http://www.fr33agents.com/164/london-cops-waterboard-pot-suspects/

No, your home isn’t your castle, and you’re not allowed to defend it, either. At least not in the UK in the year 2008.

The charges against Mr. Davis were later dropped.

In late February, Davis’s son, Jimmy, set fire to his own bedroom. Why?

His mother Pauline Davis, 43, said: ‘We keep speaking to him asking him why he did it and he said “because I want to move, mum”.

Jimmy is scared to go outside because of all the youths that hang around on the estate.

‘He burnt the bedroom down because he wants to move and he wants to move because those kids throw stones at the windows. It’s been a living nightmare for us and for Jimmy.’

Tragedy upon tragedy for this family.

Something that really caught my eye, though, in the Daily Mail article, was in the first photo caption:

He did it in the hope the family would be rehoused away from the yobs who have been tormenting the family

The use of the passive voice here just sends shivers down my spine…

Change we can believe in (Pure silver, silver, me hearties! Yaaaar!)

Original image by Ian-S @ flickr.com, who writes:

Found in the Norfolk (UK) village of Snettisham in 1985, the contents of a narrow-necked roman pot were found to consist of stock, raw materials and coins hidden by a Roman jeweller. The collection has become known as ‘The Snettisham Jeweller’s Hoard’, and dates from the late second century AD. These are some of the 83 silver coins from the hoard, and they all seem to show the Emperor Domitian (reigned AD 81-96). Some later coins dated at 154-5 AD were present too, and these dated the find.

[My translation from original Slovak at the Priama ackia ("Direct Action") website. All errors mine.]

Priama Akcia’s call: “We don’t intend to pay for the crisis!”

Activism opportunity in Slovakia and the Czech Republic

12 November 2008

A world summit will take place on 15 November 2008 in Washington at which 20 of the most economically powerful countries in the world (including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) will debate regarding reform of the global financial system. It is the day on which the elite will decide upon the salvation of capitalism. This meeting merits our attention because its outcome affects even us. Come what may, we are not going to just sit back and watch the whole crisis. There are many possibilities for beginning activism related to the crisis.

OUR POSSIBILITIES IN SLOVAKIA AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC

The politicians, bosses and bankers settle things and take care of their own. And we should do the same. The only way we can succeed in not being forced to pay for this crisis is to know ourselves, to have contact among ourselves and to help each other. The objective of this call is to take the first step toward presenting an approach to the crisis from the perspective of ordinary people rather than liberal economists and politicians.

We say this openly: ordinary people – workers, students, retirees and unemployed alike – should in our view take advantage of this global financial crisis to build contact among ourselves. Regardless of how or even whether the capitalists manage to salvage their system, the problems will not go away. They will always arouse discontent and the striving to resolve it by our very own energies. The current situation is an opportunity for establishing contact and thinking about setting up a contact network amongst ourselves. In the process the crisis can be built upon in terms of aid and solidarity regarding the various problems what await us in the near future.

CONCRETE ACTIONS IN OUR TOWNS AND WORKPLACES

During Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and subsequent days we will publish a flyer, a poster and a questionnaire at our website, www.priamaakcia.sk.

• We suggest distributing flyers basically everywhere. Places where people gather (cafes, clubs, etc.) are good, but distributing them in trains is also very good. All you have to do is get on before the train leaves, throw a few flyers into the cabin and get off before departure. Quick and effective.
• Posters for transport stops, schools, workplaces and elsewhere can also draw attention to this activism.
• The questionnaire will be able to be filled out right on a web page and is part of an international project by militant workers. More information coming soon.

Only two things are needed for anyone to get involved in this activity immediately: the urge to do something and the ability to print out materials. These will be prepared in PDF form for open download in Slovak and Czech. Even now you can talk about activism options with someone near you with whom you might be able to do something today, tomorrow or the day after.

OTHER ACTIVITIES GOING FORWARD

Other activities are planned as well. If you want to get involved, let us know at priamaakcia(at)priamaakcia(dot)sk. We will provide information on the website about further activism opportunities and we would be especially pleased if more people – including readers of this text – took part in our ideas. Should you get involved in any way (such as by distributing flyers), please let us know.

