"A similar effort to enhance the authorities’ powers was made by the Labor government in 2006 but was abandoned after ferocious opposition, including from the two parties that now form the coalition government - the dominant Conservatives and the smaller Liberal Democrats party - and are now reintroducing the same legislation"
Can it be any more obvious that they are carrying out agenda already written for them?
"Backlash rises over British plan to bolster eavesdropping; Critics include lawmakers from ruling coalition" by Alan Cowell | New York Times, April 03, 2012
LONDON - British lawmakers and rights activists joined a chorus of protest Monday against plans by the government to give the intelligence and security services the ability to monitor the phone calls, e-mails, text messages, and Internet use of every person in the country.
In a land where tens of thousands of surveillance cameras attest to claims by privacy advocates that Britain is the Western world’s most closely monitored society, the proposal has compounded arguments that its citizens live under what critics call an increasingly intrusive “nanny state.’’
Meaning it is the most closely monitored on the planet. And it is not a nanny state. Nanny states are supposed to nurture and nurse you, not deceive and destroy you.
The debate in recent years has pitted those who justify greater scrutiny by reference to threats of terrorism and organized crime against those who cleave to traditional notions of individual privacy. But the current proposal would raise the question of how security agencies can keep track of a proliferation of newer technologies such as Skype, instant messaging, and social networking sites that permit instant communication outside more traditional channels.
The Home Office said the new measures were vital to provide police and security services with “communications data to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public.’’
Yeah, never you mind all the false flags and patsy plots run by MI6 and other intelligence agencies.
Under the proposal, made public in The Sunday Times of London, a law to be introduced this year would allow the authorities to order Internet companies to install hardware enabling the government’s monitoring agency, the Government Communications Headquarters, to examine individual communications without a warrant.
A similar effort to enhance the authorities’ powers was made by the Labor government in 2006 but was abandoned after ferocious opposition, including from the two parties that now form the coalition government - the dominant Conservatives and the smaller Liberal Democrats party - and are now reintroducing the same legislation....
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Here is a little more about the program from back in the business section:
"UK said to be seeking Internet surveillance plan; Public outcry ended prior call for monitoring" by Raphael Satter | Associated Press, April 02, 2012
LONDON - A nationwide electronic surveillance network that could potentially keep track of every message sent by any Brit to anyone at any time....
A standardized mass-monitoring program capturing every e-mail, every post, and every tweet would spell the creation of a formidable new surveillance regime....
All based on a bunch of bulls*** lies.
Cost could be an issue....
$ay what?
The price tag would run into the billions of dollars, a cost James Blessing of the Internet Service Providers’ Association said would either have to be borne by the taxpayer or by Internet service companies, which would in turn have little choice but to pass it on to their customers.
This while the HEALTH SERVICE and OTHER SOCIAL PROGRAMS are being SLASHED by this government so bankers can get paid?
In either case, UK Internet users would be paying extra to allow their government to spy on them more effectively....
Orwell was English, wasn't he? I thought I heard a-thumping from the grave.
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Good thing the Yard is on the case:
"Ex-Scotland Yard official admits links to hacking suspects; Denies that was why investigation of scandal vetoed" by Raphael Satter | Associated Press, March 02, 2012
LONDON - One of Scotland Yard’s former top-ranking officers struggled yesterday to explain his close ties to people who later became suspects in the British phone-hacking saga, denying any suggestion that he refused to reinvestigate the scandal to protect his drinking buddies.
But former Assistant Commissioner John Yates had trouble explaining the nature of his convivial relationship with senior News of the World journalists Neil Wallis and Lucy Panton - both of whom have since been arrested.
Speaking via video link, Yates told a judge-led inquiry into the scandal that he was close to Wallis, saying the two traveled to soccer games together and regularly met for dinner or drinks at fancy restaurants. Still, he said that did not affect his judgment....
That's a lie because alcohol affects judgment, even if it didn't affect his official duties in his capacity as ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! Sorry, folks, I thought I could get through it without laughing.
Yates played a key role in the widening phone-hacking scandal when he knocked down a 2009 story published in the Guardian newspaper that suggested illegal behavior at the News of the World tabloid was more widespread than previously acknowledged. Yates took only six hours to veto any further investigation, saying there was no evidence to back the Guardian’s claim.
“Time has shown that to be not the greatest call,’’ Yates admitted.
