International Law

Daniel Houghton - neither the prosecution nor the defence lawyers have sufficient security clearance, even for a bail hearing ?

Posted on March 13, 2010
Neither the Defence nor the Prosecution lawyers have sufficient security clearance ! The Magistrates Court bail hearing hearing is adjourned until Thursday 25th March 2010. The Western Morning News (which covers the West of England, including Devon, where Daniel Houghton's family is based) reports: Spy case delay over secrets clearance Saturday, March 13, 2010, 10:00 A FORMER MI6 spy charged with trying to sell top secret files to a foreign country has not been able to brief his lawyers because they do not have security clearance to speak to him...

Top Secret Atomic (de-classified) - British Nuclear Weapons history

Posted on March 10, 2010
When is an "above Top Secret" e.g TOP SECRET ATOMIC document no longer a secret ? When it has been officially de-classified and is available via the National Archives in Kew, after say 30 or 50 years. However to make sense of these often very technical documents, you need a lifetime of relevant expertise...

Daniel Houghton - caught in a counter-intelligence sting trying to sell MI6 and MI5 "intelligence gathering techniques" secrets stored on USB memory devices

Posted on March 04, 2010
The Daily Telegraph reports that former the MI6 employee Daniel Houghton, who is being tried under the Theft Act and the Official Secrets Act, for ineptly trying to sell alleged MI6 and MI5 "intelligence gathering technique) secrets to undercover UK counter intelligence agents, used DVD / CD and USB flash memory technology to smuggle out and store the alleged top secret and secret documents: Spycatchers trap MI6 man 'trying to sell secrets' A former MI6 spy has been accused of trying to sell "top secret" intelligence files to a foreign government for £2m...

Us and Them - HMRC tax record Special Categories

Posted on March 02, 2010
Two years after a Spy Blog FOIA request, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has now disclosed some information regarding their seemingly counterproductive practice of having a two tier, Us and Them policy for extra "security safeguards" on tax records...

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Office of the Identity Commissioner - Annual Report 2009

Posted on February 27, 2010
The National Identity Scheme Commissioner is currently the quangocrat Sir Joseph Pilling, with a five or six figure salary, five staff, an office on Millbank, within easy waddling distance of the Home Office and Whitehall and a budget of over half a million pounds a year but with no powers to investigate individual complaints from the public or to punish abuses by bureaucrats or politicians or their sub-contractors See our previous article: Sir Joseph Pilling appointed as National Identity Scheme Commissioner - how can a former Whitehall "Sir Humphrey" be "independent" of the Home Office ? and also the NO2ID discussion forum: http://forum...

Cryptome.org taken down by Network Solutions and Microsoft - but the net routes around censorship - try cryptome.org.uk instead - UPDATE: now back online

Posted on February 24, 2010
Often curmudgeonly but always passionate defender of free speech and government transparency, New York architect John Young publishes a whistleblower document publishing archive called Cryptome.org His latest domain name registrar and web hosting company , the giant Network Solutions has censored the entire site by removing the cryptome...

Who believes that the Home Office website www.homeoffice.gov.uk is worth spending £762,000 a year on ?

Posted on February 22, 2010
Could someone please explain why so much public money is being wasted by the Home Office on their website each year ? Departmental Internet Home Department Written answers and statements, 1 February 2010 Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 1 February 2010, c80W) Chris Grayling (Shadow Home Secretary, Home Affairs; Epsom & Ewell, Conservative) To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much his Department spent on its website in 2009-10...

Charles Crawford - Hamas Killing: Cloned Or Fraudulent Passports

Posted on February 20, 2010
Obviously the Labour government's plans for compulsory ID Cards and registration on a centralised biometric database (see the NO2ID campaign) would not have prevented the apparent abuse of United Kingdom Passports recently in Dubai, by an alleged assassination squad, inept enough to leave behind lots of CCTV evidence...

JRRT State of the Nation opinion poll on Privacy and the Database State - the majority of us are unhappy and fearful

Posted on February 20, 2010
Coinciding with the culmination of the Power 2010 Campaign's public vote and consultation on what political reform issues the prospective candidates and political parties should be scrutinised in detail over in forthcoming General Election, (see the previous Spy Blog article Power 2010 Pledge campaign - vote to "Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state" and "Expand the Freedom of Information Act"), the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has commissioned a Public Opinion Poll from ICM, which supports Spy Blog's worries about the erosion of our Privacy and the creep of the Database State...

Power 2010 Pledge campaign - vote to "Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state" and "Expand the Freedom of Information Act"

Posted on February 20, 2010
Power 2010 POWER2010 is funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and supported by a wide range of individuals and organisations. This cross party political campaign is actually gathering feedback from the public, as to what needs to be changed in the smug, complacent, incompetent, borderline corrupt and cruel British political system...

