Sunday 30 October 2016

The Truth About The Legal Name Truth Posters

By now you've probably seen the strange billboards all over Scotland (and the rest of the UK) suggesting that it is illegal to use your name and that you could be committing fraud.

Strangely, there is nothing else on the posters to help find further information about the unusual message. There's no phone number, no website, and no email address, nothing.

No one seems to know who is funding the poster campaign (although billboard ads don't come cheap so it must be someone with money to burn).

So what's it all about?

Well, I suspect it's connected to a group of individuals who like to call themselves 'freemen of the land' or 'sovereigns of the land'. They are a rapidly growing bunch of people who are concerned about the sheer volume of unnecessary laws that our elected officials pass.

They worry that these laws are not being passed for the publics benefit, but rather are designed to further curb our freedoms and liberties in favour of rich corporations and a small band of elite at the top.

And you can't really argue with that per se. I think we would all agree - and anyone with a smidgeon of sense could coherently argue - that many of the laws we see passed by our Parliament don't seem to be for the public benefit at all but rather only seem to benefit those in authority. This is especially true when you see new laws being passed which give more powers to our police, because every time the police are given more powers they ALWAYS end up abusing them. Always.

So the underlying questions the freemen or sovereigns (or whatever they like to call themselves) seem to be asking are, how are our laws are made, who makes them, for who's benefit are they made, and whether we, as human beings, should be subject to these laws?

Now, straight off the bat, let me quite clear. There is absolutely no doubt that we ARE subject to laws passed by Parliament.

So the only legitimate question I can see which could be derived from this is whether we SHOULD be subject to laws passed by Parliament.

And this is where it gets interesting.

The poster campaign appears to point to the popular freemen/sovereigns argument that when you were born your parents registered your birth with a name, causing your name to become a ‘legal entity’. The idea is that when your parents registered your name on the 'birth certificate', they unknowingly gave ownership of that name to the Crown Corporation. Therefore all 'legal names' are owned by the Crown, and so using a 'legal name' without their written permission is fraudulent.

However, freemen/sovereigns take this argument another step further and argue that the 'legal entity' name on your birth certificate is completely separate from the physical you, the 'flesh and blood' you as it were, therefore the laws which Parliament pass only entitle the Crown to prosecute your 'name' and not you as a person. They even argue that the Crown can only prosecute a legal name so they cannot legally prosecute you as a person/human being.

They throw in a few facts and legal stuff about contract law, maritime law, and God's law etc in to the equation and this supposedly proves their point and seals their argument.

But does their argument hold any water?

The short answer is 'no'.

But before you dismiss them as some mad-cap tin-foil hat brigade, it's not just quite as clear-cut as you may think. The long answer is far more interesting than you would at first imagine and, as is often the case with these types of things, there are enough sprinklings of truth in some of the things they say to make their ideas worth looking at more closely.

The debate about who 'legally' owns your name is, to my mind, really just a round about way of freemen/sovereigns trying to prove that the only laws that should apply to human beings are God's laws and all other laws are merely acts of Parliament which need 'consent'. Their idea is that if you do not 'consent' to a law passed by Parliament, then that law does not apply to you.

This is nonsense of course.

When we, the public, elect a Government to make laws, we, the public, are consenting to the laws they make on our behalf. And if we don't like the laws the Government make, then we can elect a different Government at the next election who can revoke those laws or pass new ones for us.

It's called democracy and it completely blows the freemen/sovereigns argument out the water.

The next time you're in front of a Sheriff in a court of law for, say, driving without a licence or having no tax and insurance on your vehicle, just try telling the Sheriff that the law doesn't apply to you and you didn't 'consent' to it. Trust me, the only person you're gonna find who'll listen to your daft 'I don't consent to that law' argument will be your cell mate!

However while it is very clear that we, as human beings, ARE subject to laws brought in by acts of Parliament, there also exists a very strong argument as to whether we SHOULD be subject to these laws.

Because historically, man has always lived by the law of God and has never needed any of these 'new' enactments/parliament passed laws to govern our behaviour. We have always had religious laws like 'thou shalt not kill' etc to live by and it, well, it worked rather well for thousands of years.

So in the grand scheme of things, these 'new' laws (acts of Parliament) are a relatively recent addition to our culture and our way of life and, as such, there is most certainly some seeds of an argument that they may indeed be an unnecessary burden on us and yes, perhaps even unlawful.

