Junior Streetwatchers
The scheme is just the latest example of councils paying residents for information on offences.
Some UK councils are even paying children to supply them with information on environmental offences like leaving recycling bags and rubbish bins out on the pavement.
Ealing Council, in West London, employs hundreds of Junior Streetwatchers, aged between eight and ten.
Harlow Council, in Essex, employs 25 Street Scene Champions, aged between 11 to 14 who are encouraged to report vandalism to bus shelters, graffiti, abandoned vehicles, fly-tipping and other offences.
While Crawley Borough Council, in West Sussex, has 150 Streetcare Champions who are asked to keep a look out.
Other local authorities recruit adult volunteers and at least 4,841 people are already patrolling the streets in their spare time.
love thy neighbour - daily mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1202434/Nosy-neighbours-offered-500-rewards-council-spy-residents.html#ixzz0MakSqCQg)
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to [email protected]
Macon Phillips - Director of New Media (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/)
Mr Timms said that proposals previously considered by the Government to simply restrict the internet connection speed of persistent offenders did not go far enough, and would be too slow to implement.
Instead, he proposes that alongside measures to block access to illegal downloading sites and throttling connection speeds for repeat offenders, persistent filesharers should also have their internet connections terminated.
“Technology and consumer behaviour is fast-changing and it’s important that Ofcom has the flexibility to respond quickly to deal with unlawful filesharing,” Mr Timms said.
“We’ve been listening carefully to responses to the consultation this far, and it’s become clear there are widespread concerns that the plans as they stand could delay action, impacting unfairly upon rights holders.”
Illegal downloaders to have internet connections cut under new government plans (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6086778/Illegal-downloaders-to-have-internet-connections-cut-under-new-government-plans.html)
Senior Scotland Yard officer, Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville.....He said there are more than a million CCTV cameras in London and the Government has spent £500 million on the crime-fighting equipment.
But he admitted just 1,000 crimes were solved in 2008 using CCTV images as officers fail to make the most of potentially vital evidence.
Just one crime is solved a year by every 1,000 CCTV cameras in Britain's largest force area, it was claimed today - telegraph.co.uk (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6081549/One-crime-solved-for-every-1000-CCTV-cameras-senior-officer-claims.html)
People in England and Wales who commit crimes or behave anti-socially while drunk could now face a Drinking Banning Order - or "booze Asbo".
Under powers coming into force on Monday, police and councils can seek an order on anyone aged 16 and over.
Magistrates can then ban them from pubs, bars, off-licences and certain areas for up to two years. Anyone who breaches the order faces a £2,500 fine...
But civil liberties group Liberty dismissed them as gimmicks that failed to get to the root cause of the problem...
Some offenders may be referred to a course to address their drinking, and if successfully completed, could see the length of the order reduced.
The participant, not the government, is expected to cover the costs of the Positive Behaviour Intervention Courses, from £120 to £250.
Booze Ban court order - Booze ASBO (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8227236.stm)
CCTV cameras are being fitted inside family homes by council 'snoopers' to spy on neighbours in the street outside, it was revealed today.
The £1,000 security cameras have been placed inside properties but are trained on the streets to gather evidence of anti-social behaviour.Each device is linked to a laptop computer and accessible online by police and council officials 24 hours a day.
But the trial inside two homes by Croydon council in south London has sparked new fears about invasion of privacy and Britain's ‘surveillance society’. And critics said the extra surveillance was only needed because police had failed to tackle the problem.
A council spokesman said the cameras would allow the authorities to respond quickly to anti-social behaviour and gather evidence for criminal prosecutions. He denied they would be used to spy on neighbours and said more cameras could be installed if the pilot proves a success.
But critics say the scheme has echoes of the East German Stasi secret police, which recruited members of the public as spies.
Charles Farrier, of No-CTV, said that the move was ‘a step further in our Big Brother society’. He said: ‘There is no evidence they act as a deterrent and we should be concentrating on the root problem anyway and working to gel our communities.
Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, warned the cameras would create a 'culture of fear and mistrust'. He said: 'People accept these cameras into their homes because they are afraid. 'The council might be installing them with the best intentions, but the end result is a culture of fear and mistrust driven by a failure on the part of the borough and the police to have proper law enforcement in this area. 'Better to have real action from the failing authorities than to extend once more our surveillance society.'
A Croydon spokeswoman confirmed that the cameras cannot be seen from the street and refused to say in which areas they had been installed. Residents taking part did not want their families or locations identified for fear of reprisals.
Images can be viewed on a computer and accessed remotely and the evidence used to take people to court. The trials have been running for the past week.
But some local residents have backed the idea. Kirenna Chin, 30, said: ‘Louts use my hedge as a bouncy castle and urinate in my front garden. It's very intimidating. ‘It's a fantastic idea to fit hidden CCTV. If they offered me one I would definitely take it.’
Gavin Barwell, Croydon's cabinet member for community safety, said: ‘This is good news for residents. ‘These CCTV kits give us another weapon to fight anti-social behaviour quickly. We'll be working together with the police to put them to best use.’
Croydon has one of London's most advanced CCTV networks.
The control room is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and there are 77 fixed cameras, a rapid-response mobile unit, and three wireless units.
Secret CCTV cameras fitted INSIDE people's homes to spy on neighbours outside (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1228876/Secret-CCTV-cameras-fitted-INSIDE-peoples-homes-spy-neighbours.html)[/url]
MI5, MI6 and the police will be able to withhold evidence from defendants and their lawyers in civil cases for the first time, the high court ruled today.
In a move that has widespread implications for open justice, Mr Justice Silber agreed with the security and intelligence agencies that "secret government information" could remain hidden from individuals who are suing them.
