The GardaGate scandal is a major political scandal that is occurring in Ireland as a result of the Irish administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement in taping private converations on a systemic scale all over the island of ireland The term GardGate has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Coalition Government. Those activities include "dirty tricks" such as bugging the offices of GSOC political opponents and people of whom Coalition Government officials were suspicious. Agent Blackadder and his close aides ordered harassment of activist groups and political figures, using unauthorized recordings of private conversations all over Ireland,. The scandal has led to the discovery of multiple abuses of power by the Coaltion Government and the resignation of the Commissioner of the Irish police. The scandal awaits the indictment, trial, conviction, and incarceration of more than 43 people, dozens of whom are the Irish Government's top administration officials.
The affair began with the discovery of taping GSOC headquarters. A British Investigation found evidence of the crimes. Facing near-certain impeachment in Leinster House and equally certain prosecution in the courts, it is expected that the Agent revealed at highest level of government will resign thist week. His successor, Gerald Ford, is expected to issue a pardon to him. The name "GardaGate" and the suffix "-gate" have since become synonymous with political scandals in the United Statesand in other English- and non-English-speaking nations worldwide.
#MH370 MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT CALLS IN ‘Witch-Doctors’
Ibrahim Mat Zin, commonly known as Raja Bomoh Sedunia Nujum VIP has performed spiritual rituals at Kuala Lumpur International Airport for the Malaysian Government. The witch-doctor, or bomoh was invited by Malaysia’s top leaders to use bamboos as binocular, while looking into a fish trap hook to “locate” the missing #MH370 aeroplane. He told his audience that the plane was lost on a land inhabited by elves. Accompanied by other shamanist who sat on a mat and pretended to symbolically dive into the sea, while another shamanist, waved two coconuts up and down to “break the barrier in the land of elves” and set the aircraft free.Practitioners of shamanism can reach a trance state of consciousness, through a series of rituals along with poteen, that gives them access to the world of spirits, enabling them to channel transcendental energy into divination and healing practices. The doctors, or bomohs, are active with animistic practices.The bomohs have generated fierce criticism from many netizens on the way the Malaysian Government has handled the crisis, while allowing mysticism to get involved. They say a void left by the lack of clear official explanations has been filled by charlatans, who amplify confusion, disinformation and downright lies.The Malaysian government responded by saying the shaman’s stunt is appreciated and is a native cultural Malaysian form of western spin doctors at the black op house.
What a racket the Gardai have going ? An undercover Garda narc deals a small bag of weed to some unsuspecting passerby. A street later one of his Garda colleagues come roaring around the corner in a Garda car to arrest the unsuspecting buyer. They confiscate everything the poor fella owns, through asset forfeiture and even get their little bag of weed back, before hauling the victim to jail and eventually prison. Of course if the "offender" happens to be HSBC and the offense is the laundering of billions in drug money, the Coalition Government and courts look the other way. Why? Because the "offender" is a reputable member of the 1% and the politicians get their cut, that's why.
East India Trading Co., the British banks make a killing from the phony, really one-sided War on Drugs. How's that drug laundered profits doing? Drugs are funding MI6 who have infiltrated the Gardai and the Mafia in Dublin, that create misery for the sake of profit. They start wars and overturn governments among other things. Without the cover of the Drug War, more of their behavior would be exposed. No one needs protection from drugs. We all need production from the Drug Lords of the Gardai and Irish Government.
'Unprecedented Increase In Opium Production'
Yuri Fedotov, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, tells DW that Afghanistan is now producing record amounts of opium poppy which is destined to become heroin in "new markets."
By Deutsche Welle
February 16 2014 "Information Clearing House - "Deutsche Welle" - - -- - DW: There is concern in the United States and Europe of a flood of heroin on to their markets - where is that heroin coming from?
Yuri Fedotov: There are different sources of heroin and basically if we take Europe it comes mostly from Afghanistan - which produces almost 80 percent of all opium and heroin in the world - and unfortunately the latest reports of the UNDCP show there is an unprecedented increase both in cultivation and production of opium - especially in cultivation. There is a record figure that has reached 200,000 hectares.
They never had such an area of opium poppy cultivation even in the peak of production in 2007 and 2008. So it means that producers and drug dealers, they are guided by the well-known principles of a market economy, and they would never increase production if they were not sure there will be new markets. Destination is mostly Europe but also Africa. Our recent report on Africa indicated there are more and more seizures of heroin in West Africa in addition to cocaine which goes through the trans-Atlantic route from South America to Europe through west Africa. Some of this heroin may reach the United States as well but we estimate that this is not the major route supplying heroin to the United States.
80 percent is the figure given for the increase in use of heroin in the US in recent years - given all the effort that is put into drug control, doesn't it suggest that the policies are failing?
It depends on how you appreciate that. Indeed in the United States there has been a tremendous, a quite noticeable decline in consumption of cocaine in recent decades, almost four-fold, which indicates there are some results but the recent trend of course, the greater use of heroin but also prescription opioids, is a new quite worrisome trend. It means that more efforts have to be done to understand this phenomena and to take appropriate steps.
You've mentioned opioids and drug enforcement officials are also talking about a link between prescription pain killers and heroin abuse. Is it the case that heroin users are moving from those drugs to heroin because of restrictions on the prescription drugs?
I don't see there are major problems in the US of getting prescription drugs. Of course it's more complicated - you need to see a doctor - but there've been no reports of major problems in getting these drugs if they are prescribed by doctors. The point is, prescription drugs produce a less effective high - the state of euphoria is lower than when you are using heroin. Of course when they are already addicted they want to get more and they switch to heroin. Also another explanation is that they can get heroin, not pure heroin but up to 30 to 40 percent purity, so it means it's less expensive than some of the prescription drugs with a more powerful result.
