rights

Australian Immigration Policy

This is an excerpt from a recent post on Subtopia about an Australian immigration detention center being built on Christmas Island. I was particularly attracted to the technology involved in detaining immigrants. This is not exactly pleasant reading…

Since 2005 Australiaâ??s Department of Immigration has been constructing an “Immigration Reception and Processing Centre.” 2,400 km from Perth, 360 km from Jakarta and nearly 2000 km from Darwin, this deteniton complex is at the far end of the island which, according to this dispatch, is a narrow strip 24 km long and 7 km wide.

Keep in mind, as Angela tells us, â??under Australian law it is possible to intern people extra-judicially (without trial or charge) and, since 2004, to do so indefinitely. Migration detention is, therefore, a wholly administrative matter.â??

So just what exactly are they building out there in them pristine jungles?

Well, it turns out itâ??s not just some rinky dink detention outfit with some barbed-wire fencing and ramshackle barracks cliff-side. No, this is a $396 million tropical prison paradise. Thatâ??s right. For what the government refers to as a â??deterrent to illegal immigrationâ??, it is a state of the art 800-bed prison complex, with electric fences, movement detectors, hundreds of surveillance cameras, hidden microphones in the trees, the works.


[Image: “Camp Howard” – Australia’s very own Guantanamo Bay on Christmas Island, Feb. 2007.]â??The camp on Christmas Island has CCTV linked to a RCR [Remote Control Room] so guards in Canberra can watch detainees around the clock.â?? And planners arenâ??t leaving any thing out for this rugged remote little island prison either. â??Detainees will wear electronic ID tags or cards, identifying them wherever they are.â?? While the place crawls with guards wandering in between a perimeter of checkpoint cubicles, there is a hospital, operating theatre and visiting rooms, solitary cells, and even family units and a nursery. â??Everything can be controlled remotely â?? doors, TV, radio.â??


{Image: Floor plan for the Detention Facility at Christmas Island.]In addition to developing this offshore island-chain barrier against migration, the Australian government has launched its border patrol ship, the Triton, dubbed the â??prison shipâ?? by critics. This â??98-metre trimaranâ?? is said to be capable of detaining â??30 people for up to a month” on board and is “armed with twin machine guns.â??


[Image: The ACV Triton Australian Border Patrol Ship.]While officially deployed to patrol and intercept illegal fisherman, others are more concerned what the Triton could mean for migrants stranded at sea already facing one of the most conservative immigration-tolerant nations in the world.

Update: The last line should probably read immigration-intolerant…

Posted on by mklang

Technology and Human Rights

On Friday it’s time for me to give a lecture on Technology and Human Rights for the local masters course on human rights. The nice part about this lecture is that it gives me the opportunity to collect and explore different strands of my work and present them to a new audience. My interest in this area began some time ago and resulted in 2005 in the collected edition Human Rights in the Digital Age which I edited together with Andrew Murray.

Discussing technology and rights can at times feel a bit banal. Human rights activists struggle to free people from torture and death so isn’t technology a small waste of time? There is no way in which it would be fair to compare technology and rights to the work of activists against the death penalty. But there is a major problem if all issues must be resolved in the order of magnitude. Speech rights may be less important to someone facing the death penalty but this does not mean that we should ignore speech rights until we have managed to abolish the death penalty.

For the lecture on Friday I am planning to look at three different areas.

The first area is going to be the use of the Internet as a “place” for political participation. I want to discuss the Internet as an area of political discourse and in particular show its possibilities and its fundamental flaws and limitations. This area should include freedom of speech and freedom of association.

The second area is privacy. In particular I want to focus on the merging of online and offline data. Or to put it another way the combination of spatial information (where you are) with the information traces stored in databases (who you are) to show the advanced control mechanism being created.

The final area is the aggregate use of technology. In this section I want to show the audience that with each piece of technology we may implement for our comfort we also form and shape our lives. In particular we also shape the way in which our lives may be controlled by others. This incremental implementation of technology does not bring large protests since no large rights are threatened overall. However the net long term result is darker than anything Orwell would have dreamed about.