Many would agree. The scandal Yates refused to investigate has since exploded, derailing the career of the prime minister’s top media aide, causing media baron Rupert Murdoch to shut down Britain’s top-selling Sunday tabloid, and triggering the arrest, resignation, or suspension of some 40 journalists, public officials, and media executives.
Yates was forced to revisit his relationship with Wallis by inquiry lawyer Robert Jay, who ran through a list of meetings the police commander had with Wallis at places such as The Ivy restaurant, where bottles of champagne do not come much cheaper than $100, or the exclusive Mandarin Hotel, where the Chinese premier stayed in London.
Yates insisted - repeatedly - that the dinners were of a personal nature and that the two men did not talk about his police work, or at least not in depth.
But he was thrown on the defensive when Jay read an e-mail addressed to Panton, formerly the News of the World’s crime reporter, who Yates met several times a year.
The 2010 e-mail, written by Panton’s editor James Mellor, asks Panton if she has spoken to Yates about a high-profile terror case.
“Really need an exclusive splash line,’’ the e-mail read. “Time to call in all those bottles of champagne.’’
Was Yates being plied with champagne in exchange for news tips?
“That didn’t happen,’’ Yates insisted.
No champagne? he was asked.
“There may well have been the very odd occasion, where a bottle was shared with several people,’’ Yates said via videolink from Bahrain, where he is now helping to advise the authoritarian Gulf state’s police force.
Un-flipping-real! The criminal cover-up cop is now helping the butchers of Bahrain.
His testimony did not impress hacking victims....
Scotland Yard has been widely criticized for its failure to get to grips with the hacking scandal, with suggestions that overlapping ties between British police and journalists helped keep the wrongdoing at the News of the World - and its sister paper, The Sun - under wraps.
Related(?):
"London’s police force.... repeatedly overlooked evidence of widespread illegal behavior at the News of the World - apparently in a bid to not antagonize Murdoch’s powerful media empire.... Details of senior officers’ professional and social links to Murdoch’s newspaper arm have also embarrassed police."
Like boozing it up with expensive champagne at expensive restaurants?
Earlier yesterday, Peter Clarke, a former Scotland Yard counterterrorism chief, explained that one of the reasons police could not devote much time to the original investigation was because of the 2005 London transit bombings.
Related: Force Research Unit
May Day Memories: British Patsies
May Day Memories: The U.S. Connection
Terror Expert: London Bomber Was Working For MI5
Israeli Connections to the London Tube Bombs
Meet Mr. Aswat and Mr. Khan, readers.
Yup, all that spying need be done on you to protect you from.... (blog editor issues audible huh)
He said the London force was so undermanned it had to enlist 1,000 officers from other departments. In that context, the investigation into phone hacking had to take the back seat, he said.
PFFFFFT!
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Related: London police gave reporters grades
Hacking net snares once-lofty editor
Not to defend the criminal scum media of Britain; however, isn't it interesting that government can hack away at everything and anything they want?
"UK broadcaster admits it hacked e-mails of suspects; Sky News chief says action was in public interest" by Alan Cowell and Ravi Somaiya | New York Times, April 06, 2012
LONDON - The British satellite news broadcaster, Sky News, part-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., said Thursday that its journalists had hacked e-mail messages at least twice in search of news stories, suggesting for the first time that Britain’s hacking scandal has spilled into television broadcasting....
“We stand by these actions as editorially justified and in the public interest. We do not take such decisions lightly or frequently,’’ said John Ryley, head of the network, in a statement referring to one episode in 2008 and another on an unspecified date. A wider investigation into editorial practices at the network was under way, he added.
Let me guess, they exposed war criminal liars and looting banksters.
The news came after months of overlapping police, parliamentary, and judicial inquiries focusing on illicit voicemail hacking and other practices among journalists and editors at two Murdoch-owned tabloids, The Suna and the now-defunct News of the World. Unlike the tabloid newspapers involved in the broader scandal, Sky News is not directly controlled by the Murdoch family. It is operated by BSkyB, in which the Murdoch family’s News Corp. media giant has a stake of some 39 percent.
Let me guess, they exposed war criminal liars and looting banksters.