Interestingly, Sharia law - which is much favoured by our friends in the Muslim world - uses this very argument. Muslims consider Sharia law to be God's law and is the only law they subscribe to. All other laws are considered to be 'man-made' and therefore should not apply to them (of course there is yet another argument that all religions are 'man-made' anyway but let's leave that theological minefield for another time)!

You see, in the west, religion and state are separate. But in the Muslim world, religion and state are one and the same (i.e. the Sharia). So when you try to force western democratic ideals on to Muslims, asking them to subscribe to our man-made laws and enactments, you are, in effect, asking them to turn their back on God (that's how they see it). A Muslim will never ever turn his back on his God so he will never ever subscribe to our westernised 'new' version of how a democracy, a state, and it's laws should be set up. Hey, that's why the middle-east is a chaotic battle ground and will be for years to come. Muslims do not want our version of democracy and the sooner we realise that and stop interfering in their world the better.

Ironically, just a few hundred years ago, we in Britain were thinking exactly the same as the Muslims!

Back then, state and religion were one and the same and we lived quite happily under the King's rule and all of those God given/religious laws he enforced on us (remember the bible, the ten commandments, all that stuff)?

So there's actually a striking similarity in our British views in the past regarding what laws we should abide by and our Muslim friends views about laws today.

There is no doubt that we in Britain (and the west) have increasingly abandoned God's laws in the last few hundred years in favour of acts of Parliament.

Could there be an argument that there is more crime, more hate, more trouble, and more inequality in our western world now than there was hundreds of years ago when we relied on God's law only?

Or can it be argued that our new 'man-made' laws have helped hone us in to a more civilised, healthy, and prosperous society than we would have been if we had abided by God's law alone?

If the 'man-made' laws helped make us a more civilised, healthy, and prosperous society, did they come about at the expense of equality for the members of our society?

In the end, there may be little to agree on but surely there's enough stuff there for us to at least have a discussion about it? The idea of whether 'man-made' laws introduced by a Parliament should apply to us or not, does have some grounds for debate (on some level at the very least).

In conclusion, I firmly believe that the 'truth' posters you see plastered on billboards around the country should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Please, whatever you do, do NOT try to march in to a court of law using what you saw written on a poster as your defence or you'll find yourself marched straight in to the slammer.

But DO talk with your friends, family, and colleagues about the reasoning and the rationale behind the message on the posters.

Do discuss with your friends, family, and colleagues whether it's right that, just because we elect a government and consent to them governing us, they have the right to take that consent and extend it to passing laws which hurt us and harm us and favour themselves, large corporations, and an elite minority.

Do discuss with your friends, family, and colleagues whether laws passed by our government and dished out by our courts favour the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and vulnerable and whether social justice for all has been achieved through our laws.

The argument shouldn't really be about what name is on your birth certificate and whether that name is really you.

Instead, the argument should be about whether our Government pass laws which are beneficial to the public, us as human beings, and benefits our society as a whole. 

Or do our Governments just pass laws to favour and benefit their corporate paymasters who fund their election campaigns.

That's the real 'truths' and 'frauds' we should be looking at.

There's an old saying that says instead of just teaching our children, we should also teach our children to QUESTION what we teach them.

If these posters cause us to ask questions about how we are governed, how laws are passed, and who really benefits from the laws Parliament passes, then that can only be a good thing.

Thursday 27 October 2016

Armed Police ARE On Routine Patrols

Police constantly assure us that only a small number of police officers are actually armed (around 2%).

Police further assure us that those who are armed are not deployed on routine duties.

But take a look at the pic below of an armed copper spotted in the Tesco Extra on South Road, Dundee.

So...do you still believe that untrustworthy Police Scotland are being honest with us?



https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/dundee/278306/police-defend-gun-policy-armed-cop-spotted-dundee-tesco/

Monday 24 October 2016

Time To Disband Untrustworthy Police Scotland

Holyrood justice sub-committee on policing is the Scottish Governments public watchdog.

It consists of a group of MSP's, elected by the Scottish public, who sit on the committee and look in to how Police Scotland is run and how it operates.

Essentially, their job is to scrutinise Police Scotland and expose police failures.

And to all accounts it looks like they've done a pretty good job so far.

The committee have already hauled Police Scotland over the coals regarding the lack of local policing, illegal stop and search, armed police officers on routine patrols, call-handling failures, the £60m scrapped i6 IT programme, complaints and investigations, and independent custody visiting.

