Illegitimate Transfer of Inalienable European Rights via Convention(s) & Supranational Bodies Establishment of Sovereignty-Usurping Supranational Body Dictatorships Enduring Program of DEMOGRAPHICS WAR on Europeans Enduring Program of PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR on Europeans Enduring Program of European Displacement, Dismemberment, Dispossession, & Dissolution
No wars or conditions abroad (& no domestic or global economic pretexts) justify government policy facilitating the invasion of ancestral European homelands, the rape of European women, the destruction of European societies, & the genocide of Europeans.
U.S. RULING OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR TO SALVAGE HEGEMONY [LINK | Article]
Who's preaching world democracy, democracy, democracy? —Who wants to make free people free?
Chinese security forces got to test their joint Russian internal security training over the weekend, during protests in Southern Chinese Guandong province.
Anywhere between 1,400 to 10,000 protesters took to the streets in Lubu, protesting over a proposed incinerator plant that may pollute the region's main water supply source: Xi River.
China deployed a security force of 4,000, including special ops units.
"that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and long range missiles, and its continuing non-compliance with Security Council Resolutions, pose a threat to international peace and security"
... ummmmm, only there wasn't any
AGREED that Britain:
"should use all means necessary to ensure the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction"
BRITISH POLITICIANS VOTE THAT:
British forces to invade Iraq in an ILLEGAL WAR the 'case' for which was manufactured by the US-Anglo Capitalist Empire
When this was happening I wasn't paying attention.
I can vaguely remember 2003. Think I was really, really depressed back then, thinking how sh*t my life was. LOL.
It actually wasn't as crap as I thought it was. It just seemed that way. Wish I could go back in time. Time's going way too fast for me.
Anyway, I don't think I turned on the TV that year, so I missed out on the war news. Not that I would have cared back then. It was so remote it may as well have been war on Mars.
I'm probably a bit more aware these days, but I'm probably as self involved as ever.
I'm shocked looking at this list of British MPs who voted for invasion of Iraq.
Look at how much power very, very ordinary and fallible everyday local politicians are granted, simply by being elected into positions of power by the electorate.
And just think about the potential for abuse that power and the importance, in that case, of accountability and transparency in government ... which is where WikiLeaks comes in.
[CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] HOW DARE YOU? HOW DARE YOU? HOW DARE YOU? RAISE THE SPECIAL ANTI-CRITICISM SHIELD
meanwhile CUCKED BRITISH LABOUR PARTY
"If you look around this room, how many African, Caribbean and Asian people are there? We really need to get our house in order ..."
comment
The latest drama involving Our Noisiest, Most Protected, Most Funded, and 'secretly' Nuclear Armed Ally, and its supporters:
"Jeremy Corbyn was engulfed in a fresh row over Israel when he appeared to compare the government of Binyamin Netanyahu to Islamic extremists at the launch of an independent review into antisemitism in the Labour party."
... ONLY HE DIDN'T and The Guardian published the following:
This story was amended on 30 June 2016 to correct the quotation in the second paragraph. An earlier version quoted Corbyn as saying ...
and paragraph 2 has been amended to read:
In prepared remarks, Corbyn said: “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.”
Corbyn has no balls and his words mean nothing.
It's whitewash ... unless all his 'friends' are non-supporters of foreign states and organisations.
Those that support Israel and those that support Islamic organisations, are also responsible for supporting any unacceptable activity committed by those states and organisations, when that activity conforms to a clear pattern of behaviour.
The beleaguered, cowering, and craven Labour Party suspended Livingstone for mentioning historic fact:
"Corbyn and Shami Chakrabarti, the author of the report into antisemitism, declined to comment on remarks made by the former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who was suspended by the party after saying Adolf Hitler had supported Zionism. Livingstone was still under investigation, said Chakrabarti, so “it would be completely wrong to comment”."
and the standard pattern of histrionics, media smear, politician public grovelling display and politician/public figure 'amends' display ensued.
