From the BBC:

“Former Home Secretary David Blunkett says the government should scrap plans to introduce ID cards for all in favour of mandatory biometric passports.

Speaking at InfoSec 2009, a security conference held in London, the MP for Sheffield Brightside said biometric passports could do the job.

He said he had put the idea to the current Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

He mooted the idea of ID cards when Home Secretary in 2001, but has changed his position in the last few months.

Asked whether ID cards could be dropped, Mr Blunkett told the BBC: “I think it is possible to mandate biometric passports.”

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“When even the father of ID cards spurns them, the idea is truly an abandoned orphan.

“Only the most profligate of governments would lavish billions on this programme in such a deep recession where hard choices are needed on public priorities.

“There is no face-saver with passports, which were becoming biometric in any case. It would be ridiculous to insist that people pay for new passports whether they need them or not.

“The Government should remember that the British state belongs to the British people and not the other way around.”

You can sign the Liberal Democrats’ petition against ID cards here.

Yet more controversy over the police’s handling of protests:

Government officials passed secret police intelligence to energy firm E.ON before last summer’s environmental demonstration at Kingsnorth in Kent.

Environmental action group Climate Camp had planned a peaceful demonstration at the proposed site of a new coal-fired power station.

Emails obtained by Liberal Democrat MP David Howarth under the Freedom of Information Act show that civil servants from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform gave details of meetings and activists’ movements to E.ON.

From the Guardian:

At first officials at BERR refused to release the emails, despite a request under the Freedom of Information Act from the Liberal Democrats. The decision was reversed on appeal and although large sections have been blacked out, they show:

• BERR officials passed a strategy document belonging to the “environmental protest community” to E.ON, saying: “If you haven’t seen this then you will be interested in its contents.”

• Government officials forwarded a Metropolitan police intelligence document to E.ON, detailing the movements and whereabouts of climate protesters in the run-up to demonstration.

• E.ON passed its planning strategy for the protest to the department’s civil servants, adding: “Contact numbers will follow.”

• BERR and E.ON tried to share information about their media strategies before the protest, and civil servants asked the energy company for press contacts for EDF, BP and Kent police.

David Howarth said, “It is as though BERR was treating the police as an extension of E.ON’s private security operation. The question is how did that intelligence get to BERR? Did it come via the Home Office or straight from police?”

The pioneer of genetic fingerprinting, Professor Sir Alec Jeffries, has said that the Government is risking public support for the national DNA database by holding innocent people’s records.

Professor Jeffries told the Guardian,

“I have significant concerns there [about the size of the database]. That database is currently populated by an unknown number of entirely innocent people. It is not possible to get an accurate number but it appears to be hundreds of thousands.

“My view is very clear that if you have been convicted of a crime then you owe it to society to be retained on that database for catching in the future should you reoffend. But the retention of entirely innocent people is a whole different issue. There is a sort of presumption here that if they haven’t committed any crime now, then they will in the future.”

Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary said,

“It demonstrates how out of touch the Government is with public opinion when the inventor of genetic fingerprinting has to tell them how unfair the DNA database is.

“It is unacceptable for the state to store the DNA of innocent people. The European Court agrees, Professor Jeffreys agrees and the public agrees. The Government must bring forward concrete proposals to remove the DNA of those that have done nothing wrong.

“Professor Jeffreys is also right to point out that the DNA database is not the flawless crime-fighting tool ministers would have us believe.”

Please help our campaign to protect innocent people’s DNA by encouraging friends and family to sign our petition at:  http://ourcampaign.org.uk/dna

Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, the Met’s anti-terror chief, has resigned after being photographed entering Downing Street with a secret document in clear view.

After press cameras zoomed in on the sensitive information, a raid of several addresses and workplaces in the North West had to be brought forward.

From the Telegraph:

Mr Quick, who is in overall charge of Britain’s anti-terrorism strategy, had gone to Downing Street to brief the Home Secretary on the latest developments in what had been a top secret operation.

The briefing note showed details of the locations and manner of the intended arrests by “dynamic entry — firearms”. It also showed where the suspects would have been held and the names of the six senior officers in charge of the operation.

Shortly after lunchtime, newspapers and broadcasters were contacted by the D-Notice Committee in an attempt to prevent the picture being published, though Mr Quick’s actions had caused such alarm the committee was initially able to tell editors only that they “might be in possession” of a photograph that compromised national security, without saying what it was.

It was not long before the operation had to take place.

Some people’s taste in music can be pretty bad, but criminal??

A jazz musician in Wales was arrested by armed police as part of a major anti-terror raid. Victor Frederick had been aware of police surveillance days before his arrest.

From WalesOnline, via Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing:

Victor Frederick, 63, was arrested and strip-searched just yards from his home, just moments after his partner Andrea Heath and their daughter had infra-red sights trained at them and were told they would be shot if they moved.

No charges were ever brought against Mr Frederick…[who told how] police interpreted soundproofing equipment and wiring from his musical studio as a potential sign of illicit activity.

Mr Frederick was informed he was being arrested on suspicion of making explosives, but later during questioning, police told him they had found nothing.

Police have found a new way to plug those gaps in the DNA database by arresting people for being honest.

Paul Leicester, a teenager from Southport who found a mobile phone and handed it in to the police, was arrested and held at the police station for four hours. He also had his fingerprints, photograph and DNA sample taken. He had been out celebrating his 18^th birthday.

