Whole Truth Coalition

The agenda to eliminate cash is real and it’s coming to a store near you.  The perils of a cashless society make the valueless currency system we have now appear a panacea.  Already many must pay extra fees in order to pay their bills in cash.  The day is not so far off when even going to the store for a soda will be an entirely electronic transaction.  There will be no buying and selling permitted that is not electronic.

 As things stand today if there is a problem with a person’s credit card/PIN card they can always pay the bill in cash, or can they? 

 It was my recent experience while travelling in one of my favourite cities that having cash was not enough to buy food at the market of my choice.  I came across what looked like quite a nice supermarket on a street I had never ridden my bike down before and decided to buy some food for breakfast the next day.  When I entered what I saw was perhaps the nicest selection and quality of food I had ever seen in the city of Amsterdam, excepting one organic open market (only open Saturdays.)  I proceeded to do my shopping with great joy, looking forward to sampling the beautiful organic products on sale.  Awaiting me at the counter however was a shock, cash is not accepted at this store.  I would have to pay for my food electronically if I wanted it.  Normally on principle I would not have bought the food but, as I happened to have a credit card with me, (which is rare,) I decided to see for myself if it was really better quality than what I could buy with cash.  The sad truth is yes, it was better than much of what is available for cash and is amongst the best food for sale in Holland. 

 Considering the fact that I have travelled to almost 100 cities in more than 25 countries, on 5 continents the cashier’s contention that the company she worked for was cashless to prevent armed hold-ups is laughable.  There were only some 200 incidents of cash theft including snatch and grab as well as hold-ups in the Dutch supermarkets last year.  In a country with thousands of supermarkets which cater to a population of over 16 million, that is a very low percentage of armed robbery.  I have seen violent places and central Amsterdam is not one of them.  This is not the sort of business located in the red light district or even open late.  The fact is this business is located in a very affluent area of Amsterdam which I would consider safe at any hour of the day or night.

Under the guise of protecting people, what this cashless rule does very well is keep quality food out of the hands of the poor and the illegal immigrants.  It also allows the company, the bank and the government to know just what it is you buy every day.  

Supermarkets in the Netherlands planning on eliminating cash transactions by 2014.  What happens on the day markets around the world sell only electronically?  What happens on that day when your card is declined?  How many more rights will people concede for the perception of security?  A cashless society does not equal security, it is slavery.  Those who control the electronic money will then effectively control every aspect of a person’s physical survival including where a person may live, who eats and who does not.   A cashless society will allow those who control the electronic monetary system to decide weather you live or die.  At least with the current system when the when the money is devalued to less than the cost of the paper it is printed on you can still use it as tinder.

Electronic money is an even bigger scam than the paper money backed by nothing which we currently have.  Say no to having every aspect of your daily life electronically recorded.  Say no to a society run on electronic money by refusing to support stores which do not accept cash.  Say no by using cash or better yet bartering when and where possible.  If we just go along with the new electronic monetary system the consequences will likely be disastrous.  The time to choose what sort of economic system you want to live under is today, before the choice is made for you.  Act now and make your voice heard.

 footnotes:

Instead of the usual footnotes I am listing all the researchers, filmmakers and authors who pointed me in the direction of the information above and not only those whose work would normally be referenced in direct conjunction with the information in this article.  These footnotes are not only an acknowledgment of the scholarship of the people listed below but are also a sincere thanks for their contributions towards the education of all humanity.

thank you:

Max Igan, David Icke, Aaron Russo, Ben Stewart, Anthony J Hilder

Special thanks to my friend Jonathan at KnowTheLies.com, who helped me edit this essay.

 by Megan ‘Verb’ Kargher

 Why is there a proliferation of violence in entertainment and sports, both in the present day and throughout history? 

What purpose does such mass media exposure to violence serve with regard to the societal and mental state of the populous? 

Who benefits from the agenda of displaying violence in the media and how do they benefit  from people all over the world being exposed every day to this violence? 

