Journal of the Plague Years

Affiche of May, 1968: Youth in fear of the Future - no change there, then...

• A stirring moment (of propaganda), long gone.
• The Secret Ballot.
• Freedom from arbitrary attachment of money and property.
• One Of Our (Ancient) Liberties Is Missing.
• Don't Talk Of Liberties.
• Lofti.
• Magna Carta Besieged.
• Why Don't You Do Something?
• New Lamps for Old...
• In Honour of the Omnibus.
• Sovereignty.
• Parenting Classes
• Data Protection:
• Internal Passports.
• Your Hospital Manager against Terrorism and Organised Crime:
• The Killers of Stephen Lawrence:
• A Very British Coup; [Channel Four 1988]:
• Letter to the Independent, Sept 2004.

A stirring moment (of propaganda), long gone.

30 April 2008 .

At the end of the 1941 film '49th Parallel', a fanatical Nazi U-Boat officer (temporarily) captures a soldier who's just been grumbling about the food, army, government and everything else that soldiers grumble about. The Nazi wrongly concludes that the soldier is disaffected, and says so, to which the soldier replies; 'What's the good of talking to you? You can't even begin to understand Democracy. We own the right to be fed up with anything we damn please; and say so out loud when we feel like it.'

Say so out loud when we feel like it?

It was true when I was a kid. Now, the same speech might best be addressed to our own government. (Try printing the quote on a T-shirt and then walk down Whitehall. 50/50 odds, I reckon.)

'49th Parallel' 'Understand Democracy' 'Free speech' grumbling

The Secret Ballot.

03 April 2008 .

The right to secrecy at the ballot in general elections was only legislated in 1875, so, as an e-mail has reminded me, it's not exactly an ancient liberty.

I do think it's an important one, though. I believe it's correct to say that there was a struggle for the secret ballot going on for at least 150 years before that date. The problem then was that employers and landlords could bully those (few) workers and tenants who had the franchise into voting a particular way through the threat of dismissal or eviction. Some of those same powerful men justified resisted the reform in the House, quite blatantly on the grounds that 'they knew best' and that it was 'their right' to take their people with them.

A hundred years later, in the 1970s, some of the unions, voting by a show of hands, were able to intimidate members into voting one way rather than the other. The justification then was that it was wrong for workers to go against the majority... (think about that one for a moment... on at least two levels). As a union man, there are a very few things I am grateful to Thatcher for; one of them is the clear message that the unions had to hold secret ballots.

Now, it's the government's fixation on the postal vote which is causing the problem. The obvious problem, most frequently quoted, is that of a woman (from a culture where a man in the family is boss) being forced by her male ruler to vote his way - or even being made to sign the paper but never seeing the cross which he then enters. Only last month, evidence emerged of possibly 6,000 such fraudulent votes having been entered in Slough, apparently among Asian voters - this far from the first city to be shown up in this way. [It's poor decision-making by the present government (eg by the imposition of the postal vote in some areas) which I attack elsewhere on this site.]

Actually, I would see it as a great advance for democracy if there were a secret ballot in Parliament. Of course, it would play havoc with party discipline...

Ah, now, that would be the great advantage of the plan

'Secret Ballot' 'show of hands' 'fraudulent vote' 'postal vote'

Freedom from arbitrary attachment of money and property.

24 March 2008 .

Several papers reported that Stirling council fined a motorist 35 for displaying a parking receipt upside down. It sounds like the sort of story in which a vital detail, which would completely change its complexion, has been left out; but apparently not so. So now it sounds like to sort of thing which happens all the time, which is too ordinary to get into the papers but which can still make dealing with petty officialdom supremely vexing. No point whatsoever to this posting, except to repeat a feeling I have that there was a point to Magna Carta, in small things as well as great.

'arbitrary attachment' 'Stirling council'

One Of Our (Ancient) Liberties Is Missing.