We can’t count on chit-chat saying that the crisis will impact us to a weaker extent than it will other countries. The fact is, it’s already impacting us through layoffs at US Steel, in the auto industry (the firms Riba Nitra, Dura Stupava and Johnson Controls), in machining (PPS, Embraco), etc. This will by no means be where it ends…

For spreading this call farther – among your acquaintances, friends or colleagues, via discussion forums, blogs, web pages, myspace, hi5, facebook or other information channels – we thank you in advance.

This is the impulse. What else, and how, is up to you.

WE DON’T INTEND TO PAY FOR THE CRISIS!
Watch www.priamaakcia.sk

PRIAMA AKCIA
Priama akcia (“Direct Action”) is the Slovak branch of the International Workers Association (IWA), a confederation which unites trade unions and initiatives from 16 countries of the world as a membership base.

Curiously absent among many libertarian, conservative, or free-market critiques of interventions by the state into society are the myriad of ways in which government acts to assist, protect, and, indeed, impose outright, an economic order maintained for the benefit of politically connected plutocratic elites.

The full essay, which is well worth reading and catalogues many of these interventions, is available here: Free Enterprise: The Antidote to Corporate Plutocracy.

From CBS News, 6 October 2006:

Terry Gilliam Sounds Off

Director Of ‘Brazil’ Says Current Events Parallel His Cult Movie

Visionary director Terry Gilliam, whose 1985 film “Brazil” was a classic tale of terrorized citizens crushed by an authoritarian government, is miffed.

“I’m thinking of suing George Bush and Dick Cheney for making the remake of ‘Brazil’ without my approval,” he told a New York screening audience this week. “Their version isn’t as funny, though.”

The 65-year-old native of Minnesota who emigrated to England in the 1960s and helped form the legendary comedy group Monty Python, held dual citizenship for three decades. (He married a British citizen and has three children.) This past year, though, he renounced his U.S. citizenship. He sees the current political scene in America – and its extension into the world – to be scarily similar to the Orwellian nightmare of his cult film.

In the film, government agents arrest suspects in hordes, going so far as to charge them for their interrogation, including the electricity applied to their bodies. Detainees who couldn’t afford the costs of their torture could apply for loans (at favorable interest rates). The machinery of government-sanctioned torture and data collection became a self-sustaining apparatus.

“It is absolutely frightening,” he said of the current political scene. “Homeland Security is just like [the film's] Ministry of Information, because if your job is counter-terrorism, what do you need to keep in business? You need terrorists, and even if they aren’t there, we may have to create new ones. It works very well.”

From The Onion’s AV Club, 11 October 2006:

AVC: Why did you renounce your American citizenship earlier this year?

TG: I thought I’d just simplify my life. I’m getting old. I’m gonna die. I’m not at all happy with what America has been in the last 10 years. [Laughs.] The reality is, when I kick the bucket, American tax authorities assess everything I own in the world—everything I own is outside of America—and then tax me on it, and that would mean my wife would probably have to sell our house to pay the taxes. I didn’t think that was fair on my wife and children.

Day of Reckoning? Super Rich Tax Cheats Outed by Bank Clerk

Technician in Liechtenstein Turns Over Names of Americans With Secret Bank Accounts

Heinrich Kieber, fuckface extraordinaire

Hundreds of super-rich American tax cheats have, in effect, turned themselves in to the IRS after a bank computer technician in the tiny European country of Liechtenstein came forward with the names of US citizens who had set up secret accounts there, according to Washington lawyers investigating the scheme.

The bank clerk, Heinrich Kieber, has been branded a thief by the government of Liechtenstein for violating the country’s bank secrecy laws.

[...]

Kieber reportedly sold three CD’s full of names and data to tax authorities to 12 countries including Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States.

Nice going, fuckface.

Let’s be clear on one thing. There is no such thing as a “tax cheat”.

“Cheating” on your taxes is the moral equivalent of telling a mugger you have no more money than what’s in your wallet when you’ve got a wad of currency crammed between your ass cheeks.

Kieber’s Washington lawyer, Jack Blum, says Kieber should be considered a whistleblower and a hero, not a thief, for revealing how the super rich hid billions of dollars using the Liechtenstein bank.

