On the morning of January 1, 2007, Chinese authorities arrested over 200 protesters on Tiananmen Square. Tiananmen public security, armed police and plainclothes officers were on the scene to interrogate and arrest demonstrators.

Voicing a variety of complaints, the majority of these protesters came from all across China. Demonstrators were arrested in several groups near the exit of an underground tunnel leading to the Square. Police hauled off five vehicles full of protesters.

Tiananmen Square was not the only location where New Year’s dissidents have been apprehended. Laying bait for attests, authorities infiltrated several villages, circulating rumors of a planned protest at Shijing Hill on New Year’s Day. Caught in this trap, individuals later found at Shijing Hill were taken into police custody. Beijing human rights advocate Liu Anjun believes that a dozen people were arrested at Shijing Hill and are being kept by local authorities.

Just before the New Year, several groups of demonstrators protesting outside of Chinese primer Wen Jiabao’s house were apprehended by authorities. Their whereabouts are currently not known. (more…)

Powers allowing police forces to keep the DNA of people accused of sexual or violent offences have come into force.

The measure will allow the police to store such information on a database, even if there is no conviction.

Currently, DNA must be destroyed if it belongs to an accused of sexual or violent crimes if there is no conviction obtained.

The changes are contained in the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2006.

They will allow police to retain DNA samples for up to three years and apply for an extension if deemed necessary. (more…)

With Congress back in session on January 3, the federal “hate crimes” bill could be reintroduced any time. The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith introduced the same legislation last January 6, three days after Congress convened.

This is the most dangerous legislation ever to come before Congress. It leads directly to an end of free speech. Once free speech is gone, there is little to prevent the loss of all our other freedoms. The new Democrat-controlled Congress has all the votes it needs to quickly run this Orwellian bill through committee in the House and Senate and pass it. Unless they lose their nerve, thrown back by massive protest from the American people.

Extraordinary action must be taken NOW to back down ADL and intimidate them from even introducing the hate bill in this session. (more…)

In 2007, we should demand that MPs of all parties fight to restore the liberties which have been stolen by this government

An article in the New Scientist has reported that a rhesus monkey named Murph and a bottlenose dolphin called Natua, which lives in a harbour in Florida, have both exhibited a fascinating ability when doing reward-based tests. As well as being able to understand when they answered right or wrong, they learned to signal when they didn’t know something and so avoid the disappointment of being wrong. Like Mastermind contestants, they elected to ‘pass’.

Knowing what you don’t know is a type of abstract thought process called metacognition. A pigeon doesn’t know what it doesn’t know, but Murph and Natua do and that means they are both very intelligent and have a basic requirement for consciousness.

It occurred to me that during 2006, most of us have been exhibiting precisely the opposite to Murph and Natua’s talent. We don’t know what we know. Or, rather, we chose not to know the incontestable and unequivocal truth about the character of this government. Certainly, we know about the sale of peerages, the scandal over the manipulation of legal advice and intelligence before the Iraq war, the constant move to centralise power and authority at the expense of ordinary people and the associated contempt for parliamentary scrutiny. (more…)

‘Fusion’ Facilities Raise Privacy Worries As Wide Range of Information Is Collected

Frustrated by poor federal cooperation, U.S. states and cities are building their own network of intelligence centers led by police to help detect and disrupt terrorist plots.

The new “fusion centers” are now operating in 37 states, including Virginia and Maryland, and another covers the Washington area, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The centers, which have received $380 million in federal support since the 2001 terrorist attacks, pool and analyze information from local, state and federal law enforcement officials.

The emerging “network of networks” marks a new era of opportunity for law enforcement, according to U.S. officials and homeland security experts. Police are hungry for federal intelligence in an age of homegrown terrorism and more sophisticated crime. For their part, federal law enforcement officials could benefit from a potential army of tipsters — the 700,000 local and state police officers across the country, as well as private security guards and others being courted by the centers. (more…)

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — At one end of a converted trailer in the American military detention center here, a graying Pakistani businessman sat shackled before a review board of uniformed officers, pleading for his freedom.

The prisoner had seen just a brief summary of what officials said was a thick dossier of intelligence linking him to Al Qaeda. He had not seen his own legal papers since they were taken away in an unrelated investigation. He has lawyers working on his behalf in Washington, London and Pakistan, but here his only assistance came from an Army lieutenant colonel, who stumbled as he read the prisoner’s handwritten statement.

As the hearing concluded, the detainee, who cannot be identified publicly under military rules, had a question. He is a citizen of Pakistan, he noted. He was arrested on a business trip to Thailand. On what authority or charges was he even being held?

“That question,” a Marine colonel presiding over the panel answered, “is outside the limits of what this board is permitted to consider.” (more…)

Thousands more police are to be given special training and equipment to deal with a potential chemical, biological or nuclear terror attack.

A Government spokeman insisted the move was not in response to any specific threat, but “part of an ongoing process”.

The Home Office is to buy 12,000 personal protection suits for the event of a dirty bomb attack.

Around 7,000 police officers across the UK are currently trained to deal with an attack, representing about five per cent of the total number of officers.

The new, high-tech suits will be used over the next few years to replace the 7,000 currently in use, and to make available an extra 5,000 to existing police officers.

