Liberty News

Jacqui Smith has unveiled the UK's new identity card.

The credit card-sized plastic cards carried a picture of a bull - in common with other European Union identity cards - as well as five stars drawn from the stars on the official flag of the EU.

The card is to be initially issued to people outside the EU renewing their permission to stay in the UK as students or on the basis of marriage.

Between 50,000 and 60,000 cards, which will initially cost £30 each, will be issued by the end of next March and ministers predict one million a year will be handed out from 2010.

The cards contain the individual's name, their photograph, the card's expiry date and details of how long they can stay in the country.

Other information includes people's date and place of birth, their gender, nationality, and whether they are entitled to benefits.

Biometric data, including copies of all of the person's fingerprints, will be stored on a special security chip.

The card will start to be issued on November 25 to foreign nationals at offices in Croydon, Glasgow, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham and Cardiff.

From next year anyone working in the restricted areas in Britain's airports would need to have an ID card and it will be made generally available to British citizens from 2011. Those cards, which will be voluntary, may look different and display different information but they will enable the holder to travel without a passport around the EU.

The Conservatives reaffirmed the party's commitment to scrapping ID cards if they win the next election, likely in 2010. Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: ID cards are an expensive white elephant that risk making us less - not more safe. It is high time the Government scrapped this ill-fated project.

With terrorists using unsecured WiFi networks to shoot off emails every time they carry out bomb blasts, India is examining a series of measures to authentication.

India's telecom regulator, TRAI, asked the government to direct all ISPs to instruct their customers to have proper authentication measures so that this facility is not misused.

ET reported earlier this week that the government is examining the possibility of issuing new laws which will make unsecured WiFi connections illegal.

WiFi networking companies may also be asked to limit WiFi signal right down to a defined radius.

Security agencies have asked the government to ask all ISPs to make password protection mandatory for every customer using a WiFi network. This has also been endorsed by the home ministry.

From thaindian.com

The Orissa government said it would soon ban the use of cell phones in college campuses. We are planning to ban the use of cell phones in classrooms as well as in colleges. There was a high level meeting Tuesday in the state secretariat where we decided to impose the ban, state Higher Education Minister Samir Dey told IANS.

The government announcement follows various instances of students circulating and selling indecent MMS clips of girls and teachers. According to the police, a student was also murdered on the outskirts of Bhubaneshwar in April because he had MMS clippings of a girl he was in love with him.

Hey said: Nobody will be allowed to use mobile phones inside the campus. It will be applicable to all students, teachers and outsiders. Anybody found using it will be fined. We will come out with the guidelines on the amount of fine to be imposed, and how it will be implemented.

The government has outlined how a controversial online ad system can be rolled out in the UK.

In response to EU questions about its legality, it said that it was happy Phorm conformed to EU data laws.

But any future deployments of the system must be done with consent and make it easy for people to opt out.

In its statement sent to the EU the government said: Users will be presented with an unavoidable statement about the product and asked to exercise choice about whether to be involved. Users will be able to easily access information on how to change their mind at any point and are free to opt in or out of the scheme.

The UK police are to expand a car surveillance operation that will allow them to record and store details of millions of daily journeys for up to five years, the Guardian has learned.

A national network of roadside cameras will be able to "read" 50m licence plates a day, enabling officers to reconstruct the journeys of motorists.

Police have been encouraged to fully and strategically exploit the database, which is already recording the whereabouts of 10 million drivers a day, during investigations ranging from counter-terrorism to low-level crime.

But it has raised concerns from civil rights campaigners, who question whether the details should be kept for so long, and want clearer guidance on who might have access to the material.

The project relies on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to pinpoint the precise time and location of all vehicles on the road. Senior officers had promised the data would be stored for two years. But responding to inquiries under the Freedom of Information Act, the Home Office has admitted the data is now being kept for five years.

Thousands of CCTV cameras across the country have been converted to read ANPR data, capturing people's movements in cars on motorways, main roads, airports and town centres. Local authorities have since adapted their own CCTV systems to capture licence plates on behalf of police, massively expanding the network of available cameras. Mobile cameras have been installed in patrol cars and unmarked vehicles parked by the side of roads. Police helicopters have been equipped with infrared cameras that can read licence plates from 610 metres (2,000ft).

In four months' time, when a nationwide network of cameras is fully operational, the National ANPR Data Centre in Hendon, north London, will record up to 50m licence plates a day.

Officers can access the database to find uninsured cars, locate illegal "duplicate" licence plates and track the movements of criminals. The Acpo adds that the database will deter criminals through increased likelihood of detection.

The director of Privacy International, Simon Davies, said last night the database would give police extraordinary powers of surveillance. This would never be allowed in any other democratic country. This is possibly one of the most valuable reserves of data imaginable.

A UN agency and the US National Security Agency are working on putting together technical standards to define ways to trace original sources of Internet communications to reduce the ability of online users to remain anonymous.

The methods were proposed by the Chinese government.

The groups are operating under the name Q6/17. The meetings are closed to the public, and the entities are not releasing specific documents related to their work.

But their work alone is throwing up red flags to some technologists, especially since Internet users' right to remain anonymous is protected by law in the US and is recognized by international groups such as the Council of Europe.

What's distressing is that it doesn't appear that there's been any real consideration of how this type of capability could be misused, said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Though there are legal reasons to uncover Internet users' identities, the methods being drafted by Q6/17 allow for surveillance and monitoring of users. The methods are in line with the Chinese government's oppressive nature and history of quashing detractors and their Internet communications.

Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered a rethink of his government's new police database, which is designed to track people as young as 13 and record details such as the sexual orientation and health records of political candidates and trade unionists.

The president has been forced to backtrack after rebellion in his cabinet and a public outcry in which civil liberties campaigners and lawyers suggested France was being turned into a Big Brother state. The accusations threaten to be particularly damaging to the president, who has closely associated himself with policing and security issues.

The security database, known under the acronym Edvige, goes further than any previous French system, gathering personal information on health and sexual orientation and dropping the minimum age for surveillance from 18 to 13. It would allow security officials to track anyone considered a possible threat to public order , and target anyone who has ever stood for public office, politicians, activists, religious figures, trade unionists and business leaders, or anyone playing a role in economic life. Information on health, illnesses, religion, tax, relationships and friendships would be held.

Lawyer Jean-Marc Fedida told Le Parisien the database opened up the possibility of tracking the entire population of France. The defence minister, Hervé Morin, has condemned the tracking of politicians, and the human rights minister, Rama Yade, urged clarification of the inclusion of details on sexual orientation.

Sarkozy yesterday urged his cabinet not to break ranks and has ordered a government review and decisions to protect liberties.

The government could drop the details on sexual orientation and health, but the president is unlikely to relent on tracking children over 13. Youth crime and delinquency and unrest on poor estates are key issues for the president.

This'll hurt me more than it hurts you Jenkins

That's right Mr Chips! ...Especially when I tell 'em you're a paedo!

