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Here we go again…

by Daniel Brandt
December 27, 2005

**This article is interesting for what it has to say about Google.

Read it

BBC

A man has been arrested following trouble in the White City area of north Belfast, the Police Service of Northern Ireland has said.

Five houses on Gunnell Hill and Whitewell Road had their windows broken and a car was damaged during stone throwing.

Police said the disturbances were reported just before 2300 GMT on Monday and that officers investigated.

The man who was arrested was aged in his 20s.

Belfast Telegraph

By Michael Drake
27 December 2005

Skylark - photo from >>here

North of Ireland farmers can play a major role in restoring declining bird populations throughout the countryside, Department of Agriculture experts have said.

“Our agri-development schemes have a very important role to play in helping farmers increase the numbers of birds on their farms,” said Clare Dore, DARD Countryside Management branch.

“While birds like robins are doing well others are not as common as they used to be.

“Skylark, yellowhammer and corncrake have all suffered such serious declines in numbers they have now been placed on the ‘red list’ of bird species which are of high conservation concern.

“If farmers participate in either the Countryside Management Scheme or the Environmentally Sensitive Areas Scheme it can make a difference to birds.

“Under these schemes farmers can provide nesting habitat, insect food and food for seed-eating birds. Insect food will be plentiful in unimproved and species-rich grasslands and upland habitats.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Steve Connor
26 December 2005

Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.

By next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate “reads” per day. These will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites.

Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank.

Senior police officers have described the surveillance network as possibly the biggest advance in the technology of crime detection and prevention since the introduction of DNA fingerprinting.

But others concerned about civil liberties will be worried that the movements of millions of law-abiding people will soon be routinely recorded and kept on a central computer database for years.

The new national data centre of vehicle movements will form the basis of a sophisticated surveillance tool that lies at the heart of an operation designed to drive criminals off the road.

In the process, the data centre will provide unrivalled opportunities to gather intelligence data on the movements and associations of organised gangs and terrorist suspects whenever they use cars, vans or motorcycles.

The scheme is being orchestrated by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) and has the full backing of ministers who have sanctioned the spending of £24m this year on equipment.

More than 50 local authorities have signed agreements to allow the police to convert thousands of existing traffic cameras so they can read number plates automatically. The data will then be transmitted to Hendon via a secure police communications network.

Chief constables are also on the verge of brokering agreements with the Highways Agency, supermarkets and petrol station owners to incorporate their own CCTV cameras into the network. In addition to cross-checking each number plate against stolen and suspect vehicles held on the Police National Computer, the national data centre will also check whether each vehicle is lawfully licensed, insured and has a valid MoT test certificate.

“Every time you make a car journey already, you’ll be on CCTV somewhere. The difference is that, in future, the car’s index plates will be read as well,” said Frank Whiteley, Chief Constable of Hertfordshire and chairman of the Acpo steering committee on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR).

“What the data centre should be able to tell you is where a vehicle was in the past and where it is now, whether it was or wasn’t at a particular location, and the routes taken to and from those crime scenes. Particularly important are associated vehicles,” Mr Whiteley said.

The term “associated vehicles” means analysing convoys of cars, vans or trucks to see who is driving alongside a vehicle that is already known to be of interest to the police. Criminals, for instance, will drive somewhere in a lawful vehicle, steal a car and then drive back in convoy to commit further crimes “You’re not necessarily interested in the stolen vehicle. You’re interested in what’s moving with the stolen vehicle,” Mr Whiteley explained.

According to a strategy document drawn up by Acpo, the national data centre in Hendon will be at the heart of a surveillance operation that should deny criminals the use of the roads.

“The intention is to create a comprehensive ANPR camera and reader infrastructure across the country to stop displacement of crime from area to area and to allow a comprehensive picture of vehicle movements to be captured,” the Acpo strategy says.

