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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Wait a minute, I thought it was George Bush who was supposed to be the new Hitler:
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has called on Muslims to use brains as well as brawn to fight Jews who “rule the world”.
“The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy… 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews,” he said, speaking at the opening of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in the Malaysian administrative capital Putrajaya.
Well, at least he’s not a holocaust-denier. Anyway, he has probably been driven to desperation by the Zionist occupation of..er, Malaysia.
Some people are just so selfish. Rather than queue patiently for their state ration of bread and cabbage, they’ll conjour up all sorts of ruses to get an unfair advantage: [from the UK Times]
A GRANDMOTHER at the end of her tether after waiting seven months for an operation mixed cranberry juice with crumbled biscuits to simulate her own blood and dialled 999 for an ambulance.
After claiming to have been vomiting blood, Trizka Litton, 62, was taken to Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry. The mother of three got rid of her fake blood, which she was carrying in a plastic container, before it could be tested and underwent surgery to remedy a serious hiatus hernia.
Obviously an extreme right-winger and an enemy of the people.
“I carried a heavy burden of guilt and shame at being forced to cheat and lie,” Mrs Litton said, “but that vanished when doctors told me just how near death I had been.”
Well, in the circumstances I suppose this indiscretion can be overlooked. But anymore tricks like that and it’s re-education for her.
PRIVACY INTERNATIONAL
MEDIA RELEASE
LEGAL BLOW TO UK GOVERNMENT’S “SNOOPERS CHARTER”
Retention of phone and Internet records breaches European human rights law
15th October 2003
EMBARGOED UNTIL 11 PM, WEDNESDAY 15th OCTOBER 2003
Details of a legal Opinion announced today has dealt a blow to Home Office plans to snoop on the phone and Internet activity of the UK population.
The Opinion, which relates to an EU framework directive on the retention of communications data, has profound ramifications for ten EU states that have implemented, or are planning to implement, measures to place communications users under blanket surveillance. The UK is in the early stages of implementing such measures.
A series of regulations (Statutory Instruments) recently laid before the UK Parliament intends to create a legal basis for comprehensive surveillance of communications. The regulations will allow an extensive list of public authorities access to records of individuals’ telephone and Internet usage. This “communications data” — phone numbers and e-mail addresses contacted, web sites visited, locations of mobile phones, etc. – will be available to government without any judicial oversight. Not only does government want access to this information, but it also intends to oblige companies to keep personal data just in case it may be useful.
The twenty-page legal Opinion was commissioned by Privacy International and was provided by the international law firm Covington & Burling. It has unequivocally concluded that such plans would be unlawful.
The Opinion states: “The data retention regime envisaged by the (EU) Framework Decision, and now appearing in various forms at the Member State level, is unlawful.
“Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) guarantees every individual the right to respect for his or her private life, subject only to narrow exceptions where government action is imperative. The Framework Decision and national laws similar to it would interfere with this right, by requiring the accumulation of large amounts of information bearing on individuals’ private activities. This interference with the privacy rights of every user of European-based communications services cannot be justified under the limited exceptions envisaged by Article 8 because it is neither consistent with the rule of law nor necessary in a democratic society.
The Opinion continues: “The indiscriminate collection of traffic data offends a core principle of the rule of law: that citizens should have notice of the circumstances in which the State may conduct surveillance, so that they can regulate their behaviour to avoid unwanted intrusions. Moreover, the data retention requirement would be so extensive as to be out of all proportion to the law enforcement objectives served. Under the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, such a disproportionate interference in the private lives of individuals cannot be said to be necessary in a democratic society.”
The Opinion details a lengthy history of case law that clearly rules against the use of indiscriminate surveillance of communications.
Privacy International today warned that it intends to pursue test cases in at least two EU countries where mandatory retention has been implemented. It is currently seeking litigants from within the communications industry.
The Opinion – along with the substance of the government’s proposals – will be debated at a public meeting hosted by the London School of Economics on Wednesday October 22nd (see http://www.privacyinternational.org/conference/sfs7/ for details and registration information). The meeting will involve speakers from the Home Office, the Department of Constitutional Affairs, the Department of Works & Pensions, Local authorities and ACPO, together with industry representatives and parliamentarians.
