Big Brother.

          Coming to a supermarket near you, biometric cameras that capture your every move, even eye movements. Supermarkets in France are introducing this new level of surveillance, which sends a photo to  security guard of any suspicious movement or action. So have no doubt they will eventually arrive here in the  UK. What's more there is no doubt that they will proliferate to our streets, bars, transport, bus-stops and stations, etc.. Do you think it is acceptable, when out for a stroll with the kids or meeting up with friends, that you should have your every personal movement recorded without your knowledge. Surveillance is one of the many cancers inherent within this state system, the state wants to know your ever move, where you are going, why, and should you be there or should you be somewhere else. The state needs to monitor, record and profile every individual, it can only survive by total control over the population, and surveillance is its best tool to back up its police/judicial/prison apparatus to guarantee the wealth, power and privileges stay where they are.

The following extract from Act For Freedom Now:

           Biometric video surveillance in our supermarkets
In order to detect theft, Carrefour, Monoprix, Super U and Franprix [and Intermarché] are experimenting with biometric analysis software to monitor our every move in their stores. The health crisis had already unleashed the desire of private companies for biometric surveillance: thermal cameras at company entrances, detection of physical distances in offices, tracking of eye movements for remote university exams… Several French companies are now proposing to automatically detect thefts in stores “in real time” thanks to biometric analysis software directly connected to the cameras already present in the stores [behavior detection software that then sends an immediate alert to the security guard’s smartphone with a copy of the images]. While the idea of automatically detecting theft in stores has already been tested in Japan, several French companies have not hesitated to develop their own software:
          “Anaveo”, a company of 320 people with a turnover of 70 million euros works in video surveillance for mass retail. Its “SuspectTracker” software promises to capture the flow of images from the cameras to analyze “suspicious behavior”, for example “gestures towards a stroller, backpack, trouser or jacket pocket”. Their presentation videos mention in passing that theft detection feeds into a database to further improve the algorithm.
         “Oxania, a start-up founded in 2019, has produced a “Retail Solutions” software that would be able to “recognize gestures associated with theft in real time, detect behaviors, dangerous situations, customer journey and much more”. The video presentation calmly assumes to make a biometric analysis of the behaviors of people present in the store (body heat, gestures, body …).
         And above all “Veesion”, a Parisian start-up that sells a “gesture recognition” product with “an algorithm that has several bricks that work together and can tell at any time if there has been a gesture that can be associated with shoplifting or not. There is a brick that locates the human, another that locates the limbs on this human body, another that locates the objects of interest, the shopping cart, a purse, a shopping cart, the shelf itself, the items that come off the shelf. And these bricks work together to give a probability of theft at each moment. Then, the store employees have a mobile app that receives the videos as soon as a suspicious gesture has been spotted”, explains Benoit Koenig, director of the company Veesion. (France Bleu, August 19, 2020). As a bonus, Veesion proposes to analyze “your flight history and [provide] personalized recommendations”.

source: Sans Nom
via: darknights.noblogs

Continue reading HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

No Borders.

 

        Solidarity, unity, co-operation and no borders are the foundation stones of our victory over this economic system that condemns millions to a life of misery. A system that has only one aim to increase profit, wealth and power to the few. As the inequality grows so does the anger and the resistance, however, likewise the state, the corporate beast's minder, increases it repression, surveillance and brutality to meet that resistance. It is aware of the rising anger and resentment, if unchecked could bring its plundering to an end, so it will increase its viciousness and brutal repression in an attempt to hold onto its very survival and to retain its wealth, power and privileges. 

       We either accept the life of inequality, injustice, mass poverty, murderous deprivation, total surveillance, and continuous wars, that this system hands us, or we resist with all the strength we can muster, and take our anger to the streets. Our world of resistance may seem fragmented, but make no mistake, it is the same battle across all borders, a struggle for justice, equality and the right to a decent life for all. If these struggles happening across the globe, come together across all states enforced borders, our victory is assured. The alternative is unacceptable.

 

 

         A call with passion and from the heart from Berlin.