27 February 2008 .

In an article in the Daily Mail today ('Get help or lose your benefits, drug addicts told'), it was mentioned in passing that police will be given the powers to confiscate the cars, jewellery and other property of drug dealers - before they've appeared in court or even been charged. It sounds very worthy, with the suggestion that such assets should be ploughed back into the local community.

I'm shouting my support from the front row when it comes to criminals being deprived of the fruit of their crimes. However, there is this little detail of the crime being proven in a court of law, first.

There used to be two ways in daily life by which our cash or possessions could legally be taken from us:

• 1) By taxation under the current fiscal rules approved by Parliament, or,
• 2) by order of a court of judge or magistrate according to the appropriate legislation.
• A few other cases, such as customs officers confiscating contraband, which are hardly everyday, are well understood by ordinary people.

Anything else comes dangerously close to being arbitrary. So, what do we have now? Inter alia:

• Bailiffs are being accused of widespread shady practices (and the government, far from acting to restrain these practices, plans to remove restraints that exist at the moment, q.v.).
• Almost any passing peaked hat seems to be allowed to issue on-the-spot fines for an extraordinary range of offences and supposed offences without reference to any court - often threatening to increase the fine if the 'accused' dares to exercise that most basic right in a free society, of appeal to a court...
• The extraordinary practice of some councils, of removing and crushing cars which are suspected to be untaxed, or simply wrongly parked, again without reference to a court and often, it seems, before the victim even knows the car is gone, let alone having a chance to appeal. There are now several reports that councils, whether acting lawfully or not, have been simply mistaken. And 'lawful' doesn't automatically mean 'moral', unfortunately.

By any traditional assessment (and they weren't entirely fools, back in the day), these suggest that some of us are at risk of being arbitrarily deprived of our money or possessions, which the connivance/permission/approval of the government. (It is, of course, the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of our population who are most at risk from bailiffs and officious functionaries...)

So the confiscation of goods from those whom the police suppose to be drug dealers or other criminals may only be a natural step from where we've already reached.

Well, if that's what everybody wants, I suppose I'm just the sandwich-board nutter whom everyone ignores. But, to me, allowing the police to nick people's property before there's a hearing of any sort in court seems incredibly dangerous. Yes, those people are probably very nasty; but let's just have it proven in court before we condemn them.

Thought for the day: just because the government says it's okay doesn't make it okay.

In passing, I have no personal axe to grind on this issue. For what it's worth, I'm trying to make sure that I always declare a personal interest, in any posting. I might as well try for at least the semblance of objectivity.

'drug dealers' 'crushing cars' bailiffs

Don't Talk Of Liberties.

15 February 2008 .

Two Hundred and fifty years ago, when the Fielding Brothers were the magistrates there, they referred to the 'City and Liberty of Westminster'. There were many such Liberties then.

You might not hear the epithet in a lifetime, now.

'Fielding brothers' 'Liberty of Westminster'

Lofti.

14 February 2008 .

He was kept in jail for five months. He was chucked out of his training as a pilot - and may never work for an airline. His wife and children have been put through hell. Relatives have also been fired from their jobs. All as a result as a request for extradition (in connection with 9/11) by the US.

At the Old Bailey, today, he was totally cleared. The judge was scathing of the evidence upon which the extradition warrant was based (including a crucial video which turned out to be of the wrong person).

Still, what can Lofti complain about? If the extradition had been sought after the law in the UK was changed in 2003, he could simply have been removed ('fast-tracked') to the US without further ado. Presumably he would simply have disappeared into Guantanamo. Quite possibly the media in this country would never even have reported it.

The government's been praised in some of the papers recently for criticising the US use of torture. I'm not clear how that squares up to the 2003 law.

extradition Lofti Guantanamo fast-track torture

Magna Carta Besieged.