Ruth Smeeth, (culturally Jewish, former director of public affairs & campaigns at: Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre)British Labour politician and US Embassy collaborator, according to WikiLeaks Cables, is accused by a heckler of collaborating with the British press that's hounding the British Labour Party and, more particularly, its leader on the left, Jeremy Corbyn, who has EXPRESSED STRONG SUPPORT FOR the dispossessed, bombed, and 9-years-blockaded PALESTINIANS.
Smeeth's heckler was expelled from the Labour Party, while the witch-hunt of Jeremy Corbyn continues ...
PoliticsHome.com Ruth Smeeth heckler expelled from Labour party
Written by: Agnes Chambre
Posted On: 1st July 2016
The activist who accused a Jewish MPof “working hand in hand" with the Daily Telegraph at Labour’s anti-Semitism report launch has been expelled from the party.
Marc Wadsworth, who claims to be a member of the pro-Corbyn campaign group Momentum, accused Ruth Smeeth of conspiring in a "witch hunt" with the paper.
Ms Smeeth later called on Mr Corbyn to quit because he "stood by and did absolutely nothing" while the incident was taking place.
Jeremy Corbyn accused of anti-Semitism by Jewish Human Rights Watch
WATCH: Jeremy Corbyn chats happily to Ruth Smeeth heckler
Labour coup on hold as 'defiant' Jeremy Corbyn refuses to quit
Labour MP says party is not a 'safe place for British Jews' under Jeremy Corbyn [comment: lol ... they're just using the 'anti-Semitism' card to get rid of a left that will challenge Israel's abuse of Palestinians. ]
Mr Wadsworth today expressed regret for any offence caused to Ms Smeeth and revealed to LBC radio that he had been expelled from the party due to “media reports”. [comment: what a pussy. if you're going to heckle, do so unapologetically ... especially if your sh*tty political party expels you for doing so. ]
“I’ve now been expelled from the Labour party. I've received a letter from this very shadowy unit called the constitutional unit," he said. [comment: all these pseudo left parties are cucked and f*cked: vote nationalist. ]
"And they have summarily expelled me without any opportunity to give my side, just based on media reports.”
He added: “They told me that my membership has not been accepted as a full member of the party...
“I’ve been a member for several months, so its not a matter of my membership being pending.
"This is something I'm going to challenge and I'm getting a lot of Jewish support."
Ms Smeeth said in a statement after the event that Mr Wadsworth had "used traditional anti-Semitic slurs to attack me for being part of a media conspiracy”. [comment: So simply being Jewish is some kind of an immunity from criticism and challenge magic shield? ]
“It is beyond belief that someone could come to the launch of a report on anti-Semitism in the Labour party and espouse such vile conspiracy theories about Jewish people.” [comment: if you just look at the BBC pro-Israel bias and Jewish top-down corporate cultural influence cited in the article below, and BBC's pro-Israel stance, Jewish influence of media is not some 'conspiracy theory'. And that's just the BBC: never mind the rest of it. ]
Human rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti, who wrote the anti-Semitism report and was at yesterday's event, said Mr Corbyn shared her anger at what had happened.
She told Radio 4's Today programme: "I have been to see Ruth Smeeth and I've apologised to her because it was my press conference and I was chairing it and I'm really sorry she was treated in that way. [comment: WTF for? Politicians mustn't get heckled? So, being Jewish lends special protective cover to politicians? Why should Ruth Smeeth receive any special protections from being challenged? ]
"I was chairing the press conference and I probably didn't give [Jeremy] a chance to jump in because I was so quick to jump in.
"He concurred with me when I admonished the gentleman in question for heckling not just Ruth Smeeth but me and for abusing the privilege of asking a question at a national press conference and the leader concurred with me."
However Mr Corbyn was today reported to the Labour party by Jewish Human Rights Watch over his "conduct" at the launch. [comment: this is bullsh*t. I hate the Labour party, but this is a Jeremy Corbyn witch-hunt, probably led by the local Jews/Zionists and their allied non-Jew politician supporters of Israel, who probably want someone more favourably disposed to Israel heading up the British Labour Party (in the case of the former) and power (in the case of the latter, I guess)]
Jeremy Corbyn: Jews Must Not Be Blamed “for the Actions of Israel or the Netanyahu Government”
Guardian Sinks into Gutter on Corbyn – Again
By Jonathan Cook
Global Research, July 04, 2016
Jonathan Cook Blog 30 June 2016 This is way beyond a face-palm moment.