The fact that the entertainment industry is rife with violence is not likely to be widely contested.  It is there in front of your face every day, on the news, in cartoons, in movies and even at the football matches.  All this violence brought directly to your living rooms, why? 

In order to fully understand why we are being exposed to so much violence from a young age we must first answer two questions.  How does violence effect the human mind and psyche?  Who benefits as a result of this effect?

 Violence as entertainment has been used for millennia, the specific aim of which is control of the masses.  Use of violence and the fear it generates, in combination with the Hegelian dialectic (which David Icke so aptly calls problem, reaction, solution,) is one of the key techniques for the mass manipulation of human behavior.  The Roman Emperors were well aware of these techniques which is why they built circuses for the games and chariot races in every major city of the empire.  It is their direct bloodline descendants today who still control much of the world who use TV and the entire entertainment industry as a means to solidify their power base in much the same way as their forefathers did. 

 TV far outstrips its predecessor the colosseum in effectiveness.  This is because it can deliver horror and violence directly into the homes of a captivated populous.  Sports such as football generates riots just as the chariot races did during the Roman Empire.  The riots between Blue and Green supporters culminated in the Nika Revolt during which half of Constantinople was burnt down and tens of thousands of people lost their lives.  Now the supporters are for Arsenal or Ajax instead of the Blues and the Greens, but the outcome still has the potential to be the same.  Ironically just after I began writing this essay a football riot occurred in Northern Ireland.  As you can see, the agenda to create problems and generate artificial factions is running according to plan. 

 One of the main reasons for intentionally creating fear and stress in an individual is that in this state a person becomes more amenable to suggestion.  When people feel threatened they naturally seek protection.  Many will turn to the government and its law enforcement agencies in the hopes that they can engender some sense of security.  This leads to governments launching false flag operations, the aim of which is to create panic and fear in order to impose stricter legislation, expand governmental powers and limit the freedoms of the populous.  This is why events like 9/11 and 7/7 were played continuously in the media internationally. This is done in order to generate enough fear so that the governments of the world would have cart blanche to legislate as they please, regardless of constitutions and laws of their respective countries.

 This same manipulation of fear is the purpose for the overblown coverage of football riots.  It creates apprehension in the average spectator who just wants to enjoy the game.  Those who wish to attend public events must be willing to give up their personal rights for a bit of perceived safety.  They must show ID cards and submit willingly to unjustified searches.  These searches will undoubtedly become more and more frequent in every day life instead of just at the airport or public sporting events.

 Fear is not the only effect of violence that is favorable with regard to the elite’s agenda of manipulation.  In order to have trained military personnel devoid of empathy, it is preferable to desensitize and condition them to violence as young as possible.  The media is a perfect vehicle for this sort of conditioning.  For this reason video games, cartoons and comics aimed at children are incredibly violent.  The media aimed at adults is even worse and as everyone knows mark a movie or a video game rated as adult content, it is the first one kids will sneak into or get a copy of online. 

 I am NOT implying we should censor the media.  Hell, they already censor most of the useful information out themselves.  What we must understand is how the media is being used.  It is scientifically acknowledged that violence and fear effects humans on a cellular level.  Those who are feeding the worlds populous daily doses of violence and terror know this.  The media is utilized for this aforementioned agenda of distraction, desensitization and fear.  Do not fall victim to the mass Stockholm Syndrome they are trying to induce.  Do not let the media form your opinions for you.  Do not be frightened into trading your freedom for the erroneous perception of safety.

 footnotes:

Instead of the usual footnotes I am listing all the researchers, filmmakers and authors who pointed me in the direction of the information above and not only those whose work would normally be referenced in direct conjunction with the information in this article.  These footnotes are not only an acknowledgment of the scholarship of the people listed below but are also a sincere thanks for their contributions towards the education of all humanity.

thank you:

David Icke, Ben Stewart, Dylan Avery, Jason Bermas, Korey Rowe, Jordan Maxwell, Anthony J Hilder, Candice Pert, Cathy O’Brian, Max Igan

 Special thanks to my friend Knowthelies who helped me edit this essay.

 by Megan ‘Verb’ Kargher

Reclaiming Our Sovereignty

Once again, we have reached a crossroads in our history. We are confronted with an enemy that would destroy our nation and its people. We have some hard decisions to make - each of us, individually. Are you prepared to make them?

