e-nsecure.net blog - Comments on IT security and Privacy or the lack thereof.
Rat's Blog -The Reverend Rat writes about London street life and technology
Duncan Drury - wired adventures in Tanzania & London
Dr. K's blog - Hacker, Author, Musician, Philosopher
David Mery - falsely arrested on the London Tube - you could be next.
James Hammerton
White Rose - a thorn in the side of Big Brother
Big Blunkett
Into The Machine - formerly "David Blunkett is an Arse" by Charlie Williams and Scribe
infinite ideas machine - Phil Booth
Louise Ferguson - City of Bits
Chris Lightfoot
Oblomovka - Danny O'Brien
Liberty Central
dropsafe - Alec Muffett
The Identity Corner - Stefan Brands
Kim Cameron - Microsoft's Identity Architect
Schneier on Security - Bruce Schneier
Politics of Privacy Blog - Andreas Busch
solarider blog
Richard Allan - former Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam
Boris Johnson Conservative MP for Henley
Craig Murray - former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, "outsourced torture" whistleblower
Howard Rheingold - SmartMobs
Global Guerrillas - John Robb
Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends
Vmyths - debunking computer security hype
Nick Leaton - Random Ramblings
The Periscope - Companion weblog to Euro-correspondent.com journalist network.
The Practical Nomad Blog Edward Hasbrouck on Privacy and Travel
Policeman's Blog
World Weary Detective
Martin Stabe
Longrider
B2fxxx - Ray Corrigan
Matt Sellers
Grits for Breakfast - Scott Henson in Texas
The Green Ribbon - Tom Griffin
Guido Fawkes blog - Parliamentary plots, rumours and conspiracy.
The Last Ditch - Tom Paine
Murky.org
The (e)State of Tim - Tim Hicks
Ilkley Against CCTV
Tim Worstall
Bill's Comment Page - Bill Cameron
The Society of Qualified Archivists
The Streeb-Greebling Diaries - Bob Mottram
Your Right To Know - Heather Brooke - Freedom off Information campaigning journalist
Ministry of Truth _ Unity's V for Vendetta styled blog.
Bloggerheads - Tim Ireland
W. David Stephenson blogs on homeland security et al.
EUrophobia - Nosemonkey
Blogzilla - Ian Brown
BlairWatch - Chronicling the demise of the New Labour Project
dreamfish - Robert Longstaff
Informaticopia - Rod Ward
War-on-Freedom
The Musings of Harry
Chicken Yoghurt - Justin McKeating
The Red Tape Chronicles - Bob Sullivan MSNBC
Campaign Against the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
Stop the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
Rob Wilton's esoterica
panGloss - Innovation, Technology and the Law
Arch Rights - Action on Rights for Children blog
Database Masterclass - frequently asked questions and answers about the several centralised national databases of children in the UK.
Shaphan
Moving On
Steve Moxon blog - former Home Office whistleblower and author.
Al-Muhajabah's Sundries - anglophile blog
Architectures of Control in Design - Dan Lockton
rabenhorst - Kai Billen
(mostly in German)
Nearly Perfect Privacy - Tiffany and Morpheus
Iain Dale's Diary - a popular Conservative political blog
Brit Watch - Public Surveillance in the UK - Web - Email - Databases - CCTV - Telephony - RFID - Banking - DNA
BLOGDIAL
MySecured.com - smart mobile phone forensics, information security, computer security and digital forensics by a couple of Australian researchers
Ralph Bendrath
Financial Cryptography - Ian Grigg et al.
UK Liberty - A blog on issues relating to liberty in the UK
Big Brother State - "a small act of resistance" to the "sustained and systematic attack on our personal freedom, privacy and legal system"
HosReport - "Crisis. Conspiraciones. Enigmas. Conflictos. Espionaje." - Carlos Eduardo Hos (in Spanish)
"Give 'em hell Pike!" - Frank Fisher
Corruption-free Anguilla - Good Governance and Corruption in Public Office Issues in the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla in the West Indies - Don Mitchell CBE QC
geeklawyer - intellectual property, civil liberties and the legal system
PJC Journal - I am not a number, I am a free Man - The Prisoner
Charlie's Diary - Charlie Stross
The Caucus House - blog of the Chicago International Model United Nations
Famous for 15 Megapixels
Postman Patel
The 4th Bomb: Tavistock Sq Daniel's 7:7 Revelations - Daniel Obachike
OurKingdom - part of OpenDemocracy - " will discuss Britain’s nations, institutions, constitution, administration, liberties, justice, peoples and media and their principles, identity and character"
Beau Bo D'Or blog by an increasingly famous digital political cartoonist.