A Home Office spokesman said the move would mean an increase in the number of officers trained to deal with an attack, but would not say exactly how many. (more…)

Seven police officers have been charged with murder and attempted murder for a shooting on a New Orleans bridge six days after Hurricane Katrina that killed two people and wounded four others.

The incident on the Danziger Bridge in the eastern part of the city on September 4, 2005, has come to represent the lawlessness that descended on the city in the aftermath of the storm.

At the time New Orleans sweltered under a blistering heat, corpses littered the streets and looters ransacked shops and businesses.

New Orleans police have described the incident as a shootout with snipers, but victims and their relatives claim it was a police ambush.

“We cannot allow our police officers to shoot and kill our citizens without justification like rabid dogs,” Eddie Jordan, New Orleans District Attorney, said in a statement. (more…)

When the Military Commissions Act, which among other things suspended habeas corpus for suspected terrorists, went to the Senate floor in September, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) noted, “Surely as we are standing here, if this bill is passed and habeas corpus is stricken, we’ll be back on this floor again” after the courts reject the legislation.

We may not have to wait that long. Earlier this month, we saw the first inkling that the MCA might be revisited in 2007, but it now appears almost certain that the law will be re-examined by the new Democratic Senate.

Senate Democrats plan to revisit one of the most contentious matters of 2006: deciding what legal rights must be protected for detainees held in the war on terrorism.

In September, Congress passed a bill that gave President Bush wide latitude in interrogating and detaining captured combatants. The legislation prompted more than three months of debate — exposing Republican fissures and prompting angry rebukes by Democrats of the administration’s interrogation policies. (more…)

China has no plans to change its one-child policy, Premier Wen Jiabao said, adding family planning was critical to China’s modernization plans.

The official Xinhua News Agency on Wednesday quoted Wen as saying the “government will adhere to the basic policy of family planning with improved services and stronger leadership.”

He added that family planning was crucial to China’s modernization and the building of a “harmonious society,” a catchphrase meant to mean a more equal distribution of riches in a country with a growing wealth gap.

Wen told a conference on population and family planning that the family planning priority was China’s highly populated countryside, where maintaining a low birth rate was crucial.

He said more rewards and subsidies were needed for rural people, including social insurance to encourage birth control.

Up to 800 million of China’s 1.3 billion people live in the countryside, where children, especially boys, are considered the best way to make up for the country’s limited social safety net. (more…)

Los Gatos High School plans to join a growing number of high schools that perform random breath alcohol tests on students at dances and other events.

Principal Doug Ramezane said he would institute the new policy after winter break because several students were found to be under the influence of alcohol at football games, the school’s Coronation Ball and even during class this year.

“It isn’t OK that any of these kids are doing it,” Ramezane said. “It probably isn’t going to eliminate the problem completely, but we want to minimize alcohol and drug use.”

Although Los Gatos High has had a Breathalyzer alcohol detector available at school dances for several years, campus officials have only used it when they suspected a particular student was drunk. In the future, students will be tested at random, he said. (more…)

All secondary pupils in Scotland should be given ID cards in an effort to stamp out bullying, according to a teaching union.

The Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) says many schools already have card systems in place for school lunches and libraries.

It believes adding a picture would stop pupils missing meals because they have been bullied into handing over cards.

However, the Green Party described the proposal as “deeply troubling”. (more…)

The US is telling its overseas allies that it has stopped “extraordinary renditions” and needs their help to empty Guantánamo’s prison cells. But human rights groups dispute this assertion and a question mark hangs over 200 “war on terror” detainees who could be held indefinitely without trial.

European diplomats say Washington is reacting to pressure from parliamentary investigations, lawsuits from former prisoners, and calls by friendly governments, including the UK, to close Guantánamo, the prison camp at a US naval base in Cuba.

However, the administration’s response is seen as confused and inadequate. Analysts attribute this to internal divisions over how far to roll back controversial counter-terrorism practices - including torture, secret prisons, detention without trial, and renditions - as the price for rekindling transatlantic relations. (more…)

A draconian regime of fines, which would hit families at times of marriage and death, is being drawn up by ministers to enforce the Identity Card scheme. Millions of people, from struggling students to newly-wed women and bereaved relatives, will face a system of penalties, netting more than £40 million for the Treasury.

People would be fined up to £1,000 for failing to return a dead relative’s ID card, while women who marry will have to pay at least £30 for a new card if they want to use their married name, risking a £1,000 fine if they do not comply.

The revelations will fuel debate over ID cards in the countdown to their nationwide introduction, which the Government claims will boost security, tackle identity fraud and prevent illegal working. But costs are soaring and the technology has failed in tests. (more…)

Treating children as young as four as sexual deviants, criminals and subversives emphasizes slip towards the police state

Nothing emphasizes the decline of America into an authoritarian police state more than the treatment of children as possible enemies, deviants or criminals. A few cases, involving very young children, have caught our attention this month that indicate in the current climate any sniff of power is corrupting absolutely those who believe they have it.

The AP reported today that a five year old boy has been accused of sexually harassing a kindergarten classmate:

Washington County school officials told Charles Vallance that his son pinched a girl’s buttocks earlier this month in a hallway at Lincolnshire Elementary School. The school says that meets the state’s definition of sexual harassment.

The father of the child insists that his son knows nothing about sex and was just playing. Nevertheless the “offence” will remain on the child’s file. (more…)