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The European Court of Human Rights today issued its judgement on the case that Penny Quinton and I have been taking against the government over section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. They have agreed that this piece of legislation offends against Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and does not contain sufficient safeguards for members of the public. [1]

The case stems from events in September 2003, when Penny and I were independently subject to stop and search under the Terrorism Act. We’d both been attending protests at the DSEi arms fair, myself partly for research purposes and Penny as an independent journalist. The campaigning legal firm Liberty agreed to take our cases and we spent several years going though the judicial review process, before finally taking it to the European Court last year.[2]

To finally win is fantastic news and sends a very strong signal to government about the limits to what is acceptable in combating terrorism. Section 44 is regularly abused by police who find it convenient for general policing. The problem is the legislation itself, which is screaming out to be abused. The Terrorism Act encourages police to perform stop and search ‘for the purpose of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism’ (e.g. phones, maps, laptops, notepads, car keys) and ‘may be exercised whether or not the constable had grounds for suspecting the presence of articles of that kind‘ (Section 44(1)). When challenged by those seeking redress for misuse of these powers the constable should properly claim in court that he or she had no suspicion of the person they stopped and searched. Another reply might risk saying something that could be perceived as discriminatory or otherwise unreasonable, so why make your thoughts public? This is indeed how the officers reacted when we challenged their use of the Terrorism Act against protesters – we just don’t know why we stopped them. The Terrorism Act makes it easier to search people than any other police power and officers are encouraged not to disclose (or indeed use) any reasoning. So its hardly a surprise that hundreds of thousands [3] of stops under this legislation have created suspicion and fear of the state, while not one has led to an arrest on terrorism charges.

News reports are now available from the BBC, The Times, The Guardian, and quite a few more!

Notes
[1] The full judgement is available here: Gillan & Quinton vs. The United Kingdom (4158/05).
[2] Elsewhere I’ve written about why the judicial review process is blind to certain kinds of systematic misuse of police powers.
[3] 250,000 stops were made in 2008/9 and 117,278 in 2007/8.

There’s now a very public fuss about the BBC’s unfathomable decision not to air an appeal requested by the Disaster’s Emergency Committee because of reasons of  impartiality. So, I wrote the following:

Dear sir/madam,

RE: BBC decision not to air DEC Gaza appeal

I was surprised and frustrated to learn that the BBC have refused the request by the Disasters Emergency Committee to air an appeal for funds to help those in desperate need in Gaza.

The BBC response was that your concerns were about the delivery of aid to a volatile situation and about impartiality.[1] The first issue appears to be one on which the DEC is better qualified to make a decision than the BBC. If the aid agencies involved believe it is possible to deliver aid then they should be supported – especially because it is often in volatile and dangerous situations that aid is most urgently required. The second issue is clearly within the BBC’s remit. However, the DEC insists it is an apolitical organisation working on humanitarian grounds.[2] The simple fact is that thousands of people are newly impoverished and homeless, with urgent need for access to clean water, food and medical supplies. Regardless of the political situation I strongly believe that the BBC should take the small step of airing an appeal – along with all other broadcasters – to help relieve the suffering of these people. This action would fit very well with the BBC’s privileged position as a license-funded, public service organisation.

Thank you for your attention in reading this letter. I would be very grateful if you would reply with answers to the following questions:

1. Why does the BBC feel it is in a better position than DEC to decide on the dangers of delivery of aid?

2. How exactly would airing this appeal damage the BBC’s credentials for impartiality?

3. Will the BBC reconsider this decision?

Yours sincerely,

Dr Kevin Gillan

[1]BBC, ‘BBC defends Gaza appeal decision’ at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7846150.stm

[2] Guardian, ‘BBC refuses airtime to Gaza aid appeal’ at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/23/bbc-refuses-gaza-appeal

It might not be the biggest surprise to learn that the presence of oil in a country has an effect on that country’s political character, but its rare to see the ‘resource curse’ described as clearly as in the graph below.

Source: Bennie, Lynn, Patrick Bernhagen, and Neil J. Mitchell. 2007. “The Logic of Transnational Action: the Good Corporation and the Global Compact.” Political Studies 55(4):733-753.

N.B. The political terror scale, originally developed by Freedom House, is based on data from Amnesty International and the US Department of State’s country reports. 1 stands for respect for human rights, 5 indicates widespread government killing, torture, political imprisonment and disappearances.

How could I better manage my finances? Couldn’t my bank help me? A first step must be to better understand how I’m actually spending my income, and it strikes me that my online banking should really have a variety of ways of interacting with my financial data by now.

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It was a pleasure today to see Prof Joseph Stiglitz deliver the University of Manchester’s Foundation Day Lecture, titled ‘The Financial Crisis – Lessons for Economic Theory and Policy’. So, what does the Nobel prize winning economist think of the current financial climate?

