Europe says Freedom of Speech is VERBOTEN!

European court: Calls for Israel boycotts are unlawful discrimination

On Thursday, the Council of Europe's European Court of Human Rights upheld a French ruling that it was illegal and discriminatory to boycott Israeli goods, and that making it illegal to call for a boycott of Israeli goods did not constitute a violation of one's freedom of expression.

The Council of Europe is based in Strasbourg, has some 47 member states and is independent of the European Union. The court is made up of one judge from each member state, and the rulings of the court carry moral weight throughout Europe.

On Thursday the court ruled by a vote of 6-1 that the French court did not violate the freedom of expression of the Communist mayor of the small French town of Seclin, Jean-Claude Fernand Willem, who in October 2002 announced at a town hall meeting that he intended to call on the municipality to boycott Israeli products.

Jews in the region filed a complaint with the public prosecutor, who decided to prosecute Willem for "provoking discrimination on national, racial and religious grounds." Willem was first acquitted by the Lille Criminal Court, but that decision was overturned on appeal in September 2003 and he was fined €1,000.

His appeal to a higher French court was unsuccessful, and as a result he petitioned the European Court of Human rights in March 2005, saying his call for a boycott of Israeli products was part of a legitimate political debate, and that his freedom of expression had been violated.

The court, made up of judges from Denmark, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Macedonia and the Czech Republic ruled that interference with the former mayor's freedom of expression was needed to protect the rights of Israeli producers.

According to a statement issued by the court on Thursday, the court held the view that Willem was not convicted for his political opinions, "but for inciting the commission of a discriminatory, and therefore punishable, act. The Court further noted that, under French law, the applicant was not entitled to take the place of the governmental authorities by declaring an embargo on products from a foreign country, and moreover that the penalty imposed on him had been relatively moderate."

With the court packed with members from Zionist occupied states like Germany, France and Denmark, the opinion of this kangaroo court was a foregone conclusion.

Between England mandating that Holocau$t™ specialists be in every secondary school, laws in at 11 European countries that forbid questions about the Holocau$t™ and now this, Europe is just another appendage of the ZOG.... Zionist Occupied Globe.

Source: The Truth Will Set You Free

Secret evidence imperils the core values of British justice

To have the basis of a case against you withheld tests the very idea of a fair trial – yet secrecy is seeping across the system

One of the most alarming trends since 9/11 has been an ever-expanding fixation with secrecy in British courts. And at the heart of this is the creeping use of secret evidence: you face a case against you, but the very basis for it is withheld. It is a practice that is entirely antithetical to our most ancient and venerable concepts of a fair trial.

The problem with this debate is that it can go only so far. The government more or less agrees that secrecy is undesirable in legal proceedings, but insists that keeping evidence closed represents the lesser of two evils, and is a necessary tool in the battle to protect national security.

It is difficult to challenge this position, for obvious reasons. Because the material is secret, its contents are immune from outside scrutiny. Neither the person subject to the proceedings nor, in some cases, the court itself – let alone the press – have any idea what this evidence contains. Meaningful engagement with the government's position is difficult or, in most cases, impossible.

There are exceptions, however, when we get glimpses into the quality of evidence that is being kept secret. One was offered by high court judge Sir Robert Owen last week. The court was considering the case of an Egyptian man, known by the initials HAY, whose finances were frozen when the government was notified of his "designation" by the ominously named "1267 Committee" – a UN committee established to identify suspected al-Qaida members.

The effect of the freezing order on HAY's life was described by the court as "draconian": he no longer has access to his bank account and cannot buy food or clothing. For a third party to provide him with money would be a criminal offence.

But, as Owen's judgment makes clear, not even the government has any confidence in the evidence – kept secret – on which the 1267 Committee's decision was based. The only insight his lawyers, and the public, have into the quality of this evidence is that, having conducted its own review, the Foreign Office agrees the sanctions against HAY should be lifted.