All adults who work or volunteer with children must have abuse allegations made against them investigated by council officers and kept on file until they retire, even if they are totally groundless.

Local authorities around the country are setting up databases to hold records of accusations made about anyone from teachers and doctors to Scout leaders and private tutors.

They are employing staff just to look into the claims - which can be made anonymously - who are required to contact police, social services or the adult's employer and then keep track of the case.

Details of the allegation will be kept on the accused's personnel file until they retire so they can be seen by potential employers, and in a reversal of the basic tenet of English law they will only be deemed innocent if they can prove it.

It comes on top of the new vetting system being implemented for everyone who works with under-16s, the Independent Safeguarding Authority, which will lead to 11.3 million adults having their backgrounds checked.

Professor Frank Furedi, a sociologist at the University of Kent, said: Those who are accused may become the lifetime victims of these allegations. It then creates an incentive to make those sorts of accusations by people who know it can affect someone's career. This will play into the hands of those who believe there is no smoke without fire.

Following the Bichard inquiry into the murders - which called for the creation of the new nationwide vetting body - the Government published guidance which told local authorities to do more to investigate allegations of harm of children. Since then they have been recruiting Local Authority Designated Officers whose job it is to record and monitor allegations of abuse.

They must investigate any claim that an adult who works with children - whether self-employed, business staff, volunteers or public sector employees - may have harmed a child or committed a crime against them.

The LADOs have to tell the employee's manager about the allegation, as well as the complainant's parents, and decide if police or social services should get involved.

They track the claim to ensure it is resolved, and record whether it has led to disciplinary action, dismissal or a criminal prosecution.

Councils are told to keep a "comprehensive" summary of the allegations, which should be given to the accused as well as kept in a person's confidential personnel file... at least until the person reaches normal retirement age.

Definitions make it difficult for an employee to remove all suspicion. The guidance states that unsubstantiated does not imply guilt or innocence , just a lack of evidence, while for a claim to be classified unfounded or malicious the council must have evidence to disprove the allegation.

Germany's Federal Office for Information Security says that Google's new browser Chrome should not be used for surfing the Internet.

The problem, according to a translation from Blogoscoped, is that joined with email and search, Chrome gives Google too much data about its users.

Based on article from theregister.co.uk

In telling the world it will anonymize user IPs after only nine months, Google has appeased EU regulators. At least in part. But it looks like Mountain View's new policy is just another example of Google Privacy Theatre.

After nine months, the company has confirmed with The Reg, Google will change some of the bits in the user IPs stored in its server logs. But as the plan stands now, it will leave cookie data alone.

This means the missing bits are easily retrieved.

More than a year ago, the company said it would "anonymize" its server logs after eighteen months. And sometime between March and July, it actually put this plan into action. In this case, anonymize meant change some of the bits in the IP address in the logs as well as change the cookie information. Google now says it erases exactly eight bits from a user's IP, but it has yet to explain what it actually does to the cookie data.

After nine months, we will change some of the bits in the IP address in the logs, the company says: After 18 months we remove the last eight bits in the IP address and change the cookie information...It is difficult to guarantee complete anonymization, but we believe these changes will make it very unlikely users could be identified.

But as CNet points out, if your cookie data remains intact, restoring the full IP address is trivial. Google may erase some IP bits on your nine-month-old search queries, but those bits will remain intact on your newer queries - and both sets of queries will carry the same cookie info.

ie Google search data is not really anonymised until 9 months after users clear their cookies. And few users are likely to clear their cookies, ever.

Council staff have been ordered to stop and quiz any adults found walking in Telford Town Park without a child.

Anyone who wants to go to the park but is not accompanied by at least one youngster will have to explain why they are there.

Telford campaigners battling to retain full public access to the park today branded the policy draconian and authoritarian madness but the council defended the policy, claiming it had a responsibility to protect the vulnerable.

The policy came to light after two environmental campaigners dressed as penguins were thrown out of the park last month when caught handing out leaflets on climate change.

Telford & Wrekin Council said Rachel Whittaker and Neil Donaldson of the Wrekin Stop War pressure group were ejected because they had not undergone Criminal Records Bureau checks or risk assessments before entering the park.

David Ottley, Telford & Wrekin's sports and oppression manager, said in a letter seen by the Shropshire Star: Our Town Park staff approach adults that are not associated with any children in the Town Park and request the reason for them being there. In particular, this applies to those areas where children or more vulnerable groups gather, such as play facilities and the entrances to play areas. This is a child safety precautionary measure which members of staff will continue to undertake as and when necessary.

Former childcare social worker John Evans said: It is authoritarian madness which can only be based on ignorance. It appears that the council wants to use child protection as a cover for anything they don't like taking place in the park, like the campaign against global warming by those two people who were handing out leaflets. It is absurd, it is insulting and what's more it is dangerous as it panics people about the dangers their children face.

Councillor Denis Allen, cabinet member for community services, said: Our staff are asked to approach adults without children in areas where children gather such as play areas, using their own judgement and discretion.

Comment: Telford Bulldozer through their Park Policy

11th September 2008, thanks to David

According to someone who lives in the area:

This is a little deeper than you know. The Telford Town Park was recently almost built over under first a labour administration and under the first few months of this Conservative administration. A gentlemen  went out into the park to leaflet people to let them know what was going on. He led a campaign that was politically embarrassing to the council and its authorities and they confiscated the leaflets and stopped him handing them out.

He demanded an apology and an explanation.

When the council were pressed for a reason why they took this action, after many, many attempts to get a reply, the officers came up with this "policy" as the reason. It's junk made up after the fact to justify what was in effect an attempt to silence somebody who didn't agree with their development plans.

Now the same guy raised and won a parish referendum. It made enough fuss and garnered enough support, with others, to cause the council to rethink the policy. Though the Park is not certain to be saved in its entirety the position is now much more secure.

When the two environmental protesters came into the Park dressed as Penguins, the council were stuck with their recently made up policy and enforced it. So earning themselves a rebuke from the Home Office as well.

The French populace is raising its collective voice in opposition to an arbitrary government decree establishing a national database that many of its critics view as excessively intrusive and ripe for oppressive authoritarian abuse.

Announced in an order revealed July 1st, the 'Edvige' database would contain data about French citizens 13 years of age and older who are active in politics or labor unions, have significant institutional, economic, social or religious roles, or who are considered by the authorities - without probable cause for suspicion - to be likely to breach public order.

Information collected, correlated and analysed could include names and addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, physical appearance (and likely biometrics too), behavioural traits, financial and tax records, plus details about other people who have personal ties to the individual. Critics say the data could extend to ethnic origins and sexual preferences.

Earlier this week, the opposition politician Francois Bayrou said, With just a few clicks of the mouse, any government official or civil servant will have access to intimate data.