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Not surprisingly, since it began with the ‘leader of the free world’, the idea that if you feel a bit nervous about someone you should whack ‘em straight away is now becoming an excuse for more everyday violence. Aussie rugby star Willie Mason described yesterday the exchange of abuse with Stuart Fielden on the international rugby stage after which Willie concussed his opponent with a right hook. He explained “I saw his right hand cocked and thought he was going to throw it. I thought I’d hit him first before he hit back.” Well, if that logic is good enough for international relations maybe its good enough for rugby. Mason’s brief helpfully added that his client shouldn’t be punished simply for being the better fighter – showing the kind of sharp legal mind that might, in some company, win rapid promotion. Interestingly, this court wasn’t buying it. (report)

“The conflict between Davos [the partisans of the World Economic Forum] and Porto Alegre [the partisans of the World Social Forum] is not about the virtues and vices of neo-liberal globalisation, although this is how it is often protrayed … It is not about capitalism as a world-system, since capitalism as a world system is in structural crisis and will disappear in the next 20-50 years. The conflict is about what will replace the capitalist world-economy as an historical system. It is about whether we shall move in the direction of a different system that maintains one crucial feature of capitalism – its hierarchical, inegalitarian, polarising nature – or of a new world system that is relatively democratic, relatively egalitarian.”
Immanuel Wallerstein , 2004, “The dilemmas of open space: the future of the World Social Forum” in International Social Science Journal 56(4), pp. 629-637.

It is worth noting that the next paragraph begins “This is no small question…” – no shit professor!

The most important political difference cutting across the entire [World Social] Forum concerned the role of national sovereignty. There are indeed two primary positions in the response to today’s dominant forces of globalization: either one can work to reinforce the sovereignty of nation-states as a defensive barrier against the control of foreign and global capital, or one can strive towards a non-national alternative to the present form of globalization that is equally global. The first poses neoliberalism as the primary analytical category, viewing the enemy as unrestricted global capitalist activity with weak state controls; the second is more clearly posed against capital itself, whether state-regulated or not. The first might rightly be called an anti-globalization position, in so far as national sovereignties, even if linked by international solidarity, serve to limit and regulate the forces of capitalist globalization. National liberation thus remains for this position the ultimate goal, as it was for the old anticolonial and anti-imperialist struggles. The second, in contrast, opposes any national solutions and seeks instead a democratic globalization.

Michael Hardt, 2002, “Today’s Bandung” in New Left Review 14, p.111.

According to a friend:

Let the pants shitting begin. We’ve hit Peak Oil three months earlier than Kenneth Deffeyes’ most pessimistic calculation:

So, what to do with that damned SUV when the price of petrol gets beyond your means? A couple of suggestions:

• Kick out the floor and walk it around Flintstone style – a great work out!
• Park it in the garden, remove all the glass and leave it to rust as a particularly dull and expensive climbing frame.
• Recycle all the materials to make ingenious low-tech weapons. Get punk hair and look forward until everything goes a bit Mad Max.
• Sell your house, and continue to buy petrol so that you can get little Johnny to school ’safely’.

Got any more? Gi’s a comment.

…that the police do, in fact, infiltrate small activist groups, here’s a selection of quotations from a well-informed paper from Studies in Conflict and Terrorism

“The security concerns [about infiltration] were openly discussed [by activists] and many critical analyses were offered locally and via the Internet. A particular effort was made to learn techniques for identifying law enforcement officers working in undercover capacities. This posed a serious concern for undercover officers, especially given the level of hatred many anarchists express toward the police.”

And…

“Many law enforcement professionals view modern anarchists simply as a protest group. As long as the activity at large-scale protests is relatively contained and the protests do not devolve into riots, law enforcement may be tempted to ignore the movement. Violent revolutionary actions—including guerilla warfare—however, pose a threat to the communities and people that law enforcement officers are sworn to protect. To monitor that activity seems prudent”

And even…

“Infiltration into large affinity group meetings is relatively simple. However, infiltration into radical revolutionary ‘cells’ is not. The very nature of the movement’s suspicion and operational security enhancements makes infiltration difficult and time consuming. Few agencies are able to commit to operations that require years of up-front work just getting into a ‘cell’ especially given shrinking budgets and increased demands for attention to other issues. Infiltration is made more difficult by the communal nature of the lifestyle (under constant observation and scrutiny) and the extensive knowledge held by many anarchists, which require a considerable amount of study and time to acquire. Other strategies for infiltration have been explored, but so far have not been successful. Discussion of these theories in an open paper is not advisable.”

Notice, “few agencies are able … years of up-front work”. The implication of course, being that some are. Years of work? To infiltrate some anarchist commune with no telly or vacuum cleaner? Spend the days gardening and the nights getting drunk on homebrew and talking about revolution. Wonder how many go native?

Source: R. Borum & C. Tilby, 2005, “Anarchist Direct Actions: A Challenge for Law Enforcement” in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 28:201–223, Routledge, London.

Nice one to Another Blog is Possible for putting the reference on Infoshop.

“Timid, at the outset, Socialism spoke at first in the name of Christian sentiment and morality: men profoundly imbued with the moral principles of Christianity – principles which it possesses in common with all other religions – came forward and said – “A Christian has no right to exploit his brethren!” But the ruling classes laughed in their faces with the reply – “Teach the people Christian resigantion, tell them in the name of Christ that they should offer their left cheek to whosoever smites them on the right, then you will be welcome; as for the dreams of equality which you find in Christianity, go and mediate on your discoveries in prison.”
Kropotkin, P., c. 1882, “The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution.” An address delivered in Paris, translated by Henry Glasse.

Revolutionary socialists, in the main, depend on international organisation, for one of the key lessons that many (following Trotsky) took from the Russian experience is that socialism cannot exist in one country, but requires a wave of revolutions across the globe. Workers struggle requires, therefore, solidarity and coordination.
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