Monday, June 29, 2009

Latest from NO2ID


Comments made in connection with each news item are personal observations and not necessarily those of NO2ID.

Rumours that the new Home Secretary, Alan Johnson is to ‘review the ID scheme’ have been siezed upon as an opportunity to halt the monster, although Johnson himself denies such rumours. The Identity Cards Act 2006 was never comprehensive and left out a lot of the mechanics of how the scheme would work in its entirety. Now those details are to be furnished in a list of regulations which are longer than the original bill itself. Debate on the first batch of regulations are due to take place next month. It is an opportunity in which MPs could and should object in order to stall the juggernaut and this is the time to get in touch with your MP and point this out to them. It is these regulations that put flesh and bones on the scheme and give a close insight into the real horrors which lurk within: the sheer amount of private data that you will have to disclose to the Home Office about yourself; the detail showing how many people will find themselves forced into the ID Card scheme in order to ‘apply’ for some other government document or service; draconian penalties for those who do not wish to comply; the numbers of government departments, law enforcement and other agencies that will have access to your information, with no record kept after 12 months of to whom that information was disseminated.

Sheffield City Council has reaffirmed its existing motion against ID cards. It criticises the Manchester pilot scheme, saying that Sheffield would not participate in any similar one. It also slams the trend of fingerprinting people visiting nightclubs and certain pubs, fingerprinting in schools and Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems. Let’s hope they don’t cop out of continued opposition, or get bought off by government!

The House of Lords Constitution Committee has criticised government in their failure to adopt important recommendations embodied in their 'Surveillance: Citizens and the State' report that would have put in place safeguards to ensure proper use of data processing and surveillance.

According to Statewatch the body that monitors civil liberties in Europe, the Stockholm Programme, which will establish the creation of a unified EU-wide information grid, will be adopted this autumn. It says that this will unleash a digital tsunami with in-depth data on every EU citizen that can be shared across member-country borders.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has warned that data collection and storage should be kept to a minimum. The more information held the greater the chances of losing it and the greater chance of contravening the Data Protection Act. The ICO pointed out that in a survey, 85% of people in the UK avoid giving out personal information whenever possible, that number having grown in recent years.

Lord Steyn, a former law lord has lashed out at the ID card scheme saying it should be abandoned as it creates a gross invasion of personal privacy and will do nothing to combat crime, terrorism, illegal immigration and the whole plethora of other problems that the government insists it will. In fact it will lessen our security.

Ian Watmore, former government CIO has said that Government Gateway reports should be published. These currently confidential reports lay out the progress, or otherwise, of highly sensitive government IT projects. Their publication should allow MPs and others to keep track and accountability of these projects.

An Oxford father has refused, point blank, to give permission to have his daughter fingerprinted at school. He rightly fears that this is just one more step towards a Big Brother state!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

New 9/11 Whistleblower

An ex- US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employee and videographer, Kurt Sonnenfeld, has gone public with crucial inside information on the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

Hounded ever since by government insiders and spooks, Sonnenfeld’s life has become a misery.

He was instructed by FEMA to spend one month filming Ground Zero immediately after the 9/11 attacks to gather video evidence that could be used in a subsequent investigation into the events of that day. Of course, that investigation never took place, nor could it as the hands of inner government complicity would have become all too apparent. The 29 tapes that Sonnenfeld took during this one month period in which he was allowed unbridled access to Ground Zero, were therefore kept in his possession and, to those insiders, are walking dynamite and as Sonnenfeld describes, are full of anomalies that raise all manner of questions as to what happened on that day and immediately throw into dispute the whitewash story that emerged from the official, behind-doors enquiry.

In an interview with Voltaire.net, the now exiled Sonnenfeld tells his story and not only reveals what he exposed during that month at Ground Zero, but also blows the lid on a number of other operations he was involved in while with FEMA.

The following link http://www.prisonplanet.com/911-fema-videographer-at-ground-zero-goes-public.html gives access to the entirety of that interview which has been posted on infowars.com and provides further vital evidence to the mountain already in existence that 9/11 was an inside job.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

NightJack silenced

Another dangerous trend is emerging following the denunciation of blogger NightJack by the Times newspaper. NightJack’s Orwell Prize award-winning blog was that of a candid police officer who publicly, but anonymously, aired what went on within the Metropolitan Police force.

With the demise of good and honest mainstream journalism now having to tread a path between what is deemed to be politically-correct and what makes newspapers sell, it is wholly refreshing to find a re-emergence of the old values of investigative journalism and honest comment appearing in blogs, especially at at time of international mass-corruption in just about every area of the political and economic arena. NightJack, or Detective Constable Richard Horton who was the man behind the keyboard, blogged anonymously and at no time did anything illegal, indeed his blog even brought in award-money which was subsequently donated by him to the Police Benevolent Fund.

