Home Office – Page 2 – Infinite Unknown

Future Big Brother Police State: Meet the UK’s Armed Surveillance Robot Drones

February 11, 2010February 11, 2010 by Infinite

Police forces all over the UK will soon be able to draw on unmanned aircraft from a national fleet, according to Home Office plans. Last month it was revealed that modified military aircraft drones will carry out surveillance on everyone from protesters and antisocial motorists to fly-tippers, and will be in place in time for the 2012 Olympics.

Surveillance is only the start, however. Military drones quickly moved from reconnaissance to strike, and if the British police follow suit, their drones could be armed — but with non-lethal weapons rather than Hellfire missiles.

The flying robot fleet will range from miniature tactical craft such as the miniature AirRobot being tested by Essex police, to BAE System’s new HERTI drone as flown in Afghanistan. The drones are cheaper than police helicopters — some of which will be retired — and are as wide as 12m in the case of HERTI.

Watching events on the ground without being able to act is frustrating. Targets often got away before an unarmed drone could summon assistance. In fact, in 2000 it was reported that an airborne drone spotted Osama bin Laden but could do nothing but watch him escape. So the RAF has been carrying out missions in Afghanistan with missile-armed Reapers since 2007. From the ground these just look like regular aircraft.

The police have already had a similar experience with CCTV. As well as observing, some of these are now equipped with speakers. Pioneered in Middleborough, the talking CCTV allows an operator to tell off anyone engaging in vandalism, graffiti or littering.

Unmanned aircraft can also be fitted with speakers, such as the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), which could not only warn fly tippers that they were breaking the law but also be loud enough to drive them away.

The LRAD is a highly directional speaker made of a flat array of piezoelectric transducers, producing intense beam of sound in a 30-degree cone. It can be used as a loudhailer, or deafen the target with a jarring, discordant noise. Some ships now carry LRAD as an anti-pirate measure: It was used to drive off an attack on the Seabourn Spirit off Somalia in 2005.

LRAD makers American Technology prefer to call its product a device rather than a weapon, and use terms such as “deterrent tones” and “influencing behaviour.” Police in the US have already adopted a vehicle-mounted LRAD for crowd control, breaking up protests at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh last year, although there have been warnings about the risk of hearing damage.

The LRAD has been tested on the Austrian S-100 unmanned helicopter, and the technology is ready if there is a police requirement.

But rather than just driving them away, a police drone should be able to stop fleeing criminals in their tracks. Helicopters already mount powerful searchlights, and strobe lighting capabilities can turn such systems into effective nonlethal weapons. High-intensity strobes can cause dizziness, disorientation and loss of balance making it virtually impossible to run away.

This effect was first harnessed in the “Photic Driver” made by British company Allen International in 1973. However, it has taken improvement in lighting technology (such as fast-switching Xenon lights) and an understanding of the physiology involved to make such weapons practical.

A “light based personnel immobilisation device” developed by Peak Beam Systems Inc has been successfully tested by the US military, and work to mount it on an unmanned helicopter in the States is under way.

This sort of light would be too dangerous for a manned aircraft because of the crew being affected. But an unmanned “strober” could be a literal crime stopper, and something we could see deployed within the next couple of years.

Even the smallest drones could be used for tactical police operations. As far back as 1972 the Home Office looked at model aircraft as an alternative to rubber bullets, literally flying them into rioters to knock them off their feet.

French company Tecknisolar Seni has demonstrated a portable drone armed with a double-barrelled 44mm Flash-Ball gun. Used by French special police units, the one-kilo Flash-Ball resembles a large calibre handgun and fires non-lethal rounds, including tear gas and rubber impact rounds to bring down a suspect without permanent damage — “the same effect as the punch of a champion boxer,” claim makers Verney-Carron.

However, last year there were questions over the use of Flash-Ball rounds by French police. Like other impact rounds, the Flash-Ball is meant to be aimed at the body — firing from a remote, flying platform is likely to increase the risk of head injury.