There is obviously publicity around the death of the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman - are you worried that the image of heroin is changing from a negative - the junkie - to a drug associated with a creative high-profile life-style? So a more positive image than in the past…
I think you are right. Drug addiction does not distinguish between rich and poor, successful or losers. The latest victim was not the first one and we have previous reports of tragic deaths of other outstanding Hollywood stars in the US. But we have not to forget that they are not alone and every day about 500 people all over the world are dying of drugs, of drug addiction - not of violence related to drugs, not of related diseases but simply from drug addiction. That is too much.
Afghanistan is the main source of the poppy crop that eventually becomes heroin. As the international forces leave Afghanistan after this long conflict, what are your predictions for the amount of heroin coming on to the markets of Western Europe?
It's a crucial period for the future destiny of this country. The whole situation is quite complicated because of the political transition. That is why we must continue to consider the drug issue and the illicit economy of Afghanistan - and not just as one of the problems this country is facing but as an over-reaching issue that affects everything - security, stability, health of people. Afghanistan is known to have the highest addiction rate of opium and heroin in the world. But also, it generates other forms of trans-national organized crime… corruption.
Do you fear that will increase in the near future?
If the international community does not take that very seriously and does not prioritize efforts to support Afghanistan in this transitional period, it may happen.
The UN's own stated goal is to offer alternatives to the drug crops for the farmers of Afghanistan and other parts of the world - a policy that you have been pursuing for some time. Is it working?
To have a successful alternative development we need two conditions, firstly political commitment of the government and international community and secondly, sufficient funding. Funding which is not only aimed at distributing seeds and fertilizers but development of the whole infrastructure including markets for alternative products. In countries where it works and where governments have been able to develop such a system - supporting farmers including marketing of alternative products - like Colombia - it works. It works in Thailand.
Many years ago they succeeded completely to eradicate opium poppy cultivation, replacing it with other crops. But where we don't have political commitment and even less financial support… we have some programs in Afghanistan but they are just a few drops in the ocean. I visited Afghanistan several times, I met with farmers who are growing opium poppy and psychologically they are prepared to switch from illicit to licit but they complain that they could not find markets for their products. There are no roads, no bridges, no marketplaces, so it complicates hugely the development of alternative crops
It was suspected that offices of the GSOC (garda siochana ombudsman commission) were being bugged. Shrouded in secrecy, they brought in specialists from the UK under advice from their equivalent body in the UK, the IPCC. These specialists did a high tech sweep of their offices under cover of darkness and a report was created which suggests that it was extremely likely that highly sophisticated bugging of the office had occurred. Government and high ranking gardai have closed ranks and are trying to spin this as a problem with GSOC instead of addressing the strong possibility that GSOC was bugged and who would want to do that and have access to do so except the gardai themselves. If true this is a grave issue. It is believed in some circles that this bugging may be related to investigations by GSOC into the case of large scale heroin importer Boylan who it is alleged has been working with gardai and has "magically" evaded conviction in the face of overwhelming evidence of trafficking huge amounts of drugs. This affair may go right to the top and has the potential to sink this government
Garda Ombudsman, under fire from forces of corruption?
This whole storm arose from an article by John Mooney in the sunday times which seems to have originated from a leaked document from GSOC. Without that leak, this would probably have sunk like a stone without a trace. Hats off to Mr Mooney for his work on this and the Boylan case. By contrast, our public broadcaster was in no hurry to cover the matter and it was not even mentioned until the 9pm news.
Other news outlets have chosen to prioritise unimportant trivia over what might turn out to be the usurping of the credibility and integrity of our garda force at the highest levels by large drug criminals with the collusion of top politicians.
However over the last few days some people with commendable tenacity on several popular Irish websites and chat forums have tried to keep the momentum going on this and it has snowballed out of the control of the government and it's spin doctors. Many thousands of views of the thread on P.ie for example. http://www.politics.ie/forum/current-affairs/221883-garda-ombudsman-commission-office-infested-bugs.html Clearly this will not go away so the MSM have had no choice but to cover it properly now.
What was the Boylan case most people are asking? The fact that people are now asking this is a testament to how little coverage it got in the mainstream media. This in itself is incredible given the size of the drug shipments in question and the very suspicious dropping of the case in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Rather than paraphrasing Here's a link and a quote from a previous article dealing with the Boylan case:
Kieran Boylan fidgeted nervously as he took possession of a drug shipment in the yard of his trucking firm in Ardee, Co Louth. It was October 6, 2005, and members of the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU) watched from a safe distance as the truck driver went about his business. Minutes later, Boylan was caught with heroin and cocaine worth €1.7m.
The size of the haul should have guaranteed a prison sentence of at least 10 years as Boylan was out on bail at the time. In December 2003, the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI) had mounted a similar operation at Dublin Port which caught him with heroin and cocaine worth €750,000.
Boylan was freed on bail despite having a previous drug trafficking conviction.
Last week, following two years of allegations and counter-allegations about his relationship with members of a garda unit, charges against Boylan over the Ardee drugs seizure were dropped.
The decision has raised more unanswered questions about his relationship with gardai.
It was shortly after Boylan’s arrest in 2005 that what seemed like a routine drugs seizure became complicated.
While he was in custody, Boylan claimed he was working for other gardai.
He admitted to possessing the €1.7m haul but claimed the other gardai knew he had the drugs and alluded to his involvement in extra-judicial operations.
After Boylan was charged, and committed to prison, Cormac Gordon, the then chief superintendent of the GNDU, wrote to Martin Callinan, an assistant commissioner in charge of operations, to clarify whether or not Boylan was an agent involved in a controlled delivery.
Weeks later, on December 2, Callinan confirmed in writing that Boylan was “not a registered source”.
Here is another transcript from Late Debate quoted from Broadsheet.ie from their article today:
During their discussion, Mr Mooney set out to explain what he believed was behind the surveillance, while also accusing the Fine Gael/Labour coalition of trying to cover up the story.