“This development forms the basis of a 24/7 vehicle movement database that will revolutionise arrest, intelligence and crime investigation opportunities on a national basis,” it says.

Mr Whiteley said MI5 will also use the database. “Clearly there are values for this in counter-terrorism,” he said.

“The security services will use it for purposes that I frankly don’t have access to. It’s part of public protection. If the security services did not have access to this, we’d be negligent.”

Why this revolution is only the start

The new national surveillance network for tracking car journeys, which has taken more than 25 years to develop, is only the beginning of plans to monitor the movements of all British citizens. The Home Office Scientific Development Branch in Hertfordshire is already working on ways of automatically recognising human faces by computer, which many people would see as truly introducing the prospect of Orwellian street surveillance, where our every move is recorded and stored by machines.

Although the problems of facial recognition by computer are far more formidable than for car number plates, experts believe it is only a matter of time before machines can reliably pull a face out of a crowd of moving people.

If the police and security services can show that a national surveillance operation based on recording car movements can protect the public against criminals and terrorists, there will be a strong political will to do the same with street cameras designed to monitor the flow of human traffic.

A major feature of the national surveillance centre for car numbers is the ability to trawl through records of previous sightings to build up an intelligence picture of a vehicle’s precise whereabouts on the road network.

However, the Home Office and police believe that the Big Brother nature of the operation can be justified on the basis of the technology’s proven ability to catch criminals. “In simple terms criminals use vehicles. If you want to commit a crime, you’re going to use a vehicle,” said Frank Whiteley, the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire, who leads the project. ” There is nothing secretive about it and we don’t want it to be secret, because we want people to feel safer, to see that they are protected.”

A 13-month pilot scheme between 2003 and 2004 found the performance of the police improved dramatically when they had access automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras. Project Laser 2 involved 23 police forces using specially fitted vans with ANPR cameras linked to a police database. It led to a fivefold increase in the arrest rate for frontline officers.

But these mobile units will constitute only a tiny proportion of the many thousands of ANPR cameras that by next year will be feeding more than 35 million number plate “reads” every day into the new national data centre at Hendon, north London, the same site as the Police National Computer.

Mr Whiteley, chairman of the ANPR steering committee, said the intention eventually was to move from the “low thousands” of cameras to the ” high thousands”.

One camera can cover many motorway lanes. Just two ANPR devices, for instance, cover north and south movements through the 27 lanes of the Dartford crossing toll area on the Thames.

By March next year, most motorways, main roads, town centres and petrol station forecourts will be also covered. Some cameras may be disguised for covert operations but the majority will be ordinary CCTV traffic cameras converted to read number plates. “What we’re trying to do as far as we can is to stitch together the existing camera network rather than install a huge number of new cameras,” Mr Whiteley said.

More than 50 local authorities have already signed up to allow the police access to data gathered from their CCTV traffic cameras. Northampton, Bradford, Stoke and the City of London have had ANPR cameras in use for some time. Many smaller towns, such as St Albans, Stevenage and Watford are in the process of being wired up.

“We also talking to the commercial sector about their sites, particular garage forecourts. One of the biggest truisms about vehicles is that they have got to fill up with petrol,” he explained.

Supermarkets are soon to agree a deal that will lead to all cars entering their garage forecourts having details of their number plates sent to Hendon. In return, the retailers will receive warning information about those drivers most likely to “bilk” - drive off without paying their bill.

The plan beyond March 2006 - when the national data centre goes live - is to expand the capacity of the system to log the time, date and whereabouts of up to 100 million number plates a day. “In crude terms we’re interested in between two and three per cent of all vehicles on the roads,” Mr Whiteley said.

“We can use ANPR on investigations or we can use it looking forward in a proactive, intelligence way. Things like building up the lifestyle of criminals - where they are going to be at certain times. We seek to link the criminal to the vehicle through intelligence. Vehicles moving on the roads are open to police scrutiny at any time. The Road Traffic Act gives us the right to stop vehicles at any time for any purpose. So criminals on public roads are vulnerable.

