibly spin the EU constitution as a ‘British victory’, the Federalists will be faced with either the complete overthrow of their plans (Denmark or Ireland might be either ignored or finessed, but a British rejection is a rather different matter) or they can settle for a more gradualist victory for their cherished superstate.
Thus the prospects for Tony Blair arriving back and waving a piece of paper with Romano Prodi’s signature on it promising ‘Euro-peace in our time’ is by no means a fantastical scenario… and given the sheer ineptitude of the Tory party and the lemming-like Europhilia of the LibDems, it would be a brave man who predicts with confidence that this would not pull the Euro-sceptic’s political teeth.
Yes, with a little luck it could, and hopefully will, all go horribly wrong for the UK government and we could see the dismal Conservative party back in the saddle in Westminster in the aftermath of a Euro-Political meltdown of not insignificant proportions. However the prospects of Blair indeed getting Britain to sign up to a first iteration of the EU constitution if the Federalists play ball is by no means beyond possibilities. And if that happens, it means it is only a matter of time before the other issues are gradually chipped away in the years to follow. At that point there will be nothing left to fight for and I for in will be in the market for some property in New Hampshire. Do not underestimate Tony Blair.
The Home office has admitted that it has no idea how much innocent citizens will be charged for being forced to have an Identity Card.
At Lord’s Question’s today, Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland of Asthal was asked to confirm the current estimate of £70 per person (already almost twice the figure that was being talked about a year ago). She refused to do so, saying that the Government would not be able to assess the costs until the compulsory phase begins.
So every single person in the country is effectively being told to write the Government a blank cheque.
The predicted cost has already almost doubled within a year. Given the Government record on IT projects, how much higher will it go?
Full report in the Scotsman.
Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe
… and will soon be invisible. Anyone who bases their arguments about the dangers of camera surveillance on the primitiveness of current technology is, unlike the latest cameras, being very short sighted. Take a look, for example, at this:
It sounds like the speeder’s nightmare. A speed camera accurate up to 150mph which can be concealed in road studs as small as a cat’s eye indicator, and which can also – as you’re passing – cast a glance at your tyres to see if they’re a bit bald.
And at you, to see who you are and where you are, and what you’re up to. If not yet, then very soon.
Wake up: this camera exists, and it’s being trialled.
I’m awake already.
But the anti-camera lobby can rest easy for a while. The Department for Transport says that there is no way that these cameras, designed and made by a British company called Astucia, will ever be used for “enforcement” to level fines and penalty points. However, they will start being tested around the country later this year, as part of the wider efforts to encourage motorists to respect speed limits.
So, they will not (yet) do “enforcement”, not “for a while”. But they can already do “encourage”. Sounds like enforcement will be with us very soon.
This Guardian headline is terrifying, coming, as it most definitely does, under the “never believe it until it is officially denied” heading:
UK ‘will not bail out EU pensions crisis’.
This denial, on the other hand, might be quite good news:
Mr Brown insisted: “There is no intention of having a European health care system that replaces national health care systems.
My understanding is that, healthwise, they do things rather better on the Continent than we do here, so the fact that we absolutely, definitely, I deny that completely, no truth in that notion whatsoever, are not repeat not going to have a European health system here in Britain, i.e. we very possibly are going to have such a system, is quite cheering. (See the comment 4 on this posting if you doubt the ghastliness of Britain’s current arrangements.)
And then there is this:
He reiterated the government’s determination to resist any moves towards EU tax harmonisation. “Tax competition makes for a more efficient single market,” he stressed.
Things like this are never said until the contrary claim is presented in the form of a question. And that contrary claim is at least as likely to be true as any denial of it.
The EUro-ratchet effect means that it only needs one British politician to relax on any particular issue, usually as part of an attempt to hold back the inevitable on some other front, for the deal to be done.
The Australian government has long desired to force ISP’s and Internet content Hosts to take responsibility for the activities of their clients. An attempt to do this in 1999 was defeated, but the authorites are back for more.
The draft bill states that ISPs are required to determine whether their services are used for “illegal conduct or speech.”
Paragraph 152 of the Explanatory Notes to the draft bill says that “Possible action that could be taken by ISPs and Internet Content Hosts (ICHs) so as not to facilitate use of a carriage service by another person that breaches proposed subsection 474.16(1) includes an ISP ceasing to provide Internet services to that person or an ICH ceasing to host a particular Website containing content that breaches the proposed offence.”
