Vox Political Welcomes The Independent to Club Vexatious

The number of people and organisations, who have had their requests for information turned down as ‘vexatious’ continues to grow. The Independent has now suffered the same treatment by the authorities after they issued a request to see Theresa May’s official web browsing history for the week beginning Monday, 26th October. The government turned it down on the above grounds, and declared that it would take too much effort to find the information to make it worthwhile.

This is, frankly, balderdash. Mike here gives the Independent’s own description of the request and the government’s reply, and his own advice to the Independent. He cites the law to show that their refusal to accede to the request is illegal, and advises the Indie to issue a formal complaint.

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/12/26/vox-political-welcomes-the-independent-to-club-vexatious-due-to-foi-request-on-theresa-mays-internet-history/

It is, of course, no surprise that the government should turn down the Indie’s request as ‘vexatious’. This is what they’ve done to Mike and the other disabled people and their campaigners, who have been pressing for the official figures of the number of people, that have died after being declared ‘fit for work’ by Atos and Maximus. Johnny Void has also described how requests for information on the companies participating the government’s odious workfare schemes have also been refused. In all of this, the government’s real reason for turning down the requests hasn’t been because they’re ‘vexatious’, or too difficult to manage, but because they’ll show how inefficient and vindictive their policies are, or open them to criticism.

Mr Void reported years ago that the authorities openly admitted that they didn’t want to release the information on firms taking people on workfare, as that would leave them open to criticism and the scheme would fail. One of the chief civil servants for the cabinet office a few weeks ago actually stated that the Freedom of Information Act was bad, because it had a ‘chilling effect’ on government.

And the government itself has said that the information released under the Freedom of Information Act should not be used by newspapers to ‘generate issues’, or to criticise the government, but to find out how government decisions are made.

The message here is that of the authoritarian state: Tug your forelock, and don’t question your elders and betters. We’re back to the Mussolini’s slogan of ‘Believe. Obey. Fight.’

As to what Theresa May was looking at, if this was anyone else working in an office I’d probably say that they’d been caught doing the usual: looking at porn and cute pictures of cats. And, indeed, the government a year or so ago did try convincing us that MPs were all looking at pornography on their computers. Private Eye later alleged that the story was a classic piece of misdirection. The story was either fake or a distortion, intended to hide the fact that the Commons’ computer system was massively over budget and didn’t work.

This is a massively authoritarian government, which does not seem to believe in the rule of law when it comes to its own interests. And as repeated government demands for more information on its citizens, more surveillance and further encroachments on our civil liberties, all in the name of protecting us from terrorism, of course, I doubt that May was looking at anything as harmless as cute cats, or just sordid pornography. The suspicion here must be that she was illegally going through the private internet chatter, spying on citizens or groups. But of course, we can’t know that, because such requests to see how intrusive our political masters are into the lives of their subjects, is vexatious.

Islamist terrorism isn’t the only threat here. There’s also a very real threat from May, Cameron and the rest of this wretched government, who want to take away our right to privacy and create an authoritarian surveillance state. And the reasons for this aren’t just about protecting us from terrorism, but protecting themselves from the people they exploit, degrade and marginalise.

Vox Political: Have Politicians Exaggerated the Danger of Islamic Terrorism?

On Monday, Mike over at Vox Political posted the following article, Terrorism, Islam, and the need to keep the Western world in fear, suggesting that Western leaders have exaggerated the threat of Islamic terrorism for their own purposes, to keep us in line. Mike’s article begins

Does anybody else think the reaction to the terror attack on Charlie Hebdo – along with that against ISIS (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days), Al-Qaeda and, for that matter, Russia – has been, at the very least, off-colour?

Terrorists attack the staff of a magazine, claiming to be doing so in the name of Islam (we have no proof that this was their purpose and may never have it), so there’s a huge backlash against Muslims and the same magazine’s next issue – with a cover featuring a poor (yet still offensive) attempt at caricaturing Muhammad himself – sells five million copies; its normal circulation is 60,000.

Here in the UK, David Cameron does his best to use the attack as an excuse for even greater government intrusion into citizens’ privacy, on top of the incursions already enacted by his government.

Is it really about keeping us safe, or is it about keeping us down?

Way back in 2004 Adam Curtis addressed this problem in his documentary series, The Power of Nightmares, which examined the rise of the Neo-Cons and their crusade against the Soviet Union and then al-Qaeda. Curtis showed that they had deliberately exaggerated the scale of the threat, in order to create a sense of social solidarity and purpose in the West. Curtis’ central argument was that, whereas once politicians had power and prestige through offering their peoples the chance of a better life, this had no been lost. They were now intent on regaining it by promising to protect us from threats that only they understood.

In short, it’s about keeping us down, and making us more Conservative through fear of the terrible Other.

Mike’s article is at http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/01/19/terrorism-islam-and-the-need-to-keep-the-western-world-in-fear/. Go and read it.