Palestinian refugees in Syria flee attack by Assad gunboats and soldiers on their camp in port city of Latakia More than 5,000 Palestinian refugees have fled a camp in Latakia, Syria, after President Bashar al-Assad’s forces attacked the port city in the latest military crackdown on dissent, the UN said on Monday. UNRWA , the UN agency that aids Palestinian refugees, said the camp’s residents fled after Latakia came under fire from gunboats and ground troops over the weekend. It was not immediately clear where the refugees were seeking shelter. “We are calling for access to the camp to find out what is going on,” said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness. “There were 10,000 refugees in the camp and we need to find out what is happening to them.” Assad has dramatically escalated the crackdown on the five-month-old uprising since the start of the holy month of Ramadan. Despite international outrage, the regime is trying to re-establish firm control in rebellious areas by unleashing tanks, snipers and – in a new tactic – gunships. On Monday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called on Syria to end the bloodshed immediately and threatened unspecified “steps” if it fails to do so. “If the operations do not end, there would be nothing more to discuss about steps that would be taken,” Davutoglu said, without elaborating. Turkey, a former close ally of Syria, has been increasingly frustrated with the brutal crackdown by Damascus. Nearly 30 people, and possibly more, have been killed in the city since the assault on Latakia began on Saturday, activists say. The regime has banned foreign media and restricted local coverage, making it difficult to verify accounts on the ground. The attacks in Latakiaare the latest wave of a brutal offensive that shows Assad has no intention of relaxing his grip despite international outrage and new US and European sanctions. As the gunships blasted waterfront districts on Sunday, ground troops and security forces backed by tanks and armored vehicles stormed several neighborhoods, sending terrified women and children fleeing. The Observatory said troops opened fire Monday as a group of fleeing residents approached a checkpoint in the Ein Tamra district of Latakia. One person was shot dead and five wounded. A Latakia resident confirmed the account, saying troops fired as scores of people, many of them women and children, were fleeing. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The Local Coordination Committees , an activist group that helps organize protests in Syria, also confirmed troops fired at fleeing families. It said random gunfire erupted Monday in addition to a campaign of raids and house-to-house arrests. Troops later entered small neighborhoods in the al-Ramel Palestinian refugee camp, warning people to leave or risk their houses being destroyed, the LCC said. A witness said security forces were rounding up young men in the area and detaining them in a sports stadium nearby. Amateur videos posted online by activists showed smoke rising from al-Ramel, the crackle of heavy gunfire and people shouting, “God is Great!” Monday also saw soldiers storm the area of Houla in the central Syrian city of Homs, which has seen massive protests in recent months. A sniper killed an elderly man, according to the London-based Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on the ground in Syria. The group said more than 700 people have been arrested in and around Homs since the beginning of August. Syria Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Jersey mourns after three adults and three children murdered in knife attack
August 15, 2011 No Comment
Victims were from two local Polish families, and a 30-year-old man remains under guard in hospital It had been a weekend of celebration for the Polish community on Jersey. Tourists were joining with locals to sample Polish food and music, while many Catholics had been marking the feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa . But by mid-afternoon on Sunday, the grim news was spreading across – and shocking – the island. Three children and three adults from two families had been killed in the capital, St Helier. Witnesses had seen blood, bodies and distraught emergency workers at a Victorian house of flats in a well-to-do part of town. Thousands of Poles have made their homes on Jersey, thousands more visit the island, and as it emerged that all six victims – and a man suspected of killing them – were Polish, local people were putting names to the dead. Neighbours and the Polish embassy said all the victims were of Polish descent. Four were members of one family, covering three generations – a man, a woman thought to be his daughter, a six-year-old girl and an 18-month-old boy. A mother and child from a second family also died. Police confirmed the larger family were all Polish, as was the 30-year-old suspect, named locally as Damian Rzeszowski. He was under guard in a Jersey hospital after undergoing surgery for knife wounds. He is suspected of killing his wife, children and father-in-law. Some reports on the island suggested his wounds were self-inflicted and that he had been suicidal over the breakdown of his marriage. Friends of the arrested man described the dead as “almost the perfect family”. At a mass in a Catholic church in St Martin, near Jersey’s capital, a family friend, Jakub Bartus, named Rzeszowski’s wife as Izabela Rzeszowski. Bartus’s wife, Marlena, said she had not seen the family since