Pathetic UK Government response to the NO2ID online petition opposing the ID Card and biometric National Identity Register scheme

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The NO2ID online petition opposing the UK Government's plans for a National Identity Register and Biometric ID Cards has now had an official "response" from the Government.

This petition is on the Prime Minister's Number 10 Downing Street websiteis still open for more signatures. It had already collected 3230 signatures when it was submitted in November 2004.

Please excuse the tone of our comments on the official Government's response to the NO2ID petiton, as it insults our intelligence:

tec"Response to the NO2ID Petition: against identity cards and the National Identity Register

Proposals for a national compulsory identity cards scheme,"

So the pretence of this being a "voluntary" scheme has finally been dropped then.

"to strengthen national security and protect people's identity, were set out on 29 November 2004 when the Government published the Identity Cards Bill. Our decision to introduce identity cards has been taken following a wide ranging debate, starting with the announcement in February 2002 of the original consultation and continuing with the consultation on the draft legislation."

There has been no widespread informed debate on the devilish detail of the Labour Government's plans. Even the opinion polls used by the Government to claim that there is support for the vague concept of "id cards" show that the public does not understand the implications of biometrics and also that they are dead set against paying a literal "poll tax" for a compulsory scheme.

The "Entitlement Cards" consultation was ignored when over 5000 individual responses opposing the scheme sent via the STAND website were all treated as one single petition response, and ignored.

The Home Affairs Committee report on ID Cards and its time restricted scrutiny of the Draft ID Card Bill was also largely ignored by the Government, except for the cherry picking of a couple of vaguely supportive statements. The Home Office refused to give even the Home Affairs Committee any figures on the estimated cost of the scheme to the nearest £2 billion

It was obvious from the Second Reading debate on the Identity cards Bill that not all Members of Parliament had read and understood the Bill either: even Government Ministers gleefully tried to make political points against their opponents by making this point.

"The decision to proceed is based in part on the fact that we will have to introduce more secure personal identifiers (biometrics) into our passports and other existing documents in line with international requirements. If our citizens are to continue to enjoy the benefits of international travel, as increasing numbers of them are doing, we cannot be left behind."

The international standards for Passports and other travel documents are set by the United Nations body the International Civil Aviation Organisation. The Home Office seems to have conveniently forgotten that the United Kingdom is a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council and could veto any such international standard if it chose to.

"Identity cards will provide every person in this country with an easy and secure way of proving their identity,"

The Government's plans are useless for identification online or over the phone, due to their reliance on biometric identifiers.

"of demonstrating their right to be here and of asserting their place in the community. Our liberties will be strengthened if our identity is protected from theft; "

Identity "theft" is not a huge problem and certainly not the top priority requiring the expenditure of billions of pounds.

Most "identity theft" figures are being confused with existing offline and online credit card fraud which the financial industry is tackling through the completely different "Chip and PIN" contact smartcard technology.

We repeat, the Government's Biometric ID Card plans are useless for countering "customer not present" credit card fraud or bank account personal details "phishing" attacks which are on the increase.

"if we are guaranteed access to the services to which we are entitled;"

We are already guaranteed access to public services which we already pay tax for, without the extra bureaucracy involved with the ID card scheme.

Why should we waste billions of pounds on the ID card scheme when some of it could be spent on policing and enforcing the existing laws covering these topics ?

"ID fraud is a growing crime, costing the country more than £1.3 billion per year. "

There is no evidence that this often repeated statement is true.

Here we go again. Identity Fraud - a study" (241Kb .pdf) was a Cabinet Office report published in July 2002. It did not reccomend that ID Cards were a solution to fraud. However, the Home Office keeps on trotting out the unscientific guesstimate published in Annex B: of this report. These figures are literally finger in the air guesses, but they are being portrayed by the Home Office as hard facts.

Neither this out of date Cabinet Office study, nor the Home Office have produced any figures on the number of instances of alleged "Identity fraud" i.e. how many actual crimes the supposed £1.3 billion a year represents, nor even a guesstimate of how many infividuals are perpatrating these "ID Theft" crimes.