Diverse constituencies of French citizens including magistrates' bodies, labor unions, gay rights groups and defenders of human rights and civil liberties have objected that Edvige appears intended to enable the government to intrude excessively on its citizens' privacy.

Michel Pezet, a lawyer and a former member of a French electronic privacy body, wrote: There is nothing in the decree that sets limits or a framework. Whether the database is used with or without moderation depends only on orders from up high.

The Sarkozy government claims the Edvige database would merely centralise information that is already being gathered and retained by separate public security organisations that have recently been merged together.

An online petition calling for the government to abandon its plans to establish Edvige has collected more than 103,700 signatures since July 10th, according to its website.

Several public interest groups have already lodged formal appeals with the Conseil d'Etat, France's highest administrative court, asking that it compel the state to cancel its decree establishing the Edvige database.

One would hope that the right-wing government of Nicolas Sarkozy might recall France's glorious heritage of "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" before its citizens recall some other old French traditions from the days of the Revolution... torches, pitchforks and the guillotine.

Children from eight years old have been recruited by councils to "snoop" on their neighbours and report petty offences such as littering, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The youngsters are among almost 5,000 residents who in some cases are being offered £500 rewards if they provide evidence of minor infractions.

One in six councils contacted by the Telegraph said they had signed up teams of environment volunteers who are being encouraged to photograph or video neighbours guilty of dog fouling, littering or bin crimes.

The covert human intelligence sources , as some local authorities describe them, are also being asked to pass on the names of neighbours they believe to be responsible, or take down their number-plates.

Ealing Council in West London said: There are hundreds of Junior Streetwatchers, aged 8-10 years old, who are trained to identify and report enviro-crime issues such as graffiti and fly-tipping.

Harlow Council in Essex said: We currently have 25 Street Scene Champions who work with the council. They are all aged between 11 to 14. They are encouraged to report the aftermath of enviro-crimes such as vandalism to bus shelters, graffiti, abandoned vehicles, fly-tipping etc. They do this via telephone or email direct to the council.

Matthew Sinclair, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, described the recruitment of children as downright sinister. We are deeply troubled by these developments – they are straight out of the Stasi copybook. There is a combination of ever-stricter rules and ever more Draconian attempts to control people.

Councils are using anti-terrorist legislation for the tiniest of things, like the people who put out their bins early, and the threats of fines and prosecutions combine to constitute fleecing the people the councils are meant to be serving

You're nicked That'll be £80

Councils are recruiting 'citizen snoopers' to report litter louts, dog foulers and even people who fail to sort out their rubbish properly.

The 'environment volunteers' will also be responsible for encouraging neighbours to cut down on waste.

The move comes as local authorities dish out £100 fines to householders who leave out too much rubbish or fail to follow recycling rules.

It will deservedly fuel fears that Britain is lurching towards a Big Brother society, following the revelation this week that the Home Office is extending some police powers to council staff and private security guards.

Critics said the latest scheme could easily be abused and encourage a culture of bin spies and curtain twitchers.

Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: Snooping on your neighbours to report recycling infringements sounds like something straight out of the East German Stasi's copybook. The last thing people want to pay for is an army of busybodies peering through their net curtains at their neighbours as they put out their rubbish.'

Recruitment adverts appealing for the unpaid environmental volunteers have appeared across the country in recent months.

In Hampshire, Eastleigh council wants locals to monitor local environmental quality and report 'issues' involving recycling and waste. In East London, Tower Hamlets is recruiting volunteers for a crackdown on reluctant recyclers. Other councils are expected to launch similar schemes.

Officially, the volunteers are not encouraged to spy on neighbours or report them. But councils are unlikely to ignore tip-offs.

Eastleigh has already taken on around a dozen snoops who answered an advert in a council newsletter which said: Volunteers will be involved in reporting issues in their area such as recycling, waste, fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and abandoned vehicles.

Tower Hamlets calls its volunteers environment champions. According to the council they report on a number of environmental crimes, issues and concerns, such as graffiti, dumped rubbish and abandoned cars.

I was stunned to read this week about the stupidly named ContactPoint : the children's database that is almost ready to be launched.

When did Labour turn into the nasty party? Was it before the invasion of Iraq or after? I am beyond sick of the corrosion of my freedoms and the extent of invasion into my privacy by this Government. I liked Britain better when I knew what was allowed and what was not.

What was allowed to a freeborn Englishwoman was basically freedom. Even as a dingbat student in the mid-20th century, I knew exactly what to do if I was in a park on a sunny day vaguely "demonstrating" or "protesting" with others about apartheid or apple-picking collectives in Chile. We all knew that one's answer to a policeman demanding names was: I'm not obliged to give you my name, officer.

Read full article from telegraph.co.uk

Update: OutOfContact

2nd October 2008. Based on article from theregister.co.uk

The Tory Party will scrap the government's controversial ContactPoint child database if elected.

Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove told the Daily Telegraph: "ContactPoint can never be secure. We are taking this action because we are determined to protect vulnerable children from abuse - ContactPoint would increase that risk. The government has proved that it cannot be trusted to set up large databases, and cannot promise that inappropriate people would not be able to access the database."

Gove said the Tories would propose a smaller database for children moving from one local authority to another, if there were concerns. He said it would be irresponsible to implement a database which was likely to pose a danger to children.

You're nicked That'll be ฃ80

Private security guards and town hall jobsworths are being armed with sweeping police-style powers, it has emerged.

For a few hundred pounds, state and private sector employees can receive Home Office accreditation.

This allows them to hand out fines for a raft of offences, from dropping litter to riding a bike on the pavement. They can also stop cars to check their tax discs, seize alcohol from underage drinkers and demand people's names and addresses.

 The uniformed, badged army of snoopers will become a vital part of the 'extended police family', ministers say.

But privacy campaigners have dubbed them Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's 'Stasi' after the East German secret police.

Phil Booth of NO2ID said: This is a sinister move towards a Stasi snooper state in which jobsworths are devolved the powers of the police - including the right to demand you identify yourself.

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve added: This is a consequence of the Government's obsession with policing on the cheap as well as their staggering complacency towards the extension of surveillance by an increasing amount of different bodies.

The public will be angered that the Home Office is seeking to take serious powers that should be appropriately applied by the police and encouraging them to be given not just to local councils, but also to private firms.

The public want to see real police on the streets discharging these responsibilities, not private firms who may use them inappropriately - including unnecessarily snooping on the lives of ordinary citizens.

Details of the new army of police-style officers emerged in Home Office papers released today. There are already 1,400 town hall and private sector staff accredited, and ministers want a dramatic expansion of the scheme.

Called the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme, it allows the likes of security guards, park wardens, car park attendants and store detectives to boost their roles if they undergo training and pay a small fee to their local police force.

They can wear a special badge, and a uniform approved by the local chief constable. At present, they are wearing their employer's existing uniform with the badge sewn on, but police chiefs could eventually be encouraged to decide on a standard uniform across their force area, the Home Office said.

