It is becoming par for the course that the Police in this country cannot be believed. Ever. They are even willing to lie to Parliament.

Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards.

Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon…

“When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, ‘There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,’” Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.

Broadhurst told the subsequent home affairs select committee that “no plain clothes officers [were] deployed at all” during the demonstrations in the City of London. This didn’t tally with video shot at the protests, including footage of two plain clothes officers wielding batons and walking among a line of riot police (also pictured above). Broadhurst lied to the select committee and said:  “The officers we deploy for intelligence purposes at public order are forward intelligence team officers who [wear] full police uniforms with a yellow jacket with blue shoulders. There were not plain clothes officers deployed by me or anybody on the operation.”

But, as with the murder of Ian Tomlinson, the video didn’t lie. He has now had to fess up and has said that there were at least 25 undercover officers deployed during the protests. His excuse for lying?

The deployment of undercover officers was “unknown to him”. The Gold Commander. The top dog. The pinnacle turd of the shitpile that terrorised London during G20. The same man who gave stark warnings of violence before the protests, which many now feel was used purely to stoke up confrontation.

It’s worth remembering why Ronald Kidd founded Liberty in the first place.

No police state? Pull the other one.

It is becoming par for the course that the Police in this country cannot be believed. They are even willing to lie to Parliament.

Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards.

Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon…

“When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, ‘There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,’” Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.

Broadhurst told the subsequent home affairs select committee that “no plain clothes officers [were] deployed at all” during the demonstrations in the City of London. This didn’t tally with video shot at the protests, including footage of two plain clothes officers wielding batons and walking among a line of riot police (also pictured above). Broadhurst lied to the select committee and said:  “The officers we deploy for intelligence purposes at public order are forward intelligence team officers who [wear] full police uniforms with a yellow jacket with blue shoulders. There were not plain clothes officers deployed by me or anybody on the operation.”

But, as with the murder of Ian Tomlinson, the video didn’t lie. He has now had to fess up and has said that there were at least 25 undercover officers deployed during the protests. His excuse for lying?

The deployment of undercover officers was “unknown to him”. The Gold Commander. The top dog. The pinnacle turd of the shitpile that terrorised London during G20. The same man who gave stark warnings of violence before the protests, which many now feel was used purely to stoke up confrontation.

It’s worth remembering why Ronald Kidd founded Liberty in the first place.

No police state? Pull the other one.

Buongiorno!
Non sono sparita….è che semplicemente ci sono state tante cose da gestire a lavoro e a casa!
Ma altro problema fondamentale … mancanza di “ispirazione”.
E’ tempo di crisi ed io mi sono evidentemente uniformata a questo momento di stasi così snervante. Non so se nel vostro ambiente lavorativo si sta verificando ma nel mio vi assicuro che il livello di stagniazione e di sc…mento è salito di molto e non si lavoro più bene come negli anni precedenti.
Ma basta parlare di lavoro e momenti non belli … finchè regge tutto, è bello trovare il modo di riprendersi .
Ho in mente delle idee che spero di sviluppare in questi giorni … ma tengo il segreto e caso mai vi farò una piccola sorpresa.
Baci e buona giornata!

When tasers were first distributed to the Police in the UK, the Home Secretary told us it was a necessary weapon to protect the police and the public in the face of a growing threat of armed violence. The argument was that it was better to use a taser than to have to use a firearm to take down the perps. We were led to understand that the police would be able to deploy armed response teams equipped with M26 and X26 tasers and firearms, that only firearms-trained officers would use the non-lethal alternative of stun guns, and only in situations where use of deadly force had already been authorised. (Interestingly, the Home Office doesn’t refer to tasers as non-lethal in their internal documents – it calls them less lethal. The non-lethal description is only used when they are talking to us proles.) But we were being shafted.

A potted history: The M26 tasers were trialled in the UK in between April 2003-April 2004. They were only carried by Authorised Firearms Officers (AFOs) “as a less lethal option alongside conventional firearms at incidents” where firearms authority had already been granted. At the end of the trial, Blunkett authorised deployment of the M26 Taser for all police forces for operations involving the deployment of AFOs with the authority to use deadly force.

So far so good, eh? In a situation where a suspect is waving a gun around, the police now had the option to take him or her down with a 50,000 Volt shock instead of, for argument’s sake, seven dumdum bullets to the head.

And then along came a public limited company, the most sinister, Stalinist plc operating in the UK today: the Association of Chief Police Officers.  As Henry Porter explains, “Few understand that ACPO is a private company, which happens to be funded by a Home Office grant and money from 44 police authorities. But despite its important role in drafting and implementing policies that affect the fundamental freedoms of this country, ACPO is protected from freedom of information requests and its proceedings remain largely hidden from public view. In reality ACPO is no more troubled by public scrutiny than the freemasons. [The ACPO] acts with increasing autonomy in drafting these authoritarian new policies. If you wonder how it came to be that police officers are being equipped with 10,000 stun guns, despite the reports of hundreds of deaths in the United States, or how the automatic number plate recognition camera network was set up to record and store data from most road journeys, look no further than ACPO.”

Give ‘em an inch and the fuckers demand a mile: ACPO now concluded that tasers would be appropriate for other “conflict management situations” where the criteria to authorise the issue of firearms were not met, and asked the Home Office to rubber stamp that into legislation. Jackboot Jacqui took the reins of the Stasi on 28 June 2007. On  20th July 2007, she duly obliged with a one year trial by ten police forces of the use of M26 and X26 Tasers at incidents where firearms authority had not been granted. The trial, which commenced on 1st September 2007, also authorised the use of tasers against children. By the time that the trial ended, on 31st August 2008, a total of 1313 people had been tasered in situations where firearms use was not authorised, and 617 people in situations where deadly force had been authorised. Twenty-four children were tasered, 13 by probes only, 7 by drive stun only, and 4 subjected to both.

At the start of the trial Amnesty International’s Arms Programme Director Oliver Sprague warned: “The UK police force has always prided itself on policing by consent and not by force. This move to arm more police officers with Tasers is moving the UK force further and further away from this culture.” This is the nub of the matter: tasers are not being used by the Police to incapacitate dangerous, violent criminals: they are being used to force suspects to obey police commands. They represent the final shift from an admirable tradition of policing by consent to the new regime of policing by compliance. And to rub salt in the wound, it appears that tasers, far from reducing violent confrontation, instead lower the threshold at which the police resort to violence, with independent studies concluding that tasers are mostly used in situations where the  use of batons, CS spray, or physical locks/restraints/controls would never be justified. Police often subject targets to multiple taser shocks, even while in restraints and often use them against people posing no physical threat, such as against non-violent protesters or simply anyone they perceive to not be heeding a verbal command.

On 24 November 2008, Jackboots announced that a further 10,000 tasers had been purchased, and their use extended to all Police officers in England and Wales. The same old bullshit smokescreen was trotted out as justification – “I am proud that we have one of the few police services around the world that do not regularly carry firearms and I want to keep it that way” – despite the fact that they were no longer being used as an alternative to deadly force, but as a weapon of pain compliance. This is in violation of their own guidelines, which state that tasers can only be used where officers would be facing violence or threats of violence of such severity that they would need to use force.