The following is from Act For Freedom Now:

International Call for Action and Discussion Days in Berlin 30.10.-01.11.2020
International Demo in Berlin 31.10.2020
UNITED WE FIGHT!
       Connect Urban Struggles – Defend Autonomous Spaces
Over the last years we experience a global resurgence of reactionary politics. State and capital, in a constant process of intensifying exploitation and expanding repression, used the global capitalist crisis, which started a decade ago, as a chance to further restructure relations of power in their advantage. Their political answer is materialized in a shift to the right, with a political alliance of neoliberal economic policies coupled with strong nationalistic narratives and repressive policies against resistance and progressive movements. The new face of authoritarianism has unleashed an all out attack against individuals it considers unnecessary or those that choose to resist and collectivize against the ruin of their lives. In our current period, states the world over used measures against Covid-19 to extend repression, policing and surveillance against societies. At the same time, the failings of neoliberal healthcare systems have led to masses of deaths and increasing inequality due to access to healthcare.
To all of this, people in different areas of the world answer with massive resistance on the streets. Movements with different perspectives have revolted, for example in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, or more recently in France and the USA. The common thread of all these movements is their distance from institutionalized and systemic politics and the choice of self-organization and horizontalism in the fight against authority.
     The movement in Germany is fighting against exploitation and oppression in the belly of the beast. Since the movement reached a climax of mobilization against Hamburg’s G20 summit in 2017, the German state intensified and broadened its repressive arsenal with the goal to suppress and isolate the movement: this has seen the biggest public manhunt since the state repression since the 1960s and 70s, widening of police measures such as preventative arrests and extrajudicial surveillance, increased penalties for crimes against police and the ban of the popular German indymedia website “linksunten”.
In the city of Berlin over the past years the movement has come under constant attack through the eviction of its infrastructure, with gentrification manifesting itself in an attack on marginalized and struggling parts of society: rising rents making life unbearable, more than 5.000 forced evictions of houses per year, increased policing of public spaces and an overall changing social geography in the city. On the one hand this destroys or displaces spaces that the movement uses to support itself. Through heavy policing and state repression, subversive lifestyles and political organization is made impossible within public spaces. On the other hand capital is given space to invest and increase profitability through real-estate, privatization of security through cameras, fences and walls, smart city developments and big public-private partnership projects.
      The struggle of self-organized spaces in Berlin has developed against this background. The eviction of the bar collective Syndikat last August, and the broad mobilization of the movement against the eviction, was only the start of the upcoming fight for our infrastructures. The anarcha-queer-feminist house project Liebig34, the autonomous youth center Potse and the bar collective Meuterei are threatened by imminent evictions. The house project Rigaer94 was again raided in July, in an attempt to use the background of the raid several vain attempts to evict squatted flats were made without any success, since all flats could be held by the people inside or taken back. This phase of evictions might become the biggest attack on the autonomous infrastructure in Berlin since the 1990s.
       These collective spaces have chosen to stay and fight back in different ways. Their struggle has rallied the movement German-wide as a fight we are all a part of: against private property and capital, against the displacement of people from their houses, against gentrification of our neighborhoods, against a patriarchal and racist system which marginalizes, silences and oppresses the voices of those being exploited or deemed expendable for the system. Against this the projects put forward self-organization and solidarity, defiance of property and confrontation with the state and a direct attack on the oppressive social structures of hetero-patriarchy, nationalism and individualism.
      We are traversing a critical period, both for society and for radical movements worldwide. Under the dogma of “law and order”, state and capital are intensifying their attack on society and trying to further their dominance of all aspects of everyday life, stopping every collective vision and claim, and every perspective of resistance and struggle.
       Recognizing Berlin as the capital of one of the most dominant capitalist countries worldwide, we aim to intensify the social struggle in the heart of the beast. Giving a strong answer and creating perspectives against one of the most unbearable states of the world, that consists a model for many countries worldwide and which through its bureaucracy and structures infiltrates all the aspects of our lives leaving no space for self organization and anti-institutional struggles, will create a legacy not only for the local movement but for every rebellious cell worldwide.
       By the end of October an official eviction date of Liebig34 may be public. We will get together to prevent this. And if it has already been evicted in the weeks prior, we will take it back!
       We need all the force we can and call for support to defend our projects. Borderless solidarity is one of our strongest weapons. We want to use this opportunity to make the anarchist perspective more visible and bring the discussion about our ideas, praxis and strategies forward. The days prior to the demonstration on 31.10. will offer space for a plenary assembly, exchange, discussions and ways of actions on our common goals, strategies, occupying ground and collective defense.
        We consider this demonstration as an opportunity to come together to create a breach in their plans and multiple moments of ragefull, dynamic and militant experiences in which we abandon the defensive role and instead take the street as an active and offensive movement.
         Thus we hope to make these days part of a continuous discourse and not yet another unconnected event with no followup.
For these reasons we call for people to take the streets and destroy their plans of evictions. Although our fights in different corners of the worlds take different characteristics as we struggle in different contexts, borderless solidarity and the bridging of our struggles has been possible in the past, and is necessary for the future. Let’s choose confrontation and resistance, and seek them in collective moments beyond borders; let’s make their plans a disaster.
        We join the call of Terra Incognita to turn this year’s October into a month dedicated to solidarity and standing up for every occupied ground threatened by repression.
Lets bring our rage together!
Berlin 30.10.-01.11.202
International Demonstration 31.10.2020
via Liebig34.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk   

