Taking Out The Trash

I interverviewed Chomsky; but I think I got away with it

My first reaction on opening up the comment pages in the Guardian today was to think: "Oh good; look forward to reading that."

Then I thought: "Oh no; you're going to get creamed."

The Guardian carries an interview with noted linguist, political activist and media theorist Noam Chomsky who was giving a talk in London this week (a sell out, as always).

I think this is the first time the paper has carried an interview with Chomsky since a disasterous encounter back in 2005 which led to them having to apologise for misrepresenting his views.

Since then barely a day goes by without Medialens, the group which monitors bias in the liberal media, bringing this up as an example of how the Guardian et al are in league with the Illuminati. (Before they write in; that sentence was written in a style known as 'irony' or 'taking the piss' so don't bother factually analysing it.)

So I expected Seamus Milne's thoughtful piece to attract a blizzard of micro-anaylsis. Afterall, when George Monbiot called Blair a war criminal he got 'lensed' because he wasn't John Pilger and only Pilger gets to say that.

But, 12 hours after publication, all is quiet.

Surely Milne is merely adding another bar to our gilded cage by helping with the pretence that the Guardian carries dissenting opinion? (I note the Chomsky interview isn't puffed on the guardian's home page: censored again!)

Or maybe Chomsky's visit was a good chance to carry an interview with a man who is of interest to hundreds of thousands of people and who offers a different perspective on international affairs.

No, that is far too simplistic and rational an explanation.

What counts as easily available?

About a month ago I wrote on a government database aimed at naming and shaming those companies which refused to pay out industrial tribunal claims.

Unfortunately you had to know the name of either party involved to carry out a search and each seach costs you £8 and if you wanted bulk access (as credit reference agencies do) you would have to pay even more and there were restrictions on how the data could be used and, and, and.... basically this was a useless effort at naming and shaming.

So I put a Freedom of Information request in to the Ministry if Justice asking for a copy of the database.

Today I got a response (over the 20 working day limit but we'll let that pass).

My request was refused under section 21 which says that you don't have to give out the info if it is already easily accessible. Interestingly, Section 21 doesn't have a public interest defence.

I've asked for a review of their refusal arguing that the information isn't freely accessible.

There were, at the last count, 161 companies on the database. With a fee of £8 a search it would cost me £1,288 to discover all their details. This is more than the MoJ could reasonably be asked to spend complying with a FOI request.

The Information Commissioner has already ruled that, while charging for access does not in itself mean information is inaccessible, excessive fees do constitute a barrier. See this ruling which has gone to appeal and in particular paragraph 35 (thank you FOI News for this).

I would argue that exactly the same situation applies here where it would cost me an excessive amount to obtain the information requested and more than guidelines say the MoJ should spend complying with FOI requests.

Further, the database can only be search once you have a name of either party involved. Therefore access is only open to those with prior information and obtaining that would likely require extra cost. The average user cannot freely access this database, even if it was free, because they would have no information to input to start the search.

The database itself is so constructed to be inaccessible unless you can pay a large sum of money and have a name as a starting point. This set up and the refusal to release the information, I would suggest, frustrates a primary reason for why the database was established in the first place.

Well, we'll see how my appeal fares, but it is annoying at a very basic level that government data, collected and maintained on our behalf, isn't made more easily available. Anyhow I thought that justice must not only be done, but seen to be done.

It would take five minutes to copy that database and send me a spreadsheet and that would sort it out. Or am I being naive?

Transition book review

I'm a great fan of Iain M Banks and slightly less of a fan of Iain Banks. Either way; a new novel from the Scottish writer is enough to make me pop into a bookstore or update my Amazon wishlist.

Below is a review I have done for the magazine Tribune on Banks's new novel Transition. I think his sc-fi writing is great. The Culture series has been tremendous. I don't know what they put in the water up there but he is just one of several sci-fi writers from the region producing some excellent work at the moment. (Ken MacLeod and Charlie Stross come to mind)

Transition, though, is not of that calibre. It is more of a fantastical novel such as The Bridge but with a weakness of plot and, in particular, of character. It's not changed my opinion of Iain Banks. Still, if you've an interest in some of the ideas behind Transition then this might be a start.

