Brazil shows the way

Like a Russian Spring, the ground is beginning to move. Thousands of miles away in a country only recently described as ‘near third world status’ there are significant moves being made which will impact not only on the internet, but critically, also undermine and threaten the profits and standing of the vast American software industry. Brazil is among the fastest growing economies on the planet. They were not impressed to find they were being spied on. They told NSA and GCHQ to stop. You would not know this from most of our media who daily chant their mantra, “We do not need to know what we have not been told.” 

“Brazil has confirmed plans to create a secure email service, following revelations of cyber-surveillance techniques used by the US and UK....

...President Rousseff's announcement follows allegations that the NSA hacked state-run oil company Petrobras and intercepted billions of emails and calls to Brazilians.” BBC Online 14/10/13

Brazil will set up an internal communications system with the assistance of GMX, the German internet provider. They will use encryption to reduce the risk from prying. International e-mails will still be at risk but the President has called a summit meeting for 2014 to discuss internet security and to bypass American control.  

Other countries – and major non-American companies – will no doubt follow suit. Spying on Petrobras was financial snooping. It had nothing to do with the spurious ‘war on terror.’ All the time the yanks have been hypocritically talking up the Chinese threat they have been busily snooping away. 

Meanwhile back on this side of the pond there are signs of hope here too. A week ago the chief spook went public with his fears about how much damage the Snowden revelations had done. This was swiftly followed by a series of stooges singing from the same hymn sheet. Sadly this included journalists who weirdly were also engaged in banging on about ‘press freedom.’ However, the other side of the coin is now being put. 

First we have  the ex Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, who was less than impressed by what has been going on:

“Not the least of the inadequacies exposed by fallout from the Snowden revelations has been the sickly character of parliamentary oversight of the security agencies, even after recent reforms. An intelligence and security committee that goes into brief private session, only to emerge blinking into the daylight with protestations of apparent fealty to the security services, is a poor substitute for grown-up scrutiny. Co-option is not a uniquely British problem, but it surely is underlined when, amazingly, the ISC is chaired by Sir Malcolm Rifkind – once responsible for MI6 as foreign secretary.

He seems badly compromised, and the ISC should never again be led by someone whom the public might perceive as having an axe to grind or an interest to defend.

But worst of all has been the argument, heavily deployed in recent days, including by Sir Malcolm himself, that any more daylight than we currently enjoy simply assists the nation's enemies. Andrew Parker, the new director general of MI5, should be slower to employ this foolish, self-serving rhetoric that naively raises a perfectly legitimate question: how should we ensure that those privileged to be granted special powers to intrude into everything that is private serve a real public interest, rather than the dangerously false god of securitisation for its own sake?.” Guardian 14/10/13 (my emphasis)

He was swiftly followed by Lord Blencathra who had spent some time assessing the security services. 

“Britain's spy agencies may be operating outside the law in the mass internet surveillance programmes uncovered by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, according to Lord Blencathra, the former Conservative Home Office minister who led a formal inquiry into the data communications bill.

The Tory peer – David Maclean when he was an MP – said he felt "deeply, deeply uneasy" about programmes that allow the security services to examine the internet activities of British citizens without the consent of parliament.

In an interview with the Guardian, Blencathra said that the public had a right to know their internet data might be "lifted" and shared with US intelligence services – and that MPs should either vote to approve the surveillance programmes or put a stop to them.

He also condemned the fact that his committee scrutinising the data communications bill – subsequently killed off by the Liberal Democrats – was never told about GCHQ's existing mass surveillance capabilities. A joint memo from MI5, MI6 and GCHQ made no mention of them, he added.

"Some people were very economical with the actuality. I think we would have regarded this as highly, highly relevant. I personally am annoyed we were not given this information," said Blencathra, who was an ally of Michael Howard and considered on the right of his party.” Guardian 15/10/13

More proof, if any were needed, that our spooks do not tell their political masters what is going on. 

Well fancy that!

Straw slithers out from under his stone

Can you name the most egregious politician in the UK? There are plenty of candidates. Here is one worthy of serious consideration.

Slime forward John Whittaker ‘Jack’ Straw. 

So why him and why now? Is he not yesterday’s man? 

Sadly, slimy Jack keeps popping up in the media going on about ‘security’ and ‘official secrecy.’ His latest offering came yesterday: 

“The Guardian has shown "extraordinary naivety and arrogance" over the publication of articles based on NSA  documents leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, the former foreign secretary Jack Straw has said.

Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time of the Iraq war in 2003, said the Guardian was wrong to assume that it could judge whether details from the files would pose a threat to anyone's security. The Guardian has said that it is taking care not to publish documents that would threaten national security or the security of individuals.

