From a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Sat Jun 08 07:07:14 2002 Return-path: Envelope-to: archive@archives.econ.utah.edu Delivery-date: Sat, 08 Jun 2002 07:07:14 -0600 Received: from [128.110.171.164] (helo=lists.econ.utah.edu) by archives.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17Gfw2-0007MN-00 for ; Sat, 08 Jun 2002 07:07:14 -0600 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.econ.utah.edu) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 17Gfw2-0008FG-00 for ; Sat, 08 Jun 2002 07:07:14 -0600 Subject: Welcome to the "A-List" mailing list From: a-list-request@lists.econ.utah.edu To: archive@archives.econ.utah.edu X-No-Archive: yes X-Ack: no Sender: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Errors-To: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.0 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Message-Id: Date: Sat, 08 Jun 2002 07:07:14 -0600 Welcome to the A-List@lists.econ.utah.edu mailing list! 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From a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Sat Jun 08 21:47:24 2002 Return-path: Envelope-to: archive@archives.econ.utah.edu Delivery-date: Sat, 08 Jun 2002 21:47:24 -0600 Received: from [128.110.171.164] (helo=lists.econ.utah.edu) by archives.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17Gtfo-0002eb-00 for ; Sat, 08 Jun 2002 21:47:24 -0600 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.econ.utah.edu) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 17GtfW-00088o-00; Sat, 08 Jun 2002 21:47:06 -0600 Received: from [206.13.28.240] (helo=mta6.snfc21.pbi.net) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 17Gtec-00088f-00 for ; Sat, 08 Jun 2002 21:46:10 -0600 Received: from sabri ([64.171.191.127]) by mta6.snfc21.pbi.net (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 (built May 7 2001)) with SMTP id <0GXF000JM6GXTV@mta6.snfc21.pbi.net> for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Sat, 08 Jun 2002 20:46:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Sabri Oncu To: PEN-L , ALIST Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Importance: Normal X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-priority: Normal Subject: [A-List] UK: Police to spy on all emails Sender: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Errors-To: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.0 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: X-Original-Date: Sat, 08 Jun 2002 20:45:53 -0700 Date: Sat, 08 Jun 2002 20:45:53 -0700 Police to spy on all emails Fury over Europe's secret plan to access computer and phone data Kamal Ahmed, political editor Sunday June 9, 2002 The Observer Millions of personal emails, other internet information and telephone records are to be made accessible to the police and intelligence services in a move that has been denounced by critics as one of the most wide-ranging extensions of state power over private information. Plans being drawn up by Europol, the police and intelligence arm of the European Union, propose that telephone and internet firms retain millions of pieces of data - including details of visits to internet chat rooms, and of calls made on mobile phones and text messages. In a move that has been condemned by privacy campaigners, a draft document passed to The Observer reveals that the EU is now drawing up a 'common code' on data retention which will be applicable in all member states. Security and police sources said new powers on accessing personal data will come into force in Britain towards the end of the year. 'It is typical that such a significant change in the control over private information is being worked out in secret,' said Dr Ian Brown, a leading expert on data privacy and director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research. 'It does seem to have been Britain that has put pressure on other member states to put in place this type of legislation. In 99 per cent of cases it will be used properly, but what about the other one per cent? There is not enough scrutiny of what is going on.' The Europol document was drawn up at a private meeting of police, intelligence services and customs and excise officials from across Europe in The Hague last April. It lists 10 areas where companies will be required to keep information to help in the fight against international terrorism, domestic crime and drug running. Companies that run internet sites will be required to retain passwords used by individuals, record which website addresses are visited, and keep details of webpages looked at and any credit card or bank details used for subscriptions. The information retained about emails will include who sent the message, where the email went, its contents and the time and date it was sent. It is believed that Britain will push for the data to be kept for up to five years. At the moment much of it is only kept for one or two months, for billing purposes, by the companies that run internet and email services. Sources at the National High-tech Crime Unit, which is overseeing implementation of plans for data retention in Britain, point out that the growth of so-called 'cyber crime' means that they need new powers to keep ahead of the criminals. One official also said that investigations into crimes such as the murders carried out by the GP Harold Shipman relied on the retention of old telephone records. 'We need to codify how this happens, so all countries in Europe are dealing with the same set of rules,' the source said. 