But his candidness was just too much for the Times newspaper and the Met.

It isn’t the first time commentators or whistleblowers have been demonised by the mainstream media. Recently the nurse, Margaret Haywood, went undercover for the BBC regarding her concern for the abuse of patients. Strictly she was compromising patients’ confidentiality, but when the cause was clearly with their best interests in mind, such action must be applauded. But that didn’t prevent her from losing her job.

This craven mentality of being expected to not step out of line even when wrongs need to be brought to the public's attention, is wholly unsatisfactory. As human beings, concerned for the wellbeing of others we can’t and shouldn’t stay silent when something very wrong is going on. I can’t vouch for NighJack’s blog, not ever having seen it and now never likely to since it has been taken down, but according to many others who had, his heartfelt and honest opinions and comment of injustices known to be taking place, have every right to be aired. After all, these are the sorts of things you might discuss among friends down the pub, but given the platform of the worldwide web a much wider audience can be alerted to them.

Just take this week, in the aftermath of the supposedly rigged Iranian elections. With a dictatorship intent on not allowing the world to see the self-interest and determination of the mullahs and the Ahmadinejad regime - which acts in Western interests as a devil they can taunt for their own political ends - it’s left to the people, thanks to the power of modern technology, to relay the on-the-ground reality to the rest of the world. Without our own open lines of communication, we might as well be living in the Dark Ages - and of course, that’s the way our ultimate masters would like to see us.

With the disenfranchisement of NightJack’s blog, others who might share similar opinions or wish to air serious malfunctions and abuses within the police force or in whatever area of work they are engaged, will now think twice before blogging, or not blog at all.

Meanwhile the Times newspaper, itself a bastion of politically-correct controlled thought, run by the very same cabal that run of our everyday lives, now seems to stand as arbiter and executioner over free and alternative speech.

Just out of interest, I wonder how many of the paper’s ranks are Common Purpose members, that insidious fifth column group whose task as ‘future leaders’ is ultimately to implement the wishes of our control freaks, the Rockerfellers, Rothschilds, royalty etc. and all those below who work for them?

Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Super Surveillance State

Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph reported on the EU plans to ‘enhance’ pan-European ‘security’. As we have come to expect by now, proposals to achieve this end would have received wholehearted support from the Nazi Party.

Under the guise of the Stockholm programme, July 15 will see the final proposals for the EU’s internal security plan. These directives will override national sovereign legislation, bringing a taste of dictatorial life under our Euro superstate. Jacques Barrot, the European justice and security commissioner has stated that the aim was to "develop a domestic security strategy for the EU", historically a role which would be left to individual nation states.

But civil rights leaders and right-minded people see this as a surveillance superstate. Tony Bunyan, of the European Civil Liberties Network (ECLN) warned that "An increasingly sophisticated internal and external security apparatus is developing under the auspices of the EU," "In five or 10 years time when we have the surveillance and database state people will look back and ask, 'what were you doing in 2009 to stop this happening?"

Precisely. While this government is behaving like the proverbial wet rag with Brown posturing for continued power, ministers disappearing right, left and centre and cabinet shuffles every other week, the media spends most of its time using the upheaval as a useful smokescreen to divert people’s attention away from the vitally crucial issues that directly threaten our futures, while a fascist surveillance state is being assembled behind closed doors, largely evading mainstream news coverage.

Law enforcement and public security agencies will be sharing DNA records and fingerprint databases, storing them for new electronic EU ID cards. Surveillance footage and that gathered from the internet will be amassed, along with satellite surveillance, automated entry/exit border biometric readers and risk profiling systems. This will be the new Europe, all built upon the phony 'war on terror'. But, of course, now we are the terrorists!

EU officials have openly admitted to the Daily Telegraph that these measures will be highly controversial, so will need to be contained (ie camouflaged) within the Lisbon Treaty, now only awaiting Ireland’s ratification in the Autumn (they should be so lucky to even get to vote!). The Treaty already has built into it a secretive new Standing Committee known internally as COSI, which is designed to co-ordinate security policy across borders involving trans-European agencies such as Europol, the Frontex borders agency, the European Gendarmerie and Brussels-based intel-sharing Joint Situation Centre or Sitcen.

Just what sort of a nightmare are we headed towards, unless we stir up total opposition to this super-Orwellian scenario. And we must!