It also revealed that chief constables are reviewing the scheme, a move which could lead to even greater powers being handed out.

Yahoo have launched Fire Eagle which lets users manage information on where they are.

Hard privacy protection questions need to be asked, said Jeff Chester, director of The Centre for Digital Democracy: These services are all being sold to consumers as only providing real benefit. No one is talking about the fact they are about building and collecting more data ,not just about the content you like but where you go and where you are at the moment.

Fire Eagle, which has just been opened up to the public, helps manage location information for websites and for any device that has internet access.

This is a way for the user to take their location to the web, for every site on the web to become geo-aware and to respond to where users are, explained Tom Coates head of product at Yahoo's start-up project, Brickhouse.

So far more than 50 third-party developers have signed up to offer Fire Eagle to their users, including Pownce, a micro-blogging service, brightkite, a location based social network, and DOPPLR which links travellers.

Yahoo said the service gives users complete control over their information and over which applications have access to their location. Users can also control whether an application can track their exact location, their ZIP or postcode or just the city they are in. Every 45 days, the service will send users an email to reauthorize the sharing of their location with the enabled applications: We only store your current information and don't keep any historical logs. That information will stay there until you over ride it or change it.

Coates said as an added protection Fire Eagle lets you hide your location at times and even lie about where you are if you want to.

Some blogs note however that while users can purge information from Fire Eagle, this will not delete location data collected over time by authorised sites.

Greg Sterling of SearchEngineLand said the added benefits of location information offers great opportunities for advertisers: Advertisers have yet to catch up to the possibility this space offers and Fire Eagle makes it that more explicit for them so I think we will see more targeted adverts coming into being that can take advantage of a person's location.

Town hall snoopers are demanding access to people's bedrooms. Officials say they need to enter and inspect properties where a council tax discount is claimed.

Seven and a half million people are entitled to 25% off their annual bill because they live on their own.

The Conservatives warned that householders are being pressured into signing a declaration agreeing to an internal inspection of their homes in order to prove they really are single.
council tax

One form, produced by Thurrock Council in Essex, reads: To be completed and returned immediately if you wish to continue to claim single person discount... I authorise the Council or its agents to make enquiries to corroborate this claim. I will permit the Council or its agents to inspect the property on request... If you do not do so, we will have to cancel your discount and send you a revised bill for the increased amount.

Shadow local government secretary Eric Pickles said there was evidence that other councils were making similar demands. He said the move raised the prospect of town hall officials entering law-abiding people's homes looking for evidence of a 'hidden partner'.

Government guidance encourages councils to undertake 'spot check' internal inspections of properties, giving practical tips how to 'maximise their time spent on inspections'.

Pickles said: Day by day under Labour, the rights and liberties of law-abiding citizens are being undermined, with more and more state officials trying to enter and spy on people's homes.

It may be appropriate for local authorities to check that council tax discounts are not wrongly claimed. But it is wholly disproportionate to threaten higher council tax bills if residents do not allow state officials into their bedrooms. This is another worrying sign of function creep.

Government powers to access millions of people's private phone records are set to be extended to email accounts and website records, ministers have said.

The news means that councils or quangoes could access private email accounts or examine internet phone records to snoop on taxpayers.

It has emerged that Sir Paul Kennedy, the spying watchdog, said they were not using their powers to examine phone bills and call records enough.

Since last October phone companies have had to retain information about all landline and mobile phone calls made by members of the public for one year, and hand over the data to more than 650 public bodies and quangos.

The move, approved by Parliament last July under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, was justified as a vital tool in the fight against terrorism but was then extended to enable council use to investigate trivial offences.

The Home Office said it wanted to extend the powers to include people's access to websites, email accounts and even phone calls made over the internet using services like Skype.

A Home Office consultation document on implementing an EU directive on electronic communications said the data would only be made available to assist in the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime. [The government have also been busy redefining lesser crimes as 'serious']

The cost of the new plan is likely to be borne by internet and telecommunications companies, although the Home Office said this would form part of the consultation.

The move has been heavily criticised, with claims that extending the powers was further evidence of a "snoopers' charter".

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: Ministers have proven time and time again that they are not to be trusted with sensitive data, but they seem intent on pressing ahead with this snoopers' charter. We will be told it is for use in combating terrorism and organised crime but if RIPA powers are anything to go by, it will soon be used to spy on ordinary people's kids, pets and bins. Once again, the Government seems prepared to be more invasive than its EU counterparts in seeking to hold phone records for two years rather than six months.

Guy Herbert, a spokesman for the No2ID campaign, said the information would be made available to hundreds of official bodies responsible under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. He said: As ever with the database state this is a mass-surveillance measure for the retrospective convenience of officialdom in general.

The Home Office said that enforcement officers would only have access to where emails were sent or received from and not their content. A spokesman said: This data is a vital tool to investigations and intelligence gathering in support of national security and crime. Communications data allows investigators to identify suspects, examine their contacts, establish relationships between conspirators and place them in a specific location at a certain time. It also gives investigators the potential to identify other forensic opportunities, identify witnesses and premises of evidential interest. Many alibis are proven or refuted through the use of communications data. Without the directive investigative opportunities will increasingly be lost.

In the House of Lords Lib Dem peer Baroness Miller has asked a series of questions about the nature of talks between the government and Phorm.

Critics have asked why the Home Office has not intervened over secret Phorm trials BT conducted in 2006 and 2007.

In her questions Baroness Miller has asked about the issues surrounding Phorm and the technology it employs.

In one question she asked if the government has issued advice to net service firms about getting consent for web-watching ad systems or what needs to be done to let people know their web habits could be monitored.

In response the government said it was up to net firms to decide if a service they provide was within the law. The Home Office told the BBC that it was unaware of BT's early trials, in which thousands of BT customers had their web habits monitored without consent.

But it did confirm that Phorm had approached the Home Office in June 2007: We welcome companies sharing commercially sensitive ideas and proposals with us in confidence if that means public safety considerations and legal obligation can be taken into account, where appropriate, in the conception of new products and services .

Technology consultant Peter John, who has been following Phorm closely, asked why the Home Office did not intervene once it became clear that customers were unhappy that their web surfing habits had been monitored without consent. He believes the Home Office should have sought legal advice about a document it prepared for BT on the legality of the service in relation to RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act).

It found that the service may comply with RIPA but only if consent was asked.

According to John, the City of London Police is currently conducting its own investigation into Phorm, following complaints against BT.

Social networking sites on the internet are being targeted in a bid to cut violent crime in the west of Scotland. Strathclyde Police said young cadets were being used to scan sites such as Bebo and YouTube.

Photographs and video clips which show young people brandishing weapons or involved in gang-related activity are then passed on to officers.

Yahoo! has announced that it will offer users greater choice in how they manage their privacy online by enabling them to opt-out of customized advertising on Yahoo.com. This new option expands Yahoo!'s existing opt-out program for customized advertising served by Yahoo! on third party networks.

