Here's a related message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-05010.html

And this disclosure may provide another reason to refuse to answer any
questions in the census not authorized by the U.S. Constitution:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-01001.html

-Declan

---


        DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY OBTAINED
       DATA ON ARAB AMERICANS FROM CENSUS BUREAU

                -----------------------

   Documents Obtained under Freedom of Information Act
        Raise Questions About Use of Census Data

                -----------------------

       EPIC Calls for Congressional Investigation


WASHINGTON, DC - The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a
public interest organization in Washington DC, has obtained
documents revealing that the Census Bureau provided the Department
of Homeland Security statistical data on people who identified
themselves on the 2000 census as being of Arab ancestry. The special
tabulations were prepared specifically for the law enforcement
agency. There is no indication that the Department of Homeland
Security requested similar information about any other ethnic groups.

One tabulation shows cities with 1,000 or more people who indicated
they are of Arab ancestry. For each city, the tabulation provides
total population, population of Arab ancestry, and percent of the
total population that is of Arab ancestry.

A second tabulation, more than a thousand pages in length, shows the
number of census responses indicating Arab ancestry in certain zip
codes throughout the United States.  The responses are subdivided
into Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Moroccan, Palestinian,
Syrian, Arab/Arabic, and Other Arab.

The tabulations apparently contain information about United States
citizens, as well as individuals of Arab descent whose families have
lived in the United States for generations.

The heavily redacted documents show that in April 2004, a Census
Bureau analyst e-mailed a Department of Homeland Security official
and said, "You got a file of Arab ancestry information by ZIP Code
Tabulation Area from me last December (2003).  My superiors are now
asking questions about the usage of that data, given the sensitivity
of different data requests we have received about the Arab
population."

The same day, a Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border
Protection official e-mailed the analyst to explain, "At U.S.
International airports, U.S. Customs posts signage informing various
nationalities of the U.S. Customs regulations to report currency
brought into the US upon entry . . . .  My reason for asking for
U.S. demographic data is to aid the Outbound Passenger Program
Officer in identifying which language of signage, based on U.S.
ethnic nationality population, would be best to post at the major
International airports."

During World War II, the Census Bureau provided statistical
information to help the War Department round up more than 120,000
innocent Japanese Americans and confine them to internment camps.

EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg said today, "the Department
of Homeland Security has compromised the mission of the Census
Bureau with this improper request for information about Arab
Americans.  The census requires the trust and cooperation of the
American public."

EPIC Staff Counsel Marcia Hofmann said, "The Census Bureau should
not become one-stop shopping for law enforcement agencies. It's time
for Congress to step in and make sure this is not repeated."

ABOUT EPIC

EPIC is a recognized leader in the use of the Freedom of
Information Act to obtain information about government policy on
emerging issues.  In the past year, EPIC's Freedom of Information
work resulted in significant disclosures about the Total
Information Awareness program, passenger screening developments,
and the growing number of privacy complaints that consumers have
sent to federal agencies.  These documents have been the subject of
Congressional hearings and news reports across the country.

The documents obtained by EPIC from the Census Bureau are
available at:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/census/foia/default.html

For more information about census privacy, see EPIC's Census
Privacy Page:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/census/default.html
_______________________________________________
Politech mailing list
Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)

Polychaetes

• 'This introductory section is succeeded by the detailed comparisons, which are not only excellently illustrated but complemented by a handsome set of colour pictures.' -Geological Magazine
• 'Whilst the core of the book is systematic, the overview at the beginning of the book is concise and invaluable.' -Geological Magazine
• 'In this magnificent volume Greg Rouse and Fredrik Pleijel present a masterly, fascinating and encyclopaedic summary on this important group of animals.' -Geological Magazine
• '[This book] is very well presented, with a swag of coloured photographs taken of live animals, some lovely micrographs of this amazing group of animals and line drawings for each family.' -Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology
• 'A book of this nature was clearly an enormous undertaking, and the authors are to be congratulated on the final product ... will be of immense value to anyone intending to study, or currently investigating, Africa's rich polychaete fauna.' -African Zoology
• '... chapters are informative and are excellent as a quick reference for information on any taxon. If more detail is needed, readers will find the text well referenced.' -African Zoology