Obviously, the implication is clear- should this measure get up, ISP’s will be legally required to be much more aggressive in their surveillance of their customers; a gross breach of their privacy.
(Via Whirlpool.net.au)
Yes, I know, picking on the Guardian is just so easy that it is verging on bad form. It is rather like challenging a small child to a boxing match.
And speaking of small children, I hear the sound of the petulant stamping of little feet:
In our country, in our culture, at this time, any referendum on Europe is a pre-emptive cringe towards the Murdoch press and the tabloids. Forget any idea that the referendum debate will be Plato’s Republic in action. It will inescapably be a contest fought on terms dictated by the unelected media rather than by the elected politicians.
This is where the European Union referendum really will be a defining moment. It will mark the extraordinary watershed at which this country’s debased, biased and unaccountable media formally take control of the political process. The British media has often claimed that it has greater popular legitimacy than politicians – “It’s the Sun Wot Won it”, for example. Blair’s concession of the referendum marks the moment when politics formally bowed the knee and accepted that claim.
I can visualise Martin Kettle’s bottom lip trembling as bashes out every embittered word. For Mr. Kettle and his colleagues, the mere existance of anti-EU opinion is such a towering and monstrous inequity that advance tantrums are required to highlight the plight of the beleaguered federast to the caring world. He will probably start hijacking aeroplanes shortly and demand to be flown to Brussels.
And what is all this guff about ‘debased, biased and unaccountable media’, as if the Guardian is something other than a national newspaper and, ergo, part of the media? But then thwarted and sulky children often do retreat into consoling fantasy by claiming that their families are not really their families because their real families would not treat them so despicably.
Still, given the perenially low circulation (and their reliance on public subsidy) maybe there is a kernel of truth in the analogy. Nobody likes them, everbody hates them. I think they should go and eat worms.
A battle is brewing in Japan between education authorities and liberal minded teachers over the place of national symbols in the Japanese school system, reports Aussie expat Cameron Weston, for Australian news website Crikey.com.au:
Most countries have no law in place that compels its citizens to stand, put their hands on their hearts or do anything else when the national symbols are displayed. Most people do it because they want to, and this is the way it should be. Patriotism is something felt, not imposed. Forcing such action impinges on the basic tenets of democracy and freedom, and democracies have laws that enshrine this principle.
But what if the symbols of your nation had a deeper historical meaning, if they spoke to a past that some were ashamed of, of policies and deeds which some considered criminal?
And what if you felt strongly enough about this that you refused to stand and sing the anthem or to gaze upon the flag of your nation? In a democracy, you would be allowed to do so.
You might still reasonably be called a patriot by some, a person of conscience by others, ignorant and a traitor by others still but it would all be a matter of opinion, and hopefully then of discussion and debate. In 1999, amid some controversy, the Japanese LDP government passed legislation making the rising sun flag (‘Hinomaru’) and the national anthem (‘Kimigayo’) official, legal symbols of this nation. In a country where voluntary adherence to tradition and fixed social rites underpin the very fabric of society and daily life, it is ironic that the government felt that these forces were insufficient to ensure the flag and anthem remained venerated national symbols – they deemed that a law needed to be passed….
However, in the last few months, as the new school year begins, the debate has been taken to a new level. Teachers across Tokyo have been issued with a directive from the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education, compelling them to stand and sing the national anthem and for them to in turn compel their students to do the same. No debate, no discussion; this is a direct order.
If the teacher refuses to do so, he will be open to public censure and criticism from his superiors, further warnings and potential expulsion. So far this year, over 200 teachers have refused to stand and many have received written warnings as a result. Miwako Sato, a music teacher who received one such warning when the law was first enacted in 1999 sums up the problem for many teachers perfectly, “Many people in other Asian countries do not want to look at the flag, the symbol of Japanese occupation of their lands, even 60 years after World War II, and I believe its coercive display at school ceremonies is against our Constitution,” she said.
Ah, the Japanese constitution. What I tend to get out of Mr. Weston’s article is a feeling that although Japan has lived under that constitution for over 50 years, it has never really embraced the spirit of the document (which is a bizzare mixture of the liberal and the statist).
But the fact that the more reactionary elements in authority in Japan feel the need to legislate nationalism, and to make it compulsary, gives me heart; I doubt they would have felt the need to do it if people were embracing the nationalistic message willingly.
And the resistance of teachers and the media is a good sign too. Anyway, read the whole thing.
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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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