Home | 26th May 1995 | Issue 24

Justice? Brighton's Campaign In Defiance of the Criminal Justice Act

ID CRISIS

ID CARDS - THE COP IN YOUR POCKET

"During the Black Death, a red cross was painted on the doors of victims. We need only put a cross on an ID card to indicated people with AIDS" - from a leaflet handed out at a Conservative Party Conference.

This week Michael Howard launched a Green Paper on Identity Cards and sparked a civil liberties furore. Margaret Thatcher tried to bring them in for football fans, then the Department of Transport tried with driving licences and now the Department of Social Security is using benefit claimants as an ID card backdoor. It's clear the government are trying to a manufacture a reason for a compulsory national identity card. 

The plan is for every person to be identified by one number and all information about them to be on the card. This means that government will have the ultimate tool for control and surveillance of everyone - the cop in your pocket. Big business will, of course, gleefully profit using this information.

"In time, carrying an ID card will be as natural as carrying a credit card" - Home Secretary, Michael Howard.

The last ID cards scheme was scrapped after the war in 1952 due to public hostility. To set up a new one would cost half a billion pounds.

The debate over different schemes is a false one. Although the Green Paper covers a number of technical options, it is clear that the government's preferred option is for an electronic 'smart card'. Although this looks like a bank card, it's more like a portable filing cabinet containing substantial amounts of computerised information about the card bolder. Under existing data protection laws, although in theory you can have access to computer information held about you, in reality the companies that hold your details are able to charge anything they like to cover their costs.

In 1987, Council of Europe asked the Conservatives not to collect and store information on people solely on the basis of their political views, religious affiliation, sexual identity or membership of a political party - the UK government refused to comply.

ID cards are bound to lead to more young people and minority groups being stopped and questioned by the police for no good reason - in 1994 42% of people stopped and questioned were black.

Identity cards are only one part of a government strategy to document everyone under the guise of a 'war on crime'. The Criminal Justice Act makes DNA 'fingerprinting' compulsory for anyone arrested - using force if necessary to gain samples. The police hope to have 135,000 entries logged by the end of the year! In addition the government has just handed out another £5 million towards blanket spy camera surveillance in every town and city in the country.

ID cards also allow moves towards the big business dream of a cashless society. This is driven by the desire to log every transaction for tax and to save replacing paper money. In a £50 million experiment in Swindon last year residents were able to buy anything from a car to a newspaper using their smartcard. By replacing hard cash with electronic money the company which owns the smartcard can withdraw it should you break the rules. If the Swindon experiment, pushed by big business, becomes the nation-wide norm, having no card would be, in effect exclusion from society.

"People must realise the permanence of this technology", says Simon Davies of Privacy International "We would be enmeshed in a surveillance web that could never be dismantled. And identity cards are at the centre of it." For ID cards to work everyone will have to agree to carry them. Like the Poll Tax the government may find that the time will never be ripe.

CJA CURSED!

A 300-year old curse, British Telecom and a sense of humour are the secret weapons of the Kent road protestors, dubbed the Whitstable Flat Oak Society. While arrests continue, campaigners warn that messing with the land could be fatal according to a local legend dating back to the Napoleonic wars when French prisoners used the local woods as an escape route. The curse predicts 13 people will die on the this footpath that crosses the route of the new road.... spooky stuff.

Meanwhile campaigner Chris Stone, whose phone number has been used as a contact point for the campaign, has been receiving several ghostly "silent phone calls". After using the BT 1471 service (where you can find out the number of the last person who dialled) it turned out to be .... Kent County Council, who are building the road.

Following last weeks' 13 arrests under the Criminal Justice Act, which makes trespass a criminal offence, Kent police nicked four more people for criminal damage to a floorboard - in a building to be razed for a motorway ! "What complete hypocrisy!", says Ted Dance, protesting against the £65 million A299 Thanet Way extension. "They arrest us for criminal damage while they want to destroy perfectly good homes and are currently destroying beautiful wildlife habitats. Three more were also arrested and charged under section 68 of the CJA (aggravated trespass). As is becoming the standard police tactic, people are being bailed not to appear back on site, so numbers reduce with every arrest.

But despite ridiculous arrests and nuisance phonecalls they remain defiant and have squatted more woodlands along the route to add to the site manager's cabin which was taken last week! At the moment police are puzzled about what to do about the shack on the Golf Course. There are Court appearances for those arrested at Canterbury Magistrates on June 16, ring 01227 788031 or the camp mobile on 0378 693157 for more details.

Stop-Press: Mass action in Kent next Thursday

MISTAKEN ID?

"signs are that the general public may find such a scheme more acceptable now than in the past ... the time may be ripe " - from confidential papers found in a government surplus filing cabinet in Camden in January.

THE SYSTEM IS ALREADY IN PLACE...

The Government Data Network is a system linking together major government databases such as National Insurance, Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise and so on - tailor-made for the interchange of personal information. The Inland Revenue, the police and MI5 have the right to tap information from any other computer database without having to abide by the Data Protection Act, like the DSS National Insurance General Index in Newcastle and the NHS central register. A new £200 million database for the DSS aims to cover the entire population, known as National Insurance Recording System 2 and could form the basis of a national ID card scheme.

... READY TO PROFIT AT THE EXPENSE OF FREEDOM

EDS (Electronic Data Systems) are a large multinational company specialising hi data-processing, currently handling tax records for the UK (worth £1 billion per year). They are bidding to run every other form of data-processing like DVLC licenses and NHS records. This one company could control all of this information, outside of democratic control. Data held on computers is completely liquid - who is going to protect it from abuse? Whose gonna protect you?