Rouse provides unprecedented coverage of polychaete diversity. Lavishly illustrated, including colour plates, the beauty and variety of polychaetes has nowhere been better shown.

http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-850608-2

Government databases

The MPs express concerns about the proliferation of official databases - the overlap between the registrar general's proposed population register, called the Citizen Information Project, and the ID cards database. MPs say there is no coordination here, but also warn against a government database of all information. But the ID card database should be comprehensive enough to mean that no more than one government-issued card is needed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,1272206,00.html

They have your number

As a privacy watchdog bestows its latest awards for super-snoopers, Mark Oliver looks at a powerful new surveillance system being rolled out at service stations

Thursday July 29, 2004

For the stream of shoppers driving into the supermarket petrol station just outside Bradford, the CCTV camera has been such a familiar sight it may as well have been invisible.

But from this month, it is not just fuel-dodgers who the camera is there to monitor; up to 3,000 number plates an hour from the forecourt will now be fed into a police database.

In theory, the camera in the Sainsbury's forecourt, in the Greengates area of Bradford, is meant to recognise people who have previously not paid for fuel and vehicles with warrants on them. But, for the first time, it will provide police with a round-the-clock "intelligence" feed, a spin-off from the project that has raised concerns among civil liberties campaigners.

The pilot scheme, which uses the latest automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology, was launched in Bradford, West Yorkshire, three weeks ago and will be rolled out to a further six petrol stations. Two garages are already using the cameras and all 53 stations in the Bradford area have been invited to take part. One stumbling block to a 100% take-up is that the garages have to pay £5,000 for the cameras while the only outlay from the police is a small support team to channel them information.

The scheme is the latest example of how, in the post-September-11 world, ANPR is being used increasingly nationwide as Britain's reliance on surveillance grows. On average, Londoners can each expect to be monitored on as many as 300 CCTV cameras a day as they go about their business. [...]

Undeniably, ANPR can be effective. In an earlier pilot scheme involving 23 police forces, including West Yorkshire, between summer last year and April this year, APNR accounted for more than 10,000 arrests.

The technology emerged to combat Irish republican terrorism, when the city of London demanded its deployment after the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing. An early incarnation of ANPR was used in the capital as part of the "ring of steel" thrown around the City of London in 1997.

West Yorkshire police say the petrol station project is intended to stop what is known as "bilking", using a fuel pump and then driving off without paying. But they also say it is a "valuable source of intelligence". [...]

He says: "The Police Information Technology Organisation [which liases with forces about the use of technology] has policy documents saying how in the future they want ANPR to be everywhere. They will use it to police uninsured drivers, or those who have not paid road tax."

Of the Bradford scheme, he says: "It's total overkill to monitor everyone's registration to catch a tiny proportion of people not paying. Is it necessary? They already have CCTV cameras where they can record vehicles' number plates, or staff can take them down. This is the kind of scheme the Big Brother awards are for."

Mr Brown says that, in the past 15 years, the Home Office has spent huge sums on CCTV, but a study by the crime reduction charity Nacro found the technology only reduced crime by 3% to 4%, while better street lighting led to a decrease of 20%. [...]

A spokesman for the information commissioner's office, which enforces the data protection legislation, says: "We don't want to get in the way of the police doing their jobs. We only have concerns if CCTV cameras are being used illegitimately."

"For example you could not have the boss of a shop take CCTV footage of you and then cross reference that with a loyalty card to build up a profile of you," he says. [...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,7369,1271120,00.html

A unique number attached to you is the key to joined up government, joined up commerce and complete surveillance.

The fact that a very few people steal drops of petrol in Bradford is not a reason to create a surveillance system that connect to the Police. All they need to do to stop people stealing gas is to put up an automatic barrier, similar to the ones that M&S and Tesco use to protect their car parks. Its simple. You have to collect a ticket to leave the station with your petrol. You get this ticket when you pay for your petrol. If you do not have a ticket, your car cannot exit.

The simple solutions are the best. Of course, the simple solutions are not what the ANPR system sellers want to sell. They have to pile in secondary uses (often connected to the irrational fear of terrorism) so that they look more attractive than they really are.

