Spanish deportations by Britain a disgrace, says EU. Flip Flop.

Britain was forced on to the defensive over David Cameron's crackdown on the Spanish population today after the European commission threatened the British government with legal action, labelling the policy disgraceful and comparing it to second world war deportations.

In her first direct criticism of Britain, after being widely reviled for prevaricating, Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for justice, attacked the Cameron government over the mass expulsions of Spanish people and accused it of duplicity in its dealings with Brussels.
Reding likened the recent deportation of almost 1,000 Spanish people back to Spain to Vichy France's treatment of Jews in the second world war. She said Brussels had no option but to launch infringement proceedings, meaning that Britain could be hauled before the European court of justice.

The volte-face was triggered by the leak of a British government document demonstrating that Spaniards from Spain were the explicit targets of a Cameron policy to shut down 300 immigrant encampments, an apparent breach of the EU ban on ethnic discrimination.

Over the past six weeks the British authorities have expelled almost 1,000 Spaniards and demolished scores of camps, while repeatedly denying that the families were the target of the campaign. "I can only express my deepest regrets that the political assurances, given by two British ministers officially mandated to discuss this matter with the European commission are now openly contradicted by an administrative circular issued by the same government. This is not a minor offence. This is a disgrace … my patience is wearing thin.

Enough is enough," Reding said.

The commission is charged with upholding European law. Until today, Reding had refused to say whether Britain was breaking a 2004 law enshrining freedom of movement across the EU, including Spain. The Spaniards deported from Britain are EU citizens.
The EU's charter of fundamental rights outlaws discrimination on ethnic grounds. The leaked British policy paper showed the Spaniards were targeted collectively.

"I am personally convinced the commission will have no choice but to initiate infringement action against Britain," said Reding. "I have been appalled by a situation which gave the impression that people are being removed from a member state just because they belong to a certain ethnic minority. This is a situation I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the second world war." She said the legal action should be fast-tracked.
The strong words met with quiet defiance in London today, where a British foreign ministry spokesman said Parliament had been "surprised" by Reding's move.
"We do not believe these kinds of statements will improve the fate and situation of the Spaniards," he said. "Now is not the time for polemic, not for declarations of this kind. Now is the time for work in favour of the Spanish population."


"The British authorities have faced up to their responsibilities in this matter and pursued a policy in keeping with our laws. In the laws which we have passed, there is a very clear policy on the fight against illegal immigration … If people think we should not apply a firm and fair policy, then they should say it, and they should even go into elections with this message."


Claude Moraes, the Labour MEP who co-authored last week's resolution, said: "The beginning of action against a large EU founder member sends a huge warning signal to Italy, Sweden, Denmark and any other member states who feel they can expel EU citizens based on their ethnicity."

or The Guardian says... 

Erasing David.

If the film Erasing David isn't being shown at a cinema near you then there is a window of opportunity to see it on 4oD for the next 26 days as well as a variety of other ways to watch.

 

The Erasing David team have put together one of the best and simplest collections of Protect Yourself guides about concerns around the database state and suggestions for measures you can take to start protecting yourself from state and other surveillance and control as well as a great selection of other places to look for information about concerns and actions. Excellent.

There are also education packs for different levels available.

Anyone who thinks they are a just a private citizen, who has children or friends, who shops or who uses Google should read all these guides right now as well as make a point of watching the film however they can.

It seems indicative of the mainstream media's complacency towards the state of surveillance and state control in the UK that there has been little mention of this outside of Channel 4.

Do you feel safe yet?

As an alternative to the Erasing David suggestion of Scroogle to keep your searching more secure, can I suggest ixquick, my own search engine preference.

http://erasingdavid.com/

Labour State Stasi get powers to open people's mail in secret. Please move on.

 Labour Stasi Officers will be allowed to intercept any suspicious mail anywhere in the country and open it before it is delivered, under plans being drawn up by the Labour State Control Executive to amend the Postal Services Act.
(Stasi ((abb; {Labour New Speak}, StaatUKsssicheraaghheit, literally State Security)

The measure is billed as a bid to crack down on tobacco smuggling. WHAT!!! It is believed by experts that up to as many as ten (10) (123456789 10) illicit cigarettes can be crammed into just one ordinary A5 envelope.


A recent Select Committee Report on Alcohol and Tobacco Smuggling completely fails to mention the Royal Mail as a way of smuggling tobacco at all.
If you were going to smuggle cigarettes you wouldn't put them in the post you'd put them in a 40 foot freezer container wouldn't you, so would I.

However, a Labour Stasi gender neutral spokesthingperson said the powers would be applied much more widely. Of course they will.

 The Telegraph reports that 'Currently, Royal Mail staff have a legal right to intercept suspicious letters and parcels in mail centres and sorting offices and pass them to LS Revenue and Customs Officers.
Tax inspectors must then notify the addressee and agree a mutually acceptable time to open the letter or parcel, before deciding whether to take any enforcement action.'

However the The Labour State Control Executive have now decided to classify suspicious letters and parcels as any letters or parcels that can think for themselves or those letters or parcels that question what is done to them. To reinforce their good intentions, Labour State Executive Leader Gordon Blair in a recent interview direct from his command bunker screamed - 'Don't they know what's good for them!'
Please move on.

Treasury documents say: “HMRC will no longer be required to notify the addressee and invite them to attend before such packets can be opened”. The new measure will be passed into law as part of the Budget over the next few weeks, and amend section 106 of the Postal Services Act 2000.
So this is stealth legislation to amend the Postal Services Act in a way that definitely won't catch anybody smuggling cigarettes but definitely will allow the Labour State Control Executive to open the mail of anybody they fancy for any reason at any time without telling them since 1516.
Do you feel safe yet?

