Infinite Unknown

“No reasonable cause or suspicion is required, and checks can be carried out ‘in country’ - not just at borders.”

“A second clause says that people who are stopped ‘must produce a valid identity document if required to do so by the Secretary of State’. Failure to do so would be a criminal offence with a maximum penalty of 51 weeks in jail or a £5,000 fine.”

The New World Order is closing in on you. How many of you are still laughing at David Icke now?

Wait until they introduce the microchip for you. It is already here:
Met Police officers to be ‘microchipped’ by top brass in Big Brother style tracking scheme:
Every single Metropolitan police officer to be be ‘microchipped’….
…there will not be any choice about wearing one.

And it causes cancer: CASPIAN RELEASES MICROCHIP CANCER REPORT

The following article is a must read.
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Checks: Police will be able to demand ID from people at any time (file picture)

State officials are to be given powers previously reserved for times of war to demand a person’s proof of identity at any time.

Anybody who refuses the Big Brother demand could face arrest and a possible prison sentence.

The new rules come in legislation unveiled in today’s Queen’s Speech.

They are presented as a crackdown on illegal immigration, but lawyers say they could be applied to anybody who has ever been outside the UK, even on holiday.

The civil rights group Liberty, which analysed clauses from the new Immigration and Citizenship Bill, called them an attempt to introduce compulsory ID cards by the back door.

The move would effectively take Britain back to the Second World War, when people were stopped and asked to ’show their papers’.

Liberty said: ‘Powers to examine identity documents, previously thought to apply only at ports of entry, will be extended to criminalise anyone in Britain who has ever left the country and fails to produce identity papers upon demand.

‘We believe that the catch-all remit of this power is disproportionate and that its enactment would not only damage community relations but represent a fundamental shift in the relationship between the State and those present in the UK.’

One broadly-drafted clause would permit checks on anyone who has ever entered the UK - whether recently or years earlier.
Officials, who could be police or immigration officers, will be able to stop anyone to establish if they need permission to be here, if they have it, and whether it should be cancelled.

No reasonable cause or suspicion is required, and checks can be carried out ‘in country’ - not just at borders.

The law would apply to British citizens and foreign nationals, according to Liberty’s lawyers. The only people who would be exempt are the tiny minority who have never been abroad on holiday or business.

A second clause says that people who are stopped ‘must produce a valid identity document if required to do so by the Secretary of State’. Failure to do so would be a criminal offence with a maximum penalty of 51 weeks in jail or a £5,000 fine.

Opposed: Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti (left) and Tory MP Damian Green (right) both spoke out about the new powers

Continue reading »

Tags: 1984, Big Brother, Civil liberties, Civil rights, George Orwell, Government, ID card, New World Order, Police, Police State, Politics, Privacy, Society, U.K.

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith insists the cards will improve security

The first wave of ID cards to be issued to British citizens has prompted airline pilots to threaten a strike rather than accept the documents.

Aviation workers have warned that proposals to make airport staff register for the cards from next year would do little to improve security. The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa), which represents 10,000 of the 12,000 commercial pilots and flight engineers in Britain, said its members were being treated as “guinea pigs”. Jim McAuslan, Balpa’s general secretary, said the Government’s “early warning system should be flashing” over opposition to the plans.

The Home Office insists the scheme will help airport workers improve security and streamline pass applications when staff move jobs. Ministers will publish draft regulations on Friday to set up a trial requiring airside staff at Manchester airport and London City airport to sign up for an ID card before they can get security passes allowing them to work there. If the regulations are approved, the first ID cards will be issued at the two airports from autumn next year as part of an 18-month trial.

Under the proposals, airport workers will be the first British citizens to be given ID cards, which are due to be introduced for young people from 2010.

Continue reading »

Tags: Government, Home Office, ID card, Jacqui Smith, New World Order, Politics, U.K.

From documentary filmmaker William Lewis comes a bone chilling documentary on the spying, tracking and control of the American public.

Source: Google Video

Tags: 1984, 9/11, Adolf Hitler, Big Brother, bird flu, brainwashing, Bush administration, CFR, Children, CIA, Civil liberties, Civil rights, Concentration Camp, Congress, Conspiracy, Constitution, Corporate Media, Council on Foreign Relations, DARPA, Detention, Dictatorship, DNA, DNA database, Education, Fascism, FBI, Freedom, George Bush, George Orwell, Globalism, Government, Health, Human Rights, IBM, ID bracelet, ID card, imperialism, Indoctrination, Irag, Joseph Stalin, laser, media, Microchip, Microwave, Military, mind-control, NATO, New World Order, No Child Left Behind, Oil, Operation Northwoods, Osama Bin Laden, Patent Office, Patriot Act, Pentagon, Police State, Privacy, radio tracking devices, Rex 84, Rima E. Laibow, Riots, Rockefeller, Socialism, spy, spying, Surveillance, Taser, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.N., U.S., uranium, Vaccination, Vaccine, War, weapons, wireless tracking technology

The cost of Britain’s “surveillance society” measures is now running at £20 billion, a new report reveals today.