Consequences

When zombies attack

It seemed to come from the government and called for citizens to prepare for emergencies - of any kind. But the Cabinet Office didn't see the funny side of the spoof guidance handed out by student Tom Scott's website, and ordered him to take it down.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
You have received this message from the FIPR Bulletin mailing list run
by the Foundation for Information Policy Research  http://www.fipr.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------


FIPR is forwarding this press release on behalf of the coalition

Please note that the contact email is  press@no2id.net  NOT! FIPR

---------- Forwarded message ----------

ID Cards Report: Reaction

============================================
EMBARGO: 00:01, FRIDAY 30TH JULY 2004
============================================

Civil liberties groups and privacy campaigners have called upon David
Blunkett to shleve his plans for a national identity card in the wake of
today's damning report from the Home Affairs Select Committee.

A coalition of anti-ID card groups has pledged to defeat the proposals in
Parliament should a Bill be put forward later this year. With senior
Cabinet Ministers including Jack Straw and Patricia Hewitt known to be
opposed to Blunkett's Plan, campaigners believe that if legislation can be
held up until after the General Election, the ID cards may never see the
light of day.

Mark Littlewood, national co-ordinator of the NO2ID Coalition said:

"The more people hear about ID cards, the less they like them. With
opinion polls showing that around 3.5million adults would refuse to carry
a card, the government needs to ask itself exactly how many more enemies
it can afford to make. Proposals for national identity cards should be
sheleved immediately and permanently."

Dr. Ian Brown, Director of FIPR (Foundation for Information Policy
Research) - a supporter of no2id - said:

"The committee has raised a whole series of very grave concerns about the
scheme. ID cards won't tackle terrorism, won't cut fraud and won't reduce
crime. The government's plans are an expensive and dangerous folly."

ID cards expert, Owen Blacker of internet privacy group Stand said:

"This report should cause the Home Secretary to rethink. Not only do ID
cards present a very real threat to individual privacy, but they would be
a technological disaster. The government's record on IT porjects is truly
awful. If they press ahead, people should brace themselves for this
running way over budget and experiencing major malfunctions."

For further information or to arrange interviews, please contact:
Mark Littlewood - 07974 569 299
Ian Brown - 07970 164 526
Simon Davies - 07958 466 552

[END]

Note to Editors:
1 - The No2ID coalition is an organization with a broad membership of
individuals and supported by several organizations, including Liberty,
Charter88, FIPR, Stand.org.uk and Privacy International.
2- More information about no2id can be found at http://www.no2id.net

[END]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Are you a Friend of FIPR yet? Receive daily updates on information policy stories and events -> http://www.fipr.org/friends.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join No2ID right now.

Barack Obama, running unopposed for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, wowed 'em. Speech, video, homepage are all here.

Mr Obama was an early critic of the Iraq war, speaking out against the prospect of war several months before the March 2003 invasion.

When he addressed Democrats in Boston, he praised the men and women serving in Iraq, and said more should be done to financially support the families of those killed.

"When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world," he said. [...]

But despite Mr Clinton's endorsement, opinion polls suggested a decline in voter support for the White House challenger.

Only 46% backed him against 48% for Mr Bush, said a Washington Post/ABC poll. Respondents said they did not know enough about Mr Kerry's policies.

Winning the Peace in Iraq

To establish security and move forward with the transition to Iraqi sovereignty, the President must show true leadership in going to the major powers to secure their support of Lakhdar Brahimi?s mission, the establishment of a high commissioner for governance and reconstruction, and the creation of a NATO mission for Iraq. These steps are critical to creating a stable Iraq with a representative government and secure in its borders. Meeting this objective is in the interests of NATO member states, Iraq?s neighbors and all members of the international community. True leadership means sharing authority and responsibility for Iraq with others who have an interest in Iraq?s success. Sharing responsibility is the only way to gain new military and financial commitments, allowing America to truly share the burden and the risk.

Modernize The World's Most Powerful Military To Meet New Threats
John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to transform the world's most powerful military to better address the modern threats of terrorism and proliferation, while ensuring that we have enough properly trained and equipped troops to meet our enduring strategic and regional missions.

Deploy All That Is In America's Arsenal
The war on terror cannot be won by military might alone. As president, John Kerry will deploy all the forces in America's arsenal - our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas - to make America more secure and prevent a new generation of terrorists from emerging.

