Hypocritical ICIJ stooges lead an assault on privacy to aid state theft of assets

Cyprus was just a stepping stone on a far bigger and more disturbing journey.

Over on EU Referendum, Richard draws attention to another – an ‘investigation’ into offshore tax havens that is leading the headlines in certain publications.  As he explains:

For the last few days in certain newspapers, the dominant story has been a collaborative affair, running under the general title of “Secrecy For Sale: Inside The Global Offshore Money Maze“.

Styled as “one of the largest and most complex cross border investigative projects in journalism history”, it is co-ordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), working with more than 86 journalists in 46 countries in “an attempt to strip away the biggest mystery associated with tax havens: the owners of anonymous companies”.

He questions the motivation of those involved in this inquiry, and with very good reason.  For the ICIJ is an organisation with an unsavoury history – as this blog discussed last year – which is working to a particular ‘big state’ agenda.  For while the investigation ostensibly seeks to shine a light on the business of ‘dirty money’ and shady nominee companies, something it would be hard for anyone to take exception to, its real motivation is demonise tax havens and close down legal avenues for people to shield their wealth from taxation and confiscation by the wasteful, unrepresentative and self serving political class.

These are people for whom the concept of paying a ‘fair share’ is to say ‘you have money so we are taking it’.  It is a spiteful and devisive approach that feeds on the envy and resentment of people who are not as well off.

Whenever tax havens are discussed they are deliberately associated with ‘dirty money’, quasi criminality and tax evasion.  Yet as the paucity of identified wrongdoing demonstrates that it is mainly hard working, law abiding and successful people who use tax havens to legally avoid and minimise tax liability, and who are having their privacy assaulted as part of this effort to demonise the offshoring of assets.  Note with care the fact that the offshore arrangements of the paymasters of these ICIJ stooges, such as the owners of the Guardian, are strictly off limits.  Orwell’s pigs are taking control.

With its Marxist roots the ICIJ despises the concept of individuals taking steps to prevent government simply helping itself to the rewards other people have earned for hard work, entrepreneurship and personal risk.  This is why the ICIJ is devoting so much energy and resource to this campaign and in the absence of widespread wrongdoing is content to muddy the waters and talks of perfectly legal tax avoidance as if it is something criminal and shameful.  The sole aim is to close tax havens, further the goal of harmonising taxation policy around the globe, and enabling governments to attain the unfettered power to take from citizens, at will, anything they want when they want.  This is the global governance agenda writ large and occasioned by the continuing erosion of liberty, private ownership and personal freedom.

The only shame in all this is that so many people have been brainwashed by a succession of parasitical governments into believing the confiscation of wealth is a socially responsible activity – despite the fact taxpayers have no say in how the revenues seized from them are used and abused by the political class to buy votes at election time with bribes to net consumers, funded with money taken from net producers and irresponsibly borrowed by the billion without realistic means of repayment.

Instead of cheering this nefarious campaign, people should be opening their eyes and understanding this represents the dismantling of what stands between limited government, barely held at bay by the people, and total domination of the citizenry by the real criminals – the undemocratic, unaccountable and unelected elite and their minions in the political class.

Organised crime is the excuse being offered up to justify this campaign.  But it’s not about criminality, it’s about removing the last barriers to total domination of people by unaccountable governments and the vested interests that direct them from behind the scenes – individuals who will benefit from state sanctioned theft by the real organised criminals who are destroying the economies of the world and with them undermining the wealth and prospects of ordinary people.

That Cameron low tax small government in action

So, if I want to replace the windows or boiler in my house, under plans drawn up by the Department for Communities and Local Goverment on the watch of the low tax small government Cameron Conservatives, my local council would have the power to make me add new insulation or draught proofing before allowing me to do the work.

No matter what I determine to be my spending priority, the government would demand paperwork about the work being done in my home be submitted to them so they could scrutinise it and compel me to undertake actions I might not be able to afford.  Could this be another example of civil service ‘gold plating’ of the diktat of our supreme government in Brussels?  [Update: Witterings from Witney has more]

An army of civil servants would be poring over work dockets to decide what measures to impose on me in my own home, no doubt assembling information about my house that could be used to re-assess its value and make me liable to pay even more in Council Tax for ever poorer services.  This is the Cameron Conservatives in action.  They talk about low taxation and small government, then one of their departments comes up with this assault on privacy and individual freedom.

And if I can’t afford the additional measures, I would have to borrow the money (which I have already had ripped from my pay in the form of taxation) from the government and repay it through the already rising gas and electricity bills over a period up to 25 years.  Naturally no one has thought to explain what happens if I move house in that time.  Do I still make repayments for something I no longer benefit from while living in a new property – one that potentially will also see me compelled to take on even more debt to undertake measures over and above what I may need to do to that house, just to satisfy the demands of my public servants?  Or will the cost have to be passed on to the people buying my house thereby reducing the likelihood of me being able to sell it in the first place – perhaps making it impossible for me to move for employment reasons thus undermining my career?

