home office | ukwatch.net

Blindingly obvious

tim — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:47:36 +0000

Home Office Minister Tony McNulty is correct to point out that suggesting that economic recession could lead to an increase in petty crime, violence, racial abuse and far-right extremism was a “statement of the blindingly obvious.”

Unfortunately, the minister seems to assume that the recession is an act of God and the government powerless to influence matters.

While the international downturn in trade is a reality and the knock-on effects of the credit crisis detonated by the US subprime mortgage scandal undeniable, every country will undergo its own economic experience that is dependent on specific national characteristics.

And the level of the crisis that is already hitting Britain is conditioned by the pro-business policies pursued by new Labour.

Recession will not cause the problems itemised in the Home Office draft letter. There is already huge resentment in working-class areas across Britain that will be exacerbated by rising unemployment, mortgage defaults and a general depression of living standards.

Governments tend to appeal to the mythical Dunkirk spirit to ride the wave of hardships, but that is less likely when people can see clearly that there is no equality of sacrifice.

Indeed, new Labour has made a virtue of inequality, with Chancellor Alistair Darling simply the latest leading advocate to say that he is not perturbed by the prospect of hugely differing levels of income.

And this is not simply rhetoric. New Labour has presided over a widening gap in income and wealth more akin to Victorian norms than to a supposed modern democracy.

The revelation by the TUC PensionWatch survey that top bosses can retire on average annual pensions of £200,000, 25 times what the average worker will get and 50 times more than the basic state pension, illustrates a grotesquely divided society.

Employers and managers have, in recent years, launched a concerted drive against workers’ pension entitlements, while ensuring that their own are safeguarded.

The government has acquiesced in this process, lecturing workers about their own supposed fecklessness while running down the value of the state pension.

And its obsession with leaving economic priorities to be decided by the vagaries of the market has seen Britain’s manufacturing sector inexorably eroded, with over a million relatively well-paid jobs, complete with decent conditions and a pension, scrapped and replaced by a combination of McJobs and dead-end “training” schemes.

It has claimed that there isn’t the finance available to improve the state pension, take the railways back into public ownership or invest to defend manufacturing jobs.

But it has been able to find billions of pounds for overseas wars and £50 billion to bail out Northern Rock shareholders.

The government’s wars have not only been costly but have created a new enemy – international terrorism – which is used as an excuse to cut back human rights and to increase xenophobia.

This combination of crimes against working people makes new Labour unfitted to lecture anyone on the effects of recession. It is implicated up to its neck.

The only way to avoid the negative consequences in the Home Office letter is to fight back against the economic and social policies that cause them in the first place.

Snooping silo to cost millions

tim — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:57:35 +0000

The government is pressing ahead with plans to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on a massive central silo for all UK communications data, The Register has learned.

Home Office civil servants are working on plans for the database under the banner of the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP). The team has recently been expanded and a director-level official appointed to run the project, which is not yet official policy in public.

Sources said secret briefings revealed the cost of the database would run to nine figures and has already been factored into government spending plans. The IMP budget was part of the intelligence agencies’ undisclosed funding bid to the Comprehensive Spending Review last year. In an answer to a parliamentary question on 8 July, the Home Office refused to provide any budgetary details, citing national security concerns.

The sum will dwarf the £19m we recently reported the government has given telecoms companies to service authorities’ data requirements since 2004. The überdatabase will render existing arrangements for sharing communications data with government agencies obsolete.

The project has been pushed hard at Whitehall by the intelligence agencies MI6 and GCHQ. One ISP source described their demands as “science fiction”. It’s envisaged that the one-stop-shop database will retain details of all calls, texts, emails, instant messenger conversations and websites accessed in the UK for up to two years.

Communications providers fear a technical nightmare if they are forced to implement common data formatting rules. GCHQ declined to comment.

A pilot scheme will see probes inserted in networks owned by one mobile, one internet and one landline operator, sources said. It’s thought the database could be administered by an expanded National Technical Assistance Centre, a Home Office agency. The probes will not record content of communications, which is seen as intrinsically less useful for intelligence data mining efforts.

A Communications Data Bill mandating the database was expected to be proposed before the summer parliamentary recess, but did not appear. It had been planned that the database would be bundled with the EU Data Retention Directive (EUDRD), which must be enshrined in UK law by March 2009.

However, last week the government released a consultation paper on transposing the Directive as a standalone statutory instrument. Laws made by statutory instrument do not require a vote in Parliament.

