Politics | Steve Woods

Response to open standards FoI request

13/03/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Open Source, Open Standards, Politics, Tech

A response has been received today to my FoI request to Bristol City Council on open standards (posts passim).

The reply was received in a record 10 working days and reads as follows:

Bristol City Council has been a long-term supporter of open standards wherever possible. We have frequently voluntarily adopted national government policy on open standards and open source, recognising the benefits of this approach.

We adopted StarOffice in 2005 and moved to the Open Document Format as our standard for office productivity files at the point it was incorporated in the StarOffice / OpenOffice.org products. We had to move to Microsoft Office in 2010 due to the lack of standards support in the local government applications market, partly due to the fact that national government policy was not mandated at local level and therefore did not have the desired effects on the document standards context. However we retained the ability to create, open and collaborate on ODF by implementing LibreOffice alongside Microsoft Office on all council PCs. Therefore we are already capable of using ODF to collaborate on government documents.

In terms of publishing government documents to citizens, we have historically used PDF, but are now attempting to replace all information, advice and guidance, and application forms with fully digital services. Over time this will replace old PDF documents with HTML. If there are documents that meet a user need to download and read offline, we can produce PDF/A format from the open source PDF Creator software that is also available on every council PC.

I’m very pleased to note that BCC has LibreOffice installed on every council machine. They kept that quiet! Perhaps they’ll use it to send me replies to my FoI requests in future instead of the propensity to use MS Office formats. But just to make sure, I’ll include a plea for a reply in an open format in all my future requests. 🙂

Read the original FoI request and response on WhatDoTheyKnow.
Wikimedia Foundation takes NSA to court

11/03/2015 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech

The Wikimedia blog reports that yesterday the Wikimedia Foundation filed suit against the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). The lawsuit challenges the NSA’s mass surveillance programme and more specifically its large-scale search and seizure of internet communications — frequently referred to as “upstream” surveillance. The Foundation’s aim in filing this suit is to end the mass surveillance programme in order to protect the rights of the Foundation’s users around the world. It has been joined in the suit by eight other organisations (National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA, Pen American Center, Global Fund for Women, The Nation Magazine, The Rutherford Institute and the Washington Office on Latin America) and represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The full complaint can be found here (PDF).

“We’re filing suit today on behalf of our readers and editors everywhere,” said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. “Surveillance erodes the original promise of the internet: an open space for collaboration and experimentation, and a place free from fear.”

Privacy is the bedrock of individual freedom. It’s a universal right that sustains the freedoms of expression and association. These principles enable inquiry, dialogue and creation and are central to Wikimedia’s vision of empowering everyone to share in the sum of all human knowledge. When they are endangered, the Wikimedia Foundation’s mission is threatened. If people look over their shoulders before searching, pause before contributing to controversial articles or refrain from sharing verifiable but unpopular information, Wikimedia and the world are poorer for it.

The Foundation’s case challenges the NSA’s use of upstream surveillance conducted under the authority of the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act (FAA). Upstream surveillance taps the internet’s “backbone” to capture communications with “non-U.S. persons”. The FAA authorises the collection of such communications if they fall into the broad category of “foreign intelligence information”; this includes nearly any information that could be construed as relating to national security or foreign affairs. The programme casts a vast net and consequently captures communications that are not connected to any “target”, or may be entirely domestic. This includes communications by the Foundation’s users and staff.

The NSA has interpreted the FAA as offering it free rein to define threats, identify targets and monitor people, platforms and infrastructure with little regard for probable cause or proportionality. Wikimedia believes that the NSA’s current practices far exceed the already broad authority granted by the US Congress through the FAA. In addition, it believes such practices violate the US Constitution’s First Amendment (protection of freedom of speech and association) and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.

In addition, the Wikimedia Foundation believes that the NSA’s practices and limited judicial review of those practices violate Article III of the US Constitution, which relates to the judicial system. A specialized court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), hears matters related to foreign intelligence requests, including surveillance. Under US law the role of the courts is to resolve “cases” or “controversies”, not to issue advisory opinions or interpret theoretical situations. In the context of upstream surveillance, FISC proceedings are not “cases” since there are no opposing parties and no actual “controversy” at stake as FISC merely reviews the legality of the government’s proposed procedures. According to the Foundation this is the kind of advisory opinion that Article III was intended to restrict.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a previous challenge to the FAA, Amnesty v. Clapper, because the parties in that case were found to lack “standing”. Standing is an important legal concept requiring a party to show that they’ve suffered some kind of harm in order to file a lawsuit. The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures included a slide from a classified NSA presentation that made explicit reference to Wikipedia, using the Foundation’s global trademark. Because these disclosures revealed that the government specifically targeted Wikipedia and its users, Wikipedia believes it has more than sufficient evidence to establish standing.

