Liberties
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Big Brother “Fusion Centers” Part of US Domestic Intelligence and Surveillance Apparatus By Tom Burghardtf
Speaking at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club September 15, Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis C. Blair, disclosed that the current annual budget for the 16 agency U.S. “Intelligence Community” (IC) clocks-in at $75 billion and employs some 200,000 operatives world-wide, including private contractors. In unveiling an unclassi?ed version of the National Intelligence Strategy (NIS), Blair… Continue reading
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Hands off my camera! By Nathalie Rothschild
Since the Counter-Terrorism Act 2000 came into force, many amateur and professional photographers have found themselves questioned, manhandled and detained by police who have received extended stop and search rights. Under section 44, uniformed police officers can stop individuals ‘for the purposes of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection… Continue reading
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ID Cards – a World View – by Nathan Allonby
Electronic ID cards have made alarming progress towards becoming universal, around the world. Already, over 2.2 billion people, or 33% of the world’s population, have been issued with ‘smart’ ID cards. Of those, over 900 million have biometric facial and fingerprint systems. On present plans, over 85% of the world’s population will have smart ID… Continue reading
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Obama Administration Seeks “Emergency Control” of the Internet By Tom Burghardt
As the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (S.773) wends its way through Congress, civil liberties’ advocates are decrying provisions that would hand the President unlimited power to disconnect private-sector computers from the internet. Continue reading
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The Responsibility to Protect, the International Criminal Court, and Foreign Policy in Focus: Subverting the UN Charter in the Name of Human Rights By Edward S. Herman & David Peterson
It was just a matter of time before members of the collapsing left enlisted in the imperial attack on the most fundamental principles of the UN Charter, and added their voices to the growing chorus of support for Western power-projection under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). But this… Continue reading
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The Myth of Policing By Consent By Kevin Blowe
The belief that the police are now our servants and their independence from the state guarantees their impartiality and accountability is an enduring one. It is summed up in the most often quoted maxim of Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the Metropolitan Police, that ‘the police are the public and the public are the… Continue reading
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British Foreign Secretary: Clinton threatened to cut-off intell BY Glenn Greenwald
31 July, 2009 I‘ve written several times before about the amazing quest of Binyam Mohamed — a British resident released from Guantanamo in February, 2009 after seven years in captivity — to compel public disclosure of information in the possession of the British Government proving he was tortured while in U.S. custody. At the center of Mohamed’s… Continue reading
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Video: Liberty – Protecting Civil Liberties Promoting Human Rights: Where do they go?
Over the last few years the Government has mislaid a staggering amount of our personal information. In this clever short film, Liberty asks whether they can be trusted with even more data. Narrated by Liberty supporter Simon Callow and made voluntarily for Liberty by professional film-maker Will MacNeil, with post-production by Unit, the film underlines… Continue reading
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US Torture Under Scrutiny In British Courts By Andy Worthington
Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, reports on three important court cases in the UK this week, focusing on “extraordinary rendition” and torture in the “War on Terror.” These cases have implications not only for the complicity of the British government in the Bush administration’s flight from the law, but also for the Obama… Continue reading
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Iraq: Release Hassan Ahmad and grant him asylum in the UK
Hassan is an active member of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees. He is currently detained in Doncaster IRC and awaiting deportation also Hassan has been a member of the Worker Communist Party of Iraq since 1993. The Worker Communist Party of Iraq is a banned organisation in Iraq and Kurdistan. Its members both at… Continue reading
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“Be Bold” By Dahr Jamail
US Army Specialist Victor Agosto, who publicly refused to deploy with his unit to Afghanistan, was to receive the harshest court-martial possible for his decision – one that would land him in jail for up to one year, followed by a dishonorable discharge. However, within hours of the publication of a Truthout report about his… Continue reading
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Season of Travesties: Freedom and Democracy in mid-2009 By Noam Chomsky
The Hezbollah-based March 8 coalition won handily, by approximately the same figure as Obama vs. McCain in November 2008, about 54% of the popular vote, according Ministry of Interior figures. Hence by the Friedman-Abrams argument, we should be lamenting Ahmadinejad’s defeat of President Obama, and the “moral authority” won by Hezbollah, as “the majority of… Continue reading
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No Light Unto Neighbours (or, “Let My Dena Go!”) BY Zrubavel Plunderovitch
This is a true story about two Jews who fail to ‘love their neighbours’. “Dr Dena Coleman, the head teacher of a Jewish orthodox school, and her husband, Gordon, claim they are kept prisoner in their holiday flat on the Sabbath because when they leave it they trigger the light in the communal hallway.” Continue reading
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Police State Measures in the UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims By Murray Wardrop
Officers are targeting children as young as 10 with the aim of placing their DNA profiles on the national database to improve their chances of solving crimes, it is claimed. Continue reading
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More twists in the tale of Binyam Mohamed By Andy Worthington
Former Guantánamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed has been back in the UK for two months, but his lawyers’ year-long legal struggle to secure evidence from the British government – relating to its knowledge of his torture in Pakistan and Morocco between April 2002 and May 2004 – shows no sign of being resolved Continue reading
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Video: “Absolutist” to defend the law? Michael Ratner
23 May, 2009 It’s outrageous to equate people who demand the rule of law with those who break it Bio Michael Ratner is President of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York. He has taught at Yale Law School, lectured at Columbia Law School, and was President of the National Lawyers Guild. Continue reading
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Spying on Individuals and Organizations: Anglo-American Defense Giants Entrusted with “Mastering the Internet” by Tom Burghardt
Mastering the Internet as a repressive tool for corralling recalcitrant individuals such as antiwar campaigners, environmental activists, socialists and Muslims under Britain’s draconian 2006 Terrorism Act, thousands of digital nodes designed to “master the internet” would certainly fit the bill for spooks-gone-wild. Continue reading
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Dana Cloud, “The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built: The Cases of Margo Ramlal Nankoe, William Robinson, Nagesh Rao, and Loretta Capeheart”
Fewer people will know the names of four other targets of the Right’s attack: Margo Ramlal-Nankoe, William Robinson, Nagesh Rao, and Loretta Capeheart. All four face harassment, threats, or potential removal from their jobs at their universities because they have criticized Israel, defended multiculturalism, and stood up as organized employees in defense of their rights… Continue reading
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George Galloway writes to the Charity Commission
I have become increasingly concerned about the abuse of your powers displayed in your brazenly obvious political double standards. About your attempts, under the guise of regulating British charities, to police the democratic efforts of political activists in Britain in a way never envisaged by parliament. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 