The amount is equivalent to £800 per household and includes £19 billion for the planned ID card system and £500 million for CCTV cameras.

The report by the TaxPayers’ Alliance was highlighted by David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, who stands in a by-election this week on the issue of civil liberties. Mr Davis resigned as an MP after the opposition failed to defeat Government plans to hold terrorism suspects for 42 days.

Mr Davis said: “This is yet further damning evidence of Big Brother’s expensive tastes. ID cards, CCTV, the DNA database and other measures are a huge waste of taxpayers’ money on policies that undermine freedom and are utterly ineffective in fighting crime or terrorism.

Continue reading »

Tags: Big Brother, CCTV, DNA, Government, ID card, Osama Bin Laden, Surveillance, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.K., U.S.

The democracy-loving British public would never put up with dictatorship - or would they?

An 82-year-old former bomber pilot I met in the street the other day said: “Supermen. Ha! If Hitler had come over here we would have given him a proper kick up the jackside.” As Michael White suggests, British people are fond of the myth that they won’t tolerate dictatorships, despite the fact that there were many fascist sympathisers in Britain in the 1930s.

Yes, we do live in a relatively free and secular country - just ask any young Afghani woman studying at a college here for her opinion. But there is also evidence around us that the British government is engaging in repression. And not just in Iraq or Afghanistan, but here in Britain. Perhaps those of us who have lived for a time under dictatorships can spot some of the warning signs:

• Inconvenient elections are avoided in the name of getting on with the job.
• Leaders of the opposition are character-assassinated by the state media.
• Institutions like the legislature begin to lose their independence and traditional role.
• Citizens are increasingly afraid to speak openly on certain issues.
• Citizens are observed and monitored on cameras and the government can tap into their conversations at will.
• Governments can snatch anyone from their homes or off the street and detain them without trial on charges of treason or terrorism.
• Ethnic and religious minorities are persecuted and are made into scapegoats.
• The state increasingly intervenes in family and community life in an attempt to control citizens’ behaviour.
• The focus of discussion moves away from the issues and into a narrative of political rivalries and gossip spreads.
• Governments use bread and circuses to shut people up and distract attention away from their increasing political impotence.
• Public spaces for demonstrations are closed down and restricted.
• Large and ridiculous monuments are built to impress the citizens.
• Individuals have to carry ID with them at all times and the government holds large amounts of information on every citizen.

How does the British government rate on the dictatorship scale? How close are we to Zimbabwe under Zanu? How far away are we from, say, Norway?

Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, CCTV, Civil liberties, Civil rights, Dictatorship, George Bush, George Orwell, Government, ID card, Iraq, New World Order, Privacy, Surveillance, U.K.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff’s all encompassing powers to waive federal laws to build a border fence, effectively ending the case.

The Defenders of Wildlife and Sierra Club had petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court. Their argument was a simple one: Chertoff, a political appointee who is not directly accountable to American voters, should not have the authority to bypass almost any federal law that he chooses.

On April 1, Chertoff waived 37 federal laws ranging from the Antiquities Act to the Native American Grave Repatriation Act.

Apparently, the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t have a problem with Chertoff’s all encompassing powers. It was a sad day for the rule of law.

Matt Clark, the southwest representative for Defenders of Wildlife, has been working on the lawsuit for more than a year. He was especially crushed that the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t even deem it necessary to explain why it declined to hear the case.

“I’ve worked for many years on some very hard environmental battles,” says Clark. “But I can say this is the first time I’ve ever been really really depressed about how our government is handling things.”

Congress gave Chertoff the power to steamroll the legal system through an obscure provision in the Real ID act, the gift that keeps on giving. Not only does it grant Chertoff unprecedented power, his waivers cannot be challenged in court. The only ray of light in a very dark judicial tunnel is a constitutional challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is under no obligation to hear the case.

Both Defenders and Sierra Club say their focus is now Congress (don’t hold your breath). “Our hope is that Congress will pass something to rectify its mistake,” Clark says. “We need accountability, transparency and a government who listens to its people.”

There is also a similar challenge in a federal court in El Paso. “We still insist that this is a violation of the separation of powers and that it’s unconstitutional,” says Oliver Bernstein of the Sierra Club. The club is not involved in the El Paso case but is watching with interest. “We don’t see any reason the outcome [of the El Paso case] would be redetermined,” says Bernstein.

Clark says Defenders of Wildlife will continue to push Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva’s legislation to repeal Chertoff’s waiver authority. To date, 49 congressional members have signed on to Grijalva’s bill doing so, including every single border legislator with the exception of two. No Republicans have signed on as of yet, however.