ID CARD DEMO 
21 June 1995
Schhh.. you are invited to a secret gathering of officials covering the introduction of ID Cards on @ Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.
An ID card campaign pack can be obtained by sending a £1 coin to: Campaigns Office, Liberty, 21 Tabard St, London SE1 4LA

crap arrests of the week

. Kent Police entered a property recently occupied by protestors against the extension of the Thanet Way and arrested the four occupants for criminal damage to a floorboard - in a building to be demolished for a motorway! (see article)

. Someone at Brightlingsea shouted out a police identification number and was duly arrested for "inciting racial hatred"!

Call SchNEWS with your crap arrests!

Party and Protest

FRI 26th - 30th Earth Spirit Spring Awakening Camp, Crowborough, Sussex, 01323 811 632

SAT 27th The Land Is Ours day + night picnic at one of Britain's least hospitable institutions. Coaches leave St Giles St, Oxford 12 noon. Bring food, tents, sleeping bags, musical instruments.....

SAT 27th March + rally to protest against Britain's leading role in the restructure and recolonisation of Africa From Kennington Park to Trafalgar St 1 pm 0171 924 9033.

SAT 27th lst AGM of CJA arrestees, to be held at Michael Howard's surgery! Meet in fancy dress at 11am at 4 Westcliff Gardens, Folkstone Kent 01227 788 031.

SAT 27th Blow up your oven - it's Fruitarian/Raw Food Day!

SUN 28th Demo against brutality at Winson Green Prison, Birmingham. 12.30 - 2 pm 0161 976 5265

MON 29th Maidstone Green Fair, Mote Park. Noon till 8 pm

MON 29th Kingston Green Fair, Surrey. 0181224 1236

THUR 1st JUNE Tenth Anniversary of Battle of the Beanfield contact 0171 738 6721

FRI 2nd/SAT 3rd Anti CJA Exhibition, film show+speakers. Guildford Institute, Surrey. 0956 250 108

SAT 3rd Summer of Discontent 'Picnic in the Park': Scottish Defiance Alliance's welcomes U 2 "the biggest illegal free party ever held in Glasgow" 2pm Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow. 0141 226 5066

SAT 3rd Stonehenge Walk starts. Noon at the Peace Pagoda, Battersea Park, London.

SAT 3rd Repeat the Beat! Fundamental Asian Dub Foundation etc.... Advance Party Benefit at The Tabernacle, Powis Sq London 0171 639 9656

INSIDE SchNEWS

Jim Chambers still on remand for alleged criminal damage to a road construction site. PV 2504 HMP Pentonville Prison Caledonian road London N7 8TT

Chris Cole inside for 6 months for breaking an injunction against British Aerospace PB 0538 HMP Pentonville (as above). Tracey Hart on remand for trumped up charges of criminal damage to the perimeter fence at Menwith Hill spy base in Yorkshire. Low Newton Prison Brasside, Durham DH1 55D

SchNEWS IN BRIEF

*** It's propaganda war time in the live animal exports world. In the red corner ... Livestock Industry Support Trust is a heavyweight coalition set up this week asking traders to put a levy on each calf or sheep sold to pay for "promotional material" to counter live animal export protests. And in the blue corner .... "The Protestors Ltd" is a company backed by Michael Mansfield QC and Carla Lane launched last week working to ban live animal exports for good. Send £5 & sae to The Lodge, Broadhurst Manor, Horsted Keynes, West Sussex.

*** Stanworth Valley update: the Stanworth camp is dwindling... about 75 eviction resisters are in court in Blackburn on 13 June - anyone with evidence of the eviction please send it NOW. Group 4 have been trying to buy people's film. Does anyone know where the tarps from Stanworth are? Ring 0161 861 7895

*** Police in Devon have being using section 60 of the CJA to stop and search people if they suspect that violence will occur. One person was arrested for possession of an air pistol after such a search, and 13 others were also arrested under Common law to "prevent a breach of the peace", some distance from the actual scene of the protest

*** Buying records in Bury St Edmunds is now a criminal offence! Last Friday Rebellious Records were visited by police officers with a search warrant looking for drugs. While they searched they left the front door open for two and a half hours, collaring everyone who came into the shop including searching two schoolgirls and a 13 year old boy who came in to pick up a flyer!

*** THE TRAVELLERS NIGHTMARE CONTINUES - Travellers who hosted the first rave where police snatched SoundSystems using new powers under the Criminal Justice Act are being hounded out of Suffolk. The Rendlesham Forest site had been home to around 30 vehicles, many of them families, for about three years. However the authorities are now using new powers under the Criminal Justice Act to constantly move them. They have been moved onto three smaller sites which they are also being evicted from under the CJA. Suffolk police are hounding travellers out of the county. Where are they meant to go?

*** JUSTICE? - ONE YEAR ON .... Yes, Justice? is coming up to its first birthday - and is holding a special meeting to look back over the past year and plan where we go from here. The meeting will be in the Prince Albert at 7pm on Wednesday 31st May. Come.

and Finally...

People gathered on Grand Parade on Thursday morning to go and give me Council an ear-bashing about being evicted from the latest Justice? squat, the former Housing Advice Centre. However, attentions moved across the road to the Royal Pavilion where Prince Charles was making a visit to made the completion of the restoration of the palace. People happily sitting in deckchairs soaking up the sun found that the police had nothing better to do than evict them all as the poor protestors could not afford the 80p an hour rent. Appeals are now being made to his Royal Highness to rehouse what have now become known as the "deckchair 25".

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Justice? meet every wednesday 7pm @ the prince albert, trafalgar st

e-mail: Justice?@intermedia.co.uk

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