The British Constitution Group’s call for Lawful Rebellion now moves up a notch and our campaign ‘Wanted – 1 million rebellious Britons’ has commenced, to be formally declared at our conference in London on the 13th June.

If you share our ambition to take back control of our country, then we need your commitment and attendance at this conference, at which we will outline our strategy to build our campaign into a force to be reckoned with.

There is a national mood for rebellion shared by patriots the length and breadth of the country. This must be harnessed under a single campaign with carefully defined objectives in order to win the war to claim back our sovereign right to govern ourselves.

Make no mistake about it, this is a war.

Fought by our enemies (within this country) with the weapons of lies, deceit, subterfuge and betrayal, their aim is to destroy the prinicple of the nation state, and replace it with regionalised global dictatorship. In order to win, we must be prepared to tell the truth about our plight to fellow Britons, the majority of whom exist in an awareness vacuum or a state of abstract denial.

We cannot go to war without an army and ‘Wanted – 1 million rebellious Britons’ is the foundation to building that army. We know that millions of our fellow countrymen and women share our views but most have been rendered impotent, convinced that there is nothing that we (the majority) can do to challenge the authority of a duplicitous minority.

Our task is to cajole, encourage, persuade, prod, push and insist that the nation rally to our cause and sign up to lawful rebellion as the only means by which we can now take back control of our country.

An honest majority can impose their will, peacefully and lawfully,  on the dishonest minority - if they have the collective will to do so. It is our challenge, indeed our duty, to rally the nation around this cause.

We need ordinary Britons in their masses to unite behind our campaign. We need to invoke our Constitution, restate our right to govern ourselves and educate a dumbed-down populous to the reality of their virtual enslavement - a harsh fact that few will recognise or are prepared to accept as true despite overwhelming evidence.

We are over-regulated, over-taxed, spied on, burdened by bureaucracy and political correctness, to the extent that we are even told the words and phrases that we can and cannot utter. Thieves, muggers and drug dealers escape with meaningless cautions, whilst the law abiding majority are fined and harassed by a militia-like officialdom who themselves take orders from compliant and controlled strata of middle mangers with an inflated sense of self-importance, hand-picked for their enthusiasm for social engineering and their busy-body mentality.

These people must be challenged; made to realise that they are working to an agenda  of destruction, in which moral values are abandoned, families devalued and society fragmented and manipulated. Whilst we are all caught up and distracted in the chaos so inflicted, the way is clear for the power elites to build their edifice from which they can look down and control us.

Each one of us should know and take heart that we are pushing back the tide of deceit. The elite’s plans are exposed - never before has the collective political establishment (the puppets of the elite) been so despised and distrusted.

We know our enemies’ strengths and we know they are enormously powerful, but we also know their weaknesses. We know that ultimately our power once harnessed is much greater than theirs. Our power so harnessed is their greatest fear.

Our power comes from our numbers and our ability to funnel these into a single campaign with the objective of taking back control. Our ability to harness this power comes from our preparedness to tell the truth about our predicament, to alert the wider public and fire their passion for freedom and true democracy. They know they are being conned by a dishonest and self-serving elite, they just need to know that there is a way in which they can be empowered. We must offer the direction and inspiration for others to follow. It is up to YOU to carry that message to the wider audience.

Do you have the courage to do so?