His ruling was prompted by claims by seven British citizens and residents that they were ill-treated, and in some cases tortured, in Guantánamo Bay with the knowledge of Britain's intelligence agencies.
The seven – Binyam Mohamed, Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg and Martin Mubanga – are suing the agencies, and the home and foreign secretaries, for unlawful acts, negligence and conspiracy. The government and its agents have denied the claims, but admitted that MI5 did interview a number of the detainees and had provided questions to be put to them by other interrogators.
"The security service undertook this role because, as the UK agency with the most experience of running intelligence-led counter-terrorist investigations in the UK, it was best placed to understand and utilise the information received about threats against the UK, or involving British nationals," the government's lawyers said in a court document. "At times, these interviews were facilitated by SIS [MI6] officers, and on occasions SIS officers conducted interviews themselves."
They have admitted that British intelligence officers interrogated Mubanga, a Briton, at least five times while he was held in leg cuffs at Guantánamo.
Government lawyers say they have identified 250,000 documents as "potentially relevant" to the case.
Currently, under what is known as the "public interest immunity" procedure, information deemed to be so sensitive by government agencies that it cannot be revealed is not used as evidence at all.
The only occasions when evidence and allegations have been withheld from defendants and their lawyers have been in cases directly linked to "national security" – for example those involving deportations. But if today's ruling stands, MI5, MI6, the police and other state institutions will be able to withhold relevant information from any civil action, for example for claiming compensation for wrongdoing.
Silber was not asked to consider the particular facts of the Mubanga case but to set down a principle. He argued that it would be better for "special advocates" to decide, in secret, what information in the hands of the government and its agents should be disclosed. However, he agreed that the issue raised what he called a "stark question of law".
His ruling provoked an angry response from lawyers for the Guantánamo claimants. Louise Christian said after the ruling: "The judge has sanctioned what would be a constitutional outrage, allowing government to rely on secret evidence in the ordinary civil courts … [he has done this] by treating the issue as if it was a purely technical legal matter, not a question of overturning the whole history of the common law and the fundamental principle that both sides must be on an equal footing."
Lawyer Irene Nembhard said the judgment would "wipe away the right to a jury trial for such claimants bringing such claims".
Clive Stafford Smith, director of the legal charity Reprieve, said: "When the history books are written, the darkest chapter of our current times will not be torture, but the seeping evil of secrecy, where the 'national interest' is conflated with 'national embarrassment', and ultimately anything of which the government is ashamed, from parliamentary expenses and working up to torture, becomes secret."
Judge allows secret services to hide evidence in civil lawsuits (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/18/secret-services-can-hide-evidence)
Clinton urges Internet freedom, condemns cyber attacks (in.news.yahoo.com)
Fri, Jan 22 05:36 AM
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday called for an unfettered worldwide Internet and urged global condemnation of those who conduct cyber attacks, as China sought to contain tension with the United States over the hacking and censorship of Google.
"A new information curtain is descending across much of the world," she said, calling growing Internet curbs the modern equivalent of the Berlin Wall.
"We stand for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas," said Clinton in a major address that cited China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt among countries that censored the Internet or harassed bloggers.
Countries that built electronic barriers to parts of the Internet or filtered search engine results contravened the U.N.'s Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of information, she said.
Addressing concerns about cyber spying in China that have prompted Google Inc. to threaten to quit that market, Clinton said "countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation."
"In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation's networks can be an attack on all," Clinton said.
"We look to Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the cyber intrusions that led Google to make this announcement," she said.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told reporters Washington had discussed the Google case with China several times from "working levels to very senior levels."
CHINA PLAYS DOWN ROW
In Beijing, comments by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei on Thursday appeared to be part of an effort to play down disputes and avoid further straining ties with Washington that are already troubled by quarrels over trade, Taiwan and human rights.
"The Google incident should not be linked to bilateral relations, otherwise that would be over-interpreting it," the official Xinhua news agency quoted He as telling Chinese reporters.
He seemed to be seeking to limit potential fallout from the Google dispute, which could compound tensions with Washington as Congress heads into an election year and U.S. criticism of Chinese trade practices escalates.
Google, the world's top search engine, said it may shut its Chinese-language Google.cn website and offices in China after a cyber attack originating from China that also targeted others.
Google said it no longer wanted to censor its Chinese Google.cn site and wanted to talk with Beijing about offering a legal, unfiltered Chinese site. Searches for sensitive topics on Google.cn are still largely being censored.
Many in China see Google's ultimatum as a business tactic because its market share trails the popular Chinese search site Baidu, which is strictly censored. Despite extensive public debate of the Google issue in China, hacking has been rarely mentioned in official media.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are blocked in China.
A MIXED BLESSING
Leslie Harris, head of the Center for Democracy & Technology, called Clinton's speech a key first step in bold actions the United States must take "to ensure that the global Internet remains a powerful force for democracy and human rights."
Clinton noted that text messages had helped rescuers in Haiti find a young girl and two women trapped in a supermarket after the earthquake and the U.S. text "HAITI" campaign that had raised more than $25 million from mobile phone users.
But she warned that Internet technologies were a mixed blessing because along with the benefits of spreading knowledge and empowering citizens, the web is used by al Qaeda to spread hatred and by authoritarian states to crush dissent.
"The same networks that help organize movements for freedom also enable al Qaeda to spew hatred and incite violence against the innocent," she said.
"And technologies with the potential to open up access to government and promote transparency can also be hijacked by governments to crush dissent and deny human rights," said Clinton.
China, Tunisia and Uzbekistan had stepped up censorship of the Internet, while Vietnam had cut access to popular social networking sites and Egypt had detained 30 bloggers and political activists, she said.
Saudi Arabia, China and Vietnam had also blocked Internet access to religious information or silenced people of faith, Clinton added.
