statism watch

David Leppard, Sunday Times
January 4, 2009

THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.

The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws.

The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home, office or hotel room.

Material gathered in this way includes the content of all e-mails, web-browsing habits and instant messaging.

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David Stanway, The Guardian
January 4, 2009

Clampdown on Charter 08’s call for democracy also aims to gag parents of tainted milk children and Sichuan quake victims

China has launched a tough countrywide crackdown on a new network of political activists, writers and lawyers who have supported a bold new manifesto that presses for the end of one-party rule.

The group of 300 or so people had all signed Charter 08, which called for democracy and the rule of law in China and was named after the famous Charter 77 dissident group formed in cold war Czechoslovakia.

Charter 08 has been hailed as the most significant act of public dissent against China’s Communist party since the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests were brutally crushed in 1989. It was posted online on 10 December, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It condemned recent economic modernisation efforts as having “stripped people of their rights”, and called for political reform and a new liberal, democratic constitution.

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These prognostications of domestic terrorism serve to pave the way for a new era in which anti-terror legislation is militarily redirected against the citizens of Western nations. Why do you think Congress wasn’t allowed to read the Patriot Act before it was passed? Trumped up crises present opportunities for states to push ‘Change’ through that may not stand up upon sober reflection. Information, not violence, is what’s required. Violence merely plays into the hands of state provocateurs, as was made clear this summer in Montebello, Quebec, at the DNC, and elsewhere.

Jason Burke, The Observer
January 4, 2009

Despite claims of exaggeration, government reports insist a new generation of extremists will soon launch a wave of sabotage and bombings.

The French government fears a wave of extreme left-wing terrorism this year with the possible sabotage of key infrastructure, kidnappings of major business figures or even bomb attacks.

Secret French government reports, seen by the Observer, describe an “elevated threat” from an “international European network … with a strong presence in France” after the radicalisation of “a new generation of activists” in recent years. Senior analysts and experts linked to the government have drawn parallels with the Action Directe group, which carried out 50 or more attacks in the early 1980s. Others cite the example of the Baader-Meinhof gang.

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Everything old is new again. It appears that the socialist face of Brown’s calls for a new world order is being unveiled. Unfortunately for Messrs Obama, Brown, and all those jumping on the internationalist agenda, governments cannot create wealth by printing fiat notes. (Note also the planned re-creation of the Internet.)

Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian
January 4, 2009

PM sets out modern version of 1930s New Deal, climate change industries at heart of strategy

Gordon Brown today unveils ambitious plans for a 1930s American-style programme of public works to ease the pain of recession by creating up to 100,000 jobs.

School repairs, new rail links, hospital projects and plans to usher in a new digital age by investing in superfast broadband will be used to keep unemployment down. The plans will also be used to tackle climate change, by means of investments in eco-friendly projects such as electric cars and wind and wave power that would also create jobs.

Speaking exclusively to the Observer, the prime minister also pledged action within weeks to kickstart bank lending in an attempt to save existing jobs.

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