05 February 2008 .

Some thoughts from Peter Oborne, political columnist in the Daily Mail, seen by chance on the net:

"...the protections written out in the Magna Carta back in 1215 are priceless and never in our history have they come under such sustained and ruthless attack as during the ten years of this Labour Government.
"In the 13th century, it was the monarchy, and in particular the feared tyrant King John, that was the enemy of freedom and liberty. In the 21st century, the power of the state is the menace."

"The reality is that political correctness, though well-intentioned, is turning into a totalitarian monster that can censor any debate and distort argument about burning issues such as mass immigration and multi-culturalism."

"Today, there are no fewer than 266 statutory provisions and ministerial orders that allow entry to private dwellings, often with the option to use force."

"All British citizens are presumed innocent until proven guilty. But this ancient right is under threat from a government promise to introduce identity cards, forcing us to carry a document we can (surely, 'have to'. Ed.) present to the authorities on demand. The ID card threatens to become a massive weapon in the hands of an intrusive state.
"Alongside the attack on jury trial, modern British government has sought to move away from formal justice to an improvised system of executive justice, thus sidestepping the due process of law which has been the defining feature of the British system.
"This kind of casual justice has been introduced for a variety of offences, for example hooliganism and shoplifting.
"The resultant move to fixed penalty notices means that suspects can buy their way out of the formal process of punishment by paying a fine. As a result, shoplifting and some other offences are subject to taxation rather than criminal punishment."

"In a famous passage, the great 20th-century historian AJP Taylor wrote that 'in August 1914, a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the State, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission.' Only 90 years have passed since he uttered those words and today the opposite is true."

I'm far from agreeing with Mr. Oborne all the time, and even in the article from which these passages come (in which he argues for a new Magna Carta), he suggests that the level of taxes in this country is so punitive that there ought to be a section dealing with it - having paid high taxes on a fairly menial salary for most of my life, I can't see current taxation as punitive. However, I feel that his comments here, so close to mine but from a very different political viewpoint, bear my repeating. (Regret no reference for now.)

'Magna carta' 'Peter Oborne' 'statutory instruments' 'ministerial orders' 'statutory provision' 'punitive taxation'

Why Don't You Do Something?

09 January 2008 .

It is an interesting - and crucial - question: when bad things are happening in the public sphere, why don't you do something about it?

To take a case in point, consider the increasing constraints on our civil liberties. (If you're not sure what is happening to these, the page Civil Liberties : 16 down and counting is only my glorified list, but I think it gives a working outline. If you want something more authoritative, just Google "Civil Liberties". )

Incidentally: the government said that we had to lose some civil liberties in the War Against Terror. As people began to see through that, the government added that it was necessary in the fight against illegal immigrants, too. As people began to question that, as well, the government reverted to the reason it's used since the year dot to try to ensure that we don't win too many liberties, viz that the only people who benefit are criminals and their dodgy lawyers. It's nonsense: civil liberties were never some gift from the government, introduced to protect us against those people or them against us: they are all about protecting the public - people - against arrogant, greedy, power-hungry or corrupt government itself. It worked: it wasn't for nothing that we used to be able to say, "It's a free country." People still say it, but more and more people are realising that it isn't quite so true any more. In the 1960s, Brits were more free than the average European. Not any more.

I've come up with 17 specific and often ancient liberties (so far) which are part of what provide the framework for the way we live (and which may have been an important part of why fascism never caught on in this country) which do not have the force or strength they had 30 years ago. Their retreat has changed the nature of our country already, and the pace of change is accelerating. I've lived through that time, and I promise you that the changes are not very pleasant. It is not only nostalgia which says that for the same person in the same job with the same sort of family life, in several important respects life was a great deal easier and pleasanter in the 1960s and 70s.

So if you live in England or the UK, and I ask you, "Why aren't you doing something about the loss of our civil liberties?", you might choose one of the following answers:

• You don't know that it's happening. Well, I might be wrong, in which case there's nothing you need to know. But what if I'm right?

