The following proposal is vile:

THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.

The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws.

The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home, office or hotel room.

Material gathered in this way includes the content of all e-mails, web-browsing habits and instant messaging.

Under the Brussels edict, police across the EU have been given the green light to expand the implementation of a rarely used power involving warrantless intrusive surveillance of private property. The strategy will allow French, German and other EU forces to ask British officers to hack into someone’s UK computer and pass over any material gleaned.

That’s the equivalent of allowing a policeman into every living room to listen to every conversation, without a warrant. The vagueness of the legislation simply invites abuse. Police may indulge in this espionage if they “believe” it’s “proportionate”; that is, whenever they feel like it. There is no check on this power, and so no check on its abuse.

And the idea comes from the EU Council of Ministers - which means, if previous experience is anything to go by, it’ll be quite hard to shift. Are they really trying to put the entire internet off the entire institution?

…please leave the internet alone:

Film-style age ratings could be applied to websites to protect children from harmful and offensive material, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has said.

They won’t work. Cinema age-ratings work only because cinemas sit employees outside the entrance to check whether those going into a film look old enough. Video age-ratings work sometimes because shop-staff can refuse sale to those who look too young, and sometimes because parents can decide whether or not a child should watch it.

Neither of these can be said of the internet. To enforce website age-ratings, you would either need to sit a particularly patient policeman in front of every computer, ready to pull the plug at first sight of “naughtiness” or simply institute a blanket filter of certain material nation-wide; because, of course, the internet can’t judge the age of those using it.

The former of these options is simply undesirable. Who wants a state-employed busybody sitting in their living room - and who’d be willing to pay for one to sit in every living room? The latter, though, is just as bad. A blanket filter would affect not just children, but adults who have every right to decide what they should read.

So, Mr. Burnham, when you say:

“It’s not about banning or stopping people having that freedom of expression. It’s simply about clearer signposting, more information, so people know where they’re working.”

You are, of course, lying. Any possible attempt to enforce your ratings would require intervention into the lives and choices of every dweller or user of the internet. This is, in itself, an assault on the user’s freedom of expression; control over what you read or watch matters as much as control over what you say. The liberty to do both springs from the same idea that rational individuals have a right to their own minds, and this would clearly impact their ability to use those minds.

Moreover, to set yourself up as the supervisor of the internet further sets you up as moral supervisor to the entire nation. You decide what’s suitable for whom, and at what age individuals are to be judged mature; the clear implication being that they can’t decide this for themselves, and need protection in the meantime. An assault on their independence, at the very least.

Burnham, you’re not my mother. I already have one of those. She’s considerably less controlling than you have apparent aspirations to be, and I love her a great deal more for it. Perhaps you ought to learn from this…

(Hat-tip, as I just hadn’t read the news very well today: Jennie)

The plot for ID Cards trudges on:

The first identity cards from the government’s controversial national scheme have been unveiled.

The biometric card will be issued from November, initially to non-EU students and marriage visa holders.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the cards would allow people to “easily and securely prove their identity”.

So? Smith claims that these cards will make it easier for those here legally to prove that fact yet, if they’re here legally, they shouldn’t have to do so. It requires a lot of work and patience to enter this country legally from outside the EU. They have to prove their identity to do so - and once they have done, shouldn’t have to again. It’s incumbent on the government to enforce its laws without assaulting innocent individual’s liberty, and yet it clearly does so here.

But, there’s more:

“We all want to see our borders more secure, and human trafficking, organised immigration crime, illegal working and benefit fraud tackled. ID cards for foreign nationals, in locking people to one identity, will deliver in all these areas,” she added.

Don’t papers alreeady exist to help there? If the government feels they aren’t detailed enough, perhaps it should simply look into fixing that. It should be enough to add a fingerprint to immigration papers. They cannot be copied, and the need for a centralised database of details is negated by the useful fact that individuals carry their fingers with them and so can produce a fingerprint on demand.

And that possibility rather negates the argument that this is to the benefit of immigrants rather than the government. They don’t need to issue ID Cards, but will do so anyway. Presumably, they have a reason to do so, then; perhaps to accustom the population to the idea that they must justify their legal business at any time by forcing a group which can hardly protest to do so.

It fits with the next segment targetted; students and the young. People this age are, of course, used to proving their identity on a regular basis, softened by years of showing ID to buy alcohol or cigarettes. Like immigrants, the group has no strong political voice, and doesn’t vote in large numbers. So it’s another social division the government can foist ID Cards on with little trouble. The wider population becomes gradually used to the idea that they must carry ID Cards; so when they’re rolled out on a voluntary basis, more take them. And that suits this government.