Yahoo! announced the new opt-out capability as part of its response to a Congressional inquiry about customization sent to 33 companies from the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

This new opt-out capability is expected to be available for consumers by the end of August. Users will be able to access the opt-out in the Yahoo! privacy center, which is linked on the home page and nearly every page on the Yahoo! network.

Olympic visitors are going to find themselves faced with internet restrictions when they get back to their hotel room or local internet cafe, thanks to that handy dandy Great Firewall of China.

Lucky for them, the Chaos Computer Club has prepped a solution called the "Freedom Stick" which when plugged into a computer redirects its internet traffic over The Onion Router, a worldwide network of anonymous computers designed to hide your steps. Naturally, you can just download the software yourself, but the $30 USB dongle could come in handy if you're not on your own PC, or just want to leave behind material evidence of your indiscretion. The Freedom Stick will only be available through the duration of the Olympics, so get one while you can.

The UK government has until the end of August to respond to a letter from the European Union about a controversial system which monitors web traffic.

EU commissioner Viviane Reding has asked the UK government to clarify whether the Phorm system is in breach of European data laws.

The Information Commission ruled in May that no action would be taken against BT's secret trial due to the difficult nature of explaining to consumers what it was doing. It said anyone using Phorm must ask for the consent of users before going ahead with any further trials.

The letter from Mrs Reding, the details of which are not publicly known, was sent in mid-July and the UK government has until the end of August to respond.

The Foundation for Information Policy Research (Fipr) has been one of the more outspoken critics of Phorm. Fipr's general counsel Nicholas Bohm believes ISPs implementing the system could find website owners objecting: There is going to be increased focus on the rights of website owners and their right to prevent material being used to the advantage of their competitors.

An e-petition on the Downing Street website calling for Phorm to be dropped has so far attracted over 16,000 signatures.

Confidential personal details of millions of passengers flying into and out of Britain should he handed over according to Government ministers.

Immigration minister Liam Byrne is also likely to say that these powers to probe passenger records should be extended to other forms of travel like the Eurostar train service between the UK and the Continent.

The news will alarm critics of the so-called Big Brother state which has seen the Government encroach further into the private lives of British citizens.

There were 200 million so-called passenger movements across UK borders last year. By 2015 this figure is likely to have risen to 300 million.

Currently European Union regulations restrict the use of so-called of "Passenger Name Record" data, including names and addresses, to Governments to fight the threat from terrorists and organised crime.

However the Home Office has said that it believes these rules are too narrow and enforcement officers should be able to use the information to battle "any serious crime".

This would include immigration and revenue and customs offences. Ministers are expected to agree that a firm definition of what is a "serious crime" should be agreed across all member states.

The UK wants the information to be made available for domestic flights and those between EU states. Currently the information can also only be downloaded for flights between a European Union state and a third country.

The Government will set out its position on using personal data from passenger lists in a response to a House of Lords EU committee report on passenger name records. In the report, which was published in June, the peers warned the passenger records should only be used to identify terrorists either in the planning or aftermath of an attack.

They warned that if the Government proceeded to push the boundaries of what officials could use the information for, officials could lose the co-operation of other EU states.

They said: They may find that the ability to use PNR data to assist in the combating of more routine crime, including immigration, revenue and customs offences, is insufficient to use data collected by other member states.

Travellers to the U.S. could have their laptops and other electronic devices seized at the airport under new anti-terror measures.

Federal agents have been granted powers to take such devices and hold them as long as they like. They do not even need grounds to suspect wrongdoing.

The Department of Homeland Security said the policies applied to anyone entering the country by land, sea or air, including U.S. citizens.

The extent of the new powers, which have been secretly in place for some time, was revealed in the Washington Post.

They cover hard drives, flash drives, mobile phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes, as well as books, pamphlets and other written materials, the report said.

Federal agents must take measures to protect business information and lawyer-client privileged material.

Copies of data must be destroyed when a review is completed and no probable cause exists to keep the information. But agents are allowed to share the contents of seized computers with other agencies and private entities for data decryption and 'other reasons'.

The new powers came to light under pressure from civil liberties and business travel groups after increasing numbers of travellers reported that they had laptops, phones and other digital devices removed and examined.

The development was described as 'truly alarming' by Wisconsin Democrat Senator-Russell Feingold, who is investigating U.S. border search practices. He said he intends to introduce legislation that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches, as well as prohibit profiling on race, religion or national origin.

As soldiers prepare to be deployed on Italian streets, a city mayor has been accused of Fascism after he passed an edict banning groups of more than three people congregating in parks and public gardens.

The anti-gathering laws were enacted as thousands of soldiers were due to take to the streets of Italian cities for the first time on Monday under a controversial move by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to fight crime.

Massimo Giordano, a member of Italy's anti immigration Northern League party, defended the anti-gathering motion and claimed it would cut down on unruly behaviour.

However opposition councillors said it was reminiscent of Benito Mussolini's edict of the 1920's which banned groups of five or more people.

The ban will not affect courting couples who flock to parks and gardens in the northern Italian city of Novara, where Giordano holds power, but if anyone is caught in a group of three or more they face a fine of 500 euro (ฃ350).

Giordano said that the edict would ban gatherings in a bid to protect public decorum and prevent damage to public parks and gardens from people who gathered in them at night.
Novara, which has a population of 100,000, is not seen as a particularly crime-ridden or violent city but the mayor passed the law after several elderly residents complained of noise.

He has also banned the consumption of alcohol at the city's station after 6pm and closed a immigrant cultural centre.

Opposition councillor Sara Paladini said: There is no emergency situation in Novara - there is no need for such a Fascist edict. There are other better ways to tackle the city's problems.

Around 3,000 troops are expected to begin patrolling streets of major cities - including Rome, Milan, Naples, Bari, Palermo and Venice - on Monday as part of a government clampdown on crime.

The capital has been earmarked for the highest number of troops - 1,000 will patrol high-profile locations such as stations, embassies and diplomatic residences.

Reading the Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Report into Harmful content on the Internet and in Video Games , there is an evil, ill thought out recommendation which should be thoroughly condemned::

Controlling conduct-based risks and cyberbullying

138. We note that mobile phone call records would make it possible to establish that a particular phone had been used to upload content onto a video-sharing website at a particular time but would not necessarily identify the images uploaded or the person who had used the phone to upload them.

Given that images or videos taken by mobile devices may be uploaded to social networking sites or video sharing sites on impulse, it would seem important to be able to have a record of the nature of content handled, should it be offensive, harmful or even illegal.

It may be that the mobile phone industry could develop technology which would allow images uploaded by mobile devices to be viewed, thereby helping in the process of assembling evidence if inappropriate conduct has taken place.

We recommend that network operators and manufacturers of mobile devices should assess whether it is technically possible to enable images sent from mobile devices to be traced and viewed by law enforcement officers with the appropriate authority.