Let’s say that again: Tasers can only be used where officers would be facing violence or threats of violence of such severity that they would need to use force. You don’t need to be Sherlock Fucking Holmes to see how the Police above totally disregarded their own rules for use of the taser.  At the end of the video clip you’ll hear one righteously indignant witness telling the Stasi that he thinks they’re “wankers”. And the response? “You’re nicked.” Arrogant bastards. How about the case of 45 year-old Daniel Sylvester, who was driving home one night when he was stopped by police because of “firearms related intelligence”. He got out of his car and was surrounded by officers, at least two of whom were carrying automatic weapons. Without warning, one officer fired a Taser into the back of his head which made him drop to his knees. A second shock caused him to fall on his face, breaking his teeth. A further six shocks made him wet himself and left him lying in the road in pain while the officers and sniffer dogs searched the car and found nothing. The police then saw he was not the person they were looking for, said he was free to go, and drove off. Eight shocks, incidentally, but the police later revealed how they massage the figures when they stated: “Our information is the Taser was deployed once.”

How about Nicholas Gaubert, who was travelling to see friends in Leeds when he suffered a hypoglycaemic fit that left him slumped on his seat on a bus. Armed police were called and when he failed to respond to their challenges he was shot with a taser. He finally came round in a police van and only then officers realised it was medical emergency, despite him wearing a neck tag to warn of his diabetic condition. He was taken to hospital but even then the police refused to remove his handcuffs while he was being treated. He was told the police believed he looked “Egyptian”.

Write to your MP. Demand that the use of Tasers be restricted to deployment by AFO’s and only in those situations where firearms have been authorised.

Next time you scoff when somebody says we’re living in a police state, ask yourself how else you could describe a country where the police use electroshock torture to force you to comply…

Other sources:

1. DSTL/BSC/27/01/07 dated 30 May 2007 DSAC Subcommittee on the Medical Implications of Less-lethal Weapons.

2. DSTL/BSC/27/01/07 dated 7th November 2008 DSAC Sub-committee on the Medical Implications of Less-lethal Weapons.

3. CFP\7\100516253011- PT TASER report 22mth 12/11/9 (7901) Home Office Scientific Development Branch

A Berlino ho visitato la città della paranoia e delle ossessioni.

Ho visto come a Ovest e a Est c’erano persone che si ingegnavano per far fuggire il maggior numero di persone dal settore orientale a quello occidentale della città: ho visto i tunnel scavati sotto le cantine delle case di Bernauer Straβe, i passaporti di studenti dell’ovest usati per far fuggire berlinesi dell’est in base alla somiglianza della fototessera, le mongolfiere cucite a mano, gli aerei ultraleggeri, le macchine sportive, le fughe nelle stazioni fantasma della metropolitana, le fogne…

Ho visto come si rispondeva: rinforzando il Muro, allargando la Striscia della Morte, incaricando finti fuggitivi di “sgamare” i tentativi di fuga organizzati, staccando la corrente ai treni della metropolitana quando erano sospettati di fare ritardo per raccogliere qualche fuggitivo, mettendo il filo spinato nei canali della fognatura… in un gigantesco gioco del gatto col topo.

Ho visto a che livelli era la paranoia che guidava la STASI: un continuo spiare, fotografare, registrare suoni e odori alla ricerca di qualunque cosa che non fosse in linea con le direttive del Partito, dalle aule scolastiche alla più insignificante festa di compleanno; la ricerca di un qualunque punto debole per cui una persona potesse essere ricattata e costretta a sua volta a diventare inoffizzielle Mitarbeiter, a spiare i suoi amici, i suoi parenti, facendo cadere totalmente nella paranoia tutti i cittadini della DDR.

Una macchina fotografica nascosta in un finto tronco

Ho visto a Hohenschönhausen, la prigione politica della STASI,  un ex-prigioniero che faceva da guida: raccontava di essere stato arrestato nel 1983 in piena Alexanderplatz solo perché qualche giorno prima si era rifiutato di gridare “VIVA LA DDR” in classe, perché una sua compagna era sparita e non se ne sapeva nulla… Questo ex-prigioniero ci ha mostrato le celle in cui le persone venivano tenute nell’acqua gelida fino alle caviglia, le celle di isolamento con pareti di gomme e totalmente buie in cui veniva rinchiuso chi “impazziva”, le sale degli interrogatori dove ti facevano firmare dichiarazioni di colpevolezza pre-compilate e dove “registravano” il tuo odore in barattoli di vetro,  il camioncino camuffato senza finestre con cui venivi trasportato…

Al centro, la nostra guida a Hohenschönhausen

La caduta del Muro di Berlino non è stata tanto una festa della Libertà, ma una festa della Liberazione-da-tutte-queste-ossessioni-e -paranoie.
Ossessioni e paranoie che però non sono sparite dalla mente di chi ha subito queste ingiustizie, die Mauer im Kopf; il muro è nella testa.

La Domino Aktion

Ho visto, ho visto, ho visto… non ho visto cose che voi umani non potete immaginare. Ho visto cose che sono successe e si ripetono oggi in altre parti del mondo: tra Stati Uniti e Messico, tra Israele e Palestina, tra le Coree, nel “Mur” Mediterraneo.

Ho girato per Berlino in lurgo e in largo, in questa città in cui la Storia è passata lungo i fiumi, ha diviso i ponti, le strade, i quartieri, le fognature, i binari del treno, gli amori e le amicizie.

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Not exactly new info, just an update. Paul Clarke is next due in court, apparently for sentencing, at Reading, on 18th December. CF also reports that UKIP have taken an interest in the case. The MSM and the “Gang of Three” political parties remain completely silent on the issue. Strange, I thought this would have been right up the LibDem street lately.

The Register has a 4-page exclusive detailing the arrest, prosecution and imprisonment of the first Briton jailed under the draconian powers that Ministers said were “vital to battle terrorism and serious crime”. Who was this mass-murdering terrorist scumbag? Sorry to disappoint, but actually he is a 33 year old “schizophrenic science hobbyist with no previous criminal record.”

He was originally detained under the Terrorism Act on 15 September 2008 by officers from the Metropolitan Police’s SO15 counter-terrorism unit, and held at the top security Paddington Green police station. Throughout he maintained his right to silence. Sniffer dogs had first become spooked by the presence of components for an Estes rocket kit and a full forensic examination found nine nanograms (the mass of a typical human cell is 1 nanogram) of the high explosive RDX (see Update below) on his left hand. To cut a long story short, it was soon realised that this was  a very eccentric, amateur scientist, that there were no suspicious motives and that he was not a threat to national security.

What SO15 was really interested in were the encrypted contents of several hard drives and USB thumb drives belonging to the man.

Police… warned him they would seek a section 49 notice under RIPA Part III, which gives a suspect a time limit to supply encryption keys or make target data intelligible. Failure to comply is an offence under section 53 of the same Part of the Act and carries a sentence of up to two years imprisonment, and up to five years imprisonment in an investigation concerning national security.

Following the warning he was bailed again, to reappear on 4 February.

[The suspect] did not attend the bail date. Instead he moved to Southampton, living in a series of temporary homes. He says he felt harassed by authority and helpless against police he believed were determined to pin a crime on him.

His disappearance led to a raid on 7 March this year. Officers bearing sub-machine guns broke down the door of [his] flat. He rang local police before realising [SO15] had come for him. At the local Fareham police station he was served with the section 49 notice. Signed by [SO15]’s Superintendent Bell, it said: “I hereby require you to disclose a key or any supporting evidence to make the information intelligible.”

The drives were examined by the National Technical Assistance Centre (NTAC), part of GCHQ, who were unsuccessful in their attempts to crack the encrypted files. One file encrypted using Steganos software was cracked, but investigators found only another PGP container.

