Politics

  • Ask Crapita awkward questions, lose work

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    Reposted from Linguist Lounge.

    On Wednesday, 7th August 2013, Hammrammr wrote:

    Some time ago Capita TI implemented the so called JSA – new contract which was rather unclear and detrimental to interpreters. After several weeks of wrangling with their completely untrained workers I managed to get hold of someone dealing with legal matters. I forwarded several emails regarding inconsistencies and unclear issues within that ‘document’. Finally I received a rather short message that their legal team acknowledges my concerns and I can basically get lost. My concerns were not only about insurance but focused on special deals granted to a small group of Polish interpreter at Westminster MC. My further enquiries resulted in a message from an individual calling himself Commercial Manager at Capita HQ, that my profile was deactivated, which means that they do need my services any longer as they have now enough docile, new breed of ‘interpreters’. They are not going to grant any special, ‘bespoke’ contracts to anyone else.

    Conclusion: As this “de facto employment” agency enjoys a monopoly in the CJS sector of interpreting they became a law unto themselves – arrogant, abusive and biased. Such action basically barred me from working in the courts. I conducted another survey focused on awareness of various court staff regarding the use of interpreters without middlemen. I called and/or visited 14 courts in Northern and SW areas of England. The same reaction: from disinterested, to onward hostile. Most of relevant court employees were not even aware that FWA is not a closed shop and they are allowed to use other methods of booking interpreters. Some of them mentioned that such a decision is outside their remit, each case to be authorised by their court manager. Several still keep their own records and book proper interpreters when and if required though.

    Let us hope that so called FWA is terminated sooner or later. I am going to seek legal advice from an employment law specialist in order to enter legal proceedings in the future.

  • Tell Dave to keep his hands off the internet

    Steve WoodsPolitics, Tech

    porn ban symbolUK Prime Minister David Cameron doesn’t have a clue about how the internet works, but that isn’t stopping his politician’s control freak nature from wanting to regulate it by his proposals to switch on adult content filtering by default.

    Fortunately, the Open Rights Group and has posted a petition on its website to campaign against the PM’s dangerous idea. The text of the petition is as follows:

    Dear David Cameron,

    Everyone agrees that we should try to protect children from harmful content. But asking everyone to sleepwalk into censorship does more harm than good.

    Filters won’t stop children seeing adult content and risks giving parents a false sense of security. It will stop people finding advice on sexual health, sexuality and relationships. This isn’t just about pornography. Filters will block any site deemed unsuitable for under 18s.

    Please drop these plans immediately.

    There are a number of problems with Cameron’s proposals as they stand. These include:

    • “Set it and forget it” is the wrong message to send to parents. Filters will not stop children seeing adult content.
    • Adult filters will not just block pornography. They also restrict access to sites deemed unsuitable for under 18s including information on alcohol and other drugs, forums, YouTube and controversial political views.
    • When adults filters are in place, mistakes are made. Adult filtering can stop people accessing crucial advice on sexual health, sexuality and relationships.
    • Adult filtering amounts to censoring legal content. The UK would be the only modern democratic society to do this (does the UK really want to emulate China, North Korea and Iran? Ed.). This sets a terrible example to other countries with interests in suppressing information.

    Sign the ORG petition against Cameron’s proposals.

    .

  • FSFE objects to claims of free software’s ‘predatory pricing’

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech

    FSFE logoIn a recent anti-trust submission to the European Commission, a coalition led by Microsoft falsely claimed that the distribution of free software free of charge hurts competition. FSFE has written a letter to the European Commission’s competition authorities to refute this claim and point out that free software is critical for an open, competitive IT market.

    In its letter, FSFE urges the Commission to consider the facts properly before accepting these allegations at face value. “Free software is a boon for humankind. The only thing that it is dangerous to is Microsoft’s hopelessly outdated, restrictive business model,” says FSFE president Karsten Gerloff.

    In essence,the so-called “FairSearch” coalition is asking the European Commission to favour a restrictive business model over a liberal one – exactly the opposite of what competition regulators should do to achieve a fair and open market.

    “Free software is not about price, it’s about liberty, a guarantee of competition and vendor independence. Asking to cripple free software in order to allow proprietary vendors to sell their locked-down systems is just absurd” says Carlo Piana, FSFE’s General Counsel. “The most substantial threat to competition in the mobile space today are software patents, and we have repeatedly urged anti-trust authorities to address this problem,” he adds.

    FSFE is asking the European Commission to dismiss the “FairSearch” coalition’s unfounded claims on predatory pricing and not make them part of whatever steps it decides to take in response to the group’s filing.

