An essential freedom of speech issue. The Conservative communications minister Ed Vaizey is asking all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to create the infrastructure to block websites from being viewed. He claims this will protect children from seeing pornography - but it's probably fair to say their parents are better-equipped to decide what's best for them than the government. Filtering technology has been proved to be useless for effectively deciding what constitutes "adult" content - a definition that will be different for every single one of us in any case. And why does this have to stop at "pornography" - if an ISP decides it would rather you didn't look at Wikileaks, for example, should it be acceptable for the company to block it? It's important a big noise is made about this one, and quickly.
More from The Guardian (http://bit.ly/fuQ3MP) and the Open Rights Group (http://bit.ly/h8lnQS).

It is deeply unfair on top of the stigma of being unemployed, that unemployed people should be isolated from their family and friends, yet still worse be marooned in their local area because they cannot afford to travel. This demoralises unemployed people, isolates them from other people, and denies them the right to take part in activities.

Unemployed people need all the motivation they can get, and the dignity of being able to maintain a routine to keep their morale up. Providing the unemployed with frees of charge travel passes will enable them to visit friends and family, take part in things like, sports, arts & crafts, community theatre e.t.c, seek work and attend interviews without feeling the financial pressures of having to fork out for travel fares, or even worse not be able to do it at all because they cannot afford it.

It is bad enough having the anxiety of being out of work, loosing the social circle of people you associated with at work, being forced into poverty, yet alone being stuck by yourself and not being able to get out.

This idea will seek to help remedy this, give people dignity, confidence, human company, and interests to motivate them which they could follow through the rest of their lives.

British security agencies are pushing for a law, which would allow vast amount of private data to be collected and stored, according to media reports. Big Brother will know who you call, what sites you surf and how you play video games.
The government wants details about text messages, phone calls, email, visited websites, Facebook and Twitter exchanges and even online games chats, British media report.
According to the initiative called the Communications Capabilities Development Programme, the data will be stored for a year and will be available to the secret services.
The security scheme requires Internet providers, landline and mobile phone operators to police their clients in an effort to combat terrorism.
What is said in text messages and phone calls will not be recorded, but much other data, including geographical whereabouts or people involved will be
The plan is said to have been prepared by the Home Office in collaboration with home security service MI5, the foreign intelligence service MI6 and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the body responsible for signals intelligence and information assurance for UK’s government and armed forces.
The plan is expected to be announced in May in the Queen's Speech. It is a rewrite of a similar plan, which was developed by the Labour party, but had been shelved in November 2009 due to lack of public support. Then in opposition the Conservatives criticized Labour’s “reckless” record on privacy.

This needs to be stopped.

Mr C made a complaint about a solicitor’s handling of his late father’s estate and his and his wife’s purchase of their property. The solicitor refused to deal with Mr C’s estate complaint because the solicitor was, as the sole executor of the estate, the client of his own firm. The property purchase complaint was not dealt with promptly, fairly or effectively by the solicitor.

Mr C and his wife made a combined complaint to the Law Society initially through the Legal Complaints Service (“the LCS”) and matters were then referred to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (“the SRA”). Before Mr C made his complaint he was assured by a LCS caseworker that he could not be charged by the solicitor. During the handling of Mr C’s complaint both the LCS and the SRA maintained that Mr C could not be charged by the solicitor.

The solicitor successfully sued Mr C in the High Court resulting in a loss to him in excess of £125k comprising £12k in costs incurred by the solicitor in responding to the LCS and the SRA investigations and a further £113k in litigation costs. The SRA had raised allegation of misconduct against the solicitor for attempting to charge and made a submission to the High Court saying Mr C should be afforded cost protection.

The net result is that it has cost Mr C in excess of £125k for making a complaint about a solicitor which has not been dealt with properly by the solicitor or the Law Society. The High Court judge commented during proceedings that it was not his job to consider whether Mr C’s complaint was justified or not.

The solicitor has made considerable financial gain by engaging his firm to handle litigation on his behalf. The recognised self regulatory system for complaints handling and regulation of solicitors has allowed this outcome to happen. The solicitor has become the victim rather than Mr C in this matter.

Mr C wishes to petition the Prime Minister to ensure that an effective and independent system for the regulation of solicitors is introduced. The corrupt practice of the Law Society not taking responsibility for its action and of allowing solicitors to gain at the expense of consumers cannot continue.

We should all strive to protect the essential Human Rights of Prisoners - but on the issue of Votes the European Court of Human Rights has got it wrong. The UK Government is planning to stand-up to them and say NO to Votes for Prisoners - and in this they deserve our support. Prisoners are not being "deprived" of the right to vote - they have elected to give up that right at the moment that they committed a crime serious enough that it is an imprisonable offense. In recent years the balance has been lost between considering the rights of criminals - and protecting the Human Rights of victims of crime. If we support the goverment in retaining the existing UK rules on this issue, maybe we can avoid sliding further down that slippery slope.

