Spying and Conscience.

The National Security Agency (Photo credit: @mjb)

English: Cattle by GCHQ radio station This site was a World War 2 airfield, RAF Cleave. It is now GCHQ Composite Signals Organisation Station Morwenstow (being renamed GCHQ Bude). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Lord Harold Wilson portrait (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Edward Snowden follows in a long line of people employed in the spying game who, have had to consider whether or not they have a conscientious objection to what they are being asked to do. Not too long ago a young lady at GCHQ was threatened with prosecution, subsequently and rightly withdrawn, when she was troubled about  GCHQ's spying activities on The United Nations. In my own case, whilst working there, following a promotion I was transferred into the middle east section, and as you can  read here, immediately asked to be moved when, by chance, I discovered that the results of my analytical work were being passed to the Israelis. At the time I was young, but was well aware of what was going on in the middle east, and not only did I not take sides, but was also concerned about the appalling human rights records and the terrorist activities of the Israelis.
 To this day I am concerned about the issue and believe that GCHQ had a moral right to inform me of this, before I took up my duties in my new post. Eventually I was to leave over the ban on Trades Unions becoming an appellant against the ban as described here.
Whilst working at Bude I was also heavily involved in a rather curious incident. Harold Wilson had cleverly negotiated a deal over the site which would give the NSA the access that they desperately needed to civil and governmental communications going, by satellite, to and from the middle east. In the deal they were to pay for all of the equipment but the site was to be manned entirely by British personnel. The whole operation was run by American computers and software, coded at NSA.
The intelligence tasking was carried out by a joint Anglo/American team based in Cheltenham and when they hit problems I was the first point of reference, as The Computer Operations Officer at the site. One day whilst trawling through some code I came across something that I can only describe as a software switch. As previously stated all of the tasking came through Cheltenham but, hey ho, there was a program, which if enabled, would hand all of that tasking, and essentially control of the site to the NSA. But, Washington, you had a problem. The code had been installed many years before, probably when GCHQ Bude started its operations, but it clearly had never been tested as I discovered that it wouldn't work because of coding errors in the software.
 What to do? Had this been agreed between GCHQ and the NSA? I think not as I believe, particularly because of the importance of GCHQ Bude to the NSA (see the above link), it had been put there as a contingency measure should the British operations have problems. So, being the conscientious kind of guy I was I trotted off to my boss, a nice man for whom I had enormous respect, and notified him of what I had discovered. He immediately arranged for me to see the Officer In Charge who clearly, because of the political sensitivities, didn't want to know but suggested that I should go up to the Combined Opeations Centre at Cheltenham and discuss the matter. As I met with the British head of the section and the NSA officer serving alongside him in Cheltenham I was aware of some embarrassment, on their part, and it was suggested that I take it up with the head of the software team in the NSA the next time that I visited Washington. This I duly and dutifully did and a few days later the error in the software was fixed.
 Now, to go back to the start of this diatribe, was there ever an issue of conscience for me over this matter? I like to think that I had a pretty firm grasp of what was going on at Cheltenham and Bude at this time and I am as certain as one can ever be in these affairs, that at that time GCHQ and the NSA were not up to any of the dirty tricks against their own citizens and allies that they appear to have been doing in recent years. If they had been then, like Snowden, I would have been out, as I was eventually forced to do over a rather different issue of human rights. I guess when it comes down to it everyone has a duty to their conscience and anyone who uses the defence that they were just following orders should learn the lessons of the Nuremburg Trials. In the end it is only the rebel and the conscientious objector or whistle blower that we rely on to protect us all from the jack boot of government.

The Rape of Our Land - The Big Hewer from The Radio Ballads, and Lost Cornwall.

IMG_5999 (Photo credit: foto_mania)

The Radio Ballads are widely regarded as one of the great triumphs of radio, made by Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger, they recount through song and word the history of some of the working class peoples of these islands. A few months ago I posted the first episode, of a series of four adapted for film, on mining and include the next three episodes here. On later posts I hope to include some of the others about fishing, travellers, the fight game and other topics.