Jeremy Corbyn today launched a review into the Labour party’s supposed “anti-semitism crisis” – in fact, a crisis entirely confected by a toxic mix of the right, Israel supporters and the media. I have repeatedly pointed out that misleading claims of anti-semitism (along with much else) are being thrown at Corbyn to discredit him. You can read my criticisms of this campaign and Labour’s reponse here, here and here.
In his speech, Corbyn made an entirely fair point that Jews should not be blamed for the behaviour of Israel any more than Muslims should be for the behaviour of states that are Islamic. He said:
Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.
But no matter what he said, the usual suspects are now accusing him of comparing Israel with Islamic State, even though that is clearly not what he said – not even close.
First, even if he had said “Islamic State”, which he didn’t, that would not have meant he made a comparison with Israel. He was comparing the assumptions some people make that Jews and Muslims have tribal allegiances based on their religious or ethnic background. He was saying it was unfair to make such assumptions of either Jews or Muslims.[comment: of course he was; he's a Labour cuck, but those that want to oust him, won't let that stand in their way ... LOL.]
In fact, such an assumption (which Corbyn does not share) would be more unfair to Muslims than to Jews. It would suggest that some Muslims easily feel an affinity with a terror organisation, while some Jews feel an affinity with a recognised state (which may or may not include their support for the occupation). That assumption is far uglier towards Muslims than it is towards Jews. [comment: LOL ... it would depend on which side of the fence you stand on. I'm guessing that Arabs and cultural Arabs would see things otherwise. ]
But, of course, all of this is irrelevant because Corbyn did not make any such comparison. He clearly referred to “various self-styled Islamic states or organisations”. A spokesman later clarified that he meant “Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran or Hamas in Gaza”. In other words, “various self-styled Islamic states and organisations” – just as he said in the speech.
Surprise, surprise, the supposedly liberal Guardian’s coverage of this incident is as appalling as that found in the rightwing Telegraph. The Guardian has an article, quoting rabbis and others, pointing out the irony that Corbyn made an anti-semitic comment at the launch of an anti-semitism review – except, of course, that he didn’t.
In fact, contrary to all normal journalism, you have to read the Guardian story from bottom-up. The last paragraph states:
This story was amended on 30 June to correct the quotation in the second paragraph. An earlier version quoted Corbyn as saying: “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Islamic friends are responsible for Islamic State.”
Or in other words, the Guardian reporterdid not even bother to listen to the video of the speech posted alongside her report on the Guardian’s own website. Instead she and her editors jumped on the same bandwagon as everyone else, spreading the same malicious rumours and misinformation. [COMMENT: That would be Harriet Sherwood 'religion correspondent' - here. Coincidentally, this same reporter was accused of being pro-Palestinian a few years ago, so there's no pleasing everybody as a reporter. But, yeah, fabrication is a bit much to swallow ... ]
When it later emerged that the story was a complete fabrication – one they could have proved for themselves had they listened to what Corbyn really said – they simply appended at the bottom a one-par mea culpa that almost no one will read. The Guardian has continued to publish the same defamatory article, one based on a deception from start to finish.
This is the very definition of gutter journalism. And it comes as the Guardian editor, Kath Viner, asks (begs?) readers to dig deep in their pockets to support the Guardian. She writes:
The Guardian’s role in producing fast, well-sourced, calm, accessible and intelligent journalism is more important than ever.
UK Labour head Jeremy Corbyn slams Israel in newly released letters June 1, 2016 5:03pm
Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking after a 'Stop Trident' march though central London, Feb. 27, 2016. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
(JTA) — In letters sent to the foreign minister, the head of Britain’s Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, called for sanctions against Israel and described some of the Jewish state’s politicians as “criminals” who should be banned from Britain.
Corbyn’s anti-Israel letters, written while he was a Parliament member but before he was elected party chief, were obtained by the UK’s Jewish News through a Freedom of Information request. In an article published Wednesday, the Jewish News reported that Corbyn also saidIsrael treats Palestinians “with disdain” and that its “victimization of the people of East Jerusalem is an abomination.”