Amid widespread headlines decrying the long-published EUDRD as another “snoopers’ charter”, insiders wondered what had happened to the Communications Data Bill and its central database. A Home Office spokeswoman said the bill will be published at some time this year. She told The Register that plans had changed “to make the best use of parliamentary time”.

When the Bill was announced by Gordon Brown in May, apart from transposition of the EUDRD, its aim was cryptically described as to “modify the procedures for acquiring communications data and allow this data to be retained”. At Whitehall, sources said advocates of the überdatabase have sucessfully lobbied that a central repository is required to “maintain capability” to monitor communications.

In his 8 July parliamentary answer, Home Office minister Lord West indicated that view has become policy when he wrote:

The objective of the interception modernisation programme is to maintain the UK’s lawful intercept and communications data capabilities in the changing communications environment. It is a cross-government programme, led by the Home Office, to ensure that our capability to lawfully intercept and exploit data when fighting crime and terrorism is not lost.

The “maintain capability” lobby argued that when everyone communicated using BT landlines, government intelligence gatherers could simply contact the operator to get call records. Now we all use myriad devices and services, the only feasible solution is to pool the data centrally, they contend.

Others have countered in Communications Data Bill discussions that a central, searchable database will not “maintain capability”, but grant investigators unprecedented power to cross-reference data sources (including location data from mobile phone triangulation), go on “fishing trips”, and infringe privacy.

The Information Commissioner’s Office voiced such opposition when early details of the IMP were reported in May. But according to our sources, public resistance to the überdatabase has so far had no significant impact on policy.

The massive investment promises a bonanza for IT contractors. Answering a parliamentary question about the project’s feasibility, Lord West said: “The private sector is likely to play a major role in this work and the programme will be conducting a competitive tender and entering commercial negotiations to commission its services.”

Evidence Uncovered of Political Policing at Climate Camp

tim — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:02:24 +0000

Ninety percent of the costs of the heavy-handed policing at the Climate Camp are being paid for by the Government, local council sources have admitted this week [1]. Campers are pointing to this revelation as evidence that the government has been directly involved in the decision to police the camp in this fashion.

“The Government claims to care about climate change, but is pressing ahead with new coal fired power stations” said Jessica Glynn, one of the campers. “Now we discover that the Home Office is paying the police to harass and attack people who are peacefully opposing this decision. It’s not hard to put two and two together.”

Meanwhile, at 8.30 on Friday morning, people from the camp superglued themselves to the Royal Bank of Scotland’s oil and gas offices, in protest at the bank’s financing of the expansion of the fossil fuel industry all over the world. A few hours later, twelve naked campaigners superglued themselves to the offices of BERR (the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform), the Government department colluding with E.ON to give the green light to new coal power stations.

Miniature protestors also struck at Legoland (sponsored by E.ON) in Windsor, where a Lego model of Kingsnorth coal power station was scaled by Lego activists, who dodged the Lego police helicopters to drop a banner reading “STOP CLIMATE CHANGE”. [2]

Cambridge Liberal Democrat Councillor, Neale Upstone announced at the camp today that he is prepared to break the law on Saturday’s day of mass action.

Speaking from the camp, Councillor Upstone said, “It has now become impossible for citizens to assert their views against the money and influence of a wealthy few. The only option left is for us to take personal responsibility for the actions where the government is failing us… For the sake of our children, tomorrow, I am willing to peacefully break the law in order to draw a line in the sand. It’s time more politicians joined me.”

Participants at the camp, who now number more than 2,000, are spending the evening busily preparing for the day of mass action on Saturday.

“This is the clearest expression yet of the widespread public disapproval for E.ON’s plans to build new coal plants,” said Shri Gupta. “Despite the police campaign of intimidation and harassment, thousands have turned out to stop this environmental catastrophe. People across the country are showing they are no longer prepared to sit back and watch politicians andcompanies destroy our future. Today the climate movement has come of age.”

Notes
1.Medway Messenger, 08 August 2008
2.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykkJJWgOu8A

Police powers increased by new London mayor

tim — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:24:18 +0000

The new Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has announced sweeping measures to ramp up police powers. After a series of highly publicised knifings in central London last month, the mayor called for a policy of “zero tolerance” and “immediate operational response.” This announcement neatly dovetailed with the launch of a £3 million public relations campaign funded by the Home Office.

