The Musings of Harry

I doubt that one could find three other words that so provoke my ire as these*.

The assumption which is inherent in those that ascribe to this view is that our rights as citizens are accorded to us by the state, at its discretion. That in the absence of its approval, we have no rights. The appropriate situation is precisely the reverse.

Our responsibilities are not currency; they are not some instrument by which we prove to the state that we are deserving of liberty. Our rights, as citizens in a liberal democracy, are innate: it is our rights that are sacrosanct and is is the state’s responsibility to ensure that, in all of its actions, the sovereignty of the law-abiding individual is not compromised.

This is why ID cards are bad. Why must a citizen be forced to submit themselves to the State for interrogation in the absence of due cause?

This is why rampant deployment of CCTV is unacceptable. Why should the authorities be permitted to observe me, without my knowledge, and without any indication that I have committed some wrong?

This is why ANPR systems are bad. Why should the police maintain two years’ worth of data about my journeys by car, when I have committed no crime?

The individual has innate rights and adopted responsibilities; the state has adopted rights and innate responsibilities. Its rights exist only so long as its legitimacy is maintained, and its legitimacy depends on the consent of the individual: government, by the consent of the governed. Citizens cannot consent to be governed by a body which, at its discretion, gives them the right to make such consent in the first place. That is a nonsense.

Henry Porter made this point, among others, in his recent evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights last week. It’s a great essay, absolutely worth reading. Go!

*Ok: that’s not true. We could start with “Gillian McKeith Rules” and move swiftly on to “nothing to hide…”

Ever since the announcement by Alistair Darling in the Commons that the Government had lost 25 million people’s personal data, ministers have been spouting the fantasy that biometrics will prevent the same thing happening with the National Identity Register, which will underpin the ID cards scheme.

It is nice to see that someone has finally called their bluff. Academic ninjas Ross Anderson and colleagues have published an open letter to the Government explaining, in excellent language that even a minister could understand, why biometrics won’t make a jot of difference. This is splendid news, although I suspect it’ll be ignored along with the rest of the advice that academics have offered the Government over the last few years. Nevertheless, somebody had to do something to counter the stream of fantastical nonsense which has been flowing, unstemmed, from the mouths of Government ministers over the last week or so:

“The key thing about identity cards is, of course, that they will mean that information is protected by personal biometric information. The problem at present is that, because we do not have that protection, information is much more vulnerable than it should be.” — Alistair Darling, 20/11/07

This is a complete non sequitur. It makes no sense whatsoever to anyone with even the most frail grasp of the technology at work. The ignorance this demonstrates is appalling.

“What we must ensure is that identity fraud is avoided, and the way to avoid identity fraud is to say that for passport information we will have the biometric support that is necessary, so that people can feel confident that their identity is protected.” — Gordon Brown, 21/11/2007

Is it now? Is it actually safe given that in April — 7 months ago — academics in the states managed to reconstruct a fingerprint capable of fooling a scanner from the data which is sent from a passport to a reader over the air when its RFID chip is scanned? The very same data which, despite being encrypted, has such a weak key that it can be cracked in a few minutes by anyone with a desktop PC?

“There is of course an important protection in an identity card system, through the use of biometrics. Biometrics will link a person securely and reliably to his or her unique identity. It will therefore become much more difficult for people to misuse other people’s identity, even if full details of their biographical information are already known. The current plan for the national identity register is for biometric information to be held separately from biographical information, thereby safeguarding against the sort of eventuality that the right hon. Gentleman described.” — Jacqui Smith, 21/11/2007

In response to this pleasant-sounding fantasy, David Davis replied that he did not look forward to the day when somebody asks for this data and is sent it. Indeed. How, also, does Ms Smith propose that biometrics be used to secure information when a fingerprint, suitable for fooling a scanner, can be lifted from a tumbler or a CD case and attached, almost undetectably, to the tip of one’s finger?

These people are living in a complete fantasy, and a dangerous one at that. I don’t think the HMRC scandal is the nail in the coffin for the ID cards scheme, but it’s certainly one of them. Nor do I think that, were the ID cards scheme to die a quiet death, the problem would be solved.

This government has big plans for centralisation of data, and big plans for lots of neat technology, but they lack the most important ingredient: a culture of privacy protection and respect for people’s personal information. The absence of this trait is stark and worrying. What does it say about a government that hires expert consultants, for hundreds of thousands of pounds, to produce policies on data handling that fill inch-thick books with obvious advice, only to leave them languishing in a drawer while giving junior office lackies access to half the population’s personal data without any effective supervision or oversight?

Is it really prudent for this Government to create more and more and more and more databases when these incidents are happening over and over and over and over again? What planet are these people on? When will they be jolted out of this utopian technological fantasy?

If this hasn’t done it, what will?