Corbyn already is under fire from British Jewish leaders who have voiced concerns that he is not doing enough to address anti-Semitism among party members.
News of the letters came on the same day a documentary on Corbyn aired showing him criticizing a Jewish journalist who wrote that the Labour Party has an anti-Semitism problem.
In one segment of “Jeremy Corbyn: The Outsider,” which was produced by Vice News, Corbyn describes a Guardian Op-Ed by Jonathan Freedland about Labour’s “anti-Semitism problem” as “Utterly disgusting, subliminal nastiness, the whole lot of it.” He adds that Freedland, who is also a columnist for London’s Jewish Chronicle, is “not a good guy at all. He seems kind of obsessed with me.”
According to the Jewish News, Corbyn in 2013called on then-Foreign Secretary William Haig to “stop allowing Israel’s criminal politicians to come to our country freely,” “end the siege of Gaza” and to “ensure the BBC portray Palestine fairly,” complaining that the national broadcaster “barely” mentioned “the Palestinian hunger strike!”
Many Jews and Israelis have accused the BBC of having a pro-Palestinian bias.
On the subject of banning Israeli politicians, Corbyn wrote: “I cannot help wondering how long successive governments are going to stand by pretending that an occupying power of so many years should be treated in the same way as the people whose land is not only occupied, but routinely confiscated.”
United Nations' rights envoy for Palestine resigns, accuses Israel of denying access to West Bank, Gaza
Posted 5Jan 2016, 6:28am
...
Makarim Wibisono, United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, said his repeated oral and written requests for access had gone unanswered for over 18 months.
In a statement announcing his resignation, Mr Wibisono, who reports to the UN Human Rights Council, voiced "deep concern at the lack of effective protection of Palestinian victims of continuing human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law".
Israel has long rejected the post of the independent investigator for the territories, accusing the 47-member state forum of bias against the Jewish state, a position backed by its main ally the United States.
...
Mr Wibisono, a former Indonesian diplomat who took up the UN post in June 2014, said in his first report to the council in March 2015 that Israel should investigate the killing of more than 1,500 Palestinian civilians, one third of them children, during the 2014 Gaza war, and make the findings public.
...
His predecessor Richard Falk, an American law professor who is Jewish, long drew controversy in Israel.
In 2008 Mr Falk compared Israeli military strikes against Hamas in Gaza — during which 1,400 Palestinians were killed and there was widespread destruction in densely populated areas — to those of the Nazis.
Director of BBC television signs The Guardian’s pro-Israel letter
Amena Saleem Media Watch 29 October 2015
Director of BBC television Danny Cohen. (BBC Media Centre)
The BBC’s outgoing director of television has signed a letter published in The Guardian last week, pleading for Israel not to be singled out as a target for cultural boycotts.
Danny Cohen, a member of the BBC’s executive board and one of the most senior figures in the organization, joins top Israel apologists — including the chair of Conservative Friends of Israel and the vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel — in putting his name to the letter.
(The BBC recently announced that Cohen was to move on from his position at the BBC after eight years, but will retain his post through the end of November.)
The letter published in The Guardian states that “Cultural boycotts singling out Israel are divisive and discriminatory, and will not further peace,” and calls for “cultural engagement” in place of boycotts.
As Omar Robert Hamilton writes in Counterpunch: “When you’re dealing with the mechanized destruction of an entire people by one of the most technologically advanced and diplomatically shielded militaries in the history of mankind then talk, in 2015, of ‘cultural engagement’ is nothing more than further cover for Israel’s continuing colonization of what remains of Palestine.”
It is to this letter, and the highly politicized opinions within it, that the BBC’s director of television, whose salary is funded by license fee payers, has put his name.
In response to a query I sent, asking if Cohen is in breach of any BBC guidelines requiring employees to show impartiality regarding the situation in Palestine and Israel, the BBC Press Office sent this inconsequential reply: “Danny Cohen was expressing his view about his belief in the importance of creative freedom of expression.”
This is ridiculous.
The views expressed in the letter do not constitute a request for unfettered “creative freedom of expression” but are a plea for Israel to be protected from the consequences of its illegal occupation of Palestinian land and its siege on Gaza.