Clark says he watches the progress of the border fence daily in Arizona. Just the other day he visited the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument where Chertoff is erecting an 18-foot steel wall and destroying the natural environment in the process. Building in the desert will still be easier than the logistical challenges that await them in Texas. “They have no idea what they are up against, particularly in South Texas,” says Bernstein.

At $4 million a mile, taxpayers can be rest assured the only thing our government is securing is our tax dollars.

June 23rd, 2008

Source: Texas Observer

(More on what is going on - and why - here: “World Situation”

Tags: Congress, DHS, Homeland Security, ID card, Michael Chertoff, Supreme Court, U.S.

Broad, invasive provision touches nearly every aspect of American commerce.

Washington, DC -  Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd’s 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America’s small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill’s managers without debate this week, would require the nation’s payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government.

Call Congress and Tell Them to Oppose The eBay Reporting Provision in the Housing Bill: 1-866-928-3035

FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey commented: “This is a provision with astonishing reach, and it was slipped into the bill just this week. Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express, but the bill specifically targets payment systems like eBay’s PayPal, Amazon, and Google Checkout that are used by many small online businesses. The privacy implications for America’s small businesses are breathtaking.”

“Privacy groups like the Center for Democracy and Technology and small business organizations like the NFIB sharply criticized this idea when it first appeared earlier this year. What is the federal government’s purpose with this kind of detailed data? How will this database be secured, and who will have access? Many small proprietors use their Social Security number as their tax ID. How will their privacy be protected? What compliance costs will this impose on businesses? Why is Sen. Chris Dodd putting this provision in a housing bailout bill? The bill also includes the creation of a new national fingerprint registry for mortgage brokers.

“At a time when concerns about both identity theft and government spying are paramount, Congress wants to create a new honey pot of private data that includes Social Security numbers. This bill reduces privacy across America’s payment processing systems and treats every American small business or eBay power seller like a criminal on parole by requiring an unprecedented level of reporting to the federal government. This outrageous idea is another reason to delay the housing bailout legislation so that Senators and the public at large have time to examine its full implications.”

From the Senate Bill Summary:

Continue reading »

Tags: Amazon, Congress, eBay, Government, ID card, IRS, Mortgages, Privacy, Social Security, U.S.

The compulsory identity card could be used to carry out surveillance on people, MPs warned today.

Members of the Home Affairs Select Committee said it was concerned that the way the authorities use sensitive data gathered in the multi-billion pound programme could “creep” to include spying.

The all-party committee also urged ministers to make plans on how to deal with the theft of personal details from the National Identity Scheme, which will build a massive database on every person over 16 in Britain.

It accepted ministers’ assurances that surveillance was not part of current plans, but asked for a guarantee that no expansion would take place without MPs’ approval.

“We are concerned … about the potential for ‘function creep’ in terms of the surveillance potential of the National Identity Scheme,” the report said.

“Any ambiguity about the objectives of the scheme puts in jeopardy the public’s trust in the scheme itself and in the Government’s ability to run it. Continue reading »

Tags: DNA, DNA database, ID card, Privacy, Surveillance, U.K.

The European Commission is running a three-year pilot project to get national identity cards to work in different countries.

The €20m project hopes to make eID cards work in 13 member states. The goal is to find a common set of specifications so different cards will allow access to services in all countries.

The Commission believes there are 30 million eID cards in use across Europe.

Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media, said: “By taking advantage of the development in national eID systems and promoting mutual recognition of electronic identities between Member States, this project moves us a step closer to seamless movement between EU countries that Europeans expect from a borderless Single European Market.” Continue reading »

Tags: eID, EU, ID card

Wi-Fi and other technological advances boosting video surveillance adoption

In a new study that has potentially Orwellian implications, ABI Research projects that revenue for video surveillance software will quadruple over the next five years.

According to ABI Vice President and Research Director Stan Schatt, revenue generated from surveillance software will increase to more than US$900 million in 2013, up from current revenues of US$245 million. Schatt says there are several big drivers for this increase, including increased spending on security systems by the government, on theft prevention systems by retail outlets and on surveillance by market researchers. Additionally, he says that the advent of Wi-Fi has made it possible to place wireless cameras just about anywhere while still sending footage back to a central location.

Looking at the broader picture, Schatt says that technological advances are also increasing the scope and the potential uses of video surveillance. He says that one of the more disturbing uses is the ability of store marketing departments to actually monitor the eyeball movements of customers to figure out what products or displays draw their attention.

“When stores have the ability to observe you as you walk through a store, what I can imagine is that more and more stores will try to basically have a pretty in-depth knowledge of their customers,” he says. “So let’s say for instance the store issues you a discount card that also has a radio frequency ID that identifies who you are. And then let’s say they observe you looking at, but not actually purchasing, movies in the adult video section. Well, the next thing you know you’re getting all these promotional materials for racy movies you’re not even interested in.” Continue reading »

Tags: Civil liberties, George Orwell, Government, ID card, Orwell, Privacy, RFID, Surveillance