So let’s see… steal from your employer, violate the privacy of your customers, turn the data over to the biggest and most ruthless gangs of muggers the world has ever known, and you can count on at least one jackass lawyer to call you a hero.

The persistent inversion of all human values continues unabated in the comments on the article:

every person and I mean every person, should be prosecuted and made to pay all back taxes on those sums in offshore banks. I am sick and tired of the rich getting richer by not paying their fair share of taxes

Fair share? A fair share would be a capitation.

The criminals are those who choose to live in this country and run their vast corporations here, yet violate this country’s tax codes in order to add millions on top of their billions. The hero is the guy who blew the whistle. Only the self-serving elite would attempt to blur the distinction

Consider me one of the self-serving elite, then, but just you go ahead and try to locate my billions, buster.

Too often the only way corrupt behavior can be exposed is by the brave actions of a whistle-blower.

Tax is corruption. “Brave”? Ha! The guy stole from his employer and sold the data. We have things to call that, but “brave” isn’t one of them.

Why don’t we make it illegal for US citizens to have accounts in Liechtenstein and with the Swiss for that matter until they make public the account information to the IRS. We should sanction these governments just as we want to do with any rogue nation such as The Sudan. there is no way these rich CRIMINALS should have a safe place to hide their money.

Why don’t we make being a dumbass illegal? And who said anything about CRIMINALS anyway, other than Mr. Fuckface who sold out his customers? Ah that’s right, if someone has more than you do, they’re a criminal. I done gone and forgot the whole “Robin Hood” ethic.

Where can I send a small check to this guy to help him out?

You can address it to me, and I’ll forward it to him. Promise.

Karma works!

That’s right. And I have a flying pony.

I hope that the IRS does something with the information. Tax cheats really irk me- these are the true non-productive members of our society.

Oh, someone, STOP THE INSANITY!!!

From the Daily Mail:

Yobs threw rocks at his house for years. But the father who fought back is arrested

For more than two years, Sydney Davis’s house has been under siege from youths throwing stones.

After two hours of bombardment in the latest attack and no sign of the police, the 65-year-old retired builder decided enough was enough.

As a particularly large missile landed in his kitchen, he grabbed a plank of wood from the garden and ran towards the gang to scare them away.

The police arrived just in time – to arrest Mr Davis for possession of an offensive weapon.

He now faces up to six months in prison. Yesterday Mr Davis said he was bewildered by the decision to prosecute him.

[...]

‘What in the world is this country coming to that the police arrest people like me for protecting their own property?’ he said yesterday.

‘The police say they want to reduce crime, yet they let evil little toe-rags like this off. Then they prosecute hard-working, upstanding residents like me.

The law is, quite simply, a colossal ass.’

Indeed it is, Mr. Davis.

Britain, E.U. Plan Iran Sanctions

16 June 2008

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday announced plans for new sanctions against Iran and a small increase in troops for Afghanistan, handing President Bush a symbolic boost on the last day of his weeklong farewell trip to Europe.

Brown, appearing with Bush at a 10 Downing Street news conference, said Britain and the European Union are expected to act to freeze the assets of Iran’s largest bank, Bank Melli, in response to Tehran’s refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

[...]

European action against Bank Melli comes on top of restrictions imposed in October 2007 when the U.S. Treasury Department froze bank assets and halted transactions as part of a broader package of sanctions against state-owned Iranian financial institutions. Bank Melli allegedly sent $100 million to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups from 2002 to 2006, according to Treasury officials.

Treasury has also cut off another major Iranian bank, Bank Saderat, from the U.S. financial system.

“This has been a good trip,” President Bush said at the news conference.

Meanwhile, Israeli sabre-rattling ratchets up another notch, as Der Spiegel reports:

‘MISSION DOABLE’: Israeli Ministers Mull Plans for Military Strike against Iran

The Israeli government no longer believes that sanctions can prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. A broad consensus in favor of a military strike against Tehran’s nuclear facilities — without the Americans, if necessary — is beginning to take shape.