“Coexistence”
The letter also declares support for a new organization called Culture for Coexistence, whose committee includes at least one Israeli, but no Palestinians, and board members of Conservative Friends of Israel, but no one from a pro-Palestinian organization. The website itself is sparse, containing only the text of the letter to The Guardian and a list of committee members.
It looks suspiciously like a front for a bigger hasbara (or propaganda) organization.
Cohen’s fellow signatories to The Guardian letter include Eric Pickles MP, chair of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), a pro-Israel lobby group which, according to its website, “works to ensure that Israel’s case is fairly represented in Parliament.”
Another 13 members of parliament, apart from Pickles, have signed the letter. Seven of them are CFI’s parliamentary officers, five others are either members of CFI or have recently been on one of its delegations to Israel, and the 13th, Michael Dugher, is vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel — the Labour Party’s equivalent group.
There are no pro-Palestinian MPs among the signatories.
Openly pro-Israel
There are former BBC employees on the signature list as well, including George Weidenfeld, who worked for the BBC Overseas Service, and is now vice-chair of the EU-Israel Forum. Weidenfeld also founded the eponymous Weidenfeld Safe Havens Fund, whose stated aim is to “rescue” Christians from Syria. The fund has received financial support from the Jewish National Fund, an organization essential to the continued ethnic cleansing of historical Palestine.
These signatories are openly pro-Israel. Cohen’s position at the BBC, however, requires neutrality. If he supports Israel in its suppression of the Palestinian people, those views should not be allowed to affect his work at the BBC. And yet, here he is, with others, very publicly arguing for a continuation of the status quo which favors the Israeli state against the occupied Palestinian people, employing vacuous terms such as “building bridges” to hide the fact that Israel is a serial violator of international law and Palestinian human rights, whose senior politicians openly declare that there will never be a Palestinian state.
It is a stupefying display of favoritism towards Israel from the BBC’s director of television, a man whose job supposedly demands impartiality.
Cohen’s influence within the BBC is huge.He oversees the BBC’s four main TV channels, BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four, in addition to BBC iPlayer, and online content for BBC Television. He also oversees the drama, entertainment, knowledge and comedy genres and BBC Films. Further responsibilities include the BBC Television archive and BBC Productions, Europe’s largest television production group.
And his views on Israel and the occupation are now out in the open.
Shockingly, he is not the only senior figure at the BBC known for pro-Israel sympathies.
Endemic bias
The BBC’s director of news and current affairs, James Harding, once told a conference organized by the pro-Zionist Jewish Chronicle newspaper: “I am pro-Israel. I believe in the State of Israel.”
Speaking in 2011, when he was still editor of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper The Times, Harding added, “I would have had a real problem if I had been coming to a paper with a history of being anti-Israel. And, of course, Rupert Murdoch is pro-Israel.”
Harding is responsible for the entirety of the BBC’s news and current affairs output across BBC radio, TV and online, including its current coverage of October’s violence in Palestine and Israel. The position he holds at the BBC is described by The Guardian as “arguably the most important editorial job in Britain.”
He came to the BBC in April 2013. There he joined James Purnell, who had been appointed two weeks earlier as the BBC’s director of strategy and digital. Purnell is a former Labour MP and minister who, for two years, served as chair of Labour Friends of Israel.
But the pro-Israel bias is not present only in the BBC’s current appointments. Another signatory of the letter in last week’s Guardian is Michael Grade, who served as chair of the BBC between 2004 and 2006.
Deep support for Israel
As well as calling for Israel to be protected from boycotts, Grade last week publicly complained that the BBC was too pro-Palestinian in its coverage of events in October which have seen at least 61 Palestinians killed in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, as well as 10 Israelis.
The Jewish Chronicle reported that Grade had written to the BBC’s director general, Tony Hall, accusing the BBC of failing to show stone-throwing Palestinians in its reports and creating an “equivalence between Israeli victims of terrorism and Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli security forces in the act of carrying out terror attacks.”
Ironically, as close monitoring by Palestine Solidarity Campaign has demonstrated, the BBC’s coverage in October has focused almost exclusively on Israeli stabbing victims, and its flagship radio news program Today has even attempted to fool its audiences into thinking that all those killed during October have been Israeli.
