Posted by racingsnake
@ 10:21 AM GMT+00:00
04 Nov · Fri 2005
New identity blogger...
We have a new Identiblogger... Sara Gates has just started her blog, here. Sara's responsibility extends across the full range of Sun's identity management products, from provisioning to policy to access control, so I'm sure she will be a great contributor to the discussion. Welcome!
03 Nov · Thu 2005
Physical security wins vote for Blair
Home Secretary Charles Clarke is now having to review his anti-terror law proposals after significant opposition in the House of Commons united Libertal Democrats, Conservatives and some Labour MPs. Two of the proposals were due for a vote: the proposal to create an offence of 'glorifying terrorism', and the proposal for detention for up to 90 days without charge.
When the first of these passed by the narrowest possible margin, 300 votes to 299, Clarke asked for a vote on the 90-day measure to be postponed by a week, presumably calculating that it was most likely to be voted down.
These two comments come from the Guardian newspaper:
"Charles Clarke, the home secretary, was forced to grant the concession or face the possibility of the first defeat for a government since 1995. Hazel Blears, minister of state for policing and security, had earlier had to offer to redraft the clause on glorifying or encouraging terrorism as it became clear that even such loyalist MPs as former Home Office minister John Denham were going to rebel. David Winnick, the Labour backbencher who had tabled the amendment which some thought might defeat the government --- extending detention to a compromise period of 28 days --- promised to withdraw it after Mr Clarke offered to hold urgent all-party talks on the issue over the next week."
And when all else fails, blame it on the European Union:
"Ms Blears (Home Office Minister) defended the measure by insisting that Britain had to introduce the new offences of indirect support for terrorism to comply with a new anti-terrorism convention agreed through the Council of Europe.
She offered to look at redrafting the clause making it possible to be prosecuted even if the person did not know they were encouraging terrorism."
Some concession... so the proposals would, until re-drafted, make it possible for someone to be prosecuted even without an intent to offend? That seems to me to break yet another fundamental legal principle, that of mens rea, which is the requirement to prove that the accused actually intended the crime to happen (the prosecution must also prove actus rea; that the crime did take place).
It seems absolutely right to me that a bill drafted so as to remove the need to prove mens rea should be thrown out. I also think it is legitimate to ask what on earth was the mens rea of the drafters? Did they really intend to override that legal principle, or was this incompetent drafting?
Today's "irony or conspiracy" footnote:
Apparently, it later emerged that the single missing vote could have been that of Liberal Democrat Vince Cable, who had stepped away from the chamber in order to meet some lobbyists who had been caught up at security. He himself was then unable to return to the chamber in time to vote. It is safe to assume that as a Liberal Democrat he would have voted against the proposal.
Posted by racingsnake
@ 10:47 AM GMT+00:00
02 Nov · Wed 2005
Revolving door for the Cabinet?
David Blunkett has re-resigned from the Cabinet.
Tony Blair must be seriously considering whether the normal 'leaf and hinge' mechanism is still the best kind of door to fit to the Cabinet room. A revolving door might seem more appropriate, given that being dismissed once from his cabinet seems to be no bar to being reappointed, and being reappointed seems to be no guarantee against further transgressions, real or perceived. First Peter Mandelson, now David Blunkett.
And all this from a party which came to power partly on a backlash against "Tory sleaze", with a starry-eyed conviction that under New Labour everything would be different. Ethical foreign policy, standards in public life, ministerial codes of conduct... they all seemed to promise so much, and yet the record is rather dismal when one looks back over it.
Robin Cook and Clare Short were among several MPs who resigned in protest at the government's determination to go to war in Iraq, or at the 'morality gap' between the policy and practice of the subsequent reconstruction.
Peter Mandelson's first resignation also claimed the scalp of Paymaster General Geoffrey Robinson, who loaned him a rather large sum of money without notifying anyone.
Stephen Byers generated months of rather grubby publicity over the Hatfield rail crash, his department's unsavoury instinct for new management ("A good day to bury bad news"), and more recent admissions that his version of events to do with the 'de-privatisation' of the rail network were less than fully accurate.
Beverly Hughes resigned as immigration minister, after inconsistencies were revealed between how much she said she knew about flaws in the visa process and how much she turned out to have been told a year previously.
I am sure there are other examples. It's all rather depressing.
Is it really true, then, that "anyone capable of getting elected to public office should on no account be allowed to do the job"?
Posted by racingsnake
@ 01:41 PM GMT+00:00
Anti-terror Bill in parliament today
The arguments are not getting any more convincing. Take a look at these statements by Home Secretary Charles Clarke, as the Anti-terror bill goes back to parliament for detailed review and amendment.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke said: "We cannot properly fight terrorism with one legal hand tied behind our back, or give terrorists the unfettered right to defend themselves as they promote and prepare violent attacks on our society."
He accused the Lib Dems of "knee jerk" opposition and of "weakening the common front of democratic politics against terrorism" by saying they will [vote] against the bill."