Between Both Worlds - "Thoughts & Ideas that Reflect the Concerns of Our Conscious Evolution" - Kingsley Dennis
Bloggerheads: The Alisher Usmanov Affair - the rich Uzbek businessman and his shyster lawyers Schillings really made a huge counterproductive error in trying to censor the blogs of Tim Ireland, of all people.
Matt Wardman political blog analysis
Henry Porter on Liberty - a leading mainstream media commentator and opinion former who is doing more than most to help preserve our freedom and liberty.
HMRC is shite - "dedicated to the taxpayers of Britain, and the employees of the HMRC, who have to endure the monumental shambles that is Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC)."
Head of Legal - Carl Gardner a former legal advisor to the Government
The Landed Underclass - Voice of the Banana Republic of Great Britain
Henrik Alexandersson - Swedish blogger threatened with censorship by the Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA), the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishement, their equivalent of the UK GCHQ or the US NSA.
World's First Fascist Democracy - blog with link to a Google map - "This map is an attempt to take a UK wide, geographical view, of both the public and the personal effect of State sponsored fear and distrust as seen through the twisted technological lens of petty officials and would be bureaucrats nationwide."
Blogoir - Charles Crawford - former UK Ambassodor to Poland etc.
No CCTV - The Campaign against CCTV
Barcode Nation - keeping two eyes on the database state.
Lords of the Blog - group blog by half a dozen or so Peers sitting in the House of Lords.
notes from the ubiquitous surveillance society - blog by Dr. David Murakami Wood, editor of the online academic journal Surveillance and Society
Justin Wylie's political blog
Panopticon blog - by Timothy Pitt-Payne and Anya Proops. Timothy Pitt-Payne is probably the leading legal expert on the UK's Freedom of Information Act law, often appearing on behlaf of the Information Commissioner's Office at the Information Tribunal.
Armed and Dangerous - Sex, software, politics, and firearms. Life’s simple pleasures… - by Open Source Software advocate Eric S. Raymond.
Georgetown Security Law Brief - group blog by the Georgetown Law Center on National Security and the Law , at Georgtown University, Washington D.C, USA.
Big Brother Watch - well connected with the mainstream media, this is a campaign blog by the TaxPayersAlliance, which thankfully does not seem to have spawned Yet Another Campaign Organisation as many Civil Liberties groups had feared.
Spy on Moseley - "Sparkbrook, Springfield, Washwood Heath and Bordesley Green. An MI5 Intelligence-gathering operation to spy on Muslim communities in Birmingham is taking liberties in every sense" - about 150 ANPR CCTV cameras funded by Home Office via the secretive Terrorism and Allied Matters (TAM) section of ACPO.
FitWatch blog - keeps an eye on the activities of some of the controversial Police Forward Intelligence Teams, who supposedly only target "known troublemakers" for photo and video surveillance, at otherwise legal, peaceful protests and demonstrations.
'We do not believe that the current Government or Opposition politicians would abuse the enormous powers which they have just granted themselves'
- why not?
I would agre with mr morriss, how can we trust this government or any other one.TRUST needs to be earned and there has been no earning, that I have seen.Lies are the norm, as well as coverups.
So now Britain has jumped head first into it's Weimar phase.
Now that the Bill has Royal Assent does this mean it is now law? E.g. the govt could use it right now?
Yes, it is law right now, as, in this case, there is no inbuilt delay or start date or need to invoke certain sections through another vote in Parliament etc.
Royal Assent is the formal step just before the Queen actually signs the parchment or vellum copy of the Act with a quill pen, sealing wax etc. which then gets bound into the Statute Book.
In practice, Her Majesty's Stationary Office prints some official paper copies and, usually manages to put an online "unofficial" copy of the text on their website by the next working day i.e. over the weekend in this instance.
The Government could even have already declared an Emergency and started to issue Emergency Regulations without bothering to tell you abiout it, "for security" or "to prevent panic" reasons !
I.e. as of Thursday we have no legal protection against the govt should it decide to institute a dictatorship.
How comforting...