“What makes them doubly vulnerable is that most criminals not only burgle and steal, but they also don’t bother to tax their vehicles, insure them and things like that,” Mr Whiteley said.

Early in the new year the National ANPR Data Centre will be able to cross-check its database against all vehicles lawfully taxed and insured. All unlawful vehicles will be flagged and when they pass an ANPR camera their movements will register as “hits”. The Home Office and the police believe that such a surveillance tool will have a dramatic impact on crime detection as well as the public’s attitude to traffic policing.

“The first plus is that we can concentrate our resources on the vehicles we should be stopping. The other plus side is that the 97 per cent of law-abiding motorists should never be bothered by that,” Mr Whiteley said.

The National ANPR Data Centre is being built alongside the Police National Computer because of the need to be constantly updated with lists of suspect drivers and vehicles. The design of the system will also take into account future changes to the way cars will be recognised, such as electronic vehicle identification - when a unique identity chip is built in to the bodywork.

Identity chips are being considered as part of a new road-pricing system based on a network of roadside radio receivers. Such electronic tags would, however, also allow a car’s movements to be recorded without the need of number-plate cameras.

Asked whether ANPR will be as important as the forensic use of fingerprints and DNA profiling, Mr Whiteley replied: “It has the capability to be as revolutionary. I would describe it as an ubiquitous policing tool. You can use it in all sorts of different ways.”

HOW THE INFORMATION IS GATHERED

Fixed cameras at strategic sites

Many thousands of traffic cameras on main roads, motorways, ports and petrol stations will read car numbers using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)

Mobile units

Every force will have a fleet of specially fitted police vans with ANPR cameras. These will work alongside high-speed intercept officers

CCTV in towns & cities

Many existing traffic cameras in towns and cities are being converted to read number plates automatically as part of the new national surveillance network

CONSTANT UPDATES

Police National Computer

The PNC will supply updates on vehicles and drivers of interest to the police

Insurance data

Uninsured drivers will be identified from data provided by the insurance industry

MoT data

Vehicles without a valid MoT test certificate will be flagged

Vehicle licence data

All vehicles without a valid tax disc or with unlawful number plates will be identified

WHERE THE INFORMATION GOES

The new National ANPR Data Centre is to be based at Hendon in north London, the site of the existing Police National Computer. It is being designed to store 35 million number plate ‘reads’ per day, to be expanded to 100 million reads within a couple of years. The time, date and place of each vehicle sighting will be stored for at least two years, with plans to extend this period to five years. Special ‘data mining’ software can trawl for movements and associations

WHO USES THE INFORMATION

Police

Every police force will have direct computer access to the National ANPR Data Centre. Intelligence officers will be able to access data on a car’s movements over a number of years

MI5

The Security Services have special exemption under the Data Protection Act to use ANPR information for purposes of national security. Anti-terrorism will be their main interest

Belfast Telegraph

By Noel McAdam
27 December 2005

The SDLP today sought to maintain their focus on Sinn Fein over the ‘Stormontgate’ spy ring allegations as questions over the affair increased.

Deputy leader Alasdair McDonnell said Sinn Fein claims that it had been “stitched up” when its Stormont head of administration Denis Donaldson was exposed as a British spy needed to be taken seriously.

“We are determined to get to the truth of what really happened,” he said.

“That is why we have been asking certain key questions of Sinn Fein - and are looking for answers - so that we can decide if these allegations have any credibility.”

The South Belfast MP said it was agreed a rucksack with a mound of documents was found in Mr Donaldson’s house during the police raids which included Stormont more than three years ago.

“If there never was an IRA spy ring why did Sinn Fein not expel him immediately when these were found?

“Why did they wait three years before taking action?

“How can they expect us to believe they did not realise that he was an informer despite a huge pile of British documents being found in his house?” he asked.