Free America From Its Dangerous Dependence On Mideast Oil
To secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Mideast oil. By tapping American ingenuity, we can achieve that goal while growing our economy and protecting our environment.

Track And Stop Terrorists
Many of the intelligence problems that allowed terrorists to slip into our country before 9/11 have not been addressed. John Kerry and John Edwards will improve our ability to gather, analyze, and share information so we can track down and stop terrorists before they cause harm.

Protect Our Borders And Shores
Today, our borders, our ports, and our airports are not as secure as they must be. John Kerry and John Edwards will make our airports, seaports, and borders more secure without intruding upon personal liberties.

Harden Vulnerable Targets
Chemical industry lobbying has kept the Bush administration from strengthening security at chemical plants, where an attack could endanger 1 million Americans. John Kerry and John Edwards will always put Americans' safety ahead of big business interests and take strong measures to harden likely targets-including nuclear plants, trains, and subways-against possible attack.

Improve Domestic Readiness
Our first defenders will respond to any attack with courage and heroism-but they also need the equipment and manpower to do the job. John Kerry and John Edwards will back up their words with resources and ensure that America's first responders have everything they need to protect their communities.

Guard Liberty.
We must always remember that terrorists do not just target our lives - they target our way of life. John Kerry and John Edwards believe in an America that is safe and free, and they will protect our personal liberties as well as our personal security.

opinionated

\O*pin"ion*a`ted\, a. Stiff in opinion; firmly or unduly adhering to one's own opinion or to preconceived notions; obstinate in opinion. --Sir W. Scott.

The MPs, on the home affairs select committee, stress that they do not oppose ID cards in principle. But they express alarm about what they describe as "function creep" once a national identity register is in place. They warn that ministers are already planning to use the ID card scheme as a cover to introduce a national fingerprint system within five years.

Identities may soon be checkable on the national register from CCTV pictures, they predict.

In the report, due to be published tomorrow but seen by the Guardian, the MPs call for parliament to be given powers to oversee the development of ID cards to prevent them encroaching into new areas.

The report warns that once the cards become compulsory it is conceivable that private companies will be able to demand access to the full information held on an individual on the register as a condition of providing a service. The access is "well in excess of what is justified in the fight against serious crime or terrorism".

What took you so long?

They go on to insist that individuals must have full access to the information about them held on the database.

They also warn that the technology involved in biometric testing - implanting a digital facial or fingerprint record into the ID card - is unproven. It is uncomfortable for the individual, and may not prove reliable without highly trained staff.

"There should be exhaustive testing of the biometrics chosen and the results assessed by independent experts, perhaps led by the government's chief scientific officer," the Labour-controlled committee says. Initial tests show as many as one in 100 matches are incorrect.

And they have probably caught wind of the sort of world this biometric noonsense creates; thanks to the immoral debacle that is USVISIT, we can see just how such a system will abuse and injure every ordinary person subjected to it on a daily basis.

The select committee's scepticism was echoed yesterday by a leading academic, Dr Farzin Deravi, who runs a re search group on biometrics at the University of Kent. "People get the impression biometrics are ready for large scale deployment, but there are still many unresolved issues and challenges," he said.

Despite their criticisms, the MPs are clear that the Home Office should proceed with the cards because of "their significant role in fighting terrorism", adding that there is no overwhelming constitutional objection to a compulsory scheme.

Did I say this before? During the IRA era, the Irish, who are for all intents and purposes invisible in the UK, could come and go as they pleased. No one talked about fingerprinting all the Irish, or the British for that matter, and the IRA problem was put to bed without this great country being brought to its knees, or being changed beyond all recognition. The British will not fall for this war on terror double talk; they know how to conduct themselvs, and how to properly protect their way of life; fingerprinting everyone and subjecting them to ID cards is not how it is done....because it is not the done thing.

Mr Blunkett said at the weekend he was "really very pleased with the kind of support we're getting ... over 80% in all focus group and opinion polls now saying that people are up for this".

bwa hahahahahahah hahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!

Two MPs, Labour's David Winnick and Bob Russell of the Liberal Democrats, will issue a minority report rejecting ID cards altogether. [...]

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1271351,00.html