For the government to be on the side of the suspect in challenging the validity of secret evidence is, however, rare. In most cases, it is the government that has produced the secret evidence, and the only insight third parties – including the suspects – can hope to get is from their lawyers, who are allowed to see it.

Clive Stafford Smith, who has been privy to secret evidence in the cases of Guantánamo Bay detainees he has represented, says he can make the case against this material using information that is in the public domain.

"After seven years of interrogating people in Guantánamo Bay," Stafford Smith says, "they have whittled 779 prisoners down to 219 – supposedly the worst of the worst. But judges in the US have so far acquitted 84% of the prisoners we have brought before the court."

Stafford Smith's strongest claims against secret evidence, however, can't be discussed, because the evidence is secret. He believes that the motive for keeping much of this material outside the public domain is not to protect national security, but to protect the government's own agents from viable allegations of serious criminal wrongdoing – a claim backed up by reporters who also, not surprisingly, cannot reveal what they have seen.

Journalists are severely limited in their access to genuinely secret material, but special advocates are in the unique position of experiencing both sides of the cases that take place behind closed doors. These special advocates – often barristers with a background in human rights law – have been among the most vociferous opponents of the use of secret evidence.

Ian Macdonald QC, who famously withdrew from his role as a special advocate in 2004, said he had initially signed up to the scheme believing it would allow those whose cases involved necessarily secret evidence to have a fair hearing.

"My role was altered to provide a false legitimacy to indefinite detention without knowledge of the accusations being made and without any kind of criminal charge or trial," Macdonald said at the time. "It is a totally bizarre, ridiculous and odious system."

In 2006 Andrew Nicol QC, now a high court judge but then a special advocate, noticed that one piece of evidence was being used to support two contradictory arguments in separate cases at the Special Immigration Appeal Commission. And in 2007 another special advocate revealed that evidence deemed "highly sensitive" had in fact been published on the internet a year earlier.

It is hard to imagine such basic mistakes being made in open court, given the inevitability of scrutiny by the defence and the press. Not that judges haven't provided some gems of insight into the failings of the security services themselves. Last year a judge quashed a control order, finding that MI5 had assumed "guilt by association".

Claims that this sloppiness is the tip of the iceberg can only be speculation, but these cases do not inspire confidence. The errors made by the security services seem even less sophisticated when rolled out across the legal system, with a report by civil rights group Justice last month describing the use of secret evidence in parole board hearings to deal with what should have been straightforward issues of witness protection.

Secret evidence shows no sign of slowing its creep across the legal system, but cases of suspected terrorism remain at the centre of the problem. Ironically, some of the highest-profile cases are likely to be among the first listed at the UK's new supreme court when it opens for business in October.

The legal teams representing these men – who still have no idea why their lives have been taken under government control – are likely to be greeted by phrases from the Magna Carta when they arrive. Tokens of wisdom such as "To no one will we deny or delay right or justice" are etched into the glass doors of the newly renovated building which, the government says, was specifically designed to inspire an atmosphere of justice, transparency and openness.

The judiciary has neither produced this secret evidence nor justified its use, so it would be unfair to dismiss the new building as meretricious. But the government may well have some explaining to do if it is to continue its push for transparency and secrecy simultaneously, without giving the concept of window-dressing a whole new meaning.

Source: The Guardian

"Legislate whatever you want; I will not obey...."

As you probably are aware, this Saturday is July 4th, Independence Day. As you may also know, on the afternoon of this July 4th, I'll be one of four speakers at Independence Mall, in downtown Philadelphia, at the "Tea Party" event there. My topic will be "You're Not the Boss of Me!" and this article is a sort of introduction to that rant.

The Declaration of Independence basically amounted to a bunch of guys telling their king, "You're not the boss of us anymore." The Declaration was an act of treason, written by a bunch of tax cheats and lawbreakers. It wasn't merely some people whining or petitioning the government to do something different. In fact, the Declaration describes how they had already tried that, and it hadn't worked. So they resorted to open disobedience. And it wasn't just one protest or demonstration, to make a point or try to convince their masters to change; it was a declaration that they were completely and permanently denying the right of the standing regime to rule them at all, ever again. And that's a pretty darn radical thing to do.