John Mooney: “This whole matter goes back to a collusion investigation, a Garda Ombudsman Commission investigation going back a number of years, I was actually involved in it. Actually, I suppose to quote Enda Kenny, when he was in Opposition, saying – this was the Kieran Boylan affair – where he was demanding that the Government of the day provide explanations: ‘I want to give the Government…to give a full explanation of these cases, I will be tabling questions on the nature of the inquiry into both Boylan and why he isn’t before the courts when he was caught with large amounts of drugs, heroin and cocaine’. This was a drug trafficker who was working with a group of guards in the Dublin area, who served their way to promotion on the basis of turning a blind eye to these activities, in return for setting up people, including very young men in the Dublin area for arrests, and GSOC were in the middle of a very, very sensitive investigation into that which revealed all sorts of wrongdoing and all sorts of what could only be described as corruption within the intelligence services. And this particular escapade or what’s been happening, to the Commission, followed on, as they were drawing to a close, their big, public interest inquiry into this. And there were various people within the State apparatus who were desperately needed to know what they knew. And if you’re asking me, and it’s a very well-informed opinion, this is what this is all about. To be perfectly frank, I’m astonished at what’s going on in Government level. I remember Pat Rabbitte, when he was a justice spokesman in Opposition, screaming from the rooftops about Kieran Boylan getting given a haulage licence on the basis of false documentation and information to the Department of Transport. I remember when this individual, whom I should say whose associates were issuing threats against myself and others, was being brought up and being charged, and then the charges would be dropped secretly and then recharged again and again charges dropped secretly in discreet manners, to try and get this man off because he has so much dirt on the guards. There was a lot of, there was a lot of people at risk over what had happened, because this all totally contravened the new rules that were brought in, following the Morris Tribunal. And I am actually astounded at what’s happening in Government at this level. Brendan Howlin himself, I was a witness in the Morris Tribunal, I’ve done a lot of work in security issues in the last 15 years, Brendan Howlin was one of, I remember he played a very noble role in exposing what happened there. And the silence of the Labour party in this matter is absolutely deafening. How anyone, at all, could suggest and you know, I’m just, I’m just speechless at these kind of defences that ‘well nothing can be proven’. Simon O’Brien was very categoric tonight [last night] right. And I know modern surveillance, because I deal with this stuff for a living, it doesn’t leave traces, you can’t prove that someone has done something because it’s so high tech. We published a report last week, which has proved to be pretty accurate, despite Alan Shatter and Enda Kenny’s attempts to [inaudible] to cover this up…”
Audrey Carville: “And your implications, John, about who was behind it, is pretty clear as well.”
Mooney: “I’m not saying who is behind it because I think there’s two issues here: you have to differentiate between the guards as an organisation and elements within the State security forces that are doing their own thing and they’ve the know-how and the knack to do this stuff, on the QT and abuse State systems. I can hazard a guess, at this, because I’m pretty familiar with the types of people that may be suspected of involvement in this and what might be motivating them. But, at the end of the day, this has developed into something else now. We had the Justice Minister stood up in the Dáil yesterday and poured cold water on the most serious allegations to come out, concerning spying an espionage, illegal, I should say.”
Broadsheet.ie have covered the GSOC case and posted this transcript of a previous interview between John Mooney and Fergal Keane on RTE's late debate, one of the few shows to run with this story early on.: http://www.broadsheet.ie/2013/05/10/black-ops-being-run...ooks/
Fergal Keane: “John Mooney, this is some pretty extraordinary statements there by the Garda Ombudsman who were there given oversight of the gardaÃ, saying the gardaà didn’t cooperate with them, didn’t give them information. It’s an incredible state of affairs. And very, very serious?”
John Mooney: “Well, it’s not for anyone who’s familiar with the story. I began investigating Kieran Boylan’s activities…”
Keane: “Who is this alleged informant.”
Mooney: “He’s not an informant. He was an international drug trafficker who was operating in the State, between here, Britain, Northern Ireland and Holland, and Spain at one stage. This individual entered into a relationship with a handful of guards. That was unknown to anyone. So there’s a lot duplicity going on at the moment and a lot of, sort of, lots of people running for cover, particularly in the Government, because very senior figures within the Government screamed very loudly, over the years, about what was happening with this case.”
Keane: “Pat Rabbitte being one?”
Mooney: “Yeah, Brendan Howlin, Enda Kenny himself actually. There were, the late Tony Gregory was very instrumental in highlighting this case. We began looking at this individual back in 2005, when I heard about his arrest with €2million worth of cocaine and heroin and he’d made certain claims, while in custody, he was on bail for a previous offence, he’d been caught with almost €1million worth of drugs, again heroin and cocaine being imported into the State. He seemed to have, he was suggesting at the time that he had high-level contacts within the guards. I didn’t actually believe the story but we commenced an inquiry into…”
Keane: “He made these claims in court?”
Mooney: “No, no, he never…this never got to court unfortunately. He suggested this while in custody with the Garda National Drugs Unit who were part of an international operation, to take him out. He was part of a cartel operating between here and Manchester and with various other major players in the drugs trade in, in mainland Europe. And this guy was involved in transporting huge quantities of drugs. You’re not talking about a couple of kilos of heroin, ones every so often, we’re talking about mega consignments of heroin. So he’s an individual, under any policing operation, who cannot fit into an informant category. People don’t understand. the legislation surrounding this and they don’t understand the rules governing this. The idea of police informants is not to recruit people, who instigate crime and traffick drugs into countries, and destroy communities and everything else. They try get people, who’ve no knowledge of it. But this guy was an instigator, and quite a wealthy individual. So he was caught, the charges were dropped. We highlighted the case, the charges were reinstated. And then, famously, in the last day of a hearing in, what was it, two years ago, in an unannounced, an unscheduled case, the charges were dropped against him. The only way that ended up in the public domain was because I happened to be in…”
Keane: “Ok..on the last day of the court sittings in July 2008.”