Either way, the net effect will be the same.  More money will be forcibly taken from me on the orders of the political class.  More government bureaucracy will service more intrusion in my life at more cost to me.  More records will created about my house and my possessions stored on databases for government use resulting in more legislation that adds yet more cost to me.

A government that is truly accountable and answerable to the wishes of the people it serves would not get away with this.  In fact they would not even put it on the table for consideration.  What we have is just one more example of why we need to take back power from the political class and operate a system such as Referism.

Time for IPCC to investigate The Guardian and David Leigh’s police sources

Back to business then.  Throughout the ‘phone hacking scandal’ there was a constant and unscrutinised theme… The Guardian newspaper was accessing or being given access to information no one else but the police had about the investigation, to break new stories and run exclusives.

Update: 18 Aug – And so the Guardian’s police scoops continue…

A story this weekend show the seriousness of such behaviour, with the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigating a claim that an officer on the Milly Dowler murder case gave information to the News of the World newspaper.  If it is right for the IPCC to investigate an officer feeding information to the News of the World, then surely the IPCC should also turn its attention to the raft of stories published in the Guardian that appear to have originated with police sources.

These were not discoveries, these were pieces of information supplied to Guardian journalists verbally or in documents.  When it happened, the names of two reporters in particular from David Leigh’s Guardian team working the story were nearly always on display, Nick Davies and Amelia Hill. Surely when the key recipents of the information are known it should be easier to identify the person feeding them the information.  Taking just a five day period in the timeline there were a huge number of stories published, but some are worthy of particular attention as they demonstrate the likelihood of a Guardian-friendly police mole.

For example, on 4 July, The Guardian broke the story which proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, that Milly Dowler’s voicemails had been accessed and some deleted by private investigators.  The Guardian journalists said they had seen paperwork detailing how the News of the World set about getting the personal details of the Dowlers and then accessing Milly’s mailbox. However, the information itself was contained in the 11,000 pages of notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire that was in the possession of detectives from Operation Weeting. So how did the Guardian see them?

Just one day later the Guardian revealed that police were turning their attention to examine every high-profile case involving the murder, abduction or attack on any child since 2001 in response to the Dowler revelation. Again there was nothing in the public domain about the police’s intentions. So how did the Guardian know this with enough certainty to print it as fact?  The piece included the information that the name “Greg” appeared in the corner of notes taken by Mulcaire which was believed to be a reference to the News of the World’s former assistant news editor Greg Miskiw (arrested earlier this month).  As the documents have been in Metropolitan Police hands since 2006, how do they know this?

Two days later came the next big coup for the Guardian, with the revelation that Andy Coulson had been told by police that he would be arrested on the Friday morning over suspicions that he knew about, or had direct involvement in, the hacking of mobile phones during his editorship of the News of the World. Now it’s conceivable Coulson told someone he knew about the impending arrest and that they tipped off David Leigh’s chums at the Guardian.

But how likely is it that the police will have told Coulson the other revelation in the article, that a second arrest was also to be made in the next few days of a former senior journalist at the paper? Clearly the information came from elsewhere as the Guardian stated it knew the identity of the second suspect but was withholding the name to avoid prejudicing the police investigation. Someone told them and it wasn’t Coulson’s camp, because that would have clearly undermined the police’s intention to make the second arrest.

Then a day further on the Guardian published the story that police were investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard’s inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal. The first reasonable assumption was that a News International insider tipped off the paper.

But that idea is dispelled by the additional colour the Guardian boasted about in its piece, namely that according to legal sources close to the police inquiry, a senior executive is believed to have deleted “massive quantities” of the archive on two separate occasions, leaving only a fraction to be disclosed. The legal entity that works with the police is of course the Crown Prosecution Service.  So is there a CPS mole feeding information to the Guardian as well as a highly placed police source?

Well its possible the idea of a police mole could be challenged as mere coincidence.  But the idea of coincidence falls away very quickly when one looks outside the phone hacking saga to an entirely unrelated story that again throws up all sorts of unanswered questions about how the Guardian gets its information.  This one concerns the concerted attempt to successfully identify by name, occupation and hometown an anonymous blogger who was critical of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) over the Climategate affair.  That link is to the full story on the Climate Audit blog.