Eric Drooker

The overall goal is to make the audience a bit paranoid about technology – to make them question the choices we are all making in our rush towards a more convenient way of life. Not bad for a Friday…

Posted on by mklang

Thesis discussed on radio

The strange thing is that PhD students spend so much time actually writing and thinking the thesis that they forget that the product is important even after the defence. After my defence the thesis as a product has played a marginal role. It seems almost forgotten. Then “out of the blue” (as they say) freelance journalist (and free speech expert) Anders R Olsson discusses my thesis online.

What a thrill to hear someone else discuss my work – not with me but in a general review kind of way. Very, very nice feeling – thank you Anders.

Swedish radio has the recording online (only for thirty days) so if you want to spend seven Swedish minutes with Anders and my thesis then click here.

Posted on by mklang

Are torturers evil?

It is very difficult to break out of some of one’s gut instincts. Since I was raised in the west, spoon-fed Hollywoodisms from my youngest days and all in the shadow of the cold war east-west mentality it is difficult to really get past some of the “facts of life”.

One such fact is that only evil people torture. Evil torturers fall into different categories such as (1) medieval (e.g. Spanish inquisition), foreign despot (e.g. Idi Amin), (3) total raving nutter (e.g. Hitler). Now despite the fact that I know that these simplifications are not true. Works by people such as Hannah Arendt (Eichamnn in Jerusalem) and Stanley Milgram (Obedience to Authority Study) show that acts of evil are conducted without much passion and by ordinary people.

Reports of torture being carried out by ordinary people systematically appear – and I am shocked. In particular since the organisation carrying them out is bringing democracy and attempting to win the hearts and minds of the people.

Why am I shocked? If I know that people are capable of evil? The only explanation I can think of right now is the lame idea of them and us. Stated simply evil people are them, we are good even though sometimes in error. How depressing that in the face of all the evidence I still cannot get beyond this gut reaction that they are evil while we are good.

Oh and don’t try to explain the whole thing away by speaking of a few bad apples at the Abu Ghraib prison. That simplification does not work. See for example an editorial in the New York Times (Only the Jailers are Safe, 20 December 2006, via Battleangel)

Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago, was a whistle-blower who prompted the raid by tipping off the F.B.I. to suspicious activity at the company where he worked, including possible weapons trafficking. He was arrested and held for 97 days â?? shackled and blindfolded, prevented from sleeping by blaring music and round-the-clock lights. In other words, he was subjected to the same mistreatment that thousands of non-Americans have been subjected to since the 2003 invasion.

The culture of cruelty (i.e. the acceptance or tolerance for evil deeds among organisations and in society) is spreading and the more we hear the more we accept. We become (as a society) de-sensitized and tolerant to suffering.

What is the point of fighting for democracy, rights and freedom if the methods used are cruel, inhuman and against democracy, rights and freedom? If we win this fight (against whom?) is it a victory worth having? Or will we like King Pyrrhus declare, after beating the Romans at Asculum (279 BCE) declare that a victory at such a cost is not worth having?

Posted on by mklang

Walls of Ceuta & Melilla

Continuing (earlier here and here) on the topic of walls of segregation. Here is more on Ceuta and Melilla.
Unfortunately only available in French and Italian the Migreurop have published The Black Book of Ceuta and Melilla online. The work documents the atrocities being committed under the guise of controlling illegal immigration to the EU via the Spanish north-African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. The introduction to the publication is available in English here.

Statewatch writes that the book contains… “…analysis, photographs and extensive testimonies from migrants themselves, who are thus given the opportunity to describe their experiences of what EU institutions euphemistically refer to as an ‘integrated system to fight illegal immigration’, which is repeatedly, and annoyingly, considering that migrants have been shot, abandoned to die in the desert, hunted down and detained in inhumane conditions, followed by the phrase while respecting human rights.”

Read also Peio Aierbe’s The “assault” by “sub-Saharan migrants” in the media.
(via Subtopia)

Posted on by mklang

Denying Censorship

Georg Greve of the Free Software Foundation Europe is present at the Internet Governance Forum in Athens and he posts daily reports. On the second day of the forum the discussions turned to openness â?? a topic which many states that censor Internet traffic may find embarrassing.

So it was natural to expect hostile reactions towards countries which have a well documented history of Internet censorship. One way of dealing with bad news is simply to deny everything which Mr Yang Xiokun of the Chinese mission in Geneva did.
He stated that China has no access restrictions â?? at all.