Mooney: “Nine. Yes, that was it. And Kieran would have had various choice words with me outside the court that evening, as a result of that. But, we’d subsequently…”
Keane: “Where is he now?”
Mooney: “He’s living in county Louth at the moment. And he, then we, as the investigation commenced, continued, we, as you’re probably are aware, revealed that he’d managed to obtain an international haulage licence, on the basis of paperwork that said that he didn’t even have a criminal record, again provided by garda headquarters. There were other allegations, he had his passport changed into his Irish name, which allowed him to travel internationally without…”
Keane: “Ok, you highlighted all of this. The gardaÃ…It prompted the Garda Ombudsman to start an investigation…”
You can read the full transcript at the broadsheet.ie link provided.
It will be interesting to see how deep the rabbit hole goes on this one. Mr Alan Shatter was on RTE "prime time" tonight denying any hard evidence that GSOC had been bugged and spinning desperately.
This has the potential to be politically explosive so we can expect more dail confrontations such as the one by Mary Lou McDonald below.
I'm making lots of popcorn! :-)
Kieran Boylan, teflon large scale drug trafficker. Who has he compromised?
Gerry Adams has informed the Dáil or Irish parliament that decisions made by the British Tory government, have seriously undermined the Belfast Agreement and the work of political institutions of the Irish Peace Process. He also accused the current and past Irish governments in the Republic of taking their eye off the North. There are outstanding issues, such as a bill of rights an Irish language act, also to be dealt with. “The Government is a co-equal guarantor with the British government of this agreement.This is not the British government’s agreement.’’ Mr Adams said the British government had reneged on an €18 billion commitment agreed to develop an economic peace dividend. He called on Taoiseach Enda Kenny to join with him in calling on the British government to honour its commitments.Besides the examples of several breaches by the British of the Peace Process mentioned above, other Tory Government broken promises are as follows. In the instance of the murder by the British Government death squads of a human rights lawyer, the party on behalf of Pat Finucane visiting Downing Street recently, included Pat’s widow Geraldine, children, Michael, Katherine and John; Pat’s brothers Martin and Seamus, former business partner, Peter Madden and campaigner, Jane Winter, arrived on a Tuesday afternoon. Cameron entered the room, accompanied by VIceroyal for British Occupied Ireland, Owen Paterson and Cameron’s private secretary.Initially, things looked promising with Cameron, according to John Finucane: “He came into the room and apologised to us on behalf of the British government for the collusion in my father’s murder. He also apologised for all the delays and broken promises which successive British governments have made to us for the last 10 years. “We fully expected at that point that he was going to announce to us that he was going to allow an inquiry into my father’s murder. We had been led to believe for more than a year that this was what was going to happen. Instead he proceeded to inform us that he had asked a barrister to review papers in the case and report back to the Secretary of State. It was a total insult.” The meeting was then immediately ended by Geraldine Finucane, when it was clear the British Prime Minister was ruling out any inquiry.John Finucane, said, “I think Mummy had had enough, she just said she didn’t want to hear anymore.She said she wanted the meeting to end.” Outside 10 Downing Street, Mrs Finucane said her rage was such that she could barely speak.There has also been an angry response from nationalist and human rights quarters. Cameron’s handling of this case has surprised those who praised him for his handling of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry when he apologised to the 14 innocent victims shot by the British Army on the streets of Derry. His treatment of the Finucanes, in contrast, reneges on the international agreement his government made with its Irish counterparts at Weston Park in 2001 as part of the Irish Peaxe Process to hold an inquiry into the Finucane murder.So what have the British got to hide? British/Irish Rights Watch spokesperson Jane Winter, who was at the Downing Street meeting, said she is convinced that there are individuals in the highest echleons of the British establishment who do not want their role in the events surrounding Pat Finucane’s murder to become public. “I have come to the conclusion that there is something about Patrick Finucane’s death that successive governments have tried to hide and still want to hide,” she said. “There’s something so utterly damning that they don’t want the public to know.” Referring to the detailed discussions which had taken place between Downing Street officials and the Finucane’s lawyers, Ms Winter said: “There have been extensive talks for over a year between the two legal teams. “All the talk was about what sort of public inquiry could be agreed. “It certainly was more than what was offered by David Cameron.” “The prime minister expressed his profound sympathy for the family and said it was clear from (the) Stevens and Cory (inquiries) that state collusion had taken place in Mr Finucane’s murder and he accepted these conclusions. “On behalf of the government he apologised to the family. “He confirmed that the government’s priority was to get to the truth in the best and most effective way and the secretary of state will set out the details for this process shortly.” Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, also questioned whether the Prime Minister believed it was right to “renege” on a previous Government's commitment to hold a public inquiry into a killing he referred to as “a dark moment in the country's history.” In an email Sir Jeremy sent to Simon King, the private secretary to the British Prime Minister he asked, “Does the PM seriously think that it's right to renege on a previous Government's clear commitment to hold a full judicial inquiry? “This was a dark moment in the country's history, far worse than anything that was alleged in Iraq/Afghanistan. I can’t really think of any argument to defend not having a public inquiry. What am I missing?” A reply email stated that Cameron “shares the view this is an awful case, and far worse than any post 9/11 allegation.” Another item reneged on by the British, is the reintroduction of internment without trial, with the theft of a Royal Pardon by Britain's secret services MI5 and the shredding of the Royal document by the out of control British spooks. Both of these innocent, senior traditional Irish republicans, Marian Price and Martin Corey, have been kidnapped by the British Secret Service Mafia MI5 and imprisoned indefinitely by secret kangaroo courts. Few British prime ministers have been as tireless in promoting Britain's arms industry as David Cameron. He calls it a key part of the UK's economy and he was heavily sponsored in the last election by the the British industrial war complex. He has promoted wars, arms and sectarianism not just in Afghanistan and the rich Gulf States in huge arms deals but has also promoted sectarianism in Libya and Syria. The British Tory Government policies, aside from breaking and ignoring the Irish Peace Process, is hell bent on promoting sectarianism in Ireland, as an excuse and justification for another profitable British war, on ordinary Irish people. The British Tories are dismantling the Irish Peace Process, as part of their permanent war business worldwide.