[He] maintained his silence throughout the one hour time limit imposed by the notice. He was charged with ten offences under section 53 of RIPA Part III, reflecting the multiple passphrases needed to decrypt his various implementations of PGP Whole Disk Encryption and PGP containers

And yes, they really do now presume guilt unless you can prove your innocence.

In his final police interview, [SO15] officers suggested [his] refusal to decrypt the files or give them his keys would lead to suspicion he was a terrorist or paedophile.

“There could be child pornography, there could be bomb-making recipes,” said one detective.

“Unless you tell us we’re never gonna know… What is anybody gonna think?”

[The suspect] says he maintained his silence because of “the principle – as simple as that“.

He was remanded in custody for three months until his trial on 2 June 2009, where he pleaded guilty to all charges, and was sentenced to 13 months imprisonment.

Before finishing what would have been a six-and-a-half-month prison term during September, [he] was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. He now does not know when he will be released from hospital.

Even before his trial, it was known that he was not a threat to national security and not involved in either the planning or execution of terrorism. The judge who heard the case admitted:

“You… wished to involve yourself in a world which was largely based upon the access to the internet and using computers and not really interacting with other people in the ordinary outside world to any great extent. It is said on your behalf that you lead an existence rather akin to that of a monk, and that there is nothing sinister in any of this but it is essentially private matters and you do not see why you should have to disclose anything to the authorities.”

Essentially this man with a mental illness “associated with paranoia and a fear of authorities” was jailed for the offence of not talking in a police interview. A grim verdict on life in 21st century Great Britain indeed.

It will also be news to at least the part of government that administers the justice system. On 3 November, Claire Ward, a junior Minister in the Ministry of Justice told Parliament: “Up to the end of 2007 (latest available) there have been no persons reported to the Ministry of Justice as being cautioned, prosecuted or convicted under section 53 of the Act in England and Wales. The government are satisfied that offences set in RIPA are appropriate and that the legislation is being used effectively”

Read the full article at The Register here. I have presented a very hacked down synopsis here for the sake of space and also because, well, it is their exclusive. Full marks to them for getting this story out into the light.

UPDATE: Could stray explosives incriminate the innocent?
The suspect was unable to account for the presence of RDX, however New Scientist carried this article by Mike Hamer on 18 January 1997:

More than twenty times the amount of RDX, a constituent of Semtex, needed to link a terrorist suspect with explosives was found in a police car at London’s Heathrow Airport in 1995. The car had apparently carried explosives used to train sniffer dogs… The police car, a Vauxhall Astra, had 111 nanograms of RDX on the inside of its rear doors and windows. Just 5 nanograms is enough to link someone with Semtex. The car [also] had 109 nanograms of PETN.

UPDATE 2: The story is now being picked up by the more popular bloggers, including Old Holborn. Doesn’t seem to be making much noise in the MSM yet though. Given their recent track record, however (Paul Clarke anybody?), I can’t say I’m particularly surprised, although this story really does have “Henry Porter” stamped all over it.

Laut Bericht des Berliner Tagesspiegels sind unter den Bezirksverordneten in Treptow-Köpenick ehemalige Stasi-Spitzel enttarnt worden. Eine Überprüfung habe ergeben, dass vier der 55 Abgeordneten für den DDR-Staatssicherheitsdienst gearbeitet haben sollen.

Unter den mutmaßlichen Ex-IMs seien zwei Linksextremisten der Partei Die Linke, ein Abgeordneter der Splitterpartei Soziale Alternative für Gerechtigkeit (Linkspartei-kritische Abspaltung der WASG) und ein Vertreter der völkisch-sozialistischen NPD. Die betreffenden Bezirksverordneten sollen sich zur nächsten Sitzung erklären.

I wrote recently about GCHQ and the Intercept Modernisation Programme. Part of this will require by law all telecoms companies and internet service providers to keep a record of every customer’s phone call, text message, email and website visit showing who they have contacted, when and where. When I have this conversation with friends, I’m sure most of them think I’m just being paranoid. I’m sure most of them, despite receiving itemised telephone bills, or bank statements saying which ATM they used, don’t think that it is technically possible to monitor every individuals communications in this way. It is possible. It is happening. The telecoms operators already have the first stage in place, being required by law since October 2007 to keep records of all phone calls and text messages for 12 months.  A Conservative win in 2010 isn’t going to cast a magical spell which will instantly undo all of the sinister new practices instituted under the neo-Stalinists. We will still need to fight these erosions of our rights and liberties.

This isn’t about targeting a suspect and then monitoring their activity: this is the vacuum cleaner approach,  assembling the activities of all UK internet users into massive databases, which can be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords (including “Shami Chakrabarti” no doubt). Everyone becomes a suspect; we’re all labelled as guilty of crime-think and future-crime, and after trawling through the database they will then select their targets. Dylan Sharpe over at Big Brother Watch has also had some interesting things to say about IMP (they obviously gave some thought to that one) which are worth repeating here:

Snooper’s charter breathes again

11/19/2009
Two stories today on the dreadful ‘Intercept Modernisation Programme’ otherwise known as the Home Office plan to monitor all of our emails, phone calls and other forms of private communications. The first, courtesy of Kable, is that Phil Woolas MP has said that the £2bn Programme is due for completion in 2016; despite the bill being dropped from the Queen’s Speech earlier this week.

As they report:

the information from Woolas shows the Home Office does not anticipate that this will delay the IMP, with 2016 as both the original and the current planned date for completion.

To make matters worse Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions – a role that ought to be entirely separate from politics – has come out today and said that monitoring all of our calls and emails is ‘vital’ in the fight against crime.

As reported by the Daily Telegraph:

Keir Starmer said the controversial plan, which would see the communications activity of every citizen stored for a year, was essential for establishing links with suspects.

His support is in contrast to his predecessor, Sir Ken Macdonald, who last year warned against the expansion of technology by the state into everyday life which could create a world future generations “can’t bear”.

Sir Ken is right and it simply isn’t the government’s job to monitor our private communications. We hear of too many cases of private and personal data being lost, sold or misused by the state to trust that our phone calls and emails won’t end up in the wrong hands.

In addition, the DPP should not be going around doing the government’s dirty work – plugging a policy that the majority of British people find deeply worrying. And remember, Keir Starmer has previous in this field.

You could argue that blanket surveillance such as this will lead to more law enforcement success, and so must be a good thing. But as the All Party Parliamentary Group on Privacy reminds us in their Briefing on the Interception Modernisation Programme “such demands are really analogous to saying that were the police released from their constraints on entering private property, or to arrest and detain people, the levels of convictions would be much higher.” There would be no point at which the essential “necessity” and “proportionality” tests would be applied, nor any form of plausible oversight. That truly would be a Police State.

This is a level of domestic surveillance that Erich Honecker would have given his left nut for. As Henry Porter has often reminded us, we cannot ignore Churchill’s warning any longer: “If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only precarious chance for survival.”

Pastor David Manning asking for support during these trying times he is experiencing, We do need to support him as he battles the dark side.

Bella l’idea dei vicini che spiano i malintenzionati e poi raccontano tutto alle forze dell’ordine.

Peccato che ci siano da pagare le royalties alla STASI.