The United States recognized limits to freedom of speech and the need to combat use of the Internet to spread hate speech, recruit terrorists or distribute stolen intellectual property.
"But these challenges must not become an excuse for governments to systematically violate the rights and privacy of those who use the Internet for peaceful political purposes," she said.
The United States was reinvigorating its Global Internet Freedom Task Force, Clinton said. She urged U.S. private firms to look beyond profits to play a "proactive role in challenging foreign governments' demands for censorship and surveillance."
The group Human Rights First called Clinton's speech "a major turning point for promoting freedom of expression," and said it hoped the Obama administration would back Internet firms.
"Companies need the support of their governments to fight the repressive censorship and surveillance practices that threaten Internet freedom across the globe," it said.
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell, Arshad Mohammed and John Poirier; Chris Buckley, Lucy Hornby and Huang Yan in BEIJING and Argin Chang in TAIPEI; Writing by Paul Eckert; Editing by Philip Barbara)
Clinton urges Internet freedom, condemns cyber attacks | in.news.yahoo.com (http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20100122/738/tnl-clinton-urges-internet-freedom-conde.html)
Highlights of Clinton speech on Internet freedom (Reuters)
WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday all companies should reject censorship and urged China to thoroughly investigate cyber attacks that led Google to threaten to pull out of the nation.
Following are highlights of her speech:
INTERNET FREEDOM GOOD FOR BUSINESS
"We feel strongly that principles like information freedom aren't just good policy, not just somehow connected to our national values, but they are universal and they are also good for business. To use market terminology, a publicly listed company in Tunisia or Vietnam that operates in an environment of censorship will always trade at a discount relative to an identical firm in a free society. If corporate decision makers don't have access to global sources of news and information, investors will have less confidence in their decisions over the long term. Countries that censor news and information must recognize that, from an economic standpoint, there is no distinction between censoring political speech and commercial speech. If businesses in your nations are denied access to either type of information, it will inevitably impact on growth. Increasingly, U.S. companies are making the issue of Internet and information freedom a greater consideration in their business decisions. I hope that their competitors and foreign governments will pay close attention to this trend."
CHINA SHOULD OPENLY INVESTIGATE CYBER ATTACKS ON GOOGLE
"The most recent situation involving Google has attracted a great deal of interest and we look to the Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough review of the cyber intrusions that led Google to make its announcement. And we also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent. The Internet has already been a source of tremendous progress in China, and it is fabulous there are so many people in China now online. But countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of Internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century. The United States and China have different views on this issue. And we intend to address those differences candidly and consistently in the context of our positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship."
NO COMPANY SHOULD ACCEPT CENSORSHIP
"For companies, this issue is about more than claiming the moral high ground; it really comes down to the trust between firms and their customers. Consumers everywhere want to have confidence that the Internet companies they rely on will provide comprehensive search results and act as responsible stewards of their own personal information. Firms that earn the confidence of those countries and basically provide that kind of service will prosper in the global marketplace. I really believe that those who lose that confidence of their customers will eventually lose customers. You know, no matter where you live, people want to believe that what they put in to the Internet is not going to be used against them. And censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere. And in America, American companies need to make a principled stand. This needs to be part of our national brand. I am confident that consumers worldwide will reward companies that follow those principles."
TECHNOLOGY A MIXED BLESSING
"Amid this unprecedented surge in connectivity, we must also recognize that these technologies are not an unmitigated blessing. These tools are also being exploited to undermine human progress and political rights ... The same networks that help organize movements for freedom also enable al Qaeda to spew hatred and incite violence against the innocent. And technologies with the potential to open up access to government and promote transparency can also be hijacked by governments to crush dissent and deny human rights."
CHINA, OTHERS FAULTED FOR INTERNET CENSORSHIP
"In the last year, we've seen a spike in threats to the free flow of information. China, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan have stepped up their censorship of the Internet. In Vietnam, access to popular social networking sites has suddenly disappeared. And last Friday in Egypt, 30 bloggers and activists were detained ... Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world's networks. They have expunged words, names and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in nonviolent political speech. These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which tells us that all people have the right 'to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.' With the spread of these restrictive practices, a new information curtain is descending across much of the world."
FIGHTING ILLS NO EXCUSE FOR REPRESSION
"All societies recognize that free expression has its limits. We do not tolerate those who incite others to violence, such as the agents of al Qaeda who are at this moment using the Internet to promote the mass murder of innocent people. And hate speech that targets individuals on the basis of their ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation is reprehensible. It is an unfortunate fact that these issues are both growing challenges that the international community must confront together. And we must also grapple with the issue of anonymous speech. Those who use the Internet to recruit terrorists or distribute stolen intellectual property cannot divorce their online actions from their real world identities. But these challenges must not become an excuse for governments to systematically violate the rights and privacy of those who use the Internet for peaceful political purposes."
SAUDI ARABIA, VIETNAM, CHINA RAPPED ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
"Some nations, however, have co-opted the Internet as a tool to target and silence people of faith. Last year, for example, in Saudi Arabia, a man spent months in prison for blogging about Christianity. And a Harvard study found that the Saudi government blocked many web pages about Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and even Islam. Countries including Vietnam and China employed similar tactics to restrict access to religious information ... Just as these technologies must not be used to punish peaceful political speech, they must also not be used to persecute or silence religious minorities. Prayers will always travel on higher networks. But connection technologies like the Internet and social networking sites should enhance individuals' ability to worship as they see fit, come together with people of their own faith, and learn more about the beliefs of others. We must work to advance the freedom of worship online just as we do in other areas of life." (Reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Paul Eckert)
Highlights of Clinton speech on Internet freedom | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2114093420100121)
Frustrated air passenger arrested under Terrorism Act after Twitter joke about bombing airport
A man was arrested and held in police cells for seven hours as a suspected terrorist after making a joke on Twitter about blowing his local airport sky high.