For all the parades, fireworks, picnics, and other events which will happen on July 4th to celebrate "Independence Day," how many Americans today do you think are capable of even contemplating the possibility of engaging in "illegal" resistance against "authority"? Not many.

What would the equivalent of the Declaration of Independence look like today? Well, we would have a lot more to complain about than the colonists did, with far higher taxes, far more intrusive regulation, and a much higher level of oppression all around. But what would the conclusion be? It wouldn't be, "So you better change those laws!" It would be more like this:

"Dear Federal Government, you're fired! We're not paying your taxes anymore, not obeying your laws ever again, and from now on we will resist your thugs when you try to enforce your will on us."

How many Americans would dare to even think such a thing, much less say it out loud, or write it down and send it to the feds? Very few, indeed. The truth is, the spirit of resistance is all but dead in this country. Even among those in the pro-freedom movement, the vast majority of efforts revolve around begging the masters to be nice, petitioning for or against this or that legislation, arguing over which politician should run our lives and take our money.

"Write your congressman and tell him to oppose ... "
"Promise to vote against any candidate who doesn't support ... "
"Sign this petition, to push legislation which will ... "

I have a better idea. How about if a few million of us send one message--and only one message--to those pretending to be our "representatives," those who claim to have the right to rule us. That message should be this: "Legislate whatever you want; I will not obey. And when you send your thugs to punish me, I will resist." That is the message of the Declaration of Independence. But on this July 4th, how many Americans do you think would even dare to think such a thing--even quietly and to themselves?

What this country needs is not a change in legislation, or a change of parties or candidates. It doesn't need another election, or another protest or demonstration, or another group lobbying the government for this or that. What it needs is a people with a fundamentally different mindset. What it needs is a population capable of saying, "You're not the boss of us!" But nothing the people ever hear from the mainstream media, or from those in government, or from the talking heads and political pundits, will ever endorse such an attitude. On the contrary, the only message you'll ever hear in the papers, on the radio or on the TV, from academia or from the government, will boil down to this: "You can whine and complain about what the government is doing to you, and you can beg your masters to change, but you must never disobey!"

As long as obedience to authority is taught as the highest principle--and it absolutely is almost everywhere in the country--this will be a nation of pathetic slaves perpetually yet fruitlessly whining at their sadistic, power-happy masters. Maybe this country should be something better than that.

If you're one of the few who would like to hear a drastically different message--one that is not premised on the assumption that we all have an obligation to bow to those who claim to be our masters--then be at Fifth and Market in downtown Philadelphia on the afternoon of July 4th. (The talks start at 3:00, and my rant might be first, so make sure you're there before that.) And while you're at it, bring along some obedient, unthinking flag-wavers, to see if they can handle some real advocacy of freedom. Let's see how they respond when their indoctrination as obedient subjects collides with the concept of true liberty.

Or, if you can't make it to Philly on the Fourth (or even if you can), order a few copies of "The Iron Web," and start "corrupting" the people you know by exposing them to the radical idea that they own themselves, and that they don't need the permission of tyrants in order to be free. Yes, understanding freedom requires a dramatic shift in mindset from the statist conformism that now plagues this country. On the other hand, it's getting downright embarrassing watching all the robbed, regulated and restricted American slaves wildly cheering about how free they are.

Source: Freedom's Phoenix

David Cameron: Giving power back to the people

I want to thank Imperial College London for inviting me to speak today.

This university has a remarkable history. In just a little over a century, you already have the discovery of penicillin, the development of fibre-optics and the foundations of the internet and fourteen Nobel Laureates to your name.

These innovations have put real power into people's hands and changed the world. That's what I want to talk about today - people power and the change we need.

After the political crisis this year, the consensus for change is overwhelming. But the reality has so far been distinctly underwhelming.

Blacked-out expense claims.

The announcement of a behind-closed-doors Iraq enquiry.