Smith and the Home Office know there’s little active desire or support for a mass system of ID Cards. They can create that desire - or rather, weaken inbuilt suspicion - by fixing the idea that we should have to prove ourselves to the government. They can do that with less of a fuss by forcing vulnerable groups such as immigrants to do so first. And thus the idea becomes seen as normal; which it most definitely is not.

I rarely find myself outright trembling with rage and fear. This, though, managed it:

Could they have found a more unreconstructed example of steaming, greasy excrement? The idiocy on display is commonplace Republicanism; peace through violence, defence through bombing cities full of children to dust, the usual. But the boldness of the hypocrisy took my breath away. Just listen to the smug shitmouth:

Interviewer: Are you worried about the escalating costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I mean, how would we pay for it?

Delegate: We should plant a flag, take the oil, take the money, we deserve reimbursement.

Reimbursement? Reimbursement for what, precisely? You invade a country citing your own country’s defence from weapons you claim an undemocratic dictator foisted on that people; you also claim you’ll shunt off that dictator. You mercilessly bungle that war, to the tune of some 85,000 civilian deaths and leave it with streets dominated by theocratic militias. In short, you do the job for yourself and you do it badly. You have no right to reimbursement.

And the flow of filth goes on unabated. Schwartz feels that it makes perfect sense to actively bomb Iran - that is, take a step past threatening to bomb - on the grounds that Iran might threaten Israel. Note that he doesn’t even try to frame his viciousness as a defence of the bombed, this time; there’s no mention of brutal theocracy as there is by anti-war projects such as HOPOI. He simply sees people he’s never met and likely doesn’t understand, who happen to have been born on the wrong side of the border, and decees they must be flattened. It’s naked, undisguised jingoism.

Politicians are often more restrained by their partisan supporters than by the electorate themselves. Those supporters put the politicians where they were. In McCain’s case, they nominated him. If not for their support, they wouldn’t even be before the electorate. They have to listen to them, day after day, month after month - a practise they only have to repeat for the voters every four years. So, when McCain’s supporters demand the outright obliteration of the Middle East, we know how little restraint he might face should he win the election; none. Isn’t that terrifying?

(Hat-tip: Mr. Eugenides.)

(Or, Palin; A quasi-liveblog)

Oh, but this woman terrifies me:

Sarah Palin gave her first TV interview yesterday. And listen to the language: within the first two minutes, she and McCain are, “on a mission.” That just before a mention of the war. A mission. Where have we heard that before? Missions come from higher powers, and they exist in precious few numbers for the most powerful executive duo on the planet. The electorate would be one, but they’ve not yet granted anyone their support.

Which rather leaves one candidate for Palin’s big boss. I’ll let you guess.

Much of the interview waffles on. Who honestly cares whether Palin thought for an hour or a night before accepting the nomination? But what content there was interested me. She came off spectacularly poorly on foreign policy; faced with a question on whether governing a state close to Russia really qualified as foreign policy experience, Palin just ducked the question and tried to carry on her previous point. She didn’t even try to answer. Surely that just won’t do in a candidacy which tries to attack Obama on the very same point?

The specifics, meanwhile, simply frighten. She pledges to work with foreign nations, for the benefit of all; and next she feels war with Russia might, “perhaps,” be necessary if the Russians prove uncooperative. That’s little more than a desire to control international affairs wrapped in the clothing of diplomatic language. So, on Georgia, business would be as usual - if not worse. On Iraq; the same again. They play that, “Task from God,” clip, and she essentially agrees with herself in less vitriolic terms. She feels nations have a right to, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happinness” - and yet supports Georgia’s right to re-annexe South Ossetia. The Bush Doctrine? Sounds good to her; it just needs better execution. All that went wrong can be put down to, “blunders,” rather than any inherent weakness in the theory.

That sounds rather like the past eight years, doesn’t it? And it rather undermines the other current running through Palin’s script; that she and McCain are candidates of change. What becomes increasingly clear is that Obama won the war of words early on in the campaign. Palin presents herself as a woman who hopes to, “reform,” the, “system,” and bring government, “back on the side of the people.” Someone rather like Obama, in fact. How well that’ll go down given Palin’s repeated overtures to social conservatives and the overt similarities between McCain and Bush’s foreign policies remains to be seen. But it does show the way for Obama; he must present voters a clear choice between himself and McCain, on substantive policy issues. Only by that contrast will the McSame meme take hold, and the cooption of change as a message be stopped.

The pipeline clip, where Palin shows the interviewer an energy project initiated under her, is perhaps the most intelligent element of the interview - on her part. What do you do if you’re accused of inexperience? Show everyone what you’ve done. It isn’t stated, but the very fact that Palin invited the camera crew to Fairbanks indicates that she wants people to know that she is capable of managing major projects. Every second they spend walking around that pipe - and that’s a good three minutes or so - acts, for her, as a rebuke to critics. Never mind that she effectively makes a complete U-turn in that segment, and advocates tearing up a nature reserve for more oil. People remember what they see as much as what they hear - and what they see (Palin hopes) is evidence of competence.