 The Big Hewer - Part 2 of 4.

The Big Hewer - Part 3 of 4.

 The Big Hewer - Part 4 of 4.

 I live in a part of Cornwall close to what was once the biggest copper mine in the world at Devon Great Consols and like most of the mines around here the capitalists moved out leaving their spoil heaps to contaminate the area and their mines shafts to collapse and ruin homes and roads. Once they have ripped their money out of the rock, it is no use to them and they move on leaving a trail of destruction and unemployment. Down here many of the miners emigrated to Australia (in particulr Tasmania),  South Africa, Canada and other parts of North and South America to find work. Those miners in far off parts of the world were often refered to locally as Cousin Jacks and this song records some of the bitterness that still exists over the rape of my county.

Where do YOUR loyalties lie?

Peoples of Britain circa 600 (Photo credit: Wikipedia). Brummies might wish to note that they are "Hwicce".

 I was once summoned to the offices of the Officer In Charge (OIC) at GCHG Bude and the cheeky bleeder asked where my loyalties lay. I replied, "Firstly to my family, secondly to my conscience and thirdly to humanity and mankind". I suspect that this was not the answer that he was looking for as he clearly expected me to spew out that my loyalties were to Queen and country. Firstly, as a republican, I regard the Saxe Coburg mafia as a drain on me as a taxpayer who belong, not here, but firmly in their German roots where their loyalties lie (Edward The Lecher, who verbally abused my late mother, was a Nazi supporter) and also to that other incestuous mob of royals scattered around Europe. They were imported here in the nineteenth century and have nothing to do with the historical Anglo Saxon roots of this land.
 As for country: then I am a citizen of this beautiful, but imperilled, world of ours. A world which is being ripped apart by those who use nationalism as a cloak and protective foil to legalise their worldwide dealings in furtherance of their greedy destructive activities. Fortunately they have been rumbled and increasingly there is world wide protest against their operations. They are behind nationalism and religion, the two forces that have combined to bring war and destruction to our planet. In fact Karl (good name that) Liebknecht put it far better than this when he said that:-

"In my eyes a patriot is little more than an international blackleg."

The greatest event in the history of this century. Rejoice!

 And almost certainly the greatest moment in history since the ending of the Second World war. But, sadly, there will be few films or books about this occasion and our newscasters from Paxman through to many uninformed and indoctrinated journalists looked positively glum in announcing this event. No spectacular firework scenes to display as bombs shredded human beings into slices of bacon and destroyed homes and families. No embedding with the heroic forces of the west as they, and their terrorist allies, take their revenge and mutilate the country's leaders. Just as there is little reporting of the armed gangs who kill and torture the people of those other countries that we liberated in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. Well this blog congratulates Edward Milliband and the Labour Party and those few brave souls from the Conservatives and The Liberal Democrats who defied their parties and voted, as MP's should do, with their consciences.
 So never mind the media, let us have a peoples celebration of this momentous occasion in the history of the world. Those of us who protested and marched, AND did not sell out, in the 1950's and 60's have finally won. Rejoice indeed.

THE working class - lesson for today.

“The consciousness of a worker is not a curve that rises and falls with wages and prices; it is the accumulation of a lifetime of experience and socialization, inherited traditions, struggles successful and defeated . . . It is this weighty baggage that goes into the making of a worker’s consciousness and provides the basis for his behavior when conditions ripen . . . and the moment comes.”

– E. P. Thompson

Annies of Liskeard, Cornwall, Europe, The World, The Galaxy, The Universe.

 Now, I have written about Parallel Worlds on this blog before but, I think, that I can guarantee that two of these do not exist. In the mission statement of this blog I stated that, from time to time, I would promote special places of interest, including businesses, pubs, and eateries that for some extraordinary reason the world has not yet properly noticed. This place has to be top of my list because it is quirky and run by a couple of crazy eccentrics who live, in a car parked outside the shop. Everything is for sale including Chris but his associate Annette is very definitely not. Financially, she may be down but not yet out but she is a fighter and deserves to be one of life's winners. Anyway enough of my words so let the pictures do the talking. Firstly what you see at first fright:-

Secondly, Annette inspecting her window display:-

And a gaze at some of the contents of this magical, mysterious place:-

Allo, Allo, Allo, not only are the spiders a protected species in here but the roof's been a leaking!