Terrorism Act 2006 section 3 Internet Censorship powers have *never* been invoked

Posted on February 14, 2010
Back in October 2005 this Spy Blog article

Digital Economy Bill - Labour Government retreats over Internet Domain Name Registries

Posted on February 12, 2010
Our previous blog article: Digital Economy Bill 2009 seeks to crush UK Internet Domain Registry industry with bureaucratic red tape and unfair legal costs was almost correct in its analysis of just how appallingly badly draughted clauses 18 to 20 of the notorious twice disgraced, unelected, Labour Minister Mandelson's Digital Economy (destruction of) Bill was, as originally published: HL Deb, 26 January 2010, c1394 Digital Economy Bill [HL] House of Lords debates, 26 January 2010, 9:15 pm Lord Young of Norwood Green (Government Whip (technically a Lord in Waiting, HM Household); Labour) [...

ICO Decision Notice FS50198733 - Terrorism Act 2000 s44 stop and search Authorisations

Posted on February 10, 2010
ICO Decision Notice FS50198733 - Home Office: Terrorism Act 2000 s44 stop and search Authorisations: Given the recent European Court of Human Rights judgement about the controversial and widely abused Terrorism Act 2000 section 44 "stop and search" without "reasonable suspicion" legal powers, and, without any measurable positive effect on terrorism, we think that the Home Office and the Information Commissioner's Office are both very wrong in their decision to refuse our modest Freedom of Information Act request...

Consultation on the future EU-US international agreement on personal data protection and information sharing for law enforcement purposes - tell them what to do by 12th March 2010

Posted on February 07, 2010
[via The Register] If you have half an hour to spare, and you care about your own personal data privacy and security, and that of your family, you might be able to influence the European Commission, before they get out negotiated by the US Government, or get lobbied too hard by the vested securocrat interests...

VX1 Party Phone unlocked Credit Card sized basic mobile phone

Posted on January 30, 2010
One positive thing to report about Tesco, is that they seem to have sold at least 10,000 of these Chinese made VX1 "Party Phones" in the run up to Christmas. The VX1 Mini-Mobile Phone is a "simple" mobile phone, aimed at people looking for a cheap emergency backup mobile phone...

Tesco still censoring "The Terrorist Hunters" by Andy Hayman

Posted on January 30, 2010
Andy Hayman QPM CBE "held the rank of Chief Constable of Norfolk Constabulary and Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations at London's Metropolitan Police, the highest ranking officer responsible for counter-terrorism in the United Kingdom." In 2005, Spy Blog spent some time and effort in transcribing and deconstructing his controversial Letter, the anonymous annex to which provided spurious arguments for the NuLabour government's "internment without trial" plans: Asst...

ICO Decision Notice orders HMRC disclosure of tax record Special Categories

Posted on January 27, 2010
One of the evils of national scale centralised databases is that they are inherently anti-democratic and discriminatory in practice, even when they claim to be "one size fits all" and "everybody is equal". This certainly seems to be so for the red tape happy HM Revenue and Customs and their counterproductive attempts to run a secret two tier tax record security system...

UK Terror Threat Level raised again to "Severe" - just in time for "Climate of Fear" propaganda before the General Election

Posted on January 22, 2010
The security Service (MI5) website announced on Friday 22nd January 2010: UK threat level raised The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) has changed the UK threat level from international terrorism from SUBSTANTIAL to SEVERE. The current threat level means that the threat of a terrorist attack is considered to be highly likely...

Richard Taylor: Observing History - Heathrow Robbery Trial Starts Without Jury

Posted on January 18, 2010
Richard Taylor, a keen observer and Freedom of Information Act request expert, blogs: Observing History - Heathrow Robbery Trial Starts Without Jury [...] This morning I went to the Royal Courts of Justice to personally witness the start of the first modern criminal trial in the UK where the defendants have been denied a jury...

European Court of Human Rights Judgment against the Terrorism Act 2000 section 44 stop and search without reasonable cause powers

Posted on January 12, 2010
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (which is not a European Union institution) has ruled against this Labour Government and the Home Office's controversial and counterproductive Terrorism Act 2000 section 44 "stop and search" without reasonable suspicion powers...

26C3 videos - possible WikiLeakS.org inspired Publishing Data Haven in Iceland and Tor Bridge Relays versus Chinese and Iranian etc. internet censorship

Posted on January 04, 2010
[via: WikiLeakS.org presentation at 26C3 - will Iceland become a WikiLeakS.org Publishing Data Haven ? ] The annual congress held by the German Chaos Computer Club, between Christmas and the New Year, yet again provided WikiLeakS.org with a chance to communicate some of their activities, in front of an enthusiastic, highly information technology literate audience...