Another option is the taser. Taser stun guns are now so light (about 150 grams) that they could be mounted on the smaller drones. Antoine di Zazzo, head of SMP Technologies, which distributes tasers in France, says the company is fitting one to a small quad-rotor iDrone (another quad-rotor toy helicopter), which some have called a “flying saucer”.

Big Brother: UK Police Plan to Use Military-Style Spy Drones

January 24, 2010 by Infinite

Not just in the UK: Police State: DRONES used to spy on AMERICANS!

Arms manufacturer BAE Systems developing national strategy with consortium of government agencies

Drones could be used for civilian surveillance in the UK as early as 2012. Source: BAE

Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ”routine” monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.

The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.

Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

UK Terror Police Monitors Nurseries For Islamic Radicalisation

December 11, 2009 by Infinite

Don’t you love how the government spends taxpayers’ money?!!!

In case the police has found a indoctrinated child, will they send the parents and the children to advanced interrogations?

That sounds like the perfect place to get the job done:

– Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to Uzbekistan for extreme torture, to be ‘raped with broken bottles,’ ‘boiled alive’ and ‘having their children tortured in front of them’

The inmates have taken over the asylum.

one-year-old-baby-terrorist-farisa-jihad
Farisa Jihad, then a year old, outside the Danish Embassy in 2006, where her parents attended a protest

Nursery-age children should be monitored for signs of brainwashing by Islamist extremists, according to a leaked police memo obtained by The Times.

In an e-mail to community groups, an officer in the West Midlands counter-terrorism unit wrote: “I do hope that you will tell me about persons, of whatever age, you think may have been radicalised or be vulnerable to radicalisation … Evidence suggests that radicalisation can take place from the age of 4.”

The police unit confirmed that counter-terrorist officers specially trained in identifying children and young people vulnerable to radicalisation had visited nursery schools.

The policy was condemned last night. Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, said that it ran the risk of “alienating even more people”. Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said that it was an “absurd waste of police time”.

UK: Big Brother Government to ‘spy’ on every phone call, email and web search

November 11, 2009 by Infinite

Time to wake up!

Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies.

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.

Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.

However the Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately held “Big Brother” databases that opposition leaders said amounted to “state-spying” and a form of “covert surveillance” on the public.

It is doing so despite its own consultation showing that it has little public support.

The Home Office admitted that only one third of respondents to its six-month consultation on the issue supported its proposals, with 50 per cent fearing that the scheme lacked sufficient safeguards to protect the highly personal data from abuse.

Police in £9m scheme to log ‘domestic extremists’; Police rebranded lawful protest as ‘domestic extremism’

October 26, 2009 by Infinite

Lawful protest is now ‘domestic extremism’. (Activism is ‘extremism’.)

– How police rebranded lawful protest as ‘domestic extremism’ (Guardian)

Thousands of activists monitored on network of overlapping databases

Detailed information about the political activities of campaigners is being stored on IT systems. Photograph: Fiona Hanson/PA

Police are gathering the personal details of thousands of activists who attend political meetings and protests, and storing their data on a network of nationwide intelligence databases.

The hidden apparatus has been constructed to monitor “domestic extremists”, the Guardian can reveal in the first of a three-day series into the policing of protests. Detailed information about the political activities of campaigners is being stored on a number of overlapping IT systems, even if they have not committed a crime.

Senior officers say domestic extremism, a term coined by police that has no legal basis, can include activists suspected of minor public order offences such as peaceful direct action and civil disobedience.

Three national police units responsible for combating domestic extremism are run by the “terrorism and allied matters” committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo). In total, it receives £9m in public funding, from police forces and the Home Office, and employs a staff of 100.

An investigation by the Guardian can reveal:

UK government under fire for unnecessarily locking up hundreds of immigrant children

September 2, 2009September 2, 2009 by Infinite

Policy questions after figures say 470 minors detained
Post-traumatic stress common in those released

yarls-wood
Yarl’s Wood: strongly criticised by the children’s commissioner for England. Photograph: Dan Chung

Ministers were facing accusations today that hundreds of children are being held unnecessarily in immigration detention centres as official figures revealed, for the first time, that 470 minors were being detained with their families.