Whatever happened to the Tetley tea men?

Ahhhhhh or was that Bisto?

Sore point!

Junk?

That bird has been there for ten years, in that dress to my certain knowledge.

                                                                                               Pastie or pastiche?

Implements of torture or sexual deviation?

Scary?

 I haven't a clue what they want for any of this stuff but Cris or Annette can be contacted, in deepest and darkest Kernew, in the pixies coven, on 01579 342762 (landline) or 07977821833 (mobile). If ringing from abroad I think the prefix for the UK is 44 and then you drop of the zero from the front of the number.

Beat the Spooks - Join the Gang

Prism (Photo credit: Arenamontanus)

I am grateful to this blogger for the following early posts on beating the spooks. Follow the link for more up to date info on HOW TO BEAT THE SPOOKS.

Prism: there are alternatives

6

Since the Prism surveillance scandal broke in the Guardian and revealed the extent of government access to internet users data, many including myself have been looking for alternatives. The Prism Break website has listed a huge number of these, which is great but a number of these aren’t particularly user friendly so I’m using this blog to highlight my picks all of which are available free.

BrowserPrior to the revelations I had been a committed (Google) Chrome user, it offered faster feeling experience than IE and had the then innovative omnibar which allowed Google searches to be undertaken without visiting the search engines home page. The best alternative to this is Mozilla Firefox; it’s free, open source and customisable and available for Windows, OS X, Linux and Android.

The Omnibar add-on gives you the ability to search straight from the browser address box, as per Chrome. DoNotTrackMe and Adblock Plusare also must adds, which block both annoying ads and hidden java script, which track your movements across the internet.

Mobile Web BrowserAgain wanting to ditch Chrome from my iPhone, I tried Opera andDolphin; both of which are available for iOS and Android. While Opera offered data compression features it seemed to freeze when data coverage was poor. Dolphin on the other hand seems slick and is easily customisable to force searches through the privacy conscious DuckDuckGo (see below).

Search
If you want to get away from the dominant Google, Bing and Yahoo, worth trying are the European StartPage or the US based DuckDuckGo, both of which promise no logging or tracking of searches. Both offer good web search but lack the niche video, news and blog searches of the established players. StartPage, however, does have a reasonable image search.

Cloud StorageThe best alternative to Google Drive, and (Microsoft) Skydrive I’ve found is the 256 bit AES encrypted Spider Oak. The service is hosted in the US but the level of encryption means even their staff don’t have unencrypted access to your data, the downside to this is if you lose/forget your password there’s no way of recovering your back-up. They offer 2gb for free to anyone, or those clicking through this linkshould get a 1gb referral bonus (3gb).

Mapping
Open Source Routing Machine finds the fastest car route in seconds, the only quirk for UK users is that postcodes need to be separated correctly unlike Google Maps. A slight downside is that it doesn’t offer walking or cycling directions.

Mobile Messaging
The Wickr app for iOS offers free encrypted messaging that self erase within a predefined time, which can be set up to 5 days. It’s unbelievably easy to use and Mashable reports it has been approved by IT security consultant Dan Kaminsky but the developers reluctance to release the source code has left some doubtful of its claims. My take on it is, can it be any worse than iMessage which is archived and probably accessible by the NSA. An Android version is promised in future.

It would be foolish to believe you could ever fully escape a security services or police investigation, but this software should stop or limit the wholesale archiving of our digital lives, help us regain our privacy, and send a message to the established players that their are consequences of breaching our trust.

Please feel free to comment below and follow on twitter:@madeupnamethree

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Tagged apple, chrome, dolphin, facebook, firefox, google, guardian, microsoft,pal talk, prism, skype, startpage, wickr, yahoo

Jun21

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