A new generation of secret courts will be established in law within weeks after a last-ditch bid to water down controversial government plans failed in the House of Lords.
Amnesty International warned of a "terrible day for British justice" after Lib Dem peers obeyed a three-line government whip to reject amendments to strengthen the role of judges in the new courts.
The justice and security bill, which extends the secretive closed material procedures (CMPs) into the main civil courts in England and Wales, will be sent to the Queen for royal assent before she opens a new session of parliament on 8 May.
Tim Hancock, Amnesty International's UK campaigns director, said: "This is a terrible day for British justice. After fierce lobbying by the government, peers have failed to restore even minimal amendments previously included to this deeply damaging bill. The cherished and vitally important principle that justice must be done and seen to be done has been dealt a serious blow this evening."
Kenneth Clarke, the minister without portfolio who championed the bill, says it is necessary to introduce the CMPs to allow sensitive intelligence to be heard in court, though this will be limited to the judge and to special advocates cleared for security who would represent claimants. Clarke claims the government has had to pay compensation to alleged victims of torture because some evidence cannot be heard in open court.
The government won on Tuesday night when peers voted by 174 to 158, a majority of 16, to reject a Labour amendment to allow the CMPs to be convened only if a judge rules that it would be impossible to reach a fair verdict "by any other means".
A separate amendment by Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, the Lib Dem former director of public prosecutions, which would have given judges the power to balance the interests of "national security" and "fair and open administration of justice" was withdrawn.
Lord Beecham, who moved the unsuccessful Labour amendment, said: "[Ken] Clarke's adherence to liberal principles over the years has earned him many admirers in a lifetime in politics, though not necessarily within his own party. I hope that by endorsing these amendments the house can not only help to minimise the damage that threatens the most valued elements of our jurisprudence and judicial system but also help rescue the minister without portfolio from self-inflicted damage on his own reputation for upholding those liberal values as he comes to the end of his most distinguished career."
Macdonald told peers: "The illiberalism inherent in this bill lies in this: that CMPs, as presently constituted, are not fair because they don't deliver and can't deliver balanced justice between the citizen and the state."
Lord Wallace of Tankerness, the Lib Dem advocate general for Scotland who also acts as the attorney general's spokesman in the Lords, said the government had made key changes to the bill to reflect concerns in the Lords after peers had defeated the government during an earlier stage of the bill. Wallace said: "The decision rests with the judge not the secretary of state … what we have sought to do is to ensure that this should be a procedure used only in very exceptional circumstances."
Clare Algar, executive director of the human rights charity Reprieve, said: "This is a disastrous result for British justice. Not only are we now facing a wave of secret courts at odds with our centuries-old legal freedoms; but we have not even seen the minor safeguards upheld which would have made them less dangerous.
"It is deeply shameful that the government has been allowed to push these plans through parliament, despite the total lack of evidence that they are needed. Secret courts will not make us any safer. They will, however, do irreparable damage to our reputation as a country which respects fair play and the rule of law."
@viriditan - I'm a Lib Dem who just recommended your post! I shall be sending back my membership card. There is simply no point to the party if it neglects its core values
@JamesH2 - My membership lapsed a while back, though I've been willing to continue defending Clegg and co up until recently.
Whoops.
@viriditan -
The legal aid cuts pushed me to the edge. This one has pushed me over. This is fascism. You do not have secret courts in a democracy.
It'll be very interesting times for whistleblowers soon.
....and they were discovered by an undercover officer who cannot be named as he is operating in a terrorist cell, having children making explosives when they were not being farmed out to pedophiles.
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@jamesH2 My LibDem party membership was due for renewal today - Very Bad Timing, eh? I wonder how many more of us are going to be calling the membership office today...
Thin end of the wedge. Watch as this gets extended to cover anything and everything the government of the day finds embarassing. We already have Dole Offices and Immigration Tribunals which think they are above the law, now every other little jack-in-office will be able to abuse their office with impunity.
@Stephenweaver - Would those be the immigration tribunals who upheld the law in the case of Mr Q?
0
@gharrison14 - I believe the Immigration Tribunals have largely backed Mrs May, their paymistress, it is the judiciary which has upheld the law of the land despite political pressure. As I consider Mrs May to be almost as dangerous to Britains' wellbeing as Mr Quatada, I am sitting back and watching them bite each other's tentacles with some amusement.
@gharrison14 - I believe the Immigration Tribunals have largely backed Mrs May, their paymistress, it is the judiciary which has upheld the law of the land despite political pressure. As I consider Mrs May to be almost as dangerous to Britains' wellbeing as Mr Quatada, I am sitting back and watching them bite each other's tentacles with some amusement.
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Disgusting.
A sad day indeed for Britain.
Somehow, we have all allowed this to happen.
There were two major failures really, none of which you can lay the blame on us for.
The first was the fact that the Liberal Democrats in the HoC, once again sold out on their principles and peddled this bill, despite the fact that their party members overwhelmingly voted against it.
The second was that those in the HoL didn't manage to get enough people to veto it a second time.
The failure was from those in power, and those alone, none of this was our fault.
Either way, welcome to our undemocratic, so called; 'United' Kingdom.
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"The illiberalism inherent in this bill lies in this: that CMPs, as presently constituted, are not fair because they don't deliver and can't deliver balanced justice between the citizen and the state."
The Lib Dems are no longer a party with its own ideas, it has become the left wing of the Tory party. It is now more blue than orange and should just change and become part of the Tory party.
