Oi!, You! No snooping on my emails and chat!

Oi!, You! No snooping on my emails and chat!

Earlier this week, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered its judgement on the legality of the UK & Swedish data retention and surveillance laws. They confirmed their ruling from 2015 that general monitoring is illegal, that retention must be specific and is only allowed to combat serious crimes, that access to surveillance records must be authorised by independent authorities and that EU data subjects must be have access to legal remediation if their rights to privacy are breached. The Guardian report on it here, the Independent here ,the Register here and even  the Daily Mash comments here. The UK’s Investigatory Powers Act also gives the government the right to mandate backdoors in UK operated communications products; these powers may also fall foul of the prohibition on general monitoring and the need for independent review. While the ruling is specific to the UK’s DRIPA law, which has now been replaced by the Investigatory Powers Act, it poses a clear challenge to the legality of the new Law. …

A note on the coming GDPR

A note on the coming GDPR

In a blog at my employer’s site I looked at how to become compliant with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. Regulations are the Law in all the member states, and members of the European Economic Area. The article looks at the issues of consent, the new data subject rights, privacy by design, the meaning of adequate protection and new public accountability via the duty to report breaches and to appoint a professional data protection officer. …

Castro

Fidel Castro died last week. This re-opened a debate around the world, in the UK and the Labour Party as to the appropriate response; it seems we have to sum up his life and the Cuban society he led in one of two words, goody or baddy!

Others point at Dr Denise Baden’s more balanced defence on the BBC; she makes the point that if the USA were to be measured through the same lens, it would be found wanting. Otherwise it’s the 2nd best health service in the world, massive improvements in life expectancy and literacy and support for the anti-apartheid movement vs. the imprisonment of dissidents and oppositionists and the restoration of the death penalty. Here’s what Amnesty International has to say; its report places Cuba’s response in the context of the USA’s illegal embargo, but at the end of the day it’s no excuse.

Like life, Castro’s legacy will be painted in shades of grey.

However, the event of his death has led to yet more bitching in the Labour Party since Corbyn and the Party’s leadership recognise and applaud the achievements of Cuban revolution while the right want to emphasis Castro’s dictatorial and oppressive behaviour.

ooOOOoo

I had reason to examine the World Bank’s World Governance Index and following Denise Baden’s example compared the USA and Cuba. As she predicted, the USA doesn’t do so well. I made an error and have temporarily removed the chart. I mis-transcribed the Cuba numbers. Cuba underscores the USA in all 6 categories, although its hard to believe that it does so badly in Govt. Effectiveness (7.7% percentile) given its health and education successes. …

Renewing Party Democracy

Renewing Party Democracy

The LP NEC is having an away day to discuss reforming its rules and internal democracy, mainly in the light of the massive increase in membership to more than half a million members.  Here’s my manifesto for a member led party, I hope to supplement it with some ideas on the use of IT to aid in policy development and expressing the membership voice, but in terms of rules reform …

Labour & Article 50

Labour & Article 50

In my report back from Labour Party Conference, I predicted that the fault lines caused by the Brexit Referendum would become a potential fatal debate for the Labour Party. Today the Independent reported on a speech by John McDonnell, in which he argued that Labour would not oppose an Article 50 bill and would use moral pressure to ensure that the Brexit terms negotiated were acceptable to Labour. Jolyen Maugham argues in the New Statesman that promising not to oppose Article 50, or not to amend it disarms the PLP, it will have no leverage on the Tories who are still putting the interests of their party before that of the country. …

Vote for me

Vote for me

I am standing for election as Secretary of Lewisham Deptford Labour Party; I’d like to thank the five branches and two union branches that nominated me.

1 have been fighting for a fairer society, in the Labour Party since 1974, for 42 years, sometime with some influence and sometimes with very little. …

Dangerous Times

Dangerous Times

Anthony Barnet writes at Open Democracy, an article called, “The Media Monarchy”, in which he looks at the Law, the Media, contempt and the bullying of the Supreme Court. He finishes by pointing out that our Constitution is the result of centuries of fighting against originally despotic monarchs amd that the new unaccountable, unchallengeable power potentially oppressing citizens is the media and while he doesn’t make much of it, the UK, has the weakest foreign ownership controls on the media. …

Article 50 & Parliament

Article 50 & Parliament

The BBC reports that the High Court states that the Government needs Parliament’s permission to trigger the EU’s Article 50 Brexit process. The article is silent on whether Parliament has to express its will as a Law or joint house resolution; I’ll leave the last word to others more qualified, but I don’t think there is any other way to undo previous Parliamentary dispositions other than to pass a new law, which involves four readings and a committee stage in the Commons and the same in the Lords and potentially whatever we call the Conference process to resolve disagreements between the Houses. …