If you are willing to play a part in reclaiming our national sovereignty then you will need to grasp the truth of the situation, which is that the three main political parties are controlled by a global elite… whose agenda will not be disrupted one iota by elections, no matter who wins. The Brown, Cameron, Clegg show is just that… a play in which the actors create an illusion that they are in charge, but in reality it is the directors behind the scenes, hidden from our view, who are firmly in control and who will not be revealed to us until the final curtain falls – by which time it will be too late.

We are calling for our Constitution to be reinstated and our laws to be upheld, but even these are useless in the face of tyranny and oppression – ultimately they require the people to stand up and defend them.

Sign up to our pledge today.

Become a First Point of Contact.

Set up your local group.

Organise your local community.

Do it.

Do it today.

Help us turn this tide.

We the British people have a right to govern ourselves, but that right can only be enforced by the people themselves.

The British Constitution Group

‘Officers were last night accused of abusing their powers after it emerged just one per cent of around 124,000 “suspects” targeted in 2007/08 were arrested - and only a fraction of those were for terrorism related offences. Nearly 90 per cent of the searches were carried out in London by the Metropolitan Police, which saw a 266 per cent increase, with the aftermath of the attempted nightclub bombing in the Haymarket in the summer of 2007 blamed for the rise.’

Read more…

Menwith Hill Aerial Photo: Yorkshire CND

Man has climbed the highest mountains; he has penetrated the densest forests, crossed the greatest deserts and descended miles below to the murky depths of the ocean floor. He has conquered the skies, the land and the sea, but there is one battle he has not won – yet – the battle to conquer the mind.

In a sleepy suburb on the outskirts of Las Vegas, Margaret Newsham is attempting to lead a normal life away from the days where she worked at a giant listening station at RAF base Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, England. Despite this, she is unable to escape her past.

She sleeps with a loaded gun under her bed and is protected by her 120-pound German shepherd, who is trained to guard and attack. At any time, certain factions in the NSA and the CIA may attempt to silence her for her role in the most extensive espionage network on earth, capable of tapping into millions of phone calls an hour: project ECHELON.

Mrs. Newsham was an employee for Lockheed Martin, the largest munitions suppliers to the US military and intelligence agencies, the NSA and CIA. Newsham says:

“It is almost impossible to tell the difference between NSA agents and civilians employed by Lockheed Martin, Ford and IBM. The borderlines are very vague. I had one of the highest security classifications which required the approval of the CIA, the NSA, the Navy and the Air Force. The approval included both a lie detector test, and an expanded personal history test in which my family and acquaintances were discretely checked by the security agency.”

For her part, Newsham was regretful for the part she played in spying on politicians and ordinary people:

“On the day at Menwith Hill when I realized in earnest how utterly wrong it was, I was sitting with one of the many ‘translators’. He was an expert in languages like Russian, Chinese and Japanese. Suddenly he asked me if I wanted to listen in on a conversation taking place in the US at an office in the US Senate Building. Then I clearly heard a southern American dialect I thought I had heard before.”

“Who is that?” I asked the translator who told me that it was Republican senator Strom Thurmond. ‘Oh my gosh!’ I thought. We’re not only spying on other countries, but also on our own citizens. That’s when I realized in earnest that what we were doing had nothing to do with national security interests of the US.”

Read more…

BRITAIN appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state. As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely.

There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent.

Nikolai Bukharin claimed one of the Bolshevik Revolution’s principal tasks was “to alter people’s actual psychology”. Britain is not Bolshevik, but a campaign to alter people’s psychology and create a new Homo britannicus is under way without even a fig leaf of disguise.

The Government is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalise politically incorrect jokes, with a maximum punishment of up to seven years’ prison. The House of Lords tried to insert a free-speech amendment, but Justice Secretary Jack Straw knocked it out. It was Straw who previously called for a redefinition of Englishness and suggested the “global baggage of empire” was linked to soccer violence by “racist and xenophobic white males”. He claimed the English “propensity for violence” was used to subjugate Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and that the English as a race were “potentially very aggressive”.