In two parallel actions, Privacy International today lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner alleging that the government’s regulations and voluntary code on retention breaches at least three of the core Data Protection principles enshrined in the Data Protection Act. The complaint requests the Commissioner to take urgent action to alert the appropriate Parliamentary committees, and to support a referral to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Committee.
The complaint argues that the blanket retention of communications data breaches the principle of proportionality, that the practice flouts the specificity principle, and that the existence of a voluntary code for communications providers takes no account of the consent principle.
Privacy International has today also lodged an Open Government request for disclosure of the government’s legal advice relating to the regulations before the Parliament.
Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said: “This is an important legal analysis. It clearly exposes the government’s intention not only to snoop unnecessarily on innocent people, but also to force unwilling companies to be complicit in an unprecedented and disproportionate surveillance regime”.
“The government’s plans are illegal. We are calling on all communications providers to support their customers’ rights by ignoring the government’s proposals”.
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Simon Davies of Privacy International can be reached for comment on 07958 466 552 (from the UK) or on (+44) 7958 466 552 (from outside the UK). Email simon@privacy.org
Copies of all documents mentioned in this release can be obtained by contacting Simon Davies.
Privacy International (PI) (www.privacyinternational.org) is a human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance by governments and corporations. PI is based in London, and has an office in Washington, D.C. Together with members in 40 countries, PI has conducted campaigns throughout the world on issues ranging from wiretapping and national security activities, to ID cards, video surveillance, data matching, police information systems, and medical privacy, and works with a wide range of parliamentary and inter-governmental organisations such as the European Parliament, the House of Lords and UNESCO.
When a politician backs something “in principle”, that means he doesn’t back it, right?
Let’s hope so, because the headline at the top of this BBC report is:
Blair backs ID cards ‘in principle’
Let’s hope the rule still applies.
Here’s a strange article, by the Telegraph’s education man, John Clare, in today’s Telegraph.
It starts with lots of standard issue bad political news, about cuts and the resulting educational damage. Deranged plans for improvement, smashing down all that we’ve worked for over the last twenty years, blah, blah. The headline – “‘Government incompetence’ led to schools shedding 21,000 staff” – is all about that bad news. The usual political wreckage in other words.
But this, about one of those reports that journalists so love, is the interesting bit, I think:
The report laid much of the blame for the funding “debacle” on the “patently unfair grant culture” that the Government has imposed on schools.
It led to chronic disparities in funding, much of it allocated on an ad hoc basis to poorly conceived projects. “Schools emerge as winners or losers almost in spite of themselves,” the report said. “On the basis of some decision taken in the remoteness of Whitehall, a school can suddenly find itself receiving or being deprived of an extra £100,000 or more.”
Or, as one Inner London head put it: “Pots of money suddenly appear and disappear.” This year’s winners were failing schools, specialist schools, and schools with high proportions of pupils who are entitled to free meals and achieve poor exam results.
Okay, I don’t know what’s really going on here, but here’s my guess. What we see here is government activity done by people who have been pummelled with free market ideology and have accepted that free markets, although politically impossible to actually have, are nevertheless worth learning from. So the responses of consumers are faked by issuing that deluge of directives from London that I spent about a third to a half of my education blog complaining about. These directives give you extra money if you do what London says are good “outcomes”, and less if you don’t. Like in the free market, right?
Well, not really. These directives don’t actually have even the crude rationality of the free market. They aren’t actually the same as actual consumer demands, so instead of satisfied or unsatisfied customers giving you more or less money, you just get a kind of permanent government organised lottery. This month, the winning number is: Schools who are crap but considered by London to be getting better! If that’s you, you win! But, if your school is good but not considered by London to be getting any better, you lose! Next month, it’ll be something different. Next month it’ll be: Maths! Or: Languages! Or: The Obesity Directive! Or: Social Inclusion! Or: (Socially?) Excluding bullies, in response to the government’s Bullying Directive! And through it all, win or lose, you have to fill in form after form after form, because if you don’t even do that much in response to each bullying directive, you definitely lose.
When Tony Blair uses the word “reform” in connection with education, it is this process that he is referring to, and he wants more of it, but done better.
That’s what I think may be going, but it’s only me guessing really. Anyone with any better ideas?