Paul Chambers, 26, tapped out the comment to amuse friends because his planned trip to Ireland was under threat due to heavy snow at Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster.
‘C**p! Robin Hood Airport is closed,’ he tweeted. ‘You’ve got a week and a bit to get your s*** together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!’.
But a week later, police arrived at the finance superviser’s office to arrest him under the Terrorism Act – after an apparent anonymous tip-off.
‘My first thought upon hearing it was the police was that perhaps a member of my family had been in an accident,’ he said.
‘They said I was being arrested under the Terrorism Act and produced a piece of paper. It was a print-out of my Twitter page. That was when it dawned on me.
"I had to explain Twitter to them in its entirety because they'd never heard of it.
'Then they asked all about my home life, and how work was going, and other personal things,' he said.
'The lead investigator kept asking, "Do you understand why this is happening?" and saying, "It is the world we live in".
'I would never have thought, in a thousand years, that any of this would have happened because of a Twitter post.
'I'm the most mild-mannered guy you could imagine.'
Mr Chambers, from Doncaster, faces prosecution for conspiracy to create a bomb hoax and is also banned from Robin Hood Airport for life.
He has been released on bail but detectives confiscated his iPhone, laptop and home computer.
He said: ‘My advice to anyone using social networking sites is to be very careful what you say, we are living in a sensitive world and anything risque you post could be taken in the wrong way.’
Civil liberties campaigner Tessa Mayes said: 'Making jokes about terrorism is considered a thought crime, mistakenly seen as a real act of harm or intention to commit harm.
'The police's actions seem laughable and suggest desperation in their efforts to combat terrorism, yet they have serious repercussions for all of us. In a democracy, our right to say what we please to each other should be non-negotiable, even on Twitter.'
A spokesman for South Yorkshire Police said: 'A male was arrested on 13 January for comments made on a social networking site. He has been bailed pending further investigations.'
Mr Chambers is thought to be the first person in this country to have been arrested for comments on Twitter, although cases have been reported in the United States.
He never made it to Ireland but his popularity on the social networking site has soared – with his collection of ‘followers’ ballooning since his arrest came to light.
Frustrated air passenger arrested under Terrorism Act after Twitter joke about bombing airport | dailymail.co.uk (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1244091/Man-arrested-Twitter-joke-bombing-airport-Terrorism-Act.html)
Indefinite Guantanamo detention plans condemned
The American Civil Liberties Union has criticised a recommendation that 47 Guantanamo Bay inmates should be held indefinitely without trial.
Justice department officials said the men were too dangerous to release, but could not be tried as evidence against them would not stand up in a US court.
ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said their detention would reduce the camp's closure to a "symbolic gesture".
The White House said the president did not have to accept the recommendation.
It came as the deadline President Barack Obama had set himself on his second day in office for closing the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay passed.
'Not evidence at all'
Earlier on Friday, officials said a task force led by the justice department had recommended that while 35 detainees could be prosecuted through trials or military tribunals, 110 could be released either now or at a later date.
The other 47 detainees were considered too dangerous to release, but could not be tried because the evidence against them was too flimsy or was extracted from them by coercion, so would not hold up in court, it concluded.
In a statement, the ACLU said it disputed that any significant category of such detainees existed, and renewed its call for the closure of the prison.
"If there is credible evidence that these prisoners are dangerous, there is no reason why that evidence could not be introduced against them in criminal trials," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project.
"The criminal laws, and the material support laws in particular, are broad enough to reach anyone who presents a serious threat, and the federal courts are fully capable of affording defendants fair trials while protecting the government's legitimate interest in protecting information that is properly classified."
Mr Jaffer said evidence that had been "tainted" according to the task force's recommendation, was "not evidence at all". The US justice system, he added, "excludes coerced evidence not only because coercion and torture are illegal, but because coerced evidence is unreliable".
"Just as important as closing the prison quickly is closing it right, and that means putting an end to the illegal policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial," said Mr Romero.
'Dismay'
The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says the outcome will dismay many of Mr Obama's supporters, who had hoped the president would end the practice of detention without trial.
However, a White House official stressed that this was only a recommendation, which Mr Obama did not have to accept. The task force's findings will also be subject to review by the National Security Council.
Congress has laid down that only those to be tried can be moved to US soil, so the question of what to do with those who officials want to be detained indefinitely without trial has yet to be resolved.
More than 40 detainees have been transferred out of the prison during Mr Obama's first year in office.
But diplomatic hurdles and domestic opposition to the government's plan to house suspects on US soil have hampered his plans to close it down completely.
Plans to move detainees approved for trial to a prison facility in Illinois remain under consideration.
Yemen suspension
The task force recommended that among those cleared for release, 80 detainees, including about 30 Yemenis, could be freed immediately, the Washington Post said.
The panel said the release of another 30 Yemenis should be contingent on an improved situation in Yemen, the newspaper reported.
However, the US recently suspended the repatriation of Yemeni prisoners indefinitely, following an airliner bomb plot that was allegedly planned in Yemen.
Yemenis account for approximately half of the inmates at Guantanamo.
Mr Obama set himself the 22 January closure deadline a year ago, shortly after being sworn in.
He has subsequently said he wants the camp closed this year, without setting a specific deadline.
Indefinite Guantanamo detention plans condemned | news.bbc.co.uk (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8476358.stm)
A woman has become the first person to be barred from all licensed premises in England and Wales under a drinking banning order, police said.
Laura Hall, 20, is also banned from all off-licences under the terms of the order imposed at Kidderminster Magistrates' Court in Worcestershire.