MrRob, in his comment to the recent post about Paul Clarke, rightly draws attention to Jack of Kent’s sleuthing and what we might call the “Gap Theory”.  JoK contacted the CPS via email and asked:

Please tell me what you can about why the CPS decided to prosecute this case, especially as (a) the facts before the court (and not it seems controverted) would indicate such a prosecution was not in the public interest, and (b) the Home Office’s relevant guidance states:
“Anyone surrendering an illegally held firearm should be questioned discreetly with a view to establishing its history but, unless circumstances exist to give serious cause for concern as to its provenance (for example, if it appears to have been stolen), the person handing it in should not be pressed. The emphasis should be on creating an environment in which people hand in illegally held firearms”

The CPS responded:

Under the Code for Crown Prosecutors the CPS considered it was in the public interest to prosecute Mr Clarke as he was in possession of a sawn off shot gun. He had come into possession of the shot gun and two shotgun cartridges some days earlier and had not immediately contacted the police to make them aware of its existence. He was given the opportunity by the police to explain the full circumstances as to how he was in possession of the lethal weapon but his explanation lacked credibility… He could not explain why he waited some days before bringing the gun to the police station and why he did not contacted the police for them to come and collect the gun.

This, it seems, is the basis for the prosecution and the resulting guilty verdict. But is this really enough? The CPS say that he lacked credibility, ie he wasn’t telling the truth – but that, of course, is their job. They offered no alternative explanations for his possession of the weapon. They offered no evidence that he had stolen the weapon, or that he had used it in the commission of a crime during the “gap”. They offered no evidence that he was being used to “launder” the weapon out of criminal circulation.

Nobody has suggested that, technically, Clarke isn’t guilty of being in possession of the shotgun. The majority of the support for Clarke is based upon how the strict interpretation of “possession” was used to convict a man who had no (yet proven) criminal intent, did not use the weapon for crime and handed it to the police for disposal. No explanation for the “gap” has been released by Clarke or by the Police or CPS. We do know that Clarke had previous dealings with the Police and the CPS, and it is fair to assume that this would have been in his mind when deciding what to do about the weapon. Did he fear he would be “fitted up”? After all, the Police have plenty of previous form there. Is he a bit of a dickhead? Possible, but that in itself isn’t a basis for prosecution.

Gap or no gap, unless evidence is forthcoming demonstrating criminal intent or behaviour beyond the technical possession, this still stinks.

UPDATE: Constantly Furious has announced: “CF was contacted late last night, and informed that there will be a major announcement on this story today; another new twist. This ‘pre-leak’ has come from two apparently independent sources, both of whom have promised to give CF early sight of the news.” Watch that space….

North of the border, David Strang, the Chief Constable of Lothian and Borders Police, has come clean and said that the suitability of tasers in Scotland is still to be proved, arguing that CS spray and body armour were adequate enough defences for officers on the beat.  About 700 police officers in Scotland are trained to use tasers, but the weapons have been discharged only 12 times since their introduction in 2004, on 11 occasions by Strathclyde Police and once by Lothian and Borders Police.

Meanwhile, here in the south, Police have been given the go-ahead to use tasers against children… despite warnings that they could trigger a heart attack in youngsters.

When they were first introduced the liars in the Police and the Home Office assured us that the tasers – which emit a 50,000-volt electric shock – would be used only by specialist officers as a “non lethal” alternative to firearms. Now, they can be used against all “potentially violent” offenders even if they are unarmed, even kids. The Defence Scientific Advisory Council medical committee specifically told the Home Office that not enough was known about the health risks of using the weapons against children, and that what limited research was available suggested there was a risk children could suffer “a serious cardiac event”. And as for the unborn, the Home Office relies on “computer simulations” to analyse the effect on a pregnant female. The same computer which claims my street will be under 50 feet of water or in a desert next year, no doubt.

Amnesty International claims Tasers have been responsible for 220 deaths in America since 2001. Many cities and police forces there have banned their use against minors. Two years ago in Chicago a 14-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest after being shot with one. Medics had to use a defibrillator four times to resuscitate him.

The Association of Chief Police Officers, which issues guidance to forces on the use of weapons, said Tasers would be made “readily available” for “conflict management” at incidents of “violence and threats of violence of such severity that they will need force”.

While we can’t afford to pay for cancer treatment, Jackboot Jacqui stumped up an extra £8m this year to expand the use of tasers in England and Wales.

So where is this slippery slope leading?

Taser gun used on 10-year-old girl who ‘refused to take shower’

By Nick Allen in Los Angeles
19 Nov 2009

A police officer used a Taser stun gun to subdue a 10-year-old girl in her own home.

The officer had been called to the girl’s home in Ozark, Arkansas, by her mother because she was behaving in an unruly manner and refusing to take a shower. In a report on the incident the officer, Dustin Bradshaw, said the mother gave him permission to use the Taser.  When he arrived, the girl was curled up on the floor, screaming, and resisting as her mother tried to get her in the shower before bed.

“Her mother told me to tase her if I needed to,” the officer wrote. The child was “violently kicking and verbally combative” when he tried to take her into custody and she kicked him in the groin. He then delivered “a very brief drive stun to her back,” the report said.

The girl’s father, Anthony Medlock, who is divorced from her mother, said the girl showed signs of emotional problems but did not deserve to be “treated like an animal”. He said: “Ten years old and they shot electricity through her body, and I want to know how the heck in God’s green earth can they get away with this. If you can’t pick the kid up and take her to your car, handcuff her, then I don’t think you need to be an officer. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like a dog. She’s not a tiger.”

The local Police Chief Jim Noggle said no disciplinary action was taken against Bradshaw.

Meantime, down in New Mexico:

Consider this fair warning. If you won’t write to your MP about the use of tasers against children, don’t go crying to anybody else that nobody told you how it was all going to end up.

Oh, and just a parting thought – if they really are as harmless as the Police and Home Office want us to believe, why aren’t they available to all homeowners as a “safe” remedy against burglars? Or given to women as a defense against rapists?

Let’s face it, they’re glorified cattle prods. And we proles are the fucking cattle.

UPDATE: Officer Bradshaw, the courageous cop who tased the ten-year old, HAS now been suspended. But here’s the kicker – he wasn’t suspended for using the Taser but for not having a video camera attached when he used it. (Hat tip: Al Jahom)

http://gangstalking.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/paranoid/

Please read the above post.

I made this into a full post, because I very firmly feel that whenever accusations of this kind come up, they must be addressed and set where they belong. A poster from the forum, found my blog posting, and left a comment. Now maybe the poster left it for good, as useful feedback, or maybe it’s just another informant, who is trying to make Gang Stalking sites look like they encourage delusions. As I have said before in dealing with now hundreds if not thousands of people who have come through the site, the long term feedback has been that they feel validated, most knew that something was happening, but did not know what. Some considered crazy as an option, but crazy did not match what they were seeing and most are people who kept looking for other answers to what was happening to them.

I don’t know what the situation was like in Russia when the state started saying that dissidents were crazy. I imagine that many tried to prove that they were not, and tried to also expose what was happening. I do know that in Russia part of what got the abuses exposed were target telling their stories, till there were enough that people started listening. I believe that targets must do similar if they are going to be heard and expose what our governments are now doing.

http://gangstalking.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/too-much-truth/

[quote]I am a member of that forum. The member being gangstalked that you mentioned has said that she is a diagnosed schizophrenic who doesn’t want to take her medication. I assume that you haven’t read any threads posted by her other than the gangstalking one. She said she is being gangstalked by evil or negative energies because she knows who the antichrist is. You were banned because you unknowningly reinforced her delusions.[/quote]

This is the reason the account was banned.