Neither the Home Office nor the Cabinet Office has bothered to repeate even this inadequate research in 2003 or 2004, so there is not even a guess available to see if the changes in various security measures such as passport delivery via allegedly secure courier rather than by postal mail, or credit card "Chip and PIN" has made any difference to this figure or not.

There is no such single crime or offence as "Identity Fraud". It is not the same as an occaisional fraudulent credit card transaction, for instance, most of which happen online via the Internet, which is an area, where the choice of a Biometric ID card, is a bad one, as biometrics are useless over the Internet - nobody can trust them !

The Home Office does not even bother to collate "Identity Fraud" or "Identity Theft" crime statistics, either from the Police, or from the British Crime Survey.

How can they even tell if the situation gets better or worse with the introduction of ID Cards ?

Multiple or false identities are used in more than a third of terrorist related activity and in organised crime and money laundering.

Here we go again. Would that be more than a third of all terrorists worldwide, who use false British identities ?

We doubt this somehow, as we doubt previous claims made by Charles Clarke, David Blunkett, Des Browne, Peter Hain etc. whose often repeated versions variously substitute, "over one third" with "up to thirty five percent" and "terrorists and organised criminals" or "money launderers" for "terrorists", and "multiple identities" for "false identities", depending on who they are spinning a line to.

This spurious figure, even taken at face value means that over sixty five per cent of terrorists must use their own names anyway. "Multiple identities" are not necessarily "false identities", there are millions of people , and a few terrorists, with perfectly legal dual nationality e.g. dual Irish and United Kingdom ,dual French and Algerian etc.

So how will a scheme, which even if it is perfect, will only slightly inconvenience a small percentage of terrorists worldwide, actually make us any safer from terrorist attacks ?

It is crucial that we are able to confirm and verify our own and others' identities quickly and easily. Consequently, we believe that there are clear benefits to be gained from biometric identity cards.

It is entirely possible to make use of Biometric Identifiers as an extra layer of security against forgery. In the majority of systems used around the world, the Biometric Identifiers or a digital sumamry of them, are digitally signed and stored only on the smart card which has been issued to the person in a face to face enrolment session, after suitable biographical footprint checks of their other documentation.

That is not what the UK Government is planning with the Identity Cards Bill. They are planning a centralised online biometric National Identity Register, with the hope that someday actual ID cards will not be required at all.

"The Government's proposals are designed to safeguard, not erode, civil liberties"

If that were really true, then the Government would have followed the German model of ID card, a simple photo ID, printed with the best anti-counterfeiting techniques, just like banknotes, with the name and address details registered for local services with local authorities only. German constitutional law specifically forbids the use of the ID card number as the a database key field on central government databases, and it is changed every 5 years or so.

The UK public has not been offered the choice of such a system as a "convenient mean if identification" for public and private services, which workss fine for that purpose in Germany.

What is being rammed through Parliament at present is the most high tech multiple biometric centralised online database system. This will be a lucrative target for foreign intelligence agencies, terrorists and organised criminal gangs for whom it will be worth spending vast somes of money and resources to attack it through technical means and through blackmail, bribery and corruption of the trusted insiders who will be running the system.

Given the inflexibility of biometric technology upon which theis scheme depends, i.e. short of major surgery, biometric identifiers are "a pssword which can nver be revoked, for the rest of your life, even ewhen it has been compromised".

Why should everyone's current address and all previous address be on a database allegedly to do with personal identity ?
This is the sort of question you ask of convicted criminals, not of the vast majority of innocent people, unless the Government, in effect, intends to destroy the tradition of the presumption of innocence under the law.

Technically , with a biometric identification system you do not need the vast number of data fields which are planned for under the Identity Cards Bill Schedule 1

With Biometrics you need no Name, no Address, no Previous Addresses, no Gender, no Age or Date of Birth etc. All you need are the Biometric Identifier(s) , an ID Card Serial Number and a date of issue or expiry, and the appropriate digital signatures to show that the data has not been tampered with after the Enrolment interview with an official who has checked your Biographical Footprint of supporting documents.