And a Prime Minister who talks about restoring the authority of Parliament but is still going around making policy announcements on the radio.

If you're serious about change, you need consistency of argument and clarity of purpose. That's what the Conservatives are offering.

We have a coherent programme to fix our broken politics and drag our democracy into the post-bureaucratic age. It involves a massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power - from the political elite to the man and woman in the street. But before we deal with long-term plans, we have to deal with the expenses issue.

I set up a Scrutiny Panel to examine the claims of MPs and to examine whether these were reasonable, and whether, in retrospect, some money ought to be paid back. Conservative MPs have overwhelmingly responded in a positive way and shown a real desire to take the lead on this damaging issue. It is an effort - both collectively as a party and individually as Conservative MPs - to address the public's anger about what has happened.

Today, we are publishing a very full update.

Already Conservative MPs have paid back £125,000 - this adds another £125,000. This is not about MPs that broke the rules - we all know the rules weren't good enough. It's about understanding the level of public anger, about a system that was broken, and the part we played in it. It's not good enough just to sort out the rules for the future, we need to recognise the mistakes of the past. And these payments are an important part of that. This is just one step - of many - that needs to be taken to restore both some trust and some faith in the political system.

A month ago at the Open University I set out our plans to decentralise power. Today I want to take the next step and show how we will control the power of the state and make it more accountable to people.

FREEDOM AND ACCOUNTABILITY

The British state has developed over centuries into a powerful entity charged with delivering important goals.

To protect its citizens from internal and external threat.

To redistribute wealth from the richest to the poorest.

To ensure public services - education, healthcare, welfare - are there for all who need them.

These things have helped make our country a place which is safer, fairer, and where opportunity is more equal. But the more the state does, the greater the risk that it gradually becomes master over the citizens it's meant to serve. That's why we have traditionally created checks to keep the right balance of power.

Checks to stop the state exerting too much power over us, in other words, protecting personal freedom. And checks to help us exert power over the state, in other words, ensuring political accountability. But the last twelve years of Labour Government have diminished personal freedom and diluted political accountability. Today, I want to talk about both.

CONTROL STATE BRITAIN

Today we are in danger of living in a control state.

Almost a million innocent citizens are caught in the web of the biggest DNA database in the world - larger than that of any dictatorship. Hundreds of shadowy powers allow officials to force their way past your front door. And soon we will be forced to surrender our fingerprints, eye scans and personal information to intrusive compulsory ID cards.

Every month over a thousand surveillance operations are carried out, not just by law enforcement agencies but by other public bodies like councils and quangos. And the tentacles of the state can even rifle through your bins for juicy information.

NEW LABOUR PHILOSOPHY

How have we got ourselves into the position where there is such a marked imbalance of power between the citizen and the state?

We have to acknowledge that New Labour began with the right intentions.

In the Freedom of Information Act, data protection laws, Scottish and Welsh devolution, and even the attempt to invest citizens with fundamental human rights we can see concrete evidence of good intent. But this liberal strand in Labour has been crushed by the overwhelming dominance of the political authoritarians.

This authoritarian strand of the party was guided by two things: a political philosophy and a style of government. Their philosophy has at its heart a belief that the state is the answer to most problems. So Labour reached for more control over many areas of our lives - with endless laws, targets, and bureaucracy herding everyone into the net of the control state.

Their governing style, on the other hand, is all about presenting the government in the best possible light. They see it as vital to demonstrate that ministerial action leads directly to some beneficial result. And not just any result - but a fast and visible one.

The authoritarians are not interested in real and sustainable change in our country unless that change could be linked, directly, to their own actions.

So when crime rises, better to create another criminal offence and we've had over 3000 new ones since 1997, than it is to take the long-term action that would strengthen families. It's government of the short-term, by the short-term and for the short-term. A top-down philosophy together with a short-term governing style, this was an ideological and political recipe for creating a disastrous imbalance of power between the citizen and the state.