UPDATE from Reuters via Cryptogon:

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran’s disputed nuclear ambitions, an Iranian weekly said.

In the US, habeas generally means that a suspect arrested and jailed must be brought before a judge within 48 hours of the arrest to be arraigned, which is to have the charges against him formally read, and to enter a plea. If that doesn’t happen, a request can be made to a judge that the authorities holding the suspect free him immediately.

Habeas is a check on arbitrary State power. Detention is used primarily as a punitive measure, and is widely and rightly seen as a denial of liberty. The balance being struck under the doctrine is that it may require a bit of time for police or prosecutors to secure witnesses or evidence, and that during that time the suspect may evade capture, go on to commit other offenses, destroy evidence or compel or eliminate witnesses, and that in such cases the burden imposed on the suspect by detaining him is reasonable, either in the interests of the State or society. Habeas is a princple of law in all common-law countries, and similar legal doctrines apply in many other places.

Seven hundred years later, under threat by “modern” terrorism — that is, acts of mass violence committed by people not wearing clown suits — habeas is breaking down. The US Military Commissions Act of 2006 effectively suspends the writ of habeas corpus for anyone the President designates an “unlawful enemy combatant”, which is to say anyone he damned well pleases. It essentially grants the President to point at anyone, mumble something about “terrorists” and imprison that person — without charge or trial — forever.

In the UK, time limits for charges to be laid against terrorism suspects have been getting longer since 2000: seven days under the 2000 Terrorism Act, 14 days since 2003, 28 days since 2006. This week, the House of Commons passed a bill to extend the limit to 42 days, as the BBC reports:

Brown wins crunch vote on 42 days

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has narrowly won a House of Commons vote on extending the maximum time police can hold terror suspects to 42 days.

Thirty-six Labour MPs joined forces with Conservatives and Lib Dems to vote against the proposals.

But that was not enough to defeat them – although the government still faces a battle in the House of Lords.

Before the vote, Anthony Barnett wrote in “42 Days: An ‘abundance of caution’“:

In presenting their case to the nation for the extension of detention without charge to 42 days, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and the Prime Minister emphasise how much time may be needed to gather all the evidence required to lay the necessary charges because of the immense complexity of such evidence in the age of information technology and international conspiracies. Much detail is offered about thousands of files and hundreds of computers. Their supporters say that we must not allow a terrorist to walk free just because there has not been ‘enough time’ to accumulate the necessary evidence to make good his arrest. The presumption is clear. It is important to highlight this. We are supposed to accept that the argument is over how long guilty people have to be held before they are charged.

This presumption is false. Over half those arrested under the Terrorism Act are “innocent members of the public”. This is officially regarded as acceptable due to the need for the police to exercise “an abundance of caution”. And of the small number held for nearly a month without charge, half of them are innocent too.

To jail someone who is innocent is a crime, one done in our name.

Don’t worry, Britain, it’s okay. They’re terrorists after all. If they weren’t guilty, they wouldn’t be suspects, right? And 42 days under State interrogation while locked in a cage isn’t really all that bad. I mean, sure, you might lose your job, have your mortgage foreclosed on for non-payment, your utilities shut off and all your personal property carted away for sale at auction, but that’s not really punishment, it’s just what a cautious society must do to protect itself from terrorism.

This is not even to mention the hardship imposed on a person and his family and social relations by being kidnapped and imprisoned, locked away in the UK’s overflowing dungeons and subject to rape, beating and the random stab wound by actual criminals. But that’s not punishment, it’s caution.

But hey, you know, it’s the modern age. Things are so complicated now, what with computers and emails and the lack of perfect surveillance. This will only be applied to terrorism suspects, of course. The same rationale for denying habeas for longer and longer periods will never be applied, say, to cases of suspected money laundering, drug trafficking, distribution of “obscene” materials or P2P file sharing. Of course the government will restrain itself, recognizing proper limits to its own power. Of course the cops and the courts are there to protect you.

And, of course, the age of worrying about “terrorism” will come to a rapid close as State policies to combat it by progressively destroying civil liberties and claiming greater and greater governmental powers culminates in the perfection of the panopticon, what Alex Jones refers to as a “prison planet”.