The author of the Air Vent blog, “Jeff Id” had until that time been anonymous. As the article explains, his registration at WordPress was anonymous and his gmail account was anonymous.  To Jeff’s knowledge, there was no public information that would enable anyone to identify him.  So how is it that David Leigh at the Guardian managed to identify Jeff Id as “Patrick Condon, aeronautical engineer” from Illinois and locate his telephone number too?  As the piece on Climate Audit explains:

A few days before the article, Leigh had telephoned Jeff. Jeff asked Leigh how he had located him; Leigh refused to say. Jeff expressly asked Leigh not to disclose his personal information, which were then not on the public record. Leigh disregarded the request and then proceeded to “out” him as collateral damage in their smear of Paul Dennis [employee at UEA].

A couple of weeks earlier, Jeff had been asked to answer a questionnaire by the UK counter-terrorism officer investigating the release of the emails and tree ring data. The policeman had contacted Jeff at his gmail address as “Jeff Id”. In addition to inquiring about his views on climate change, the questionnaire asked his name and address. Jeff answered the questionnaire (as did I and many Climate Audit readers). To Jeff’s knowledge and recollection, that was the only disclosure of his identity that could have led to Leigh identifying him.

Leigh’s article also quotes from an email from Paul Dennis to me, which Leigh ascribed to “police files”.

So what we have here is the team of Guardian journalists who work under David Leigh, apparently being provided with information by the police (and possibly the CPS) about the investigation into phone hacking – something Leigh himself admits he has also done – and Leigh in his own journalistic capacity being able to access information about private individuals collected by police as part of a criminal investigation into alleged computer hacking of the servers at UEA.  Only a fool would accept this as coincidence, and besides, the comments thread to this post from Bishop Hill reminds readers of various other aspects of David Leigh’s behaviour and questionable methods.

Unsurprisingly, despite requests from ‘Jeff Id’ (Patrick Condon), the Guardian (via its Environment Editor Damian Carrington – remember him?) refuses to explain how it obtained his personal information.  All Carrington will say in the replies, which can be read in the Climate Audit article, is that the Guardian did nothing illegal.  No doubt if the paper is challenged about how they came by the information concerning the ‘phone hacking’ inquiry it will say the same. What is good for the News of the World goose should also be good for the hypocritical Guardian gander.

But it is clear there is a case to answer and as the Guardian will not come clean the Independent Police Complaints Commission needs to use its powers to uncover the truth the Guardian is trying to hide.  It’s time for people to put pressure on the IPCC to do its job.

David Laws: very sad, very wrong, completely unacceptable

It is tragic that in this day and age the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, did not feel comfortable being himself and accepting his sexuality.  He is homosexual.  So what?  It is tragic that he was concerned that his privacy would not be respected, despite this being no one’s business but his and his partner’s.  It is tragic that  he felt compelled to construct a charade in an attempt to hide orientation.  I think it is very, very sad.

However, the fact is £40,000 of taxpayers’ money was wrongly claimed and given to his partner to fund David Laws’ charade.  That was the choice he made and the price we paid.  No matter how uncomfortable Laws might have felt if his sexuality became more widely known, he deliberately broke the rules on expenses and effectively defrauded the public for his own ends.  That is wrong and completely unacceptable.

Regardless of how effective or otherwise David Laws is as a minister, regardless that he is paying the money back, for all the spin about ‘new politics’ and the coalition setting aside many differences in the ‘national interest’, the public purse has been used to underwrite David Laws’ self interest.  This is evidence the political class is still at it at our expense.  We can likely expect more abuses to surface despite the supposed drive to clean up Parliament.

Irrespective of the ‘human’ angle to this story, this was snout in the trough behaviour and a clear abuse commited by an independently wealthy man.  I sympathise with Laws’ desire to have his privacy respected, but not when it comes at a financial cost to me and other taxpayers.  He has a bloody cheek, but no more than many in the political class who possess a similar sense of entitlement to subsidy through our money.  David Laws must resign his government post, or be sacked immediately.

Unsurprisingly, Iain Dale hopes that Laws survives. Having fallen for the sob story statement Laws has made, Dales opines:

I hope David Laws survives this, partly because I do not believe he has a dishonest bone in his body, but also because the Coalition needs him. He has been hugely impressive over the last few weeks. But of course there will be questions about his future. It will be a test for him as to whether he can survive the pressure, but I truly hope he does.

The fact is Laws decided to interpret the rules in a manner that benefited him at public expense.  He was cohabiting with his partner and only using our money to pay rent in order to maintain a deception.  I don’t give a damn if the coalition needs him, or if he has seemed impressive.  His actions are unacceptable and he has acted in a less than honest manner.

Update: Guido thinks Laws will probably survive because he is too important to the coalition.  If that proves to be accurate then we would see the coalition interest being put before public interest.  Not sacking Laws has the capacity to harm the coalition far more than keeping him in post because it is a matter of probity.  If Laws stays then we will have the first entry in the Little Blue and Yellow Book of Coalition Sleaze.  Note to the government: Wrongdoing must never go unpunished.