The former foreign secretary told the BBC: "I'm not suggesting for a moment anybody in the Guardian gratuitously wants to risk anybody's life. But what I do think is that their sense of power of having these secrets and excitement – almost adolescent excitement – about these secrets has gone to their head.

"They're blinding themselves about the consequence and also showing an extraordinary naivety and arrogance in implying that they are in a position to judge whether or not particular secrets which they have published are not likely to damage the national interest, and they're not in any position at all to do that." Guardian 11/10/13

Fair comment some might think. But can this be the same slimy Jack who back in April this year was citing ‘official secrets’ as the reason why he could not possibly defend his action to render to Libya two enemies of Gaddafi? It surely can.

“Former foreign secretary Jack Straw and Sir Mark Allen, a former senior MI6 officer, have said they cannot respond to allegations of conspiracy in the torture of a prominent Libyan dissident, pleading the need to protect official secrets.

They do not deny being involved in rendering Abdel Hakim Belhaj into the hands of Gaddafi’s secret police in 2004 but say they did nothing unlawful.

Their blanket refusal – and that of MI6, MI5, the Foreign Office, and the Home Office – to explain their alleged role in the seizure of Belhaj and his wife in Malaysia and their flight to Libya on a CIA jet is contained in court documents seen by the Guardian.” April 2013

This was apparently all part of the deal to get Gaddafi back into the fold – and at the same time give BP access to all that lovely Libyan oil. What’s a little rendition and torture between friends?

Since April it has all gone quiet. Very quiet. 

Just like the Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq War. Remember that? It seems ‘official secrecy’ is proving more than useful in preventing the learned judge from getting access to the necessary cabinet papers thereby preventing him from coming to a clear and transparent judgement about the biggest foreign policy fiasco in the modern era. 

These slimy, mendacious, nasty bastards would rather no-one knew anything about their skullduggery.

Then they can continue to appear on the media with their ‘elder statesman’ persona unchallenged and their self-serving comments demanding their dirty washing stays hidden.

And continue to take their thirty pieces of silver from arms dealers and oil barons.

Daily Heil: servile lackeys for the powerful and world laughing stock

Daily Heil shoots foot 

As the follow up to Leveson rumbles on, it is mind-boggling to hear senior journos at the Heil banging on about ‘press freedom’. Their definition of ‘freedom’ seems to be based on printing whatever their owner or their loony editor tells them to. Enough has been made of the Rothermere family history in this respect to know that this can mean sucking up to tyranny. For them to have a go at a paper which has exposed the all-pervasive nature of surveillance in our lives is absurd. The Torygraph for years has been considered the house journal for the spooks and its recent behaviour confirms that judgement. Then there are the Murdoch rags who once ran one of the great investigative papers in the modern era - the Sunday Times under Harold Evans - and who now operate under very different values.

It is no wonder then that the Snowden leaks have received such poor coverage across our media with such craven lickspittle hypocrites willing to do the establishment’s bidding. Yesterday however, the Heil went one step further with a stinging editorial and a table-chewing column from Stephen Glover about leftie jounalists. They even managed to shoehorn an attack on the Beeb into their rants. The Guardian sent their execrable offerings around the world. Here are some responses. The emphases are mine.

“No secret service likes it when its methods are being discussed openly, which is understandable as long as a secret service focuses on its core duties, such as the surveillance of terror suspects. Once a secret service starts behaving like an octopus, though, with its tentacles reaching all across everyone's life and putting whole societies under collective suspicion with everyone falling victim to total surveillance, then the societal contract has been broken. There is no justification for such violation. Yet it is fully justifies that journalists reveal such unlawful state action. This is what the Guardian has done. Nothing else.

To claim that the Guardian had shown "deadly irresponsibility" or that it was "helping the enemies" of the UK has no foundation and is appalling. To publish such claims means to slander those who consistently and carefully fulfill their journalistic duty to society.”
Wolfgang Krach, deputy editor in chief, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany

“When a newspaper prints a story, or a series of stories, such as the Snowden case, the first attacks are always aimed at its editors and publishers. State or homeland security reasons are always claimed.

It happened when The New York Times and The Washington Post printed the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War in 1973, and it happened with WikiLeaks. Now, the object of criticism is the Guardian for having printed Edward Snowden's revelations. What is sad, baffling and dangerous is that the attacks now come not only from governments but from other newspapers too. In doing so, they are ignoring their first and utmost obligation. The press must serve the citizens and comply with their right to have access to truthful and relevant informations when it comes to public affairs. Newspapers have many duties. Having to protect governments and the powerful from embarrasing situations is not among them. 