Gangstalking, stop spamming with your links. You seem to be here on a propaganda mission. We don’t allow those kinds of accounts.

Spamming, I was not, at least not intentionally and the links could have been removed. I was posting researched information, not a propaganda mission.

Just because she has been diagnosed as crazy, does not mean that she is. Gloria Naylor a famous target was diagnosed as crazy and is not.

Without knowing more about her case, it’s impossible to know if she really is crazy, or a target or both. The targeting can make you crazy. Just look at what happened in Russia. Targets of the state were consistently diagnosed as crazy.

In America today, the psychiatric reprisal is being used on more and more people who are not crazy.

http://www.harassment101.com/Article5.html
http://www.psychologistethics.net/
http://scientific-misconduct.blogspot.com/search/label/lisa

Good sources of info about people who the state tried to put away as being crazy. It does happen.

Most people choose to believe that someone who talks about being followed around are crazy first and then they ask questions. I do the opposite, I choose to believe that people are sane first and then I ask the questions.

If posting articles about, Cointelpro, The Stasi, and our current surveillance society is going to encourage people to go crazy, or encourage paranoid delusions, then it’s unfortunate, because it’s reality. We live in a surveillance society. Innocent people are being stalked and monitored.

As evidence was presented, questions were asked. She said she knew who the anti-christ was and that she could speak to the dead. Lot’s of people think that, without necessarily being crazy. I did ask her why she felt that way in both cases.

The only thing that I did further was share with her information that myself and others have discovered about the multi generational aspect of Gang Stalking, which is also a fact.

I deeply feel sorry, and concerned about people who think that having good solid information will make people fall further into delusions. God forbid she go to sites about surveillance operations, or read books on such, or watch a tv show on such. God forbid, because I guess that those would be guilty of feeding her delusions as well.

This came up last year interestingly enough. God forbid people read the bible and it fuel their delusions of an omnipotent being that controls the world who they can’t see, but who they believe others have talked to. God further forbid such people to to Churches, Mosques, Synagogue and find others who further their delusions.

Providing a person with credible information about a problem that is happening to others is just that, it’s information that is available in books, on T.V., Youtube, and in other places. This information about Cointelpro, Mobbing, The Stasi, and other forms of harassment were available for years, as long as crazy people have thought that they were being stalked, which in cases like John Lennon turned out not to be paranoia.

The girl might be a real target, that possibility exists. She might also be crazy, that possibility exists. She might also be an agent who specifically is trying to link crazy and Gang Stalking. We had so much of that on Youtube, and on forums. There are agents of the state on most forums. This is a fact. Let me know if you need articles.

You could be here trying to be helpful, but you could also be here trying to link Gang Stalking with enhancing and encouraging the delusions of others. Eg. It’s not the first time this has happened, but as pointed out, these websites do not encourage delusions, anymore than watching tv shows, reading books, or visiting other sites on topic such as Cointelpro, or Stasi website.

If you are here with good intention’s then I thank you, but based on the original posting, and a discussion I had with the webmaster of the forum, that is not why I was banned. If your intentions are to try to link Gang Stalking sites with encouraging the delusions of the crazy, then we have been there done that, and you failed then a well.

Read the links that I posted. People are being set up to be declared as crazy, by our democratic countries. This is sick and wrong like it was in Russia. Because someone is declared crazy does not mean that they are. The girl was being teased and bullied. Crazy or sane that was not right and I stepped in because that is the human thing to do, and I will never regret doing the right and just human thing, in trying to stop her from being picked on. I told her that my first instinct is to believe her and you don’t know how needful that is, but then of course as I get to know her, I would look at the facts in her case and give feedback accordingly.

Even with real targets if I feel that they can not handle their targeting, I will always recommend they seek a support circle. Now I ask you what is being being believed and listened to, or being picked on and put down. She told her story, As I told the girl, I don’t know her and can not judge her crazy. I would rather take her word till more of her case is presented. Wither that is that she turns out to be yet another informant, crazy, target, or something else.

I hope that helps.

Still studying this one, but it seems that the Digital Economy Bill also provides the power for Mandelson to take over and “reform” Nominet, the not-for-profit company responsible for the .uk web address registry… Will post more as it becomes clearer.

UPDATE: Should Mandelson decide to snatch up Nominet, the Government will control who is allowed a domain name, and how much they will have to pay. There will no longer be any anonymity – if you have or want to have a domain name, the Government will have your number, sunshine. In October 2008, Mandelson’s department wrote to Nominet asking it to justify its independence from Whitehall. The letter is a classic example of how these bastards think and operate. Despite praising Nominet “as a good example of the self-regulatory approach that the Government favours”, they soon make it pretty clear that they want that tasty pie all for themselves.  Not long after, Charters and Caldecott warned that Mandelson was creeping towards this move and said:

There is nothing these bastards don’t want to control. The internet is a source of trouble for the politicos because it represents individual freedom (which they don’t like). It also allows freedom of expression, freedom of information and provides a platform for ordinary people to find out about and discuss the realities of political life (something not provided by mainstream media). None of which the politicos like.

And it’s also a source of revenue.

If the government manages to get away with this (and it will be tantamount to theft) the results will be predictable: an increase in costs, inefficiency on a gargantuan scale, corruption, and, of course, censorship. If they can’t price their critics out of the market then they can simply ban them.

Quite.

That slimey reptilian known as Mandelson has got his own way. Again. As usual. (Well, he does run this Demokratische Republik, so it isn’t that much of a surprise.) The new Digital Economy Bill will force ISPs to penalise those “persistently observed infringing copyright via peer-to-peer networks.” Ostensibly, their targets are “illegal filesharers”,  swapping movies and music.

The KiddR household uses P2P quite often, although not for movies or music. One of the sprogs plays games online, which are forever being updated and patched by P2P. I also like to download old and out of print books, which sometimes find their way on to filesharing sites.

But the between-the-lines of Mandy’s bill is the important part – they’re not really that interested in the content that is being shared as much as they are in being able to monitor the act of sharing. It is just another back door into your life through the internet. The Government and its enforcers might have no common sense at all, but we can’t pretend they’re stupid – they know as well as you and I that P2P can be anonymised and encrypted, making it impossible for the ISP’s to detect the file sharing, never mind the content being shared.

Back in October, Hannah Nicklin wrote an open letter to Mandelson, setting out exactly why his law was an ass:

You seem to be so eager for the Royal Mail to modernise, I wonder why you don’t see it equally as important for the music industry to do so? … Three Strikes [a proposed account-blocking Bill already enacted in France] will not work. Because we will not allow it to. No one will.

Aside from the impossibility of monitoring and prosecuting all (let’s call non-profiteering sharers ‘domestic’) p2p filesharers, we will stop you from penalising any of them. If you begin to cut off people’s internet access, then everyone who can afford to do so will set up alternative unsecured wireless networks across the country.

If you aim to track torrent usage, we will proliferate details on how to obscure or re-route your IP address. If you shut down those sites, we will use private chat to discuss what we want, and private cloud storage systems, drop boxes, to share content.

We will rename files, disguise track identites with a couple of bytes worth data, break meta-data, and come up with new ways of encrypting our actions. The industry will not only lose out on ‘sales’ but valuable usage figures too.

You are attempting to solve a digital problem using analogue solutions. We are open source, we are anonymous, and we are everywhere. Don’t fight us, don’t push, help dying industries reform, and remarket themselves in a sustainable way.