EU Democracy.

 

         States work very hard with a ceaseless effort and unfailing determination to control the population and create a flock of subservient citizens. From continuous monitoring and profiling and for those more persistent citizens who stubbornly refuse to be part of the subservient flock they have other methods, entangling them in the loaded judicial system and prison.
       From Spain to Greece and across the EU, that so called bastion of peace, freedom and wealth, the pattern is the same.
       Two cases both with the same aim subservience, one from Spain and one from Greece, both members of the EU financial Mafia club.

Spanish democracy.

From Spain:

        Since June 2018, the anarchist prisoner Amadeu Casellas is back in prison, accused of stealing 300,000 euros in Sabadell, Catalonia. As told by Amadeu, at the time of arrest, he was working at his home; they found absolutely nothing and also the victim did not recognize him at first, the judge took no consideration of these details when decreeing detention. He is currently imprisoned in Brians I prison in Catalonia. The following interview comes from the revolutionary website La Haine.
        I first send my solidarity and that of La Haine to you in this new prison in which you’ve been suffering for months. How do you feel?
Very good.
        How was your arrest and this new accusation?
       At about 5 am they blew open the door where I lived. I was sleeping. I heard the noise and at first thought it was a neighbor, did not even think it was for me. Hooded police entered, threw themselves on me. I was hurt in the fifth and sixth vertebrae and I had to be taken to Granollers hospital. I had to wear a collar for about 20 days and was prescribed an anti-inflammatory. I was accused of armed robbery. Some 20 policemen checked, and found nothing.
       After spending years in prison, you came out in 2010 and now, 9 years later, you’ve been taken back to prison. Have you seen any change in the prison reality between these days?
        Yes, the conditions have fallen between 30 and 40 years ago and now, in all aspects. You cannot even maintain a hygienic value; they do not provide prisoners with any free products, so whoever cannot afford to buy it does not have access to them. Those that do not have hygiene are more likely to have scabies (which has already appeared in some prisons), tuberculosis, etc … Also the food has gotten worse, is less in quality, and cold; menus are repetitive and also they cheat with the portions: for example, in the menu it indicates that there are 4 patties per person and they distribute 3, and so on with everything. The commissary prices have doubled; if it was already expensive before, it is now much more; a liter of milk, which in a store costs about 60⁄70 cents, here costs € 1.60. Not only that, the laundry machine is broken and there is no money to fix it. The other day, a light bulb melted and they had no money to change it at that time. Where is that money? Where is that percentage of profit they get from the commissary going?
        You have participated in numerous protests in prison in the different stages that you have been imprisoned. How is the current struggle in prisons?
          I tried to collect signatures on the subject of food, I got very few, about 20 and 30, people are afraid and some came to say that they pulled back from the protest…
         In the years you were out of prison, you witnessed the fascistization (even more, if possible) of the state and the expansion of repression in large parts of society. How have you experienced this process?
        It is also something that is experienced inside, even as some officials carry the flag.
        From the outside, how can we help your situation to denounce injustice and fight for your freedom?
        Go pestering the court of Instruction No. 3 of Sabadell and especially create a lot of publicity, especially with those releases that come out.
         From your perspective as an anarchist, how do you describe the present political situation in the Spanish state?
        Currently, there is no talk of politics, but of parties; people are leaving things as important as the social aspects (health, evictions, maintenance of forests to prevent fires, maintenance of infrastructure to prevent flooding) and are devoted only to discussing and accusing the opposing parties without contributing anything.
       Finally, what message do you want to say to move all people struggling against repression and against prisons?
        Much strength to you all, the struggle continues. Even though we are few, do not be discouraged; it is a matter of desire and not quantity. Often one person or few can move a crowd. It is a struggle for social inequalities, against sexism, racism; if we do not fight, it will finish worse than in the Franco era.

