More Surveillance Soon

Home Secretary Theresa May announced the raising UK's terror threat level from "substantial" to "severe" in response to conflicts in Iraq and Syria. This was followed by a press conference where the prime minister, David Cameron, who said that the said Islamic State extremists are attempting to establish a Islamic state. This he believes represents a "greater and deeper threat to our security than we have known before". In order to do this he is ready to introduce emergency legislation.

Back in July the government rushed through a act of parliament called the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 using emergency procedures without any real debate or public consultation. This was forced through in response to concerns that the telecommunications companies would start deleting data held under the European Unions Data Retention Regulations of 2009 due to Court of Justice of the European Union ruling which said that keeping data on individuals was unlawful as it was interference with the fundamental rights of individuals to a private life. The 2014 act, introduced in July, increased the data collected under the Data Retention Regulations and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the original snoopers charter. 

The table below gives an idea of the changes that have been made to the interception of communications in the UK from the introduction of  European Unions Data Retention Regulations of 2009 and the purposed changes that the Government have talked about in the past which we could see being implemented soon.

European Unions Data Retention Regulations of 2009

Covers - Phone Companies, ISPs, Mobile Phone Communications, Internet Usage, Email usage within the UK Data Stored - source and destination of communication, time and date, type of communication and equipment type. Length time retained - 12 months Data Available to - Security Services, Police, HM Customs and Revenue with limited data available to other national and local government agencies.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014

Covers - Phone Companies, ISPs, Mobile Phone Communications, Internet Usage, Email usage (including webmail) within the UK and requires organisations outside the UK providing the same sort of services to keep the same data on UK citizens communications. Data Stored - source and destination of communication, time and date, type of communication and equipment type. Length time retained - 12 months Data Available to - Security Services, Police, HM Customs and Revenue with limited data available to other national and local government agencies.

Possible New Emergency Powers Act

Covers - Postal Services, Phone Companies, ISPs, Mobile Phone Communications, Internet Usage, Email usage (including webmail) within the UK and requires organisations outside the UK providing the same sort of services to keep the same data on UK citizens communications. Data Stored - source and destination of communication, time and date, type of communication, equipment type, location of mobile devices, details of messages sent on social media, voice calls sent over the internet, web browsing history, file transfers details, usage of messaging services, online gaming history etc. Length time retained - 12 months Data Available to - Security Services, Police, HM Customs and Revenue with limited data available to other national and local government agencies.

Any purposed legislation will  see major increases to the amount of data being collected on it. Already when moving from the 2009 legislation to the 2014  legislation we saw the government increasing the Surveillance Sate while claiming ot was just trying to give itself the same powers as it had before. 

We know from the press that the Home Secretary, Theresa May, wants more power to snoop on the British public and she will use any excuse to get it. In the newspapers of the past she has called on greater internet powers to control gangs, stop paedophiles, serious crime, terrorists etc. In fact she will use anything that will get her support despite in every major poll the public disagreeing with her increasing her powers to create a Big Brother State. With the prime minister, David Cameron,in the mood he is in and willing to use emergency powers she just might get what she wants at last.

I believe that the government is interfering more and more in our private lives and has the power to watch us like it has never done before in minute detail, knowing where we are, who we are talking to and what we are talking about. This is a dangerous shift that affects our human rights and our democracy unless measures are put in place to make it transparent in the courts of law and require bodies outside of government to oversee requests of information. It is only at this point that should data be made available, and not at the say of some lowly official with the police or the government.

The fact is that groups of people that Theresa May wants to monitor will find ways around the any measures the government puts in place, just as spies have done for countless centuries, to carry on exchanging information. Yes we might pick up a few people along the way but the people the government are really after will still get away and they will be has hidden from the authorities as they are now. If you are determined enough you will find a way to get round such data collection systems.  

What we are risking with moves like this are ever increasing state control through self censorship both in the press and of the individual. There are already controls in the UK that stops us seeing some websites how long before these powers are also increased, as they have been in other counties like Russia who are implementing measures to control the internet and other forms communications. Before long the basic principle of the Internet being a free place will be just a pipe dream of its creator and everything we do in our lives will be recorded.

Russian old style press control.

The poster below says “Let’s raise the generation utterly devoted to the cause of communism!” in dates back to 1947, just after the Second World War. It is propaganda and the doctrine of the old USSR that influences the thinking of the Russian leadership today, and in particular one Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin a former member of the KGB, and currently president of Russia.

He believes in the greatness of the old motherland the USSR and appears to want a return to the past and the modern Russian empire that was Eastern Europe to be under his control again. The problem is that the majority of the people in the old USSR that where given their freedom from the control of Moscow after the end of Communism don't want to return to the fold, and those that do are generally Russian citizens that stayed in these states after the break up. You can see this in the current situation in the Ukraine and how the people near the Russian boarder are seeking to closer ties with Moscow and are being backup in their campaign by arms from Russia.

The current situation in the Ukraine has brought a lot of negative comment and reporting from around the world, especially from those countries of the former Western powers and the former, now free states of the USSR. Increasing political pressure has been applied to Vladimir Putin and his government in order to stop his ambitions in creating a greater Russia by taking back lands populated by majority Russian populations as was done in Crimea recently. This was an invasion done by stealth and it was done with militarily precision, it was clear that a lot of planning had secretly gone before the event and arms supplied the Russian supporters in the region.

Back in the former old USSR, during the cold war the press was highly regulated and exclusively controlled by the Communist state, people in the media talking out would have ended up being arrested and interrogated by the KGB before being sent to a political reeducation work camp and left to rot. When the Communist state fell there was an explosion of free press in Russia and all looked good for press freedom for a while. In recent years successive Russian Governments have been able to put more and more pressure on this free press some of which was accomplished by the introduction of a law to combat terrorism and extremist activity, this effectively limited the power of the press with undefined definition of what is or what is not covered by the law. This has effectively silenced the press once more and making it a mouthpiece of the Russian Government and this has also been used to prevent foreign journalists entering the country.   

