Taking Out The Trash

Cabinet Committee on domestic subversion

And it's nice to come back and find that, while various police forces are still refusing to hand over info requested under the FOI; the Cabinet Office has agreed to one of my requests.

As you can see below.
FOI 266 484

Thursday round-up

Ferociously busy with work so lax with the posting but here are a few items:

I'm looking at putting together an online resource which will collate all the information published regarding the blacklisting scandal. This is in conjunction with Spinwatch. If you've got info/ideas which you think should be on such a site let me know. Meanwhile a Blacklisting Support Group has been set up. See my article in tomorrow's Tribune or a piece on Labournet.

Since January 26 2006: Two new children for me, a new president for America, a new Prime Minister for Great Britain, Spurs still providing comedy light relief for football fans. It's also the day I put in an FOI request to the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). Yesterday I got a letter from the ICO saying they upheld my appeal that NOMS should release me the info I asked for.
Three-and-a-half years. Including 250 days for them to carry out an internal review when the ICO says it should take 40 at most. Shouldn't be surprised as the BBC's Martin Rosenbaum made  clear a year ago.
Hopefully the results are going to end up in a newspaper article so that will be some satisfaction.

Finaly: via a tweet from Tom Watson MP this story about state-sponsored spyware in Blackberrys. Why would you call your surveillance app Interceptor though? Doesn't that kind of give the game away?

You can audit the police

Just back from the Centre for Investigative Journalism summer school with lots of ideas and memories of seeing people in London wandering around with surgical face masks on. (Those crazy city folk).
My starter for ten is: from Monday July 20 you can audit Avon and Somerset Police.
Once a year, for 20 working days, this freedom of information legislation comes into effect and for the cops it starts in, ooh, about 18 minutes.
As the Orchard News Bureau's helpful web site explains:

The Audit Commission Act 1998
Section 15 of the Act enables electors and taxpayers of a particular borough or police authority area to inspect and make their own copies of council and police authority accounts.
These rights of inspection extend beyond the authority supplying data spreadsheets, listing income and expenditure, on request.
The public has a right to see the detailed contracts, invoices, receipts, books and bills that relate to the accounts of the recent financial year.

They've got guidance on how to do this.

So, want to see the receipts for the chief constable's expenses claims or maybe the contracts for services with Southwest One? Request away.
And if you'd prefer to have a look at Bristol City Council's paperwork then its open access period starts on July 27. Both Bath and Wiltshire councils have already started and Wilthire police also begins tomorrow. So get cracking (and let me know how you get on).

They had their day in court

At the end they got the chance to see their man in court.

Some two dozen union activists who had been blacklisted thanks to the activities of the Economic League and one of it's successors, The Consulting Association, got to confront Ian Kerr. The man who left the League to run the TCA until he was busted back in February.

Kerr arrived at court at 8.30am to ensure he got in before anyone else. He appeared from an ante-room at the last minute to stand in the dock and you could feel the ranks of those in the public gallery looking slightly unsure.

He looked his 66 years. Thin, 6ft, grey hair, grey suit, grey demenour, cocking his head to listen intently to the evidence, his eyes flicking nervously behind his glasses. His wife was in court. He had one legal representative. The prosecution had half a dozen. The public gallery was packed; but all they could see was his back flanked by some security guards. Kerr looked alone. The spotlight wasn't meant to fall on him.

For some of the guys in the gallery this man had been plaguing them for most of their working lives. The faceless corporations which employed him and financed the Consulting Association as their front were less tangible. Here was the physical embodiment of the secret blight that had been visited upon them.

If they were unsure at first that disappeared as the facts of the case were read out. There were regular heckles from the gallery. The TCA was funded, at one time or another, by some 40 construction companies - pretty much all the big names - and for 15 years it acted as private vetting agency collating gossip, newspaper clippings, union minutes, toilet graffiti and info from companies. If your name was one of more than 3,000 on their list you weren't getting in.

When the court heard that Kerr's assets amounted to £12,000 in savings, a house and state pension it was clear that there would be no punative fine. As the judge made clear at the beginning there is no case history to guide him. The £5,000 fine was met with shouts of disgust from the gallery. Kerr remained, as throughout, silent.