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

The Control Grid Cometh

“Awesome. I can't wait to have every move tracked like the Truman show...and beaten/arrested if i step out of line. Sweet!”
Armand Tamzarian, London,

“Who said this? ‘An evil exists that threatens every man, woman, and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland.’
Was it Barack Obama? Gordon Brown? George W Bush? No. It was Adolf Hitler, when proposing the Gestapo to the German people.”
Bob, Burnley, United Kingdom

“Forget 1984. The truth is more like V For Vendetta, an underrated example of a totalitarian police state. The police are fast becoming a law unto themselves.”
Lauren, Chester, Cheshire

“George Orwell was a bloody Optimist!”
Ken Bardell, Doncaster, United Kingdom

“And still you don't believe that we live in a Police State in all but name? Do you seriously think that the next government will repeal any of Zanu-NuLabour's legislation?”
Adrian Ryan, Donegal, Ireland

“Just goes to show that if we are fooled into giving the police state a free hand then absolute power will corrupt absolutely.”
Pontus, San Jose, USA

“How silly of me! I thought I lived in a democracy and not a police state. Obviously I'm wrong.”
Rowan, London,

“Are there no limits to the fantasies these people indulge in? Next they'll be wanting micro chips implanted into newborn babies to monitor everybodys' movements from cradle to the grave. Not only utterly disgusting, but utterly horrific!”
Ian Dickson, Brighton, UK

“What was the point of winning WWII if we are going to live in a police state anyways?”
Keith S, Winnipeg, Canada

“Utterly disgusting. The police have lost all respect of the British public and are in grave danger of provoking a serious backlash.”
HC, Kabul,

“What is the difference between the British government and a communist government?”
Phil, Nottingham,

“I credit this government with many failures, amongst them is the proliferation of a surveillance society. My advice to those who think this is a good idea, read George Orwell's "1984", then comment.”
Phil, Epsom, England

Some of the replies to an article in the Sunday Times regarding a British police force study of Chinese-style surveillance tactics which they believe would come in useful for the 2012 London Olympics. Goodies included in their ‘security’ considerations are miniature microphones installed in taxis to monitor passengers’ conversations, and athletes, visitors and journalists to have tiny microchips carried in their tickets.

A 44-page report compiled by the police states that there are “lessons to be learnt” from China’s use of digital surveillance, but then goes on to warn that “The fine balance between the use of technology to support security requirements and individual rights to privacy will be an open debate in the UK for 2012.” I suggest that that open debate should have taken place a long time ago and that with suggestions like these being openly considered that fine balance has already been breached.

If the Olympics are such a threat to national security, then why hold them at all? The whole event has become so politicised that it goes entirely against the true spirit of sport. But, of course, it doesn’t pose a real threat at all. It is a perceived one. One that has been manufactured by a group of people whose real intention behind all of these intrusive security measures is not to anticipate an al Qaeda strike, but to incarcerate us, for we are the perceived enemy now, the thronging masses that must be controlled. You’ve only got to read their policy documents to know that that is their real modus operandi.

But it’s good to see people waking up to this nightmare and so many replies calling in unison for a stop to this dangerous nonsense. Many people’s perception of this country these days has gone beyond the title of ‘nanny state’ to that of ‘fascist state’. I believe that a large part of Labour’s defeat in the recent elections is not so much about the expenses scandal, which the mainstream media would have you believe, but as much, if not more, based on a collective unease in the country in the way this government has, during its term of office, increasingly turned Britain into a police state, rubbishing our rights, privacy and freedoms. That’s not to say that the Conservatives will be any better. Our governments are controlled from above, and their entrance into office, either this year or next, will only signify a handing over of the baton in the ongoing race to set up a total control grid in which we will find ourselves entrapped. That's if we don’t take action to expose the real game play and try to stop such a likely probability.

Friday, June 05, 2009

Latest from NO2ID


Comments made in connection with each news item are personal observations and not necessarily those of NO2ID.

Some may regard the departure of Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, with an air of relief, taking some of the pressure off the ID scheme. No way. This has been government dictat for many a year, each year seeing a stepping up of the process which will culminate in every UK citizen having to possess an ID card - or so they hope. Home Office sectretaries come and go but the aim remains. As far back as the Thatcher years, Peter Lilley MP recalls it as being regarded “as the remedy for all our ills from crime to shortage of kidney donors”. Under the direction of executives of the Identity and Passport Service and the Transformational Government team in the Cabinet Office, Home Secretaries receive their cues in no uncertain terms. Real policy change from the top of government is required but that, I’m afraid, is already being steered from even higher up. It’s those above - the real movers and shakers - that need to be exposed to make transparent the whole modus operandi of our perceived enslavement.