The Guardian's work in the Snowden case is an example of great journalism, the kind that changes history and the kind that citizens need more every day, in a world where the powerful are increasingly trying to hide information from their societies. The real danger is not in the so-called "aid to the enemy" denounced by the hypocrites, but in the actions of governments and state agencies that citizens cannot control. To fight it we need newspapers willing to do their job, rather than those ready to cheer on the self-interested deceptions of the powerful.”
Javier Moreno, director, El País, Spain

“The Daily Mail apparently has absolute faith in the integrity and competence of its government on national security matters, despite the ample lessons of history. The Mail has a right to be the government's toady. We'll look elsewhere for actual journalism, which we still need”
Dan Gillmor, director, Knight centre for digital media

“I am not surprised by the attacks, considering the level of importance, the magnitude, and the ongoing nature of the leaks. But for journalists to suggest that editors of newspapers, not being experts on security matters, are unfit to make decisions on publishing confidential material and must leave the whole field of surveillance and security to the state to handle as it thinks fit, under an impenetrable veil of secrecy, sounds to me like the worst kind of intellectual philistinism.”
N. Ram, former editor-in-chief, the Hindu

“It is with abhorrence that we have read today's editorial in the Daily Mail attacking the Guardian's coverage of Edward Snowden's revelations and accusing its competitor of "aiding Britain's enemies". It effectively amounts to the accusation of treason.

We fully support the Guardian's relentless disclosures of secret services' abuses of power and widespread spying on citizens, domestically as well as abroad. For many months now, the Guardian has been subject to unprecedented pressure by the British government, in order to discourage its reporters and editors from pursuing such stories. We are convinced that, in this case, the national security argument is largely overused; since the revealed massive surveillance of people cannot be justified by the war on terror.”
Piotr Stasinski, deputy editor-in-chief, Gazeta Wyborcza

Hang your head in shame Dacre.

Gove: “working hard to privatise education.....”

                                                                   Thanks to Steve Bell

Shit governance, shit administration and shit values - welcome to the world of Gove. As Sec of State for Education he has done his damnedest to denigrate ‘hardworking teachers’  in the state sector while lauding the loony and the plain daft in his ‘free school’ scheme. A few more chickens have squawked back to the coop recently. A Headteacher for a free school in London has resigned this week. So what the cry goes up - heads resign all the time. Ah well - this one had not been trained as a teacher and was appointed as a head without being a teacher.  47% of free schools have unqualified staff. That bodes well for further down the line

The muslim free school in Derby continues to send shudders through Whitehall. Will Gove the Dogmatic see sense and close it down? Watch this space.

It is when it comes to state schools that Gove really takes the biscuit. As Min of Ed he is supposed to nourish and cherish our young people in schools across the nation. Not Gove. He cares about the 7% in private education and derides the 93% in state education. 

“whatever the schools are really like, there is an overriding perception that they are terrible – and this has come straight from Michael Gove. The secretary of state for education has denigrated schools relentlessly, in word and in deed.

In his telling, local authorities know no standard except bog standard. Pupils consigned to their system will be lucky if they come out literate. Improvements in GCSE grades have no meaning, since they are the result of deflation in quality rather than hard work on the part of the students. School architecture is just more highfalutin liberal claptrap, governors are "local worthies seeking a badge of status and the chance to waffle about faddy issues", the national curriculum is a ball and chain, and teachers are part of a leftwing conspiracy. Indeed, dynamism will only be returned to the education system when schools are allowed to employ people without teaching qualifications, which 47% of free schools have duly done.

It is a vision so paranoid and destructive, so superstitious and vitriolic, that if he said it all in one speech you'd think you were listening to a guy in a sandwich board outside a tube station.” Zoe Williams, Guardian 10/10/13

Also for your delectation there is the matter of Gove’s Special Adviser - a certain Dominic Cummings, an alumni from the Malcolm Tucker school of advisers. This is what the Independent had to say about this creep:

“ He quickly gained a reputation as a ruthless and passionate advocate of Mr Gove’s education reforms, crossing swords with those who have criticised the plans, suggesting that journalists scrutinising policy are either lying or insane.” Independent. Who needs values and ideals when numpties like Cummings command such a presence?

What does all this mean? Ever since Jim Callaghan opened up the ‘secret garden’ to political interference things have been going from bad to worse.  

“England is the only country in the developed world where the generation approaching retirement is more literate and numerate than the youngest adults, according to the first skills survey by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

In a stark assessment of the success and failure of the 720-million-strong adult workforce across the wealthier economies, the economic thinktank warns that in England, adults aged 55 to 65 perform better than 16- to 24-year-olds at foundation levels of literacy and numeracy.