If such currently non-existent technology is developed in the UK, presumably by magic, since the Committee has not come up with any research and development funding, what will prevent this selfsame mobile phone image tracking technology from being abused, in say, China, Russia, Zimbabwe, Burma, Pakistan etc. to hunt down political dissidents and opponents of those authoritarian regimes ?

Innocent photographers in the UK already suffer from illegal harassment by Police Constables, Police Community Support Officers and Private Security Guards. Why should they welcome their mobile phone retained Communications Traffic Data being trawled, just in case their copyrighted images might of interest in a Police investigation ?

Why should mobile phone photographers be hunted down and identified, if the Police or shyster lawyers representing rich and powerful people or organisations, try to suppress their images?

The dreadful dictatorship appeasing commercial monopoly of the International Olympic Committee springs to mind. They already seem set to inflict Beijing 2008 style monopoly enforcement on the London 2012 Olympic Games.

As part of an FCC hearing at Carnegie Mellon University on broadband and the digital future, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will submited written comments about how Deep Packet Inspections and other practices threaten Americans' online privacy and a neutral Internet.

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU said:

Corporate gatekeepers, like Comcast, jeopardize the very existence of the Internet as a forum for speech. The Commission has the challenging, but far from impossible job of immediately restoring neutrality to the Net while avoiding censorship. Thus, the Commission should not resort to unconstitutional license conditions such as mandatory and automatic filtering -- the Internet should remain a zone free of any gatekeepers or censors.

The ACLU also urges the Commission to scrutinize the growing practice of Internet Service Providers examining their customers' Internet habits. Using Deep Packet Inspections (DPI), ISPs know everything we do online. DPI allows ISPs to have access to all of your searches, friends and family, anything you read and email, any sites you visit and any comments you post. DPI is a virtual strip search for you and your computer.

DPI already has a short sordid history associated with abusing personal information. Companies like NebuAd and Phorm built business models using their ability to eavesdrop on Internet users' Web surfing for the purpose of serving ads. Under the guise of applying differential pricing based on the speed, volume, application preferences, or even the substance of content, service providers could snoop on every facet of user activity.

“This ISP practice not only threatens our online privacy, but also the neutrality of the Internet. ISPs can now use a free speech forum to discriminate based on the content of the communications. This kind of scrutiny is ripe for abuse, especially where there is money to be made. We would never give the post office the power to route mail according to the content of a letter. The Commission must ask some very hard questions about the reasons for this scrutiny.

Courting couples smooching in the back row at the movies could become the unwitting stars of a new genre of romantic film after the installation of Big Brother-style cameras at cinemas.

Odeon, the UK's largest cinema chain, has put CCTV cameras in nine cinemas across the country.

Gareth Crossman, the policy of Liberty, the human rights campaigners, said: Film-goers should be informed of the presence of the cameras so that they can go elsewhere if they are unhappy with being filmed themselves.

An Odeon spokesman said the cameras had resulted in a dramatic fall of disruptive incidents. He added: The camera system and subsequent footage is solely for the safety and security of guests and footage recorded is automatically erased after 31 days.

There is prominent signage throughout cinemas informing guests that CCTV is in operation, with a telephone number provided for further information.

Councils have been accused of abusing anti-terror laws after it emerged that local authorities launched almost 10,000 spying missions last year to investigate such petty offences as dog fouling and under-age smoking.

More than half a million requests for highly personal communications data, such as records of private telephone calls and e-mails, were also lodged by councils and law enforcement agencies.

Snooping by local authorities has now become so widespread that a Government watchdog has threatened to strip councils of their powers to spy on people, and Gordon Brown has ordered an inquiry into the rapid increase in the use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa).

Opposition MPs said the new figures showed evidence of a "creeping Orwellian state", while the Chief Surveillance Commissioner, Sir Christopher Rose, said some councils were guilty of using Ripa in a "disproportionate" way.

Privacy campaigners including David Davis, the former shadow home secretary who resigned to campaign against the erosion of civil liberties, say the use of Ripa has spiralled out of control, partly because spying can be authorised by junior town hall officials rather than having to be approved by a judge.

Sir Christopher Rose revealed in his annual report that 9,535 "directed surveillance authorisations" were granted to public bodies in the 12 months to March 31. A directed surveillance authorisation is defined as covert surveillance of individuals while in a public place for the purposes of a specific investigation.

Sir Christopher specifically accused councils of a serious misunderstanding of the concept of proportionality and threatened to strip them of their powers. He said: Many authorities do not recognise that they are vulnerable to criticism... if activity is conducted without appropriate management or if activity is being conducted in a disproportionate manner.

A separate report from Sir Paul Kennedy, the Interception of Communications Commissioner, revealed that police, security services and other public bodies made 519,260 requests to "communications providers" such as phone and internet firms for billing records and other information. The total compared with an average of less than 350,000 requests a year in the previous two years. It also showed that 154 local authorities made 1,707 requests for "communications data" in the year to the end of March.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, added: The most intrusive forms of surveillance must be authorised by judges - not administrators, policeman or politicians.

The affordability and growing popularity of color laser printers is raising concerns among civil liberties advocates that your privacy may not be worth the paper you're printing on.

More manufacturers are outfitting greater numbers of laser printers with technology that leaves microscopic yellow dots on each printed page to identify the printer's serial number — and ultimately, you, says the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the leading watchdogs of electronic privacy.

The technology has been around for years, but the declining price of laser printers and the increasing number of models with this feature is causing renewed concerns.

The dots, invisible to the naked eye, can be seen using a blue LED light and are used by authorities such as the Secret Service. Privacy advocates worry that the little-known technology could ensnare political dissidents, whistle-blowers or anyone who prints materials that authorities want to track.

Seth Schoen, a computer programmer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation said:his tests have found the dots produced by 111 color laser printers made by 13 companies including Xerox, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Epson and Brother.

The dots are produced only on laser devices and not ink-jet printers, which are most commonly used at home. But laser printers, which produce more durable images, are becoming increasingly popular as their price has dropped to as low as $300.

The dots tell authorities the serial number of a printer that made a document. In some cases, it also tells the time and date it was printed.

Printer makers “cooperate with law enforcement” and will tell authorities where a printer was made and sold.

Anti-pope activists in Australia have won permission to 'annoy' Catholic pilgrims at the World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney after a court upheld their right to hand out condoms and coat hangers.

The decision, by the Federal Court, strikes down a law introduced by the state of New South Wales that would have fined anyone causing annoyance to the estimated 225,000 pilgrims visiting Sydney to celebrate with Pope Benedict XVI. The fines could have been up to A$5,500 (£2,700).

As soon as the court had given its ruling, Rachel Evans, one of two protesters from the No To Pope Coalition who brought the case, started handing out condoms to pilgrims. We're not seeking to annoy or inconvenience anyone, she said, wearing a T-shirt declaring: The Pope is wrong, put a condom on.