• You know it's happening but you're not interested. There's nothing wrong with being interested in other things. I'm here to argue, not to evangelise. So long as you're sure... but if you are, why have you read this far?

• You know but you trust that the powers-that-be know what they're doing. I'm not sure that you can be helped.

• You know but you don't think it's going particularly to affect anybody. It already has.

• You know but you think it will only affect other people. First they came for the Jews...

• You know but you have other priorities. When politics become the most important thing in life, something is out of balance. So you're right to have other priorities. But make room for this one too, if you get the chance.

• You know and you care but you don't think anyone will take any notice of anything you might say. Now we're talking. That's how I feel. Our job is to work out how to make people listen.

• You know and you approve. You're the enemy.

• You're about to emigrate.

I ought to say: I don't think everything has worsened: taping the interviews of suspects is a great, and quite recent, safeguard. And at least minors being interviewed have to be accompanied by an appropriate adult.

'War on terror' 'taped interviews' 'appropriate adult'

New Lamps for Old...

13 December 2007 .

For most of my life I believed, then tried to believe, in the inviolability of the Unwritten Constitution of this country.

A reason why I came to loathe blair so much (a contempt I may inadvertently have suggested on this site - and which, in part, was why I started writing this journal in the first place) was that, while he did not start the erosion of that constitution, he embraced the erosion, ensuring that what was being done was in our face, knavishly or foolishly institutionalising it, while apparently totally unaware of the enormity of what he was doing.

And brown is following in the master's steps, like Wenceslas' page, treading in the very sod.

I believe absolutely now that we need a written constitution, codified, enshrined in fundamental law like that of the US so that amendments can only be made under profound circumstances.

The only problem is that, inevitably, the new constitution (and certainly the way it is developed) will be in the hands of the very institutions, and probably of many of the very same people, that allowed our ancient constitution and liberties to be castrated in the first place.

'unwritten constitution'

In Honour of the Omnibus.

05 December 2007 .

Marks and Sparks are selling cookies in a tin, which is dressed out as a generic open-platform 1930s London bus (I'm sure you'd like to know that it's on route 30 to Marble Arch). Not totally generic, as it happens; I'm embarrassed to admit that I may recognise it as being vaguely like a Leyland STD type.

Somehow I can't imagine M&S portraying one of the modern people-boxes which have taken over in London over the past 30 years, even though they would be much closer in shape to the cookie-tin. I ask myself, why not?

It's obviously in part down to nostalgia; but that can only apply to people over about 40 (like me). Some of it may have to with whatever it is that makes children who, asked to draw a train, still draw steam engines even though British Rail moved on (!) a long time ago.

So, let me fly this flag and see if anyone salutes it:

I really don't like riding London buses, these days. They are too obviously designed to crush in the maximum number of passengers ("standees", for God's sake). The windows can't be opened. They overheat so much that rooves have had to be painted white. The quality of driving, whatever they claim, is simply not up to the standards of a generation ago (see below). The level of cleaning and maintenance is way down on even that of the 1950's (except Holloway garage, which for some reason was appalling even then - which I mention just to prove I know what I'm on about). The seats aren't as comfortable, nor do they have room for tall people; and acceleration and braking are too harsh for the customers. One-Person-Operated, so there's no conductor for the passengers and the driver not only has to deal with impossible traffic but worry about collecting fares and keeping an eye on passengers as well*. And the endless waits at bus stops...

However: the real bugbear is those closing doors; all the usual reasons are trotted out for having them (and always with the best of intentions) - health and safety, mostly, although I've seen more people hurt by being trapped than I've ever seen fall off the platform. But the effect is to make the buses a microcosm of the control-freakery of society as a whole.

It would clearly drive a town planner crazy to see people jump on and off buses as it suited them, when the bus isn't even at a bus stop! All that free will and individual decision! I realise that I'm batting on about this now, and you can see where I'm heading, so I leave you with this parting reminiscence... of waiting with a dozen other people to get off a number 19 in a traffic jam in Highbury Barn with no possibility of sudden movement, less than 20 yards from the stop. We waited for 40 minutes. The driver flatly refused to open the door. Grumble grumble.

