PJC Journal – Original

Disproportionate powers of
entry to business premises under the Enterprise Act 2002 (Amendment) Regulations 2006 have now been massively increased in the name of
Consumer Protection.

This was passed
using a Statutory Instrument,  2006 No. 3363 laid on 15/12/06, and to come into force on
8/1/07.

Written notice to
a business under the SI to advise of an inspection has been reduced to 2
working days (which means that you may or not, depending on the efficiency of
the Postal Service in your area) receive it in the time frame.

Alternatively, or in the case of a failure to respond
to the written notice, using a JP warrant an officer of a CPC enforcer may
enter premises
unannounced, and, if I read this correctly on the thinnest of evidence or even
a hunch.

‘An officer of a CPC enforcer who reasonably suspects that
there has been, or is likely to be, a Community infringement may for any
purpose relating to the functions of the CPC enforcer enter any premises to
investigate whether there has been, or is likely to be, such an infringement’.

So you don’t even
have to have committed an offence, every business can now fall into the
category of ‘you might commit an offence’.

The ‘CPC Enforcers’ have been extended from the
original Act to now include.

(a) the OFT;
(b) the Civil Aviation Authority;
(c) the Financial Services Authority;
(d) the Secretary of State for Health;
(e) the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern
Ireland;
(f) the Office of Communications;
(g) the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in Northern Ireland;
(h) every local weights and measures authority in Great Britain;
(i) the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of the Telephone
Information Services.”.

An officer of a CPC enforcer may, in the exercise of his
powers;

(a) observe the
carrying on of a business on the premises;
(b) inspect goods or documents on the premises;
(c) require any person on the premises to produce goods or documents within
such period as the officer considers to be reasonable;
(d) seize goods or documents to carry out tests on them on the premises or
seize, remove and retain them to carry out tests on them elsewhere; or
(e) seize, remove and retain goods or documents which he reasonably suspects
may be required as evidence of a Community infringement or a breach of a
relevant enforcement measure.

The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 1998 have also been amended as part of this SI.

Also worrying is the instruction to insert in Part 4 of the Data protection Act 1998 after section 31(5) the following

‘Personal data
processed by a CPC
enforcer for the purpose of discharging any function conferred on such a body
by or under the CPC
Regulation are exempt from the subject
information provisions in any case to the extent to which the application
of those provisions to the data would be likely to prejudice the proper
discharge of that function’.

Whilst I agree
that crooked, fraudulent and scamming business need to be brought to book, I don’t
believe that this kind of grey regulation, with such intrusive powers, by so
many official bodies can not be good for us or our society, and further encroaches upon our civil liberties.

 

 

A private members bill (Public
Demonstrations (Repeals) Bill [HL]) has been introduced before the House of
Lords by The Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer,
having had its first reading on 23/11/06. 

The Bill is
specific in that it is to repeal sections 128 to
131 of The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, and to remove the SI’s
relating to Designated Sites and Designated Areas.

We applaud Baroness Miller and welcome and
fully support this Bill, as a first step to returning some of the lost rights
and freedoms inherent to our democracy. 

We also call upon ALL of our MP’s to
support this Bill, thereby showing that you represent the people and our
individual rights.

We strongly urge everyone to contact your MP’s directly to indicate your
support for this Bill. 

What
would make us very happy would be to see the Press pick up this news and publicise
it to the public at large.

The first of many such repeal Bill’s we
hope, to roll back some of the injustices enacted through bad legislation.

There are 3
reports from the U.S. that should give us all cause for
concern, both sides of the Atlantic.

Reported in The
Washington Post is that the Department of Justice is building a national
Database code named DOJOne, and is moving towards the same kind of electronic
surveillance of its population that we are seeing in Britain.

The system
already holds approximately 1 million case records and is projected to triple
in size over the next three years, Justice officials said. The files include
investigative reports, criminal-history information, details of offences, and
the names, addresses and other information of criminal suspects or targets,
officials said.

Access would be
available to state and local police officers around the country to search
millions of case files from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and other
federal law enforcement agencies, according to Justice officials.

But
civil-liberties and privacy advocates — many of whom are already alarmed by
the proliferation of federal databases — warn that granting broad access to
such a system is almost certain to invite abuse and lead to police mistakes.

To make matters
worse, the FBI announced that it would no longer meet the Privacy Act's
accuracy requirements for the National Crime Information Center, its main criminal-background-check
database, which is used by 80,000 law enforcement agencies across the country.

Barry Steinhardt,
director of the Technology and Liberty Project at the American Civil Liberties
Union, said the main problem is one of “garbage in, garbage out,”
because case files frequently include erroneous or unproved allegations.

It is worth
noting though that the plans for sharing case files are far less intrusive, and
far less of a danger than many of the database schemes currently being proposed
or implemented by the British government, which typically involve sharing
information related to the entire population across government departments,
without regard to innocence. Unlike Britain, the DOJ files are at least limited to
those who have been investigated for crime.

 

Until, we look at
the second of the massive databases being developed in the USA. 
Under the aegis of the Real ID Act, the new database
brings together all of the data currently stored in the various departments of
state, on the whole population. 

It ignores the
greater privacy implications. One is that the states will have to collect a
much greater array of information from individuals than they currently do.
Another is that they're required to maintain it both electronically (that
should make your skin crawl) and in hardcopy.

Yet another is
that they'll be forced to communicate with a number of other databases (leaking
personal information) every time you need to interact with a card-issuing
agency.

It requires that citizens
carry around a large chunk of machine-readable information on the
identification card, and what's worse, makes no limitation on who can read that
information and how it can be used.

And finally, the
Act requires that the states open up their databases to all of the other
states.

Enrolling in the
Real ID system saps a big chunk of privacy away.