Meanwhile the best the ICO could do with the companies behind Kerr was to issue them a warning. The civil courts might have the last say on the matter.

There were only two ways out of court so there would be no avoiding his accusers for Kerr. After a short delay he came out the back hiding under an umbrella and got swiftly into a car and put a newspaper over his face. His was car was surrounded and suddenly the shouting took off. People really let rip. There were a few bangs on the car while the horn sounded continuously. After a few minutes a security guard stepped in and allowed the car to speed off.

This autumn the government will finally make good on its pledge to outlaw blacklisting and unions are likely to extract some compensation from the construction industry. This chapter is closing.

Shortly after Kerr left one worker told me that he had just taken a call from a colleague. He'd been given his papers from a construction job in Manchester for seemingly no reason.

My piece for Computer Weekly begins:

Construction companies which paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to a secret blacklisting operation escaped prosecution today.

A judge fined Ian Kerr, the man responsible for co-ordinating the operation, £5,000 but said while he was not the only person to blame he was "in the firing line".

The Information Commissioner's Office, which brought the case, said it was looking at issuing information notices against 17 construction companies which financed the blacklisting warning them as to their future behaviour.

There were angry scenes as Kerr left the building hiding in the back of car while some of those who had been blacklisted shouted abuse and banged on the vehicle. Many said they were disappointed both at the small fine and that the construction companies had not been prosecuted.

Carry on reading here.

Other coverage from today's sentencing:

Daily Mail

The Guardian

BBC

The Daily (Maybe)

Ten Percent

The Hidden Paw

Blacklisting consultation begins

I'm off to leafy Cheshire next week to cover the sentencing of Ian Kerr of The Consulting Association - found guilty of data protection breaches by running a secret blacklist of trade union members.
And yesterday Lord Mandelson unveiled the government's short sharp consultation which should lead to this practice being outlawed.
It is a year since my article on blacklisting prompted the investigation by the Infomation Commissioner's Office; six years since the government last consulted and found no evidence, ten years since the original employment legislation was introduced but with the blacklisting clause held in abeyance and 90 years since the Economic League was founded which turned the blacklisting of 'subversives' into an industrial-sized operation.
The main proposals are:
To make it unlawful for organisations to refuse employment or sack individuals as a result of appearing on a blacklist; to make it unlawful for employment agencies to refuse to provide a service on the basis of appearing on a blacklist; and to enable individuals or unions to pursue compensation or solicit action against those who compile, distribute or use blacklists.
There is a clause exempting journalists who obtain blacklists as part of exposing their existence.

Here are some comments on yesterday's announcement:
The Daily Mirror queries why this has taken so long
The Guardian links the story with a report calling for increased regulation to stop people being killed at work. An issue I covered for them back in 2007.
Over at Personnel Today they set up a head-to-head on the issue between Ben Willmott, senior public policy adviser at the CIPD, and Michael Gorrill, head of the Regulatory Action Division at the Information Commissioner's Office. An interesting way of covering the story.
Ian Manborde asks whether simply making laws is enough to eradicate blacklisting. This is something I believe Mandelson has acknowledged - that the process could be shipped overseas. That's not a reason for doing nothing though; that's a reason for making a start on the bits you can fix quickly.
The TUC are happy, UCATT also pleased but add:  "We are disappointed that the consultation document fails to recommend any compensation for existing victims of blacklists.”

To view the consultation visit the BERR web site.

How much is MI6 firm paying my MP, and why?

News that MPs are going to have to reveal more about their second jobs has focussed on the shadow cabinet and those Labour ministers keen to keep raking it in while still in power.

I've got a more parochial interest in the new disclosures as my MP, James Gray, registers a business consultancy with Hakluyt and Company Ltd. A firm set up by, and stuffed full of, former MI6 officers which has been accused of infiltrating environmental groups and suborning journalists.

Hakluyt has been described by researcher Robin Ramsay as "a striking example of a semi-commercial relationship between MI6 and the City".