“Or is the truth that there really was an IRA authorised spy ring? Is the truth that the IRA expected British documents to be in Denis Donaldson’s house because he was part of that IRA spy ring but, unbeknown to them, had been working for the British?”

Secondly, Mr McDonnell went on, Sinn Fein activist Niall Binead was convicted last year of IRA membership in the Republic after being was found with personal details of three Irish politicians.

“Can Sinn Fein explain why their activist was following southern politicians? And given that the IRA was clearly spying in the South, are we really to believe that they would never do so in the North?”

His questions came as Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey warned an “increasingly seedy and murky” atmosphere is threatening any credibility the political process has left.

With both Stormontgate and the On the Runs controversy running into the New Year, Sir Reg said the collective task for politicians was to inject some integrity into political life.

And he warned against any attempt to “reheat” failed political deals including the two governments’ aborted Comprehensive Package from a year ago.

At the end of the year in which Sir Reg took over the UU reins from David Trimble, he said Secretary of State Peter Hain had the “major responsibility” to restore a credibile political process.

Irish Independent

THE Titanic tender which carried the rich and famous aboard the doomed liner is set to be scrapped in the New Year - unless an international fighting fund can raise €170,000.

SS Nomadic is the world’s last remaining White Star vessel and a poignant link with the disaster in which 1,523 people died when the Titanic grazed an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic on the night of April 14-15, 1912.

The tender also took freight to the Titanic when they called at Cherbourg, France, on the ill-fated voyage to New York.

Now the once-proud vessel is a virtual hulk at Le Havre - an embarrassment to her owners - and will be sent to the scrapyard unless a buyer can meet the reserve of €170,000 when she goes under the hammer at auction in Paris on January 26.

If sufficient cash can be raised, exhibition company White Star Memories and Belfast Industrial Heritage plan to buy Nomadic, return her to her home port and restore her former glory with help from lottery funds.

Examiner

By Fergus Finlay
27/12/05

HERE’S a little taste of things to come in 2006. Don’t let it spoil your holidays — it might never happen!

JANUARY

The Minister for Justice announces that, in pursuit of the mission given to him by Article 40 of the Constitution to “ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State,” he will be keeping a careful eye on things from now on. As an earnest of his intentions, he decides that Network 2 is to be refused permission to show repeats of Father Ted because it undermines public morality, especially Father Jack’s use of the word ‘feck’.

FEBRUARY

Nieman Marcus, long famed as the world’s most expensive shop, announces that it is to open in Henry Street in Dublin. “We heard that these SSIAs were going to start maturing this year,” said a spokesperson, “and we decided we had to have a bit of that action.” When he was asked why Nieman Marcus was locating in Henry Street, rather than the more traditional luxury shopping area of Grafton Street, the spokesman said: “You’ve got to be kidding. Who could afford the rents in Grafton Street?”

MARCH

When the Finance Bill is published, there is considerable surprise at some of its provisions. There is to be a new grandchild allowance of 100 per month per grandchild, payable to each grandparent. Although it is to come into effect on the first Tuesday of June, the minister for finance denies that this is an attempt to court the elderly vote, or that a general election is imminent. A lobby group named Great-Grandparents for Justice, of whom the youngest member is 83, is immediately launched.

APRIL

The Minister for Justice bans the RTÉ programme Oireachtas Report in pursuit of his Article 40 campaign to preserve democracy and the authority of the State. An official statement says the frequent TV shots of Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte shouting at the Taoiseach were more than just bad manners, they were undermining the best government that Ireland had ever seen, and were therefore an affront to democracy.

MAY

It is announced that the Government’s major transport initiative of 2005, Transport 21, is to be renamed Transport 22, as most of the projects will take longer than estimated. The Minister for Transport promises that none of the major rail initiatives planned will take longer than 40 years to complete.

