Lagging Behind England, Thank God!

This is what is happening in England.  They have allowed themselves to be disarmed and cannot even resist. Is this the kind of world we want to leave our children and grandchildren?

 Britons 'could be microchipped like dogs in a decade'

Dan Newling – Daily Mail.co.uk October 30, 2006

Human beings may be forced to be 'microchipped' like pet dogs, a shocking official report into the rise of the Big Brother state has warned.

The microchips - which are implanted under the skin - allow the wearer's movements to be tracked and store personal information about them.

They could be used by companies who want to keep tabs on an employee's movements or by Governments who want a foolproof way of identifying their citizens - and storing information about them.

The prospect of 'chip-citizens' - with its terrifying echoes of George Orwell's 'Big Brother' police state in the book 1984 - was raised in an official report for Britain's Information Commissioner Richard Thomas into the spread of surveillance technology.

The report, drawn up by a team of respected academics, claims that Britain is a world-leader in the use of surveillance technology and its citizens the most spied-upon in the free world.

It paints a frightening picture of what Britain might be like in ten years time unless steps are taken to regulate the use of CCTV and other spy technologies.

The reports editors Dr David Murakami Wood, managing editor of the journal Surveillance and Society and Dr Kirstie Ball, an Open University lecturer in Organisation Studies, claim that by 2016 our almost every movement, purchase and communication could be monitored by a complex network of interlinking surveillance technologies.

The most contentious prediction is the spread in the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.

The RFID chips - which can be detected and read by radio waves - are already used in new UK passports and are also used the Oyster card system to access the London Transport network.

For the past six years European countries have been using RFID chips to identify pet animals.

Already used in America

However, its use in humans has already been trialled in America, where the chips were implanted in 70 mentally-ill elderly people in order to track their movements.

And earlier this year a security company in Ohio chipped two of its employees to allow them to enter a secure area. The glass-encased chips were planted in the recipients' upper right arms and 'read' by a device similar to a credit card reader.

In their Report on the Surveillance Society, the authors now warn: "The call for everyone to be implanted is now being seriously debated."

The authors also highlight the Government's huge enthusiasm for CCTV, pointing out that during the 1990s the Home Office spent 78 per cent of its crime prevention budget - a total of £500 million - on installing the cameras.

There are now 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain and the average Briton is caught on camera an astonishing 300 times every day.

This huge enthusiasm comes despite official Home Office statistics showing that CCTV cameras have 'little effect on crime levels'.

They write: "The surveillance society has come about us without us realising", adding: "Some of it is essential for providing the services we need: health, benefits, education. Some of it is more questionable. Some of it may be unjustified, intrusive and oppressive."

Yesterday Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, whose office is investigating the Post Office, HSBC, NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland over claims they dumped sensitive customer details in the street, said: "Many of these schemes are public sector driven, and the individual has no choice over whether or not to take part."

"People are being scrutinised and having their lives tracked, and are not even aware of it."

He has also voiced his concern about the consequences of companies, or Government agencies, building up too much personal information about someone.

He said: "It can stigmatise people. I have worries about technology being used to identify classes of people who present some kind of risk to society. And I think there are real anxieties about that."

Yesterday a spokesman for civil liberties campaigners Liberty said: "We have got nothing about these surveillance technologies in themselves, but it is their potential uses about which there are legitimate fears. Unless their uses are regulated properly, people really could find themselves living in a surveillance society.

"There is a rather scary underlying feeling that people may worry that these microchips are less about being a human being than becoming a barcoded product.”

www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=413345&in_page_id=1770

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And here is the current state of England, which is clearly in "crash and burn" mode:

Globalization in Great Britain

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Globalism's effects are more advanced in Great Britain because of its affairs with the European Union. In this issue, Dr David Abbott, an English citizen and freedom-loving patriot, gives his personal account of what globalization has done and is doing to Great Britain. If globalism isn't effectively resisted, the United States is just a few short years behind the same fate. EDITOR'S PREFACE The August Review is concerned with globalism beyond the borders of the United States. If there is any possibility of effective resistance to globalization, it will have to include citizens of all affected countries and regions of the globe. Understanding the nature of globalism requires looking at it from the perspective of others who live on other continents. To this end, The August Review contacted Dr. David Abbott to secure permission to reprint his recent speech delivered to a group of constitutional conservatives in Reno, Nevada. Dr. David Abbott was born and raised in Southampton, England. He is a medical doctor and active in politics. Spent 25 years in America, where he raised a family and practiced medicine in Oregon. In 2000, Abbott returned to Winchester, UK in order to join UKIP's campaign for the freedom, independence and prosperity of all Brits. He ran for MP (Member of Parliament) in the 2005 General Election in England. Below is the full text of Abbot's speech, reprinted here with his permission. His first-hand testimony will give you an insight into what we face in the Americas if globalization continues on its current course. [Beginning of speech] INTRODUCTION In Britain many of us admire the U.S. and realize you are way ahead of us in areas like technology and space exploration. But in one area we are years ahead of you. We have given away most of our freedoms to our government, to the European Union and other supranational bodies. You are in the process of doing something very similar, but we are 5 to 10 years ahead of you. I'm very glad to be here, and I want to leave you with an understanding of the fight of the people against the European Union, and also confirm your concerns about what is happening in the United States. When the [conference organizer] originally looked at my website, and saw I am an environmentalist, he was on the verge of withdrawing my invitation. I AM an environmentalist... I always take the paperbag option. I mostly turn out the lights. I grow organic vegetables. But I learned 12 years ago that the biggest threat to the environment came from government itself. Twyford Down was a beautiful hill near my house in Winchester. The hill was in private ownership, and in addition was protected by various scenic, scientific, and historical designations, and was also designated as a Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Government wanted to make a road through the Down, rather than a tunnel. The tunnel would have cost $150 million more. (This incidentally is the amount we send to the EU in the space of three days.) They violated the private property rights of the Trust that owned the land by shoving through the road. This resulted in the area's desecration, and saw me racing in protest across the defiled landscape. I was unlawfully arrested, clapped into jail, and subsequently received a formal apology and a substantial settlement from the Hampshire police for my unlawful detention. Now, under new legislation, they probably would have classified me as a terrorist, and I would have LOST my rights. At about the same time, the effects of the Common Fisheries Policy, agreed to by Mr. Heath in 1972, were becoming apparent. Increasingly Spanish and other foreign trawlers, often using illegally small net sizes, were devastating the fish stocks around Britain. Britain had 80% of EU fish stocks because the stocks had been carefully managed for hundreds of years. France, Spain, and Italy had virtually destroyed the fish stocks of the Mediterranean and around their coasts. Now they were destroying ours with the connivance of the British Government. Things are now so bad that fish stocks in several areas may never recover, so the EU has enlisted the cooperation of the governments of 20 African countries, and is now treating their offshore fish in the same way, in the process often killing the native fishermen who fish in small boats and often at night. The biggest threat to the British environment, however, is the Government's open border policy. It should be easy to defend an island from illegal or unwanted immigration, but in fact our border is as open as your border with Mexico. Millions of people are flocking into Britain, which is already the most crowded country in Europe. This is largely because of our membership in the EU. There is free movement of people across the 25 countries of the EU, and they mostly want to come to Britain, because many of them already speak English as a second language; because Britain still has a fairly buoyant economy since it has not taken on all the regulations demanded by the EU; and because Britain has a relatively generous welfare benefits system. And, in order to fit in with the European ideal, Britain has already signed the European Charter of Human Rights. This makes it impossible to deport many people who are found to have entered the country illegally. The resulting population growth is putting enormous strains on all aspects of the British environment as the need for housing, roads, hospitals, schools, and shopping centers increases. And with the powers that the Government is giving to the Regional Assemblies, which I will talk about later, there is little that local activists can do to stop the destruction of their environment as a result of Government policy. The rest of the article can be read here: http://www.augustreview.com/issues/globalization/globalization_in_great_britain_200509198/

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Thousands of UK Prisoners
to be “Chipped Like Dogs”

Hi-tech ’satellite’ tagging planned in order to create more space in jails
Civil rights groups and probation officers furious at ‘degrading’ scheme

By Brian Brady, Whitehall Editor
Published: 13 January 2008

Ministers are planning to implant “machine-readable” microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.

Amid concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals.

But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of rice, are able to carry scanable personal information about individuals, including their identities, address and offending record.

The tags, labelled “spychips” by privacy campaigners, are already used around the world to keep track of dogs, cats, cattle and airport luggage, but there is no record of the technology being used to monitor offenders in the community. The chips are also being considered as a method of helping to keep order within prisons.

A senior Ministry of Justice official last night confirmed that the department hoped to go even further, by extending the geographical range of the internal chips through a link-up with satellite-tracking similar to the system used to trace stolen vehicles. “All the options are on the table, and this is one we would like to pursue,” the source added.

The move is in line with a proposal from Ken Jones, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), that electronic chips should be surgically implanted into convicted paedophiles and sex offenders in order to track them more easily. Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is seen as the favoured method of monitoring such offenders to prevent them going near “forbidden” zones such as primary schools.

“We have wanted to take advantage of this technology for several years, because it seems a sensible solution to the problems we are facing in this area,” a senior minister said last night. “We have looked at it and gone back to it and worried about the practicalities and the ethics, but when you look at the challenges facing the criminal justice system, it’s time has come.”