The M in Iain Banks is pretty crucial.

Iain M Banks is the author who has carved a series of well-regarded sci-fi novels mostly set in the vaguely libertarian-socialist future society called the Culture. Banks-without-an-M writes fiction which actually gets made into TV programmes (The Crow Road) and attains cult status (The Wasp Factory).

Admittedly, my list of completed Banks novels is far better on the sci-fi side. However I’ve always felt that while quality there was solid, some of the ‘straight’ fiction came across as a little light. Dead Air and The Business both had their moments but primarily appeared to be a contractual obligation on behalf of the author.

Now we have a Banks book with an M and with what could reasonably called a sci-fi plot.

Transition is set on Earth. In fact it is set on every possible Earth. The conceit is the many worlds theory which suggests every time there is a fork in the road and you take one path rather than other, two divergent timelines are created. There are an infinite set of worlds where some might only differ in the motion of a single electron and others where life never managed to coalesce.

The characters in Transition are, mostly, those who can ‘flit’ between these different worlds through force of will and a helpful narcotic.

Those who flit form the Concern, a sort of uber conspiracy which goes about interfering in the destinies of these other worlds to make sure that the good guys succeed and the bad guys do not. The problem is that one person suspects the Concern has a much more selfish and deadly agenda.

Banks structures his book with a series of first person pieces from the half dozen or so principal characters. The fractured effect neatly mimics the sense of a universe reflected in a shattered mirror.

These solipsistic narratives also help show how difficult it is to understand the grand plan behind the Concern’s individual interventions.

The problem is that Banks hasn’t gone to an awful lot of trouble to make the majority of characters particularly appealing or memorable.

Several, Aidan, the drug-dealer-made-good in particular, are very two-dimensional. He spouts lines an EastEnders’ scriptwriter would balk at.

The plot kicks off briskly and then rapidly flattens out as Banks moves his characters around like so many chess pieces. It’s all rather flaccid, despite the ever increasing number of sex scenes. Then, in the last 60 pages, the pace really picks up and there is a terrific showdown.

I fear, though, that many readers will start Transition but not make it through to that finale - and I’m not sure the book deserves their dedication anyway.

ENDS

Saturday at the movies: Manufacturing Consent

All this debate about Newspeak in the 21st Century (see comments in post a bit below) and because I've been reading up recently on Bernays and Lippmann and watching a bit of Adam Curtis for my MA I thought I'd post a little morsel of Chomsk to (en)lighten your weekend.

Update

• The application by Scottish and Southern Electric for an injunction to stop picketing outside the Fiddlers Ferry power plant on Merseyside was thrown out of the High Court yesterday (wed). See the BBC and Building magazine (and a clip from BBC North West below).
• Out of 1,872 people who have rung the Information Commissioner's Office to see if a blacklisting file is held on them; 238 have had copies of their files sent to them. There were more than 3,200 names on the blacklist database in total.
• My review of Newspeak In The 21st Century is drawing some comment from Medialens: have a look for yourself.

Call for scrutiny of blacklisting legislation

A couple of weeks back I covered a meeting of the Blacklist Support Group where John McDonnell MP said that there would  only be a limited opportunity to inspect proposed legislation aimed at making blacklisting illegal.

Below is a release from Ucatt which explains why it is necessary for there to be scrutiny and why Lord Mandelson should not simply sign the rules into law.

I've filed a longer piece on this (and on many other aspects of the story) for The Guardian. We now await publication of the new rules.

In other news: one of the blacklisted electricians is due before the High Court tomorrow (Wednesday) having been served with an injunction to stop him picketing the Fiddlers Ferry power station on Merseyside. Scottish and South Electric claim he is a threat to the National Grid. Which seems a tad excessive.

A group of Labour MPs have agreed to work with construction union UCATT to pressurise the Government to strengthen the draft regulations designed to outlaw blacklisting.

 

The MPs agreed to take this action at the parliamentary launch today (October 20) of Ruined Lives, an academic report which reveals that the Government’s proposed anti-blacklisting regulations are inadequate. Ruined Lives was commissioned by UCATT and produced by the Institute of Employment Rights.