In the past 10 years I have collected reports of many instances of draconian punishments, including the arrest and criminal prosecution of children, for thought-crimes and offences against political correctness.

Countryside Restoration Trust chairman and columnist Robin Page said at a rally against the Government’s anti-hunting laws in Gloucestershire in 2002: “If you are a black vegetarian Muslim asylum-seeking one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you.” Page was arrested, and after four months he received a letter saying no charges would be pressed, but that: “If further evidence comes to our attention whereby your involvement is implicated, we will seek to initiate proceedings.” It took him five years to clear his name.

Page was at least an adult. In September 2006, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Codie Stott, asked a teacher if she could sit with another group to do a science project as all the girls with her spoke only Urdu. The teacher’s first response, according to Stott, was to scream at her: “It’s racist, you’re going to get done by the police!” Upset and terrified, the schoolgirl went outside to calm down. The teacher called the police and a few days later, presumably after officialdom had thought the matter over, she was arrested and taken to a police station, where she was fingerprinted and photographed. According to her mother, she was placed in a bare cell for 3 1/2 hours. She was questioned on suspicion of committing a racial public order offence and then released without charge. The school was said to be investigating what further action to take, not against the teacher, but against Stott. Headmaster Anthony Edkins reportedly said: “An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark. We aim to ensure a caring and tolerant attitude towards pupils of all ethnic backgrounds and will not stand for racism in any form.”

A 10-year-old child was arrested and brought before a judge, for having allegedly called an 11-year-old boya “Paki” and “bin Laden” during a playground argument at a primary school (the other boy had called him a skunk and a Teletubby). When it reached the court the case had cost taxpayers pound stg. 25,000. The accused was so distressed that he had stopped attending school. The judge, Jonathan Finestein, said: “Have we really got to the stage where we are prosecuting 10-year-old boys because of political correctness? There are major crimes out there and the police don’t bother to prosecute. This is nonsense.”

Finestein was fiercely attacked by teaching union leaders, as in those witch-hunt trials where any who spoke in defence of an accused or pointed to defects in the prosecution were immediately targeted as witches and candidates for burning.

Hate-crime police investigated Basil Brush, a puppet fox on children’s television, who had made a joke about Gypsies. The BBC confessed that Brush had behaved inappropriately and assured police that the episode would be banned.

A bishop was warned by the police for not having done enough to “celebrate diversity”, the enforcing of which is now apparently a police function. A Christian home for retired clergy and religious workers lost a grant because it would not reveal to official snoopers how many of the residents were homosexual. That they had never been asked was taken as evidence of homophobia.

Muslim parents who objected to young children being given books advocating same-sex marriage and adoption at one school last year had their wishes respected and the offending material withdrawn. This year, Muslim and Christian parents at another school objecting to the same material have not only had their objections ignored but have been threatened with prosecution if they withdraw their children.

There have been innumerable cases in recent months of people in schools, hospitals and other institutions losing their jobs because of various religious scruples, often, as in the East Germany of yore, not shouted fanatically from the rooftops but betrayed in private conversations and reported to authorities. The crime of one nurse was to offer to pray for a patient, who did not complain but merely mentioned the matter to another nurse. A primary school receptionist, Jennie Cain, whose five-year-old daughter was told off for talking about Jesus in class, faces the sack for seeking support from her church. A private email from her to other members of the church asking for prayers fell into the hands of school authorities.

Permissiveness as well as draconianism can be deployed to destroy socially accepted norms and values. The Royal Navy, for instance, has installed a satanist chapel in a warship to accommodate the proclivities of a satanist crew member. “What would Nelson have said?” is a British newspaper cliche about navy scandals, but in this case seems a legitimate question. Satanist paraphernalia is also supplied to prison inmates who need it.

This campaign seems to come from unelected or quasi-governmental bodies controlling various institutions, which are more or less unanswerable to electors, more than it does directly from the Government, although the Government helps drive it and condones it in a fudged and deniable manner.