So what do you think the response of Police Scotland has been to the committee's recommendations?

Have they taken the criticism on board?

Learned from their mistakes perhaps?

Worked with the committee to put right all the things that are wrong with Police Scotland?

Eh, no.

Police Scotland's response has been to demand the committee be abolished.

Yip, you heard that right.

According to insider reports and a leaked paper, Police Scotland don't like the committee - because they have embarrassed them - so they want the watchdog axed.

Liberal Democrat Liam McArthur has commented "I cannot understand why anyone would think it is a good idea to undermine scrutiny of Police Scotland at a time when the service is facing major challenges."

Perhaps you can't understand Liam. But I can...

Police Scotland are so arrogant and utterly intolerant to anyone who dares to criticise them in any way that they will ruthlessly silence anyone who attempts to speak out against them - even a government justice committee.

Police think they are above the law.

They think they are above the public.

They think they are the law.

Even the mere hint or suggestion that Police Scotland believe they can shut down a Holyrood committee that was set up to hold them to account is as exasperating as it is worrying.

Police Scotland is seriously out of control and members of the public must withdraw support for them until they are dissolved, disbanded, and completely rebuilt from scratch.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14721986.Fears_over_future_of_police_watchdog_that_embarrassed_Scotland__39_s_single_force/

Friday 21 October 2016

Police Gobbledegook

The Scottish Police Authority (SPA) have appointed their first Director of Corporate Services, Strategy and Change.

His name is David Page and he will deliver transformational change across Police Scotland and lead the corporate functions which support and enable policing services to the public.

Eh? What?

I don't know about you, but I've just read that first paragraph again and, well, it reveals absolutely nothing about who this David Page fella is, what his job will be, and what he'll be doing. Nothing.

What a load of meaningless gobbledegook.

The most we can surmise from it all is that he's most probably some new non-entity who will be doing some new non-job for the SPA/Police Scotland (while pocketing £173,010 a year of our money for doing it).

However they have revealed a little tiny bit about his background.

He used to work in the financial services sector - with the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Mmmm. So, they've put a banker in to a senior SPA position, overseeing an already untrustworthy Police Scotland. 

What could possibly go wrong!

And just to continue with the plethora of nonsensical waffle and tosh, the chairman of the SPA Andrew Flanagan and Chief Constable Phil 'Gormless' have trotted out a further shopping list of non-phrases to welcome their presumably non-entity to his presumable non-job - including such gems as:

"completes a process of significant refresh and renewal of the Police Scotland leadership team"

"wealth of knowledge and experience of leading successful programmes"

"necessary leadership skills to adapt and transfer" 

"track record of achievement into the organisation"

"take stock of the leadership of policing"

"refresh to meet the wider challenges of changing demand"

"a strong blend of continuity"

"attributes to implement"

"organise and deliver our corporate and policing activities"

"achieve flexibility and sustainability"

and...

"the right mix of insights"

Phew!

You can just feel the public confidence (and interest) draining as we speak.

I'm surprised you managed to stop yawning long enough to even get to the end of this post.

If I didn't know any better I'd think they were trying to quietly parachute one of their friends and connections in to a job without the public really knowing too much about it...

http://www.scotland.police.uk/whats-happening/news/2016/august/police-scotlands-first-director-of-corporate-services-appointed

Tuesday 18 October 2016

How Well Do You Think Police Scotland Did This Summer?

As another Scottish summer comes to an end untrustworthy Police Scotland's record of policing this seasons major events is in tatters.

The sickening pitch invasion scenes at the cup final highlighted the worst football violence we've seen since in decades. Players were assaulted on the park and police completely failed to protect players, the fans, or the situation.

Then at T In The Park, two teenagers died of suspected drug abuse at the festival and a young father-of-three was found dead 10 miles away two days after the festival had ended. On top of that, a cash machine containing £30,000 was stolen and there were a number of sexual assaults.

To say they did a sloppy job of policing the cup final and TITP is an understatement.

Absolutely no one in their right mind would dare argue that Police Scotland have been anything but a pathetic, incompetent, abject failure this summer.

Well...no one except Police Scotland that is.

They think they did a great job!

Take a look their tweet below:


If ever proof was needed that this organisation is totally out of touch with the public, their tweet says it all. 

Sheeeeez! What planet do they live on???