  • North Somerset libraries to offer free wifi

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Tech

    glassy wifi symbolNorth Somerset Council – Bristol’s immediate neighbour to the south – has announced that free wi-fi will be available in almost every library across North Somerset from 1st August.

    This will allow library users (not ‘customers’, as stated in your press release, North Somerset! Ed.) to bring their own laptops and other devices into their local library to use the internet.

    Wi-fi will be available to everyone by simply visiting any library during opening hours. There will be no need to book and visitors will not need to be a library member to set up an account, although first time users will need to approach a member of the library staff to set up an account.

    However, there’s library where this facility won’t be available – the mobile library.

    Potential users can find out more details of the scheme and opening times at http://www.n-somerset.gov.uk/mylocallibrary.

    First posted on Bristol Wireless.

  • Pirate Party UK writes to PM

    Steve WoodsPolitics, Tech

    Earlier this week the Prime Minister was making a lot of noise in the press and elsewhere about filtering the internet (under the dubious cover of protecting children. Ed.).

    His pronouncements have been met with almost universal condemnation from anyone with a bit of technical knowledge, as well as those concerned with online freedom, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who have dubbed it the ‘Great Firewall of Cameron‘.

    A couple of days ago, the Pirate Party UK sent the open letter below to the PM, which speaks for itself.

    The Rt Hon David Cameron, MP, Prime Minister
    10 Downing Street
    London
    SW1A 2AA

    Tuesday the 23rd July 2013

    Dear Mr Cameron,

    As a movement that includes many technically literate individuals, parents and young people, we are writing to you to express our concerns about your recent announcements about internet filtering. It is the wrong way to tackle the impact that you believe the internet is having on, as you put it, “the innocence of our children”.

    It is striking that your approach makes dealing with a social problem into a primarily technical exercise to be solved by Internet Service Providers. Many experts have already made clear that the issues you have raised are not just complex, but impossible to deal with effectively with technology alone.

    The suggestion that fool-proof filters can be provided to deal with something as difficult to define as obscenity online is foolhardy at best, misleading and damaging at worst. Your proposals will ensure that we don’t properly deal with the problems you claim to want to address.

    It should have been made clear to you from your advisers that filters will be ineffective and that they cause a number of serious issues in accomplishing what you aim to achieve. Filters will either fail to block the content you would prefer they blocked, leaving parents with a false sense of security, or they will block far more than intended, and will be turned off by many parents so that they can continue to access legitimate content in an unhindered manner.

    These points appear to have been accepted in the Government’s response to the consultation on parental internet controls, published in December of 2012. The approaches outlined in that document; that the government would work with industry, charities and experts in relevant fields through UKCCIS to promote parental engagement and ensure that that parents have options, are the right ones. They are based on your own evidence and seem to be supported by industry. It is also noteworthy that most parents who responded rejected a default-on approach to filtering.

    The result of that consultation was one that emphasised informed choice; that the Government would not prescribe detailed solutions to ISPs or parents. Instead it would expect industry to adapt the principles of this approach to their services, systems and devices and would empower parents rather than giving them a false sense of security. We do not understand why you have abandoned this direction.

    We urge you to reconsider and refocus your efforts into areas where they can really have an impact. It is vital that you accept the recommendations from your own consultation to ensure parents are well equipped to deal with the issues that you have outlined, using evidence not insinuation to support your assumptions. We would also argue that rather than the potentially harmful and narrow route you seem to be taking, even if it grabs the headlines, you need to ensure that your approach is a holistic one.

    It may be more complex, but ensuring that sex education and the teaching of technology in schools is fit for purpose is vital, and needs real support. Ensuring that parents are equipped to properly guide and supervise their children online may be less eye-catching in the media than imposing filters, but it will work.
    We would also ask that you provide more support to organisations like the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre to track down offenders and bolster support for local government departments that provide support for victims of abuse.

    The Internet has been a driver of massive societal change over the last two decades; as a result we have a society that has far more access to information and media than ever before. That situation is not going to change. Ensuring that we give our young people the skills to deal with this new reality, and supporting parents to ensure they are able to properly guide their children in an informed manner is vital.

    It is becoming clear to many people that your Coalition, both Conservative and Liberal Democrat members of your government, are failing when it comes to the digital age. You have failed to deliver the frameworks required in education to ensure that we are bringing up a new generation of innovators in technical fields. You have failed to properly invest in the few initiatives that do show promise in developing the UK’s digital scene, leaving those that do succeed doing so despite, not because of, your best efforts.

    We would ask that you not compound those failures by suggesting technical solutions to societal problems that they cannot solve, but instead listen to those with whom you have consulted. It is right that you should work ensure that there are options available to parents, but to deal with legitimate problems that arise from our society being more connected than ever before, you must adopt an approach that will actually do some good in the long term.