* I think I'll be batting on elsewhere on the question of competence, about how so few of us seem to be able to do our jobs as well as we should. I believe bus drivers in London are a classic case of workers being giving excessive/conflicting responsibilities: it would seem to me to be self-evident that a person responsible for driving up to 100 passengers in modern city traffic should have no other distractions. What is amazing is that they do the job so well and on the whole so cheerfully.

'open platform' standee

Sovereignty.

21 November 2007 .

Just to make it clear that, so far as politicking politicians (and party politics) go, I am quite unbiased as to where I vent my spleen. I devoutly disliked Thatcher and quite a lot of what she stood for. The one virtue she had that The Dear Leader and The Supreme Leader do not was that at least I knew where we stood with her. She wasn't post-modern (that marvellous word which I finally came to understand when I realised that in many ways it is synonymous with 'duplicitous', especially if that dangerous word 'narrative' comes anywhere near it).

But; one of my philosophical arguments with her was over the nature of Sovereignty in Britain, and where it resides. She famously held that Parliament was the repository of our sovereignty, and I accept that she reflected an opinion which has been held for over 300 years. I felt, however, and feel, that it must be repeated and emphasised all the time that it is the people who are sovereign, and we only entrust the power of that sovereignty - and not the sovereignty itself - to our government.

I believe that we allowed Thatcher too much, and that we are now paying the price for it in the arrogant and authoritarian leaders we have recently suffered. We might have got away with it if we had more MPs who understood their role in balancing the Executive - and God bless those few honourable members who have tried to do that job.

So, I blame Thatcher, feeble MPs and Blair Babes for ID cards and for the war in Iraq. Not the fault of The Dear Leader or The Supreme Leader at all. In fact we can say that The Dear and Supreme Leaders wouldn't allow these things if they knew what was going on... just like Uncle Joe and Uncle Adolf.


Parenting Classes

20 November 2007 .

The Father of the Nation, the Supreme Leader, wants parenting classes to be available to everybody in the country who feels they might need them. It is another (perfectly reasonable) idea from the government which I find myself viewing with suspicion.

1) There seems to be a consensus at this end that even the most innocuous idea from this government involving our children needs to be treated with extreme caution.

2) Precursor schemes have already been going for a while and in some places, at least, they are not being used. In an extreme case, few weeks ago I came across a woman who is being paid by her local authority to lecture/teach/lead on precisely one of these schemes: she doesn't actually attend; there's no point since there were no takers - but the council contracted her before discovering that no-one was interested. Of course, this is anecdotal; I may by chance have come across the only such example in the country.

3) (But mainly...) I wonder how long it will be before these schemes start to become compulsory. First, we'll see social workers making attendance a requirement for some perceived struggling parent, then for the parents of truants, then of fat children, then of children who don't do their homework well enough...

4) And doesn't it all tie in with the government's new initiative of 'Birthing Ceremonies', in place of Registrations of Birth, in which the new parents and the state (represented by whom?) will promise to share in the upbringing of the new citizen?

'Parenting classes' 'birthing ceremonies'

Data Protection:

20 November 2007 .

Hooray! It's happened at last. Personal details of 25 million people on two (unencrypted) discs disappeared, lost by a lowly treasury official (or by TNT - and why anybody should entrust critical material to TNT defeats at least this scribbler).

So far as I know, my details are not among those lost; but details of relatives, friends and their children are.

So why 'hooray'? Simply, as I write, there is a chance that these details have not been acquired by undesirable people: and if they have, the details (albeit very serious) are a tiny part of what they might be in ten years' time were a similar situation to arise again. What has happened gives us the ultimate argument against the government being able to harvest all our details - so that it won't be able to happen in ten years time.....