The measures introduced include an extension of the existing “stop and search” procedures, the introduction of metal detectors at Underground tube stations across 10 London boroughs and scanning of suspects with hand-held devices.

“Operation Blunt” was launched barely days after the attacks with 4,277 stop and searches around the capital over two weeks. Young people are being singled out for particular attention under the new initiative, with police taking their pictures even if they are found to be innocent of any crime.

Since the beginning of 2007, 68 people aged under 25 have been killed in London, including 13 teenagers. But the new policing measures have been enforced with little attention to the actual levels of violent crime that have been recorded in recent years. There was in fact a sharp fall in knife crime in 2007 and overall knife crime has fallen by 19 percent since 2004.

The increases in violent crime that have been recorded this year have been amongst the young—from teenagers up to people in their early twenties. But civil rights campaigners in the capital have urged caution instead of this knee-jerk and heavy-handed response to the recent incidents. They have called attention to the fact that historically the use of “stop and search” has discriminated against black minorities and, more recently, Asian and Middle-Eastern ethnic minorities. Government figures suggest black people are six times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people, while Asians are almost twice as likely.

Peter Herbert, a barrister and a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, was also critical of the plan.

“It will undoubtedly lead to more stop and search, and more racist stop and searches where people are stopped on the basis of their appearance or ethnicity,” he said. “The MPA was not consulted and it should have been. It is another example of policy being manufactured on the hoof for political expediency.”

The Newham Monitoring Project, a group that works against racial discrimination, police misconduct and on civil rights issues, gave a cautionary statement on the mayor’s response:

“If Boris Johnson wishes to address gun and knife crime, he needs to first carefully examine why current police powers, which are some of the toughest in Europe, are failing to deal with this issue effectively. If the police do not have to apply reasonable suspicion, what grounds will they use to determine who they stop and search? Selecting individuals based on appearance and ethnicity is fundamentally flawed, will criminalise and alienate communities and is ultimately likely to fail like the hated Sus laws that were abolished in the 1980s.”

Under the “Sus” laws police were able to stop and search based on suspicion alone, using the precedent of sections of a Vagrancy Act of 1982, making it illegal to “loiter in a public place” with “intent” to “commit an arrestable offence.”

The police singled out young people in the impoverished areas of the city, stoking tensions between youth—particularly poor black youth—and the police in the early 1980s.

In 1981, police launched “Operation Swamp,” involving stop and searches across large swathes of the poorest working class regions. This was a major factor in provoking the Brixton riots in London, and those in St. Pauls, Bristol and Toxteth, Liverpool.

Under pressure from the public backlash, the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act introduced new rules for stop and search. Officers would now require “reasonable suspicion” that an offence had been committed.

Stop and search powers were again curtailed in 1999, after a public inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence found the police guilty of “institutional racism” and negligence in the case.

After the terrorist attacks in New York in 2001, the powers were again extended under Section 44 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Under the previous laws, people stopped for the purpose of a search must have the reason explained to them if they request this from the police. The police are then obligated to explain “reasonable grounds for suspicion”—for example, a recent violent crime in the area or the person stopped matching the description of a suspect.

Under Section 44, the exception to this rule is in cases associated with terrorism, in which case the police have no obligation to give a reason for the stop. In other words, the “clause of exception” gives the police powers to stop, search and detain anyone arbitrarily. Similar powers to detain arbitrarily have been given under Section 60 of the Public Order Act.

The official “Stop and Search” web site produced by the Home Office states that these powers “help to deter terrorist activity by creating a hostile environment for would-be terrorists—ensuring it is not easy for them to carry or use explosives.”

It then explains how this “hostile environment” is created: “Police can search anybody anywhere under this law, and they do not need reasonable suspicion to do so. It is under this law that police conduct random searches in train and tube stations.”

The extremely low efficiency of the stop and search laws in combating street crime is revealed by official statistics: In 2004-05, when 100 people were stopped each day, only 455 arrests were made out of 35,776 searches.

In line with Johnson’s ratcheting up of police powers, the opposition Conservative leader David Cameron called on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to scrap forms officers must fill in when they stop someone. This would effectively enable police to carry out a far greater number of stops with even less accountability for their actions.

Cameron’s call to cut “red tape” reflected views expressed in the Flanagan report, published the following week. Ronnie Flanagan, the chief inspector of constabulary in England and Wales, said police were afraid to use their own judgment because of bureaucracy and form filling.

