• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• In the News - Archive 2006

In the News - Archive 2006

01 January 2006

December 2006

UK: First target for fingerprinting to be foreign nationals

Kosovo follows risky path with plan to give EU sweeping powers (Independent, link)

USA: Millions assigned terror risk score on trips to the US - Information gleaned from travellers to build profiles (Guardian, link)

UK: Biometric trials start at Heathrow (BBC, link)

UK: Chipping away at freedom - The country may be evenly split over ID cards but opposition to radio-based tracking is overwhelming (Guardian, link)

Netherlands: Dutch senate endorses counter-terrorism powers (link)

November 2006

UK: Cracked it! Three million Britons have been issued with the new hi-tech passport, designed to frustrate terrorists and fraudsters. So why did Steve Boggan and a friendly computer expert find it so easy to break the security codes? (Guardian, link)

EU-NATO-Afghanistan: Javier Solana, EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy at the meetings of EU Foreign and Defence Ministers - 23 EU member states have sent approx.15,800 troops to Afghanistan as part of the NATO force.

October 2006

Speech by Lord Chief Justice Phillips on terrorism and human rights (link)

France: Sarkozy jumps into row over Muslim airport staff (link, Expatica)

September 2006

EU: Aarhus Convention - Regulation on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters (EC no 1367/2006)

UK: Centre for Crime and justice: "From punishment to problem solving: A new approach to children in trouble" by Rob Allen (link)

Child database attacked over celebrity exclusions

August 2006

The denial of true reflection: Modern moralists live in an experience vacuum; Günter Grass's idea of honour is beyond them by John Berger (Guardian, link)

July 2006

Malta joins USA "Pisces" project (link) Government press release (pdf)

UK: MI5 has files on 272,000 people and 53,000 organisations (Daily Mail, link)

June 2006

Crime squad chief's links to IT firm are revealed (Guardian, link)

Review of operation of the Terrorism Act 2000 in 2005 by Lord Carlile (May 2006) (pdf)

EU's security and defence policy - House of Commons Research Library

EU: Measures on so-called "simplified" controls at the external borders of: a) Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta,
Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia and b) Switzerland and Liechtenstein

May 2006

Football related law enforcement in England and Wales

Q. What could a boarding pass tell an identity fraudster about you? A. Way too much - a simple airline stub, picked out of a bin near Heathrow, led Steve Boggan to investigate a shocking breach of security, Steve Boggan, 3 May 2006, Guardian and Who's watching you while you travel? by Edward Hasbrouck, author of "The Practical Nomad" ,18 April 2002.

USA: Wiretap Report for 2005 and Report for 2005 - Annexes (link to Cryptome). This gives a total of 2,398 interceptions during 2005 carried out by state and federal agencies.

April 2006

EU: Data retention law could harm free press

Malta: Exclusive: November migrants shipwreck tragedy (Malta Today, link) Botched rescue mission of immigrants passing through Maltese waters on 17 November 2005, with 29 of them ending up drowning on the shores of Sicily later on that day

UK: 'Big Brother' scheme axed (Guardian, link)

Malta: The host, the guest and the rest (The Times, link) "Much has been said about the recent spate of arson attacks against those men and women who have made it their business to defend the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees in Malta"

UK: Chief Inspector of Prisons:

a) Report on the unannounced inspections of five non-residential short-term holding facilities: Queen's Building and Terminals 1-4, Heathrow Airport 10-13 October 2005 by HM Chief Inspector of Prisonsxxxxxx (pdf)

b) Report on the unannounced inspections of three short-term non-residential immigration holding facilities: Calais Seaport, France Coquelles Freight, France Coquelles Tourist, France 2 –3 August 2005 by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (pdf)

March 2006

This ID project is even more sinister than we first thought by Henry Porter (Observer, link)

ID card support collapses - More than 80 per cent now against scheme (link)

UK: How we move ever closer to becoming a totalitarian state - The Prime Minister claims to be defending liberty but a barely noticed Bill will rip the heart out of parliamentary democracy by Henry Porter, 5 March 2006 (Observer, lnik)

February 2006

German court judgment: Authorisation to shoot down aircraft in the Aviation Security Act void (link)

Civil liberties fear as US terror suspect list rises to 325,000 (Guardian, link). In 2003 the list was said to contain 75,000 names and in 2004 some 125,000.

ID cards will provoke a national identity crisis by Andrew Phillips (Observer, link)

The media and childrens' rights - handbook (pdf)

January 2006

UK: Report from Refugee Council and Refugee Action: “Inhumane and Ineffective - Section 9 in Practice” (pdf, link)

Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey, feature by Steve Connor (Independent, link) and Surveillance UK: why this revolution is only the start

The new Schengen Information System - Anybody in control? (euobserver, link)