Labour's belief in the state led them to increase state power and thereby diminish personal freedom. And their reliance on spin made them hostile to scrutiny - which is why Labour ended up diluting political accountability.

CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES

It's because people have seen Labour's liberal intentions get crushed, twisted and lost that they legitimately ask of us: how will you be different?

Conservatives start with an instinctive desire to give people more power and control over their lives.
But we're not naïve. We know the state cannot let go completely.

The right power balance is something that must be constantly negotiated and adjusted, through ongoing judgements. But we will always be aware that those judgements - however small or insignificant they may seem in isolation - can together change the character of our country.

So a Conservative government would constantly ask two essential questions:
Does this action enhance personal freedom?
And does it advance political accountability?

And at the heart of our programme for government will be our intention to change fundamentally the balance of power between the citizen and the state so that ultimately it's people in control of their government, not the other way round.

ENHANCING PERSONAL FREEDOM

We'll start by putting back in place the protections of personal freedom that Labour have taken away.

Today in Britain - not in some foreign dictatorship, not in a bygone age, you can wake up in the morning, in your own bed, in your own home to hear a knock on the door from an official with one of over a thousand powers that now allow the state to enter your home.

You don't have to be a terrorist or a criminal fugitive. The authorities have the right to come into your home to inspect potted plants for pests or to check the regulation of hedgerows. More than half of these new powers have been introduced in the past twelve years. But Labour's control state can not only enter your home. They can snoop on you as you walk down the street.

Not just the sort of spies you see in primetime dramas but Labour's new spooks: council officials and quango workers, using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, or RIPA. This was supposedly introduced to help fight terrorism. But Poole council used it to spy for nearly three weeks on a young family who had applied to a local primary school to see if they lived in the right catchment area. And councils in Derby and Gateshead used RIPA to snoop on dog foulers.

Then there is the misuse of the Terrorist legislation. Section 44 of the Terrorism Act gives the police power to stop and search any person on the street. Last year, it was used over 120,000 times - a three-fold increase on the year before. That's one person stopped every four minutes. Yet only one percent of these searches led to arrest, let alone charges or convictions.

Instead, we see a woman in her thirties held for walking on a cycle path. And parents, and their twelve year old disabled son, detained for two hours and by ten officers on suspicion of people-trafficking.

But let's say you were charged. There are now serious questions about the quality of justice in Britain. Since 2003, Labour has repeatedly tried to remove the role of juries in fraud trials, coroners' inquests and other criminal trials. And they haven't just eroded justice at home - they've surrendered to a further attack from abroad. Britain now allows extradition to a range of countries without that country having to produce proper evidence that the person in question has committed a crime.

In all these ways, our personal freedom has been diminished. The balance of power in our country has shifted away from the individual - just trying to live their life and towards the state and its agencies - constantly probing, prying and picking on people.

So we will make some important changes. The next Conservative government will revoke the unjustified and unreasonable powers that let people enter your home without your permission.

We will change the law that allows councils to snoop on people for trivial matters.

We will review the use of the Terrorism Act's Section 44, and the stop and search powers contained within it.

We will change the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to strengthen the right to trial by jury.

And we will review the operation of the Extradition Act - and the US/UK extradition treaty - to make sure it is even-handed and works both ways.

SURVEILLANCE STATE

But stopping the state from exerting too much power over us demands another big change. This Government is running not just a control state, but a surveillance state. In 2007, Privacy International ranked Britain's privacy protections joint 43rd out of 47 countries surveyed - with the worst record in Europe, and only marginally better than Russia and China.

Faced with any problem, any crisis - given any excuse - Labour grasp for more information, pulling more and more people into the clutches of state data capture.

Contact Point is a vast database that holds the details of everyone under the age of eighteen in England, their name, address, gender, date of birth, school and health provider. And the Government doesn't want to stop with the basic information. They want the most complex, important, personal information there is.

Nearly five million people are on Labour's DNA database. The Government says it's to help fight crime. But almost a million of the people on it are completely innocent. And tens of thousands of those innocent people are children. It's a situation that would cause concern under the most oppressive regimes in the world, but it's happening right here, right now in Britain.