Sensationalistic voyeurism by the mainstream media is falsely hyping "full body image scanners" as the only technological magic fix to airline terrorism

Posted on January 01, 2010
One of the threats to our privacy and security, which has become evident in the press and broadcast media coverage of the "underwear bomb", Detroit bound airliner attack attempt over Christmas, is the inherent sensationalistic voyeurism of the mainstream press and broadcast media themselves...

Spy Blog articles 2009

Posted on January 01, 2010
2009 saw further encroachments on our freedoms and liberties, without any measurable increase in our security. Will this increasingly repressive, bankrupt Labour government, be replaced by something kinder, more humane and less inept ? Spy Blog's articles published in 2009 appear to have been read by, and perhaps influenced, some mainstream print and broadcast media journalists and commentators, some technical IT publications, Members of Parliament at Westminster, various large blue chip companies, and also by UK and foreign government departments, law enforcement agencies and some of the more overt open source collection arms of intelligence agencies and by various private sector "corporate research" outfits...

If Somalia can detect "underwear bombs" without them, why waste money on intrusive "child porn" / "see through your clothes" image scanners at airports ?

Posted on December 30, 2009
The "security theater" of pretending that We Must Be Seen To Be Doing Something seems to have afflicted the Netherlands government, which is obviously embarrassed by the recent security failure at Schipol airport. The Daily Telegraph appears to be hyping up "see through your clothes" / perv scans, as if they were some sort of magical solution to the perceived problem, even though there is no guarantee that the presence of such equipment would actually have prevented the attempted attack...

ID Cards / National Identity Register centralised biometric database - further expansion of the Post Code Lottery to inflict the "voluntary" scheme on Liverpool and the North West etc.

Posted on December 22, 2009
For some peculiar or devious reason, the unpopular and inept Labour government is, yet again extending its hugely wasteful, "voluntary" ID Cards / National Identity Register centralised biometric database scheme to the North West of England, but also encroaching on parts of Wales and Scotland Were the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Executive, the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government consulted on this decision by the politicians and civil servants in Westminster ? Presumably the "success criterion", which they have used to give the go ahead for this next phase of the rollout of the scheme, is simply the fact that the citizens of Manchester have not actually bothered to rise up and burn down the local Identity and Passport Service offices...

Powerless, part time, interim CCTV "regulator" appointed by the Home Office

Posted on December 17, 2009
The Labour government surveillance state has announced Yet Another Powerless Regulator, so that they can Pretend To Be Seen To Be Doing Something. This time, the announced role of "Interim CCTV Regulator" is a part time one, given , without any public competition or scrutiny, to Andrew Rennison who should really be busy full time in regulating the Forensic Science Service and the various centralised biometric databases and evidence collection and analysis procedures e,...

The Sun: Laptop is stolen at MoD HQ - "plus an encryption key to unlock highly sensitive files"

Posted on December 12, 2009
The Sun tabloid newspaper claims an exclusive report: Exclusive Laptop is stolen at MoD HQ By JOHN KAY Published: 12th December 2009 A MAJOR hunt was in progress last night after a laptop crammed with secret data was stolen from inside the Ministry of Defence nerve centre...

Mass Gathering in defence of street photography - 12 Noon Saturday 23rd January 2010 Trafalgar Square, London

Posted on December 12, 2009
The I'm a Photographer Not A Terrorist ! campaign is organising a Mass Gathering in defence of street photography 12 Noon Saturday 23rd January 2010 Trafalgar Square I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! invite all Photographers to a mass photo gathering in defence of street photography...

Intercept as Evidence Report - £2.5 million spent and still no workable "legal model"

Posted on December 11, 2009
The Home Office has now published Intercept as Evidence Report Dec 10th 2009 (.pdf 331Kb) Sir John Chilcot, was chairing the Privy Council Working Group (comprised of politician lawyers and civil servants, but no actual IT experts) on "Intercept as Evidence", before being appointed to conduct the deliberately delayed, for Labour party political reasons, inquiry into some aspects of the war on Iraq, Yet again, the UK security and legal establishment in Whitehall, has failed to produce an acceptable or practical policy on the use of phone and internet electronic interception, to be used as evidence, by both the prosecution and the defence, in criminal trials involving terrorism or other serious crimes...

RIPA Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy and the MPs expenses scandal

Posted on December 02, 2009
Why has the Rt. Hon. Sir Paul Kennedy, the current Interception of Communications Commissioner appointed under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, allowed himself to be embroiled in the disgraceful MPs' expenses political scandal ? The BBC reports: 18:28 GMT, Wednesday, 2 December 2009 MPs 'can appeal against expenses repayments' [...

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