The undertones, meanwhile, seem vaguely conventional. She’s proud of her son for his, “strong, independent,” decision to go to Iraq; a dogwhistle to Republicans, that she has a family and believes in Iraq. God features more than a little; however much she denies that she thinks she knows the word of God, the repeated mention of a, “task,” or a, “mission,” clearly implies she feels some higher being wants a Republican presidency. All that mention of the constitution and Lincoln, meanwhile, her desire to bring the right of, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” to the world serves a similar purpose. It attempts to provide a noble narrative for McCain’s campaign; that of the Founding Fathers, and their ideals.

Does the interview tell us anything about McCain/Palin? Certainly. McCain appears to have had a long term purpose in his selection of Palin; as a direct answer to Obama. Throughout the interview, Palin attempted to coopt Obama’s message of change, without any deviation from Republican party line. She talked a lot about the need for new tactics; but at the same time, she resolutely clung to the Bush Doctrine and dropped conservative buzzwords like the bombs she’d see piling on Tehran. So, the intent looks to be dress McCain’s message of complete policy inertia in the fluffy mask of change which Obama made so popular. And Palin is the young, photogenic face which McCain hopes that message will become convincing.

Perhaps that wolf in sheeps’ clothing pitbull in lipstick metaphor was more approriate than Palin realised.

My immediate reaction to this monstrosity of televisual farce was:

1. What the fuck this?
2. What the fuck is this?
3. What the fuck is this?

I can honestly say that nothing has horrified me so much since our new mayor was declared. I’m aware that if you have cute children you have political capital and Barack Obama has certainly not been entirely averse to spending it, but after tonight Palin must surely be forced to declare herself a bankrupt. Perhaps a good deal of the blame lies on the head of the choreographers and cameramen who decided it apt to have a Downs afflicted infant passed around, from father to seven year old and onwards.

To accompany this nauseatingly exploitative spectacle (her daughter obviously had no idea what to do with the camera shoved in her face, and contented herself with coating her younger brother’s head with saliva and sticking her finger in her eye, which would be fine under most conditions but in this context presented something of an incongruous non sequiter) was Palin introducing them all in a fashion which felt as if it lasted for a week, followed by a barrage of hackneyed nonsense, shards of barbed wit and every weary, faded buzz-word that her script-writer (a former author of George W. Bush’s words, and it showed) which had the whole room enraptured.

Yes, there was a whole room full of people lapping the stuff up like hungry rats. The sight of a room full of Republicans has quite honestly disturbed me, with it hardly surprising me that the spectacle aided Barack raising $8 million (however much that is worth, now) in a single day. I knew that people like that existed, but there there was something about the sight of so many wrong-minded people crammed into a room together braying and clapping and shouting “Drill, Drill!” oh so eagerly that made me recoil and want to wretch.

If you want a more measured view then see here and here. Mudflats, of course, has some excellent words to say. A tad less rational but as fun in a different fashion.

Enough of this. Words can not outline the atrocity. See for yourselves and scar your own eyes so I can cease being forced to re-live the trauma:

The BNP is using its internal youth movement to develop an armed wing.

By the time they’ve finished we’ll be begging for David Cameron to be in power.

Italy isn’t a pleasant place at present; Berlusconi recently put 3000 troops on the streets of Rome. This, he claims, is part of an attempt to crush an alleged wave of crime by Roma gypsies.

But who really believes that from a government that placed gypsies on an ethnic register? The move smacks of a barely closeted racism; it assumes a moral panic sparked by the single murder in November is fully justified, and that gypsies are solely to blame for all Italian crime. Pandering, in short, to prejudice.

And that prejudice certainly exists:

On the streets of northern Rome such reservations are hard to find. “All our problems come from foreigners getting drunk, smashing windows and stealing,” said Anna Maria Mercure, who at 80 is old enough to remember an earlier era of Italian discipline. “Mussolini had his positive side. The streets were safe in his day.”

Fascism is fine so long as they don’t arrest me, she means. I direct readers to a rather famous poem, the sentiment of which is entirely sound.

Others want their xenophobic authoritarianism laid out in simple steps, though:

“I would kill them all,” said Virginia Cristell, a mother in her 40s. “Send them to the country – or send them somewhere. They are dirty and there are lots of problems with burglary and thieving. They make toxic smoke.”

Deport them, and then exterminate them - sound familiar to anyone?

The gypsies certainly feel victimised:

That, however, is not the view of Goffredo Bezzecchi, 69, an Italian gipsy who came close to death after Italian Fascists tried to send his family to the death camps. They escaped before they could be deported. Mr Bezzecchi, who was fingerprinted at his home near Milan last month, feels history is at risk of repeating itself. “These things were done in the Fascist days when gipsies were killed or sent to concentration camps,” he said. “The politicians should remember that we are human, not garbage.”