And from Greece:

Greek democracy

SOLIDARITY TO THE COMRADES OF THE KOUKAKI SQUATTING COMMUNITY
      Since the end of August 2019, the state has launched a wide-scale crackdown on self-organized structures, occupations of the anti-authoritarian space and against squats, which also housed refugees and immigrants, mainly families with children. The present ND (Νέα Δημοκρατία / New Democracy) government is attempting to level everything left standing by the previous SYRIZA government, which had made more selective progress, with the goal of evicting squats of either immigrants or self-organized spaces of struggle.
      The Koukaki Squatting Community is one of these self-organized structures of struggle, which was evicted some time ago, but their comrades in arms recaptured it yesterday which led to a second intervention by the police which resulted in the arrests and beatings of the comrades and those acting in solidarity. The dynamic resistance of the Koukaki Squatting Community who fought against the MAT (Riot Police) and the EKAM (Special Anti-Terrorist Unit) twice during eviction operations for the first time in such cases in Greece, is an exemplary stance to defend the options and practices of struggle that we should never abandon.
SOLIDARITY TO THE COMRADES OF THE KOUKAKI SQUATTING COMMUNITY

SOLIDARITY TO EVERYONE WHO DEFENDS THE CHOICE TO STRUGGLE

Pola Roupa – Nikos Maziotis, members of Revolutionary Struggle

12/01/2020, Korydallos Prison

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Let's Not Be The Frog!!!

 

         Sometimes somebody can just get it right in explaining something, a few words, a few illustrations and you see it quite clearly. Following on from the theme of the last post on this blog, the surveillance society, here is another gem from comrade Loam at arrezafe. A simple but brilliant short video of why we should stand up and question what we are apparently sleepwalking into, or are we already there? English spoken word, Spanish subtitles. Look, listen, learn.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Big Brother,--The Swansong Of The Systam?

         Across the planet capitalist states are tightening there security, Spain, Greece,  Canada, Switzerland, America, and here in the UK we are seeing a re-vamp of the snoopers charter and anti-union legislation, making it more difficult to organise protest through strikes. Of course all this legislation is directed at you and I, though the state spouts that it is anti-terrorist. However in the eyes of the capitalist world anybody that doesn't like their brutal exploitation, falls into the category of "terrorist". We can perhaps look at this in a positive manner, as the more they tighten their big brother surveillance, the more they feel the system is threatened. As they put their surveillance into panic mode, can we see the whole rotten edifice starting to crumble and come crashing down? Only the mass of ordinary people can accelerate that process.

From Stimulator TV:

Big Brother--eh?

           This week we break Bill C-51, down Klanada’s sinister new law, that would give the Canucks increased spying powers over its population. On the break, long standing hip-hop act Onyx, returns with “Fuck The Law.” We wrap things up with an interview with Antoine, a computer security ninja, about how we can protect ourselves from surveillance.

For links to encryption software, to comment on this show, to sign up to our email list, to get our fuckin show as a podcast or to find a playlis of the music we played just visit my fuckin website stimulator.tv

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Snooping Society.

       Facebook, that friendly social network, that handy tool to arrange get-togethers, an easy way to keep in touch! Well we should always be alive to the fact that it is a segment of the Big Brother surveillance society. It notes your ever key-push, whether you want it to be known or not. In this society there is, "virtually" no place to hid, delete it, too late, it has been recorded.
This from watchdog.net:

      We spend a lot of time debating what to post on Facebook. We type out a message, then we rewrite it. Sometimes we erase it all together. 

      But the code that powers Facebook has been recording everything we type on screen, even if we don't hit publish — and it wants to know why we aren't sharing.

    Turns out, Facebook has been monitoring, tracking and interpreting our unposted notes, comments and statuses this entire time, using even what we don't say as metadata to pass on to spy agencies like the NSA or advertisers from Groupon to Mastercard. 