But it would seem that, whatever lengths the BBC goes to in order to present the occupying Israeli state as a victim, it can never go far enough for some who have worked at the organization.
It cannot be denied then that support for Israel runs deep through the top layers of BBC management, both past and present, and that support probably trickles down through the rest of the BBC as a matter of corporate culture.
This could explain why BBC editors failed to see the pro-Israel bias of commissioning historian Simon Schama to make a five part series for BBC Two in 2013, during which he made what he called “the moral case for Israel” and announced, in one episode, “I am a Zionist and quite unapologetic about it.”
Schama, unsurprisingly, joined Cohen in adding his name toThe Guardian letter on cultural boycotts.
Corporate culture
The same corporate culture could also explain why BBC Online’s Middle East editor, Raffi Berg, felt comfortable enough to send his colleagues an email during Israel’s November 2012 assault on Gazaasking them not to “put undue emphasis” on Israel for starting the prolonged attacks.
And it may explain why Cohen feels he cansign a letter in support of Israel without fear of reprisal from his bosses for breaching impartiality requirements.
Consumers of BBC news and current affairs may often wonder why the number of Israeli spokespersons appearing across the BBC’s output far outnumber Palestinian spokespersons, why Palestinians, when they do make a rare appearance, are constantly interrupted by BBC presenters, while Israelis such as diplomat Mark Regev are given free rein to speak almost without challenge.
They may wonder why the killing of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers goes unreported by the BBC, while rockets fired from Gaza which cause damage to roads make headlines.
But, if the pro-Israeli views of those at the top of the BBC have created a corporate culture of pro-Israeli biasthroughout its editorial ranks, then such one-sided reporting, while disgraceful, should no longer come as a surprise to anyone.
Now I'm sorry I had a look at this dreary material. It's not at all straightforward, and I don't want to devote the next week or two unravelling the tangled web of finger-pointing, press and political 'outrage' & smear.
It's a huge time-waster, in politics, in media and in terms of public attention. This is ridiculous: it's just politics being hijacked and manufactured drama leveraging an attempt to get rid of British Labour's Jeremy Corbyn. Even though I hate the left, I'm opposed to this hijacking and power-grab in British politics, and am disgusted by the capitalist press that abets this circus.
Plus, pluralism isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Israel's right.
...
Have I got a Bibi fetish, or is Bibi naturally funny? He looks such a naughty, naughty Prime Minister ... LOL
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Days after Britain and the world reeled from the result of the referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, it’s back to business as usual for the House of Lords. This week the Investigatory Powers Bill was given its second reading, and it’s interesting to see how their Lordships approached scrutinising the wide-ranging powers of this controversial bill.
The Investigatory Powers Bill is intended to create a comprehensive framework that governs the way police, security and intelligence agencies intercept, store and use personal data. The current provisions are scattered across many different pieces of legislation, and do not always reflect current practice or technology. The bill goes beyond telephone records to include what it defines as internet connection records, a log of visits to websites, and the use of apps such as Apple’s iMessage, and WhatsApp, owned by Facebook.
The bill itself has been subject to substantial scrutiny as it passed through various House of Commons committees—including a joint committee made up of MPs and Lords—and has seen several amendments. To the government’s credit, it has been open to suggestions and as a result the bill garnered cross-party support.
Nevertheless, the bill’s powers pose issues of individual privacy, access to personal data, judicial review, the use of internet connection records, and particularly the practice of bulk interception by security services and the use of strong encryption. The second reading gives an impression of the approach that the Lords will take.
Certainly, those who contributed to Monday’s debate have experience in the activities this bill covers. Many possess considerable knowledge of the workings of the police and security services, have been part of the pre-legislative committees, held senior positions in security services or come from professions and industries that would be affected by the bill. But while this should be reassuring, a few patterns become immediately apparent.