last September, but had always been touched by how happy they were. “They were a lovely family, lovely kids. They were almost the perfect family. The children loved playing with their Mega Bloks and he used to push them in a trailer. The way we had seen him, he was a really good father.” Jakub Bartus said: “It is so sad. This is something that should not happen. There are lots of questions that need to be answered. It’s such a tragedy. “I can’t understand why the kids were involved. This is not about them. They are innocent,” he added. Marlena Bartus said she believed the boy was aged about two and the daughter was about five or six. Her own son played with the boy as they were the same age. Police could not state the nationality of the other victims and said identification might take days. A Home Office pathologist has arrived in Jersey to conduct postmortems, the results of which may not be released until the end of the week. Thousands of people have visited a Facebook page to honour those who died on the island. The attack appeared to have spilled from a flat in Victoria Crescent and on to the street in an area described by a detective as “one of the safest places in the western world”. Bryan Ogesa described how he and two friends used a traffic cone to try to defend themselves as a man came towards them. Another local man, who identified himself as John, said paramedics on the scene were in tears. Detective Superintendent Stewart Gull, who is leading the investigation, told a press conference that two victims were found outside the building and four inside. No motive was known for the killings and it would be “pure speculation” to try to guess, he added. Mike Bowron, chief of the island’s police, said: “No one could fail to be affected by the events that unfolded here. Inevitably, perhaps, such an incident will raise tensions locally, and I would appeal to everyone to remain calm and dignified and allow my officers to continue with what is a complex, demanding and difficult investigation.” Jersey’s chief minister, Senator Terry Le Sueur, said: “This has greatly shocked the island’s community. Many will need support and counselling in the days ahead and we will ensure this is provided.” The killings happened as St Helier was nearing the end of a three-day festival of food and live music celebrating Jersey’s Polish links. There are around 3,000 Polish people on the island, which has a total population of 92,500. The event continued until 10pm, according to organiser Magda Chimielewska, as some visitors remained unaware of what had happened. “It was an incredibly hard task. We could not close or not run it. In general, people are very sad, people are crying, they are shocked. It is such a shame what has happened. It could happen anywhere but it happened to us and we are getting together. “The Polish community gets on with the local community so well,” added Chimielewska. “It was amazing, locals trying our food, singing our songs. Jersey is a beautiful place, people are open to other nationalities.” The head of Jersey’s Roman Catholics, Monsignor Nicholas France, said: “In a small island like this, I would say it is a wound for the whole family.” Polish residents had their own priest, he added. “They do not all know each other and are scattered around the island. This is a very important time of the year for the Polish community because they are celebrating the great feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the patron and queen of the Polish nation. We will be turning to her and praying to her shrine in the church down the road here.” Jersey Channel Islands Europe Crime Caroline Davies James Meikle guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …David Cameron’s solution for broken Britain: tough love and tougher policing
August 15, 2011 No Comment
PM targets 120,000 ‘troubled families’ as Home Office sources confirm massive surge in police riot training Thousands more police officers are to undergo riot training, it emerged on Monday, as David Cameron pledged to tackle 120,000 of the country’s most “troubled families” as part of the coalition’s “social and security fightback” against the “slow-motion moral collapse” of Britain. The prime minister ruled out race, poverty and spending cuts as factors behind last week’s riots, but showed signs of wanting to look deeper into their causes by acceding to Labour’s demands for a public inquiry. As part of the “security fightback” section of the government’s response, the home secretary, Theresa May, wrote to Sir Denis O’Connor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, asking for clearer guidance for forces on their preparations to tackle riots. Senior officers complained that they did not have sufficient number of officers trained in riot control to respond immediately to last week’s events, but Home Office sources confirmed on Monday night that they now expected a massive expansion in riot training for the police as a result of May’s request. “I have asked him to provide clearer guidance to forces about the size of deployments, the need for mutual aid, pre-emptive action, public order tactics, the number of officers trained in public order policing, and appropriate arrests policy,” the home secretary is to announce on Tuesday in a speech detailing the “security fightback”. As part of the “social fightback”, Cameron had a tough-love message for 120,000 of the UK’s most “troubled families”. He set himself the rigid target of the next election to put all