Magna Carta Plus News

For some years now I've been contributing to the Magna Carta Plus website(MCP), and recently I've been in charge of its news service, which has now been revamped as a weblog.

MCP is a civil liberties website and its news service aims to cover developments in civil liberties across the world, albeit with a UK bias. My efforts on civil liberties will focus mainly on the news 'blog there and in contributing further articles to MCP.

This blog will remain in operation, however its focus will move away from civil liberties into other areas of politics.

ID card roadshow in Edinburgh tomorrow

Apparently, the government's identity cards "roadshow", a charm offensive the govt is using to try to win over the public on the proposals, will be hitting Edinburgh tomorrow according to the Glasgow No2ID website:

On Sunday 11th September, it was announced that the Home Office would be starting a 7 day "biometric roadshow" to try to sell the concept of ID cards to the British public. The roadshow started today with Andy Burnham MP, minister for ID cards, visiting Manchester Airport on Monday to show off the Home Office's dreams for biometric technology - BBC story (appeared Sunday afternoon).

The Home Office are trying to keep news of these events secret before they occur. On Monday afternoon they flatly refused to let me know if there were any plans for the roadshow to come to Scotland. The Home Office did not make a press release about the Manchester event public until it had already started.

Despite the Home Office refusing to tell us about future dates and venues, we have learnt that the roadshow will be at the Gyle shopping centre in Edinburgh on Wednesday 14th September. Andy Burnham will be there from 11:00 to 12:00.

If you can possibly get to Edinburgh on Wednesday to join in a small protest, hand out a few leaflets and challenge a minister to answer some of the questions that they have been avoiding, then please let me know. Or just turn up, if you prefer.

Sorry about the short notice, but the Home Office are trying to keep this quiet. We need all the help we can get - please get in touch: glasgow@no2id.net

More on the Stockwell tube shooting

This story seems to get more and more disturbing as times goes on. Whilst of course we've still to have the report from the inquiry and thus don't yet know the full facts, the recently leaked documents suggest that almost every aspect of the story we were initially told is incorrect.

According to this BBC report on the matter, the leaked documents suggest that Mr Menezes did not jump the barrier at the station, but entered normally, picked up a newspaper and proceeded to the platforms. He only ran when a train was near and was sitting down when the police boarded the train, he stood up after the police shouted "police" and was then restrained by one officer whilst another shot him. He was not wearing a bulky coat and nor was it the case that he ran when police challenged him.

This account suggests that until the police boarded the train, Menezes was not aware of being followed. It also suggests that he did not do anything unusual, indeed he was simply going about his business, and the only reason for the police to think he was up to no good was that he emerged from a building under their surveillance and they thought he was one of their targets.

Now it seems to me that for a decision to shoot to be justifiable, the police needed to have evidence that the suspect had a bomb on him or under his control at the time they were surveilling him. Nothing I've read so far suggests they did, and it looks more and more like the only reason they had for shooting him was misidentifying him as someone they're looking for. If this is borne out by the inquiry then heads should roll.

The Stockwell tube shooting (contd)

The maintainers of the Spy.org.uk blog commented on my earlier article about this:

The Times reports that the innocent Brasilian Jean Charles de Menezes waited for, and caught a Number 2 Bus from near his home too Stockwell Tube Station, and was "under surveillance" for more than 20 minutes.

Do the Operation Kratos "rules of engagement" value the lives of Bus passengers less than those of Tibe passengers ?

Why was this alleged suicide bomber allowed to board a Bus ? If he was not considered to be a "threat to life" on the Bus, then why was he considered to be one before he got to a Tube train ?

These are indeed important questions. If the police considered Mr Menezes to be a suicide bomber in the process of carrying out an attack then surely they should have stopped him before he got on the bus, or even as soon as he left his house? It is possible of course that it wasn't until after he got off the bus that the police thought he might be a suicide bomber, but this is a vital question and demands an answer.

There is also the question of whether the police did enough to identify themselves as police when they challenged Mr Menezes. The eyewitness accounts suggest they did not shout "police" or "armed police". This might be a factor in explaining why Mr Menezes ran.