When the Bill was first touted, the Stasi spooks warned it would lead to a rise in encryption, scuppering their own efforts to monitor the internet. As The Register explains,

as well as obscuring traffic to current analytical techniques, widespread encryption would also damage the case for the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), an ongoing multibillion-pound, cross-government attempt to increase surveillance of the internet. “The spooks hate it. They think it is only going to make monitoring more difficult,” a source involved in drafting Lord Mandelson’s Digital Economy Bill told The Times. While the paper speculates the source is referring to MI5 and MI6, it’s more likely that GCHQ, the other intelligence agency, is at the centre of the fears. It is responsible for electronic spying, sits at the heart of the IMP, and has long battled public use of cryptography. The agency’s National Technical Assistance Centre acts as a central resource for cracking scrambled communications and stored data, used by police, MI5, MI6 and SOCA. Its limited resources are likely behind GCHQ’s battle to against widespread take-up of encryption, and so fears over anti-filesharing legislation.

If more internet users were to use encrypted connection, it would at least in part blind the IMP. The Programme aims to intercept and [record] details of who contacts whom, when, where and how in transit inside ISP networks… Encryption would render third party communications services such Facebook effectively invisible.

GCHQ lost the first round of the Crypto Wars, and the Government was prevented from taking powers to regulate companies selling encryption services, but did manage instead to get an amendment to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) passed into law. Intended primarily to deal with terrorists (yes, that old chestnut), it allows police to demand encryption keys or provide a clear text transcript of encrypted text… Between April 2008 and March 2009 15 people were served with the “section 49 notices.” Of the 15 individuals served, 11 did not comply with the notices. Of the 11, seven were charged and two convicted, resulting in landmark convictions that may have carried jail sentences of up to five years.

Call me a tin-foil hatter, but I have seen this far too often now to ignore the perverse  joined-up thinking that this Government is capable of. These laws in conjunction allow the state to intercept all of your internet traffic and demand your encryption keys. Just as anti-terrorist legislation is used to outlaw dissent on the streets, copyright laws will be used to seek out and outlaw dissent on the tubes.

To be honest, I’m surprised that they didn’t just dress it up as an attempt to prevent the apparent millions of domestic paedophiles from swapping c***d pron, and ban p2p all together.

See also BoingBoing: “BREAKING: Leaked UK government plan to create “Pirate Finder General” with power to appoint militias, create laws” for a run down of how this Bill effectively grants Mandelson the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it is done in the “name” of protecting copyright…

UPDATE: What price privacy? Details of the first successful Section 49 prosecution.

Vanessa Kelly, you may remember, is the 26 year old mum who was feeding the ducks in her local park with her 17 month old baby. A member of Sandwell Borough Council’s Park Stasi approached her and told her that she was “outside the designated feeding areas for birds” – despite the fact that there are no signs in the park showing where such a “designated” area begins or ends. Miss Kelly apologised and said she would stop feeding the birds – to no avail: the Stasi pulled out a PDA and issued a £75 Fixed Penalty Notice for littering.

Big Brother Watch picked up on the story and offered to take up Miss Kelly’s case with Sandwell’s Stasi. The latest news is that the Council have revoked the FPN, along with 6 others that were issued, and are reimbursing a further two citizens who had already paid. They warn, however, that in future “wardens wearing head cameras will be on patrol at the Londonderry Lane park.” Oh really? I’d like to see the boot on the other foot once these “wardens” start filming children at play without their parents’ permission…

Sandwell must be pissed off no end that a potential cash cow – fining people for what was effectively not even an offence – has been taken away from them. Their justification for this being a crime, by the way? It attracted vermin. (Well, obviously: it only took a few minutes for a Stasi to turn up…) Would this be the same vermin that fortnightly bin collections have caused to breed like…well, rats?On the subject of alternate weekly collections and rats, I came across a typically arrogant and dismissive statement from Neu Arbeit dated July 2008:

Despite a report that states the sightings of vermin in AWC areas have increased by as much as 23% since 2005, Waste minister Joan Ruddock has dismissed claims that fortnightly waste collections are linked to vermin. Ruddock, Minister for Waste, Biodiversity and Climate Change, argued that “wheeled bins should be secure enough to prevent pests… There are no pests I know of that can chew through a rigid bin, or lift its lid.”

Funny that she should also be in charge of another department built on lies, ignorance and misinformation – that dealing with Climate Change. Because as any fule noes “Rats have strong teeth that allow them to chew through glass, cinderblock, wire, aluminum and lead“  and can crawl through a half-inch gap. Never mind the cheap plastic box with the blow-open flap that the councils issue.

By now, everyone – except the editors of the MSM, it seems – has heard about Paul Clarke and the sawn-off shotgun. He has now emerged from the bunker and given a statement to his local rag, This Is Surrey Today, who are also the only print newspaper in the UK that have reported his case.* No further revelations, so no new light shed on why the full force of the judicial process has been thrown at him. My own personal opinion? Well, I’ve seen at first hand what happens when the Police hold a grudge against you. A verbal disagreement with a copper who was exceeding his authority eventually leading to the same copper and a few of his mates turning up at my house in the early hours of the morning, letting themselves in and then cuffing me in my bed and carting me off to the nick – where they kicked the shit out of me then left me half naked on the floor covered in blood – on a false premise of DUI. When my brief turned up and started demanding photographs of both me and the cell, they released me without charge. Didn’t stop them following me almost everywhere for the next 6 months though. Cunts.  I believe that is what is happening here. Anything short of an absolute discharge when this goes to sentencing is going to create one helluva stink that even the MSM won’t be able to ignore. Mr. Clarke seems resigned to being given a custodial sentence. It’s tempting to take from that that he knows this is a farce and he is looking forward to having the case picked apart in a wider arena. But as I say, that’s all supposition.

Celebs show support for ex-soldier’s case

Thursday, November 19, 2009, 16:00

An ex-soldier is “overwhelmed” by the frenzy of public support generated by a Surrey Mirror story. Last week, we reported how Paul Clarke is facing a minimum of five years imprisonment after finding a discarded shotgun and handing it into police. The 27-year-old from Merstham found the sawn-off shotgun in March this year, handed it in to Reigate police station, where he was arrested immediately.

On November 10, a jury at Guildford Crown Court found him guilty of possessing a firearm – he is now facing a minimum of five years behind bars. Since the story broke it has caused outrage across the world – and whipped up a frenzy of online debate and support. Mr Clarke, who spent two years serving in the armoured military in Donchester, said: “It’s been mad. I feel like a celebrity. I just want to thank everyone for all their support.”

Over the weekend, Mr Clarke’s court case was one of the most commented stories on social networking site ‘Twitter’ – getting more mention than ‘Jedward’ the controversial X-Factor contestants. His case caught the attention of several celebrities, including comedians David Mitchell and Simon Pegg, star of ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People’. And, Graham Lineham, creator of the hit TV sit-com Father Ted ‘tweeted’ in response to other comments on the story. He wrote: “There’ll be enough interest in Paul Clarke now [to] at least shed a little light on [the] situation. Wait for that before pitchforks/petitions”.