The BBC reports that the police are to be given real-time access to congestion charge data, in order to catch more of those pesky terrorists. I’m a little surprised that this doesn’t happen already, considering ACPO’s current policy regarding the collection and use of ANPR data nationally, but no matter.

This is a perfect example of the kind of function creep that should not be allowed to happen. It is the most insidious kind of policy change: massive in scope, important in principle, but almost invisible in everyday life and introduced with no fanfare. They say it’s only for matters involving national security, but how long will it be until they have routine access to check for people’s insurance status, too? This policy demonstrates that the Home Office consider this kind of function creep to be acceptable. Why draw the line here?

Originally the police had access only on a case-by-case basis: they had to justify their requests every time they wanted to access the data. This is an entirely sensible measure. It is of critical importance that police powers are checked by the judiciary. Without this safeguard, civil liberties will suffer: the police always think they’re right, and lack the independence necessary to ensure that their more invasive powers are used proportionately. Precisely the same is true in most walks of life: getting someone else’s perspective is often illuminating. It’s hard to be objective when you’re in the thick of something.

The judiciary have a crucial role to play when it comes to the oversight of police powers, and this government has and is eroding that role. They characterise these checks as putting obstacles in the way of the police, and express shock that anyone should want to do that. They push through more and more draconian measures on the back of people’s fear of terrorism, never admitting that, in actual fact, the chances of the average person getting blown up by a terrorist come a fairly distant second to being hit by lightning, or winning the lottery. Prudent precautions are sensible, routine abuses of civil liberties are not. They are, in fact, counter-productive: over-zealous security and reductions in civil liberties do more to create a climate of fear than the terrorist acts which prompt them.

PS: It seems they’re already planning to use this data for routine policing. There’s a surprise!

The recent spate of “attacks” in Glasgow and London are entertainingly inept. Why are people on speculating about the “spectre” raised by “a wave of highly educated terrorists holding valid UK visas and good jobs”, as I just heard on the BBC? Why must people be so irritatingly sensationalist? Why must the Police run around like headless chickens talking about carnage? “Potentially viable” is quite obviously a stupid neologism meaning “fucking useless compared to a real bomb”…

In fact, these bombs hardly merit the use of the word. Had the gas canisters exploded, they would have singed some people, popped a few eardrums and made a pretty fireball for the TV. The nails, having been scattered on the floors of the cars, would have been propelled, in a comparatively leisurely fashion, into the ground. Canisters, contrary to popular belief, do not present a large shrapnel risk. While they can of course produce dangerous shards of metal in an explosion, they tend to rupture rather than splinter:

See what I mean? This is because there is no air in these cylinders, and thus nothing to oxidise the propane and produce an explosion. Rather, the heat produces increased pressure within the cylinder, which then ruptures and releases its contents into the fire. This will produce a pretty spectacular fireball, but not an actual explosion. It is obviously not safe, and you wouldn’t want to stand next to one when it went off, but they are pretty sissy when compared to actual bombs.

In short, these “terrorists” did not know what they were doing. They were, in fact, stupid: they left cylinders in burning cars, evidently just hoping that they’d explode before the fire brigade turned up to put out the fire. One of them thought that perhaps the best way to mitigate this problem would be to light the car on fire first, and then drive it into the nest of armed policemen that is the modern airport — and then set himself on fire, to boot. Ballsy, but pointless. Another was so utterly moronic that he left the car parked illegally, whereupon it was towed away and the dastardly plot foiled. One can’t help but to draw a comparison with the fuckwittedly useless plans of some other bungling idiots to blow up planes by manufacturing explosives in the toilets from liquid precursors: also the preserve of Hollywood movie plots and the imaginations of teenage males.

If this is the shape of things to come, terrorists don’t present us with much to worry about: not that that’ll stop the usual spate of additional, pointless security measures from being implemented. The BAA has already said that cars will not be able to drive up to the airport for the foreseeable future, thus creating, in a stroke, far more inconvenience than was caused by the attack. The stark truth is that terrorists no longer need to be competent in order to achieve their objectives. Given even the most pathetic and trivial terrorist plot, we will quite happily institute measures that chip away at the corners of our liberty and way of life. They don’t even need to kill people any more, such is the atmosphere that we have created.

Brown rightly states that terrorism mustn’t be allowed to change our way of life, in apparent ignorance of the fact that a multitude of everyday inconveniences, experienced by millions, is a change to our way of life. That mass surveillance using ID cards and ANPR cameras is a considerable and worrying change to our way of life. That the holding of suspects for 90 days without trial, and disproportionate powers of arrest, search and interrogation given to police are reprehensible changes to our way of life.

I am not remotely worried about being a victim of a terrorist act. I am placed in grave states of worry, almost daily, by the pronouncements of our leaders. Terrorism is a threat, but a paranoid, power-hungry officious government is a much bigger one.