Gray describes the company as "a consultancy offering intelligence and stratgic advice". The section under which Gray's interest is listed by the House of Commons is defined under the old rules as:

...for registering outside employment, professions and sources of remuneration (of more than £590 a year) not clearly covered elsewhere in the registration form. Members are not expected to register the amount of their earnings except where they are 'providing services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament', for example making representations to a government department, providing advice on parliamentary or public affairs or sponsoring functions in parliamentary buildings. In such cases they must register the amount of their earnings within bands of £5,000 and, with the exception of speaking or writing engagements, must also deposit for public inspection an 'agreement for the provision of services'.

Update: A source tells me that Gray says he has only been paid arond £2,000 in total by Hakluyt for services rendered over the last few years. Seems a rather paltry sum.

Hakluyt, which also has a Foundation to provide a berth for its many ex-spook employees, was set up in 1995 with Christopher James and Mike Reynolds - both former MI6 officers - leading the way. It has been descibed as "providing leading British businesses with information that clients will not receive by the usual government, media and commercial routes" (source). For a secretive organisation it has been rather regularly fingered in the press. I guess in this business it's easy to make enemies.

Sourcewatch has a detailed clippings job on the firm which includes:
spying on Greenpeace
Working for Enron
boasting about its network on journalists on the payroll

Journalists Jonathan Bloch and Paul Todd give some more background on how the firm operates with the tacit approval of MI6 in their book Global Intelligence.

The Times talked about the firm in a wider piece on private investigators:

"More competition also appeared in 1995 in the form of Hakluyt, a shadowy company run by former MI6 officers. Named after the mapmaker of lore, the company is the self-styled Cazenove of the industry, with a client base mainly of FTSE 100 companies."

And last year it reported that former Downing Street foreign affairs advisotr David Manning had joined the company. Meanwhile the FT has some nice details on the firm in a piece on corporate investigators.

All in all a very interesting company which stands at the intersection of commcerce and politics and which straddles the political and parapolitical world tand to whose benefit it is unclear.

I wonder how much it is paying James Gray and what it gets out of the deal?

Update: Andrew Sparrow at The Guardian explains why I won't get the limited extra detail just yet.

Come on in, there's plenty of room

Update: perceptive analysis over at Paperhouse of Brown's spat with the Bristol Evening Post over the value of news in the crudest sense.

And welcome to Bristol 24-7 which editor Chris Brown describes as:

• First, as a local newspaper, to be the city’s most comprehensive source of news, sport and opinion. I intend to bring together the best news sources into this site to give readers the widest possible range of information – and produce as much original journalism as possible to provide a new, distinct perspective on life in this great city. “I’ll do what I do best… and link to the rest”

• Second, to be the best source of information on the city – in effect, to be the Google of Bristol. Over the coming months new sections will be added so that, whether you are a resident, or just planning to visit, then I hope to ensure that the facts and figures you need make your time in the city easier is available – quickly and easily – through this site. If it isn’t, then get in touch and I’ll make sure it will be in future.

• Finally, to provide businesses with a range of online marketing solutions to help them grow. What does this mean in plain English? It means, why spend big money on short-lived newspaper ads with no idea if the money has been well spent? Bristol24-7 can provide you with everything from new, interactive websites, to SEO, Google Ad management, social networking and email marketing – with honesty and integrity at heart, and at a price that puts the power of the internet into the hands of even the smallest company, organisation or group.

And the bit I appreciate, being a good NUJ member and all that, is this line:

At present though, I am not in a position to pay for contributions to this site – and I will not ask for anyone to offer their work to me for free. It is an unsustainable way to conduct a business and is clearly not fair for contributors.

I hope in time that the site succeeds and I can pay for contributions. Until then, all I can do is ask readers to email me if you have any suggestions to improve the site, or are willing to contribute to make this site a success. I promise I will read all messages and reply, if necessary, as soon as I possibly can.

Good luck with it. You can also follow Bristol 24-7's twitter feed and the email is: [email protected].