Any one of these incidents might be dismissed as an aberration, but taken together - and I have only mentioned a tiny sample; more are reported almost every day - they add up to a pretty clear picture.

The Australian

‘Time Magazine’s coverage of the swine flu scare has a noticeable subplot - preparing Americans for draconian measures to combat a future pandemic as well as forcing them to accept the idea of mandatory vaccinations.

In an article entitled How to Deal With Swine Flu: Heeding the Mistakes of 1976, the piece discusses how dozens died and hundreds were injured from vaccines as a result of the 1976 swine flu fiasco, when the Ford administration attempted to use the infection of soldiers at Fort Dix as a pretext for a mass vaccination of the entire country.

Despite acknowledging that the 1976 farce was an example of “how not to handle a flu outbreak,” the article still introduces the notion that officials “may soon have to consider whether to institute draconian measures to combat the disease”.’

Read more…

‘They believe that “sacred cows”, including the controversial ID card scheme, may have to be sacrificed in order to reduce Britain’s huge debt burden, according to The Independent. The Cabinet is under pressure to reduce Whitehall spending by more than the £9 billion in “efficiency savings” promised in the Budget last week.’

 Read more…

Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes has given perhaps his most dire warning yet, saying that the Obama administration is preparing to stage terror attacks, declare martial law and cancel the 2012 elections, which is why they are demonizing their political enemies as criminals and terrorists.

Keyes is best known for his performance during the 2000 Republican presidential debates, when he was accredited by many media outlets as being the clear winner during a series of debates with George W. Bush and John McCain.

“It’s obvious that they will stop at nothing,” Keyes told attendees of a reception in Fort Wayne, adding, “We may wake up one day and there’s a series of terrorist attacks, the economy is paralysed….martial law will be declared everywhere in the United States and it won’t end until the crisis ends.”

Read more…

Act now!
Internet access is not conditional

Everyone who owns a website has an interest in defending the free use of Internet… so has everyone who uses Google or Skype… everyone who expresses their opinions freely, does research of any kind, whether for personal health problems or academic study … everyone who shops online…who dates online…socialises online… listens to music…watches video…

Millions of Europeans now depend on the Internet, directly or indirectly, for their livelihood. Taking it away, chopping it up, ‘restricting it’, ‘limiting it’ and placing conditions on our use of it, will have a direct impact on people’s earnings. And in the current financial climate, that can’t be good.

The internet as we know it is at risk because of proposed new EU rules going through end of April. Under the proposed new rules, broadband providers will be legally able to limit the number of websites you can look
at, and to tell you whether or not you are allowed to use particular services. It will be dressed up as ‘new consumer options’ which people can choose from. People will be offered TV-like packages - with a limited
number of options for you to access.

It means that the Internet will be packaged up and your ability to access and to put up content could be severely restricted. It will create boxes of Internet accessibility, which don’t fit with the way we use it today. This is because internet is now permitting exchanges between persons which cannot be controlled or “facilitated” by any middlemen (the state or a corporation) and this possibility improves the citizen’s life but force the industry to lose power and control. that’s why they are pushing governments to act those changes.

Read more…

SCOTLAND YARD is to deploy officers armed with 50,000-volt Taser stun guns to deal with violent demonstrators planning to disrupt this week’s G20 summit in London.

The centrepiece of the security plan will be hundreds of officers from the Metropolitan police territorial support group, who are routinely armed with speedcuffs, extended batons and CS gas spray.

The Met confirmed yesterday that they will be supported by officers equipped with Tasers on stand-by should trouble break out.

“There will be an armed response vehicle element to this operation and [those officers] will be carrying Tasers,” said a spokeswoman.

The Met’s admission that Tasers could be used for the first time in the UK during riots came as protest groups claimed police had contacted them to warn that a day of protest in the City on Wednesday would be “very violent”.