...When the results within age groups are compared across participating countries, older adults in England score higher in literacy and numeracy than the average among their peers, while younger adults show some of the lowest scores for their age group.’ Guardian 8/10/13

There are observers who have put their finger on the issue:

‘It's such a shame that you haven't noticed the start of the decline started with the Tories 1988 Education Act. If you wish to note the start of the serial cock-ups you could check on the first national curriculum (Tory, binned within 2 years), followed by the second Tory national curriculum (binned after a further 2 years), or the third Tory National curriculum (binned after 3 years). These cock-ups each required schools to rewrite loads of in-depth documents (in teachers own time, whilst still doing the "day job").

Now let's think how old the pupils affected by this purely Tory car crash will be now ..... oh yes, less than 20, up to 27. Ring any bells, about a recent report?”The Great Ron Rafferty. 

GCHQ, MI5 and the Media

Earlier this week, disgraced politician and self-confessed liar, Chris Huhne, revealed in the Guardian that the Cabinet were unaware of the extent of GCHQ’s activities. He said the National Security Committee, of which he had been a member, had not discussed the Prism and Tempora programmes. These are run by GCHQ and NSA to hoover up all personal internet communication. Admittedly the source for this revelation does not carry a great deal of credibility but the story has legs. 

Snowden’s leaks exposed the vast operation taking place in our name and paid for by our taxes to ‘monitor’ (spy on) all of us in the name of ‘national security.’ What would the Stasi or the KGB have done with this technology? The absence of comment in the British media has been odd. Author John Lanchester writing in the Guardian thought that our lack of a written constitution was a factor. In the US and Brazil by contrast, there is a culture of ‘rights’ which are enshrined in law. Public outrage and concern has been massive in those countries as it has been across most of Europe, with Germany especially sensitive to the issue. Lanchester argued that we British see issues as ‘wrongs’ and we tend to react to perceived injustices only when we are slapped in the face by them. 

Thanks to the silence, lack of accountability, supine or tainted politicians, and general ignorance, our spooks go blithely on. 

Three months after the revelations emerged, said spooks are fighting back. Using tame journalists and editors of the right-wing press to help, for example this in the Daily Heil.

“A massive cache of  stolen top-secret documents published in The Guardian has handed a ‘gift’ to terrorists, the head of MI5 warned last night.

In a blistering attack, Andrew Parker said the publication of confidential files leaked by US fugitive Edward Snowden had caused huge ‘harm’ to the capability of Britain’s intelligence services.

Security officials say the exposé amounts to a ‘guide book’, advising terrorists on the best way to avoid detection when plotting an atrocity. 

In Whitehall, it is considered to have caused the greatest damage to the Western security apparatus in history. In his first public speech since taking the job earlier this year, Mr Parker said the leaks handed the ‘advantage’ to terrorists and were a ‘gift they need to evade us and strike at will’.” Daily Heil 9/10/13

Re-assuringly, not all Dacre’s readers are as barmy as he is. Neither are they as disposed to swallow government guff. 

A well-supported comment in the Heil’s online edition had this to say: 

“Let's be clear. In this country, the Government has become completely detached from the people that it is supposed to represent. The intelligence service has evolved and morphed into a clandestine agency that is concerned and obsessed with fueling a desperate fight with a shadowy "enemy" that it created. It has become an out of control monster in its own right which fuels the paranoia and fears of the hapless citizens in order to maintain its own survival. If the government focused on domestic policy, the issues that really mattered to the average person in the streets, and stopped trying to extend its reach into every nook and cranny of the globe, then I guarantee there would be no "National Security issue" to speak of. Edward Snowden and the Guardian newspaper are not the creators of this scenario, they merely exposed it. Politicians are the real menace to our society. Stop war mongering in our name and get this country back on track at grass roots.” Craig30

Daily Wail Witch Hunt

Daily Wail Witch Hunt

If only. For years, this cesspit of bile and vilification has smeared its nastiness across the nation. The fact that it has such a relatively high readership is a cause for despair. It is a source of amazement that it claims women constitute over half of its readership. Quite astonishing when the vitriol and sexism on its notorious ‘sidebar of shame’ in the online edition is taken into account. Bitchy and catty, it is sarcastic about C-List celebs and wannabees with their ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ and ‘nipple mishaps.’ Gleefully prurient and condemnatory at the same time. 

It is a shorthand tool in judging a new acquaintance. Most readers when challenged make some sort of excuse about ‘liking its sports pages’ or ‘its good for tv coverage’ etc. 

It bullies its staff, its victims, and like Murdoch, has a malign influence on our politicians. It damages decent public discourse.