This is not the claimed "minimum amount of data" which the UK Government is planning to collect in its vast National Identity Register scheme.

The only way to protect ourselves from the future abuse of this data is not to collect it into a massive vulnerable target centralised system in the first place.

Why "make a rod for our own backs" for the future ?

""by protecting people's true identity against fraud"

The Government wants to change the relationship between the citizen and the state. We have a Common Law right, established over the centuries, to be known by any name or any multiple names that we wish, provided that we are not using these name to defraud or mislead. Why should we be forced to give up this right and have only one "true identity" merely for t bureacratic convenience ? Why should the wife of the Prime Minister Mrs. Cherie Blair not also continue with her professional name of Ms. Cherie Booth QC ? Why should all names and aliases be put on a central database, under penalty of a £1000 fine ? What about online aliases which protect you from computer crimes ssuch as harrassment, stalking, attempts at fraud, illegal porn or drugs spam etc ?

There are deep cultural and religous feelings and traditions that if you give someone your "True Name" or identity, you are trusting them with some potential power over you. Who really trusts the Government and their insecure IT sytems, given the scandals, spin, hype and the betrayal of the public's trust ?

"and by enabling them to prove their identity more easily when accessing public or private services."

Our own Government cannot be trusted with these personal details, and neither can private companies.

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After the Tories decided they'd rather lose the 'law & order' vote than appear fascist, Labour denied the Tories' right to oppose them: "It is irresponsible for the Tories to first say they would support ID cards but then say... Read More

10 Comments

Reading the original response from the downing street website, i thought for a moment that i had slipped into some parallel universe where Government happily ignores democratic process while trying to instill democratic process upon other countrys by force, and where the People can raise all the points they like to that government about various bills, but where, like the softly spoken doctor who tells you that you are very sick, must take whatever medicine he gives you, and comforts you with a kindly "there there, it'll be alright", ignores your mumblings as keeps on saying the same old thing, because he knows best.


But, alas, it then hit me that no, i was not seeing another universe, i was in fact seeing this one, which is when i broke out in a cold sweat and started thinking of Kafka, Huxley and Orwell.


You construct a good reply wtwu, and i'm sure it contains far more actual thought than most of what passes for government publications, but, in that, marks itself out for being generally ignored by those to whom it is aimed, a state of affairs which is going to continue for far too long.

You may call this my hour of dispair for all that was ever Free or Just, but i'm sure there is farther to fall.....

Heil Blair!


BTW, could you fix the formating of this post, i couldn't make it look right.

nevermind, it seems to have come out alright in the wash.

Typical government reply, isnt it.
They say a lot about nothing.They dont have a clue
What we need is a live tv debate by no2id and affiliated groups, to get their points across.

The reply is great but we need to be getting this message out to people who are not familiar with the issues. Somehow we need to be passing this information on, spreading the word to those who are not familiar with this anathema. I totally agree with the points made in the reply. My concern is that we need to keep the issue alive in the media and engage more people.

For what ID systems *should* look like see Kim Cameron's laws

1. The Law of Control:

Technical identity systems MUST only reveal information identifying a user with the user's consent.

2. The Law of Minimal Disclosure

The solution which discloses the least identifying information is the most stable, long-term solution.

3. The Law of Fewest Parties

Technical identity systems MUST be designed so the disclosure of identifying information is limited to parties having a necessary and justifiable place in a given identity relationship.

4. The Law of Directed Identity

A universal identity system MUST support both "omnidirectional" identifiers for use by public entities and "unidirectional" identifiers for use by private entities, thus facilitating discovery while preventing unnecessary release of correlation handles.

5. The Law of Pluralism:

A universal identity system MUST channel and enable the interworking of multiple identity technologies run by multiple identity providers.

Original is at http://www.identityblog.com/stories/2004/12/09/thelaws.html

Pse comment on UK implications here and at http://www.idealgovernment.com

William,

Could you translate your comment into English, preferrably British English?

Thanks.