The figures, made public following pressure from children’s rights groups and MPs, showed most were under five.

Many were from troubled countries such as Zimbabwe, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Democratic Republic of Congo.

The UK has one of the worst records in Europe for detaining children, but accurate figures on how many are held, or for how long, have remained elusive.

While the Home Office has not divulged the length of detention, it provided a “snapshot” picture of those held on a single day: 30 June 2009.

This shows that almost a third of children were held for longer than 28 days, which means that in each case an immigration minister had to sign an authorisation for their continued detention.

The figures also show that out of 225 children released from detention in the second quarter this year, only 100 were removed from the UK.

Yesterday, MPs and children’s rights groups called for an end to the “national scandal” that has allowed children to be locked up unnecessarily.

UK: ‘Snoop’ power is used 1,400 times a day to intercept private data

August 10, 2009 by Infinite

Britain has “sleepwalked into a surveillance society”, it was claimed last night after figures disclosed that public bodies had obtained access to private telephone and e-mail records about 1,400 times a day.

Council, police and other organisations made more than half a million requests for confidential communications data last year.

The statistics constitute a 44 per cent rise in requests over the past two years.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which was created to help the authorities to fight the threat of terrorism, gives organisations such as local councils, the police and intelligence agencies the power to request access to confidential communications data, including lists of telephone numbers dialled and e-mail addresses to which messages have been sent.

The Act does not allow authorities to have access to the content of the messages or calls.

Councils have been accused of using the powers for matters, such as spying on people littering and dog fouling.

UK: Police told to ignore European court of human rights ruling over DNA database

August 9, 2009 by Infinite

Chief constables across England and Wales have been told to ignore a landmark ruling by the European court of human rights and carry on adding the DNA profiles of tens of thousands of innocent people to a national DNA database.

Senior police officers have also been “strongly advised” that it is “vitally important” that they resist individual requests based on the Strasbourg ruling to remove DNA profiles from the national database in cases such as wrongful arrest, mistaken identity, or where no crime has been committed.

European human rights judges ruled last December in the S and Marper case that the blanket and indiscriminate retention of the DNA profiles and fingerprints of 850,000 people arrested but never convicted of any offence amounts to an unlawful breach of their rights.

Britain already has the largest police national DNA database in the world, with 5.8m profiles, including one in three of all young black males. Thousands more are being added each week.

So far the Home Office has responded to the judgment by proposing a controversial package to keep DNA profiles of the innocent, depending on the seriousness of the offence. The official consultation period ended today. for six to 12 years

UK colleges to fingerprint every student using US army scanners

June 19, 2009 by Infinite

fingerprint-scanner-students-uk
Clocking in: student Sabrina Nurkoo scans her fingerprint in a lecture at the London School of Commerce

Thousands of foreign students in London are being fingerprinted before classes in a clampdown on illegal immigration.

The London School of Commerce is using US army scanners to record the details of every student on campus and is threatening to report truants to the Home Office.

Managers have ordered the college’s 3,500 students to clock in to lectures with a print from their left and right forefinger or risk being thrown out.

There is growing concern that illegal immigrants exploit private colleges as a backdoor route into Britain, with students using them to secure visas.

Home Office officials also fear they could be targeted by terrorists – 10 men arrested over a suspected bomb plot in Manchester in April were registered as students.

LSC manager Rajiv Gupta said the fingerprint system was crucial. “We want bona fide students – not people who can’t be bothered or are abusing the system. If they are mucking around we don’t want them,” he said.

“If a student misses three sessions we will send them a letter and put them on probation. If things don’t improve we will terminate [their position] and inform the Home Office.”