Going undercover

The BBC screened a programme tonight showing some celebs sleeping rough so they could expose the fact that, er, sleeping rough wasn't very nice.
It was a programme so weak in ideas that you wanted to gauge your own eyes out in frustration. It's not as if there is a lack of stories around. The money spent on the 'talent', which included Annabel Croft and the Marquis of Blandford (WTF!), could surely have gone to some journalists who might not have a name but do have a story to tell.
By coincidence Lovefilm sent me Shock Corridor to watch so I stuck that on afterwards.
Sam Fuller's 1963 film is about a reporter who goes undercover in a mental hospital to expose a murderer. The asylum acts as a metaphor for America at the time. The three witnesses the reporter meets are a GI brainwashed by the Communists in the Korean War, a black man convinced he's the founder of the Ku Klux Klan and a physicist who worked on the atom bomb programme and couldn't take the pressure.
It's Sam Fuller so don't expect things to end well.
What I found interesting was that the reporter, Johnny, is an egomaniac whose motive is not really to solve the murder but to win a Pulitzer Prize. This isn't about the hack as noble investigator but as obsessive, desperate to receive acclaim.
The film was originally banned in this country because the BBFC didn't like what it said about those suffering mental health problems. I'm not sure they got that Fuller felt it was society which was sick.
If you can get over actor Peter Breck's scenery-chewing performance in the lead, Shock Corridor is worth viewing. Check out the trailer below for a taste.

Down the rabbit hole

Fascinated to hear Peter Hennessy talking on the Today programme about the publication of the War Book - the step by step guide on how the government would handle the countdown and initiation of nuclear war.
As part of that plan senior government officials would speed by train from Paddington to Burlington. You won't find Burlington on the map; it's actually a gigantic underground bunker beneath Corsham.
We used to joke about this when I worked at The Bath Chronicle because it was fairly common knowledge. So if we knew, undoubtedly there was a missile sitting somewhere in an icy Russian silo with Corsham tapped into its targeting system.
I wonder if it is still there?
Some years ago me and a colleague did the local rite of passages which is to try and get in to the network of caves and bunkers through one of the many holes that dot the hills.
First stop is a pint at The Quarryman's Arms where you can get a map and a very decent 6X (the pub is actually chained to the hillside trivia fans).
Then is was a hike to find a good-sized rabbit hole and down we went. In six hours of flailing around we came across old mining equipment, a cavern called the Cathedral and not a lot else. When I watched The Descent it brought back memories; without the crazy monsters.
Some have much better luck (or better maps).

Good reports on the War Book story in:
The Guardian
Associated Press
and particularly The Daily Mail which does these type of stories very well and has found some great images to accompany the copy.

And if you want to see the War Book then you'll have to make an appointment to view it at the National Archives.

If you want to head MI6, head south west

Our security services are used to scrutinising the language and actions of foreign powers for clues as to their directions and intentions.
Similarly, it is clear that with the appointment of Sir John Sawers as the next head of MI6, that the South West has taken control of our foreign intelligence service.
Consider the evidence.
Up to 1985 it was the usual parade of well-to-do Home Counties chaps. Then Christopher Curwen was appointed who was educated at Sherborne School on the Dorset / Somerset border.
A brief respite under Colin McColl was followed by Arabist David Spedding who was also educated at Sherborne.
After that came Richard Dearlove who was educated at Monkton Combe on the outskirts of Bath.
Then there was John Scarlett, during the traumatic aftermath of the Iraq war, until order was restored with the announcement that Sawyer was taking over. It turns out out that Sawers was educated at the City of of Bath Boys College, now known as Beechen Cliff, in Bath.
Even as we speak, foreign intelligence services are heading for the South West to start infiltrating our education system. Be alert.
As a postcript, when Dearlove was appointed I was working for the Bath Chronicle and suggested we do bit of digging on his academic record. There was a D-Notice out warning against any publication of information  on the new C beyond what the FCO had put out. The editor declined to go further than the official line.
By some weird coincidence a few weeks later I was due to give a talk to Monkton Combe sixth form students on journalism as a career option. So, after the usual preamble, I had great delight in setting a few of them off to find out more about their famous alumni.
Meanwhile we're treated to relatively little about our new head of the Secret Intelligence Service, Sir John. The BBC's profile on this "tall and dashing" man is woeful while The Times calls him 'an outsider' even though it is pretty clear from his CV that he started off as an MI6 officer covering the Middle East.
More of a return to the fold surely?

Update: Hugh Muir over at The Guardian points out that MI5 has its own West Country alumni.