by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
British Justice... the best that money can buy... or, in this case even money can't help.
Any court trial which may involve wire tapping or otherwise gathered intelligence by other unorthodox means will be heard behind closed doors. Even defense lawyers, according to some source, may have the evidence withheld from them oir part of it, and especially how it was obtained.
It is also amazing that they are going to try and rush this law through now, a few months before the Olympics. I assume they want to use it to go after anyone who as much as coughs against the Olympics and the government (and governments of visiting countries) during that time (and then after also).
Lord Chancellor and “Justice” Secretary Ken Clarke recently made a brave attempt to defend the government's plan to prevent any MI5 or MI6 intelligence from being disclosed in court, ever. He almost sounded like a defender of civil liberties when asked about the proposal on BBC Radio 4's “Today” program.
It was about "how to make the intelligence services more accountable", he said. "You can't have intelligence officers in open court saying that this or that is the technology that we use."
Obviously no one really wants a MI5 or MI6 officer to reveal his name, sources, or the latest spying equipment at his disposal that may have been used and are being used.
What is needed, however, is the disclosure of wrongdoing by the security and intelligence agencies, and as to whether or not the evidence that they are presenting was gathered by legal means.
The green paper given the Orwellian title of "Justice and Security" is the direct result of the exposure in the courts of MI5 and MI6 knowledge of, and in some cases connivance in, abuse and torture by foreign intelligence agencies, including the CIA.
If the government gets its way, any evidence of such wrongdoing in future would never see the light of day. The Justice (may I laugh) Secretary claims that this plan would make the spooks more accountable in future because information now not used at all in court proceedings would be made available – behind closed doors in secret courts. Yes, sure it will, and pigs fly...
How precisely,would that make MI5 or MI6 more accountable? The truth is that it would not but it would make it easier to hide stuff and brush wrongdoings under the proverbial carpet.
Evidence and confirmation of allegations of wrongdoing and the abuse of UK residents and citizens in Guantánamo Bay and secret prisons elsewhere emerged only because high court and appeal court judges allowed its disclosure. If the government gets its way they would not be able to.
And, even more astonishingly, the outside body that is supposed to monitor the activities of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ – the parliamentary intelligence and security committee – says that the government's green paper does not go far enough in insuring intelligence-related information is kept secret. It says it should be covered by an absolute blanket ban.
Yoy! Yoy! Yoy! Totalitarian state here we come. The Nazi machinery and the Stalinist USSR has had nothing on this, especially adding the total surveillance and the possibility to digitally create evidence. The Federal Trojan in use in Germany is an example of the possibilities.
None of this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with keeping the people and nation(s) safe but has everything to do with an attempt to execute total control over the people, over every aspect of their lives.
I find it rather strange that both the USSA and the fascist Kingdom of Great Britain are playing around with laws that are contrary to all conventions. One can but wonder as to what is happening.
It is extremely interesting to see that this law seems to be rushed through in the run up to the Olympics, the time during which,and during the time of the games itself, public protests and demonstrations in reference to almost anything will be deemed unlawful and in fact deemed “acts of terrorism” and thus any participant in them could, nay would, be tried under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The Injusttice Secretary stated that a judge would have the last say as to whether the trial be held behind closed doors or not and what evidence be disclosed and what not but that is not what the government green paper says.
We cannot trust the government to volunteer wrongdoing by the security and intelligence agencies as the ugly saga of Britain's collusion in rendering individuals to places where they were brutally treated, and sometimes tortured, has revealed.
So can we trust ministers and the spooks in future to allow the judges to disclose such evidence of wrongdoing? I don't think we can.
The biggest problem is that we have allowed ourselves to come this way, here in the UK as much as in the US, by more and more delegating things to government, as regards to security and personal safety, demanding more CCTV surveillance (to catch the criminals) and now the British people are the most spied on in the entire (western) world.
We have (well, not all of us but the majority) demanded that we are kept safe from terrorism and thus allowed illegal wars to be waged (oh, I forgot, they are not war – so they tell us – but conflicts and thus the handbook for warfare does not apply) which are claimed to keep our streets safe. Sorry, mind running that by me another time very, very slowly.
The fact is that we have allowed the governments far too much power to “keep us safe” and thus abrogating our own responsibilities and we have given away, in the same breath, our freedoms and allow more and more of them to be taken in the “war on terror” (for that apparently we need total monitoring of all communications of everyone),m the “war on drugs”, the “war on pedophiles”, etc., etc.
Under the bill of Internet monitoring blocking of websites is being considered. Why then do they not simply block all those websites of child porn, terrorism, and so on? It can be done.
But, come on, let's not be stupid. It has very little to nothing to do with combating crime or terrorism but everything to do with total people control.
In the US – for starters – the telephone companies are looking at ditching landlines, wanting to go over to mobile networks only. Now why is that?
I doubt that it is simply their idea but that government, or those behind government, the real leaders, want more control.
The mobile network can be shut down with the push of a button or the flick of a switch. It is much more difficult to disrupt all landline telephone connections that fast.
In addition to that wiretapping of landline phones requires an individual warrant each and every time. Not so the surveillance, including tracking, of cell phones. Any contract phone can, basically, be tracked via its signal and the more modern ones directly by GPS.
While no cell phone can be tracked when it is turned off, despite the claims made by some doom and gloom merchants, each and every phone can be tracked, at least to within a distance, via the cells that it is logged into at any particular time. It is also possible, especially in case of the smart phones, to track even closer, to within a few meters.
As soon as a cell phone gets turned on it wants to log into one of the towers and it is then when it can be tracked and its user and that is one of the main reason for wishing everyone to switch of mobile, including mobile Internet.
Welcome to the total surveillance society... If we do not want it that way then we will have to look for politicians who will dismantle that or we need to create a new society structure altogether.
© 2012