Bloggers across the world have fiercely debated the ’strict liability’ aspect of the law on which Mr Clarke was convicted – where the intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant. A facebook group entitled ‘Ex-soldier Paul Clarke should not go to jail for handing in a gun’, has almost 700 members and his solicitor, Mr Lionel Blackman, has been interviewed on Radio 4 about the case. Angry readers have also set up online petitions to send to 10 Downing Street, and have been writing to Crispin Blunt MP. ThisisSurreytoday has also received comments from across the globe.

Mr Clarke said: “The support has just been overwhelming. I’ve had strangers coming up to me in the street telling me they support me.” But despite the public support, Mr Clarke is convinced he’s going to prison. He said: “The judge has to do his job, and his job is to rule on a conviction. I wish I had just thrown the gun in a bush now – however wrong that is. But I wanted to do the right thing.”

In case you too have been in a bunker lately, get the background to the story from Steve Shark (happy 1st birthday for the blog, btw) and Constantly Furious.

*Edit: Apparently the Sun briefly ran it on page 25 of some of their print editions, too, but not the online edition.

From the Daily Mail 19/11/09 :

CCTV behind net curtains to spy on neighbours :

” Town Halls are installing cameras suburban homes to spy on the neighbourhood .
The Big Brother tactic -which is allowed under the anti-terrorist Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act- is being used by Croydon council in South London to catch those suspected of ‘ anti-social behaviour ‘.
The CCTV cameras are placed inside the house of a willing resident , but trained on the street .
Critics say the scheme has echoes of the East German Stasi secret police , which recruited members of the public as spies . “

The council is investigating one of the families in my street. While discussing this with Mrs. KiddR last night, it became apparent that, for a cul-de-sac of only 28 households, there are some seriously dysfunctional families here. So anyway, who has the council got their hooks into? There’s Mrs. X , the alcoholic with behavioural, emotional and possibly psychological problems. If she isn’t pissed and drunkenly singing along to Abba at max volume at 2am,  then she’s pissed and arguing with her live-in boyfriend at max volume at 2am. God alone knows how – or if – her 8 year old daughter sleeps through it.

Maybe it’s Miss Y and her live-in boyfriend. She’s always on chat sites, and her 10 year old daughter is kept in a lot to mind the baby. A busy lass, Miss Y has already run off once this year to shack up with some bloke she met on Facebook, leaving the boyfriend to look after the kids, one of which isn’t even his. What the 10 year old makes of all this, or of the time she came downstairs one night to find mommy shagging a one-night stand in the lounge while the boyfriend was upstairs in bed, or the time that the whole street was woken when she was throwing all of his clothes out of the window at three in the morning, we can only guess.

Let’s not forget Mr Z and his learning-disabled daughter, who keeps as a memento the beam his late wife hung herself from.

How about the Family A, an unmarried mother and her two daughters, unmarried mothers themselves, with the constant revolving door of this-week’s-boyfriends.

Or Miss B, the single mom who lives in filth, dog shit, squalor and a haze of alcohol, while her 8 year old son is roaming the street punching the other kids.

Maybe its Family C, both parents registered as alcoholics and therefore somehow immune from having to find work. They just collect their dole and spend it on cheap booze, while their son walks around with his feet poking through his shoes.

Perhaps its Miss D, another single mom, whose teenage son is so desperate for parental role models that he is forever lurking around the KiddR driveway, engaging said KiddRs in idle chit chat, looking for approval while trying to come up with a good reason to be allowed to stay overnight.

A motley crew, eh? But you’d be wrong if you thought it was any of those. Childrens Services are in fact investigating Mr and Mrs KiddR. Why?

Because we homeschool our two children.

They’re not interested in anyone else – all the other kids in the street are state schooled and therefore somehow miraculously safeguarded. We who refuse to allow the state to ruin our children are the real problem to them. We are the ones who have the Educational Welfare Officers snooping in our home, we are the ones who now have to be interviewed by Education Inspectors and the Council Stasi and who will soon be forced to let them interrogate our 4 year old daughter without ANY OTHER ADULT being present.

Anyone would think we lived in East Fucking Germany.

As the home educators “Right To Reply” report points out,  we have reached a pivotal moment in English history. Never before has a Government fought so hard to intrude into family life, to be given the legal right to enter the homes of innocent families, and the right to interview their children alone. If these rights are enshrined in law it won’t just affect home educators, it will affect all families. Once the door to one group of family homes is prised open, it will only be a matter of time before the door of every home in England is wide open to a stream of local authority officers telling us they know what is best for our children and our families.

An interesting mail has started circulating through the home ed community:

WHEREAS the recommendations of the GRAHAM BADMAN REVIEW OF ELECTIVE HOME EDUCATION have been accepted in full by the Secretary of State.

AND that these grossly disproportionate recommendations hold serious implications for the civil liberties of parents, children and families in this country.

AND that these recommendations place primary responsibility for assessing the suitability of education and the welfare of the child on the state, rather than the parent – with no prior evidence that either is unsatisfactory prior to this grossly intrusive intervention.

AND that the recommendations of the review assumes that the home is an inherently unsafe or unhealthy place for the child to be.

AND that these recommendations undermine the role of the parent and trample over family freedoms in its haste to set parent and child up against each other, bestowing additional and selective “rights” on home educated children that only the government can adequately minister to.

AND that these recommendations destroy the very possibility of true autonomy in learning.

AND that these recommendations operate from a position of requiring proof of parental innocence rather than reasonable suspicion of guilt.

AND that these recommendations discriminatorily use the coercive and interventionist tools of parental licensing, warrantless entry to the home, inspection according to arbitrary external standards, and an unconscionable new power to interrogate the child without the parents present.

AND that the outcome of these recommendations will be horribly discriminatory to a minority community, the measures eventually having to apply to anyone who has their child at home with them: parents with under 5s, those whose children attend private school, and also those with school-aged children who are at home in the evenings, over the weekends, and throughout the summer holidays.

AND that the outcome of these inspections will be based on the very human whim and prejudices of a local authority officer, who will have the power to destroy the life and education that that parent has conceived for his or her child.

AND that if the government is to avoid further discrimination it also stands to reason that each child who attends school must be given the same “rights” as home educated children – to “have their voices heard” regarding whether or not they are happy to be educated in school, whether they are satisfied with their teachers and whether they feel safe in such an environment.

WE ACCEPT that it is right that appropriate and proportionate action, as currently outlined in the law, may be taken to rectify a situation if there are serious concerns about a child’s welfare, observing that a child being at home with its parents is not, and never has been, in and of itself a child welfare issue.

AND HEREBY RESOLVE that any such utterly disproportionate legislation if passed will fundamentally alter the relationship between citizen and state, and would constitute a fundamental violation of our rights,

AND that any such legislation is illegitimate on its face.

NOW UNDERSTAND that by this declaration, Parliament is PUT ON NOTICE that I and others will not co-operate with any such legislation, and strongly caution you not to consider, debate, or enact any such legislation.

Vorgestern zeigte der Privatsender VOX eine Reportage über das Frauengefängnis Hoheneck und die dortigen Zustände in der SED-Diktatur: Unter Verschluss – Die geheimen Schicksale der DDR-Frauen. Hoheneck galt als der schlimmste Strafvollzug der DDR, inhaftiert wurden dort auch Frauen, die vom real existierenden Sozialismus die Nase voll hatten und die Flucht wagten.