The Government has been forced to review sentencing policy amid serious overcrowding in the nation’s jails, after the prison population soared from 60,000 in 1997 to 80,000 today. The crisis meant the number of prisoners held in police cells rose 13-fold last year, with police stations housing offenders more than 60,000 times in 2007, up from 4,617 the previous year. The UK has the highest prison population per capita in western Europe, and the Government is planning for an extra 20,000 places at a cost of £3.8bn – including three gigantic new “superjails” – in the next six years.

More than 17,000 individuals, including criminals and suspects released on bail, are subject to electronic monitoring at any one time, under curfews requiring them to stay at home up to 12 hours a day. But official figures reveal that almost 2,000 offenders a year escape monitoring by tampering with ankle tags or tearing them off. Curfew breaches rose from 11,435 in 2005 to 43,843 in 2006 – up 283 per cent. The monitoring system, which relies on mobile-phone technology, can fail if the network crashes.

A multimillion-pound pilot of satellite monitoring of offenders was shelved last year after a report revealed many criminals simply ditched the ankle tag and separate portable tracking unit issued to them. The “prison without bars” project also failed to track offenders when they were in the shadow of tall buildings.

The Independent on Sunday has now established that ministers have been assessing the merits of cutting-edge technology that would make it virtually impossible for individuals to remove their electronic tags.

The tags, injected into the back of the arm with a hypodermic needle, consist of a toughened glass capsule holding a computer chip, a copper antenna and a “capacitor” that transmits data stored on the chip when prompted by an electromagnetic reader.

But details of the dramatic option for tightening controls over Britain’s criminals provoked an angry response from probation officers and civil-rights groups. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: “If the Home Office doesn’t understand why implanting a chip in someone is worse than an ankle bracelet, they don’t need a human-rights lawyer; they need a common-sense bypass.

“Degrading offenders in this way will do nothing for their rehabilitation and nothing for our safety, as some will inevitably find a way round this new technology.”

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said the proposal would not make his members’ lives easier and would degrade their clients. He added: “I have heard about this suggestion, but we feel the system works well enough as it is. Knowing where offenders like paedophiles are does not mean you know what they are doing.

“This is the sort of daft idea that comes up from the department every now and then, but tagging people in the same way we tag our pets cannot be the way ahead. Treating people like pieces of meat does not seem to represent an improvement in the system to me.”

The US market leader VeriChip Corp, whose parent company has been selling radio tags for animals for more than a decade, has sold 7,000 RFID microchips worldwide, of which about 2,000 have been implanted in humans. The company claims its VeriChips are used in more than 5,000 installations, crossing healthcare, security, government and industrial markets, but they have also been used to verify VIP membership in nightclubs, automatically gaining the carrier entry – and deducting the price of their drinks from a pre-paid account.

The possible value of the technology to the UK’s justice system was first highlighted 18 months ago, when Acpo’s Mr Jones suggested the chips could be implanted into sex offenders. The implants would be tracked by satellite, enabling authorities to set up “zones”, including schools, playgrounds and former victims’ homes, from which individuals would be barred.

“If we are prepared to track cars, why don’t we track people?” Mr Jones said. “You could put surgical chips into those of the most dangerous sex offenders who are willing to be controlled.”

The case for: ‘We track cars, so why not people?’

The Government is struggling to keep track of thousands of offenders in the community and is troubled by an overcrowded prison system close to bursting. Internal tagging offers a solution that could impose curfews more effectively than at present, and extend the system by keeping sex offenders out of “forbidden areas”. “If we are prepared to track cars, why don’t we track people?” said Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo).

Officials argue that the internal tags enable the authorities to enforce thousands of court orders by ensuring offenders remain within their own walls during curfew hours – and allow the immediate verification of ID details when challenged.

The internal tags also have a use in maintaining order within prisons. In the United States, they are used to track the movement of gang members within jails.

Offenders themselves would prefer a tag they can forget about, instead of the bulky kit carried around on the ankle.

The case against: ‘The rest of us could be next’

Professionals in the criminal justice system maintain that the present system is 95 per cent effective. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is unproven. The technology is actually more invasive, and carries more information about the host. The devices have been dubbed “spychips” by critics who warn that they would transmit data about the movements of other people without their knowledge.

Consumer privacy expert Liz McIntyre said a colleague had already proved he could “clone” a chip. “He can bump into a chipped person and siphon the chip’s unique signal in a matter of seconds,” she said.

One company plans deeper implants that could vibrate, electroshock the implantee, broadcast a message, or serve as a microphone to transmit conversations. “Some folks might foolishly discount all of these downsides and futuristic nightmares since the tagging is proposed for criminals like rapists and murderers,” Ms McIntyre said. “The rest of us could be next.”

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