The New South Wales government had claimed that the new regulations extended to police the same rights to suppress trouble as they already had for big sporting events. It emphasised that a ban on causing inconvenience remained in force.

Ms Evans and another student activist, Amber Pike, argued that the law was unconstitutional because it infringed their right to peaceful protest. The judges ruled that the attempt to regulate annoying behaviour would affect freedom of speech because of uncertainty about how it could be defined.

The statement from the judges was very clear, Ms Evans said. We have the right to peaceful assembly and these annoyance laws contravene that right. The judges specifically said condoms, T-shirts, coat hangers and so on.

Protesters are handing out coat hangers as a reference to backstreet abortions — a consequence, they say, of Catholic opposition to contraception and abortion.

A new Big Brother database holding the telephone numbers and email accounts of everyone in Britain would raise serious data protection concerns, the information commissioner said.

Details of every phone conversation, text message and emails could be held in a database under proposals

Gordon Brown signalled plans to bring in the database holding details of every phone call, email and time spent on the internet by the public in last month's draft Queen's Speech.

The proposal is part of Government plans to implement a European Union directive which was brought in after the 7 July bombings to encourage uniform record-keeping across EU states.

However information commissioner Richard Thomas warned the database would be a step too far for the British way of life. Do we really want the police, security services and other organs of the state to have access to more and more aspects of our private lives?

There needs to be the fullest public debate about the justification for, and implications of, a specially-created database - potentially accessible to a wide range of law enforcement authorities - holding details of everyone's telephone and internet communications.

The proposals have gained credence in Whitehall after the Government's Draft Legislative Programme last month made mention of 'modifying procedures for acquiring communications data. The new Data Communications Bill is set to be put forward in November's Queen's Speech. Under the plans, internet service providers and phone companies would hand over their records to the Home Office, which would hold the information for 12 months.

The police and security services would access the database if they have been granted permission by the courts.

A Home Office spokesman said: Proposals are being developed and full details of the draft Bill will be released later this year, allowing for full engagement with Parliament and the public.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is getting a much longed for region 2 release on September 22nd through Optimum.

However this isn't down to public demand PER SE, (although I'm sure Optimum will claim this). Word around the Realplayer campfire is that this is one of the most downloaded/bootlegged films amongst British men under 35.

How do they know this? That is an interesting question, but how did they know that this film is being constantly downloaded, isn't really the main cause for my concern. my concern is how did they know it only appealed to MEN UNDER 35!

You are being watched.

IPods, mobile phones and laptops could be examined by airport customs officials for illegal downloads under new anti-counterfeiting measures being considered by G8 governments this week, it is claimed.

There are fears that individuals who have illegally downloaded songs or video clips on to MP3 players and phones for personal use could be caught out.

Illegal downloading and piracy is said to represent the biggest single problem faced by the music, film and publishing industries, and many have been lobbying governments to introduce tough new rules to help stamp out the practice.

So far, little has been revealed about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being considered by the G8 nations, apart from a mention in the organisation's "Declaration on the World Economy" published this week.

Backing the development of the new agreement, it said: Effective promotion and protection of Intellectual Property Rights are critical to the development of creative products, technologies and economies.

A leak to a technology website revealed that the focus of Acta was border measures, particularly how to deal with large-scale intellectual property infringements.

A footnote saying that those signing up to Acta should put in place provisions related to criminal enforcement and border measures to be applied at least in cases of trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy , has generated intense speculation about what it could mean for the individual.

The suggestion that the new laws could be used by customs to scan MP3 players, mobiles and laptops for illegal downloads is just one of a number of potential measures that is causing concern in the technology world, leading to fevered debate about the implications on a number of websites.

Another is that mobile phone companies could contact their customers to warn them off sharing video clips.

Beware Big Brother is watching you.

Colorado is one among of handful of states where hundreds of firefighters, paramedics, police, and even corporate employees are being trained to hunt down and report a broadly defined range of "suspicious activities."

They are called Terrorism Liaison Officers. The federally supported initiative trains them to look out for observed behavior that may be indicative of intelligence-gathering or pre-operational planning related to terrorism.

The list of suspicious behaviors includes taking photographs or videos of no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements, drawings, or taking notes, and conversing in code.

Slogans like Pope Go Homo and The Pope Is Wrong - Put a Condom On will be splashed across protesters' T-shirts during next week's World Youth Day.

The NoToPope Coalition held an "annoying fashion parade" outside the New South Wales Parliament yesterday to unveil the shirts they will wear during a Sydney rally on July 19.

They fear police will ban them from wearing the shirts, after state police were given powers to arrest anyone they believe is causing annoyance or inconvenience to pilgrims.

Failure to comply with the laws, introduced for the events in Sydney from July 15-20, can attract a penalty of up to A$5500 ($7050).

Eight police officers watched as about a dozen members of the protest group unveiled their shirts.

A pioneering curfew aiming at keeping children under 16 off the streets at night is being launched in a Cornish town. Police officers and local authority officials, some wearing head cameras to gather evidence, will patrol an area of Redruth and stop all youngsters of 15 and under who are out unsupervised after 9pm, and all under-10s out after 8pm.

Officers say the campaign, codenamed Operation Goodnight, will help tackle antisocial behaviour, but some human rights activists are worried that the drive will target blameless youngsters out enjoying the long summer evenings.

The police are describing Operation Goodnight, which will be launched at the end of this month and run through the summer holidays, as a voluntary scheme because families cannot be forced to keep their children indoors.

But PC Marc Griffen said all children spotted out during the curfew would be stopped and questioned, even if they were just returning from band practice.

If parents did not cooperate they would be visited by social services and other agencies. Parenting orders, which can compel parents to attend counselling or guidance sessions, may also be imposed.

The poisoned chalice of trying to pretend to be seen to be "consulting" the public, about the labour government's wretched Identity cards and centralised biometric database, the National Identity Register, has currently been palmed off onto the most junior Minister at the Home Office. the hapless Meg Hillier MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Identity).

She is currently touring the country, at a series of not exactly secret, but certainly deliberately unpublicised meetings, with invited audiences, with notifications to the local media and invitations only being sent out less than a week beforehand.

This "consultation" appears to be a vain hope that somebody, anybody, will think of a way to "sell" the alleged benefits of ID cards to "young people" or indeed, to any substantial groups of people at all.

The NO2ID Campaign or anybody else who might ask awkward questions, are deliberately refused admission to these meetings.

The Edinburgh "consultation" meeting was held at a local hotel, and, nine NO2ID supporters were arrested and charged, despite their protest being peaceful and lawful.

Read Geraint Bevan's first hand description of the events - it would be a comical farce, if it was not actually so serious:

Nine of us have been charged for breach of the peace. Eight for causing "alarm and distress" for walking into the hotel wearing white suits and masks, and me for "alarm and disturbance" for infiltrating the meeting, putting my hand up to speak, taking the microphone when offered, speaking, and refusing to leave immediately while speaking after the minister requested that I do so.