of them through some kind of family-intervention programme. In a speech setting out his analysis of what led to the riots, Cameron highlighted those families across the UK who were dealing with multiple complex social health and economic problems. Lifting them out of extreme worklessness would be regarded as a measure of his success in his wider agenda of fixing Britain’s broken society, he said. Cameron said he would now put “rocket boosters” on attempts to rehabilitate those 120,000. Speaking at a youth centre in his Witney constituency in Oxfordshire, the prime minister said: “The broken society is back at the top of my political agenda … I have an ambition, before the end of this parliament, we will turn around the lives of 120,000 most troubled families … we need more urgent action on the families that some people call ‘problem’, others call ‘troubled’. The ones everyone in their neighbourhood knows and often avoids.” He said would ask the chief executive of an organisation called Action for Employment, Emma Harrison, who he appointed his “families champion” in December, to use her current experience in dealing with 500 troubled families in three pilot areas to overcome the bureaucratic problems that have prevented the rapid expansion of Labour’s similar families intervention programme, which has been running since 2006. A former coalition government adviser, Dame Claire Tickell, head of Action for Children, which runs some family intervention projects, later told BBC Radio 4 that she was concerned about funding for the intervention. Ringfencing was scrapped last May. In 2008 Gordon Brown promised to target “more than 110,000 problem families with disruptive young people”. The latest official figures show that, in 2009-10, only 3,518 families were actually in the intervention programme and it has helped only 7,300 families since being set up in 2006. While the intent of Cameron’s pledge received cautious cross-party support, Labour echoed Tickell’s concerns and doubted whether it could be funded. Matt Cavanagh, of the Institute for Public Policy Research, and one of the Labour advisers who helped draft the policy when Labour was in power, suggested it would require £100m a year over the next four years. He said: “Local authorities used to part-fund [these programmes] but the government has dismantled all the ringfences and given LAs more autonomy in their reduced budgets. The result for problem family programmes has been neglect and confusion, as ministers now seem to admit.” While the government said it would be making available £200m from the European Social Fund to help fund the target, the rest will come from the early intervention grant, which is to be cut by 11% by 2012 and has funding for Sure Start, teenage pregnancy and youth centres to meet. Labour said Sure Start had been cut by 20% while more than 30 had closed. A government source acknowledged that using these resources to fund Cameron’s new target could vary around the country. They said: “It is for local authorities and their partners, including the voluntary sector, to decide how much they wish to prioritise on families with multiple problems in their area.” UK riots Police David Cameron Alan Travis Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …WaPo, NYTimes, Networks Ignore Labor Unions Threatening Boycott of 2012 Democratic Convention
August 15, 2011 No CommentOn Friday I noted an AP report about some trouble within the Democratic Party coalition as some labor unions have threatened to boycott the 2012 nominating convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. I wondered if the major mainstream media outlets would report the news. Unfortunately it appears many haven't. A search of major newspapers published between August 12 and 15 and featuring the words “labor” and “Charlotte” failed to turn up any hits in either the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, or Washington Post. A similar search of Nexis for ABC, NBC, and CBS news transcripts failed to generate any hits. For its part the Chicago Tribune newspaper carried a brief item on the matter, on page 31 of its August 14 early edition: Some unions plan to skip Dems' convention in N.C. WASHINGTON — Casting North Carolina as an anti-union bastion, more than a dozen trade unions affiliated with the national AFL-CIO have told the Democratic National Committee they will sit out the 2012 convention in Charlotte, N.C. Coming on the heels of some liberals' complaints that President Barack Obama is giving in to Republicans, the unions' decision is another sign that key Democratic allies are unhappy with Obama and other party leaders as they gear up for a difficult election season. Local and state labor leaders are still on board. The North Carolina AFL-CIO lobbied for Charlotte to be the convention site. On Friday, a leader of the labor group called the national unions' decision understandable, but “shortsighted.” Still, the decision by the national unions — representing 2.5 million workers in the building and construction trades — reflects disappointment from labor activists who Democrats count on to get union members to the polls. In a letter last week to Democratic Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the unions bemoaned the high unemployment rate nationwide and the choice of Charlotte at a time when union members “face assault after assault.” “We find it troubling that the party so closely associated with basic human rights would choose a state with the lowest unionization rate in the country,” Mark Ayers, president of the building trades unit, wrote to Wasserman. Labor and Democrats had a similar squabble over the choice of Denver for the 2008 summit, where the gathering was held at the nonunion Pepsi Center. # # #