Currently in terms of free press the Russian nation lies 176th out of 197 counties. It has been reported that "the directors of the television channels and the newspapers are invited every Thursday into the Kremlin office of the deputy head of administration, Vladislav Surkov to learn what news should be presented, and where." This is clear state manipulation of the press and it all started shortly after Vladimir Putin was made president for the first time back in 2002.  It is a return to the old days in the USSR when the country was run by the Communist Party.

As recently as 2012 the Russian Government passed legislation that created a blacklist of Internet sites and made the providers of telecom services liable for such breaches of the law. Under this law it is possible, because its wording, to allow authorities to mass block Internet resources with legal that don't meet with the Russian Governments approval. It is backed up with jail sentences for beaches of the law for as long as 5 years in prison.

Slowly the erosion of freedom of the press and the Internet in Russia goes on and on. Today Russia introduced laws that means that every Russian blogger draws more than 3,000 daily readers to register with the Russian government and submit to the same regulations as mass media. This law has been dubbed as “blogger law” and its effect is to put large swaths of Russia’s prominent online personalities in theoretical violation of the law at all times, risking fines and other harassment whenever authorities decide to crack down on opposition to the Governments view.

This new law is wrong, and the Russian people need to start pushing to repel this law and the others put in place since Vladimir Putin and his supporters came to power in 2002 before it is too late for the press and members of public to oppose the views of the state. If that doesn't happen it will be  a return to the days secret police and the KGB the oppression of a great people by its own Government.

Power of Twitter

This is more of an update on a story in the press that I featured in the blog post "Council Censorship" on Friday. If you remember Argyll and Bute council decided to censor a nine years olds Blog, NeverSeconds, who posted about her school dinner experiences. 

When the news broke in the media, both conventional and internet based, you can imagine the reaction. Instantly the story hit Twitter. I even tweeted about it myself on my own Twitter account, as some of you might have seen from the snap shot of it on this page. People were doing all kinds of things including email the Council concerned and putting in complaints. Everyone was saying how out of order the council were for doing what they did. 

Most of the morning nobody from Argyll and Bute council were available to comment on the story. Then on the Victoria Derbyshire BBC Radio 5 live programme an Executive from the council appeared, putting the case for banning this nine year old girl from taking pictures of the food she paid for and effectively stopping her blogging. He claimed it had been done because her pictures were used in the Scottish press in an article that wasn't to kind to the dinner ladies and suggested they should be sacked. So it would appear that instead of tackling the press they picked on a little girl. He came across as a real bully on the programme and although I could see the why the dinner ladies might have been upset, which I might add the little girl had a good relationship with, it was quickly clearly that he was attacking the wrong person. The nine year old girl had done nothing wrong and she had the support of the school, but she was the scape goat and the full force of the council turned upon her. 

The appearance of the Executive from Argyll and Bute council just made things worse and twitter was off again. They had already been some famous people saying things were getting out of hand including former Westminster Politicians. Next in came Jamie Oliver who congratulated the nine year old on writing the blog in it's early days. He got everyone to retweet one of his tweets in support of the little little girl, effectively marking the start of a more organised campaign against the council. As the presenter of the World of One on BBC Radio 4 was about to launch into the leader of the council who had consented to appear on the programme, the councillor announced that censorship has no place in Argyll and Bute and that she could start taking her pictures again. 

Sense and reason had won the day through the power of public opinion driven by the media and the backlash against the council on Twitter. What I find ironic in all this is that they picked on a little girl because of a press article when they could have used the same tool to highlight the quality of school meals. Very few meals that the girl reviewed got low scores, in fact many were rated over at over 8 out of 10. It could have been used for good and they decided to blame this innocent child and silence her. The whole thing turned in to a public relations nightmare because of bullying tactics someone decided to employ against this girl who had the support of school and as it turns out the general public.

What is amazing is that she has now raised over £90,000 pounds on her JustGiving page for Mary's Meals. That is enough money to build a kitchen and a lot more. Looking through the Blog one can see it was working in so many ways. Even the school meals were getting better, but the best thing is she is continuing with her blog, now the ban on her taking pictures of her dinners has been lifted. She posted her first post after she was censored yesterday on her site which has a now amassed over 6 million hits. Over 4 million more than when I first heard about the story and read the site.

To me what this story shows is how the power of public opinion can be used to effect good and change. How it can be used to protect the freedom of speech and expression. Lets us hope that the same  power of  public opinion can be used to protect our privacy in the coming months from the Conservative Nanny State.

Council Censorship

It seems that if councils don't like what you say in your blogs some of the them will try and find ways to shut you down. That is what Argyll and Bute Council have done because a newspaper published a report based on a photograph and the content of a nine year olds blog, NeverSeconds, who reviews her school dinners in a blog.

Here is a young person starting a public debate about school meals with the support of her school and some officials at Argyll and Bute Council come and stamp on her right to free speech. It just shows you what this country is coming to. It is her food she bought it so she can photograph it.

The council are clearly out of order for censoring the school girls blog and effectively bullying her into to giving up something she enjoyed and got pleasure from. It was her fault that the press used material from her blog to write a story that may have upset some of their staff it was the newspaper itself.

My response was swift when I read the story on the BBC news site this morning, I emailed Argyll and Bute Council to complain and then moved my attention like many others too Twitter to fight her cause. Lets hope that Argyll and Bute Council and others around the country learn in unexpectable  to censor the people they represent because they don't like what they are saying.