U.K. DNA database by stealth

May 9, 2009 by Infinite

Jacqui Smith’s new plans erode principles of innocent until proven guilty to create a New Labour-style third way: innocentish

It is perhaps ironic that the home secretary should seem so hellbent on collecting the nation’s DNA while still reeling from the embarrassment of her husband‘s presumed attempts to spill his at the taxpayer’s expense. If it is irony then it is doubly so, as Smith is the minister charged with upholding the rule of law yet has such utter contempt for it and its principles. The EU court ruling stated very clearly that the DNA profiles and samples of the 850,000 innocent people currently on the database should be removed.

Smith’s response is to leave them on the DNA database for between six and 12 years. At best this is a childish kind of belligerent foot-dragging and at worst it is plain illegal. What is certain is that campaigners will challenge this, and once again Smith will be hauled into court.

The continued inclusion of innocent people‘s DNA on the database throws up several concerns. At a most basic level it flies in the face of our most natural notions of fairness. Why should some have their DNA profiles among the guilty and others not. The only reason provided so far is chance, a chance encounter with the police.

Secondly, Smith’s new regime leaves the innocent who have been cleared of charges of minor, non-violent crime on the database for six years, which erodes the principle of innocent until proven guilty and in classic New Labour fashion creates a third way, neither innocent or guilty but innocentish.

Now Big Brother targets Facebook

March 25, 2009 by Infinite

Minister wants government database to monitor social networking sites

Millions of Britons who use social networking sites such as Facebook could soon have their every move monitored by the Government and saved on a “Big Brother” database.

Ministers faced a civil liberties outcry last night over the plans, with accusations of excessive snooping on the private lives of law-abiding citizens.

Right to privacy broken by a quarter of UK’s public databases, says report

March 23, 2009 by Infinite

“Britain is now the most invasive surveillance state and the worst at protecting privacy of any western democracy.”

Rowntree Trust cites DNA database and ID register
Whitehall told 11 systems out of 46 must be scrapped

A man has his fingerprint scanned on a new biometric check at Heathrow. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

A quarter of all the largest public-sector database projects, including the ID cards register, are fundamentally flawed and clearly breach European data protection and rights laws, according to a report published today.

Claiming to be the most comprehensive map so far of Britain’s “database state”, the report says that 11 of the 46 biggest schemes, including the national DNA database and the Contactpoint index of all children in England, should be given a “red light” and immediately scrapped or redesigned.

The report, Database State (PDF) by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, says that more than half of Whitehall’s 46 databases and systems have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness, and could fall foul of a legal challenge.

Every step you take: UK underground centre that is spy capital of the world

March 2, 2009 by Infinite

Visitors from around the world come to marvel at Westminster CCTV system

How the control centre of one of the country’s most extensive CCTV systems works

Millions of people walk beneath the unblinking gaze of central London’s surveillance cameras. Most are oblivious that deep under the pavements along which they are walking, beneath restaurant kitchens and sewage drains, their digital image is gliding across a wall of plasma screens.

Westminster council’s CCTV control room, where a click and swivel of a joystick delivers panoramic views of any central London street, is seen by civil liberty campaigners as a symbol of the UK’s surveillance society.

Related articles:
– Liberty groups unite to defend UK rights (Observer)
– Government plans to keep DNA samples of innocent (Guardian)
– Information Commissioner Richard Thomas warns of surveillance culture (Times)
– Spy chief: We risk a police state (Telegraph):

Using the latest remote technology, the cameras rotate 360 degrees, 365 days a year, providing a hi-tech version of what the 18th century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham conceived as the “Panopticon” – a space where people can be constantly monitored but never know when they are being watched.

The Home Office, which funded the creation of the £1.25m facility seven years ago, believes it to be a “best-practice example” on which the future of the UK’s public surveillance system should be modelled.

So famed has central London’s surveillance network become that figures released yesterday revealed that more than 6,000 officials from 30 countries have come to learn lessons from the centre.

Mobile prison cells will cage criminals on the beat

March 2, 2009 by Infinite

Police will be given mobile cells to target offenders in crime hotspots and shopping centres under plans by the Conservatives to free up officers.

