Group items tagged

"the broader pattern in the powers endowed to the state by Labour. These I listed as the national DNA database, which despite the unanimous ruling of the European court of human rights retained the genetic profiles of the innocent; the plans to access the data of all communications; Police Forward Intelligence Teams building a database of legitimate protesters; the automatic number plate recognition system covering all major road and tracking "tagged" vehicles; the eBorders scheme that will collect and store information from all journeys across UK borders; the children's databases that prohibit access by parents; the Criminal Records Bureau checks of teenagers helping out at school; and the ID card scheme that will record all the major transaction of a person's life."

"The Guardian understands that a total of 850,000 NSA employees and US private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ databases."

"But there is a deeper struggle at the base of this issue - the ownership of public space, which the state is consciously laying claim to in these actions. Photographers are stopped in the name of protecting us all from terrorism but actually this can also be seen to be a territorial incursion. What used to be public space is rapidly becoming "state space", the area owned, patrolled and policed by various agencies of the state, which establish their ownership by totemic tribal markers. I am of course referring to the CCTV camera."

Kim Howells: I backed the war, but the chance looks squandered. Local agencies battling terrorism need the funds being spilt in Helmand

Looks as if Monbiot has given away The Ghost!

A radical answer to the Mid-Lothian question