There was a bit of heavy handed policing (they were responding to a 999 call and didn't know what they were facing) but it calmed down instantly the moment one of them realised they were being filmed by professionals and warned his colleagues. All protesters were entirely peaceful at all times.

I must emphasise that once the police realised that there actually wasn't any danger, they were all entirely courteous and professional throughout for the rest of the day.

The police have told us that after speaking to groups of people inside, no one has any complaints about our conduct inside, there is no suggestion that we were anything other than peaceful. It is the "alarm" that has led to the charges "masked people in today's climate ...". Given that we had negotiated with the hotel manager to film an interview with STV inside (possibly after the 999 call had been made - that is still to be established), and were on our way out when the police arrived, I am surprised at the charges.

However, STV caught almost everything (except my contribution to the consultation) on camera. They followed the costumed protesters in, filmed them trying to negotiate entry, caught me being thrown out, an interview with me, our attempted departure, followed by the arrival of the police. Apparently we have made the main news programme, but couldn't see it ourselves.

We have all been bailed to appear before Edinburgh Sheriff's court on 24 July. I fully intend to use the occasion to highlight again how the Home Office are refusing to engage in debate with the public.

We urge the Borders and Lothian Police and the Procurator Fiscal to drop these charges against the nine NO2ID Campaign supporters. , and to purge the centralised database records of the personal details which have been taken from them as a result of the political arrests.

The European Court of Human Rights has ordered the British government to pay €7,500 in costs and expenses to the UK human rights organisation Liberty for violating its right to privacy by intercepting its telecommunications.

Liberty took the case along with the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and British-Irish Rights Watch over the interception of telephone, fax, e-mail and data between these organisations over a seven-year period, from 1991 to 1997.

The UK government, while refusing to disclose specifics, acknowledged these communications were likely to have been intercepted and stored en masse by an electronic facility operated by the British ministry of defence.

It defended the interception on the grounds that, while the surveillance did violate the applicants' right to privacy, this was necessary in the interests of national security, for the prevention of serious crime and to safeguard the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom. It argued that there was a system of safeguards in place to ensure that people's communications were not unnecessarily intercepted, and that appropriate procedures were followed.

Liberty argued that the “safeguards” that surrounded the interception were not accessible and not known to the public, so that people could not foresee the extent to which their privacy was being violated. This did not accord with the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, they said. The court found that the rules governing data interception in the United Kingdom did not as required by the court's case law, set out in a form accessible to the public any indication of the procedure to be followed for selecting for examination, sharing, storing and destroying intercepted material.

Finding that there had been a violation of the applicants' right to privacy, as guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the court stated that the interference with the applicants' rights was not “in accordance with the law”.

Welcoming the judgment, ICCL director Mark Kelly said: The Strasbourg Court has vindicated the ICCL's belief that data ‘fishing expeditions' by the intelligence services will fall foul of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The judges have found that the United Kingdom's relatively sophisticated rules on data interception have failed to prevent unlawful interference with privacy rights.

The aviation industry is being used as a political pawn with the introduction of ID cards for its workers, airline bosses claim.

In a strongly worded letter to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, airline bosses said that forcing airport workers to have an ID card from November next year was "unnecessary" and "unjustified".

Under the requirements those working "airside" beyond the departure security checks and on the runway will have to carry the card from next year. It will affect 200,000 airport workers.

But this triggered a furious reaction from major figures in aviation including Willie Walsh, British Airways' chief executive and his counterparts at Virgin Atlantic, Steve Ridgway and EasyJet, Andy Harrison. The letter was also signed by the pilots' union, BALPA.

In the letter, they complained that forcing them to do so would provide no additional security: Indeed, there is a real risk that enrolment in the National ID scheme will be seen to provide an added, but ultimately false, sense of security to our processes.

They accused the Government of using aviation industry for political purposes on a project which has questionable public support.

The first wave of the ID card scheme will see the cards becoming compulsory for non-EU foreign nationals living in Britain this year, airport workers and Olympic security staff from next year.

Extraordinary new powers will allow police to arrest and fine people for "causing annoyance" to World Youth Day participants and permit partial strip searches at hundreds of Sydney sites, beginning today.

The laws, which operate until the end of July, have the potential to make a crime of things such as wearing a T-shirt with a message on it, handing out condoms at protests, riding a skateboard or even playing music, critics say.

Police and emergency services volunteers will be able to direct people to cease engaging in conduct that causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants in a World Youth Day event or risk a $5500 fine.

A police source said causing an annoyance or inconvenience was a highly subjective offence. Civil libertarians said the new powers were more extreme than those used during last year's APEC summit and the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

The regulations apply to more than 40 central Sydney locations, including Darling Harbour, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. People entering more than 500 schools and 35 train and bus stations will also be subject to vehicle and baggage searches that require them to remove jackets, gloves, shoes and headwear if requested.

The NoToPope Coalition — an alliance of gay pride, pro-contraception and atheist groups — is waiting for police approval for a protest that will feature a same-sex "kiss-in", mardi-gras style costumes and distribution of free condoms. Spokeswoman Rachel Evans said the rally was about delivering a peaceful message that being gay is not a disorder, that contraception is not a sin and that women should enjoy equal rights in the church. Up to 15,000 people are expected at the march.

The march is on Saturday 19th July, 12 noon at Taylor Square, Sydney

Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold wants to restrict search and seizures of laptops and other digital devices at U.S. borders.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and property rights, called for laws to protect against this gross violation of privacy after a recent hearing on customs searches of digital technology such as laptop computers, hand-held devices and disk storage drives.

Feingold is particularly upset that federal courts have not taken action.

If the courts can't offer that protection, then that responsibility falls to Congress, said Feingold, who compared the search of a computer to a search of a body cavity which legally requires "probable suspicion" prior to the search.

Customs and border officials warn that exempting laptops, cellular phones, digital cameras and other devices from routine searches would make it easier to smuggle pornography, terrorism plans or other dangerous recorded material into the United States.

The EU is close to finalising an agreement with the US that would allow the FBI to see the internet browsing habits and credit card histories of UK citizens.

However, the prospect of an agreement between Brussels and Washington that will lower barriers to swapping previously private data, including travel history and spending patterns, will alarm civil rights advocates.

Talks about the transfer of highly personal information held by the UK government and leading companies to American security agencies began following the September 2001 terrorist attacks. US counter-terrorism officials argued that increased information on the movements and habits of European residents would help prevent a repeat attack.

Details of a joint report by US and EU negotiators indicate that progress on the agreement is advanced, following years of opposition from European states with stricter privacy laws. One final hurdle still to be cleared is whether British and European citizens can sue the US government over its handling of their personal data.

Another area of concern relates to what 'appropriate safeguards' have been agreed to prevent the US authorities from requesting further information such as the religion, political opinion and 'sexual life' of a British resident.