The news came after months of overlapping police, parliamentary, and judicial inquiries focusing on illicit voicemail hacking and other practices among journalists and editors at two Murdoch-owned tabloids, The Suna and the now-defunct News of the World. Unlike the tabloid newspapers involved in the broader scandal, Sky News is not directly controlled by the Murdoch family. It is operated by BSkyB, in which the Murdoch family’s News Corp. media giant has a stake of some 39 percent.
But there has been some crossover between the family’s print and broadcast holdings in Britain: Last year, the fallout from scandals engulfing the newspaper interests forced the Murdoch empire to abandon plans for a takeover of the 61 percent of BSkyB that it does not already own.
The disclosure of hacking at Sky News came just two days after Rupert Murdoch’s son James resigned as chairman of BSkyB, saying he wished to shield the company from the phone hacking scandal engulfing his family’s British newspaper group. He did not at that time allude to the hacking disclosures at Sky News that surfaced Thursday and were first reported by The Guardian newspaper on its website.
Related: James Murdoch acknowledges role in hacking scandal
James Murdoch resigns as BSkyB chief
I'll always like James, and here is why:
“Murdoch said he didn't see what the Palestinians' problem was and James said it was that they were kicked out of their f---ing homes and had nowhere to f---ing live,” said the account in The Guardian."
Maybe that's why the scandal is in the papers, 'eh? Can't take a chance on the son after the old man dies.
So what nefarious activity did the intrepid Sky News expose?
The disclosures related to Sky News stories concerning the so-called “canoe man,’’ John Darwin, who disappeared from Britain in 2002 after witnesses saw him paddling into the sea on a canoe. But he secretly flew to Panama where his wife, Anne Darwin, joined him before they returned to England in 2007. Both were accused and convicted of deception.
You are joking, right?
A Sky News reporter was said to have hacked into e-mail accounts that were the basis for broadcast stories about John Darwin’s reasons for returning to Britain. A second case involved e-mails relating to a suspected pedophile and his wife, The Guardian said.
E-mail hacking is a criminal offense under laws governing the misuse of computers.
It was not immediately clear if James Murdoch’s resignation from BSkyB was linked to the disclosures concerning hacking at Sky News.
Analysts said they believed that the immediate trigger for James Murdoch’s resignation was linked to the expected release of a report on the phone hacking scandal by a House of Commons select committee.
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And in reaching down under....
"News Corp. sabotaged its rivals, report says; Paper cites e-mails by Australian unit" by Matt Siegel | New York Times, March 29, 2012
SYDNEY - Rupert Murdoch’s embattled media empire found itself facing fresh controversy Wednesday, after an Australian newspaper published an investigative report alleging that News Corp. had engaged a special unit in the mid-1990s to sabotage its competitors.
But News Limited, the company’s Australian media wing, dismissed the report as “laughable,’’ saying that it was filled with inaccuracies and baseless claims that had been dismissed by courts in other countries, including the United States.
The newspaper, The Australian Financial Review, owned by one of Murdoch’s main Australian rivals, Fairfax Media, published more than 14,000 internal e-mails from a former News Corp. subsidiary along with the results of what it said was a four-year investigation into whether that company, NDS Group, encouraged the mass pirating of rival satellite television networks.
“These are serious allegations, and any allegations of criminal activity should be referred to the Australian Federal Police for investigation,’’ said Suzie Brady, a spokeswoman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.
A spokeswoman for the police said that the agency had not yet received a request from the authorities to investigate the allegations in the report, centering on the battle for dominance over Australia’s burgeoning pay TV market in the ’90s but also touching on European and US operations. The report said Australia had no laws against pay TV piracy then, so actions in the country would not have been illegal.
The report came a day after a BBC documentary made similar allegations against NDS Group in Britain, saying it had paid a consultant to crack and publish on a pirate website the smart-card codes of a pay service that was started by ITV, a free broadcaster.
The newspaper said the new e-mails came from the hard drive of Ray Adams, a former commander in the Metropolitan Police in London who served as head of operational security for NDS Group in Europe from 1996 to 2002. They appeared to show that a secret unit within the company called Operational Security promoted a wave of high-tech piracy that damaged the News Corp. rivals Austar and Optus at a time when News Corp. was positioning to be the dominant player in the Australian pay TV industry.
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Also see:
Slow Saturday Special: No More News of the World
Sunday Globe Special: Stop the Presses!
The Fall of Another English Empire
Hacking Away at the U.K.