Unfortunately, it
adds no privacy protections (it even took
some away.)

The guy who can
walk around with papers with my personal information isn't prevented from doing
so with Real ID in place.

There are no
added limitations on the use of social security numbers, or of sensitive
transactions, or the release of personal records. There's no protection of
state records release laws under Real ID, and it seems probable that any state
in the Union could decide to start selling the records
of any other state.

 

Finally,
the illegal government database, originally called “Total Information
Awareness.”,

When this
programme was halted by Congress, the Department of Homeland Security simply renamed
it CAPPS II and started again. 

When the
programme was shot down by Congress a second time, not to be outdone, Homeland
security renamed it yet again as ‘Secure Flight’ and ran the programme again
illegally.

Under a filing in
the Federal Register that popped up in November, it has been discovered that
not only did they rename the programme for a 4^th time, now calling
it Automated Targeting System, or ATS, but the federal government has been secretly
collecting information on both Foreign and U.S. citizens who have travelled in
and out of the country — for the last four years. 

It may be worth
noting that this is the programme that the EU, including Britain has to comply with in providing the US with passenger information.

Retired Adm. John
M. Poindexter who was responsible for the original database, maintains that TIA
hasn't really gone away; it's just gone undercover.

Want to see
whether you have been profiled.  Sorry,
but not allowed.  

According to the Associated Press, in the Federal
Register, the department exempted ATS from many provisions of the Privacy Act designed to
protect people from secret, possibly inaccurate government dossiers. As a
result, it said travellers cannot learn whether the system has assessed them.
Nor can they see the records “for the purpose of contesting the
content.”

We wonder how
long it will be before the ID Card scheme in the UK is hooked up to the U.S. databases.

 

 

There are 3
reports from the U.S. that should give us all cause for
concern, both sides of the Atlantic.

Reported in The
Washington Post is that the Department of Justice is building a national
Database code named DOJOne, and is moving towards the same kind of electronic
surveillance of its population that we are seeing in Britain.

The system
already holds approximately 1 million case records and is projected to triple
in size over the next three years, Justice officials said. The files include
investigative reports, criminal-history information, details of offences, and
the names, addresses and other information of criminal suspects or targets,
officials said.

Access would be
available to state and local police officers around the country to search
millions of case files from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and other
federal law enforcement agencies, according to Justice officials.

But
civil-liberties and privacy advocates — many of whom are already alarmed by
the proliferation of federal databases — warn that granting broad access to
such a system is almost certain to invite abuse and lead to police mistakes.

To make matters
worse, the FBI announced that it would no longer meet the Privacy Act's
accuracy requirements for the National Crime Information Center, its main criminal-background-check
database, which is used by 80,000 law enforcement agencies across the country.

Barry Steinhardt,
director of the Technology and Liberty Project at the American Civil Liberties
Union, said the main problem is one of “garbage in, garbage out,”
because case files frequently include erroneous or unproved allegations.

It is worth
noting though that the plans for sharing case files are far less intrusive, and
far less of a danger than many of the database schemes currently being proposed
or implemented by the British government, which typically involve sharing
information related to the entire population across government departments,
without regard to innocence. Unlike Britain, the DOJ files are at least limited to
those who have been investigated for crime.

 

Until, we look at
the second of the massive databases being developed in the USA. 
Under the aegis of the Real ID Act, the new database
brings together all of the data currently stored in the various departments of
state, on the whole population. 

It ignores the
greater privacy implications. One is that the states will have to collect a
much greater array of information from individuals than they currently do.
Another is that they're required to maintain it both electronically (that
should make your skin crawl) and in hardcopy.

Yet another is
that they'll be forced to communicate with a number of other databases (leaking
personal information) every time you need to interact with a card-issuing
agency.

It requires that citizens
carry around a large chunk of machine-readable information on the
identification card, and what's worse, makes no limitation on who can read that
information and how it can be used.

And finally, the
Act requires that the states open up their databases to all of the other
states.

Enrolling in the
Real ID system saps a big chunk of privacy away.

Unfortunately, it
adds no privacy protections (it even took
some away.)

The guy who can
walk around with papers with my personal information isn't prevented from doing
so with Real ID in place.

There are no
added limitations on the use of social security numbers, or of sensitive
transactions, or the release of personal records. There's no protection of
state records release laws under Real ID, and it seems probable that any state
in the Union could decide to start selling the records
of any other state.

 

Finally,
the illegal government database, originally called “Total Information
Awareness.”,

When this
programme was halted by Congress, the Department of Homeland Security simply renamed
it CAPPS II and started again. 

When the
programme was shot down by Congress a second time, not to be outdone, Homeland
security renamed it yet again as ‘Secure Flight’ and ran the programme again
illegally.

Under a filing in
the Federal Register that popped up in November, it has been discovered that
not only did they rename the programme for a 4^th time, now calling
it Automated Targeting System, or ATS, but the federal government has been secretly
collecting information on both Foreign and U.S. citizens who have travelled in
and out of the country — for the last four years. 

It may be worth
noting that this is the programme that the EU, including Britain has to comply with in providing the US with passenger information.

Retired Adm. John
M. Poindexter who was responsible for the original database, maintains that TIA
hasn't really gone away; it's just gone undercover.

Want to see
whether you have been profiled.  Sorry,
but not allowed.  

According to the Associated Press, in the Federal
Register, the department exempted ATS from many provisions of the Privacy Act designed to
protect people from secret, possibly inaccurate government dossiers. As a
result, it said travellers cannot learn whether the system has assessed them.
Nor can they see the records “for the purpose of contesting the
content.”

We wonder how
long it will be before the ID Card scheme in the UK is hooked up to the U.S. databases.