It is probably going to be rather difficult for our non-UK readers to believe this but there was a time when the Church of England was known to campaigners on the old left as ‘the Tory Party at prayer’. It was not meant as a compliment but then neither was it entirely unjustified. As the official Church of the State its function was to bolster the moral underpinnings of the old ruling class. In its ethos and operation it was every bit as conservative as the political party that represented the secular interests of the same old order.
But not any more:
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday urged America to recognise that terrorists can “have serious moral goals”.
Dr.Williams omits to tell us precisely what those ‘goals’ are and why they are ‘moral’. A mere oversight, I’m sure.
He said that while terrorism must always be condemned, it was wrong to assume its perpetrators were devoid of political rationality.
‘Of course, I condemn terrorism BUT…..’
He said that in ignoring this, in its criticism of al-Qa’eda, America “loses the power of self-criticism and becomes trapped in a self-referential morality.”
Excuse me but isn’t that the precisely the wrong way around?
If this was a one-off, a weak moment or an aberration that would be grounds enough for criticism. But it isn’t. Ever since his inauguration as the Head of the Established Church of England, Rowan Williams has been busily establishing his own profile as a political campaigner. From his regular public denouncements of ‘consumerism’ and ‘greed’ to his ringing endorsements of bigger government and more state spending, Dr.Williams has mapped out his unimpeachable credentials as a shill for just about every green/marxoid canard in existence.
Under his stewardship the, the Church of England has finally completed its transformation into the Church of Post-Modernist Pieties, ever-ready to provide spiritual edification for the new ruling class. It is inaccurate to label this as an about-face because in many respects it reflects the traditional function of that institution. Like most other branches of the British state, it has been co-opted by the Gramschian project and set to work as impeccable disseminator of a new governing ethos.
The best we can hope for is disestablishment.
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.
– H. L. Mencken
Says Alice:
(I considered putting this on Samizdata, then thought maybe it wasn’t quite The Thing).
This is from Blackadder Goes Forth, a quite brilliant vintage British TV series set in WWI. Lord Flashheart is instructing a class of soldiers training to fly in the Royal Air Corps. Flashheart is the ludicrously loud and oversexed character played by Rik Mayall. George is the idealistic upper-class soldier played by Hugh Laurie.
And here it is:
Lord Flashheart: Treat your machine like you treat your woman!!
George: What, you mean, invite her home at weekends to meet your parents?
Flashheart: No! I mean, get inside her five times a day and take her to heaven and back!!
What a series that was.
One of the depressing trends in modern life is the way in which political figures use the politics of fear to garner support for legislation which degrades our rights and our liberties.
I live in South Australia, and here the Premier (equivalent to a US state governor, although he models his government on New Labour), one Mike Rann, has ordered his ministers to come up with new legislation to curb the rights of bikie gang members to work in certain industries.
In South Australia a couple of small groups of motorcycle gangs have become noted for their involvement in drug dealing and other forms of organised crime. You’d have to look hard to notice them, though. Although South Australians love their motorcycles, I can’t recall seeing anyone from these “bikie gangs”.
Be that as it may, the powers that be have determined that they are a threat to the good folk of South Australia. And, as the powers that be are wont to do, they are arming themselves with legal clubs. The gist of the legislation is:
the aim is to ensure that people associated with bikie gangs and organised crime can be prevented from holding a security firm licence.
The term ‘bikie gang’ is used loosely. I would be concerned if I was a motorcycle enthusiast to know whether or not innocent social gatherings with fellow devotees were to make one a member of these dreaded ‘bikie gangs’.
Mr Rann gives no comfort:
I’ve made it clear that if it means the new laws must be radical and draconian in nature, then so be it.
So presumably, the civil liberties of people will go by the wayside if that is what it takes. South Australians are going to have their freedom of association challenged, as well as their right to seek employment where they wish, in order to deal with a piddling problem. South Australia’s crime rate is hardly alarming, and what we have here is a politician playing up people’s fears to drive through legislation that is iniquitous.
Thanks to Dale Amon for the tip about something called the Crypto-Gram Newsletter, which contains much of White Rose relevance. Dale particularly singled out a piece called The Future of Surveillance. Excerpt:
Some uses of surveillance are benign. Fine restaurants sometimes have cameras in their dining rooms so the chef can watch diners as they eat their creations. Telephone help desks sometimes record customer conversations in order to help train their employees.