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Synchronised explosions in mostly Shia Muslim areas kill at least 74 and injure 250, undermining planned US troop withdrawal A series of co-ordinated explosions have killed at least 74 people and wounded 250 more across Iraq, shattering calm during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and showing that extremists remain a threat more than eight years after the fall of Baghdad. The bombs were detonated in largely Shia Muslim areas of the country. Casualties were mostly Shia-led security forces. A Sunni extremist group, the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, was blamed. A jihadist site praised the attacks and said they targeted “Shi’ites, Christians and the apostate awakening councils”, in reference to the US-backed Sunni groups who turned on al-Qaida in 2007. In total, 13 bombs exploded. Many were apparently detonated by suicide bombers. If so, this would further undermine Iraqi and US military claims that al-Qaida and its Iraqi jihadist groups are a spent force after almost a decade of war. The deadliest blast was in the south-eastern city of Kut, where 37 people were killed by a roadside bomb and then a car bomb, which detonated as bystanders gathered following the first explosion. In the Shia shrine cities of Kerbala and Najaf up to 11 security officers and members of the public were killed by car bombs. Bombs rocked Baquba, Tikrit and Kirkuk and there were at least six explosions in Baghdad, although only three people were killed in the capital. The ease with which car bombs were moved around Iraq is a further blow to the standing of Iraq’s security forces, who insist they have contained sectarian violence and have Sunni and Shia extremist groups under control. An attack on a similar scale took place during Ramadan last year and Iraq’s dwindling Christian community was subsequently targeted in churches and in their homes. This spring more than 50 people were killed in an attack on the Tikrit governor’s office. Targeted assassinations have been common in Baghdad, Baquba and Kirkuk. Despite monthly death tolls now sharply below those during the sectarian war of 2006-07, spasms of large-scale violence still occur quite frequently in Iraq, a fact that convinced some local politicians to ask departing US forces to remain after the mandated end of their mission in December this year. The US military is prepared to consider an unspecified number of troops staying on in Iraq as trainers but with roles that would likely have a broader mandate. US advisers are wary of the fragile security gains in Iraq unwinding when they leave. This would be a bitter setback after the more than 4,000 lives lost and estimated $500bn spent fighting a war that aimed to reshape Iraq as a pluralist democracy. Whether US troops stay or go is unlikely to be decided until at least November, with many MPs appearing to fear the future without the safety blanket of well-armed and better-trained soldiers on call for any crisis. However, Shia extremist groups, including the Sadrist party, which has 39 seats in Iraq’s 325-seat parliament, have vowed to violently oppose any troop extension. Militias killed at least 12 US soldiers in June in a series of rocket and roadside bomb attacks widely interpreted as an attempt to create the impression that troops were being forced to flee. Iraq Middle East Global terrorism Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
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Synchronised explosions in mostly Shia Muslim areas kill at least 74 and injure 250, undermining planned US troop withdrawal A series of co-ordinated explosions have killed at least 74 people and wounded 250 more across Iraq, shattering calm during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and showing that extremists remain a threat more than eight years after the fall of Baghdad. The bombs were detonated in largely Shia Muslim areas of the country. Casualties were mostly Shia-led security forces. A Sunni extremist group, the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, was blamed. A jihadist site praised the attacks and said they targeted “Shi’ites, Christians and the apostate awakening councils”, in reference to the US-backed Sunni groups who turned on al-Qaida in 2007. In total, 13 bombs exploded. Many were apparently detonated by suicide bombers. If so, this would further undermine Iraqi and US military claims that al-Qaida and its Iraqi jihadist groups are a spent force after almost a decade of war. The deadliest blast was in the south-eastern city of Kut, where 37 people were killed by a roadside bomb and then a car bomb, which detonated as bystanders gathered following the first explosion. In the Shia shrine cities of Kerbala and Najaf up to 11 security officers and members of the public were killed by car bombs. Bombs rocked Baquba, Tikrit and Kirkuk and there were at least six explosions in Baghdad, although only three people were killed in the capital. The ease with which car bombs were moved around Iraq is a further blow to the standing of Iraq’s security forces, who insist they have contained sectarian violence and have Sunni and Shia extremist groups under control. An attack on a