Friday 14 October 2016

Why Police Scotland Are No Longer Proactive

It's not a good time to be Jewish in Scotland.

A report by the The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC) entitled 'What’s Changed About Being Jewish in Scotland" says that:

"Before Police Scotland came into being we always had extra visits from our local bobby to ask how things were in times of heightened tensions and to say they were doing extra patrols. There is much less of a sense of local community since Police Scotland came into being."

In short, the SCoJeC report says that Jewish members of the public feel their safety is "not a priority" for Police Scotland.

It's a sentiment that's echoed by many members of the public I speak to - and it's unacceptable.

Here's what the real underlying problem is.

It's not so much that Police Scotland are specifically ignoring Jewish people (or any other minority community).

It's just that Police Scotland are now reactive rather than proactive.

The ramifications of police being reactive rather than proactive are huge.

You see, in days gone by, police saw their job as being protectors of the public. They interacted with the public, they proactively checked on communities to make sure they were safe, and they listened to their concerns.

But with the centralisation of Police Scotland and their failed one-size-fits-all police force, all of the local, personal, and community policing that once kept us safe had has been eroded.

Police nowadays will only 'react' when someone calls them to report a problem.

So when problems emerge within a community, especially at times of heightened tensions, they fester away for much longer and are never resolved at that crucial early stage.

It's only when problems escalates to a point where boiling point is reached that they get brought to the attention of the police and are then dealt with. Usually too late.

Ironically this new reactive policy of Police Scotland suits them just fine.

Because police no longer view themselves as peacekeepers, existing to protect the public.

Instead police view themselves as existing to target the public.

Police Scotland think that making lots of arrests 'proves' to the public that they're doing a good job.

So you can see why they consider it to be in the best interests of Police Scotland to let situations fester, tempers rise to boiling point, and violence to break out before stepping in to 'sort' the situation and arrest the 'baddies'.

Unfortunately it's not in the best interests of the public or our communities.

It would be far better for the public if police would help us, support us, protect us, and nip community problems in the bud before they escalate.

If police did that, the public would be kept much safer.

But arrest numbers would go down.

And untrustworthy Police Scotland most definitely do NOT want that to happen.  

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/jewish-community-feels-more-vulnerable-under-police-scotland-1-4210842

Monday 10 October 2016

Police Cannot Guarantee The Safety Of Your Data

Remember a few months ago when America’s FBI demanded that Apple help them hack in to the San Bernadino killers iPhone?

Apple refused to do it and it cost the FBI around $1m to get third party to hack it for them.

At the time every security professional in the world warned the FBI that if they tried to create a backdoor hack to get in to this or any other phone it wouldn’t be long before it would fall in to the wrong hands.

In one of those “we told you so” moments, we now discover that since the FBI vs Apple fiasco, the following things have happened:

1. Code that can bypass Microsoft’s Secure Boot system has escaped into the public realm.

2. The National Security Agency (NSA) have had their entire arsenal of hacking tools, zero day exploits, and other malware and implements of digital spycraft stolen from an isolated set of servers.

And don’t think for one moment that data breaches like these are restricted to companies in the USA or the US government.

The UK government have an even worse track record than their USA counterparts for getting hacked and losing our data.

So here we are, yet again, in a situation where governments foolishly and arrogantly ignore security professionals advice. They refuse to listen to the experts out there who constantly scream at them and warn them that "if a backdoor exists, data will get stolen".

According to recent reports, the US government have been handed a ransom note for 1 million Bitcoins (which works out at around $575 million) for the return of the NSA’s toy box of hacking tools.

Wow!

Not only does that demonstrate the extent to which government agencies spy on us and hack in to our data, but it shows that whoever stole these tools from the government now have in their possession the ability to break in to almost any government or corporate system in the world. That includes power grids, emergency networks, communications systems, gas pipeline controls, medical records, major databases of private information, and control systems of nearly every kind.

That’s scary.

As individual members of the public, unfortunately we can’t do very much about the arrogance and incompetence of our police, security services, and government when it comes to securing our data. Realistically, we can’t do much to prevent them illegally spying on us, hacking us, and losing all our data from their systems and devices.

But what we CAN do is take conscious steps to secure the data we have on our own systems and our own devices.

First, we need to accept that police, security services, and government are far too arrogant to heed warnings from security professionals regarding data safety so they will continue to pass laws (and even break laws) to gain as much of your data as they can - then they’ll lose it. Period.