 

Professor Keith Ewing the author of Ruined Lives said the Government’s draft regulations were “hopeless and inadequate”. He described how the regulations do not provide a right not to be blacklisted, if a worker is blacklisted there is no automatic right to compensation and that it would not be illegal to supply information to a blacklist. The Government does not propose to make blacklisting a criminal offence so the burden of proof remains on the affected worker.

 

Mr Ewing also described how the draft regulations were too narrowly defined as they only referred to trade union activity, which could mean that the blacklisting of political activists would remain legal. The draft regulations also do not cover industrial action.

 

Alan Ritchie, General Secretary of UCATT, described how union health and safety reps were especially targeted by companies, as they were often swiftly laid off after assuming their duties and then were unable to find work with other companies.

 

Speaking about the need for the draft regulations to be strengthened Mr Ritchie, said: “The regulations don’t just have to be watertight they have to be airtight so the employers can’t wriggle out of them.”

 

John Winstanley a UCATT activist who was blacklisted throughout his working life told the meeting how between 1964-1987 he had 54 different employers, due to being blacklisted. Resulting in often having to claim benefits a situation which placed a huge “strain on his relationship”.

 

Despite having been in the construction industry for 50 years Mr Winstanley said that he felt he could not provide a reference for any of his family because of the, “fear that as I was blacklisted it would affect the work of my relations.”

 

The Government is due to publish the anti-blacklisting regulations before Christmas, following a consultation exercise that ended in August. The MPs have agreed to ask parliamentary questions, lobby the Department of Business and use parliamentary scrutiny methods in order to ensure that the regulations are strengthened.

Spies in the sky

It's been busy at Trash towers what with the start of term and the addiction that is Twitter; so apologies for the lightness of blogging.

Below is a piece I've just had published by The Big Issue in the North on the police use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Since this came out, Staffordshire have overturned their inital refusal to tell me how much tye spent on buying a UAV. It was £19.500.

Two police forces in the north are leading the way in what is expected to be an increase in the use of spy drones to combat crime and terrorism.

Merseyside and Staffordshire have both deployed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on operations. More forces are expected to follow their lead as the security industry learns lessons gained from their use in Afghanistan and Iraq.

However concerns have been raised about both the civil liberty implications and the safety of the craft. And the police themselves seem reluctant to disclose exactly what it is they are using.

The Big Issue in the North submitted Freedom of Information requests to all police forces asking for details on any UAVs they had trailed or bought. Initially Merseyside and Staffordshire said that it was necessary to secret details on their spy drones otherwise it would aid criminals and costs were a commercially confidential.

Following an appeal by the Big Issue, Merseyside relented and disclosed that it had spent £55,523 on hiring and buying a UAV since August 2007. Its drone, purchased from AirRobot, has been deployed 16 times this year.

The AirRobot is about the size of a dustbin lid and weighs 1.7kg. It is equipped with cameras and recording equipment and is controlled by a ground operator using a laptop and joystick. It can be ready to fly in minutes. The force has three uniformed police constables trained to operate the system and a further seven are undergoing training.

Staffordshire is still withholding its information but is considering and appeal. It would only say that its UAV, bought for an undisclosed sum following a trail at the 2007 V Festival, has: “only been used for missing person searches, exercises, to assist in event planning and for post incident photography”.

Staffordshire Police Authority member Christina Jebb told the media last year: “It’s really good news that we are investing in even better equipment to cut crime levels in the county.”

The drone can also be loaned out to other members of Staffordshire’s resilience network, set up to tackle any civil emergencies.

Andy Marshall, Director of Civil Contingencies, said: “The drone belongs to the police but will be available for joint operations. “It can be used in many situations, for example, allowing us to quickly get real time video footage of a flooded area.”

There has been plenty of speculation that more police forces will start using the spy planes, especially following the technical lessons learned through their deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The most well-known UAV used out there is the Predator which can fire missiles, carry out surveillance and has been used on a number of occasions for targeted assassinations. There have also been a number of crashes as the tough terrain has affected avionics. In one case a US plane had to shoot down a Predator which had gone out of control.