It has done little to protect the people from the Tory craze to make the UK a country just for the rich.It has approved tax cuts, not pushed its mansion tax, so its improved the wealth of the rich whilst kicking those it represents in the butt regularly.
Funny how power changes believes so quickly. Clegg and Blaire are the same, once in power they became true blue Tories.
(Sorry, but that's about the kindest thing I could think of to say after reading this article which shows Britain edging ever closer to the totalitarian oligarchy so desired by the rich and powerful people in control).
Maybe I could move to an independent Scotland......but Salmond is best mates with Murdoch. Are there any desert islands left unsold I could strand myself on?
@RonJB - you're welcome :) However Blair is Murdoch's daughter's godfather; Cameron is constantly at parties with the whole gang of them. Salmond speaks to him on the phone and you think they're best mates?
Why stop st secret courts? How about a secret police? Secretly arrest people for things they might be secretly thinking? Then secretly torture them, until they admit that's what they're thinking. Then use that as evidence in secret.
21
@DismantleTrident - I thought we already were doing that...
@DismantleTrident - It is already happening - just read this:
"On Friday's UK Column Live we reported that Tim Rustige, another campaigner for justice for Hollie Greig, was arrested at his home by officers from Grampian Police.
Having been called by his father, Tim's son arrived at the address to find the garage door was open and a Grampian officer searching it. He asked for and was shown ID but when he asked to see the search warrant he was told to go to another officer upstairs. Having found the second police officer in his Dad's bedroom, he again asked for the search warrant, but was told to "stay quiet or you'll be arrested too." He then sat on the bed till the officer had finished his apparently unlawful search.
There was apparently another Grampian officer searching the downstairs rooms making three in all, with another two in a van outside. In the end they his mother's computer, despite him protesting that was her computer, not his father's, and that he could produce the receipt, as he and she had bought it together.
It is suspected that the police took this computer because his father's bail condition is that he is not allowed to go online. It would appear they believed he had been using the second computer.
The arrest of Tim Rustige by Grampian police, apparently without a search warrant, and possibly without an arrest warrant, raises serious questions. Grampian police have already demonstrated with the similar treatment of Robert Green, another campaigner for Hollie Greig, that they are prepared to unlawfully enter his home to remove evidence exposing criminal activity by the establishment.
Grampian Police said that Tim would be held over the weekend and appear in court on Monday. We believe he is now back home, but so far this is unconfirmed. Keep an eye out for updates on this on UK Column Live".
@DismantleTrident - that is already here and it has already been done in Northern Ireland the Uk has been convicted three times in the European Courts.
3
@00jebus - well, that was kinda what I was inferring... first stop will be secret courts for the disabled, then the benefits claimants, then the OAPs.
At least they can no longer claim what we always knew to be a lie - that we live in a free and democratic country which obeys the rule of law. I actually welcome this an end to hypocrisy. Being ordered to do something by a court no longer has the same legitimacy when you know it's a bourgeois court.
So now all of those alleged VIP paedophiles can be tried in a secret court on the grounds of National Security, so no one will know who they are, what they were alleged to have done and the reasons why they will have been to found to be innocent, unless of course people search the Internet.
So now all of those alleged VIP paedophiles can be tried in a secret court on the grounds of National Security, so no one will know who they are, what they were alleged to have done and the reasons why they will have been to found to be innocent, unless of course people search the Internet.
This government is driving me straight into lawful rebellion. Becoming a freeman on the land is the only way I can see, that at some possible point in the future, I will not be charged with having done nothing to stop this fascism and treason.
No surprises here !! As for Kenneth Clarke! He is the man whose policies removed legal aid in civil cases from thousands of people and has steered through this abysmal Bill. No wonder he goes to Bilderberger meetings.
I shall be resigning from the Liberral Democrat party today. Being part of the government is more important to Mr Clegg than protecting the fundamentals of British Justice.
“Evidence” that cannot be challenged in an open court is not evidence, it is supposition and hearsay. There cannot be two standards of examination of evidence, as there cannot be two standards of examination of scientific facts. If someone is appointed by the government to challenge the suppositions and hearsay presented to the court in closed sessions, this is clearly open to considerable abuse, and therefore is not justice.
The government cannot play fast and loose with people’s lives, without completely open challenge. People manipulate facts and evidence all the time. People manipulate other people; that’s what politics is about, day in day out. So don’t be surprised if the people in a closed legal system are manipulated. It happened in the secret service and the government when we went to war in Iraq. It will go on happening.
The government always has a choice in matters of national security – which is the greater evil – supposedly letting a guilty person go free because the government is not willing to release evidence into open court, or maintaining a source of information that will save more lives in the future. That is the only decision we should allow them to be making.
Anything else fatally undermines the basis of justice in the UK.
@happyhuman - "I shall be resigning from the Liberral Democrat party today."
Congratulations. Frankly, I'm amazed there are any of you left in it to resign.
@happyhuman - I resigned yesterday too. The chap on the phone at the membership office sounded very tired... I got the feeling I wasn't the first, and he knew I wasn't going to be the last!
The government is very well aware that any public protest about this legal denial of open justice will be limited to a few letters in the local rag. Compare this to the march on London and riotous behaviour in Parliament square when fox hunting was banned. How very very British.
7
We are now officially living in a Nazi, fascist, totalitarian dictatorship
Amnesty International warned of a "terrible day for British justice" afterLib Dem peers obeyed a three-line government whip to reject amendments to strengthen the role of judges in the new courts.
[My emphasis]
Which once again begs the question: what is the LibDem party for? As someone who has voted for them in every election since 97, on the basis that they apprently stood for something less noxious than brutal, callous Conservativism or the imbecile war criminals who parasitised Labour, I just see no difference any more: having tasted the tiny lick of power condescended upon them by Cameron, they have broken promises, allowed the Coalition to reach record heights of Nasty Tory policy, and now -- this farrago of injustice.
