Monthly Archives: July 2009 »
ID cards and the snooper state
IT IS simply wrong of James Hall, CEO of the Identity & Passport Service, to suggest that the personal information stored on the National Identity Register is equivalent to the data already collected for
Read More »Big Brother in the electronic age
WE’RE a big country so I guess it’s understandable that not only is Big Brother watching — but now it’s Big Sister, Big Uncle, Big Aunt, Big Whoever. It’s becom ing a Big Mother
Read More »US Troops Hiding in Iraqi Homes
A few words from U.S. troops in Iraq, all quoted in Chapter 1 of Dahr Jamail’s brilliant new book “The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan”: “Oh yeah,
Read More »Guantánamo Bay: the inside story
Six months ago this week President Obama, on his second day in office, promised to close the Guantánamo detention camp within a year, and to undo the secretive and coercive detention and interrogation policies
Read More »China’s police-state
John Chan | The Chinese regime’s ongoing police-military suppression of unrest in the north-western province of Xinjiang has created international tensions. While the US and other Western powers have largely remained silent, concerned that
Read More »Israeli hires Internet soldiers
Straight out of Avigdor Lieberman’s Foreign Ministry: a new Internet Fighting Team! Israeli students and demobilized soldiers get paid to pretend they are just regular folks and leave pro-Israel comments on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
Read More »U.S. carrying out “targeted killings”
Media reports recently exposed efforts by the Bush administration to create a CIA “assassination squad” so secret that former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the agency to keep Congress in the dark about it.
Read More »Extent of Iraqis’ torture revealed
The public inquiry into the death of Iraqi hotel worker Baha Mousa in British army custody and the torture of six other Iraqis began its first proper phase this week. Although the trial, which
Read More »CIA ordered to speed up release of torture report
On Wednesday, the Federal judge overseeing the American Civil Liberty Union’s Freedom of Information Act request for CIA information pertaining to the destruction of interrogation videotapes ordered CIA to release its 2004 Inspector General
Read More »Bush, Cheney knew they were violating law
Torture instigators George Bush and Dick Cheney should not be allowed to evade prosecution on grounds they acted in good faith on their lawyers’ advice because they told their lawyers what advice to give,
Read More »Freedom of Information Act to be extended
The Freedom of Information Act looks set to be extended to include four new bodies. The government has published its response to a consultation launched in October 2007 about which new organisations, if any,
Read More »Obama on slavery
President Obama slowly walked across the grounds of Cape Coast Castle, a slave outpost in Ghana where hundreds of thousands of Africans were shipped as human cargo to a life of bondage in the
Read More »EU justice ministers call for more data protection
Stockholm – The European Union must balance its attempts to gather more security information on EU citizens with the need to protect their privacy, EU justice ministers said in Stockholm on Friday. ‘The question of
Read More »Indians to get biometric ID cards
The Indian government plans to give all of its 1.2 billion citizens biometric ID cards, and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani will lead the project. The project team will face a huge challenge in securing
Read More »Probe Into Bush Policies Urged
President Barack Obama has been reluctant to probe Bush-era torture and anti-terrorism policies, but his Democratic allies aren’t likely to let the matters rest. “I’ve always preferred my idea of a commission of inquiry
Read More »Stop the War Coalition barred from Downing Street
Anti-war campaigners were refused access to Downing Street yesterday to deliver a letter calling for troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan. About 100 noisy demonstrators crossed Whitehall to take up a position in
Read More »Politicians cost public £500 million each year
Britain’s politicians apparently cost the taxpayer £500million a year. The number of political professionals has grown by ten-fold in the past decade to 29,000 and the cost of paying them has risen just as
Read More ȣ24m: The cost of tracking your emails and phone calls
The Home Office has revealed the multimillion-pound cost of monitoring the UK’s communications. Home Office policing and security minister, David Hanson, told Parliament last week that millions are now being spent to fund ISPs’,
Read More »IBM biometrics ID cards contract to last 7 years
IBM’s contract to supply technology for ID cards will last seven years, despite the possibility that a change in government could scupper the scheme. The company and the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) announced
Read More »Obama Admin Will Not Probe Afghan War Crimes
Obama administration officials said Friday they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed forces. The mass deaths were brought
Read More »41 Journalists Jailed in Iran
The press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders says it is concerned by what it calls the growing repression of journalists and cyber-dissidents in Iran. In a report issued Sunday, the RSF (Reporters Sans Frontieres)
Read More »Cheney ‘ordered CIA to hide plan’
Former US Vice-President Dick Cheney gave direct orders to the CIA to conceal an intelligence programme from Congress, US media reports say. The existence of the programme, set up after 9/11, was hidden for
Read More »Private security contractors lack accountability
A recent shootout in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar that left 10 people dead is helping to focus attention on the issue of private security companies, and the existing lack of accountability concerning
Read More »Protest in London over ‘rigged’ Iranian election
Green flags and banners fly as a crowd of 2,000 or so demonstrators chant anti-Iranian regime slogans. Many pump their fists into the air, screaming in Persian: “Guns and tanks are of no use
Read More »G8 leaders fail to reach agreement on global crisis
China, France, Russia challenge supremacy of US dollar The leaders of the G8 group of major industrialized countries lined up for their photo call at the conclusion of this year’s summit and sought to
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