JUNE

There is consternation when it is revealed that four Sinn Féin TDs are British spies, and have all been trained at a secret safe house in Cheltenham. Martin Ferris holds a tearful press conference at which he denounces Great Britain for “manipulating and perverting” many of the fine young minds of the republican movement. Meanwhile, an inquiry begins into what is termed a “colossal waste of money” by British intelligence. “Training spies is one thing,” said a Tory spokesperson, “but what in the name of God could you spy on in Dáil Éireann?”

JULY

With rumours that the Minister for Justice is keeping a watching brief, RTÉ introduces its new summer series, You’re a Star, Minister. Each week presenter Eddie Hobbs outlines the incredible talents and outstanding achievements of members of the Cabinet. In the first episode Environment Minister Dick Roche talks about himself and tries some ballroom dancing on a section of the M50 that has been closed for the occasion, while thousands of motorists can be seen shouting approval in the distance. There is, apparently, no risk that the rest of the series will be banned.

AUGUST

With the Government’s popularity in serious decline, rumours abound of a ‘heave’ within Fianna Fáil. This is immediately denied, and as a consequence editorials appear in all the major newspapers demanding government stability in the national interest. The nation relaxes when it is discovered that the palace coup is being led by former junior minister Ivor Callely.

Callely give a radio interview in which he announces that he stands for the new, young, thrusting Fianna Fáil, and that he will not be intimidated into silence. He is never heard of again.

SEPTEMBER

Europe holds on to the Ryder Cup amid scenes of extraordinary jubilation at the K Club. Padraig Harrington is the star of the show, and clinches the cup with an eagle putt on the last hole. A spokesperson for the Taoiseach lets it be known that Bertie has always been a secret golfer, taught by his father in the grounds of Clonliffe College. Abbotstown is turned into a golf academy for young people from Drumcondra and other marginal (sorry, disadvantaged) constituencies.

OCTOBER

As the money from the SSIA accounts begins to pile up in the economy, the Government announces that there is to be an additional incentive for people who invest their returns wisely. In future, everyone who invests their SSIAs in approved Government bonds is to be given a three-series BMW in time for Christmas. The Minister for Finance denies again that a general election is imminent. Meanwhile, after several episodes of The Premiership on Network 2, the Minister for Justice announces that under Article 40, Eamonn Dunphy is to be banned from appearing on the programme. Asked if Mr Dunphy had offended against either public order or public morality, the minister replied, “Neither. He’s just offensive generally.”

NOVEMBER

The Minister for Finance announces that in an effort to ensure the December budget won’t be seen as a spending spree, he is announcing a series of major spending decisions in November. Garages are to be built in every house and a new city, which will be named after the country’s greatest living Taoiseach from Dublin’s north inner city, is to be built where the Phoenix Park used to be. “We no longer tolerate all these sensitivities about trees and reindeer and such,” the minister for finance states. “People need houses, and Ahernia will be the solution.” The minister for transport announces a major new scheme, known as Transport 23, to link Ahernia to the rest of Dublin by 2088 through a tunnel.

DECEMBER

In a shock announcement, the Minister for Justice says he is banning Christmas.

“All these office parties, where people are getting drunk and telling their bosses what they think of them are an offence against public order and morality,” the minister tells a selected audience of religious leaders. Later in the month, in a final dramatic twist, he announces there is one more thing that must be banned if the authority of the State is not to be turned into a laughing stock. In pursuit of his duty under Article 40, he bans himself.

Happy New Year!

Guardian

Michael White, political editor
Tuesday December 27, 2005
The Guardian

The government is braced to make new year concessions on its controversial bill to give an amnesty to on-the-run IRA suspects in order to win the support of enough MPs and peers at Westminster to get the measure onto the statute book.

It is not yet clear what changes will have to be made. But the source of most criticism and anger is that - as the bill stands - none of the suspects involved would even have to make a court appearance.

