16 October 2013 — Global Research
In the dark ages known as the twentieth century, mass surveillance of entire populations was a sport practised only by elitist totalitarian states . Those unlucky enough to live in what was then termed a “free country”, had to sit on the sidelines and simply imagine what it was like to be subject to constant state intrusion.
2 October 2013 — Manifesto Club
Public Spaces Protection Orders as contained in the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill would provide local authorities with unprecedentedly wide-ranging powers over public spaces.
23 September 2013 — http://www.statewatch.org/ • e-mail: office@statewatch.org
New Statewatch Journal: Informants, spies and subversion
http://www.statewatch.org/contents/swjournal23n2.html
7 August 2013 — WSWS
Complying with the dictates of the Conservative-Liberal-Democrat coalition government, the UK’s biggest Internet Service Providers (ISPs), covering 95 percent of all households, have agreed to initiate a “family-friendly” filtering system for the Internet. Smaller ISPs are expected to follow suit. The government will consider legislation if the self-regulatory agreement does not work.
25 July 2013 — http://www.statewatch.org/ – e-mail: office@statewatch.org
1. UK: The IPCC has today published their annual statistics on deaths during or following police contact
2. UK: Independent Police Complaints Commission report (IPPC): Metropolitan Police Service handling of complaints alleging race discrimination
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25 July 2013 — http://www.statewatch.org/ – e-mail: office@statewatch.org
1. EP Inquiry: Letter from Martin Schulz, MEP, President of the European Parliament to the Council Presidency
2. GERMANY-USA: DATA SURVEILLANCE: ‘Key Partners’: The Secret Link Between Germany and the NSA
3. Extract from the Minutes of the 4 July 2013 meeting of COREPER II: EU-US High Level expert group on security and data protection
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25 July 2013 — http://www.statewatch.org/ – e-mail: office@statewatch.org
1. USE OF DRONES: A new poll has found that the US policy of drone strikes remains unpopular around the world
2. EU: FREEZING AND CONFISCATION OF ASSETS
3. EU: ACCESS TO EU DOCUMENTS: Council’s public register of documents hits 2 million mark
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16 July 2013 — Democracy Now!
The judge in the Bradley Manning case says she will decide Thursday on his lawyers’ request to dismiss seven of the charges he faces, including allegations that he aided the enemy when he provided hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. Continue reading
9 July 2013 — Washington’s Blog
A Real Court Needs to Hear Both Sides
We’ve noted that there is no real oversight by the courts or Congress on the NSA’s spying programs.
26 June 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
The spy spooky stories hit the radar screens again. Edward Snowden, a former technical assistant for the CIA, who has also worked at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, is on the way to the relative safety abroad, probably South America. Continue reading
14 June 2013 — In These Times
Whether in celebrity culture or in our Facebook-mediated interactions, we live in the age of the human being as a public brand. So there’s nothing surprising about the reaction to this week’s disclosures about the National Security Agency’s unprecedented surveillance program. In our cult-of-personality society, that reaction has been predictably—and unfortunately—focused less on the agency’s possible crimes against the entire country than on Edward Snowden, the government contractor who disclosed the wrongdoing.
14 June 2013 — In These Times
Whether in celebrity culture or in our Facebook-mediated interactions, we live in the age of the human being as a public brand. So there’s nothing surprising about the reaction to this week’s disclosures about the National Security Agency’s unprecedented surveillance program. In our cult-of-personality society, that reaction has been predictably—and unfortunately—focused less on the agency’s possible crimes against the entire country than on Edward Snowden, the government contractor who disclosed the wrongdoing.
10 June 2013 — Global Research
The title of this piece comes from a statement by the NSA director on spying right before the recent stories on mass surveillance broke.
19 May 2013 — Truthdig
Joe Sacco and I spent two years reporting from the poorest pockets of the United States for our book “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.” We went into our nation’s impoverished “sacrifice zones”—the first areas forced to kneel before the dictates of the marketplace—to show what happens when unfettered corporate capitalism and ceaseless economic expansion no longer have external impediments. We wanted to illustrate what unrestrained corporate exploitation does to families, communities and the natural world. Continue reading
7 May 2013 — Statewatch
The new issue of the Statewatch Journal (volume 23 no 1) is now available to download: http://www.statewatch.org/contents/swjournal23n1.html
The Journal has been redesigned and each issue will now have a thematic focus. This issue focuses on the nexus between austerity, civil liberties and democracy.
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013 — Home page: http://www.statewatch.org/ e-mail: office@statewatch.org
1. EU Council of the European Union: Informal Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council in Dublin on 17-18 January 2013
2. EU: European Investigation Order
3. EU: Commission makes €50 million available for the development of “big brother” PNR databases – before legislation has even been agreed
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1 January 2013 — NO2ID
January 2012
· The year started with a handful of census refuseniks getting fined for not handing over their personal details to the Office of National Statistics. The 2011 census was bigger than ever, and particularly controversial both because of the involvement of BAE systems, and a change in the law that destroys the confidentiality of census information.
14 November, 2012 — Global Research
The focus of critiques of authoritarianism today lies increasingly in the use by liberal governments of ‘exceptional’ powers. These are powers in which an imminent threat to national security is judged to be of such importance as to warrant the restriction of liberties and other socially repressive measures in order to protect national security. ‘Terrorism’ has offered a particularly salient source of justification for a level of social repression that would be intolerable in normal times. A dominant line of criticism is that the use of exceptional powers to this end has gone too far. Critics emphasise the need to curtail such power by bringing it into line with basic human rights standards.[1]
012 — http://www.statewatch.org/ e-mail: office@statewatch.org
1. European Court of Human Rights to examine complaint against ban on anonymous prepaid mobile phone cards
2. GREECE: Racist Violence Recording Network: Fatal attack on Iraqi in Athens
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www.statewatch.org/frontex
e-mail: office@statewatch.org
Established in 2006 by Regulation 2004/2007, Frontex is the European Agency for the Management of the External Borders of the European Union. It coordinates and organises with Member States high-tech border control operations at sea, land and air external borders of the EU, and carries out joint return flights of irregular migrants. Its mandate was revised in 2011. Since its inception, Frontex has been criticised for its lack of transparency and accountability.
The New Dark Age 