Among other ideas, the EU diplomats discussed the option of creating a certificate of security in the sphere of tourism under the provisional name “COVID-19 passport”, which would refer to the health status of the owner of the document, and enable him/her to travel to the EU and Schengen States.
Read more . . .The Macron government is threatening to lay charges carrying a five-year jail sentence against journalists who exposed its secret provision of arms for Saudi Arabia’s illegal war in Yemen, in which tens of thousands of civilians have been killed. The Macron government’s actions are part of a drive by capitalist governments around the world—assisted by the state stenographers in the corrupted corporate media—to criminalize whistleblowing and destroy the freedom of the press.
Read more . . .Australian Federal Police officers raided two separate news offices within 24 hours this week, in a chilling and blatant attack on the freedom of the press, aimed at intimidating journalists who report on government misconduct and war crimes.
Read more . . .“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility.” — Professor Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Read more . . .Over 40 of the UK’s largest contractors held a covert database of trade unionists who had complained about unpaid wages or safety on building sites through an organisation called The Consulting Association.
Read more . . .“Four senior judges have found that my rights have been violated unlawfully, whilst four others have disagreed. I cannot agree that the police in this country should be trusted with information about innocent people’s lawful political activities. In my view, without a new system of rules governing police surveillance, there is too much scope for the police to abuse their powers. I am therefore left with no option but to take this matter to the European Court of Human Rights for the sake of other innocent people whose lawful political activities are being monitored by the state.
Read more . . .The DRS – the Algerian secret service – systematically infiltrated insurrectionary Islamist groups such as the GIA and from 1992 onwards launched its own fake guerrilla groups, including death squads disguised as Islamists. In 1994, the DRS managed to place Jamel Zitouni, one of the Islamists it controlled, at the head of the GIA. DRS-agents – with French connivance – bombed the PARIS metro in 1995.
Read more . . .The author, who died in 2013, was an Additional Secretary of the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of India and one-time head of the counter-terrorism division of the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency. In his book, he unquestionably attributeed the events of 26/11 to the Pakistani organization LeT and suggested ISI responsibility. The book does not dwell on details and does not contain references to sources. It contains affirmation upon affirmation that the author does not bother to substantiate. The author does not attempt to hide his admiration for Israel and the United States and his hatred for Pakistan (He often refers to “The Pakistanis” as evil). This does not mean that what he presents as facts is false (or true), but indicates his partiality, representative of the Indian elite.
Read more . . .The remains of more than 15,000 babies were incinerated as ‘clinical waste’ by hospitals in Britain with some used in ‘waste to energy’ plants
Read more . . .In place of the need to deepen democratic openness and accountability in EU the Council has entrenched a system of secrecy based on its discretion to decide whether and when to make documents public. The result is that the European legislature – the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament – meet in secret trilogues to decide over 80% of new laws going through the EU
Read more . . .Governmental spending on products and services for homeland security should reach $141.6bn worldwide in 2009… The high priority given to homeland security has made that market one of the few recession-resistant sectors of the defence industry, some experts believe.
Read more . . .In a report published this month into the UK government’s Prevent counter-terrorism strategy, CAGE warned that Muslim communities were being subjected to “cradle-to-grave” levels of surveillance and discrimination that go beyond the policies used against suspected communist sympathisers in the United States at the height of the Cold War.
Read more . . .This article deals with the challenges and barriers that trade unions now face in the European Union. There are a number of structural barriers that the European Union as a supranational institution represents, as well as internal political-ideological barriers that prevent unions from fulfilling their role in the current situation. The most important developments that are challenging, as well as threatening, what many people call Social Europe will be described: attacks on public services, pensions, wages, and working conditions, as well as strong anti-democratic tendencies. But first, it is necessary briefly to address the role of social democracy in Europe today in light of its history.
Read more . . .Defenders of the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act, which declares the entire world to be a “battlefield” against terrorism and authorizes the U.S. military to detain indefinitely anyone suspected of being a terrorism supporter, have claimed that the White House will only use its new power carefully and with due process. Opponents note that the White House has never hesitated to use any new authority, no matter how outrageous, and that the trend of law enforcement and security agencies is to expand on powers granted, not to rein them in or limit them.
Read more . . .GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians’ communications at G20 summitsExclusive: phones were monitored and fake internet cafes set up to gather information from allies in London in 2009 Ewen MacAskill, Nick Davies, Nick Hopkins, Julian Borger and James BallThe Guardian, Monday 17 … Read more . . .
The Suicide of Liberty : The Transformation of the US into a Police State Review of Pat Buchanan’s latest book By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Global Research, October 12, 2011 Pat Buchanan’s latest book, Suicide of a Superpower, raises the … Read more . . .
Police surveillance of Muslims set up with ‘no regard for law’ Police covered up counter-terrorism unit’s £3m camera operation which spied on Muslims in Birmingham Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 September 2010 21.54 BST A secret police operation to place … Read more . . .
White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity By Ellen NakashimaWashington Post Staff WriterThursday, July 29, 2010; A01 The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over … Read more . . .
U.K. to monitor, store all social-network traffic? by Tom Espiner, 18 March 2009, CNET The U.K. government is considering the mass surveillance and retention of all user communications on social-networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo. Vernon Coaker the U.K. … Read more . . .
ID cards could be used for mass surveillance system By Marie Woolf, Chief Political CorrespondentThe Independent, 18 August 2005 The Government is creating a system of “mass public surveillance” capable of tracking every adult in Britain without their consent, MPs … Read more . . .