Putting it quite simply I REFUSE TO HAVE AN ID CARD www.irefuse.org

I refuse to have anything to do with ID Cards, will send back any communications will be returned to sender and any callers I will tell "He (I) am not it and please don't call again.")

I will not be numbered, filed, catalogued, printed or biometriced and others feel the same.

I we all did the same the system would fail!

Putting it quite simply I REFUSE TO HAVE AN ID CARD www.irefuse.org

I refuse to have anything to do with ID Cards and will send back any communications marked "Returned to sender." and any callers I will tell "He (I) am not it and please don't call again."

To quote no 6 - I will not be numbered, filed, catalogued, printed or biometriced and others feel the same.

If we all did the same the system would fail!

Whilst I continue to fight this abomination, I am coming to the understanding that our country has changed from a democratic society to a communist one.

The government ingores or squashes any public complaint or debate and forces legislation through regardless of opposition both from within government and from the public.

At any such time that I am required to actually get an id card or present it for whatever reason, I will refuse to do so until the person requesting the information has proved thier own identity to me beyond all reasonable doubt.

In other words, before I will show my "entitlement" card to the doctors receptionist, I will require to see the id card of every single person who may have access to my information and unless they can prove thier identity to me I feel that I would be remiss in proving my identity to someone who could potentially be using a false identity.

If I go to the bank and they require my id card then I will require the id card of the cashier before I will present any information to them as they could after all be an imposter.

Id cards prove nothing, achieve nothing and cost far to much in both monetary and civil rights.
Civil disobedience has its costs and benefits, however siply refusing to have a card is not the answer.

Bring this country to its knees by slowing every single transaction down to a crawl by insisting on using this wonderful new safeguard (sarcasm) at every step until the government realises thier mistake.

A good post, wtwu. This response to the petition continues to re-enforce the fact that we have a government who are all too headstrong in their approach to leadership, and all too ready to roll out non-commital replies to serious enquiries. Changing their view on an ID scheme will require (I hope) a shift away from this, such that future legislation will be subjected to the same amount of public rigmarole and rational discussion as this Bill. The more they are allowed their own way without struggle, the easier it gets for them. The only way we stand a chance of wresting control back into the hands of the people it affects is by stemming the tide *now*.

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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.

Other Links

Spam Huntress - The Norwegian Spam Huntress - Ann Elisabeth

Fuel Crisis Blog - Petrol over £1 per litre ! Protest !
Mayor of London Blog
London Olympics 2012 - NO !!!!

Cool Britannia

NuLabour

Free Gary McKinnon - UK citizen facing extradition to the USA for "hacking" over 90 US Military computer systems.

Parliament Protest - information and discussion on peaceful resistance to the arbitrary curtailment of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, in the excessive Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 Designated Area around Parliament Square in London.

Brian Burnell's British / US nuclear weapons history at http://nuclear-weapons.info

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Recent Comments

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UK Legislation

The United Kingdom suffers from tens of thousands of pages of complicated criminal laws, and thousands of new, often unenforceable criminal offences, which have been created as a "Pretend to be Seen to Be Doing Something" response to tabloid media hype and hysteria, and political social engineering dogmas. These overbroad, catch-all laws, which remove the scope for any judicial appeals process, have been rubber stamped, often without being read, let alone properly understood, by Members of Parliament.

The text of many of these Acts of Parliament are now online, but it is still too difficult for most people, including the police and criminal justice system, to work out the cumulative effect of all the amendments, even for the most serious offences involving national security or terrorism or serious crime.

Many MPs do not seem to bother to even to actually read the details of the legislation which they vote to inflict on us.

UK Legislation Links

UK Statute Law Database - is the official revised edition of the primary legislation of the United Kingdom made available online, but it is not yet up to date.

UK Commissioners

UK Commissioners some of whom are meant to protect your privacy and investigate abuses by the bureaucrats.

UK Intelligence Agencies

Intelligence and Security Committee - the supposedly independent Parliamentary watchdog which issues an annual, heavily censored Report every year or so. Currently chaired by the Conservative Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Why should either the intelligence agencies or the public trust this committee, when the untrustworthy ex-Labour Minister Hazel Blears is a member ?