Friday August 26th 2011 at 7pm your time, let's participate in a Worldwide Candlelight Vigil honoring all those whose lives have been lost to Honor Killings and Universally show our disapproval of this practice.

All you have to do is stand outside your home with a lit candle at 7pm, for whatever length of time you see fit, to Honor the lives of those who have died. It is of the utmost importance that this demonstration remain peaceful and that we recognize we are uniting against the practice of Honor Killing NOT against the faith of Islam. That the message we are sending is one of peace and love; designed to defend the rights of Muslims to live in peace. That they too may feel welcome to stand with us.

This is an opportunity for us to universally come together, an invitation open to all people, under all faiths, and walks of life, of all the world to stand together for a cause. In a single massive peaceful, beautiful, and noble demonstration. Both paying our respects and saying "This behavior does not represent our beliefs. May these victims rest in peace".

May we show that while humanity is diverse in many areas we unite under basic human values.

Thank you and Bless you

The British government is attempting to deny compensation to survivors of British torture and sexual violence against Kenyans during the Mau Mau rebellion. Despite the fact that nobody now in government, the civil service or the armed forces has any connection with the crimes against humanity that were perpetrated then, the government is trying to evade responsibility using technical arguments. The hypocrisy of this position is clear. The government should take a clear lead and accept that a previous administration made grave errors and agree to reasonable compensation. This is not only justice for the victims but a stand for human rights and dignity.

By denying safe passage to Julian Assange the British government are ignoring international asylum laws / treaties. If they persist and Assange is arrested & extradited, this will set a precedent which will have severe ramifications for all of us, including restrictions to our basic rights such as the freedom of speech and a free press.

This campaign request is not about the allegations made against Assange or the resolution thereof, it is about ensuring that your government operates lawfully, honestly, and morally.

If we don't use our voices and take action now, it may not be long before we are simply not allowed to use our voices...

The Turn Your Back On Page 3 campaign exists to raise awareness of the sexism that is rife in the UK, particularly in the form of the sexual objectification of women and girls that permeates our culture – and to urge the government to address this today in order to prove to women that it takes our human rights seriously and believes in equality for everybody.

As a cultural icon, Page 3 symbolises not only the acceptance and normalisation of pornography within our daily newspapers but the sexual objectification of women and girls that permeates our culture - and thus, ultimately, symbolises our unequal status.

The death of sexism is a battle not yet won in this country and the proliferation of this image of women within our mainstream press is perpetuating and fueling sexism by, at best, encouraging and endorsing negative attitudes towards us and within us, at worst: acts of violence commited against us. All of which grossly limit our choices, stall our progress and violate our human rights.

This petition and campaign demands that the government addresses the issue of Page 3 today and by doing so demonstrates to society that it is serious about stamping out sexism once and for all. We cannot waste any more time and we will not wait any longer. The government either values and respects the female half of humanity or it doesn't and as a start, the removal of Page 3 from our every day lives, because of its cultural significance would be a momentus step in the right direction in proving to society that is does.

Together, we must work to eradicate all forms of sexism in order for women to become politically, socially, economically and personally equal to men. We cannot be a progressive and prosperous society otherwise.

Turn Your Back On Page 3.

Say NO to sexism.

DEMAND EQUALITY.

www.turnyourbackonpage3.com
turnyourbackonpage3@hotmail.com
You can also find Turn Your Back On Page 3 on Facebook.

At 0930 on the 3rd of July, in scenes reminiscent of Stasi East Germany, 2 police cars and 4 policemen from Merseyside Police arrested British Constitution Group Chairman Roger Hayes at his Wirral home and drove away.

The first his family heard of him was at 18:30 this evening via a telephone call from a Warder in Liverpool prison, to say that Roger had been tried and sentenced to prison.

At no time were the family or any other members of the public informed of his arrest, and it is understood that he was tried in a secret court without a Jury.

Denied the right to argue his case, denied the right to a Jury, denied the right for the public to see justice being done, Roger was imprisoned in the secretive gulag system that Britain has become in 2012.

Roger's "crime" is that he has been refusing to pay his Council tax, because along with other state taxes, a proportion of the tax revenue gathered is being sent to the European Union, used to fund unlawful wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, and promote terrorism right around the world. To pay tax under these circumstances is, at the very least, unlawful under Section 15(3) of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Regardless of whether you agree with his point of view the fact that a person can be arrested in secret by the police & convicted without trial or the right to defend yourself is very disturbing & should not be allowed to continue.

The people of the Japanese island of Okinawa are currently protesting against the expansion of an already massive US military base on their land. The US use this base as a launch pad for their seemingly endless conflicts in the Middle East. The rights of the Okinawan people keeps being ignored, and expansion to the base will be hugely damaging to the environment: the Americans have already destroyed large parts of coral reefs in the area deemed inconvenient to their needs. In the past year a new Government in Japan was elected on the grounds it would stand up to the US and say no to the expansion, but were unable to do so due to massive pressure from the US, yet another example of the US Government's bully tactics.