The Metropolitan Police will no longer describe black people as black, as part of a new attempt to counter charges of racism in the force. Both black and Asian people will in future be referred to as visible minority ethnics. The term, which replaces the phrase black and Asian minority ethnics
, is expected to be adopted officially in January
Hundreds of thousands of secret Whitehall files are being shredded before the public gains the right to see them under the Freedom of Information Act on 1 January. Figures obtained by The Independent show a dramatic escalation in the destruction of confidential papers before the new rights of access come into force. Whitehall departments, including the Department of Trade and Industry, have almost doubled the number of files they have destroyed since the Freedom of Information Act became law
A US civil liberties group has obtained documents detailing fresh claims of abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and claims the White House authorised the use of inhumane interrogation techniques
The NSW Labor Government has approved the use of offshore computer programmers by the public service, in conflict with ALP policy. But NSW unions yesterday condemned any move by the Carr Government that would mean the development of its online licensing system or other departmental work being shifted offshore
The contentious Surveillance Devices Act has been passed. The act will allow Federal Police to obtain warrants to secretly install spyware onto users computers enabling them to monitor e-mail, online chats, word processor and spreadsheets entries and even bank personal identification numbers and passwords
A Chilean judge has formally charged former dictator Augusto Pinochet with homicide and kidnapping in one of many pending cases related to human rights abuses committed during his 17-year rule. Special Judge Juan Guzman says General Pinochet has been declared mentally fit to stand trial in Chile
Powell spoke before congress, detailing that complaints to the FCC are up from 14,000 in 2002, to nearly 240,000 in 2003. There were only 350 complaints during 2000 and 2001. Powell failed to mention however that 99.8% of those complaints came from PTC (Parents Television Council). It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio
A study by US researchers, Pew Internet, suggests musicians do not agree with the tactics adopted by the music industry against file-sharing. While most considered file-sharing as illegal, many disagreed with the lawsuits launched against downloaders. Independent musicians, in particular, saw the internet as a way to get around the need to land a record contract and reach fans directly
The UK’s most senior police officer says that householders should be able to use whatever force is necessary to defend their homes against criminals
The Federal Government had rejected mandatory filtering of the internet to stop child pornography and has opted instead to undertake an education and information campaign to teach parents about the perils of the internet
Brazil says it intends to break patents on commercial anti-AIDS drugs as part of its battle against the disease. The head of Brazil’s AIDS programme, Pedro Chequer, told the BBC it was the only way it could afford to keep up its anti-AIDS strategy. Mr Chequer said Brazil would make copies of up to five drugs next year. Brazil currently makes eight of the 15 drugs it offers in its anti-AIDS cocktail, which is free to those with the disease — via BoingBoing
According to State Department documents, the retarded monkey boy has opposed security measures for new microchip-equipped passports that privacy advocates contended were needed to prevent identity theft
Laws abolishing 800 years of feudal property rights have come into force in Scotland. The legislation — brought in by the Scottish Parliament — is intended to make land ownership simpler and fairer. However, there have been fears that thousands of Scottish households could face unexpected bills as a result. Experts believe some people are unprepared for the introduction of the new legislation and could end up paying up to £400 in compensation — via Paul Mellen
The CIA is quietly funding federal research into surveillance of Internet chat rooms as part of an effort to identify possible terrorists, newly released documents reveal. In April 2003, the CIA agreed to fund a series of research projects that the documents indicate were intended to create new capabilities to combat terrorism through advanced technology
. One of those projects is research at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, devoted to automated monitoring and profiling of the behaviour of chat-room users
Anti-war protesters made a mockery of Tony Blair’s key election pledge of security by bursting into a government building just minutes after the Queen had announced new measures to tackle terrorism. As the whole of Whitehall bristled with armed police, three women and a man by-passed supposedly impenetrable security to gain access to the Cabinet Office, which has a direct underground link to No 10 Downing Street
A security expert who audited the Japanese National ID Card system and found it to be terribly designed and implemented was prevented from presenting his findings at a technology conference after the Japanese government intervened and threatened the conference organisers — via boingboing
Proving yet again that little Johnny Coward‘s cult of loony fundies are firmly pushing the agenda, the Government has quietly backed a conservative push inside the UN to adopt a treaty banning all human cloning, including the replication of embryos for research into cures for Alzheimer’s and spinal cord damage. The global ban was proposed by Costa Rica and, aside from Australia, has been supported by the US and 59 predominantly Catholic and developing countries
That is called ‘sensitive security information’. She’s not allowed to see it, nor is anyone else,
he said. Thus, in a qualitatively new development in US governance, Americans can now be obligated to comply with legally-binding regulations that are unknown to them, and that indeed they are forbidden to know. This is not some dismal Eastern European allegory — via meta-roj blog
The UK’s Office of Communications is publicly toying with the idea of funding a public service publisher (PSP) to complement the BBC’s role as a public service broadcaster. The idea of a PSP is to publicly fund an entity that publishes books, games, interactive material and other published
items that are commissioned from British creators and that reflect and deliver British values. It’s a brilliant idea, and one that’s ripe for Creative Commons licences — the specs say that Content distributed by the PSP must be widely available throughout the UK, with at least near-universal availability
California’s budget problem has led the state to consider desperate measures: taxing you based on how much you drive. The only problem is the way they propose to do it. California is now proposing to put GPS devices on all new cars to track how far people drive and tax them accordingly
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