All police leave has been cancelled and 10,500 officers, including reinforcements from other forces, will be deployed in the biggest policing operation undertaken in London.

Read more…

Passengers on ferries to the Isle of Wight and Scottish islands such as Mull and Skye will soon have to carry identity papers to comply with new police anti-terror powers.

And travellers flying between British cities or to Northern Ireland face having their personal data logged when booking tickets and checking in.

Until now ferry passengers on most routes in Britain have not been required to produce ID and internal flight passengers only face random police checks.

But under new Government security rules that will come into force next year, personal data, including name, date of birth and home address, will be typed into a computer record for the police by the booking clerk or travel agent.

Passengers will also face further ID checks when boarding their flight or ferry.

Under the new powers, police will be able to track the movements of around 60million domestic passengers a year.

The controversial measures were due to be introduced two years ago, but were dropped after protests from Ulster politicians, who said the plan would construct ‘internal borders’ in the UK.

But last week the Government used the release of its anti-terrorism strategy to quietly reintroduce them. Buried on Page 113 of the 174-page ‘CONTEST’ document was the announcement of ‘new police powers to collect advanced passenger data on some domestic air and sea journeys’.

Last night a Home Office spokesman confirmed the measures would ‘require passengers to show photo ID, such as a driving licence or the (proposed) Government ID cards, when booking tickets for domestic air and sea journeys’.

Read more…

A British parliamentary committee finds the police guilty of misusing counter terrorism laws and being too heavy-handed toward protestors.

As thousands in London prepare to take to the streets for next months G20 summit, the House of Parliament’s select committee on human rights has criticized the police for being too heavy-handed in their preparation for protests.

According to the committee, British police have manipulated legislation such as the counter terrorism laws in dealing with protestors, have resorted to intimidation and have abused its stop-and-search powers.

“The right to protest is a fundamental democratic right and one that the state and police have a duty to protect and facilitate,” said the committee’s chairman Andrew Dismore.

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EU and Nato help should be called upon to boost security at the London 2012 Olympics, an influential group of peers has said.

Lord Jopling, chairman of the European Union committee, urged the Government to begin talks with the EU Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) civil protection unit “as a matter of urgency”, and expressed “surprise” that this has not already been taken in hand.

“It is increasingly clear that the 2012 Olympics could be a prime target for terrorists and it is vital the Government takes every possible step to ensure other EU member states are fully prepared to assist the UK in the case of a potential attack,” he said

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BRITAIN is on high alert for a Mumbai-style terrorist attack on a top hotel, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith revealed yesterday. She told MPs that security chiefs have been training staff at major hotels on how to cope with a terror hit.

Ministers, police and security services are urgently reviewing the UK’s counter-terrorism plans to beef up protection around hotels and other public buildings.

Appearing before the Commons Home Affairs committee, Ms Smith said the atrocities in Mumbai in November — which claimed nearly 200 lives — had triggered an overhaul of Britain’s “protective security arrangements”.

She said: “We have taken the opportunity of the review that we have done to accelerate the publication of protective security guidance to both hotels and hotel security professionals and giving them the best advice.

“We have a network of counter-terrorism security advisers who are able to supplement that advice by actually visiting specific venues and delivering training.”

However Ms Smith said that she did not want checks to make peoples’ lives a misery.

Read more…

‘DNA samples taken from 1.1million children are being held on an ever expanding government database. The new figures come as it was claimed ministers are sneaking  sweeping powers to collect and retain more DNA samples.The Tories said the Government was attempting to give itself a ‘blank cheque’ to store swabs and fingerprints of criminals and those cleared of wrongdoing.

They claim Labour is trying to expand the amount of biometric data they store without subjecting the controversial plan to full Parliamentary scrutiny.’

Read more…

Laws that allow officials to monitor the behaviour of millions of Britons risk “hardwiring surveillance” into the British way of life, the country’s privacy watchdog has warned.

