From the guardian.co.uk

The Guardian has obtained this police footage of Emily Apple and Val Swain being arrested by surveillance officers after asking for their badge numbers at the Kingsnorth climate camp last year. The two women speak to Paul Lewis about their arrest, imprisonment and official complaint.

Check out the link for video of the incident and commentary.  Nothing new, but good to see MSM covering the police state.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary has ditched plans for a giant Government database tracking all emails, phone calls and internet activity.

Ms Smith said a central store of electronic data was an “extreme” solution and would have undermined privacy.

Records of every electronic communication made by Britons will instead be held by private companies at a cost of around £2 billion.

Internet firms will be asked to collect and store vast amounts of data, including from social networking sites such as Facebook.

Launching the proposals on Monday, Ms Smith acknowledged concerns over privacy.

She said: “My key priority is to protect the citizens of the UK, and communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers and paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime.

“Advances in communications mean that there are ever more sophisticated ways to communicate and we need to ensure that we keep up with the technology being used by those who would seek to do us harm.

“It is essential that the police and other crime-fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job. However, to be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single central store.

“We recognise that there is a delicate balance between privacy and security, but to do nothing is not an option as we would be failing in our duty to protect the public.”

She added: “There were two elements that I think people could be concerned about. One was the state holding the data. The other was the data all being concentrated in one place.

“It is to overcome those concerns about privacy that the proposal involves Communication Service Providers retaining the data that comes from them and passes across their networks.”

Under the plans, every internet user will be given a unique ID code and all their data stored in one place.

Government agencies such as the police and security services will access the data to investigate suspected criminals and terrorists.

But it could also be accessed by local authorities and other Government agencies.

Ministers stress the content of messages and online profiles will not be stored.

More fascism. Awesome. That way when the government fucks up they can blame it on the “free market.” As Franklin said… if you are willing to give up your freedom for a little safety you won’t have or be deserving of either.

They should take after the United States’ NSA. They just tap right in and sniff everything. Constitution and public opinion be damned.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…

Placing a tea-time meal of beans-on-toast in front of her frail 86-year-old mother Betty, Ros Figg glanced out of the dining room window to see two squad cars and a police van pull up.

Thinking there must be a major incident going on nearby, she pulled back the net curtains hoping to see what had prompted such an impressive show of police manpower.

One of the officers was carrying a battering ram. Was there a criminal on the loose?

A suspected terrorist in hiding? A secret drugs den, perhaps?

None of the above, as it would turn out. The person they’d come for, armed with a warrant, was poor old Betty – a once sprightly great-grandmother who’d recently succumbed to dementia.

‘I couldn’t believe my eyes when four police officers, flanking two social workers and a doctor, walked towards my house,’ says 55-year-old Ros.

‘One of the police officers was holding a red battering ram and I thought: “What on earth does he need that for?”

‘It’s the sort of thing they’d use to raid terrorists, not people like us.

‘I was so frightened I didn’t want to let them in so I leaned out of the window and asked them what they wanted.

‘One of the social workers said a doctor had come to examine my mother. When I opened the door a warrant, giving them the right to search for and remove my mother, was put in my hand.

Betty was then returned to the residential home which Ros removed her from last Saturday, believing her Mum would be better off in her care.

Social services had opposed Ros’s request to care for her mother at home, arguing that the level of care she could offer was not sufficient, and swung into action with the full force of the law when Ros defied them and took her home.

‘I still can’t believe it’s happened. I was made to feel like an enemy of the state rather than a daughter who just wants to do the best for her mother.

‘I can’t believe these Gestapo tactics can be allowed to happen in our society.

‘After they’d gone, I read the warrant they’d left behind, and I felt even more upset. I was insulted.

‘It said Mum was being removed under Section 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983 because she was at risk of neglect or ill-treatment, with no evidence to support that at all.

Anyone who wants to live their life as they see fit rather than how the State wants you to is an enemy of the state and they are in no way shy with using violence to make sure you obey them.

Which brings us to the next story: Fast food police, Caribbean takeaway closed down for opening too close to schools
Read More…

http://telegraph.co.uk/…

The unnamed driver was busy mapping a street in the village of Wool in Dorset when a local photographer spotted the controversial Google vehicle.

But the multinational’s driver was outraged by the invasion of his privacy when the snapper started taking pictures of the car.

The freelance photographer, who wishes to remain anonymous, says that with all the privacy issues surrounding Google’s new Street View technology it is ironic that the Google driver should get upset about having his picture taken.

The 58-year-old electrician and part-time photographer said: “When I saw the [Google] car I thought to myself nobody has got any decent pictures of this yet so I hopped out the van and started to take some pictures.

“He was not happy about it. I could tell by his body language and facial expressions.”

The Google driver then proceeded to shout at the photographer and said: “Don’t you take pictures of me, mate.” He then asked the photographer to blur his face out of the pictures as Google does in its Street View images.

The photographer managed to get about six to eight photographers of the car which had a pole-mounted revolving camera protruding from the top.

For months, Google’s Street View vehicle has been roaming the streets of Britain, capturing 360-degree images of streets and the people on them.

Since it launched millions of Britons have gone online to look at their own houses or landmarks.

However, residents in the village of Broughton in Buckinghamshire have remained off the map after blocking the vehicle from entering their area.

There are concerns over peoples privacy and some worry that Street View helps criminal’s scope out targets for burglary or car theft.

Google have said they would remove any image on request, which can be done by clicking a link on the Street View Web site.

So far pictures that have been taken down after they were featured in the press – include one of a man walking out of a sex shop and another throwing up on the sidewalk outside a London pub.

Privacy International, a pressure group, has begun legal action against the company in an effort to bring down the mapping service.

Sure… the driver being upset because he was being photographed is a bit ironic. I think the bigger irony is that the British subjects seem to be getting all bent out of shape over Google’s static image capturing yet they allow their government to install 1 CCTV camera for every 14 of them. Realtime tracking of individuals, cars, habits… no problem. Static photos of the neighborhood that are actually useful… outrage.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…

Drivers face having their every move tracked by a ’spy in the car’ black box.

The system will constantly check a vehicle’s speed – making cameras redundant – and allow for pay-as-you-go tolls.

The £36million EU project is partly funded by the UK Government and backed by car makers and the telecoms industry.

It will be unveiled later this year with a view to its integration into future cars. Manufacturers suggest this could be as early as 2013.

Vehicles fitted with the system will emit a constant ‘heartbeat’ pulse revealing their location, speed and direction of travel.

EU officials believe the technology will significantly reduce road accidents, congestion and carbon emissions.

Engineers say the system will be able to track cars to within a yard, making it significantly more accurate than existing satellite navigation technology.

Experts say the system will link up easily with the pay-as-you-drive road tolls being backed by the Government.

The system allows cars to ‘talk’ to one another and to roads wired up to the system. A communication device behind the dashboard transmits the car’s location every half a second.

The messages are transmitted through mobile and wireless networks, as well as on short-range microwave or infrared routes. Vehicles will be able to warn each other if they are on collision course.

I have a hard time believing that the government or those companies contracted to provide this technology could get it to actually do half of what they claim. I do believe that no matter what they end up with it will be used to harm the people of Europe. Big Brother just keeps on trudging along over there.

Now taking bets on how long they look into doing that in the United States. Yes we have Massachusetts and I believe Washington looking to tax people based on miles driven but this EU program is far more serious.