This in itself bad enough - our most personal information stored in labs and state data vaults. But Labour want to go even further. They want every single person in this country to walk around with an ID card. With that card over fifty pieces of personal information will have been transferred from your private control to state control. Not just your name and address and place of birth but your image, signature, fingerprints - maybe even iris scans and a facial measurement template.

For those who don't get a card there is talk of fines, enforced registration and penalties in public service provision. Scare tactics to herd more disempowered citizens into the clutches of officialdom, as people surrender more and more information about their lives, giving the state more and more power over their lives.

If we want to stop the state controlling us, we must confront this surveillance state.

So the next Conservative Government will scrap the Contact Point database of children's details.

We will scrap the ID Card scheme.

And we will remove innocent people's records from the DNA database.

POLITICAL ACCOUNTABILITY

The action we take to rein in Labour's control state and confront Labour's surveillance state will help rebalance power in one direction by enhancing personal freedom and limiting the state's power over us.

But a radical redistribution of power also means increasing our power over the state, which means advancing political accountability. And just as information plays a massive part in the argument about personal freedom, as what I've said about Labour's surveillance state databases demonstrates, so too is information central to the argument about political accountability.

Information is power - because information allows people to hold the powerful to account. This has never been more true than today, in the information age. The internet is an amazing pollinator, spreading ideas and information all over the globe in minutes. It turns lonely fights into mass campaigns; transforms moans into movements; excites the attention of hundreds, thousands, millions of people and stirs them to action. And constantly accelerating technology makes information infinitely more powerful.

We see the power of this information in Iran. Every time the Iranian state has tried to choke the flow of information to dampen down the protests, people have turned to technology to share and access information. When the state cut off text messages to stop people coordinating their protests, the protesters switched to social media like Twitter and Facebook. When foreign journalists had their visas taken off them, people on the streets started uploading video clips onto YouTube. And when the government tried to monitor internet traffic and ban popular websites, people outside Iran set up proxy internet servers so Iranians could continue to access information anonymously.

Information is critical in the balance of power today. That's why the US administration asked Twitter to postpone its website maintenance work so Iranians could continue to use the site. That's foreign policy in the post-bureaucratic age - enabling the free flow of information to give people power so they can use that power to demand change. And we've seen the dramatic power of information to shape events at home, too.

Last month, the Daily Telegraph published receipts and expense claims that had previously been kept secret, information that the authorities, to their shame, have even now only released in a half-hearted way, thick with black ink. But what the Daily Telegraph did - the simple act of providing information to the public - has triggered the biggest shake-up in our political system for years. Information alone has been more powerful than years of traditional politics. Of course it has been a painful time for politics and for individual politicians - but let us be clear, it is without question a positive development for the country.

It is information - not a new law, not some regulation - just the provision of information that has enabled people to take on the political class, question them, demand answers, and get those answers.

That's exactly as it should be. That is real accountability. That is people power, and we need more of it not less.

Whether it's for freedom abroad, or fighting corruption at home, we have seen how information can put power in people's hands and make the political elite answer to them.

INFORMATION FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

We have already announced some of the ways in which we will put information - and thereby power - in people's hands.

We will publish every item of government spending over £25,000.

It will all be there for an army of armchair auditors to go through, line by line, pound by pound, to hold wasteful government to account.

We will require the publication of crime data online in an open way so that communities can build their own crime maps, see what crimes are being committed, where and at what time and hold their local police to account if they're not doing something about it. And we will require all local councils to publish information like meeting minutes and local service data in a standardised format.

This will give people the power to hold local government to account, and to develop new public services like a local version of TheyWorkForYou, or Bebo applications that tell teenagers when the local sports centre is open as well as the power to see which councils are providing the best value for money, so residents can demand the same from their own. But today we're announcing further steps towards true freedom of information.

SETTING DATA FREE

In Britain today, there are over 100,000 public bodies producing a huge amount of information.