Police will get mobile cells to cage criminals quickly away from the station Photo: REUTERS

The “mobile urban jails” will be used in targeted areas such as those rife with knife crime and anti-social behaviour or where there is no police station nearby.

They will allow officers to process criminals, fingerprint them and issue, on-the-spot fines, bail or court summons without having to go back to a police station.

A satellite link will even allow a custody sergeants to charge offenders via video while offenders could be held for up to six hours.

Similar but permanent facilities will also be set up in shopping centres – dubbed “retail jails” – to allow police to deal with high volume, low level offending, such a shoplifting and drunks, without having to go to and from police stations.

In 2007, the Home Office raised similar proposals with short term holding facilities to be set up in shopping centres or major sporting venues, nicknamed at the time “Tesco jails”.

Government plans to keep DNA samples of innocent

February 27, 2009 by Infinite

DNA samples of innocent to be kept on file

Home secretary Jacqui Smith: has not indicated whether DNA samples already obtained would be destroyed. Photo: Cathal McNaughton/PA

The government is planning to get around a European court ruling that condemned Britain’s retention of the DNA profiles of more than 800,000 innocent people by keeping the original samples used to create the database, the Guardian has learned.

A damning ruling last December criticised the “blanket and indiscriminate nature” of the UK’s current DNA database – which includes DNA from those never charged with an offence – and said the government had overstepped acceptable limits of storing data for crime detection.

Don’t miss:
– Information Commissioner Richard Thomas warns of surveillance culture (Times):
Richard Thomas told The Times that “creeping surveillance” in the public and private sectors had gone “too far, too fast” and risked undermining democracy.

– Spy chief: We risk a police state (Telegraph):
Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, has warned that the fear of terrorism is being exploited by the Government to erode civil liberties and risks creating a police state.

Last month the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said she would publish a white paper setting out “a more proportionate, fair and commonsense approach”, but she has not given any indication whether DNA samples already obtained would be destroyed. However, Home Office sources said the government, which was given three months to respond to the ruling, has “no plans” to destroy samples of DNA.

Blunkett warns over ‘Big Brother’ Britain

February 23, 2009 by Infinite

David Blunkett, who introduced the idea of identity cards when Home Secretary, will issue a stark warning to the Government tomorrow that it is in danger of abusing its power by taking Britain towards a “Big Brother” state.

At the 21st annual law lecture in Essex University’s Colchester campus, Mr Blunkett will urge ministers to rethink policy and counter criticism from civil liberties campaigners that Labour is creating a “surveillance society.”

Related article: Spy chief: We risk a police state (Telegraph)

He will come out against the Government’s controversial plan to set up a database holding details of telephone calls and emails and its proposal to allow public bodies to share personal data with each other.

His surprise intervention will be welcomed by campaign groups, who regard him as a hardliner because of his strong backing for a national ID card scheme and tough anti-terror laws. The former home secretary will propose a U-turn on ID cards for British citizens, although he agrees with plans to make them compulsory for foreign nationals.

Spy chief: We risk a police state

February 17, 2009 by Infinite

The ulterior motive of all these policies, where you give away your freedom for non-existent security, is a police state.

Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, has warned that the fear of terrorism is being exploited by the Government to erode civil liberties and risks creating a police state.

Dame Stella became the first woman director general of MI5 in 1992 Photo: MARTIN POPE

Dame Stella accused ministers of interfering with people’s privacy and playing straight into the hands of terrorists.

“Since I have retired I feel more at liberty to be against certain decisions of the Government, especially the attempt to pass laws which interfere with people’s privacy,” Dame Stella said in an interview with a Spanish newspaper.

“It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state,” she said.

Dame Stella, 73, added: “The US has gone too far with Guantánamo and the tortures. MI5 does not do that. Furthermore it has achieved the opposite effect: there are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification.” She said the British secret services were “no angels” but insisted they did not kill people.

Related aricle: Whitehall devised torture policy for terror detainees (Guardian)
MI5 interrogations in Pakistan agreed by lawyers and government
A policy governing the interrogation of terrorism suspects in Pakistan that led to British citizens and residents being tortured was devised by MI5 lawyers and figures in government, according to evidence heard in court.