    Yours sincerely,

    (signed)

    Loz Kaye
    Leader
    Pirate Party UK

    Originally posted on Bristol Wireless.

  • Crapita’s lack of integrity revealed again

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    Evidence continues to stack up on the Court Delays website about Capita Translation & Interpreting’s continuing failure to meet the terms of its courts and tribunals interpreting contract with the Ministry of Justice (posts passim).

    This blog has previously highlighted Capita’s tactics to save its own skin when challenged; back in May it seemed to imply that the Clerk of Nottingham Crown Court was being untruthful when it failed to provide an interpreter for a murder case (posts passim).

    That is, however, not an isolated case, as shown by the following comment posted on the Court Delays website by Tim Sapwell.

    One whole day of Court time wasted.

    Warwick sitting at Leamington Spa

    9/7/13
    Defendant in robbery trial not produced from custody. Then no Punjabi interpreter for witness. Capita claim on telephone to CPS that no booking has been made. This is clearly not correct, because they later send an e-mail giving the exact details of the booking as the subject heading! They say they only have 2 Punjabi interpreters, one of whom is busy and the other cannot be found (!). It is suggested that the interpreter cannot attend before 12 noon the following day because he/she is based 100 miles away. Options offered are that the interpreter could be available at “around 12″ the following day or else a possibility that another could be found who might be available for 10.15 am.

    Identity of defendant withheld – case not concluded.

    First Capita T&I tell an untruth to the Crown Prosecution Service and then contradict themselves: you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried!

    As far as I can see, honesty and integrity are important qualities to possess for undertaking work in the courts. Capita T&I clearly has neither.

  • France: Twitter hands over anti-Semitic tweets data

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media, Tech

    Twitter logoMicro-blogging site Twitter is complying with a recent judicial decision to hand over identification data for anti-Semitic and racist tweets, reports Le Monde Informatique.

    In October last year, there was outrage after numerous anti-Semitic comments were posted on Twitter using the hashtags #UnBonJuif (a good Jew) and #UnJuifMort (a dead Jew). When alerted to the tweets, Twitter immediately removed them. The UEJF (French Jewish Students Union) and four other human rights and anti-racist organisations appealed to the courts to force Twitter to hand over personal details of users who had posted the tweets so they could be prosecuted under French laws against publishing racist and discriminatory hate speech.

    In June 2013 the Court of Appeal in Paris dismissed a plea by Twitter and confirmed the social media site’s obligation to pass on the details of the authors of racist or anti-Semitic tweets to five human rights associations concerned.

    Twitter announced yesterday that it had handed over the “data likely to enable the identification of certain authors” of anti-Semitic tweets. Twitter also regard this move as settling the dispute with the UEJF, which had directly criticised the social network and its CEO, Dick Costolo, requesting €38.5 million in damages. The parties to the dispute are now going to work together to fight racism. Twitter added that this included “taking measures to improve the accessibility of the reporting procedure of illegal tweets”.

  • FSFE: storing your data at Microsoft is negligent

    Steve WoodsPolitics, Tech

    Bill Gates Borg imageIn an article published yesterday, The Guardian describes how Microsoft is actively cooperating with the USA’s NSA. According to the article, Microsoft is providing the NSA with broad access to the communications of anyone using the company’s services, as follows:

    • Microsoft gives the NSA access to encrypted mails on Hotmail, Live.com and Outlook.com, as well as web chat messages;
    • Microsoft provides the NSA with easy access to its SkyDrive storage service, which currently has 250 million users worldwide;
    • Microsoft makes it possible for the NSA to monitor audio and video calls on the Skype service which it acquired in 2011.

    “This makes it clear that trusting Microsoft with your critical company data is downright negligent,” says Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). “In both the public and the private sector, those responsible for security and data protection urgently need to take action to protect their organisations, customers and clients.”

    While it is difficult or impossible to entirely escape surveillance, there are ways to minimise the risk that sensitive data, such as confidential product data or patient records, is intercepted by a third party. Free Software solutions for groupware, office products and operating systems are fully auditable and often data security a priority. End-to-end encryption with free software such as
    GnuPG and off-the-record messaging (OTR) protects data in transit. Products providing secure audio, video and chat communications, such as Jitsi, go a long way towards replacing Skype.

    “We advise companies and all other organisations that wish to protect their data to use free software solutions, to store data in-house wherever possible and to cooperate only with providers whom they trust to protect their customers’ data,” says Gerloff. “Such providers will often use strong encryption, and minimise the amount of data they store. Using smaller providers instead of global IT companies makes it somewhat less likely that customers’ data will be caught in the NSA’s dragnet.”

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