Anti-terrorism hotline - links removed in protest at the Climate of Fear propaganda posters

MI5 Security Service
MI5 Security Service - links to encrypted reporting form removed in protest at the Climate of Fear propaganda posters

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Secure Your Fertiliser - advice on ammonium nitrate and urea fertiliser security

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Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure - "CPNI provides expert advice to the critical national infrastructure on physical, personnel and information security, to protect against terrorism and other threats."

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Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) recruitment.

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Government Communications Headquarters GCHQ

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National Crime Agency - the replacement for the Serious Organised Crime Agency

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Defence Advisory (DA) Notice system - voluntary self censorship by the established UK press and broadcast media regarding defence and intelligence topics via the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee.

Foreign Spies / Intelliegence Agencies in the UK

It is not just the UK government which tries to snoop on British companies, organisations and individuals, the rest of the world is constantly trying to do the same, regardless of the mixed efforts of our own UK Intelligence Agencies who are paid to supposedly protect us from them.

For no good reason, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office only keeps the current version of the London Diplomatic List of accredited Diplomats (including some Foreign Intelligence Agency operatives) online.

Presumably every mainstream media organisation, intelligence agency, serious organised crime or terrorist gang keeps historical copies, so here are some older versions of the London Diplomatic List, for the benefit of web search engine queries, for those people who do not want their visits to appear in the FCO web server logfiles or those whose censored internet feeds block access to UK Government websites.

Campaign Button Links

Watching Them, Watching Us - UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign
UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign

NO2ID Campaign - cross party opposition to the NuLabour Compulsory Biometric ID Card
NO2ID Campaign - cross party opposition to the NuLabour Compulsory Biometric ID Card and National Identity Register centralised database.

Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.
Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.

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FreeFarid.com - Kafkaesque extradition of Farid Hilali under the European Arrest Warrant to Spain

Peaceful resistance to the curtailment of our rights to Free Assembly and Free Speech in the SOCPA Designated Area around Parliament Square and beyond
Parliament Protest blog - resistance to the Designated Area restricting peaceful demonstrations or lobbying in the vicinity of Parliament.

Petition to the European Commission and European Parliament against their vague Data Retention plans
Data Retention is No Solution - Petition to the European Commission and European Parliament against their vague Data Retention plans.

Save Parliament: Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)
Save Parliament - Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)

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Open Rights Group

The Big Opt Out Campaign - opt out of having your NHS Care Record medical records and personal details stored insecurely on a massive national centralised database.

Tor - the onion routing network
Tor - the onion routing network - "Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves."

Tor - the onion routing network
Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress and Tor - useful Guide published by Global Voices Advocacy with step by step software configuration screenshots (updated March 10th 2009).

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Amnesty International's irrepressible.info campaign

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BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

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NGO in a box - Security Edition privacy and security software tools

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Home Office Watch blog, "a single repository of all the shambolic errors and mistakes made by the British Home Office compiled from Parliamentary Questions, news reports, and tip-offs by the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team."

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Reporters Without Borders - Reporters Sans Frontières - campaign for journalists 'and bloggers' freedom in repressive countries and war zones.

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Committee to Protect Bloggers - "devoted to the protection of bloggers worldwide with a focus on highlighting the plight of bloggers threatened and imprisoned by their government."

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Icelanders are NOT terrorists ! - despite Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling's use of anti-terrorism legislation to seize the assets of Icelandic banks.

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No CCTV - The Campaign Against CCTV

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I'm a Photographer Not a Terrorist !

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Power 2010 cross party, political reform campaign

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Cracking the Black Box - "aims to expose technology that is being used in inappropriate ways. We hope to bring together the insights of experts and whistleblowers to shine a light into the dark recesses of systems that are responsible for causing many of the privacy problems faced by millions of people."

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Open Rights Group - Petition against the renewal of the Interception Modernisation Programme

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WhistleblowersUK.org - Fighting for justice for whistleblowers