Victims and their families have been offended by that prospect and Paul Murphy, the former Northern Ireland secretary, told MPs last month: “I would have a great deal of sympathy with such an amendment.” Without Liberal Democrat backing the bill will not get through the Lords. Ministers are privately exploring renewed cooperation with the new Conservative leadership of David Cameron, although constructive exchanges between the current secretary of state, Peter Hain, and Mr Cameron hit a bumpy patch in the road yesterday after a critical interview given by Mr Hain was belatedly published.

Mr Hain’s call for a return to the kind of bipartisan approach to the Northern Ireland peace process which characterised the support Tony Blair gave John Major a decade ago prompted a sharp response from David Lidington, the Tory spokesman, who accused the minister of picking a fight “on very weak ground”.

The Northern Ireland Offences bill, which would allow terror suspects - who have never faced court for alleged outrages committed before the 1998 Good Friday agreement - to escape jail, got a Commons second reading last month. But the 310-272 majority failed to convey the depth of anger expressed by opposition parties and had even Mr Hain’s immediate predecessor, Mr Murphy, acknowledging sympathy for some changes.

Sinn Féin, the one party to have backed the bill as removing a roadblock to a restored Stormont administration, last week withdrew support after its supporters realised that an amnesty would also apply to British soldiers who may have been involved in illegal killings.

The ePolitix website yesterday published an interview with Mr Hain in which he complained it was a “great shame” that the Tories had been so harsh on the on-the-run bill, compared with Labour’s broad support for Mr Major’s efforts.

Mr Lidington later retorted that he tried to give ministers the benefit of the doubt: “But on this bill we are looking at something that would allow people who have committed barbaric murders, things like the Enniskillen Poppy Day massacre, to go free without serving one day in prison or even appearing themselves in court.”

The Hain interview was given earlier this month, the day before Mr Cameron went to Belfast and made supportive remarks about the need to trust the government’s explanation for abandoning the “Stormontgate” prosecution over the alleged IRA spy ring against rival parties.

BBC ON THIS DAY

27 December 1997

Three men are being questioned

A leading protestant paramilitary, Billy Wright, has been shot dead at the maximum security Maze prison in Northern Ireland.

Wright was the leader of a dissident paramilitary group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force, one of several Protestant militias that want Northern Ireland to remain in British hands.

It is understood he was shot several times by prisoners of the Irish splinter republican group the Irish National Liberation Army, INLA.

They had climbed onto the roof of a prison block before making their way to a compound where Protestant inmates were being held.

Reports suggest Wright was shot at about 1000 GMT while he was seated in a van waiting to be transferred to a visitor’s centre.

The prisoners surrendered to prison staff without a struggle and were arrested by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Undermining peace

Three men are being questioned about the shooting and two guns have been recovered.

Both republican and loyalist leaders have called for calm and have appealed for no retaliation to prevent undermining the peace agreement any further.

The shooting comes at a time of heightened tension over lack of progress in multi-party peace talks on Northern Ireland.

The Prison Service said in a brief statement an investigation about how the weapons were brought into the jail was under way.

INLA inmates are being moved from the cells in H Block Six to other areas in the jail to enable a full scale search.

Wright, who survived several previous attempts on his life, was jailed in March for threatening to kill a woman.

The murder of the man known as “King Rat” is the latest in a series of security lapses at the prison.

There was an uprising by loyalist prisoners in April and May this year following a failed mass escape attempt by members of the IRA.

Earlier this month an IRA prisoner escaped while dressed as a female visitor.

In Context

Billy Wright had been linked to many sectarian killings of Catholics but when he was jailed he was placed in a block housing republican INLA prisoners.

Three prisoners, members of the INLA, shot Wright at least three times before turning themselves in.

Speculation as to how they managed to carry out his assassination near prison guards grew.

A security camera that may have spotted the gunmen was out of operation while a watchtower was unmanned.

The official report into the killing failed to establish how the guns got into the prison.

A public inquiry into the killing was announced in November 2004. It is expected to continue until September 2007.