Reposted from Bristol Wireless.
Is this yours, George?

10/03/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

Spotted on the pavement opposite House of Fraser, Cabot Circus, Bristol – one red bra.

Whose could it be?

There’s one person in Bristol who is well known for wearing red – the city’s elected Mayor, George Ferguson.

It is suspected that George has shed his clothing in public before, notably in Easton (posts passim).

Could the Mayor’s secret penchant for transvestism or covert gender reassignment finally have been revealed? If so, when will George tell the citizens of Bristol?

That’s a matter for George’s conscience and our speculation.

However, turning to serious matters, shedding clothing on the highway is technically littering. Bristolians can report litter, fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and the like online via the links on the city council’s street care and cleaning page.
TidyBS5 petition goes live

03/03/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

There’s now a petition online calling on Bristol City Council to increase its efforts to get a grip on litter and fly-tipping in its Easton and Lawrence Hill wards (posts passim) and make scenes like the one below of Jane Street in Redfield a thing of the past.

Image courtesy of Amy Harrison

The text of the petition reads as follows:

We, the undersigned, petition Bristol City Council to enforce penalties for fly-tipping and dropping litter and find lasting solutions to these two problems. Easton and Lawrence Hill wards have for many decades suffered from both litter and fly-tipping. Where communal household waste bins have been installed, residents have found that they are used by people from outside the area for disposing of their waste, as well as local traders abusing them to dispose of trade waste. The fly-tipping sometimes involves hazardous materials. Litter and fly-tipping also encourage the presence of vermin such as rats. In some places the communal bins are also used as a cover for unhygienic actions such as defecating and urinating in the street, making them unsafe for children to play in.

Templates for collecting signatures on paper have also been sent to local councillors Afzal Shah, Marg Hickman and Hibaq Jama, as well as Up Our Street.

Sign the petition.
TidyBS5: callers on foot can use Day’s Road tip

28/02/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

As part of the campaign to tidy up the Easton and Lawrence Hill areas of Bristol, we residents are attempting to ensure that we can use all the council services for which we pay through our taxes.

These include such things as recycling collections on Stapleton Road and the provision of adequate recycling facilities in the inner city’s council-owned tower blocks (posts passim).

Bristol City Council’s St Philips Recycling Centre (aka Day’s Road tip). Looks welcoming, doesn’t it?

Another bone of contention was the fact that Bristol City Council’s Day’s Road ‘recycling centre’ (better known to locals as ‘the tip’. Ed.) appeared to be off limits to callers on foot. The Kier/May Gurney staff that run the facility for the council had even gone so far as to place a sign at the entrance stating no callers on foot. Furthermore, I’d heard anecdotally that the reason for this prohibition was down to that favourite old ‘excuse’ – health and safety.

In order to find out, the Freedom of Information request below was duly sent to the city council.

Dear Bristol City Council,

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

I have been informed that callers on foot are not allowed to use the facilities at Day’s Road due to “health and safety“.

I would be grateful if you could provide a copy of the relevant risk assessment.

Yours faithfully,

Steve Woods

That’s right, if “health and safety” was the reason, show us the risk assessment.

The relevant risk assessment has now been received in answer to the FoI request.

Curiously enough, non-motorised callers are allowed, as the following extract shows.

Non-motorised customers should be advised to approach from east (SOFA project side) avoiding both queue & need to cross traffic stream.

Choose a quieter time (weekdays, mid-morning) by arrangement with site staff.

ACCESS MUST BE PRE-ARRANGED WITH SITE STAFF.

Site users should be advised to make themselves visible, i.e. visibility clothing or markers, & lights in poor conditions.

The assessment also contains the following advice to pedestrians:

Customers should avoid unnecessarily crossing the traffic stream & exercise extreme caution when leaving site.

I shall therefore be digging out my Dayglo clothing and wheelbarrow and getting on the phone! 😉

Download the city council’s response in proprietary MS Office format (isn’t it disappointing that the city council thinks everyone uses MS Office? Ed.).
Homes to let. Resident rats unaffected

26/02/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Politics

Yesterday’s Bristol Post reports on the dire state of rented properties in Morton Street, Barton Hill, just down the road from the Little Russell (posts passim).

One of the problems faced by the tenants in question is that they’re having to share their homes with sitting tenants – resident brown rats. This is hardly a conducive environment to live in, let alone one in which to bring up one’s children.

Landlord or sitting tenant? Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

It’s said that no-one is ever more than a few yards away from a rat and these rodents do have any easy life in today’s cities. Their life is made even easier by the proliferation of fast food outlets in recent years combined with the untidy habits of their patrons.