The way it has handled the hatchet job on Ed Miliband has been revelatory. It has shown a less sure touch. The number of Tory grandees publicly disputing the Wail’s ‘angle’ has been quite heartening. Ralph Miliband was clearly a character and a man of substance. 

“In the 1980s, I took some of my students to a history workshop conference in Oxford. We heard lectures from Ralph Miliband, among others. He analysed and rejoiced in the great British radical tradition, from the Lollards and Levellers, Thomas Paine, Wilberforce and the anti-slavery movement, Shaftesbury and, yes, the trades unions. He talked also of the remarkable British tolerance and readiness to receive immigrants and refugees, like himself. Of course, he was an immigrant, a socialist and a gifted intellectual – all the things despised by the Daily Mail.

I loathe the Mail and its politics because it expresses everything that is foul about the rightwing in this country. That does not mean I am the less patriotic. Quite the reverse. It is because I love my country that I find the Mail unpatriotic, nasty, intolerant and everything that demeans Britain.
Colin Pickthall
Ulverston, Cumbria   Guardian letters page 3/10/13

Following further revelations about two Sunday Wail journalists attempting to dig up some dirt by inveigling themselves into a private memorial for a Miliband family member, the Sunday Wail editor quickly apologised. No such apology for the original smear article from the Wail or its editor. 

Where’s Dacre?

The editor of the Wail is Paul Dacre. He is accused by Alastair Campbell of being a bully (a bit rich that from Campbell) and a coward. He has sent out minions this week to face the media storm. Of Dacre there is nothing to be seen, yet he is the highest paid editor on Fleet Street, getting nearly £2million a year. Campbell has launched an online petition challenging Dacre to a public debate. 

How about this for a character reference?

“Dacre is, all those who have had the misfortune to work for him assure me, just about as loathsome, self-regarding, morally putrid, vengeful and disgusting a man as it possible to be." International Business Times  

Question Time

Wail professional cynic, Quentin Letts, had a sense of humour bypass on last night’s Question Time. He had to sit and listen to his paper being slammed by Mehdi Hassan of the Huffington Post. For anyone who has ever shuddered at the Wail’s values, it is well worth a look. 

There are many clips online. Here is one:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JIvARoGbS4

Faith-Free Schools

If only Tory Ministers followed their own rhetoric. Their mantra is ‘hardworking families’ yet they do not put in the hard yards themselves. Michael ‘Gollum’ Gove is such a minister. His tenure has become a byword for half-baked, ill-thought out ideas and schemes. Launched on a Monday, revised on Wednesday and dropped by Friday is a parody of his ministerial style. But it is only just a parody.

The latest chicken roaring home to roost is the muslim free school in Derby which hit the news this week. They announced themselves some months ago as being moderate and all-embracing but it seems that once the public money was in the bag they revealed their true colours. 

“THE Al-Madinah Muslim School, under fire over ordering female teachers to wear a hijab – an Islamic scarf – regardless of their faith, has refused to answer crucial questions.

And education officials have also stayed tight-lipped over whether it was right to give £1.4 million of public money to the city school.” Derby Telegraph 2/10/13

Girls are reported to be treated as inferior, not allowed to read fiction and to have to sit at the back of the class. Boys are given preferential treatment. Teachers are not allowed to join a union and women staff were forced to wear the hijab and full length clothing even though they may not be of the muslim faith. This is in Derby not Islamabad.

There will be a number of people who say we should not interfere with the way a faith school operates. Others may have regard to a passage in the Koran which has advice for men about how to treat their wives. Being a ‘good husband’ means hitting your wife proportionally - a good muslim man will not go over the top in hitting his wife. So that is all right then. 

No it damn well isn’t. And it is not just muslim schools either. We have got faith academies pushing creationist nonsense - the earth being 10,000 years old, created in a week, Adam and Eve and all the rest of the bollocks. All paid for by our taxes. 

This nonsensical and discriminatory situation is happening in Britain. The home of the Enlightenment and rational thought. With the support and backing of Gove, who is himself a practicing Christian. Using our money to pay these proponents of mumbo jumbo and oppressive beliefs to peddle their dogma to unformed minds. 

The consequences of opening a new Free School in an urban area plays havoc with any concept of planning and invariably takes money from neighbouring schools. It must be particularly galling for hardworking staff (appropriate use - ed)  to not know how much their budget will be and watch much needed funds go to a divisive, non-collaborative, antipathetic faith school.  

Free Schools are yet another ill-thought through bad idea. When they are set up to promote religious difference, discrimination, unfairness and irrational ideas they become far, far worse.