Is there any reason left for those of us who ever voted LibDem to bother doing so again?
As for the new secret courts, we seem to be following the US (as always), and I now seriously wonder how long it will be before our security services are able to warrantlessly tap and interfere with every aspect of our lives, and our next PM is granted the power, beyond and immune to the law, to murder, using a drone, a British citizen in any part of the world?
Once we regarded such 'law' with outrage if practised behind the Iron Curtain and in totalitarian regimes such as Bulgaria, Romania and others.
Now we are blindly led, by ambitious fools wilfully unconscious of the lessons of history, into becoming everything we so rightly despised.
I've had enough, I was never a card carrying member, but always supported the Libs and voted for them, but this is outrageous and I won't be voting for this bunch of hypocrites again.
Who do we vote for now when there's cross party support for this ? A sad, sad day for democracy and justice in Britain.
Labour and the Lib (liberal!!??) Dems should be truly ashamed of themselves.
@si15 - Ourselves. There never was a more pressing need for open assemblies, grassroots democracy, and an end to the system of handing our autonomy over to a bunch of blackguards once every four or five years.
@si15 - Actually - I was thinking the Greens are starting to look like they're the only real 'viable' protectors if civil liberties left. Check out their manifesto - it is pretty much what you'd expect the Lib Dems to be.
I've avoided them in the thought that they don't really have a chance, however, I think I have changed that position now for 2 reasons:
1) The managed to come in from obscurity in Oz
2) Winning isn't everything. Like the UKIP vote is driving policy at the moment, and I doubt anyone seriously thinks we are going to have a UKIP government anytime soon, maybe the Green vote can drag things in a more sensible direction
So we have an unelected chamber, consisting of people who supposedly have a free vote on government bills, having its GlibDem members effectively overruled by a three-line whip dictated by their Tory overlords.
Pathetic.
2
Secret courts established; David 'deny everything' Miliband leaves politics. Coincidence?
2
All to cover Jack Straw's criminal behaviour, a sad day for a once great country!
Now any of us can be tried in a court to which we will not be admitted, without access to the alledged evidence against, without even a representative of our choice. Kafka Rules OK!
PLEASE HELP STOP THE UK GOVERNMENTS PLAN TO RETROSPECTIVELY CHANGE THE LAW!!
http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-uk-government-changing-the-law-retrospectively
A lot of LibDem members here are discussing resigning. Is there any mechanism for you to regain control of your party instead? I'd be surprised if any rank and file LibDems agree with this legislation.
Put your hands up if you are daft enough to think that voting New Labour in the next election will change this?
It's a race to the bottom of the barrel. New Labour started this and the Tories have continued it. If they get voted out then New Labour will continue this once again.
The only vote they will understand is one of no confidence in them and the system they wish to continue.
Spoil your ballot or do not vote. Please, for yours and your children's future - stop voting for one or the other cheek of the same arse. Drop your petty flag waving allegiances and demand a proper democratic system.
Strange to believe this is the same Tory party which made such a song and dance about ID cards and how they would strip British citizens of their human rights and civil liberties, ID cards which are the norm pretty well everywhere else in the world.
Now we have secret courts, removal of legal aid, rights of appeal quashed, the likes of ATOS making decisions specifically designed to impoverish the most vulnerable in society, Iain Duncan Smith trading benefit entitlement for Easter Eggs, Police Commissioners appointing their friends to high paid positions courtesy of the public purse and Tory Donors seeking to remove the basic rights of ordinary working people by buying policy over supper in Sam's kitchen.
Even more laughable than the UKIPpers and frothers describing the Health Service as "Stalinist".
The dreams of the last century, that increased mechanisation and automation would lead to increased leisure time for the masses, relieved of the drudgery and sheer mindlessness of much unskilled work. Instead, compounded by the outsourcing of jobs and the influx of cheap immigrant workers, the best the 21st century can come up is forced labour at slave wage levels, extended working hours, and the age of retirement heading for 70. So with the stroke of IDS's pen, we go from an economic strategy that deliberately creates mass unemployment to one that deliberately creates cheap labour. Brilliant. There's an honour in this for you, Ian, rehabilitation, glory, a statue.
My God, my ancestors will be turning in their graves. The Tories are finally realising what they have long dreamed of - throughout the years of the post-war settlement, they moodily incubated a determination to reverse the social and economic gains fought for and won by people of unparalleled toughness and determination, people who took on the might of privilege and wealth and defeated it. This is the New Tory moment; this when they come out from behind their cosmetic masks of reasonableness and fairness and social concern and display their true dark hearts before the world.
But I reserve my greatest contempt for those of us on the left; this is all happening on our watch. We betray those people I mentioned above, who vanquished the landowners and the factory and coal owners. And what are WE up against? a couple of Bullingdon hooray-henries and a leadership reject with the political acumen of petrified bird droppings . But the neoliberal apologists and careerist politicians that have infested the Labour Movement see only the votes of bigoted Middle Englanders and the ignorant Sun reading dross that posts here waiting to be harvested. The latter busy calling for their own enslavement, too ignorant or misinformed to notice the turkey staring back at them in the mirror of a Christmas Morning. And in the new Dark Age heralded in by IDS, every morning will be Christmas Morning for the beneficiaries, the businesses who will exploit this measure to access free labour, the talk of charities being a transparent smoke screen to hide the fundamental dismantling of the human right for a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.
Make no mistake, this is just the beginning. Anyone who thinks that once the principle of unpaid labour has breached the social repugnance it generates that it will stop at a month's work for 'idlers' is the kind of fool the Tories are relying on get this through. These are the descendants of people who built vast fortunes and empires on the sweat and death of their factories and workhouses; they are past masters at dressing up inequality and evil in Protestant work ethics and biblical rhetoric denouncing the peril of idleness - except where it's practised in its purest forms of course, by digital fortune shufflers and land owning parasites drawing their subsidies while they indulge Mediterranean waves with their oversized cock-yachts.