     Choosing not to share is supposed to be what little still protects us from governments and corporations that can hack our emails, bug our phones and turn on our webcams without our knowledge.Please, join us in demanding Facebook stop logging and storing this data, and start protecting our right not to publish!

PETITION TO FACEBOOK: 

      Respect our right to remain private, and stop storing information about what we type in drafts for Facebook comments, notes and statuses to share with spies and sellers.

Click here to sign -- it just takes a second.

Thanks,
-- The folks at Watchdog.net

P.S. If the other links aren't working for you, please go here to sign: http://act.watchdog.net/petitions/4119?n=60736786.P1VoI4

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Big Brother, He's Everywhere.

     Big brother is everywhere, cops masquerading as anarchists, to entrap and destroy the voice of dissent, military intelligence agents doing likewise, this is the shape of Western representative democracy. A sham, an illusion, a system of total control. We don't want it, we can change it, the voice of dissent has to get louder and more persistent.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

You Are Many - They Are Few.

      As surveillance becomes ever more widespread and detailed, covering all aspects of our lives, it is more and more stupid to suggest that this is all for our own protection and safety. When whistle-blowers are imprisoned for exposing government excesses and duplicity, and governments pry into your ever email and phone call, it is obvious who they are protecting, it's their own power structures.

An excerpt from an interesting article in Anarchist News:

"Rise like lions after slumber,
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew,
Which in sleep have fallen on you,
Ye are many - they are few"
- Percy Bysshe Shelly; The Mask of Anarchy

       Marie Mason was sentenced to decades in prison for property crimes in an ELF action. Check out "Attorney Claims USA Chills Rights of Environmentalists: @ supportmariemason.org. Recently, Daniel McGowan's parole was revoked as punishment for his political speech. Read "Court Documents Prove I Was Sent to Communications Management Units (CMU) For My Political Speech @huffingtonpost.com. Edward Snowden is in exile. Chelsea Manning is in lock-up. Jeremy Hammond faces decades for hacking the military industrial complex. Glenn Greenwald is under assault for reportage. Sara Harrison is in forced exile. Julian Assange cannot leave an embassy compound. Barrett Brown faces decades in prison for a non-crime and is now held under a gag order designed to keep the world from learning how federal courts have become a weapon for assaulting free speech. NATO 5's Mark Neiweem's "ideology" was used by prison authorities to justify extension of his sentence.
       In short, there is a war being waged right now, an undeclared Dirty War, by a fascist control state hell-bent on ideological cleansing. The police state targets militants, radicals, and critics. The prison complex, outsourced to corporate profiteers as the capitalist concentration camps, is the solution to prevent the next Occupy. What you are witnessing is the convergence of technologies, surveillance, and militarized "crime" control. Connect the dots and it becomes clear that we are staring down the barrel of the most un-free system ever devised.
    The power projection is a response to Occupy. The singular significance of Occupy has been lost in all the scribbled incoherence generated in the media. Its significance is this: In all prior rebellions, authorities were able to divide the movement by offering concessions to one group, separating them, neutralizing the "organizers" or "leaders" and causing the rebellion to collapse. In all other movements, everyone went back to their assigned seats, went back to dragging stones up the side of the pyramid.
This time, brute force simply bent the resistance into the shadows, seething and stewing, waiting for the next evolution. No one could be compromised. Welcome to the next evolution: Welcome to the ARMY OF THE 12 MONKEYS!!

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Police And The Abuse Of Power.

     Scotland has a population of approximately 5 million, yet the Scottish police managed to carry out more than half a million stop and searches in eight months of 2013. Are they working hard to make sure they stop and search the entire population? Surely this number and nature of stop and searches can't be acceptable. We are already spied upon by an array of CCTV cameras in every street in every city, in pubs, buses, supermarkets, etc. and we have recently felt the horror of being spied on from the sky when it suddenly goes dreadfully wrong. We have to put an end to this snooping, spying, constant surveillance type of society. We are bring up a generation that will see it as normal to be scrutinised at every turn, to accept that privacy is a thing of the past. Everybody has the right to the dignity of privacy, and this can only be encroached on when there is "evidence" of wrong doing.

 Stop and Search in Scotland is an abuse of power

SACC Press Release

 

     Scottish police are conducting extra-legal stop and searches that have been banned in England and Wales and potentially violate the European Convention on Human Rights. The Scottish Government should ensure that police stay within the law and that people in Scotland have at least the same rights and protections as people south of the border. 