1: Indeed we can properly fight terrorism with our hands legally constrained. That is what ought to distinguish a democracy from totalitarianism: the concept that the state can achieve its desired ends while still preserving the fundamental freedoms of its citizens.
2: There is nothing to support the suggestion that terrorists currently have "the unfettered right to defend themselves as they promote and prepare violent attacks on our society", and the Anti-terror bill in any case has nothing to do with whether a suspected terrorist can or cannot defend him- or her-self. That is a nonsensical statement of pure spin.
3: His next tack is to accuse the Liberal Democrats (the only major party to vote against the bill in its first reading; that is, to vote against the whole bill in principle, rather than approve it in principle and then haggle over the details) of undermining democracy itself. Oh, for goodness' sake. What are we to have: the kind of democracy where you can do anything but express opposition to the government's proposals?
4: His accusation of 'knee jerk' opposition also rings false, given that he faces the accusation that the government is using current public perceptions of the terror threat to push this legislation through. What he cannot explain is how the current risk differs from past terrorist threats, to an extent which justifies such a fundamental change in the balance between the rights of the citizen and the powers of the state.
These anti-terror proposals radically undermine civil liberties in the UK: they allow detention without charge for a period unmatched by any other democracy, create offences based on what a person thinks rather than does, and make some statements illegal depending on who you make them to.
All in all, the Home Secretary's defence of these proposals reminds me of the notes which a cleaner found in the pulpit after a particularly stormy sermon. Next to one passage, the vicar had written a reminder to himself: "Argument weak - shout louder".
Posted by racingsnake
@ 09:54 AM GMT+00:00
01 Nov · Tue 2005
Could UK ID Cards be a panacea?
A good, detailed update from The Register on the biometrics aspects of UK ID Card proposals.
It's also useful to cross refer to Jerry Fishenden's recent article here on the risks inherent in a poor design of such an all-encompassing system.
I have also come up with my own suggestion for naming the proposed National Identity Register: the government clearly see it as a panacea, so that's exactly that they should call it: PANACEA.
The Panoptically Architected National Archive of Credentials, Entitlements and Attributes.
As Drew Wagar has already tellingly pointed out, there is more risk than benefit in insisting that the same register contain all three of thees types of data (credentials, entitlements and attributes), particularly if the 'attribute' layer includes the audit log of accesses to the register. In fact, there's also a good case to be made for leaving entitlement data out of the register as well: entitlements are likely to be agency-specific and more dynamic than credentials. On that basis, a federated architecture in which entitlements are held and managed by the agency in question, but queried when needed, is more likely to result in accurate assertions.
I have to admit, though, that I can't claim all the credit for the PANACEA idea. The Credentials, Entitlements and Attributes model simply reflects the SAML layers of identity-related assertions, and is therefore consistent with the Liberty ID-FF data model. However, that's where the similarity ends; Liberty was designed as a way of federating such a data model, rather than centralising it.
Posted by racingsnake
@ 11:08 AM GMT+00:00
Of trust and DNA testing...
Minister for Work and Pensions David Blunkett finds himself in the headlines again after an interval of only a few months. Last time, he was having to quit his post as Home Secretary after a damaging series of revelations about his affair with a married woman and the paternity claims which followed in its wake. Subsequently, DNA testing was to that he did not enjoy the paternity which he claimed. What finally tipped the scale was the discovery that a visa application for that woman's nanny had been 'fast-tracked' – though Mr Blunkett denied having done anything untoward to influence its processing.
This time the fuss is about a non-executive company directorship which he took on earlier this year. The parliamentary rules say that a government minister taking a job within two years of being in office should discuss it beforehand with the Parliamentary Standards committee. It's in their interests to do so, of course, as this helps guard them against any accusations of impropriety. On this occasion, Mr Blunkett did not discuss his new job with the standards committee, and there are now calls for him to resign on grounds of inappropriate conduct.
It's very strange, then, to hear Mr Blunkett's party spokesman defending him on the grounds that "everyone who knows David thinks of him as someone with great honesty and integrity", when based on the last year or two, the dominant public impression of Mr Blunkett is that he's an adulterer who has had some very visible lapses of political judgement and stepped down from office as a result.
In his defence, Mr Blunkett is said to recognise that 'in retrospect it would have been better if he had approached the standards committee, but he believed he was acting within the guidelines'. In fact, it was his party which recently (while he was a cabinet minister) drafted and implemented these very standards - so this plea of innocence through ignorance does not ring very true. Just in case it does work, though: in retrospect, I agree that it would have been better if I had not broken the speed limit last year, but I believed I was driving within the limit. Please can I have a refund and the points taken off my licence?
For those who want that seasoning twist of irony; the company of which he became a director specialises in... DNA testing.
If irony is not enough and you crave conspiracy, bear this in mind: David Blunkett, from his spell as Home Secretary, can definitely claim paternity of the National ID Card Bill. Any far-sighted biometrics company might well want to be in on the ground floor of that. Hold on, though: isn't that exactly the sort of potential conflict of interest which ex-ministers ought to be seen to be avoiding? Well, it might be, but as the matter was not referred to the Standards Committee, we may never know.
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