David Laws resigns and panic replacement arrives >>>

David Laws: Insipid political class circles the wagons >>>

Facebook moderation failures are the norm

Facebook is coming under intense scrutiny this week and not before time.  The social networking tool may have its uses for responsible people who want to keep in touch with friends or network with people who share similar interests, but it is a haven for bullies, identity thieves, sexual predators and people with access to a computer who have failed to take their medication.

It’s easy to get on to Facebook, but getting off it and having all your personal information deleted is a convoluted process.  This demonstrates the service is not run for the benefit of users, but rather for the benefit of the company making money out of it.  But the real issue is that Facebook isn’t policed properly by its administration team.  This is an undeniable fact.

The Jon Venables case has exposed that fact like no other as the case of David Calvert reveals.  Hours after the news broke on Tuesday 2nd March that one of the child killers of James Bulger, Jon Venables, had been returned to prison after his previous release on licence, a Facebook group was created called:

“John Venables is David Calvert and lives in Fleetwood… kill the ****”

More than 2500 morons joined the group, filling the comments box with threats and abuse.  That is bad enough, but the worst of it is that the group page remained on Facebook for a full week, only being removed from the site on Tuesday 9th March.  That is a terrible indictment of the policing of the site by Facebook’s administrators.

As a tool Facebook has long made privacy a minefield of confusion for users who try to withhold certain personal details they are encouraged to fill in.  But then, that is the intention of Facebook’s pontificating geek creator, Mark Zuckerberg, who took a good idea and made it into a money spinner before letting power go to his head and appointing himself the arbeiter of what privacy constituted by declaring privacy is no longer a social norm.  This has resulted in arbitrary changes to privacy settings by Facebook in December 2009 that made more personal information publicly accessible.

While Zuckerberg has been holding forth on what constitutes social norms, his tool has refused to adopt social networking norms which would see it display the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) panic button, enabling youngsters to report if they have been targeted by a paedophile while using the tool.

There is a clear pattern here.  Facebook is not a responsibly run platform.  It seeks to undermine the privacy of its users and fails to act quickly to stamp out the kind of abuse and threats experienced by David Calvert.  It isn’t just adults, school children suffer on the platform every day as groups are set up for the sole purpose of bullying and intimidating them.  Complaints are not dealt with, as my neighbour’s daughter will testify after attempts to take down a group page that speculates about her sexual behaviour and encourages abusive comments to be made about her have still not resulted in moderator action.

Given the intentional lack of privacy and the failure to deal with hate groups and abuse of users, in the final analysis, the only safe solution for using Facebook is to not use it at all.

Communications Capabilities Directorate aka Snooper Squad

It might seem unfair of me to criticise the media (with the notable exceptions of The Register and ZDNet) for not reporting about the government’s new snooper squad, the Communications Capabilities Directorate (CCD), given I am only turning my attention to it four days later.  But the journalists are paid to investigate and report this kind of stuff as their day job, whereas I’m not.  But for many journalists such as enviropropagandist Louise Gray, unless ‘news’ is fed to them by way of press releases to cut, paste and publish, nothing is happening in the world that’s worth covering and they are content to sit around with their thumbs up their bums and their brains in neutral.

As The Register explains, the Communications Capabilities Directorate comprises the same civil servants who have been working on the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) since 2007, but now the group has a defined structure even though it has not been added to the Home Office’s list of directorates.  One for our honourable MPs to get their teeth into, methinks.  The sole aim of the CCD is online surveillance of us, namely the interception and retrieval of all our internet activity, giving the government and law enforcement access to the details of who contacts whom, when, where and how via the internet.

Despite substantial disquiet about this huge invasion of our privacy, the cost to internet service providers (ISP) of maintaining database archives of everything their customers do online; including sending and receiving emails, use of social networking sites, web browsing history, financial transactions and making voice calls through computers, the Home Office is pressing ahead with the scheme at a cost of at least £2bn to taxpayers, plus the costs that ISPs will pass on to customers.  Many people believed the plans were on hold until after the general election after the Home Office’s consultation saw ISPs strongly criticise the plans.  But the Home Office has been quietly pressing ahead with its scheme to turn all web users into criminal suspects and harvest our data.

It might have been nice if the media had, you know, taken notice and reminded people what is being done to us ‘for our own good’ by our noble public servants.  After all, with so much pressure on the government to reduce spending on non essential, non front line services, one would think cancelling this voyeuristic, £2bn socialist wet dream snooper squad dedicated to exerting control over the population would be far more beneficial for the general public than keeping it going.  It’s nice to know what Labour’s priorities are.