To summarise; ethnic profiling, ethnically targetted policing enacted by the army, and plans to move people around the country on the grounds they belong to an ethnic group. Berlusconi’s government has, in effect, denied that the Roma can be defined by anything but their ethnicity, and so their individual humanity. Very 1930s.

A strange situation at Pickled Politics tonight; take a look at the comments thread here. The poster raised the well documented absurdity of the policing at the Kingsnorth Climate Camp. And found himself leapt upon by commenters as a hysterical leftie thoroughly disconnected from reality.

The following comment is typical:

The state are not imposing anything on anyone here. Just because you are forcibly removed from an area does not make you any more right, nor does it automatically entitle you to call yourself a victim. Why don’t these people, go home, get ‘actually’ politically active and try to come up with solutions instead of trying to manufacture publicity through stunts?

Pardon? The state very much has imposed itself here. Citizens have a democratic right to protest; one supposedly guaranteed in law by the Human Rights Act. They may gather on any piece of public land to voice their concerns over any matter. The state should exist to protect those very freedoms. If the state - or its agents, the police - attempts to restrict them, it commits an assault on liberty and fails in its role.

The protestors at Climate Camp were clearly peaceful. They came there to hold workshops on environmental life and climate change, not viciously beat up policemen. Some didn’t attempt to hide their intention of shutting down the power-station, no; but that, at most justified a police cordon around the power station to protect what’s legally private property. (That it spews out noxious gas and thus directly affects those around it, very much bringing the matter into the public interest, remains to be addressed…). The protestors within the Climate Camp should have been free from harrassment.

So when the police spend an estimated £3 million to bus in officers from far-flung corners of the country to set-up a cordon around the camp before routinely entering it, ransacking private possessions and cart-off protestors on any pretext, they do impose themselves. The protestors have a right to make themselves heard, and when a force supposed to protect that right mercilessly shits on it, they are victims.

More bizarre were comments along these lines:

I showed an American friend this video, she laughed, she said they were so brutal, her shoe nearly fell off!

Come on. There actions are probably over the top. But brutal? Have you heard the quip about heaven, where the Police are British, the chefs are French etc?

In France, the CRS would have literally beat the shit out of them. In fact, I cannot think of another country where the all police wouldn’t have drawn their batons straight away.

Wait - so because our instances of authoritarian policing are less brutal than those abroad, they become okay? Police brutality against peaceful protestors remains police brutality; just because the French riot police are downright sadistic doesn’t stop an assault on democratic freedoms across the channel from being just that.

It isn’t hysteria to rage at length over this. Protest is an essential tool to remind the powerful you exist; the state, which exists to protect and extend the freedom of all citizens, cannot be allowed to choose when or how it’s acceptable to exercise that freedom. Unless the exercise of liberty infringes on that of another, it’s not its job, and shouldn’t be - unless we enjoy repression.

Brown is clearly at severe risk and when even some of the unions are baying for blood (or at least a Major style “Put up or shut up” confrontation). This is hardly surprising, but what has taken me aback is the pathos extracted from his weary, bloated face.

It is essential that we remind ourselves that this is the man who demanded the state be able to imprison the innocent for six weeks, who allied himself and bribed far-right foul bigots to ensure that the act was past, who demanded cannabis be declassified despite this directly disregarding the conclusions of a panel of experts reporting on the issue, who taxed the poor to give minuscule breaks to the moderately affluent, who now plans benefits reforms reminiscent of prison workforces and who has performed a plethora of other idiotic moves in his short reign.

Brown’s beleaguered state is richly deserved. His “Phantom Election” is much touted as his grandest folly but had the economy which he had been charged with for over a decade as Chancellor been kept in a better state the likelihood of the crash being as severe as the one we have actually experienced is small. Without the economic downturn Brown would be in a far better, perhaps even unassailable, position. Without his constant stream of policy that irks his natural base he would have held far stronger against the Tories than he has.

Brown has served as his own gravedigger.

But as for the alternatives? Cameron speaks sense in places but is about as worthy of trust with power as a ferret with a rabbit den. So far as can be determined none save the Blairites (Clarke & Co) are willing to step into the actual position of Prime Minister (and given the conditions surrounding that chalice can they be blamed?) At least one other writer for this blog agrees with me over backing Miliband to the hilt, but he has proven (understandably) wary of the prospect. It would take a politician of nothing short of Messianic proportions to redeem the Labour Party now.

But there can be only so much waiting: at the present rate of erosion it seems likely that there will be precious little Labour Party left to inherit for whoever takes over after Brown. If it were to be done then it would be better that it were done quickly. Each day which the present order remains in place appears to be another step by the Labour Party towards oblivion.