'The internet does not recognise national boundaries and international companies don't need the confusion of dealing with separate codes in different countries.' The Europol document says the use of telephones - land lines and mobiles - will be monitored. Numbers dialled, when and where they were dialled from and personal details such as the address, date of birth and bank details of the subscriber who paid for the call will also be kept. The document, headed 'Expert Meeting on Cyber Crime: Data Retention', suggests mobile phones records could be used by police and the intelligence services to track the geographical location of people making calls. Mobiles use a network of masts to convey the calls, placing the user in a geographically distinct 'cell' at the time of the call. Records using such geographical locations were used to acquit the teenagers accused of murdering Damilola Taylor. The Association of Chief Police Officers is also drawing up a manual of standards so that police forces across the country use similar methods when accessing the data. Full at: http://www.observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,730091,00.html From a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Sun Jun 09 13:32:22 2002 Return-path: Envelope-to: archive@archives.econ.utah.edu Delivery-date: Sun, 09 Jun 2002 13:32:22 -0600 Received: from [128.110.171.164] (helo=lists.econ.utah.edu) by archives.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17H8QI-0007ul-00 for ; Sun, 09 Jun 2002 13:32:22 -0600 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.econ.utah.edu) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 17H8Q2-0001dQ-00; Sun, 09 Jun 2002 13:32:06 -0600 Received: from [207.46.181.83] (helo=cpimssmtpu08.email.msn.com) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 17H8PU-0001dC-00 for ; Sun, 09 Jun 2002 13:31:32 -0600 Received: from igrushkii ([151.202.112.216]) by cpimssmtpu08.email.msn.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.4905); Sun, 9 Jun 2002 12:30:03 -0700 Message-ID: <002701c20feb$92cdfea0$0100a8c0@igrushkii> From: "Anne Williamson" To: References: Subject: Re: [A-List] Human Rights Industry's Imperial Agenda MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 X-OriginalArrivalTime: 09 Jun 2002 19:30:03.0488 (UTC) FILETIME=[0D9CE600:01C20FEC] Sender: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Errors-To: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.0 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: X-Original-Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 15:26:35 -0400 Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 15:26:35 -0400 JUDGE NOT The Spectator | June 08 2002 | Neil Clark THE SPECTATOR June 08 2002 Judge not Neil Clark says that the ICC and the human rights industry are making the world a more miserable and dangerous place These are golden days for the international human-rights movement. Slobo is in the dock, the Rome Statute that provides for the setting up of the permanent International Criminal Court has been ratified by more than 50 nations, and the murderous antics of Messrs Sharon and Mugabe have seen thousands getting ready to light candles and fill in their application forms to join Amnesty. Human rights are on the march and, if there is something of a triumphalist air about the recent pronouncements of prominent activists such as Elizabeth Andersen of Human Rights Watch, it is only to be expected. While most sane people would share many of the leading human-rights groups' objectives - such as an international ban on landmines and an end to torture - there are nevertheless strong grounds for concern over the increasingly prominent role that organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are playing in international affairs. For a start, far from being impartial and independent of any government, as they routinely claim, these groups are essentially Trojan Horses for a very specific political agenda: that of the politically correct liberal-capitalist elite of the United States and Western Europe. The fact that the US opposes the International Criminal Court and is regularly criticised by human-rights groups for retaining capital punishment should not delude us into believing otherwise. Mention the name Human Rights Watch, and one thinks automatically of earnest, spotty US graduates traipsing round the world's trouble-spots, championing the cause of 'oppressed' minorities and seeking to enlighten their 'oppressors'. While much of the fieldwork for the organisation is carried out by such people, the composition of the various governing committees that determine where the human-rights spotlight is shone is rather different. In the words of Jared Israel, the problem with Human Rights Watch 'is not that it is controlled by the US foreign-policy elite, but that it is the US foreign-policy elite'. Conspiracy theorists with a spare half-hour should indulge themselves by having a look at the list of board members of HRW's European and Central Asia division, which reads like a Who's Who of US foreign-policy makers in the last 20 or so years. There is Morton Abramowitz, the former US ambassador to Turkey and assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research 1985-89, who is now a fellow of the Council for Foreign Relations, the neo-conservative interventionist pressure group so loathed by those on the traditional isolationist Right. Other ex-ambassadors on the board include Warren Zimmerman and Jack Matlock, whose spells in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union both coincided with the disintegration of those countries. There is also the pro-interventionist Harvard professor Stanley Hoffman; Paul Goble, the director of communications and political commentator at the Congress-funded Radio Free Europe; and career diplomat Herbert Okun, who, apart from being US ambassador to East Germany, was also deputy chairman of the US delegation at the Salt II negotiations. Last, but certainly not least, comes the name of the man who pays the cheques, the well-known philanthropist and 'private individual' Mr George Soros, who, in addition to his numerous business activities, still finds time to play a role in such 'altruistic' pastimes as human rights. That such powerhouse names are behind Human Rights Watch should come as no surprise when one considers how the organisation came into being. After the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975, the US was understandably keen to use the issue of human rights as a way of weakening the Soviet Union and its control over Eastern Europe. Human Rights Watch, set up in 1978 as Helsinki Rights Watch by the publishing tycoon Bob Bernstein, was to be the vehicle for achieving this. Over the next ten years the organisation was to play a key role in publicising human-rights breaches behind the Iron Curtain and helping dissident groups there to organise and eventually grow into opposition parties. Vaclav Havel, the Czech President, recognises the debt that he and many others owe to the organisation, and is on record as stating that without Human Rights Watch there would have been no Velvet Revolution in his country. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, HRW has continued to play its part as a spearhead for spreading US global influence, helping to undermine regimes that Washington deems undesirable. If Slobodan Milosevic is ever again a free man and desires a reckoning with those responsible for his ordeal in The Hague, he should head straight to Fifth Avenue and HRW's headquarters, as it was that organisation's mainly anecdotal evidence which provided the basis for six of the seven charges for which he was indicted. The executive director Elizabeth Andersen is proud of the role that her organisation played in Kosovo, boasting that it was HRW's reports 'which helped to shape opinion and mobilise a response', i.e., a 78- day, $7 billion bombing campaign that killed hundreds of people and left thousands more displaced. In the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Richard Dicker, HRW's observer at The Hague trial, announces that he is 'impressed' with the prosecution's case, especially when one considers that the man who pays his wages, the ubiquitous Mr Soros, also funds the Tribunal. The political links of Amnesty International, HRW's British counterpart, may be less blatant, but it, too, cannot be absolved from the charge of following a politicised agenda. Beloved of bleeding-heart liberals and alternative comedians since its foundation more than 40 years ago, Amnesty has been showing since 1997 where its political allegiances really lie. The organisation has buttered up New Labour in a way that has all but destroyed its traditional claims to impartiality. Although Amnesty called the deliberate targeting of civilians at Yugoslav television a war crime and slated Britain for still being the second biggest arms dealer in the world, its UK director, Kate Allen, still feels able to award the Blair government 'seven out of 10' for its 'constructive' human-rights record. One shudders to think what it would have to do to achieve only five. Like HRW, Amnesty seeks to promote policies based on its own elite liberal interpretation of human rights; namely that they are for the benefit of mankind, even if the majority of less 'enlightened' individuals are not convinced. A striking example of this is human-rights groups' obsession with abolishing the death penalty, seen by Amnesty as 'the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment'. The idea that they may be wrong on this issue and that by seeking the global abolition of capital punishment they may actually be increasing the sum of misery in the world never occurs to our human-rights activists, so sure are they in their convictions. It is, of course, not just the rights of prisoners that concern our leading rights groups; in the words of the HRW mission statement: 'We now challenge the wrongs that befall refugees and the internally displaced, women, children, workers, gay men and lesbians.' Unemployed heterosexuals seem to have been missed out somewhere. Amnesty, too, has been keen to enter the realm of sexual politics, and has recently set up 'Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Networks' and also a 'Transgender Network' to lobby for the international rights of transsexuals. In June 2000 Amnesty took part in the World Pride rally in Rome 'to highlight discrimination against the gay community as a human-rights issue'. Yet, for all its grandeur and fashionability, we must not lose sight of the fact that human-rights talk is merely a set of moral claims, and that is why we should be so worried when it is used to intervene in other cultures on minor grounds. If we know anything at all about moral issues, it is that they are extremely difficult to resolve, are inevitably marked by disagreement, and that different cultural premises lead to startlingly different moral conclusions. Understanding this is important, as it underlies the whole idea of self-determination by societies, cultural groups or nation states. Only these groupings can determine what political structures they take to be moral and what privileges they acknowledge as rights. What is so scary about today's human-rights activists is that, contrary to all the obvious evidence, they believe themselves to have found clear and universally applicable cultural and political truths. Supremely confident in their moral conclusions, they now seek to apply them in other countries and cultures, even against the will of the majority in those cultures. Never mind that capital punishment still enjoys widespread support in Turkey; if that country wishes to join the EU, she must conform to the European Convention on Human Rights, which means that the death penalty must go. Given the failure of every attempt, from Immanuel Kant to John Rawls, to establish moral truths agreed on not just by those in our culture, but across cultures, one can only be shocked by the audacity of the human-rights agenda. At the very heart of the movement is a repellent, imperialistic view of the inferiority of the moral capacities and conclusions of others - and all this from the very people who invariably rail most loudly against the excesses of 19th-century imperialism. Auberon Waugh once predicted that 'politically correct opinion' would one day lead to the 'advanced' world invading Easter Island to stop the natives smoking in public. That may still be many years away, but unless the relentless progress of human-rights groups is checked, the prospect of the 'advanced' world imposing sanctions on a country not honouring an International Convention on Transsexual Rights may be considerably nearer.