West Mercia Police said the order against Hall, formerly from the Stoke Heath area of Bromsgrove, would last until April 2012 and prohibit her from consuming or purchasing alcohol in pubs.
Hall has also been banned from drinking in nightclubs, membership clubs or hotels, and from purchasing alcohol in shops and off-licences.
She is also barred from drinking in public under the order, which may be lifted after a year if she completes an alcohol misuse course and abides by its terms.
Police applied for the drinking banning order (DBO) after Hall was involved in numerous alcohol-related public order offences in and around the Bromsgrove area. She had already been excluded from local licensed premises through the pub-watch scheme.
DBOs were introduced by the Home Office in September 2009 as a measure to prevent individuals who are causing alcohol-related disorder from entering specified licensed premises.
Sergeant David Roberts, from Bromsgrove police, said: "While there have been some drinking banning orders issued already since their introduction last year, this is the first to be issued on a nationwide basis and it effectively bans Laura Hall from drinking or buying alcohol in any licensed premises across the whole of England and Wales.
"We chose to use this new legislation as a way of helping address Laura's offending behaviour, and we very much hope that rather than seeing it as a punishment, she will use it as an opportunity to get her life back on track.
"The conditions of the order will also help to protect the public in Bromsgrove and the surrounding area from the anti-social effects of Laura's behaviour and we hope they will feel reassured to learn this DBO is in place."
Woman picks up nationwide pub ban (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100415/tuk-woman-picks-up-nationwide-pub-ban-6323e80.html)
Give me control over a nation's currency, and I care not who makes its laws - Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1743 - 1812)
Since the summer of 2003, I've crisscrossed the country speaking at colleges and theaters and bookstores, first with The Weather Underground documentary and, starting in March of this year, with my book, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen (William Morrow, 2009). In discussions with young people, they often tell me, “Nothing anyone does can ever make a difference.”
The words still sound strange: it's a phrase I never once heard forty years ago, a sentiment obviously false on its surface. Growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, I – and the rest of the country – knew about the civil rights movement in the South, and what was most evident was that individuals, joining with others, actually were making a difference. The labor movement of the Thirties to the Sixties had improved the lives of millions; the anti-war movement had brought down a sitting president – LBJ, March 1968 – and was actively engaged in stopping the Vietnam War. In the forty years since, the women's movement, gay rights, disability rights, animal rights, and environmental movements have all registered enormous social and political gains. To old new lefties, such as myself, this is all self-evident.
So, why the defeatism? In the absence of knowledge of how these historical movements were built, young people assume that they arose spontaneously, or, perhaps, charismatic leaders suddenly called them into existence. On the third Monday of every January we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. having had a dream; knowledge of the movement itself is lost.
The current anti-war movement's weakness, however, is very much alive in young people's experience. They cite the fact that millions turned out in the streets in the early spring of 2003 to oppose the pending U.S. attack on Iraq, but that these demonstrations had no effect. “We demonstrated, and they didn't listen to us.” Even the activists among them became demoralized as numbers at demonstrations dropped off very quickly, street demonstrations becoming cliches, and, despite a big shift in public opinion in 2006, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan droned on to today. The very success of the spontaneous early mobilization seems to have contributed to the anti-war movement's long-term weakness.
Something's missing. I first got an insight into articulating what it is when I picked up Letters from Young Activists: Today's Rebels Speak Out, edited by Dan Berger, Chesa Boudin and Kenyon Farrow (Nation Books, 2005). Andy Cornell, in a letter to the movement that first radicalized him, “Dear Punk Rock Activism,” criticizes the conflation of the terms “activism” and“organizing.” He writes, “activists are individuals who dedicate their time and energy to various efforts they hope will contribute to social, political, or economic change. Organizers are activists who, in addition to their own participation, work to move other people to take action and help them develop skills, political analysis and confidence within the context of organizations. Organizing is a process – creating long-term campaigns that mobilize a certain constituency to press for specific demands from a particular target, using a defined strategy and escalating tactics.” In other words, it's not enough for punks to continually express their contempt for mainstream values through their alternate identity; they've got to move toward “organizing masses of people.”
Aha! Activism = self-expression; organizing = movement-building.
Until recently, I'd rarely heard young people call themselves “organizers.” The common term for years has been “activists.” Organizing was reduced to the behind the scenes nuts-and-bolts work needed to pull off a specific event, such as a concert or demonstration. But forty years ago, we only used the word “activist” to mock our enemies' view of us, as when a university administrator or newspaper editorial writer would call us “mindless activists.” We were organizers, our work was building a mass movement, and that took constant discussion of goals, strategy and tactics (and, later, contributing to our downfall ideology).
Thinking back over my own experience, I realized that I had inherited this organizer's identity from the red diaper babies I fell in with at the Columbia chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, SDS. Raised by parents in the labor and civil rights and communist or socialist movements, they had naturally learned the organizing method as other kids learned how to throw footballs or bake pineapple upside-down cakes. “Build the base!” was the constant strategy of Columbia SDS for years.
Yet, young activists I met were surprised to learn that major events, such as the Columbia rebellion of April 1968, did not happen spontaneously, that they took years of prior education, relationship building, reconsideration on the part of individuals of their role in the institution. I.e., organizing. It seemed to me that they believed that movements happen as a sort of dramatic or spectator sport: after a small group of people express themselves, large numbers of bystanders see the truth in what they're saying and join in. The mass anti-war mobilization of the Spring 2003, which failed to stop the war, was the only model they knew.