Other uses are less benign. Some employers monitor the computer use of their employees, including use of company machines on personal time. A company is selling an e-mail greeting card that surreptitiously installs spyware on the recipient’s computer. Some libraries keep records of what books people check out, and Amazon keeps records of what books people browse on their website.
And, as we’ve seen, some uses are criminal.
This trend will continue in the years ahead, because technology will continue to improve. Cameras will become even smaller and more inconspicuous. Imaging technology will be able to pick up even smaller details, and will be increasingly able to “see” through walls and other barriers. And computers will be able to process this information better. Today, cameras are just mindlessly watching and recording, but eventually sensors will be able to identify people. Photo IDs are just temporary; eventually no one will have to ask you for an ID because they’ll already know who you are. …
And as soon as I saw the title The Patriot Act and Mission Creep I knew that White Rosers would want to look at that one also.
Yes it’s the Rugby World Cup, and in the early hours of this morning London time, the mighty Fijians came within a point of suffering a shock defeat at the hands of plucky little USA.
USA captain Dave Hodges paid tribute to his players after coming within a kick of beating Fiji.
“No-one in the world of rugby gave us a chance, but we came out with a good game,” said Hodges, whose team lost 19-18, having spurned a chance to win.
Fly-half Mike Hercus kicked for glory after Kort Schubert’s try, but narrowly missed with the last action of the match.
“It was a good effort from all the players. We were very, very disappointed,” said Hodges.
This rugby tournament still hasn’t had a decent surprise result, having instead suffered an abundance of one sided results along the lines of Goliath 70 David 10, the most extreme of which so far has been England 84 Georgia (the one next to Russia – every name except one ending either in -dze or -vili) 10. Rugby is that sort of game. If one team is well on top the points will accumulate. Running over a line with a rugby ball in your hand and planting it down on the ground (in rugby touching down actually does mean touching down) is relatively easy. So, in rugby, upsets are rare, and it only gets really exciting when the teams are pretty evenly matched, as Fiji and USA turned out to be today, and as will be the case in the later rounds of this tournament, but has has tended not to be the case in the early round games now being played. So this Fiji USA game was very refreshing, and I eagerly await the recorded highlights of the game this evening.
In soccer, by contrast, a team can have all the possession and a string of chances, and have nothing to show for it. And then the other guys can run up the other end and score a goal with their one attack. Converting a solid chance into a soccer goal still takes some doing. Even open goals are appallingly easy to miss, as you will know if you’ve ever played this game, and when chances are missed the sturdiest shoulders can drop and underdog spirits can soar.
The Soccer World Cup not so long ago contained many upsets, with France (sensationally beaten by their own ex-colony Senegal) and Argentina, to name two famously strong and fancied teams, both going home after the first round of games. This is one of the many reasons why soccer is now the great World Game, while rugby is not. Soccer minnows can (sometimes) take great bites out of soccer sharks, so the fans of the lowliest soccer nations can still dream of fantasy results with their heroes winning.
Samizdata readers in particular will surely never forget how the mighty Portuguese – sporting no less a person than Luis Figo of Real Madrid – were humbled 3-2 by … plucky little USA.
China has successfully launched Taikonaut Yang Liwei into low Earth orbit (LEO).
Buzz Aldrin thinks the Chinese could launch a circumlunar flight in a few years using a modified Shenzhou.
I’ve been watching the slow moving Chinese program for a very long time. They are the tortoise to the American hare. They are not intent on spending the next four decades in LEO with the other two go-nowhere space-faring governments.
We must remember the hardware that put Buzz Aldrin on the moon is forty year old technology. The ‘computer’ in Apollo capsules couldn’t even match the calculation abilities of a cheap 21st century wristwatch. The lunar orbit rendezvous which created the need for Von Braun’s giant Saturn V was not the best way to go to the moon even then. It was merely the quickest, most brute force method. Future lunar visits, whether by governments or tourist flights, will use Earth orbit rendezvous – something which can be done with existing launch vehicles.
All else being equal, the next footprint on the moon will be Chinese. With a bit of good luck they may arrive before 2020. That would be just in time to see the last traces of the American footprints fading into the lunar soil after half a century of wild lunar day and night temperature swings.
Of course all else is not equal. The dawn of commercial space tourism in entrepreneur built spaceships is not far off.
I’d love to be among the lunar tourists waiting to congratulate the Chinese on their arrival.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
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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