Although the UAVs record abroad is mixed their increased use by the police in the UK is seen by the Home Office as inevitable. The 2012 Olympics is expected to be a showcase their potential.

The Home Office’s current science and innovation strategy says: “…(UAVs) are likely to become an increasingly useful tool for police in the future, potentially reducing the number of dangerous situations the police may have to enter and also providing evidence for prosecution and support police operations in real time.”

One idea that has been suggested by a Home Office advisor is a central fleet of UAVs that could be deployed as forces require them.

Despite this enthusiasm, the take-up by police forces has been low. Apart from Merseyside and Staffordshire, Essex Police is the only other force believed to have purchased a drone. It bought one last summer but it has yet to be deployed.

In 2007 Strathclyde Police undertook a year-long trial of a UAV in the remote and mountainous Argyll area for search and rescue purposes. The craft couldn’t take the wild conditions and it was sent back to its manufacturer. No Scottish or Welsh forces have UAVs.

Avon and Somerset Police spent £350 on a short trial last year but have not taken it any further.

Kent police have been in discussion with arms firm BAe and the UK Border Agency on using drones to monitor the coastline to combat drug and immigration offences.

The British Transport Police in Northumbria have used a Microdrone to help combat thieves stealing metal from the railways and the Ministry of Defence police is considering whether to buy one.

One of the hold-ups is that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has strict rules on airspace use. It says: “A significant increase in both civil and military UAV flying is anticipated, much of which will require routine access to all classes of airspace if it is to be commercially viable and/or operationally effective.”

According to a report released this week from the pressure groups Statewatch and the Transnational Institute: “The air traffic control community is particularly suspicious and demands that UAVs adhere to equivalent safety standards as their manned counterparts, which some argue render UAV systems too expensive to implement.”

However it is their spying ability which has alarmed some.

Small and manoeuvrable, UAVs can perch silently and record still, moving and thermal images. They can fly in to buildings if necessary. Specialist software has been developed that allows them to scan large areas quickly for particular vehicles or record number plates or faces and compare them against databases.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: “It’s a grave step in any democracy to use military surveillance methods against your own peacetime population. Where I the lawful authority for this policy? When was the parliamentary debate?”

Weapon of choice

The UAV of choice for police forces appears to be the AR100B from AirRobot - a German company which has its UK offices on a former RAF base in Wiltshire.

The makers of the drone say: “The AR100B can fly silently through the air or hover while transmitting live images to the operator at the ground station.

The silent operation and size of the platform allows aerial surveillance to be carried out in built up residential urban areas as well as rural locations without causing any disturbances.

"The unit can also ‘perch and stare’ from a solid platform allowing the operator to capture hours of footage from an out of view vantage point.

"The AR100B is the perfect device for any covert or overt aerial surveillance mission.”

One AirRobot system was used to provide aerial surveillance at the London Olympics 2012 handover ceremony last year. It was deployed near The Mall and Buckingham Palace to provide real time images to emergency services at the event. However it did not fly directly over people for safety reasons.

During its five hour deployment it captured still images and high quality video which was streamed to a command team.

Other forces which have tested an AirRobot include Derbyshire which used one to monitor a BNP gathering this August. It is believed to be considering jointly buying one with neighbouring Nottinghamshire Police.

Wiltshire hired one to monitor this year’s summer solstice at Stonhenge. It cost them £1,500 and shot ten minutes of video footage and “a number of low definition digital pictures”. An AirRobot also took part in a massive exercise involving more than 700 emergency services and military personnel in Wiltshire last year.

The operation was conducted at the UK Centre for Homeland Security in Wiltshire; where Airrobot is based. The exercise simulated a mid air collision between a Harrier Jump Jet and VC10.

The UAV was able to provide aerial surveillance of the site and found bombs, dangerous cargo, aircraft wreckage and casualties. It also deployed a thermal imaging camera to help detect any possible heat sources from buried victims.

Through a lens darkly

Below is a review for Tribune of a new book Newspeak in the 21st Century from the people at media watchdog Media Lens.

********

Newspeak is from the men behind media watchdog Media Lens.