Dame Stella became the first woman director general of MI5 in 1992 and was head of the security agency until 1996. Since stepping down she has been a fierce critic of some of the Government’s counter-terrorism and security measures, especially those affecting civil liberties.

In 2005, she said the Government’s plans for ID cards were “absolutely useless” and would not make the public any safer. Last year she criticised attempts to extend the period of detention without charge for terrorism suspects to 42 days as excessive, shortly before the plan was rejected by Parliament.

Her latest remarks were made as the Home Office prepares to publish plans for a significant expansion of state surveillance, with powers for the police and security services to monitor every email, as well as telephone and internet activity.

The secret police are watching you

February 11, 2009 by Infinite

How can an organisation that is not subject to public scrutiny set up a sinister unit to monitor political and environmental groups?

“A secret police intelligence unit has been set up to spy on leftwing and rightwing political groups,” said the story in the Mail on Sunday. Who has decided that political and environmental groups consisting of individuals, who are guaranteed the rights of demonstration, association, free speech and privacy under the Human Rights Act, should be spied upon by this new sinister police unit?

The answer is the Association of Chief Police Officers – and that is the problem.

Few understand that ACPO is a private company, which happens to be funded by a Home Office grant and money from 44 police authorities. But despite its important role in drafting and implementing policies that affect the fundamental freedoms of this country, ACPO is protected from freedom of information requests and its proceedings remain largely hidden from public view. In reality ACPO is no more troubled by public scrutiny than the freemasons.

That is wrong. Senior police officers are acting with increasing autonomy in drafting these authoritarian new policies. If you wonder how it came to be that police officers are being equipped with 10,000 stun guns, despite the reports of hundreds of deaths in the United States, or how the automatic number plate recognition camera network was set up to record and store data from most road journeys, look no further than ACPO.

Too often it seems ACPO is the driving force behind policy, and the Home Office succumbs, either because of its own autocratic instincts or because the police are exceptionally good at pushing through the things they want.

Now the police have set up the confidential intelligence unit to monitor the political life of this nation. The only reason we know of this is because the Mail on Sunday followed up an internal police job advertisement for the head of the confidential intelligence unit, who would work closely with government departments, university authorities and private sector companies “to remove the threat of criminality and public disorder that arises from domestic extremism”. The story tells us that the CIU will also prevent details of its operations being made public.

New Secret Database: Spy Centre Will Track You on Holiday

February 8, 2009 by Infinite

THE government is building a secret database to track and hold the international travel records of all 60m Britons.

The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details for all 250m passenger movements in and out of the UK each year.

The computerised pattern of every individual’s travel history will be stored for up to 10 years, the Home Office admits.

Big Brother database a ‘terrifying’ assault on traditional freedoms

January 16, 2009 by Infinite

Plans condemned as the greatest threat to civil rights for decades

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has voiced his concern about the erosion of civil liberties

Sweeping new powers allowing personal information about every citizen to be handed over to government agencies faced condemnation yesterday amid warnings that Britain is experiencing the greatest threats to civil rights for decades.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the pressure group Liberty, warned that the laws, published yesterday, were among a string of measures that amounted to a “terrifying” assault on traditional freedoms.

Police set to step up hacking of home PCs

January 4, 2009 by Infinite

THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.

The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws.

The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home, office or hotel room.

Material gathered in this way includes the content of all e-mails, web-browsing habits and instant messaging.

Under the Brussels edict, police across the EU have been given the green light to expand the implementation of a rarely used power involving warrantless intrusive surveillance of private property. The strategy will allow French, German and other EU forces to ask British officers to hack into someone’s UK computer and pass over any material gleaned.

Private firm may track all email and calls

December 31, 2008 by Infinite

‘Hellhouse’ of personal data will be created, warns former DPP

The private sector will be asked to manage and run a communications database that will keep track of everyone’s calls, emails, texts and internet use under a key option contained in a consultation paper to be published next month by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary.