similar scale took place during Ramadan last year and Iraq’s dwindling Christian community was subsequently targeted in churches and in their homes. This spring more than 50 people were killed in an attack on the Tikrit governor’s office. Targeted assassinations have been common in Baghdad, Baquba and Kirkuk. Despite monthly death tolls now sharply below those during the sectarian war of 2006-07, spasms of large-scale violence still occur quite frequently in Iraq, a fact that convinced some local politicians to ask departing US forces to remain after the mandated end of their mission in December this year. The US military is prepared to consider an unspecified number of troops staying on in Iraq as trainers but with roles that would likely have a broader mandate. US advisers are wary of the fragile security gains in Iraq unwinding when they leave. This would be a bitter setback after the more than 4,000 lives lost and estimated $500bn spent fighting a war that aimed to reshape Iraq as a pluralist democracy. Whether US troops stay or go is unlikely to be decided until at least November, with many MPs appearing to fear the future without the safety blanket of well-armed and better-trained soldiers on call for any crisis. However, Shia extremist groups, including the Sadrist party, which has 39 seats in Iraq’s 325-seat parliament, have vowed to violently oppose any troop extension. Militias killed at least 12 US soldiers in June in a series of rocket and roadside bomb attacks widely interpreted as an attempt to create the impression that troops were being forced to flee. Iraq Middle East Global terrorism Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
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Intelligence agency asked to crack encrypted messages – especially on BlackBerry Messenger – to help police The security service MI5 and the electronic interception centre GCHQ have been asked by the government to join the hunt for people who organised last week’s riots, the Guardian has learned. The agencies, the bulk of whose work normally involves catching terrorists inspired by al-Qaida, are helping the effort to catch people who used social messaging, especially BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), to mobilise looters. A key difficulty for law enforcers last week was cracking the high level of encryption on the BBM system. BBM is a pin-protected instant message system that is only accessible to BlackBerry users. MI5 and GCHQ will also help the effort to try to get ahead of any further organisation of disturbances. The move represents a change as officially MI5 is tasked with ensuring the national security of the United Kingdom from terrorist threats, weapons of mass destruction, and espionage, with the police taking the lead on maintaining public order. However, they have a statutory right to target criminals or those suspected of being involved in crime, officials have said. Police struggled to access the BBM network last week, though some who were sent messages planning violence were so outraged they passed them on to law enforcement agencies. GCHQ’s computers and listening devices can pick up audio messages and BBM communications. MI5 and the police can identify the owners with the help of mobile companies and internet service providers. The agencies can intercept electronic and phone messages, identify where they have been sent from and their destination. That allows other investigations to take place and other efforts to develop intelligence. One source said: “The hope is this will boost the intelligence available. It always useful to get some boffins in.” In his speech on Monday David Cameron made no mention of his threatened clampdown on social media. Last week in the House of Commons emergency debate, he said: “There was an awful lot of hoaxes and false trails made on Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger and the rest of it. We need a major piece of work to make sure that the police have all the technological capabilities they need to hunt down and beat the criminals.” One of MI5′s functions under the 1989 Security Service Act is to support “the activities of police forces … and other law enforcement agencies in the prevention and detection of serious crime”. MI5 intercepts communications though officially can only do so with warrants signed by ministers. It seeks technical help from GCHQ. GCHQ’s functions, according to the 1994 Intelligence Services Act, include “to monitor or interfere with electromagnetic, acoustic and other emissions and any equipment producing such emissions and to obtain and provide information derived from or related to such emissions or equipment … ” It can do so “in support of the prevention or detection of serious crime”. On its website, MI5 stresses such a distinction: “For the most part the activities of domestic extremists pose a threat to public order, but not to national security. They are generally investigated by the police, not the Security Service.” For law enforcement, the difficulty with BBM is that it boasts semi-private – and instant – access to a network of like-minded users. BlackBerry handsets are the smartphone of choice for the 37% of British teenagers, according to Ofcom. BBM allows users to send the same message to a network of contacts connected by “BBM pins”. For many teenagers, BBM has replaced text messaging because it is free and instant. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, many BBM messages are untraceable by the authorities. And unlike Facebook, friends are connected either by individual pin numbers or a registered email address. In short, BlackBerry Messenger is more secure than almost all other social networks. So-called “broadcasts” can be sent to hundreds of disparate users within minutes, away from the attention of law enforcement agencies. In the 12 years since it released the first BlackBerry, Research in Motion (RIM) has built a formidable reputation for the impenetrable security of its smartphones. RIM has always struggled to explain to the authorities that, unlike most other companies, it technically cannot access or read the majority of the messages sent by users over its network. One of the biggest problems for law enforcement in the digital age is the inability to get real-time access to messages sent by potential criminals. In England, RIM has said it will actively cooperate with law enforcement as they investigate those behind the unrest. Although it cannot hand to police the contents of rioters’ messages, it can disclose information that could assist any investigation. A clause in the Data Protection Act allows RIM to disclose the names, contacts and times of prominent BlackBerry Messenger users in a certain area and at a certain time. UK riots BlackBerry MI5 Mobile phones Social media Digital media Police Vikram Dodd Richard Norton-Taylor Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Intelligence agency asked to crack encrypted messages – especially on BlackBerry Messenger – to help police The security service MI5 and the electronic interception centre GCHQ have been asked by the government to join the hunt for people who organised last week’s riots, the Guardian has learned. The agencies, the bulk of whose work normally involves catching terrorists inspired by al-Qaida, are helping the effort to catch people who used social messaging, especially BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), to mobilise looters. A key difficulty for law enforcers last week was cracking the high level of encryption on the BBM system. BBM is a pin-protected instant message system that is only accessible to BlackBerry users. MI5 and GCHQ will also help the effort to try to get ahead of any further organisation of disturbances. The move represents a change as officially MI5 is tasked with ensuring the national security of the United Kingdom from terrorist threats, weapons of mass destruction, and espionage, with the police taking the lead on maintaining public order. However, they have a statutory right to target criminals or those suspected of being involved in crime, officials have said. Police struggled to access the BBM network last week, though some who were sent messages planning violence were so outraged they passed them on to law enforcement agencies. GCHQ’s computers and listening devices can pick up audio messages and BBM communications. MI5 and the police can identify the owners with the help of mobile companies and internet service providers. The agencies can intercept electronic and phone messages, identify where they have been sent from and their destination. That allows other investigations to take place and other efforts to develop intelligence. One source said: “The hope is this will boost the intelligence available. It always useful to get some boffins in.” In his speech on Monday David Cameron made no mention of his threatened clampdown on social media. Last week in the House of Commons emergency debate, he said: “There was an awful lot of hoaxes and false trails made on Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger and the rest of it. We need a major piece of work to make sure that the police have all the technological capabilities they need to hunt down and beat the criminals.” One of MI5′s functions under the 1989 Security Service Act is to support “the activities of police forces … and other law enforcement agencies in the prevention and detection of serious crime”. MI5 intercepts communications though officially can only do so with warrants signed by ministers. It seeks technical help from GCHQ. GCHQ’s functions, according to the 1994 Intelligence Services Act, include “to monitor or interfere with electromagnetic, acoustic and other emissions and any equipment producing such emissions and to obtain and provide information derived from or related to such emissions or equipment … ” It can do so “in support of the prevention or detection of serious crime”. On its website, MI5 stresses such a distinction: “For the most part the activities of domestic extremists pose a threat to public order, but not to national security. They are generally investigated by the police, not the Security Service.” For law enforcement, the difficulty with BBM is that it boasts semi-private – and instant – access to a network of like-minded users. BlackBerry handsets are the smartphone of choice for the 37% of British teenagers, according to Ofcom. BBM allows users to send the same message to a network of contacts connected by “BBM pins”. For many teenagers, BBM has replaced text messaging because it is free and instant. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, many BBM messages are untraceable by the authorities. And unlike Facebook, friends are connected either by individual pin numbers or a registered email address. In short, BlackBerry Messenger is more secure than almost all other social networks. So-called “broadcasts” can be sent to hundreds of disparate users within minutes, away from the attention of law enforcement agencies. In the 12 years since it released the first BlackBerry, Research in Motion (RIM) has built a formidable reputation for the impenetrable security of its smartphones. RIM has always struggled to explain to the authorities that, unlike most other companies, it technically cannot access or read the majority of the messages sent by users over its network. One of the biggest problems for law enforcement in the digital age is the inability to get real-time access to messages sent by potential criminals. In England, RIM has said it will actively cooperate with law enforcement as they investigate those behind the unrest. Although it cannot hand to police the contents of rioters’ messages, it can disclose information that could assist any investigation. A clause in the Data Protection Act allows RIM to disclose the names, contacts and times of prominent BlackBerry Messenger users in a certain area and at a certain time. UK riots BlackBerry MI5 Mobile phones Social media Digital media Police Vikram Dodd Richard Norton-Taylor Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Warren Buffett has been very outspoken about the fact that his secretary pays more proportionally in taxes than he does. You hear very little of this because it doesn’t fit all tidy into the beltway/Republican narrative of cutting taxes and cutting spending. Buffett took to the NY Times to write an op-ed using statistics to back up his major theme. The rich invest money no matter what the tax rate is and do not stop creating jobs because everybody isn’t praising them for being so wealthy. Warren Buffett in the NY Times : OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched. While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors. These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places. Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent. If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot. To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends. I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation. Our tax rates are lower now than they have been for decades yet the super rich corporations are sitting on their pots of gold and not creating jobs. Careful Warren, CNBC and Fox will tell you that if we’re mean to these job producers they will stomp their feet, storm off and take all their jobs with them and leave the country. Nonsense. What shared sacrifice means to the Villagers and the GOP is that the middle class and the poor should be willing to have their social safety nets cut while federal government spending gets slashed in an effort to appease the deficit hawks coming out of the Republican party even though their leadership and policies caused the global financial depression. Historical data or even information garnered from the last ten years has no place in the discussion. Suck it up, America. Buffett is calling out the Congress to get busy and do their jobs instead of pandering to an ideology that has no room for compromise and raising revenues or taxes is tantamount to Socialism. Wanna bet how many times you hear about this op-ed on TV? But if David Brooks or some nut from the op-ed pages of the WSJ pens a piece that defends the fragile and misunderstood Masters of the Universe, it’ll be repeated 24/7.
Continue reading …Warren Buffett has been very outspoken about the fact that his secretary pays more proportionally in taxes than he does. You hear very little of this because it doesn’t fit all tidy into the beltway/Republican narrative of cutting taxes and cutting spending. Buffett took to the NY Times to write an op-ed using statistics to back up his major theme. The rich invest money no matter what the tax rate is and do not stop creating jobs because everybody isn’t praising them for being so wealthy. Warren Buffett in the NY Times : OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched. While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors. These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places. Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent. If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot. To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends. I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation. Our tax rates are lower now than they have been for decades yet the super rich corporations are sitting on their pots of gold and not creating jobs. Careful Warren, CNBC and Fox will tell you that if we’re mean to these job producers they will stomp their feet, storm off and take all their jobs with them and leave the country. Nonsense. What shared sacrifice means to the Villagers and the GOP is that the middle class and the poor should be willing to have their social safety nets cut while federal government spending gets slashed in an effort to appease the deficit hawks coming out of the Republican party even though their leadership and policies caused the global financial depression. Historical data or even information garnered from the last ten years has no place in the discussion. Suck it up, America. Buffett is calling out the Congress to get busy and do their jobs instead of pandering to an ideology that has no room for compromise and raising revenues or taxes is tantamount to Socialism. Wanna bet how many times you hear about this op-ed on TV? But if David Brooks or some nut from the op-ed pages of the WSJ pens a piece that defends the fragile and misunderstood Masters of the Universe, it’ll be repeated 24/7.
Continue reading …