Shame, shame on us all. Tolstoy said everyone was innocent. I say everyone is guilty. And our children will never forgive us for allowing this to happen. The Tories talk of not saddling future generations with our debt; I think only of future generations facing the return of evils greater than any debt, that we had long thought banished from the lexicon of social intercourse and post war economics, all presented as some kind of economic panacea. Who is really 'taking the piss' here?
...to highlight just a few examples (there are many more) - coupled with the treatment dished out to whistleblowers - I doubt if we will have to wait long before anti-austerity activists wind up in front of one of these.
When that happens - there'll be no-one left to speak out for you!!!
Since when did the Lords get to decide legislation? Their role is to review and amend and send back to the Commons for final approval. Isn't it? Or has something been subtly changed? Not that it would surprise me at all.
The State. No more or less than grubby little people with their hands in our pockets looking to purloin whatever they can, from you and me, for naught. And don't content yourself that these thieving bastards are the exceptions - it goes throughout the system like dry-rot.
For the development of dry rot, a special set of conditions must exist. For thieving bastards to use the apparatus and mechanisms of the state to rob you, me, our inheritance, our children, our wealth, our future, our businesses, farms, villages, towns and our whole darn nation, scoffing every morsel they can, there needs to be a special set of conditions too. And those conditions are no more, or less, than simply the presence of the apparatus and mechanisms of the state.
If the apparatus and mechanisms exist you will be robbed, endlessly. Not maybe but 100% defiantly because that is exactly what the apparatus and mechanisms of the state are designed for. It has always been that way and it always will. The only variable is how powerful the apparatus and mechanisms are, the weaker the less effective they are at thieving the lifeblood of humanity the better you may be able to get-on. But weaker they are not getting. No no!
Like dry-rot, the state, once it infests, it can only momently stagnate or grow. You will not get it to go away without destroying every timber it has reached into. If you let it grow it will consume more and more. It is ruthless and it is veracious.
The only good thing is that eventually it destroys everything of the material on which it is hosted and then it dies. So in the end, ultimate victims of the ultimate state, we will all be sucked dry and left to crumble in the wind. Then we may have a chance to build it up again and we can only hope that next time with more resistance, confidence and pragmatism.
What we have is a government that is hacking everyone's sites, anybody with anything to say of any value has their comments altered at a later date by aspects of the government that trawl through media supplements comments boxes so to be able to discredit anyone who has anything to state of any value that they deem to be contentious or that infringes upon their credibility.
Welcome to the age of netcentric warfare and netcentric terrorism, when censorship cannot be enforced then espionage and acts of criminal damage is what they perpetrate instead.
Has Treasury shot itself in the foot?
From Mr Adrian Jack.
This next part really makes me laugh as anything that contributes to GDP/GNP growth looks good for the central executive and the Treasury, although in practicality it is not so effective or practicable in the efficient management of a planed economy or the regional financial administration of revenue and financial infrastructure support.
Because municipal borrowing is part of the national debt, the net effect is that the total interest payable on consolidated pubic borrowing increases.
ie: All the crap about the deficit that should not exist as we are sitting on an abundance of resource and manpower.
At the same time, the governments profit from the margin on lending to local authorities drops to zero, because none of the latter will borrow on the exchequers terms.
Which once again looks good for the government figuratively and also helps those blood sucking financiers with their PFI's adn FMI"S to choke the life out of local authorities I guess.
This is a lose-lose situation, would the chancellor not do better to lend a more modest uplift?
Well Jack, that is not at one persons discretion and at whose you and I will never know.
Many thanks to Adrian Jack,
Barrister and Rechtsanwalt
Enterprise Chambers
London, WC2, UK
Inasmuch myself for the wit and sarcasm
I have been giving it much thought Jack, although I am no longer sure how the Treasury borrow to Local Authorities, I believe it is all fraudulent due to a lack of disclosure concerning financial aggregate management of the public finances and revenue.
Now it might seem rather superficial, the changing of the word practicable to practice and deficit to deceit, although when somebody reads that comment at a later date it no longer makes sense as the context of the statement has been completely altered so inevitably the reader stops reading and moves on to another comment.
Two things come to mind .
Firstly this odious legislation isn`t necessarily for keeps . I`m sure I have seen a quote from the shadow Minister deprecating the vote . Is he prepared to say that a Labour majority would secure Its repeal , if so he gets my vote and as a 1970`s member of the real Liberal Party I can only think that Jo Grimond and members of that vintage would be turning in their graves .
Secondly you would have to think that the best hope would be for a robust and independent legal profession and judiciary but all the signs are that this gov``t is determined to bring the Bar to it`s knees and turn the business over to Tesco .
All this being said rather than wring our hands and scream Fascists we would do better to join Liberty in numbers because this clearly is not the last battle .
What are our politicians afraid of, the possibility that the public will find out what they have been really up to in the name of the public? The public have a right to know. Just another example of smoke and mirrors
3. CIVIL LIBERTIES
We will be strong in defence of freedom. The Government believes that the British state has become too authoritarian, and that over the past decade it has abused and eroded fundamental human freedoms and historic civil liberties. We need to restore the rights of individuals in the face of encroaching state power, in keeping with Britain’s tradition of freedom and fairness.
W.e. 31/03/2013, the year that the Tory Party, with the aid of it's Lib-Dem partners started to drive the final few nails into the coffin of democracy and the ability of the courts tp hold the government to account.
This week week have the bill for secret courts and and the retroactive legislation to deprive 250,000 people of their benefits that the Court of Appeals awarded them.
And what did the Labour Party do while this happened? They held the hands of the Con-Dem's, swinging like the small child between the two "grown-up" parties as the country is led towards a darker future.
Thursday February 13, 2014 23:34
by fred