“There are more than 82 million terrorist hiding in Germany. You are one of them!” To graphically illustrate the potential truth of that statement, German film maker Alexander Lehmann has released a video on YouTube on the whole topic of data retention and how it affects all of us. It can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=570WQqye8_Q and succinctly sums up in one-and-a-half minutes how the state perceives us as 'potential terrorists'.

Southampton University Students’ Union Council have passed an anti-ID card motion with 87% in favour. Like several similar local government council resolutions which also oppose the principle of the National Identity Scheme, they pledge not co-operate in such a scheme unless required to do so by law. Unfortunately, they need to go the whole hog and defy the law or certainly challenge it in my opinion, otherwise the government can sneak through binding legislation willy-nilly and have us all acquiescing to their wishes as they please. Stronger non-compliance and challenge is essential.

The government has included an enabling power in the Policing and Crime Bill which will allow it to regulate the retention or destruction of DNA on the database. This effectively circumvents any parliamentary debate on this highly crucial issue, which, in the words of Baroness Harris of Richmond were “..matters (that) should not be dealt with by secondary legislation, especially as the DNA profiles of people not convicted of any offence could be held up to 12 years. It is imperative that Parliament scrutinises this scheme and ensures that, if amendments need to be made, they will be. That is impossible under this proposal, which should be removed from the Bill”.

Since my last NO2ID update, the introduction of ID cards for airport airside workers has been slowed down. Now only new staff will be required to carry them. As far as the Home Office is concerned, this was always the case. Really? Do you trust a word they say?

And can you trust the custodians of our data? Two Glasgow council workers were apprehended while snooping into the core government database of the Identity Card scheme to see if they could dredge up any interesting celebrity secrets. The database contains the personal details of 85 million UK citizens and will be the foundation of the national ID scheme.

In a few month’s time a national network of cameras and computers will become operational and be automatically logging onto car number plates . All part of the ever-watchful eye of the state peering into our every move, every day.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Latest from NO2ID


Comments made in connection with each news item are personal observations and not necessarily those of NO2ID.

The introduction of ID cards by stealth is about to meet its first hurdle as government intends to make ID cards for airside airport workers compulsory. The scheme is to commence with Manchester Airport followed by London City Airport. Failure to comply would result in workers losing their jobs. By way of foisting cards on airside workers, four new instruments under the Identity Cards Act 2006 have recently been published, one of which will carry the requirement that when a worker applies for a certain designated document in connection with his or her work, they must also, at the same time, make an application to be entered onto the National Identity Register and apply for an ID card. Non-compliance would likely mean the loss of their job. The British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) is in fierce opposition to the mandatory imposition of ID cards, which, initially were to be rolled out on a voluntary basis, with six to one against. BALPA intends to fight the introduction of this legislation with every lawful means at its disposal.

Let this be a warning to all of us and let us all be united in opposing, what will become, the blanket imposition of ID cards.

UK security manufacturer TSSI has even expressed doubts as to the value of airside ID cards and what the real benefits are to the general public. Precisely. They are not designed to protect the public but as an instrument of state control, pure and simple.

NorthLink Ferries who operate services between mainland Scotland and Orkney now require photo ID for all those above the age of 16 before they can board one of their ferries. Reasons given to a member of NO2ID who questioned the need for such ID was that they were sailing into international waters which is clearly absurd. He was then told that it was for security and safety purposes, then later informed it was because of the size of the vessel - again clearly nonsense as vessels of greater size than those of NorthLink Ferries’ fleet have presently no such requirement.

I carry photo ID for my senior citizen’s free bus pass, but that is different, for you are proving your visual identity in order to gain a concession. To have to show photo ID to merely to travel across a short stretch of domestic water, when having bought a ticket, is plainly preposterous. What precedent is there for such legislation. When was an Orkney ferry last subject to a terrorist attack? And in any case how does photo ID mitigate against such possibilities. It doesn’t. And again it’s not meant to. The Orkney experience is a prelude to what, I fear, will become standard operating procedure in this country if this government has its way, and it’s not part of EU legislation, this is something purely hatched by the movers and shakers that ultimately form political direction in this country and it can only be described as Big Brother oppression. If this thought train is allowed to continue, I’ll have show photographic evidence every time I board an Isle of Wight ferry, then photo ID will be built into every train ticket you buy, photo ID required at the supermarket checkout etc etc etc. It musn’t be allowed to start as this ends up being the slippery slope into state incarceration!