The Conservatives were competing with Labour in backing Flanagan’s report. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith responded with an official letter of endorsement, urging immediate action to cut down on “needless bureaucracy” and extend police powers to stop and search.

Johnson has also held a highly publicised meeting with the billionaire mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, in early May, announcing a “new partnership” between the two capitals.

Bloomberg has presided over a city that has experienced an unprecedented disparity of earnings between workers and a parasitic financial aristocracy on Wall Street. His administration has made drastic cuts in social services, including health and education, while increasing police powers.

In Britain, over the last decade policing has seen major increases in funding, rising by 39 percent to £5 billion. The overall police workforce has increased by 25 percent in the same period.

Interview with Hicham Yezza’s defence campaign

tim — Fri, 30 May 2008 19:05:50 +0000

Hicham was arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 a couple weeks ago for getting a copy of the Al Queda training manual sent to him by a friend, Rizawaan Sabir, who was doing research on terrorism. He was forwarded a copy and it was suggested to him that he print it out. The training manual is available on the Internet and can be bought on Amazon and is on government web sites.

He just had the document on his computer. He never actually printed it. Somebody saw it on his computer and alerted the University of Nottingham. The university didn’t think of looking on Google and seeing that it was a document that was widely available.

He was detained for six days and released without charge. Then Hicham was rearrested on immigration grounds and he was kept in detention centres and moved every day or so.

He was talking to his solicitor and thought he had a really good case to stay here. The immigration charges were quite limited, but then suddenly the Home Office issued a removal notice. He had a trial date scheduled, but they said on condition of removal we will drop all the charges. We just want to get rid of you essentially.

That’s when the whole campaign started, because Hicham has been here for 13 years; he’s been on the student’s union executive, editor of a political magazine, etc. He is very well known here and has done undergraduate and post-graduate degrees.

Now suddenly the Home Office are saying they want to deport him. He has been in contact with the Home Office about his visa application before the arrest and it was all being sorted out. The Home Office hadn’t had any problems. After he was arrested under the Terrorism Act they suddenly decided they had a problem with his immigration status and wanted to remove him.

So most people think this is related to the initial arrest and that the Home Office want to pin him down on something. The Home Office has an interest in getting convictions for terrorism charges.

So that is the situation so far. An appeal has been lodged against his removal. Now we are seeing what happens with the legal process and are campaigning hard with the Home Office and other influential people who can try to help.

Our local Member of Parliament, Alan Simpson, has taken a really keen interest in the case and has been writing letters to Ian Byrne and talking to Hicham’s solicitor. Another MP, Nick Palmer, has also taken an interest in the case. We have had loads of support from organisations such as the University and College Union, who recently passed a motion supporting Hicham. Most student unions we have contacted have given their support.

Bettina Renz is Rizwaan’s personal tutor. In the school of politics we do a lot of research related to international security and terrorism. Right from the start the tutors knew what this was about. They talked to the police and said this is for legitimate research purposes, freely available and in the public domain. They were concerned about the implications of these arrests. Obviously once the university starts vetting that, this is very concerning to the academics in those fields.

One of the police officers told one of the academics that this would never have happened if they had been blond-haired Swedish PhD students.

It is a very dangerous situation where a university calls the police on a very flimsy suspicion. And there was clearly no reason for the police to take so long and to hold them in detention for so long. Six days in police custody is punishment in itself.

The Home Office’s actions are indicative of a dangerous attitude. It is that it picks on certain people and decides to remove them. The Home Office acts like a faceless machine. It just treats him like a common criminal, which is not the case.

We are very concerned that the university bureaucracy has decided to take a position where they fully cooperated with the police action and implicitly assumed the guilt of their own students.

When Sabir and Yezza were released without charge they didn’t apologise and said this was necessary for the safety of the community. At first when the arrests took place they were saying there is no threat to the community. We thought that already there was Orwellian language involved here.

Then when Hicham was rearrested they made no attempt to support him. This is the university bureaucracy, not the academics and staff. All I have encountered from them is 100 percent support. The bureaucracy has decided to distance themselves from him. They have refused to admit that he was a student here for so long. They have tried to paint him as a clerical assistant, which is not really the case. They also said he was an illegal immigrant and while the case is ongoing it is not really their place to say.