I began looking for a literature that would show how successful historical movements were built. Not the outcomes or triumphs, such as the great civil rights March on Washington in 1963, but the many streams that eventually created the floods. I wanted to know who said what to whom and how did they respond. One book was recommended to me repeatedly by friends, I've Got the Light of Freedom: the Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle by Charles M. Payne (University of California Press, 1995). Payne, an African-American sociologist, now at the University of Chicago, asked the question how young student organizers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, had successfully organized voter registration and related campaigns in one town, Greenwood, Mississippi, in the years 1961-1964. The Mississippi Delta region was one of the most benighted areas of the South, with conditions for black cotton sharecroppers and plantation workers not much above the level of slavery. Despite the fact that illiteracy and economic dependency were the norm among black people in the Delta, and that they were the target of years of violent terror tactics, including murder, SNCC miraculously organized these same people to take the steps toward their own freedom, through attaining voting rights and education. How did they do it?
What Payne uncovers through his investigation into SNCC in Greenwood is an organizing method that has no name but is solidly rooted in the traditions of church women of the rural South. Black churches usually had charismatic male ministers, who, as a consequence of their positions, led in an authoritarian manner. The work of the congregations themselves, however, the social events and education and mutual aid were organized at the base level by women, who were democratic and relational in style. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Council, SCLC, used the ministerial model in their mobilizing for events, while the young people of SNCC – informed by the teaching and examples of freedom movement veterans Ella Baker and Septima Clark – concentrated on building relationships with local people and helping them develop into leaders within democratic structures. SNCC's central organizing principle,” participatory democracy,” was a direct inheritance from Ella Baker.
Payne writes, “SNCC preached a gospel of individual efficacy. What you do matters. In order to move politically, people had to believe that. In Greenwood, the movement was able to exploit communal and familial traditions that encouraged people to believe in their own light.”
The features of the method, sometimes called “developmental” or “transformational organizing,” involve long-term strategy, patient base-building, personal engagement between people, full democratic participation, education and the development of people’s leadership capabilities, and coalition-building. The developmental method is often juxtaposed to Alinsky-style organizing, which is usually characterized as top-down and manipulative.
For a first-hand view of Alinsky organizing – though it’s never named as such – by a trained and seasoned practitioner, see Barack Obama’s book, Dreams from My Father (Three Rivers Press, 1995 and 2004). In the middle section of the book, “Chicago,” Obama describes his three years organizing on the streets and housing projects of South Chicago. He beautifully invokes his motives – improving young people's lives – but at the same time draws a murky picture of organizing. Questions abound: Who trained him? What was his training? Who paid him? What is the guiding ideology? What is his relationship to the people he calls “my leaders?” Are they above him or are they manipulated by him? Who are calling whose shots? What are the long-term consequences? It's a great piece to start a discussion with young organizers.
While reading I've Got the Light of Freedom, I realized that much of what we had practiced in SDS was derived from SNCC and this developmental organizing tradition, up to and including the vision of “participatory democracy,” which was incorporated in the 1962 SDS founding document, “The Port Huron Statement." Columbia SDS's work was patient, strategic, base-building, using both confrontation and education. I, myself, had been nurtured and developed into a leadership position through years of close friendship with older organizers.
However, my clique's downfall came post-1968, when, under the spell of the illusion of revolution, we abandoned organizing, first for militant confrontation (Weatherman and the Days of Rage, Oct. 1969) and then armed urban guerilla warfare (the Weather Underground, 1970-1976). We had, in effect, moved backward from organizing to self-expression, believing, ridiculously, that that would build the movement. At the moment when more organizing was needed to build a permanent anti-imperialist mass movement, we abandoned organizing.
This is the story I tell in my book, Underground. It's about good organizing (Columbia), leading to worse (Weatherman), leading to horrible (the Weather Underground). I hope it's useful to contemporary organizers, as they contemplate how to build the coming mass movement(s).
Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen (http://www.alternet.org/story/144817/beyond_magical_thinking:_how_to_really_make_change_happen?page=entire)
Knowledge, Truth and Human Action: America Hits the Wall
"Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true." [paraphrased Buddhist saying]
Americans have a problem with the truth. They seem to be unable to accept it, which is difficult to understand at a time in history when knowledge plays a larger and larger role in determining human action. Recognition of this problem is widespread. Beliefs and lies somehow always overwhelm truth, even when they are so contradictory that any effective action becomes impossible. A kind of national, psychological paralysis occurs. Nothing can be done because one belief contradicts another, and for some unknown reason, the facts don't matter. Even during those times when an overwhelming belief does compel action, Americans rush headlong into it neglecting the adage that headlong often means wrong.
The number of programs enacted by the Congress that don't work is huge. The war on drugs which began in 1969 has shown no measurable results; yet it continues unabated and has resulted in destabilizing other nations, especially Mexico. Various immigration reforms have proven so ineffective that the people are turning to their own solutions. Tough on crime programs have been enacted numerous times without any measurable reduction in criminal behavior. Educational reforms have proven to be illusionary. Inconclusive wars have been and continue to be fought. No one, it appears, ever wants to measure anything by its results. The nation continues to do the same things over and over again expecting different results, an activity Einstein described as insanity.
Paul Craig Roberts writes, "Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it. Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded 'anti-American,' 'anti-semite' or 'conspiracy theorist.' Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government. Truth is an inconvenience for prosecutors who want convictions, not the discovery of innocence or guilt. Truth is inconvenient for ideologues." Unfortunately he casts the blame on the characters of people: "economists sell their souls for filthy lucre. . . . medical doctors who, for money, have published in peer-reviewed journals concocted 'studies' that hype this or that new medicine produced by pharmaceutical companies that paid for the 'studies. . . .' Wherever one looks, truth has fallen to money."
Honoré de Balzac said, "behind every great fortune lies a great crime." So too, behind every dumb practice lies a dumb idea.