The book’s focus is primarily on the liberal arm of mainstream media, The Guardian, Independent, Channel 4 News and the BBC, and how they more often serve vested interests than attack them.

Media Lens specialises in careful content analysis to tease apart the assumptions and prejudices behind news stories. It then asks supporters to email journalists direct and ask them why they wrote what they did.

Sometimes they are ignored; more often than you might think reporters email back engaging with the debate. Former Observer editor Roger Alton just swears a lot.

Looking at the motivations behind The Guardian is far more useful as it is seen as one of the few friends the Left has in the mainstream media.

So there are excellent chapters on how The Lancet’s report on deaths in Iraq was handled, the reporting on climate change and coverage of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

But then you come across sentences such as this: “Though they scoff at the notion, journalists really do have the blood of millions of innocent people on their hands” and it left me shaking my head in frustration at the simplicity and sanctimonious which bedevils this book.

Let’s start with the basic notion that the liberal mainstream media aren’t necessarily on the side of progressive individuals and organisations.

This is not news. Anyone involved in trade union activities could have told you the same.

It doesn’t mean that the work of Media Lens isn’t important, but throughout this book readers are assumed to be cruelly blinded by capitalist propaganda, unable to think for themselves.

Cromwell and Edwards write: “mainstream journalism is held in comparatively high esteem” except polls show hacks rate only slightly higher than estate agents and politicians in terms of public trust. I would suggest, that vote of no confidence from the public is precisely because people are tired of the media’s tricks and distortions.

Then there is the use of evidence.

Cromwell and Edwards’ thesis is that the all the mainstream media present news in packages designed to reflect the dominant culture. Competing ideas, organisations or individuals are ignored or ridiculed.

However, time and again the authors use as evidence, and without questioning, material published in one outlet to attack another. Reporters are castigated one minute for publishing lies then another story is taken as the truth.

It feels like they pick and choose when they wish to believe something in order to bolster their argument.

For instance there is a huge section on a news story about a leaked Downing Street memo showing Blair was preparing for war with Iraq and WMDs were just a ploy. They clinically take apart the misreporting of this leak in liberal media. And the outlet which had the scoop? The Sunday Times. But I thought that was part of the propaganda machine?

The authors demand newspapers break out of the capitalist model which shackles their reporting but when challenged on how this might be achieved have no answer.

Mostly though, Newspeak feels very out of date. Issues such as The Lancet report are hardly new. There is a large section on how The Guardian shafted Noam Chomsky (the patron saint of Media Lens) in an interview. That was published in 2005. Presumably the chapter on the Zinoviev letter was cut for reasons of space.

As for the biggest story of the last 12 months – the spectacular collapse of casino capitalism – there is not a word.

The focus is on print and TV, yet people get their media in many different formats and from many different sources. Edwards and Cromwell talk about the internet offering the prospect of an alternative to the mainstream media. Prospect? It’s here already.

There is a bit on the social background of Fleet Street reporters but this promising angle is never developed. Instead we get a last chapter on what Buddhists can teach reporters (I’d prefer them to learn shorthand).

Media Lens and this book offer sharp lessons on how the liberal media operate. Their probing of journalists and editors means that a spotlight has been trained and evasions and misrepresentations will not go unchallenged.

I think some of my criticism stems from a fatal flaw that many journalists have of closing ranks when under attack.

I acknowledge the hubris but it still means that, too often, I found their approach lacked nuance. Their carefully constructed world-view is impervious to any counter criticism.

Newspeak feels like an opportunity missed.