When we demonstrated at the university, we got a call from Hicham. He relayed a message of thanks and goodwill to everyone and expressed his gratitude. He thanked everyone for their solidarity. We want the Home Office to reconsider what they are doing and we are hopeful about his case. We are hopeful that he will be able to stay.

Government Targets Child Asylum Seekers

Ellie Keen — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:16:08 +0000

Under the guise of “more compassionate treatment for children,” the Home Office Border and Immigration Agency is tightening up procedures to forcibly remove an extremely vulnerable group of children to their countries of origin.

Proposals outlined in its document, “Better Outcomes: The Way Forward Improving the Care for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Children [UASC],” are the outcome of a period of consultation with key agencies such as children’s charities, health and Local Authorities. In spite of concerns raised by these organisations, the Home Office seems determined to step up the persecution of these vulnerable children in order to satisfy its policy objective of scapegoating asylum seekers and refugees for all of society’s ills.

Currently, approximately 3,000 children a year arrive in Britain seeking asylum. Many come from war-torn areas, including Iraq and Afghanistan. They travel long journeys to arrive in Britain, are often beaten on the way, and do not know where they are going to end up.

The proposals are a fundamental reform of the way UASC are supported and managed. Currently, their rights are safeguarded by existing children’s legislation, which treats an unaccompanied child under the age of 18 the same as a Looked After Child—with the appropriate Local Authority having a duty of care until they are at least 18 years old and often beyond. UASC are currently given exceptional leave to remain (ELR) until they reach this age.

One of the proposals is for the responsibility for funding UASC care leavers currently carried out by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to move to the Home Office, thus increasing the economic pressure on UASC to return to their country of origin or “disappear.”

The Home Office claims this will make it easier “to safeguard children at the same time as managing the immigration system effectively.” It is concerned that too many young people disappear when their claim to remain is refused once they are 18.

The new proposals seek to centralise the dispersal of UASC, who often arrive at the key airports and ports in the South-East of England, and send them for care in regional centres in designated Local Authorities. Alongside this will be a more rigourous approach to age assessment that is currently carried out by each Local Authority. A child will be screened at a unit before being sent to one of the Local Authorities. One of the most contentious aspects of this proposal is the use of dental records in determining age, which has not been ruled out.

On the basis that this will keep children safe from harm, the Home Office also argues for better procedures for identifying and supporting UASC who are victims of trafficking. The document uses the issue of trafficking to tighten up legislation by arguing that “we need to recognise as a rule the needs of children are best served by being with their families.” Not once does the document pose the question as to why families would risk sending their children across to the other side of the world if they did not face profound problems and hardships.

The document assumes that the children who arrive unaccompanied do so in an “organised fashion.” Some are brought as “relatives” and then left somewhere where they know they will be cared for. Others travel in the backs of lorries, not knowing which countries they are travelling through and losing siblings on the way. For many of these children, contact with families cannot be maintained due to the precarious nature of their personal circumstances.

This point was underscored by Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, who said, “We’re pleased the Home Office has recognised that it needs to improve the way they safeguard and protect these children. However, we have serious concerns about some of the proposals outlined, and we oppose government plans to forcibly return children to their country of origin. The government should not try to force any child to return against their wishes where their safety and welfare cannot be guaranteed.”

Covet continued, “Any way forward has to reflect the experiences of these children; some are trafficked, some have been politically active, some have been the victims of violence, including torture and sexual violence. These are not children who come here seeking a better life, with their families waiting for them in peaceful homes. Many of them are children from war zones.

“While we recognise age assessment procedures need to be improved, it is clear from the consultation responses and subsequent work that x-rays are not going to be the answer. We hope that further consultation will lead to this idea being dropped altogether.”

Syd Bolton from the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture said in response to the proposals, “Children’s experiences of torture and serious harm take time and expertise to explore and explain. They need to come to terms with their traumatic pasts whilst at the same time struggling in their present lives with a complex and often inadequate legal and welfare situation.

“The only way in which tortured and seriously harmed children and young people have any chance to recover psychologically is through care systems and decision-making processes which emphasise their long term welfare and best interests, not an approach which fits with a hard line immigration control message.”

Recent research by the children’s charity Barnardo’s has found that an estimated 100,000 vulnerable children are condemned to a childhood of poverty, uncertainty and fear after being caught up in a UK asylum backlog that may not be cleared until 2011. This appalling situation is being cynically used by the government and the Home Office to introduce legislation that will intensify the inhuman practices already being carried out against the most vulnerable sections of society.