This debasement of truth stems from two misguided beliefs that many Americans hold. They affect much of American society and define the American psyche. One belief is that the truth emerges from a debate between adversaries. The other is the belief that everyone has a right to his/her own opinion.
Many American activities are based on the these beliefs. In law, the system is called adversarial. The prosecutor and defense attorneys are adversaries. Each side presents its evidence and the truth is somehow supposed to emerge. In journalism it is called balance. Two adversaries are asked to give their sides of an issue, and the truth is somehow supposed to emerge. In politics, it is called the two party system, where the majority party and the minority party, often called the opposition, are adversaries who present their sides of the issue. Again, somehow it is believed the truth will emerge and effective legislation will then be enacted. But it doesn't work, never has, never will.
Suppose two people who lived in the same community at a specific time in the past are talking about the weather on February 14th of some year. One says, "We had three inches of snow that day." The other says, "No, we had heavy rain and flash flood warnings." Who is right? Unless someone checks the weather bureau's records, the argument can't be resolved. And what if the weather bureau's records show that the weather on that day was clear with no precipitation? Neither adversary is right; the truth never emerges.
So do these adversaries have the right to their own opinions? The belief that everyone has a right to his/her own opinion is ludicrous. If your bank sends you a notice saying that you've overdrawn your account, can you counter with, "Not in my opinion"? If this maxim had any validity, truth and falsehood would have equal value. No dispute could ever be settled because the facts don't matter. Yet many in America seem to hold this view.
The point is that no debate between adversaries will reveal the truth if neither is willing to check the facts, or as is often the case in politics, just lying. But why would adversaries do that? In a legal action, because both sides want to win and will reveal only what is favorable to their sides. "As everybody knows, at least one of the lawyers in every case in which the facts are in dispute is out to hide or distort the truth or part of the truth, not to help the court discover it. . . . The notion that in a clash between two trained principle-wielders, one of whom is wearing the colors of inaccuracy and falsehood, the truth will always or usually prevail is in essence nothing but a hang-over from the medieval custom of trial by battle and is in essence equally absurd."
Peter Murphy in his Practical Guide to Evidence cites this story (likely apocryphal): A frustrated judge in an English adversarial court, after witnesses had produced conflicting accounts, finally asked a barrister, "Am I never to hear the truth?" "No, my lord, replied counsel, merely the evidence."
In politics, each side has a favored constituency to protect. In journalism, the journalist doesn't want to be accused of bias. In 2006, Dan Froomkin, former columnist at the Washington Post, wrote, "There’s the fear of being labeled partisan. . . ." But that fear would be dispelled if journalists checked the facts.
Listening to politicians or pundits debate issues should prompt listeners to ask, "Am I never to hear the truth?" The answer would always the same, "No, just our opinions." Yet basing public policy on the opinions of journalists, pundits, politicians, and even jurists is a hazardous endeavor. Since everyone has a right to his/her own opinion, why should anyone care about the opinions of others? None of us should, but somehow the establishment believes we do.
Consider so called experts, for example. Can two "experts," each with different points of view really be experts? "Expert" economists contradict each other all the time. One "thinks" this and another "thinks" that, but neither "knows" anything. Writing teachers routinely tell students, "Don’t tell me what you think. Tell me what you know." Apparently our economists never studied composition. Harry Truman once said, "If you took all the economists in the world and laid them end to end, they'd still point in different directions!" Right up until the economic crash of 2007, experts were telling us that "the economic fundamentals were sound." After the crash occurred, the logical thing to do would have been to conclude that the fundamental economic indicators were misleading at best and shouldn't be relied upon. Yet three years hence, economists are still basing their conclusions (estimates, opinions) on the same fundamental economic indicators. But suppose a chef had an oven that consistently undercooked his baking. Would s/he continue to rely on the thermostat's readings or would s/he replace it? How can such people be considered experts? Nevertheless they are.
Republican politicians, political consultants, and political commentators are fond of saying that Social Security was never meant to serve as a retirement program but only as a supplement. Ed Rollins made this claim on CNN even though the claim can't possibly be true, not even in one's wildest imagination, and Ed Rollins and others should know it. Social Security was signed into law in 1935, but in the 1930s, fewer than 25 percent of workers were covered by private pension plans. So exactly what was Social Security supposed to supplement? Only the pension plans of this 25 percent of workers? What about the 75 percent of workers not covered by private plans? Social Security certainly applied to them too, but they had no private plans to supplement. Even by 1960, only about 30 percent of the labor force had private pension plans, which means that 70 percent had no plans to supplement, and 1960 was a good year. Surely, in the 1930s Social Security was not meant to supplement personal savings, since there were hardly any, and IRAs were not authorized until 1974.Yet Ed Rollins, politicians, and political consultants are still considered "experts." No interviewing journalist ever questions their veracity even when all s/he would have to do is look up some facts.
Military officers, especially generals, are often cited as experts. But for every general who wins a battle there is another on the other side who loses. Is the losing general an expert too? And what general, facing a upcoming battle would have the integrity to say he can't win it?
By calling people with opinions experts and relying on adversarial debate between them, not only is the language debased, so is thought. Conclusions drawn from false premises are always false. Just as something cannot be created from nothing, truth cannot be revealed by falsehood. Belief never yields knowledge, but questioning belief often does.
Public policy based on mere beliefs or opinions sooner or later crashes headlong into the wall of reality causing disastrous consequences, for in the end, the truth cannot be denied. "Trust, but verify," a phrase often used by Ronald Reagan when discussing relations with the Soviet Union is a translation of the Russian proverb. Perhaps better maxims would be, "Reject when suspect" and "Belief brings grief." Yet the fundamental question that goes unanswered is why so many people continue to trust all those "experts" who have shown themselves to be inveterate liars? Has the populace really become that dumb? If the truth is emancipating, the false is enslaving. Indeed Americans are serfs ruled by an oligarchy devoted to the promotion of dumb ideas.