James
Actually, we already *are* in a state of emergency or at least a 'public emergency' given the Government's submission to the Council of Europe to explain why the UK has derogated from article 5(1)(f) of the ECHR. An extract from the submission on 18/12/01:
"There exists a terrorist threat to the United Kingdom from persons suspected of involvement in international terrorism. In particular, there are foreign nationals present in the United Kingdom who are suspected of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of international terrorism, of being members of organisations or groups which are so concerned or of having links with members of such organisations or groups, and who are a threat to the national security of the United Kingdom.
As a result, a public emergency, within the meaning of Article 15(1) of the Convention, exists in the United Kingdom."
Sorry about the double trackback. I messed up the first time round, and didn't realise the second ping would add a new entry rather than amend the old one.
Trackbacks are an interesting idea, and their use should be encouraged, but they are not always that reliable e.g. you often get error messages claiming that they have failed when they have not, so that you are tempted to try again.
Some anti Blog Comment Spam filters e.g. MT-Blacklist also handle excessive trackback pings as well, and the relatively few duplicate trackbacks can be handled manually.
The derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights, as enshrined in the Human Rights Act, was done so as to allow detenttion withhout trial under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act part 4.
Supposedly, the Human Rights Act is protected from being amended or repealed by the Civil Contingencies Act Emergency Powers, and despite attempts to get other core contstitutional Acts such as Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, the Parliament Act, the European Union Act etc. etc. similarly protected, this is the only one which is.
However, the exemptions from the Human Rights Act mean that it does not have to be amended or repealed, the legal loopholes are already built in.
Re: the HRA 1998, I wasn't aware of the amendment that protected it until I read a Telegraph leader, earlier tonight, that claimed the HRA was protected legislation. I then investigated and found the bill had been amended since I last looked. I've updated my most recent blog article to reflect this.
ISTM that what protection the HRA provides is severely reduced if an emergency is declared (forced labour is allowed in emergencies for example), and can be completely nullified via derogations like the one used to enable the detention of foreign residents without trial.
Even with the HRA intact, ISTM the govt can set up its own special courts or tribunals to hear such cases instead of the normal courts using the power to confer jurisdiction (and the power to prohibit assemblies to stop the normal courts from sitting). Such tactics could ensure the law gets applied only in the way they want.
Nothing I've seen so far suggests there's any serious legal or constitutional constraint on the absolute legislative and executive power conferred on cabinet ministers by this legislation, should they invoke the power to issue emergency regulations.
It's a truly frightening development. How long before the govt uses this legislation to stifle any protests against govt policy that look as if they might be effective?
Vote for Tony Blair...or there will be no more elections.
No discussion, no press comment. Read the Scott 1st Chapter about how they replaced wartime regulation of exports and duped the Labour opposition. This was ocassioned by someone trying to import bananas against the agreements we had with Caribbean countries.
Of course we will never use this legislation etc... what the fuck are they doing about the prison on Diego Garcia ? Gunatanamo ?
The Civil Contongencies Act is equivalent to Article 48 of Germany's Weimar Constitution by which Hitler came to Power. Under this Act Blair ne no longer call elections and we become a dictatorship. Will the last free man to leave this land please turn the light out.
The Civil Contongencies Act is equivalent to Article 48 of Germany's Weimar Constitution by which Hitler came to Power. Under this Act Blair need no longer call elections and we become a dictatorship. Will the last free man to leave this land please turn the light out.
When will the civil contingencies bill formally enter into force?
Carl,
It is already in force. It went into force on receiving Royal Assent last Thursday. See earlier comments.
We are one cabinet minister's statement away from dictatorship.
It would be interesting to know whether the origins of this legislation began life in Brussels.Pretty much all of our laws are now framed within the EU and imposed upon this country under the guise of original thought by this government.
Is Magna Carta dead?.
Does this mean that any official or unofficial body quoting this Civil Contingencies Act can remove the protection of law from citizens of the UK for whatever reason they choose without having to justify it.
Can it lead to imprisonment without trial,confiscation of property and belongings ?.
Who would we,as individuals,have to protect us.
Roy
'Who would we, as individuals, have to protect us.'
The Army? Faster than I care to contemplate, the arrogance and insolence of Blair and his government is making the only issue of note in this country whether the boys and girls with the shiny toys go along with the destruction of Britain.
the Army is traditionally conservative voting - but the British army is probably the most highly disciplined force in the entire world. Doubtful that they would disobey direct orders. Minor rebellions by squads of soldiers would be severely put down.