Richard Thomas told The Times that “creeping surveillance” in the public and private sectors had gone “too far, too fast” and risked undermining democracy.

The Information Commissioner warned that proposals to allow widespread data sharing between Whitehall and the private sector were too far-reaching and that plans to create a giant database of every telephone call, e-mail and text message risked turning everyone into a suspect. “In the last 10 or 15 years a great deal of surveillance in public and private places has been extended without sufficient thought to the risks and consequences,” said Mr Thomas, 59. “Our society is based on liberty and democracy. I do not want to see excessive surveillance hardwired into British society.”

Read more…

‘Citizens will have to sacrifice their right to privacy in the fight against terrorism, a former senior security official warned today. Sir David Omand, the Cabinet Office’s former security and intelligence co-ordinator, said in future the security services would need access to a wide range of personal data, including phone records, emails and travel information. In a research paper on national security strategy, Sir David wrote: “Finding out other people’s secrets is going to involve breaking everyday moral rules”.’

Read more…

Pilotless planes used to track the Taliban could soon be hovering over our streets, it has emerged.

Remote-controlled drones are already used widely by the military. Now ministers believe they are likely to become ‘increasingly useful’ for police work.

Armed with heat-seeking cameras, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles would hover hundreds of feet in the air, gathering intelligence and watching suspects.

In theory, their advantages are clear. They are cheaper and quieter than conventional helicopters, can circle their target for hours without refuelling - and they don’t get bored on long surveillance missions.

However, their use is likely to further fuel concerns about our march towards a Big Brother state. Britain already has more CCTV cameras than the rest of Europe put together.

Read more…

Mr Straw said he could not permit the release of records from 2003 discussions over the invasion of Iraq because it would cause too much “damage” to democracy.

He said he had signed a certificate under section 53 of the FOI Act, “the effect of which is that these Cabinet minutes will not now be disclosed”.

Allowing publication to go ahead would cause “serious damage to Cabinet government, an essential principle of British democracy”.

Mr Straw told the Commons he had consulted with the rest of the Cabinet before issuing the veto, and the decision had not been taken “lightly”.

It is the first time the ministerial veto has been used since the FOI Act came into force in 2005.

Liberal Democrat MP Sir Menzies Campbell said the decision was “profoundly disappointing.”

“This is a Government which when introducing measures to limit personal freedom says that those that have nothing to hide should have nothing to fear,” he said.

“If the process of reaching the decision to embark upon an illegal war against Iraq is still supported by the Government why haven’t they the courage to let us see the minutes of the Cabinet?

“The truth is that this was one of the most significant foreign affairs decisions in history which a supine Cabinet nodded through.”

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Two out of three Britons back the idea of compulsory community service for young people, a poll has found.

A civic programme would find useful work for millions who would otherwise face mass unemployment in a deepening recession, many believe.

The survey also uncovered widespread fears that the energies and talents of jobless teenagers and twenty-somethings need to be harnessed to avoid the danger of rioting and unrest.

senior police chief has already admitted that officers are preparing for a ’summer of rage’ as victims of the credit crunch take to the streets to demonstrate against banks.

Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads Scotland Yard’s public order unit, said bonus-paying banks had become ‘viable targets’. He added: ‘Suddenly there is the opportunity for people to mass protest.’

The poll was conducted by Prospect magazine to gauge support for a plan backed by influential Labour MP Frank Field for a ‘national citizenship programme’.

Under the scheme, everyone would have to spend a year between the ages of 16 and 25 in low-paid community work, either in schools, children’s centres and residential homes or on housing or parks projects.

The poll, carried out by YouGov among 2,270 people, found 64 per cent supported the compulsory citizenship work idea.

Among those aged between 18 and 30, the scheme still had the support of 52 per cent.

More than a third feared riots similar to those experienced by Greece in December.

And nearly three quarters agreed with the statement that there will be mass unemployment ‘for many years to come’.

Daily Mail