Here is Georg Greve report of the exchange:

NIK GOWING:  Could I — may I ask you a question?  How would you define, for those who are not familiar with your government’s policy and the detail of it, what is the principle on restrictions of openness in China?

YANG XIAOKUN:  We do not have restriction at all.

Lets not forget that China is not alone in censoring the Internet. Organisations like the Reporters without Borders publish a list of â??15 Enemies of the Internetâ?? and many (most? all?) enlightened (?) European/Western countries intimidate, censor or limit access to information through alternative means – but at the same time it is almost impressive to be able to deny everything.

For more information about China and Internet censorship read the Open Net Initiative report on Internet Censorship in China between 2004-2005.

Posted on by mklang

Expression, not Repression

Amnesty is one of those organisations which you know you should support more than you already do. They have also moved into the digital domain and are supporting all kinds of online expression. In an attempt to prevent online censorship they launched their irrepressible campaign.

Part of irrepressible is a technical solution that breaks censored texts into small pieces and maintains them online. Read more about how to help here.

If you cannot do more then at least sign their petition:

I believe the Internet should be a force for political freedom, not repression. People have the right to seek and receive information and to express their peaceful beliefs online without fear or interference.

I call on governments to stop the unwarranted restriction of freedom of expression on the Internet â?? and on companies to stop helping them do it.

Amnesty International will also be present at the Internet Governance Forum in Athens next week. Again they will be â??â?¦stressing the importance of protecting free expression and privacy onlineâ??

Read their press release here.

Posted on by mklang

Tagging DRM

The Anti-DRM campaign Defective By Design has begun tagging products on Amazon.

The system works on Amazon.com with their system of “tagging” products on its US site. You can look at a product and add a tag that describes it. We have started tagging items that contain DRM (Blu-Ray players, Blu-Ray DVDs, the Zune, the iPod, Amazon Unbox movies etc.) with the “defectivebydesignâ?? tag.

As products get tagged over and over again with a particular tag, that tag surfaces to the top of the list, and displays in larger text in some views. There is also a page for pictures and discussions of the tag. Tag these products and search for similar DRM products to tag now!

All of the international Amazon websites allow customers to review products. Review a DRM product NOW as a way to warn others of the problems they may face because of DRM. Once you have reviewed a product you can post the link as a comment on our site, to encourage other DefectiveByDesign crew members to rate your review. If you see a product review that points out the DRM problems you can also rate that review highly so that others will see it.

Your participation will ensure that thousands of products get tagged and reviewed, and hundreds of thousands of consumers, maybe millions, will be warned about DRM. Nice!

(via Defective by Design)

Posted on by mklang

Cool Job

Looking for a really cool job? How about working for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Brussels…

EFF Seeks European Affairs Co-ordinator

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is looking for a European
staffer to head up our new Brussels office and round out our
international team. This is a new position focused on European
Community level intellectual property and civil liberties policy
initiatives that impact the digital environment. The position will be
part policy analyst, part activist and part educator.

We are looking for a motivated and dynamic European with:

– excellent written and spoken English language skills, and fluency
in another relevant language (preferably French or German or another
major European language);
– well-developed public speaking and social skills, who can talk with
a wide range of audiences including European MEPs and Commission
staff, consumer rights and public interest groups, computer
programmers and media;
-familiarity with current European Community IP and civil liberties
legislative and policy developments;
– a solid understanding of the European Community’s structure, main
fora, decision-making processes and key personnel and committees that
work in the IP and civil liberties arenas;
– strong policy analysis skills;
– a good strategic sense;
– maturity of judgment;
– demonstrated ability to meet deadlines and work with others
remotely; and
– the ability to travel throughout Europe, and to the United States.

EFF is passionate about our mission, and our ideal candidate will be
too. We work on cutting-edge issues in a fun, fast-paced team
environment. Salary and details of benefits package available on
request.

Applicants: please send a cover letter and resume in TXT, RTF, ODT,
DOC, PDF or html format to eurocoordinator@eff.org

Deadline for applications: Rolling, but not later than December 1, 2006.

No, I am not planning to apply. But it would be a really cool challenge…

Posted on by mklang