So we need to keep our data as safe as we can at our end.

Always, and I mean ALWAYS, assume that anything you have of any importance or value on a connected/networked computer, phone, or device can, and probably will, be hacked at some point.

If a device does not need to be ‘online’ don’t connect it to the internet or any other network.

Most of all do not believe anyone who says they can guarantee your data will be safe in their hands and that it will not be hacked and that they won’t lose it because they’re lying to you. No one can give you that guarantee. Not the police, not the security services, not the government. No one.

And sadly the biggest liars who you’ll hear trying to sell you that false and worthless guarantee are the police, the security services, and your own government.

Friday 7 October 2016

More HMCTS And COPFS Incestuous Links

Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) has joined the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in taking tenancy in Aberdeens AB1 office complex on Huntly Street.

You may remember that I commented on the AB1 complex a while ago when the COPFS first took up residence there.

So what’s the story this time?

Well the interesting thing about HMCTS taking residency in the same office block as the COPFS is not so much that HMCTS and COPFS should NOT be working so closely together due to conflicts of interests (disturbing as that is).

No, the interesting thing about this story is who the OWNERS of the AB1 office block are.

They are Aberdeen Asset Management (AAM).

Who is AAM I hear you ask?

Well, they are famous (or infamous depending how you look at it) for being "the men who wiped out billions" (go check out the BBC’s website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3086997.stm for the full sordid story).

In a nutshell, AAM are the crowd who lost more than £3 billion in split capital investment trusts. More importantly, it was small investors like pensioners who poured their life savings into AAM's split capital investment trusts who lost money and were hurt the most.

Aberdeens investment director Chris Fyshwick had overseen changes in the way the investments were run which made the funds much riskier for investors. Without going in to the finer technical details, basically it meant the banks had first call on the assets in the pot and shareholders were relegated to second place.

Aberdeen Asset management told investors that their risk was minimal and that they would produce assured capital growth irrespective of market conditions.

But they then began to invest several split cap funds in each other creating a complex maze of cross-investment.

The end result was that income vanished and by November 2001 Aberdeen trust suspended its dividends and peoples retirement income vanished.

The Financial Services Authority launched an investigation into the scandal and a committee of MPs demanded answers from Aberdeen Asset Management but the men behind the losses stayed tight-lipped about the whole debacle (although Chris Fishwick later resigned from Aberdeen Asset Management).

You may think this is all very old news and happened a long, long time ago. You may be right.

All I’m saying is, do you think that:

a) AAM are fit and proper persons to be landlords to HMCTS and COPFS?

...and

b) Should Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) be AAM's tenants and therefore be beholding to Aberdeen Asset Management?

http://www.scottishlegal.com/2016/08/25/hmcts-takes-tenancy-in-aberdeen-complex/

Tuesday 4 October 2016

Honest Decent Coppers Are Scared To Speak Up

A senior police officer with many years service has just blown the whistle on how drug dealers are getting away with it and avoiding arrest.

It turns out that in an effort to save money, police officers are told NOT to investigate and arrest drug dealers if it entails working overtime to do it (see letter below). 

As you can imagine, the big story here as far as the mainstream press are concerned is that drug dealers, the scourge of our society, are getting away with their crimes because police are trying to save money by restricting officers to a narrow time-window in which they can investigate and arrest these pieces of scum.

The story becomes even more shocking when you consider that the number of drug-related deaths in Scotland has jumped 15% in the last year.

But as my regular readers know, I like to look beyond the obvious. I like to check the background and read between the lines of a story as it were. And with this story my attention was particularly drawn towards one little phrase the whistle-blowing senior police officer used in his letter.

He asked to remain anonymous because whistle-blowing about the police is akin to "career suicide".

That's the much bigger story here as far as I'm concerned.

There are not many good coppers kicking around untrustworthy Police Scotland these days, and the ones who are good, honest, decent coppers know all too well that if they try to do the right thing their career will be effectively over ie they'll be committing 'career suicide'.

You'll never get anywhere in Police Scotland if you are honest and above board - the whistle-blowing senior officer is very clear about that (and in my extensive experience of dealing with police he's absolutely correct).

Police Scotland is an organisation which discourages honesty, fairness, and decency. 

And that's as bewildering as it is disgraceful.

Shame on you Chief Constable Phil 'Gormless' and your abysmal motley crew.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/17/police-scotland-whistle-blower-officers-not-to-pursue-drug-deale/