A balancing act
The overriding theme of the members' contributions was the need to balance the protection of privacy with ensuring national security. Most were supportive of the framework the bill proposed for issuing warrants and for judicial review. Attention was paid specifically to the need to restrict the range of offences that could lead to a data interception warrant being authorized. Suggested in particular from the Labour benches by Lord Richard Rosser and Baroness Dianne Hayter, the initial preference is to limit this to serious crimes.
However, given the backgrounds and experience of many of those contributing to the debate, it’s clear and perhaps concerning that nationalsecurity concerns, not personal privacy, are the primary factor in making that decision. The ConservativeLord Tom King, a former chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee that oversees the work of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, relied on a series of statistics on the use of communications data in prosecutions and counter-terrorism activities, before going on to defend the general sensibility and honor of those working in the UK’s security services. [comment: lol ... there is no honour among thieves. These are the same people that have fitted up journalist Julian Assange and have held him prisoner, without charge, for almost 6 years. ]
The notion that there should be a sound legal basis for reviewing state sanctioned invasion of privacy does not amount to disputing the integrity of security personnel. But given such views are present among the Lords, we can expect to see some serious scrutiny of the argument for the protection of privacy as well as vocal support for the operational requirements of the relevant agencies.
The collection of internet connection records and bulk interception of data received a decidedly mixed response. The plans would require ISPs to store web access records for each individual internet user, recording the domain visited and time of access (among other data to be confirmed).
Some lords compared this to telephone call records, but Liberal Democrat Lord Ken MacDonald, addressing broader privacy concerns, pointed out that recording web activity could reveal intimate personal data, granting knowledge of “people’s lifestyles, beliefs, sexual practices, health and perfectly legal secrets”. There’s likely to be debate on this topic and amendments to the bill, especially given the doubts expressed toward the arguments for collecting internet connection records. As Liberal Democrat Lord Jonathan Oates said:
The government have not approached the issue by demonstrating where a lack of data is obstructing criminal investigations and then exploring how to tackle it…that is not evidence-based policy-making; it is policy-based evidence making and we should not accept it unless we have some much better answers.
Perhaps the most concerning aspect was the lack of discussion about encryption. The issue was raised only by the Liberal Democrat Lord Paul Strasburger, and briefly dismissed in the concluding remarks of Conservative Lord Richard Keen. The bill as it currently stands places an obligation on service operators to provide access to encrypted data in its decrypted form “where reasonable”. This might require companies to redesign their communication applications, sacrificing the privacy of their users.
This fundamentally undermines the point of encryption, and the implications for industries that rely on the safeguards strong encryption provides, such as shopping, finance and banking, requires very careful consideration—but in light of their Lordships' discussions so far that seems unlikely at this stage.The Conversation
Kristopher Wilson is DPhil. candidate in Cybersecurity, University of Oxford The Conversation
Kremlin Admits Former CIA Contractor Edward Snowden Is A Russian Agent!
Inside the shocking confession.
By Radar Staff
Posted on Jul 3, 2016 @ 13:01PM
After years of years of speculation, the Kremlin has finally admitted that former United States IT contractor Edward Snowden is now providing information to the Russians.
In an interview last week, senior Russian security official Franz Klintsevich made the stunning confession, Bild reports. “Let’s be frank,” he said. “Snowden did share intelligence. This is what security services do. If there’s a possibility to get information, they will get it.”
EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Sexy Russian Spy Anna Chapman’s Playboy Pictorial
As Radar reported, Snowden arrived in Russia on June 23, 2013, and has remained there since. He has not stepped foot back in the United States since leaking sensitive information that he gathered during his time doing contract work for the CIA and NSA.
Although he enjoyed years being chummy with the Russian government, even celebrating his 30th birthday at the Russian consulate, reports speculate that the Kremlin’s decision three years later to out him as a collaborator could be tied to his criticism via Twitter of Russia’s invasive domestic surveillance laws. [comment: LOL ... can't get any more invasive than America's violation of worldwide privacy.]
Radar is an entertainment publication, so it's not exactly a relialbe news source.
Trouble accessing the Bild article.
There's a Frantz Klintsevich, who is a member Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, but it may not be the same guy. Without seeing the Bild article, there's no way of telling who the source is.
I'm inclined to believe Snowden's still working for CIA.
EU-NATO IMPERIALISM ❌ 
... 