Britain's Tabloid Testimony
British Newspapers Publish Bulls***
Sun Setting on Murdoch's British Empire
British Phone Booth
Can't Read British Text Message
Sorry, readers. I got stuck on the phone. Where were we?
"Britain’s Conservatives push for same-sex marriage" by Anthony Faiola | Washington Post, April 01, 2012
LONDON - Americans watching the latest push for social change in Britain might feel as if they had stepped into an alternative political universe: Here, the Conservatives are leading the charge for same-sex marriage....
Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative-led coalition have launched a historic drive to grant gay men and lesbians the option of also entering into civil marriages, touching off a surprisingly fierce uproar in largely progressive Britain....
Yet challenging tradition appears to be exactly Cameron’s point. The proposal, put forward this month despite the lack of a strong clamor for marriage within Britain’s gay community, is nevertheless emerging as the cornerstone of a bid by the 45-year-old prime minister and other young leaders on the right here to redefine what it means to be a modern Conservative.
*******************************
Strategists see Cameron’s decision to champion the gay marriage cause as an attempt to seize the mantle of progressive change from the left and broaden the Conservative Party’s appeal among an increasingly key voting group: young urbanites.
To be sure, since returning to power in 2010 after 13 years in the political wilderness, the Conservatives have pursued causes at the core of their founding beliefs: slashing the deficit, cutting public payrolls, and moving to lower taxes.
But they WILL MAKE YOU PAY to ENSLAVE YOURSELVES to BIG BROTHER!!
Yet the party of Margaret Thatcher has also sought to reinvent itself by becoming what one Conservative strategist called “very pro-gay.’’
Made you forget all about that tab for tyranny, didn't it?
There are at least 12 openly gay members of Parliament from the Conservative Party, more than all other British political parties combined....
Margot James, former vice chairman of the Conservative Party and an openly gay member of Parliament, said, “I think the Republicans could learn a lot from us in how to appeal to the center, without whose votes a party cannot hope to win.’’
Yeah, but thy won't listen to Ron Paul.
In Britain, legalizing gay marriage would be partly symbolic.
Translation: It's all a diversion and distraction so you won't focus on all the problems the government will not, can not, or refuses to fix.
Civil partnerships - passed under Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labor government - gave same-sex couples equal access to national pensions, inheritances, tax breaks, and other rights enjoyed by married heterosexual couples. But Cameron, a Christian and married father of three whose position on same-sex marriage gradually evolved after he won the party’s leadership in 2005, is calling gay marriage a matter of basic human rights.
Yeah, all right, I agree, let's give them the rights and move on, thank you.
He is also making a pitch to uneasy religious conservatives, suggesting that the institution of marriage will reinforce traditional values of commitment and monogamy within the gay community. Married same-sex couples, for instance, could file for divorce on the grounds of adultery - a legal option not currently considered in civil partnership laws.
Related:
Catholics urged to reject gay marriage in UK
UK divorce law brings out the weird
And it just gets weirder over there.
UK jury convicts two in witchcraft slaying
UK lawmaker admits assaulting 4
British court to hear right-to-die case
The terms of political debate here remain different than in the United States, where the Republican Party base contains a highly influential religious right whose views on social issues are considered extreme even among many British Conservatives. But even here, the notion of altering the definition of marriage - as opposed to granting civil partnership rights - is hardly a safe political bet, with the push generating far more discord than most had anticipated....
Time for a divorce.
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Enough of that. How is the empire these days?
"British report warns of waning influence" Associated Press, March 09, 2012
LONDON - Britain can no longer ignore that its influence on the world is shrinking amid the rise of developing nations, a panel of senior lawmakers said Thursday in a sharply critical report.
The group also said Britain should prepare for looser ties with the United States as America shifts its focus from Western Europe.
Parliament’s Joint Committee on National Security Strategy, which includes a former head of the domestic MI5 spy agency, Eliza Manningham-Buller, rebuked Prime Minister David Cameron’s government over its failure to accept that the nation’s power is in decline as austerity measures trim the nation’s military and dent diplomatic ranks.
“This is wholly unrealistic in the medium to long term, and the UK needs to plan for a changing, and more partnership dependent, role in the world,’’ the committee said it its report....
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So who can they bully by themselves these days?