Knowledge, Truth and Human Action: America Hits the Wall (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=KOZ20100515&articleId=19190)
First and foremost – we are human.
It is a basic tenet and understanding that seems to be lost in a world of great uncertainty.
We should celebrate our humanity, but instead we align ourselves with nationality, culture, and ideologies before acknowledging and recognising that we are part of something bigger.
This is not a call for mono-culture, but a call to value the other as much as we value ourselves, to embrace our diversity and declare that we all have something to contribute.
The ‘we are Human’ manifesto expresses a desire for peace and hope.
If we could come to an understanding of who we are, and what we can achieve – then we will begin to address poverty, war and inequality – and the most vulnerable members of our society could be supported to lead whole and rich lives.
Manifesto
we are compassionate
we are diverse
we are creative
we are purposeful
we are hopeful
we are enquiring
we are advocates
we are innovators
we are enablers
we are custodians
we are connected
we are HUMAN.
We live in a time, more than any other time in history, with broad prosperity and longevity of life.
We live in a time, more than any other time in history, where people have access to the tools and resources to have a voice and to be heard.
We live in an age of global information and communication, yet people are increasingly more isolated, and family breakdown is on the rise.
People are working longer hours and face increasing rates of depression, and poor mental health.
Faceless entities and globalisation deliver products and services on demand, yet little is being invested back into communities and there is limited connection with the people and ecosystems that ensure our standards of living are maintained.
Our environment and natural resources are under significant strain.
The rich are getting richer, yet the poor remain very poor.
We need positive change.
“The biggest disease today is… the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference toward one’s neighbour.”1
By diminishing others, we diminish ourselves.
It is not enough to be tolerant.
It is not enough to do no harm.
In 2008, researchers proved the theory that on average we are bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of little more than 6 people.2 This understanding exists as more than a gimmick or a social experiment.
We realise we are part of something bigger than ourselves and that “the only way we can ever be human is together”.3
We strive for a new paradigm that considers and encourages social, economic, cultural and environmental benefits in all human activity.
We actively uphold and seek to realise the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Convention on the Rights of the Child.
We take our passion, skills and networks and give them expression in all areas of our life.
We use our creativity to challenge, to question, to reinvent, to discover new solutions to old and emerging problems.
We use our powers for good, not evil (or indifference).
We work to equip and empower the vulnerable, poor, unheard, and under-valued.
We share the stories that need to be told.
Not the syndicated and dehumanizing violence, mayhem, crime and objectification fed to us through ‘popular’ media. Rather, the stories that dispel myths, communicate ideas, educate, enlighten, heal and unite.
We harness the power of creativity to positively change people’s lives.
Not just to sell more stuff to more people.
We harness the power of entrepreneurship as an agent of community benefit and to redress disadvantage.
We actively promote and equip people, initiatives and services that enrich humanity and create a better future for all.
We endorse this manifesto and seek to share its desire for peace and hope.
Footnotes:
1 Mother Teresa
2 The Guardian, 3 August 2008
3 The Most Reverend Desmond M. Tutu
First and foremost - we are human | human manifesto (http://www.human.org.au/about/manifesto/)
The organisers of the inaugural world championship of a traditional East Anglian sport have been sent reeling by news that the age-old rules breach a new law designed to stop drinking games.
A key element of dwile flonking, which sees competitors using a pole to launch a beer soaked cloth at opponents, involves quickly downing a pot of real ale if you miss your target twice in a row.
However, after reading about tomorrow's event at the Dog Inn, in Ludham on the EDP2 website, North Norfolk District Council licensing officer Tony Gent yesterday visited landlady Lorraine Clinch to inform her that such speed drinking breached legislation brought in earlier this year.
Confessing that the news came as even more of a shock than being struck in the face by a soggy beer cloth, she said: “I was completely taken aback. It seems the law is the law and Mr Gent is only doing his job, but it does seem over the top.
“Everyone is a willing participant and we are not expecting hordes of drunken people turning up to take part.
“It is just a bit of fun and we are only talking about drinking half a pint of real ale provided by our sponsors Woodfordes Brewery.”
The event, which begins at 1pm, has been organised in partnership with the Norfolkbroads.org internet forum group to try to encourage more people to visit the region.
Sue Hancock, who helps to run the forum group and was yesterday travelling to Norfolk from her home in Coventry, described the ruling as “stupid” and “petty”.
She said: “It is just a bit of local tradition and this is a shot in the eye to pubs who try to boost their trade and help tourism.”
She explained that under the traditional rules a “flonker” who missed with his rag twice had to drink a pot of ale before the opposing team, standing in a circle, could pass round a rag one to the other.
It was a key element and they would now be having a crisis meeting at the pub to determine an acceptable change to the rules.
“It is too late to cancel the event. We have got teams coming from as far afield as Coventry and London,” she said.
The organisers are still looking for extra teams to compete in the games, which are believed to have been revived in the 1960s in the Beccles and Bungay area after a set of rules were found in an attic.
It is expected to attract a large crowd of spectators who will also be able to see welly wanging and horseshoe pitching.
The council's licensing manager Chris Cawley said as a result of legislation brought in from the start of April, new conditions on liquor licences banned games which encouraged drinking alcohol in such a manner.
He said the purpose of their visit was to alert Mrs Clinch to the law change so the rules could be adapted satisfactorily.
dwile flonking contest hit by binge drinking regulations (http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/edp24/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBrand=EDPOnline&tCategory=xDefault&itemid=NOED27%20May%202010%2017%3A36%3A55%3A603)