A cabinet decision to put the management of the multibillion pound database of all UK communications traffic into private hands would be accompanied by tougher legal safeguards to guarantee against leaks and accidental data losses.

But in his strongest criticism yet of the superdatabase, Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, who has firsthand experience of working with intelligence and law enforcement agencies, told the Guardian such assurances would prove worthless in the long run and warned it would prove a “hellhouse” of personal private information.

“Authorisations for access might be written into statute. The most senior ministers and officials might be designated as scrutineers. But none of this means anything,” said Macdonald. “All history tells us that reassurances like these are worthless in the long run. In the first security crisis the locks would loosen.”

Police charged £9m by phone firms to use tracking data, prompting calls for ‘free access’

December 14, 2008 by Infinite

mobile phone
Police forces are spending up to £9m every year to access details of phone records (Posed by model)

Mobile phone firms have been accused of cashing in on crime and terror after charging the police £8.7million a year to access data tracking information.

The companies keep records of the times, dates, duration of mobile phone calls and the numbers contacted but not the actual content of conversations.

They also hold crucial information about the whereabouts of a mobile phone at any given time – which can be accessed by the police to build up a picture of a suspect’s movements.

The details were crucial in the conviction of Soham murderer Ian Huntley and Ipswich prostitute-killer Steve Wright and in identifying those involved in the failed 21/7 terrorist plots in London.

But Vodafone, O2 and T-Mobile charge a fee for seeing the data – with the cost running at about £170,000 a week.

This is in addition to £8million the Home Office already pays telecoms firms to store information on their customers for at least a year so it is available to the police and MI5.

Police can see the phone records without having to apply to the courts, with senior offices issuing a Section 22 notice under the powerful Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

The process has become an everyday part of police inquiries and many forces and MI5 have automated systems to retrieve mobile data – prompting calls for the service to be free of charge.

Last year, Section 22 powers were exercised more than 500,000 times.

DNA database: 17 judges, one ruling – and 857,000 records must be now wiped clear

December 6, 2008 by Infinite

Retention of unconvicted citizens’ samples criticised
Home secretary promises report on how to comply

The judges said DNA profiles could be used to identify relationships which amounted to an interference with their right to respect for their private lives. Photograph: Science photo library

The fingerprints and DNA samples of more than 857,000 innocent citizens who have been arrested or charged but never convicted of a criminal offence now face deletion from the national DNA database after a landmark ruling by the European court of human rights in Strasbourg.

In one of their most strongly worded judgments in recent years, the unanimous ruling from the 17 judges, including a British judge, Nicolas Bratza, condemned the “blanket and indiscriminate” nature of the powers given to the police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to retain the DNA samples and fingerprints of suspects who have been released or cleared.

The judges were highly critical of the fact that the DNA samples could be retained without time limit and regardless of the seriousness of the offence, or the age of the suspect.

The court said there was a particular risk that innocent people would be stigmatised because they were being treated in the same way as convicted criminals. The judges added that the fact DNA profiles could be used to identify family relationships between individuals, meant its indefinite retention also amounted to an interference with their right to respect for their private lives under the human rights convention.

The case provoked an expression of disappointment from the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, and the promise that a working party, including senior police officials, will report back to Strasbourg by next March on how the government will comply with the judgment.

“The government mounted a robust defence before the court and I strongly believe DNA and fingerprints play an invaluable role in fighting crime and bringing people to justice. The existing law will remain in place while we carefully consider the judgment.”

Police to get 10,000 Taser guns

November 23, 2008 by Infinite

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, is to arm police with 10,000 Taser stun guns in an escalation of the government’s fight against violent crime.

Smith will unveil plans tomorrow that will enable all 30,000 front-line response officers to be trained in firing the electric guns at knife-wielding thugs and other violent suspects.

Smith said yesterday that £8m will be made available to all 43 police forces in England and Wales to buy the new 50,000-volt weapons.

She said their use will be extended from small units of dedicated firearms officers to up to 30,000 police response officers across the country.