Bis zu 48 Frauen in kalten „Verwahrräumen“ eingepfercht, Spezialverliese für Einzel- und Dunkelhaft, Wasserzelle,  katastrophale Hygienebedingungen, perverse Aufseherinnen, die Selbstmordrate exorbitant hoch. Ein Gefängnis, das keinen Vergleich mit dem Strafvollzug der braunen Sozialisten zu scheuen brauchte. Hier weiterlesen

Siehe auch:

Hinter Gittern: Strafvollzug im Wandel der Zeit

(bibula.com)

Niby już wszystko wiadomo, bo przecież zgodnie z zatwierdzoną i przez starszych i mądrzejszych podaną mniej wartościowemu narodowi tubylczemu do wierzenia legendą, komunizm obalił Lech Wałęsa, skacząc przez płot – ale co i rusz pojawiają się niespodzianki. Na przykład – 20 rocznica obalenia muru berlińskiego. To dopiero była rewolucja – ale rewolucja po niemiecku, a rewolucję po niemiecku opisał w swoim czasie Julian Tuwim: „W szkołach rozdano dzieciom „Paketchen”, a w tych Paketchen Fritzl i Gretchen znaleźli bombkę i chorągiewkę, rewolucyjny wierszyk i śpiewkę, trzy proklamacje, notesik, wstążkę i do wyboru maleńką książkę: Warum bin ich ein Sozialist lub Handbuch fur kleinen Anarchist (…) Begeisterung – prima! I władza w zapale w czerwone odświętne przybrana kokardki, ludności dynamit dawała na kartki (przy każdej karteczce był plan demonstracji)”. Jak pamiętamy, burzenie muru rozpoczęło się, kiedy 9 listopada 1989 roku o godzinie 19.00 członek KC SED Gunter Schabowski, „przez pomyłkę” ogłosił otwarcie granicy z RFN. W trzy godziny później tłum „spontanicznie” zaczął „burzyć” mur – co pokazały telewizje.

Inne tłumy atakowały siedziby STASI. Jakie tłumy? A jakież by, jeśli nie tłumy konfidentów, którzy liczyli na to, że wszystkie akta spontanicznie spalą i w ten sposób unikną dekonspiracji? Niestety aż tak dobrze nie poszło, bo np. dokumentacja operacji „Rosenholz”, dotycząca deputowanych do zachodnioniemieckiego Bundestagu (spośród 556 deputowanych 305 było zarejestrowanych przez STASI) została przechwycona przez CIA – być może w ramach przysług, jakie sowiecka razwiedka wyświadczała razwiedce amerykańskiej. Więc z okazji 20 rocznicy i generału Wojciechu Jaruzelskiemu i rosyjskiemu premierowi Włodzimierzowi Putinowi przypomniało się, jak to obalali komunizm. Widocznie musiał paść rozkaz, żeby sobie przypominać, no i stąd ta fala wspomnień.

Generał Wojciech Jaruzelski w wywiadzie dla włoskiej „La Repubblica” opowiada, jak to w sekrecie spiskował z Michałem Gorbaczowem gwoli obalenia komunizmu. Najtrudniej podobnież było z generałami, ale generał Jaruzelski i tutaj sobie poradził. „Pomogłem mu (tj. Gorbaczowowi – SM) uspokoić wojskowych zaniepokojonych zmierzchem imperium. Zapewnić ich, że to leży w interesie świata.” No proszę! – „w interesie świata!” A przecież żyją jeszcze ludzie pamiętający, jak to generał Jaruzelski nam klarował, iż „w interesie świata” i to tym najżywotniejszym leży, żeby imperium sowieckie nie tylko przetrwało, ale w dodatku „ogarnęło ludzki ród”! Najwyraźniej ruskim generałom generał Jaruzelski mówił co innego, a nam, tubylcom – co innego.

Ale mniejsza już o to, chociaż oczywiście ciekawe byłoby sprawdzić, w którą wersję generał Jaruzelski sam wierzył: czy w „generalską”, czy w „cywilną”. Znacznie ciekawsze jest bowiem to, czym generał Jaruzelski n a p r a w d ę przekonał sowieckich marszałów – o ile oczywiście tego wszystkiego nie zmyśla, żeby wykonać jeszcze i ten rozkaz nieśmiertelnej Centrali. Jestem pewien, że gdyby zaczął im opowiadać o „interesie świata”, to długo nie czekając oddaliby go w ręce wraczów, jako podejrzanego o sławną „schizofrenię bezobjawową” i zamiast na stolcu tubylczego prezydenta w prywiślińskiej Warszawie, znalazłby się w jakimś zapomnianym przez Boga i ludzi politizolatorze.

Pewne światło na tę prawdopodobna argumentację rzucają protokoły rozmów Jacka Kuronia z płk Janem Lesiakiem, za którego pośrednictwem Jacek Kuroń, dziś santo subito, przedstawił ówczesnemu hegemonowi na tubylczej politycznej scenie, czyli wojskowej razwiedce, ofertę transformacji ustrojowej. Oferta wydestylowana z tych rozmów wyglądała tak, że jeśli razwiedka pomoże „nam” w oczyszczeniu podziemia z „ekstremy”, to „my” zagwarantujemy razwiedce zachowanie pozycji społecznej w nowych warunkach ustrojowych – oraz pozycji materialnej. A w imieniu jakiego środowiska przemawiał Jacek Kuroń? Ano – w imieniu „lewicy laickiej”, której był wybitnym przedstawicielem, czyli – dawnych stalinowców, którzy obrazili się na partię, tworząc jeden z nurtów demokratycznej opozycji i której wrogiem a co najmniej – politycznym konkurentem była „ekstrema”, czyli nurt opozycji niepodległościowej.

Dlaczego „lewicy laickiej” zależało na monopolu na reprezentowanie wobec razwiedki „strony społecznej” – to osobna sprawa, ale generał Jaruzelski, przyjmując tę ofertę, jako podstawę porozumienia okrągłego stołu, mógł zapewnić sowieckich marszałów, że nie ma czego się obawiać, że jest bezpiecznie tym bardziej, że akta tych wszystkich płomiennych bojowników o demokrację stanowią wystarczającą gwarancję ich lojalności. Chodzi tylko o to, żeby i oni postarali się wylansować sobie jakichś porządnych dysydentów i wszystko będzie jak dawniej, a nawet – jeszcze lepiej. Na stary komunizm moskiewski nikt już nie da ani centa, podczas gdy na „demokrację” – aaa, to co innego! Coś takiego mogło rzeczywiście marszałów przekonać, bo przecież oni też chcieli mieć swoje latyfundia i kremle, pozakładać stare rodziny i tak dalej – a z tego punktu widzenia bolszewickie pryncypia musiały budzić w nich odrazę.

To dopiero są konkrety, a nie jakiś tam „interes świata” – czort z nim! Więc nawet w Bułgarii tamtejsze MSW znalazło Franciszkowi Mitterrandowi „dysydenta śniadaniowego” w osobie późniejszego prezydenta Żeliu Żelewa, a ponieważ w Rumunii nawet i taki się nie znalazł, to w roli opozycji musiała wystąpić Securitate i wojsko. Oczywiście generał Jaruzelski prawdy nam nie powie, to trudno i darmo, ale warto zwrócić uwagę, że skoro zebrało mu się akurat na takie wspomnienia, to nieomylny to znak, iż Centrala postanowiła skorygować dotychczasowe legendy legendami nowymi. To z kolei znaczy, że po ratyfikacji lizbony wkraczamy w nowy etap, na którym obowiązują nowe mądrości.

Stanisław Michalkiewicz

Felieton  • tygodnik „Nasza Polska”  • 17 listopada 2009