"Tension pervades Falklands war anniversary; Argentina, seeking control of islands, cites human rights" by Brian Hendrie | Associated Press, April 03, 2012
USHUAIA, Argentina — The president of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez, on the anniversary of Argentina’s April 2, 1982, invasion of the islands, was focused on promoting dialogue. She said her government sets a global standard for protecting human rights and vowed to “respect the interests of the islanders’’ as Argentina seeks to peacefully regain control.
In London, Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, said that Britain had to defend the islanders in 1982 and will do so again if anyone tries to deprive them of their liberty. A 74-day occupation ended when British troops routed the ill-prepared Argentines in hard-fought trench warfare. In all, 255 British soldiers and three islanders were killed.
He's so butch!
Fernandez called Cameron’s statement absurd, noting that Argentines were at the time living under the 1976-1983 dictatorship, which kidnapped and killed thousands of its own people....
Yeah, that was the dictatorship foisted upon them by the CIA as part of Operation Condor.
Related: I Will Cry For You, Argentina!
Britain has refused Argentina’s repeated calls to negotiate the islands’ sovereignty, saying it is up to the islanders to decide. Islanders have overwhelmingly said they want to maintain British protection.
Argentina’s historical claim to the islands Latin America knows as Las Malvinas has support across the region and got moral backing last week from a group of Nobel Peace Prize recipients, who scolded Britain for ignoring United Nations resolutions urging talks.
That first one is only important when you happen to be a certain band of criminals from a certain slice of a religion and are looking to usurp Palestinian land. And I guess Israel isn't the only one ignoring U.N. resolutions.
Argentina has tried to pressure Britain by closing shipping routes and air space. Unions have refused to unload British cargo or accept British-flagged cruise ships. Fernandez’s ministers have sought to cut off British imports, sue British investors and banks, and block oil development off the islands’ shores.
It adds up to an “economic war’’ that has made life difficult, but each move also prompted islanders to develop alternative supply routes, said Dick Sawle, a member of the Falkland Islands legislative assembly.
The territory fell under British control in 1833, and islanders say there is little more that can be done to pressure them.
“I think that Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile will see what they’re missing in the Falklands, and at that point it just becomes a lot of shouting across the water that can be ignored,’’ Sawle said.
While Fernandez sought to reassure the islanders several times in Monday’s speech, feelings on both sides have hardened. Radical leftists faced off against riot police outside the British Embassy in Buenos Aires, and online verbal wars have shown no signs of letting up.
Argentina has variously tried to charm, occupy, negotiate, and threaten its way back into the islands.
In the 1970s, it established a direct air link with Buenos Aires, supplied islanders with gasoline, paid to educate island children, and otherwise tried to build ties.
Britain was lobbying the islanders to accept a Hong Kong-style handover before the junta decided to invade.
For many islanders and Argentines, those 74 days of armed occupation remain the only personal connection they have had.
There were other attempts to build ties in the 1990s - a series of agreements on shared fishing and oil rights, shipping and air links, and other exchanges - but nearly all were abandoned in 2003 when Fernandez and her late husband and predecessor as president, Nestor Kirchner, began trying to isolate the islands instead.
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UPDATES:
"London, Northern Ireland police in racism inquiry" by David Stringer and Raphael Satter | Associated Press, April 07, 2012
LONDON - Police chiefs in London and Northern Ireland said Friday they had suspended officers from duty following a raft of new investigations into alleged racism....
Superintendent Leroy Logan of the National Black Police Association said that while race relations have improved since the report, he was “disappointed’’ by the force’s apparent failure to take effective action following years of feedback from black communities.
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"Worker tipped paparazzi, airline says" April 07, 2012
LONDON - A Virgin Atlantic employee has resigned following allegations she routinely fed information about the company’s celebrity clientele to a paparazzi agency, the airline said Friday.
Virgin said that the employee, a junior member of the team tasked with looking after high-profile clients, quit Thursday ahead of reports published in the Guardian and the Press Gazette alleging that she had passed more than 60 celebrities’ booking information on to the Big Pictures photo agency.
Among those allegedly targeted: Britain’s Princess Beatrice; singers Madonna and Rihanna; actors Charlize Theron, Kate Winslet, Daniel Radcliffe, and Sienna Miller; comedians Sacha Baron Cohen and Russell Brand; and a slew of United Kingdom celebrities and sports figures....
I'm always expecting to see some war-criminal government official in there, but....
Calls and e-mails to representatives of around a dozen of the celebrities mentioned went unreturned Friday....
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