From the Crosby Herald :

Paul said, “It’s stupid. Being arrested isn’t a way to celebrate your 18^th birthday. What are you supposed to do when you find a phone? I told the last caller I would drop it off at the police station the next day. But they arrested me for theft by finding - shocking.”

Please help our campaign to protect innocent people’s DNA by encouraging friends and family to sign our petition at: http://ourcampaign.org.uk/dna

Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show that thousands of council staff have been using anti-terrorism powers to keep watch on people suspected of non-terrorist type offences.

From the Telegraph:

“A survey of 400 councils in England and Wales by the Liberal Democrats using the FOI Act found that many of them were using the powers to investigate trivial misdemeanours.

In the study, 182 local authorities admitting employing 1,615 staff who had used the powers 10,133 times in the past five years.

If the figures are extrapolated for all 400 councils in England and Wales, it would mean that 3,600 staff have spied on local people 22,000 times since 2004.

The study found that less than one in 10 of spying missions resulted in a prosecution, caution or fixed penalty notice.

Across the 180 councils, the spying powers were mostly used to tackle benefit fraud (1,782 times), noise nuisance (942 times) and trading standards breaches (734 times).

However the powers were also used on 451 investigations into fly-tipping investigations and on 88 cases of unlawful dog fouling.

Other reasons included “establishing the identities of those taking fairy lights from a Christmas tree”, “illegal sale of shellfish” and “unauthorised internet access by staff.”

Julia Goldsworthy, the Libdems Local Government spokesman, said that the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act risked becoming a “snoopers’ charter” unless the powers were reformed.

She said: “Surveillance powers should only be used to investigate serious crimes and must require a magistrates’ warrant.

“The Government has seen civil liberties as little more than a temprorary inconvenience. Slowly but surely freedoms have been eroded.”

A Manchester man was arrested, held for two days, had his DNA taken and stored and was then released without charge.

His alleged offence? Taking photos of a sewer cover!

From boingboing.net (including video report):

“Though the police couldn’t find any photos of sewer-gratings on his phone (and even though “what a sewer grating looks like” isn’t a piece of specialized terrorist intelligence), he was held on suspicion of planning an act of terror, imprisoned for two days while the police searched his home, his phone and his computer.

“When they couldn’t find anything suspicious, they released him, but kept his DNA on file, as the biometric of someone who had been accused of plotting a terrorist act.”

Mr Clarke is now insisting that his DNA and fingerprints should be removed from police files.

Please help our campaign to protect innocent people’s DNA by encouraging friends and family to sign our petition at: http://ourcampaign.org.uk/dna

The DNA profiles of nearly 1.1 milllion children are being stored on the national DNA database – and will remain there until the children’s 100th birthday, whether or not criminal proceedings follow.

The figures were obtained by the Liberal Democrats in a Parliamentary question, and show that genetic information of 1.09 million children under 18 is being held, 337,000 of whom are under 16.

The campaign group Genewatch has calculated that around half of the children whose details are held on the database are innocent.

Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, said:

“We already know that guilt and innocence are of no concern to ministers, but clearly neither is the negative effect the database has on children.

“It is unacceptable to keep the DNA of children on record in perpetuity for the most minor of offences. Unless convicted of a sexual or violent offence, under-16s should not have their DNA stored on the database.”

You can read the full story in the Guardian.

Please help our campaign to protect innocent people’s DNA by encouraging friends and family to sign our petition at: http://ourcampaign.org.uk/dna

£140,000 of public money has been spent so far  trying to keep reviews of the Government’s plans for ID cards a secret.

The Office of Government Commerce has spent the money on a four-year legal battle to avoid releasing the relevant “Gateway reviews” (stage-by-stage assessments of Government projects) .

The Information Tribunal, which hears appeals against Freedom of Information rulings, ordered ministers last week to publish two reviews into the progress of the ID cards scheme within 28 days.

However, the OGC is not likely to do so readily, and costs could rise even higher, as Computer Weekly reports:

 “Its punctilious arguments for continued secrecy have the full backing of ministers. The OGC has so far:
 -Rejected a freedom of information request for the two gateway reviews to be published
- Rejected an appeal by the FOI applicant to publish the two reviews
- Appealed against a ruling of the Information Commissioner that the reviews be published
- Appealed against a ruling by the Information Tribunal that the reviews be published.

“The OGC instructed Jonathan Swift, one of the two most senior barristers who act for the government in civil law matters, to argue in the High Court for the reviews to be kept secret.

“But the OGC is likely to appeal the Tribunal’s decision, which means it can continue to keep the reviews secret.

“If the OGC were to lose any High Court appeal, it could take the case to the Law Lords. If it lost that too, ministers could veto to stop the reviews being published.

“The two gateway “zero” reviews in question are already more than five years old. They were assessments of the ID cards scheme in June 2003 and January 2004, and gave a view on the feasibility of the ID cards scheme long before the Identity Cards Bill received royal assent in March 2006.”

Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesman, said:

“The government is increasingly realising that its ID card scheme is a laminated poll tax with all the same toxic ability to make it unpopular.

“Ministers would win more plaudits if they did not drag their feet on their legal obligations.”  (BBC)

 

You can sign the Liberal Democrats’ petition against ID cards here.

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