The report really highlights the fact that Bristol is a divided city. While they city’s great and good are indulging in a year of junketing, mutual backslapping and filling each others’ bank accounts with public money courtesy of Bristol Green Capital, its poor are enduring infestations of vermin, plus the seemingly insurmountable inner-city blights of litter and fly-tipping.

Well done to ward councillors Marg Hickman and Hibaq Jama for highlighting this problem and taking up the tenants’ plight.
We’re European Green Capital, let’s fell some trees

13/02/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

It’s only February and Bristol’s year as European Green Capital is already deeply mired in controversy and hypocrisy.

While the city’s great and good gush praise for an art installation shrouding Pero’s Bridge in fog, ostensibly to draw attention to climate change (how wreathing a bridge heavily used by pedestrians and cyclists does that, I fail to see. Ed.), habitat destruction is happening in parts of the city well removed from rarefied confines in which city elite’s generally move.

Firstly, there’s the destruction of mature trees in Stapleton that’ll be taking place as part of the Metrobus project – a £100 mn. white elephant of a scheme that’ll knock a mere three and a half minutes off the journey time across the city (according to p.85 of Appendix 6 of the Metrobus Planning Statement. Ed.). The trees will be felled as soon as the protesters currently occupying them are finally evicted by the council’s bailiffs.

Allied to the Metrobus project, there’s the South Bristol Link Road project. This will result in a loss of environmental amenity for many south Bristol residents in its path. It was announced today that work on this £44 mn. act of environmental vandalism will start at Easter. Presumably more trees will be felled in the process.

Finally, work has started in the Easton area of the city alongside Easton Way to put in a new cycle facility alongside the dual carriageway. Below is a photograph of the progress of these works to date.

At this point an explanation of what can – and cannot – be seen is advisable.

The works are to provide a new cycle route alongside the dual carriageway.

The digger is sitting atop the remains of a berm originally built to provide a noise barrier to the maisonettes alongside the dual carriageway.

Over the years the berm had become covered with mature London plane trees and scrub, providing some much-needed inner city greenery and a valuable habitat for urban wildlife.

Both the trees and the berm are being removed to provide the above-mentioned cycle facility.

Being a local, I’m surprised the council has not simply adapted the footpath running alongside the foot of the now vanished berm to shared use.

That would have been the simplest and least destructive option.

I can imagine the dialogue down at the ~~Counts Louse~~ City Hall: “What do a few trees and a bit of scrub matter in the inner city? Nobody will notice!” “After all, it is for a cycle facility, so that makes everything all right!”

As this year’s European Green Capital, doesn’t Bristol City Council’s putting the environment at the bottom of its list of priorities positively reek of greenwash?

Answers, if any, below please!
Mama

09/02/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

The video below features very first performance of ‘Mama’, which was composed by the youth campaigners of Integrate Bristol, a local charity formed to help with the integration of young people and children who have arrived from other countries and cultures.

Integrate Bristol is also active combating violence against women and girls; this includes the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM).

‘Mama’ was written in honour of Efua Dorkenoo, also known as Efua Mama, the ‘mother’ of the movement to end FGM.
Party political hypocrisy

06/02/2015 Steve WoodsPolitics, Social Media

Yesterday, 5th February, was National Voter Registration Day.

Many political parties, civil society organisations and others were yesterday encouraging the disenfranchised to register to vote for the forthcoming local council and general elections on 7th May.

One of those parties campaigning was UKIP, which doubtless was ignorant of the hypocrisy of its message in the tweet shown in the following screenshot.

That’s right! A party actively opposing immigration to the UK is actively encouraging UK citizens who’ve become immigrants in other countries to register to vote in elections in the old mother country.

You couldn’t make it up…
Capita ordered to pay nearly £16,000 over interpreter failure

04/02/2015 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

Capita Translating & Interpreting has been ordered to pay costs of £16,000 by judge Sir James Munby, president of the family division, over its failure to provide interpreters seven times in the course of a single adoption case, The Guardian reports.

The case in question was initiated in the family court in 2012. On six occasions at Dover Family Proceedings Court and Canterbury County Court, Capita T&I’s interpreters failed to appear or arrived too late, forcing the abandonment of hearings at which the Slovak-speaking parents were contesting the removal of their children. When the case was transferred to the High Court in London in May 2014 to be heard by Sir James, Capita T&I’s interpreters once again failed to appear. He was forced to adjourn the proceedings and ordered that HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) should provide interpreters instead.

In his judgement (PDF) Sir James states:

There have been serial failures by Capita in this case against a background of wider systemic problems… [These were] not minor but extensive, and, at two different stages of the litigation, they had a profound effect on the conduct of the proceedings.

Sir James ordered Capita to pay Kent County Council £15,927.36.

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