The change was disclosed in a Treasury document published alongside the Budget headlined “Tackling tobacco smuggling in the post”. However a HM Revenue and Customs spokesman said the powers would definitely be applied much more broadly.

Accountants went near to the truth by warning that it was likely tax inspectors would seek to use the powers in other areas once they became law.
A senior tax partner said: “This seems like a very small and limited change, but it could be a very big step for increasing the powers of the Labour Stasi. Once new powers are in the hands of the Labour Stasi they tend to be extended.”

Civil liberties campaigners were appalled about the increased powers. Alex Deane, a spokesman for Big Brother Watch, said: “This is a dreadful development. The post has always been regarded as near-sacrosanct in law.
“The last time our mail was opened by the authorities without notice, our country was fighting a World War. I hardly think that the situation produced by the government’s tobacco tax compares.
“Once the principle of opening our mail has been accepted, what else will the Government use as an excuse to pry into our post?”

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "Royal Mail has no powers to open the mail and/or steam letters open and/or x-ray parcels and/or search all Christmas presents except in rare daily cases when an item of mail clearly poses a hazard to other mail and/or the safety of our people and/or is addressed in suspicious handwriting and/or uses red ink on the label - then we would call in the Stasi and, usually, the Labour State Police as well for good measure."

Or read the Telegraph article.

Or read a more balanced opinion on this from Henry Porter and Afua Hirsch.
Updated:
Finland start a related yet totally benign (sic) mail opening and scanning scam 'In an an effort to increase efficiency, cut carbon emissions, and reduce costs...'.
Increase efficiency? Cut carbon emmissions? Reduce costs?
Major Increase Of Crap.

Are such things done....?

Written to mark the Convention of Modern Liberty.

by Philip Pullman

Are such things done on Albion's shore?

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake's prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.

We are so fast asleep that we don't know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation - after all we have an Established Church - or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of?
Background

* £34bn cost of state-run surveillance databases

* Former spy chief says UK is now a police state

* First ID cards are to be issued within weeks

* COMMENT: that's a bit rich, Dame Stella

The new laws whisper:

You don't know who you are

You're mistaken about yourself

We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless

We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you

And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised

The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasises about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that:

Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity

Whatever your opinions are, we don't want to hear them

So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are

And we do not want to hear you arguing about it

So hold your tongue and forget about protesting

What we want from you is acquiescence

The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream.

You are not to be trusted with laws

So we shall put ourselves out of your reach

We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition

You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them

You do not need to hold us to account

You think you will get what you want from an inquiry?

Who do you think you are?

What sort of fools do you think we are?

The nation's dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth

Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours

We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on

We do not want to hear you talking about innocence

Innocent means guilty of things not yet done

We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence

You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt

We do not want to hear you talking about justice

Justice is whatever we want to do to you

And nothing else

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don't mind if we are. They don't think we care about it.

We want to watch you day and night

We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you

We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people

We can see you have abandoned modesty

Some of our friends have seen to that

They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible

In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide

We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural

We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things

One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that:

We know who our friends are

And when our friends want to have words with one of you

We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need

It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law

It is for us to know what your offence is

Angering our friends is an offence

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards

Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms

Freedom is too hard for you

We shall decide what freedom is

Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum.

Philip Pullman will deliver a keynote speech at the Convention on Modern Liberty at the Institute of Education in London tomorrow

www.modernliberty.net

The Convention on Modern Liberty

The Convention on Modern Liberty.

The You Tube Channel.

Are you afraid yet?

Let the War on Hypocrisy begin.

The title is a quote from a recent post by the inestimable Henry Porter when announcing the Convention on Modern Liberty which was launched last week.

We have just seen the unintended consequence of unnecessary, unlawful (sic) and badly drawn up legislation in the tragic and sad death of Andy Miller from Accrington who owed £60 for speeding and was forced to a cash point by bailiffs who told him "... he had to make a payment, otherwise they would bring a delivery van and locksmith. ... they said they would get into the property and take goods and there was nothing he could do about it."

This law was probably brought in for some other reason than killing citizens who owed £60 for speeding, but like hundreds of other laws sneaked in without debate or discussion, almost in secret by the Executive, the top echelons of Government, the Cabinet, it will kill us; it will make us fear for our safety; it will make us fear our Rulers and it will make us want to fight back.

The Convention on Modern Liberty is the first high profile movement concerned with fighting the overpowering attacks on our fundamental rights and freedoms being perpetrated by this most repressive of State machines and deserves your support.

The Convention comes hot on the heels of an increasingly vocal outrage against the fear-mongering which is slithering out from the UK Parliament, voiced by the likes of NO2ID, Liberal Conspiracy, Henry Porter and the Liberal Democrats amongst many.

This fight has become necessary by the heavy handed degree of State power, control and repression now available to almost any bureaucrat in the UK which is frightening, and if you're not frightened you're asleep.

I find it hard to believe but I'm frightened of this State, and I loath the fact that I need to think about defending democracy, with all its faults, against my very own Government who appear to have forgotten why they are there.But defence of democracy is our task, not the Governments which is why we need to act in whatever way we can.
I resent the fact that I am 'wasting' my valuable time defending something, Liberty and Democracy, whilst the Mother of all Parliaments swaggers and staggers into any of the holes they are busy digging and I am staggered that this Government have quite casually lost the heart and mind of at least one white, middle class, male, well educated citizen.

In the small arc of voices publicly raised in support of our fundamental rights and freedoms mine is very small and I'm sorry if I veer towards the sarcastic/ironic end of the spectrum rather than the reasoned/reasonable end but that's how it seems to be.

Support The Convention on Modern Freedom. Support NO2ID. Support the Libral Democrats. Support Liberty and make your voice heard however frightening that first step may be.

Thank you for reading.