This ranges from school league tables to train timetables; from health outcomes to public sector job vacancies. Most of this information is kept locked up by the state. And what is published is mostly released in formats that mean the information can't be searched or used with other applications, like online maps. his stands in the way of accountability.

Let me give you just two examples.

Today, many central government and quango job adverts are placed in a select few newspapers.

Some national, some regional. Some daily, some weekly.

But all of them in a variety of different publications - meaning it's almost impossible to find out how many vacancies there are across the public sector, what kind of salaries are being offered, how these vary from public sector body to public sector body and whether functions are being duplicated.

Remember this is your money being put forward to give someone a job - and you have little way of finding out why, what for and for how much.

Now imagine if they were all published online and in a standardised way. Not only could you find out about vacancies for yourself, you could cross-reference what jobs are on offer and make sure your money is being put to proper use. Or what about patient outcomes in the NHS?

Some of the most important information you'll ever need to know, how long your Dad will survive if he gets cancer, your chances of a good life if you have a stroke, all this is out of your hands.

Now, again, imagine if this information was in your hands. You'd be able to compare your local hospital with others, and do something about it if it wasn't good enough.

Choose another hospital. Voice your complaint to a patient group. Make change happen.

All this data which would help people in this country hold the powerful to account - it's all locked away in some vault. And it's only getting worse.

Next week Ed Balls will publish proposals for a new report card, replacing league tables. That will reduce the amount of information being published, and reduce parent power to hold their school to account.

We're going to set this data free. In the first year of the next Conservative Government, we will find the most useful information in twenty different areas ranging from information about the NHS to information about schools and road traffic and publish it so people can use it.

This information will be published proactively and regularly - and in a standardised format so that it can be 'mashed up' and interacted with.

What's more, because there is no complete list that can tell us exactly what data the government collects, we will create a new 'right to data' so that further datasets can be requested by the public.

By harnessing the wisdom of the crowd, we can find out what information individuals think will be important in holding the state to account.

And to avoid bureaucrats blocking these requests, we will introduce a rule that any request will be successful unless it can be proved that it would lead to overwhelming costs or demonstrable personal privacy or national security concerns.

If we are serious about helping people exert more power over the state, we need to give them the information to do it. And as part of that process, we will review the role of the Information Commissioner to make sure that it is designed to maximise political accountability in our country.

PARLIAMENT, JUDGES AND DECENTRALISATION

But as I said in my speech to the Open University, to get real accountability we need to draw upon traditional means as well as modern.

That means strengthening Parliament so it holds the executive to account. That's why we will give the House of Commons more control over its own timetable limit the use of the Royal Prerogative and reduce the power of the party Whips.

It means reining in and reversing the regulation of our lives by unaccountable judges who are changing Britain's legal landscape with their judgments in the courtroom.

That's why we will introduce a British Bill of Rights - not only to strengthen our liberties, but to ensure greater democratic accountability over the creation of any new rights. And it means strengthening the line of accountability that runs through our local politics.

That's why we will have more directly-elected Mayors, and will legislate to create Citizens' Initiatives giving people a new power to get local referendums on issues they feel strongly about.

CONCLUSION

So here is the next stage in our radical redistribution of power.

Stopping the state from exerting too much power over us by enhancing personal freedom.
So you will not be followed or have you home entered for no good reason.

You will be tried by your peers, protected from unjust prosecution abroad. And your identity will be freed from the chains of state databases.

We will also help people exert more power over the state by advancing political accountability.

So we will open up information that will help people hold the powerful to account. And we will strengthen the chain of accountability throughout our politics.

This is progressive Conservatism in action, a traditional suspicion of state power combined with a clear grasp of the modern world producing the right approach, and the right plan of action to increase personal freedom and political accountability, restore trust, and help bring about the new politics we need so badly.

