Britannia in chains....

"Rule Brittannia, Britannia rules the waves,
Britons never, never shall be made to slaves"

"It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as

• the Protection from Harassment Act (1997),
• the Crime and Disorder Act (1998),
• the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000),
• the Terrorism Act (2000),
• the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001),
• the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001),
• the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002),
• the Criminal Justice Act (2003),
• the Extradition Act (2003),
• the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003),
• the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004),
• the Civil Contingencies Act (2004),
• the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005),
• the Inquiries Act (2005),
• the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005),

not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. "  after Philip Pullman

Just a reminder... 
Not mentioning it doesn't make it go away

Pullmans malevolent voices: Freedom is too hard for you

"And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth
Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours "


The quote above, and below, are from "Malevolent voices that despise our freedoms" by Philip Pullman, on Times Online.  Written for last years Convention on Modern Liberty, it is the best thing I've read all year...  This is just a snippet ... I encourage you.  Go read  it all...
(My friend in serendipity was Charles Pooter, at Little Man, What Now?...)



"It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.


Inconceivable.
And those laws say:
Sleep, you stinking cowards
Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms
Freedom is too hard for you
We shall decide what freedom is
Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum. "

 
But let's say you are not asleep?  What are you going to do about it???

Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Make your voice heard.

Watching you: Surveillance and the EU.

Open Europe has published a new report taking stock of how the EU is impacting our civil liberties....  Everyone should read it: "How the EU is watching you: the rise of Europe's surveillance state"

Quoting the Open Europe blog: "There are lots of juicy proposals in the pipeline including: a target to train a third of all police officers across the EU in a “common culture” of policing; the mass collection and sharing of personal data including DNA records into an EU-wide database; controversial surveillance techniques including ‘cyber patrols’; the creation of a fledgling ‘EU Home Office’ with powers to decide on cooperation on police, border, immigration and criminal justice issues; an EU “master plan” on information exchange; the transfer of criminal proceedings among EU member states; a three-fold increase in the number of controversial EU arrest warrants; access to other member states’ national tax databases; and EU laws on citizens’ right to internet access."


The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Also on: HAX & The Telegraph


Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Putting privacy first.

Vested interest

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group,"

Franklin Roosevelt

Ethics and the Olympian ideal?

I've not paid too much attention to the Olympics... or looked into the protests surrounding it - until now. I came across a piece at The Conscious Earth laying out the distasteful history of Chinese intervention in Tibet going back to the invasion in 1948. I have a great respect for the results of China's economic renaissance which has done much to reduce poverty in China ( and hence on a global scale). It's sadly clear that there is still a long way to go to in improving the state ethics there. Read the blog.... I've just copied here the final piece which is a quote from the Dalai Lama

"It is therefore part of our responsibility towards others to ensure that the world we pass on is as healthy, if not healthier, than when we found it. This is not quite such as difficult proposition as it might sound. For although there is a limit to what we as individuals can do, there is no limit to what a universal response might achieve. It is up to us as individuals to do what we can, however little that may be. Just because (our action) seems inconsequential, it does not mean that we should not do it."

Death by a thousand cuts?

“The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away,
for expedients, and by parts”.

Edmund Burke, 1777

Or as Benjamin Franklin put it...

"Any society that would give up a little liberty
to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Wise words

There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
- Abraham Lincoln
... or from an episode of Star Trek?

Take truth where you find it....