Naming and shaming

Back on April 1, Justice Minister Bridget Prentice announced a new register to name and shame employers who don’t pay tribunal awards.
Prentice said: "A few unscrupulous individuals are defying or delaying payment after tribunal rulings and we will not hesitate to name and shame them.
“Delays like this prolong the ordeal and force successful claimants to continue with court action to recover their money. This is particular unacceptable following an employment tribunal."
The new register certainly had the support of the TUC. General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “This register will help put bad employers in the spotlight by naming and shaming those who fail to pay up when they lose employment tribunals.
“But action against bad employers shouldn't stop here, and the Government must put systems in place to ensure that everyone who wins an employment tribunal award actually receives it.
“Too many people are still hit by the double whammy of employers acting illegally and then refusing to pay when they are caught.”
But is the register actually performing its much-trumpeted task of naming and shaming?
When I asked for a list of the companies on the defaulters register the Ministry of Justice said: “The Register actually doesn't work that way.
“You have to have the names first before you can do a search, or you will not get a result. You can't actually do a personal search on the type of award and get a list of people or organisations back.”
The Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines lists items such as county court judgments, as well as tribunal awards. Tribunals cover not just employment hearings but also so-called First-Tier tribunals such as the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.
The register is maintained by the Registry Trust Ltd (RTL), a not-for-profit company contracted by the Ministry of Justice.
The Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Of course you can apply to RTL to purchase the full information on a commercial basis from the Register (as the credit reference agencies do) but there are contractual restrictions on who can purchase the data and how it can be used.
“Given that the register is designed as a proportionate deterrent, there would be data protection issues we would need to clarify with the Information Commissioner (and we will do on the back of this query) to establish where the register stands with regards to details being provided to the media.”
You can of course, do individual searches, provided you know the company’s name, at £8 a go. But that is an unwieldy deterrence.
The Ministry of Justice was able to say that there are 161 companies were on the register who had not honoured tribunal awards and 150 were employment tribunal award defaulters.
The average amount defaulted on was £6,101.85 with the lowest being £50 and the highest £50,340
I've put in a Freedom of Information request for a copy of this public database which may reveal which firm has declined to pay £50,000 awarded against it.

A little lobbying goes a long way

Spent Tuesday morning outside county hall in Trowbridge lobbying Wiltshire Council to vote down a motion that would have withdrawn it from the Nottingham Declaration on climate change.

It was only the new authority's second full council meeting and nine councillors (a mixture of Conservative and Independents) had submitted a motion which essentially said that climate chaneg is a myth and signing the declaration was a waste of time. A copy of this and the officer's view on it can be found here.

The councillors who put their name to this were: Mr Doyle, Mr Mark Griffiths, Mr Hawker, Mr Knight, Mr Newbury, Mr Payne, Mrs Ridout and Mr Seed. It was proposed by Cllr Rod Eaton.

I addressed the council along with Gary Mantle from Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, Mark Fletcher from North Wiltshire Green Party and Stephen Eades from Friends of the Earth.

Ten councillors then spoke and it was interesting to see the varying quality of the contributions. Most impressive, I thought, was a councillor representing the Devizes Guardians who was fluent, unemotional and, crucially, brief. Others were barely coherent, too clever or tried to hit too many targets.

While a couple of councillors tried to swap scientific quotes, facts and figures the nature of the meeting meant anything too 'heavy' just got lost. Cllr Eaton just repeated huge swathes from climate denying  books by Nigel Lawson and Ian Plimer which wasn't very effective. For those who've had to deal with sceptics before it was all too familiar.

It was instructive that the only figures quoted by cabinet member responsible for the environment were polling figures to show people in Wiltshire want action on climate change.

As it was the motion went down in flames 86-6 with 2 abstensions. So two of the original signatories backed off. Not only that but the council agreed to sign up the 10:10 pledge as well. We ended up in a better position than when we started.

There is a press release from the council here about this and a report from the Wiltshire Times here.

I understand that privately the ruling Conservative group were seething at what they saw as an unecessary distraction. There was no chance this motion was going to get through but it made the council look defensive and the actions of a few painted the authority as a whole as being reactionary. To be fair, council leader Jane Scott made an good speech in which she backed the declaration and put tackling climate change as a priority for the authority.

More importantly it has given a massive boost to environmental groups in Wiltshire. On the morning people travelled from Colerne (well, that was me), Bradford on Avon, Melsksham, Calne and Salisbury to join the lobby. A Facebook page got 120 friends, a petition was signed by more than 200 people. Cllr Scott said her email inbox had never been so busy. Various pressure groups joined in as well as the green energy firm Good Energy. All this arranged in less than four days and covering a weekend. New contacts and new networks were formed.

I don't think the environmental movement in Wiltshire has quite flxed its muscles in this co-ordinated way for some time and it will be interesting to see how it wishes to flex them again.