     SACC is alarmed by figures released by Scottish Police last week, which show that they carried out more than half a million stop and searches between April and December 2013. Worse still, police say that 70% of these stop and searches were not carried out under the statutory powers available to them. They claim that in these cases they had the "consent" of the people involved and therefore did not need statutory authority.

We would welcome any legal challenge brought by victims of non-statutory stop and searches, and we would like to see the public putting more pressure on the Scottish Government to bring stop and search in Scotland under proper legal control, as it is in England and Wales...

Read the full statement

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

Fashion And Face Recognition.

      Surveillance is becoming an ever more important and intrusive state tool Today we are surrounded by CCTV, roaming vehicles with cameras continually snapping away at everybody and everything. On top of this we have the various arms of the state and large commercial corporations gleaning personal details form or social habits. Your are profiled for state and commercial purposes, whether you like it or not. The latest venture is face recognition. The following article may be of some use when you think of posting that photo on you favourite social network, or when you next venture in to town. 

 This is from Rotenotes:

      Adam Harvey is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work addresses the impact of surveillance technologies.

      Next year the Janus program, an initiative run by the director of national intelligence, will begin to collect photographs of people’s faces from social media websites and public video feeds. Machines will then use powerful algorithms to pair those photos with existing biometric profiles.

     The Janus program isn’t alone: Facial-recognition technology is quickly becoming a mainstay of commercial and government surveillance systems. While it can provide benefits in automation and security, it is also a threat to privacy. Sophisticated algorithms can already extract information about your gender, age and even mood from a single image, and then link those physical attributes to commercial or government databases.

This powerful surveillance technology is cheap, ubiquitous and unregulated.

      My project, CV Dazzle, explores how fashion can be used as camouflage from face-detection technology, the first step in automated face recognition. The name is derived from a type of World War I naval camouflage called Dazzle, which used cubist-inspired designs to break apart the visual continuity of a battleship and conceal its orientation and size. Likewise, CV Dazzle uses avant-garde hairstyling and makeup designs to break apart the continuity of a face. Since facial-recognition algorithms rely on the identification and spatial relationship of key facial features, like symmetry and tonal contours, one can block detection by creating an “anti-face.”

See helpful diagrams to help fool face recognition technology: 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Helicopters Do Drop Out Of The Sky!!

       Another helicopter crash, this time in England. I have no doubt that they are a very useful tool, but I think we have to accept that these things do drop out of the sky at regular intervals. We have had several disastrous helicopter accidents around the oil rigs in the North Sea, and we have had two police helicopters crash in Glasgow, the most recent, the dreadful crash onto the roof of the Clutha pub. When the inquire for that horrific accident comes up, I think the point should be made that they do fall from the sky, and for that reason they should not be used on a routine basis over dense urban environments. They should be banned from routine surveillance, and only be brought in, in an emergency. As for surveillance, our city is well covered with CCTV, police patrol cars, uniform and plain clothes police. Surveillance may be considered intrusive, and rightly so, but it doesn't kill people, low flying helicopter surveillance over cities can kill, and is a danger to the public.

      I believe that the public in Glasgow have a right to demand no more routine helicopter surveillance fights over our city. The carnage in the Clutha tragedy was horrendous, but try to visualise the greater number of casualties if it had come down in some other area, say a block of flats, or a primary school. It is unacceptable to run that unnecessary risk, knowing that they do drop out of the sky from time to time. 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Glasgow, Police Helicopters And Accidents.

      Like many, many people across the country I have been deeply moved and saddened by the loss of life and the injuries from the recent tragic accident of the helicopter crash onto the roof of the Clutha in Glasgow. Everybody accepts it was an horrific accident, but like all accidents, we have to carefully analyse the events and attempt to guarantee that this will never happen again. I have no doubt that the experts will point to some mechanical failure, but there are other aspects that must be looked at, for example, why are there low flying helicopters over dense urban areas? This was the second police helicopter crash in Glasgow, that's two too many.

    I received this from an IWW member and I whole heartedly endorse the contents. 

 Ground Surveillance Helicopters – Permanently!