Source: The Conservative Party News

America Closing Her Door to Freedom

At 47, I lament how today’s America is far less free than the country of my youth. Replacing it is not a 1984ish totalitarian dictatorship, but what Alexis de Tocqueville called the “soft tyranny” of what Mark Levin sees as a 21st century “nanny state.” We so feared a Stalin or Hitler that we ignored endless assaults on our liberty by idealistic home-grown statists and the seductive narcotic of ever more government goodies buying our acquiescence. What makes Americans’ surrender to statism so shameful is that we freely chose this course in direct contravention of our founding principles.

Nowhere have we seen such an accelerating atrophy of our freedom as in K-12 public schools, where recent decades have witnessed far more books banned, and not some print version of Debbie Does Dallas. No, literary classics like J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Mark Twain’s Huck Finn are verboten -- required reading in those decadent days of my ‘70s high school. But educrats with the backbone of a large worm now avoid anything controversial.



Students have far less choice of classes in high school, and often teachers can’t make their own lessons since they must teach the test so schools can make “adequate yearly progress.” Only about 40 percent of my college students say they ever discussed any controversial issues in high school. My high school classes reveled in such debate.

Similarly, so many high schools have become gated, closed campuses. Mine was wide open. “Zero tolerance” for drugs and violence policies punish students carrying aspirin, cough drops, and Tweety-Bird key chains. Now diligent do-gooders want to ban school Coke machines as well. And to think at my high school we could even smoke!

Today political correctness constipates free speech at many schools (as well as in much of the public and private sectors), and hysterical sexual harassment policies suspend children for hugging a classmate. If you had predicted all this to my 1980 senior high class, we’d have laughed that you’d smoked some mighty bad dope to conjure up such an Orwellian dystopia.

Young folks’ freedom has been lost off campus as well. The drinking age has of course been raised, and now there’s a host of teen driving restrictions I never had to obey.

But we’ve all lost so much liberty. Look how government’s neurotic nannies have restricted us with a host of seatbelt, child seat, and helmet laws. Likewise, so many cities and states ban smoking even in private restaurants and bars. A WWII vet can’t even light up in his own bar.

So many laws have eroded our Second Amendment gun rights that, as P.J. O’Rourke notes, if Massachusetts had the same gun laws in 1775 that it has now, we’d all be Canadians.

Even political campaign speech is constricted. The Obama administration argued at the U.S. Supreme Court that the McCain-Feingold Act can ban books about ongoing election campaigns. Yet Justice Hugo Black warned that: "The freedoms of speech, press, petition, and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate, or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish. "

Almost half of all U.S. income is taxed today, which means we’ve lost about half our economic freedom. With record government spending and soaring debt, we’re set to lose a lot more. And to think the Boston Tea Party was waged over a three-cent-a-pound tax on tea.

Government regulations on business cost us well over $1 trillion a year in higher consumer prices, and there are exactly 26,911 government words policing the sale of a head of cabbage.

In recent years, obsessive-compulsive environmental regulations halted a Massachusetts town from using fireworks on Independence Day since an “endangered” bird’s nest was found near it. News flash: on July 4, we celebrate independence from a tyrannical government. Yet George III never taxed, regulated, or policed us remotely as much as Washington , D.C. does today. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says “Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory.”

Everywhere rules and paperwork mushroom as nit-picking bureaucrats grow in numbers and power. As a buddy bemoaned, the increasingly shrill message of the establishment is “Sit down – and shut up.” No wonder so many Americans feel frustrated and impotent.

Why has our liberty eroded so badly? Statist public schools have long taught that equality (of results) and “social justice” trump freedom since liberty is the handmaiden of “selfish” individualists harming “the community.” As we’ve grown affluent, there’s more desire to protect everyone from risk, and our burgeoning welfare state demands ever more of our economic liberty. Plus, as societies get more secular, they become more socialist (see Western Europe ).

We also have endless media-savvy professional grievance groups contending that every erosion of freedom is imperative for our safety. But, as Justice Louis Brandeis warned: "Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

Jefferson warned that “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” I pray Americans never forget that we are the heirs to the most libertarian, God-fearing revolutionaries in history.

by Douglas Young

Source: Strike at the Root