Last month, was it really under 30 days ago, Michael Barnier produced a slide, showing the impact of the British Government’s self-imposed Red lines on the likely end-state of the UK’s relationship with the EU.
It shows that the only option is a bespoke trade deal on the lines of the Canadian/EU one, which famously took 7 years to negotiate. It also shows that the only other option is a No Deal Brexit. …
In December, the CJEU stated that the British and Swedish investigatory powers laws were in contravention to the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. This was in the case of the UK partly based on the litigation started by Tom Watson MP, initially with David Davies MP. This was reported in the Register, here, and the Guardian here. The Open Rights Group have asked for people to engage in the Home Office consultation; they propose to put a judicial warrant requirement on investigation requests for suspect internet data. This blog discusses my contribution. If you want to follow me, you’ll have to be quick the consultation closes tomorrow. …
I have been looking to see what there is to be said about Referendums and their role in democracies. Much has been said that Referendums or more accurately Plebiscites are the tools of dictators, but I have yet to see a compelling argument as to why! As I explored the issues, it became clear to me that I was pretty ignorant about the development of political theory and its application to the politics of government. I would be happy for any guidance from people more expert to me. …
Jeremy Cliffe, Berlin Desk Chief of “The Economist” reports on the state of “negotiations” between the UK and the EU27, the remainder of the EU. It’s not pretty.
Two stories, one personal and one public showing the endemic racism in the UK in Thatcher’s ’80s and wondering how much things have changed. Originally posted as a storify, rescued and back dated to the original date.
The personal story related to watching an episode of Minder, “Poetic Justice, Innit!” and the endemic, unnecessary casual racism within it. This was cross referenced with yet another shock story of racists in the Tory cabinet.
The Minder episode was published a year after the Brixton riots, and the video copy on youtube, pointed to in the story is no longer available there. The story was made in 2017, posted here in 2020 and backdated to the date of its first publication. …
I have just been approached by a Trade Union member who wanted to know how to complain about his employer’s record keeping. The short answer is to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. It reminded me that the ORG are campaigning to change the current Data Protection Bill to allow non-profits to represent complainants; this reminds me that Trade Unions might also want to benefit from this legislative protection, but I was horrified by the Government’s proposed exemption of immigration data from the remit of the Data Protection law and thus the GDPR. …
This is a submission for Labour’s Democracy Review, since the hub is, still, not available, I am posting this to my blog, I will send it to the review via email in 7 days, please free to comment over the next seven days. …
At my last Union branch meeting, we heard from Gemma Short of the right to strike campaign. As one part of her presentation she mentioned that one of the Unions’ response to the recent Trade Union laws is to demand that they can run strike ballots (and the mandatory political levy and elections) using e-voting technology. I have been thinking about this for a while and its fans need to take stock; there’s some inconvenient truths. …
I am just back from orgcon17, and here are my notes; this was a two day conference, with many sessions on issues of concern to digital liberty campaigners on regulation of the use personal data. It took place over two days, consisting of lectures & panels and workshops. On the first day, at Friends House, where we had the use of the amazing central meeting room it looked at the coming legislation on investigatory powers, the use of the law to make political advances (it’s slow & uncertain), an interview with Caroline Criada Perez, the campaigner who got the first woman on British bank notes and a women’s statue in Parliament Sq.. It looked at e-voting systems in Taiwan where the government used a consensus building software product to engage the population in traffic management solutions design. Jamie Bartlett spoke about privacy vs. security. There was a session on Digital Liberty & regulation in Nigeria. There was also a session on the privacy vulnerability to the coming “age verification for porn users” regulations. Much of these lectures are available on the ORG’s Video channel.
The second day consisted mainly of workshops focused on campaigning. There was a workshop that reviewed the technical architecture of the investigatory powers bill (as they then were i.e. the architecture and legislative stage). There was a workshop in using the Freedom of Information Laws to enhance campaigning, and also about the likely campaigning tools to be offered by the coming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) i.e. enhanced subject access requests, the right to be forgotten, of remediation and to object and stop processing.
There were sessions on building local Open Rights Group groups, how to perform IT security effectively for campaigners and a review of the ORG’s Blocked tool.
I chaired a session on building a Charter of Digital Rights, with Richard Barbrook and Mara Leverkuhn. Richard announced his initiative to put some more detail behind the Jeremy Corbyn’s Digital Manifesto which they created to support his 2016 Leadership Campaign. I documented/advertised this session on my blog https://davelevy.info/digital-liberties/
ooOOOoo
The relevance of this conference to CISSP certification is in the Regulation & Compliance domain. One of the critical to IT organisations is failing to keep up with laws and regulations. The ORG focuses on the law as it relates to privacy, censorship & intellectual property. Businesses need to keep these laws in mind when designing their risk taxonomy and control catalogue.
This was written in Oct 2018, nearly 12 months after the event; I did it to claim CISSP CPD Credits. I have as normal, for me, in these circumstances backdated the article to the time of occurrence. …
Labour List reports the initialisation of the Labour Party’s “Democracy Review, together with some snide comments about its pace, suggesting that it is designed to cement Corbyn’s leadership and succession rather than ensure it reports to the membership in time to debate the changes before conference. They also publish the document passed at the OrgSub, also available as a mirror from this site.
The review will work in three phases, liberation organisation and autonomy, organisation & structure.
The first phase, about the Liberation Groups is planned to end by 12th Jan. One of the drivers for this is almost certainly the need to have new systems in place when the NEC Youth Rep is to be elected, and the need to rerun the election for the BAME representative on the NEC. From my conversations though I know that our BAME members have more to say.
The paper says there will be a hub, presumably a wiki at which members, CLPs and affiliates will be able to access the consultation questions and respond, there will also be an email address, (presumably for those without a browser) which is less satisfactory as any contributions become secret. The paranoid amongst us, assume that by not having a closed membership open wiki, where members can set the agenda, they are building a means of control. …