      The Clutha Vaults tragedy on 29^th November touched so many. It killed 6 pub users and injured many others, physically and emotionally. It happened because of the increasing practice, of low-flying helicopters being used in dense urban areas. We are mourning the dead, some like John McGarrigle immortalised in print.

    But “an injury to one is an injury to all “, as the wobbly slogan puts it. From mourning we should take the step to organise to highlight, oppose, and demand the end to the use of helicopters in this way.

Helicopters are used to convey the sick and injured – but that is a different use from that of the Police. How many of us have got up from our sofa to be met by a bright light, like a searchlight, barely clearing our tenements and houses/

    The Clutha had a great reputation as a haven for radical & literary ideas, for poetry and live music. But in addition to commemoration, or rebuilding the Clutha/ we can add our opposition to the use of surveillance helicopters This is not to blame the pilot, but to identify the practice, and the record of accidents and near misses associated with this practice/ As with other aspects of the creeping surveillance State – we ask , what are they useful for, and to who?

Campaign to put an end to their use, this winter of discontent!

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Beat The Prying Eyes.

Interesting, typing free from prying eyes? I suppose in time they would embed the new font in the latest OCR systems and then we would be back to where we started. Or is that too simple an answer, I'm no tec-geek.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Don't Dare Speak Out.

     The Land of the Free, tries to intimidate those who would speak out, but that is the least we should expect from the state, American or otherwise. Like the man said, "an informed public is a threat to the state".

This from Polizeros:

Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC
    One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
     On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.
     For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.
     In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.
    I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013

ann arky's home.

 

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.
For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.
In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.
I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013
- See more at: http://polizeros.com/tag/edward-snowden/#sthash.yRNbsTAT.dpuf

Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC
One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.
For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.
In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.
I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013
- See more at: http://polizeros.com/tag/edward-snowden/#sthash.yRNbsTAT.dpuf

 

The Right To Privacy.

      For those who have no desire for their personal data read and filed by the various branches of the state apparatus, there is some good information available  HERE.

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What Does Surveillance Mean To You.

         We got the usual "shock- horror" from our millionaire two-faced politicians about the latest revelations on surveillance, revelations about what we all know is going on all the time by all governments. However, don't expect the state to abandon any of its hi-tec ability to snoop on us no matter which bunch get into power. Spying, snooping has been part of the state apparatus since the first state came into being. As a matter of fact it probably took a lot of spying and snooping to bring it into existence. After "questions have been asked in the House" and the subject matter debated, don't expect to see black bags over those CCTVs, nor to hear about GCHQ unplugging all those black-boxes. No, there will be waffle and blurb and then things will go on as before, with your every e-mail, text, phone call, internet visit and visit into town, monitored, sifted and stored for further analysis. If we want rid of the snoopers we have to get rid of the state and all its repugnant apparatus.

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Big Brother In The Classroom.

       We all know of them, we get taught about them in school, we sometimes use their "gifts". I'm talking about those millionaire/billionaire philanthropists, who after years of screwing people to make their obscene fortunes, decide to hand some back in the way of a "gift". We are supposed to love them and feel grateful as they drop a library here, a park there, or what ever takes their fancy. One that is in the news quite a lot recently is super billionaire Bill Gates. Just the same as the rest, having made his pile from trying to create a monopoly, he now sees himself a some sort of God figure and believes he has the right to interfere in our lives in an array of ventures. His latest venture is to throw $5 billion at a scheme to put cameras in every classroom in America. Just to improve the teaching of course. No way will the system be used by the state, education authorities or the police or any other body, for any other purpose than improving the kids education!!! Big business and the state will jump at the idea, big business because it will love to get its hands on that $5 billion, and there is a lot of money to be made implementing and maintaining the system, and the state which will be delighted at another section of society having there every move monitored, and have the corporate world do it for them. Of course it will be deemed such a success by the powers that be, that it will be rolled out across the Western world. Big Brother is growing bigger.

      Why is it that those people who manage to screw the public and make a fortune, feel it gives them the knowledge, ability, and the right, to jump into areas of other people's lives, that they have neither the knowledge, ability nor right to do so. Simply it is because in this type of society, money equates with power, and power over-rides knowledge, ability and right. Ah, that's capitalism for you.

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BIG BROTHER IS RELENTLESS.

     How long before we see them over head here, as we go about our normal business. Big Brother has all the best of technology.

From Polizeros:

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