There plenty of questions that need answered here. I hope the inquiry will answer them and that if the police are found to be at fault then those responsible face the music and that procedures are altered if necessary.

Nevertheless, I think that shooting to kill someone who is in the process of carrying out a suicide bombing attack is the right policy (if there is no safe alternative). And where possible we should try and stop these people before they set out to blow themselves up in crowded areas.

New No2ID pledge

Following the success of the earlier No2ID pledge, a new pledge has been set up, aimed at those who are opposed to ID cards but feel they cannot incur the fines or possible jail sentences associated with refusing to get one. The new pledge reads:

I will actively support those people who, on behalf of all of us*, refuse to register for an ID card, and I pledge to pay at least £20 into a fighting fund for them but only if 50000 other people will too.

The originator of the pledge is a mother called Franky Ma, and as the website explains this pledge is aimed at those who for whatever reason feel that they can't join in a campaign of non-compliance directly:

"As the mother of a young child I can't risk her rights with mine by contesting ID cards directly, but I want to do everything I can to make sure she grows up in a free country." - Franky

*Many people, including Franky, have told NO2ID that they really want to refuse to register but they feel that their professional or family responsibilities mean they cannot personally contest registration--which could stop them travelling, working, and exercising many other civil rights.

The government's so-called 'voluntary' phase is a lie. Linking your passport to the National Identity Register and ID card WITH NO OPT-OUT is coercion, not choice. It may, in fact, prove to be a violation of human rights conventions.

NO2ID has already found over 10,000 people willing to test this--and the government's apparent intent to starve out the non-compliant. They will need your support.

The aim is to collect 50,000 signatures for this pledge by 31st March 2006. Given that they got 10,000 signatures for the earlier pledge in a matter of weeks, with a 9th October deadline, I'd suggest they've got a good chance of achieving this.

The Stockwell tube shooting

After shooting a man dead on Friday, the police have announced that he was not in fact connected to the inquiry over the London bombings:

A Scotland Yard spokesman said last night that there would be an inquiry. "We are satisfied the victim of the Stockwell Tube shooting is not linked to our terrorist inquiry. For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one the Metropolitan police regrets.

"The man emerged from a block of flats in the Stockwell area that were under police surveillance as part of the investigation into the incidents on Thursday, July 21. He was followed by surveillance officers to the Underground station. His clothing and behaviour added to their suspicions. The circumstances that led to the man's death are being investigated."

Clearly things went badly wrong here for the police to shoot dead someone who was not carrying out a suicide attack, and one hopes that the investigation will clear up what exactly happened. It is too early to judge what happened here.

However, it seems to me that if the police had good reason to suspect that Mr Menezes was on his way to carrying out a suicide bombing, then they did not have much choice, when confronted with his refusal to obey police instructions to stop and his subsequent fleeing into a tube station including jumping a turnstile and running onto a tube train, but to do what they can to stop him. Had this really been a suicide bomber carrying out an attack, then it seems to me that shooting him dead was the right thing to do, to prevent many more lives being lost.

The sad fact is that since the emergence of suicide bombing in this country, the police face a very difficult situation when faced with someone they believe may be about to carry out such an attack. Failure to act could lead to dozens of people dying. Acting may require shooting the suspect dead. It follows that mistakes will be made.

Of course we should establish what happened to see if anything could have been done to prevent this tragedy, and if it becomes clear that the police had been incompetent then those responsible for the incompetence should face the music. But it is possible that, based on the information they had at the time of the incident, they had no choice but to do what they did. Such is the nature of the situation we face with the arrivial of suicide bombing in Britain.

Over 10,000 pledge to resist human livestock bill

The Register reports that the No2ID pledge set up by Phil Booth, the No2ID National Coordinator has reached its target of 10,000 signatures with several months to go before the October 9th deadline. The pledge states:

"I will refuse to register for an ID card and will donate £10 to a legal defence fund but only if 10000 other people will also make this same pledge."

It was set up back in June, and has thus reached its target in under 2 months.