It has to be a wake-up call to a nation sleepwalking into state control-freakery. Or, if it isn't, then we really do not deserve to be saved.

Well, no doubt it will all be thrashed out in the media over the next few weeks. But, a few thoughts:

• The discs will be found, and the government will tell us we can breathe easy. They will be wrong; never mind the discs possibly having been copied, it should now be clear how unsafe our data is in the hands of 300 000 assorted officials - each with his or her own temptations.

• And haven't they hauled out a Blair Babe to mouth platitudes on the BBC, Newsnight, etc? She seems to have no concept of what has really happened.

• And the sight of Darling wriggling on the hook in parliament... He hasn't resigned: on the contrary the claim is that this is not a policy issue but an operational one; for God's sake, he and the glorious and beloved leader set up the operational system in the first place - and then kept cutting the funding for it. So, that wearisome and boringly repeated question: Ain't they got no shame?

But at least, with any luck, we may at last have vaccinated ourselves against allowing, too easily, impertinent intrusions by arrogant officials.

'Data theft'

Internal Passports.

19 November 2007 .

Another freedom quietly erodes - again by Statutory Instrument, so that there has been no discussion in Parliament and so that our Home Secretary, the forgettable Jacquieiee Smith, does not have to waste time on the boring necessity of explaining or justifying her actions.

ID will now be required of passengers to take a ferry between two parts of the UK.

I'm sure that this didn't happen even at the height of the troubles a generation ago.

There is no difference in principle between catching a ferry from Belfast to Stranraer and catching a train from Luton to London, or a bus from Liverpool Street to Kensington High Street, or walking down to the local newsagent. So, why should the government draw one line rather than another? The answer is, of course, that it will keep redrawing the line, more and more restrictively, always with the best of motives, and they'll take all the advantages offered to them in this process by the statutory instrument.

Sorry about inconsistent use of capital letters: it rather depends on how irritated I'm feeling. Perhaps from now on I shall refer to the great-and-fraternal-leader as 'pm'... or 'brown'.

'Jacqui Smith' 'Belfast Stranraer ferry'

Your Hospital Manager against Terrorism and Organised Crime:

11 November 2007 .

I can't get my head around this: the law has been changed - by a Statutory Instrument, so that there was little discussion in or out of Parliament, and no vote, so that an extraordinary range of officials are allowed to interrogate our telephone calls, in addition to emails, etc., without a warrant. Local councils, for example, or health authorities. We have been promised again and again that intrusions on our liberties and privacy were going to be needed in the war against terror; a predictable mission creep soon extended this to include organised crime... but what qualifications, or skills, do health authorities have in the fight against these threats.... for Heaven's sake, they allow C. diff to kill massively more people than any terrorists, and all fighting C. diff needs is a bit of soap and water. There must have been some more mission creep, I suppose...

And why should Elf'n'Safety be allowed to intercept my 'phone calls?

I feel more like a D. Mail reader by the hour.

'interrogate telephone'

The Killers of Stephen Lawrence:

09 November 2007 .

We all - I assume - want justice for this lad and for his family.

There has been a certain group of suspects all along, acquitted in a private prosecution 10 years ago. There have been suggestions of police corruption which seem to have some force. This and more is well known, I think.

So now, with new evidence, and a change to the rules of double jeopardy, there is the chance of a new trial. My first reaction is, 'at last'. However, the endless threat of a new trial is also disturbing.

As a matter of fact, we do not know that these suspects did in fact commit the murder. They have been found 'Not Guilty' in court.

What if they are in fact innocent, unlikely though that may seem? What have they been put through for years?

More to the point: innocent or guilty, they are entitled to a fair trial - which means starting in court with a clear slate. But any jury is going to have the impression, with the best will in the world, that the prosecution would not have returned for another humiliation on such a high profile case; and that therefore whatever new evidence there is must be compelling... but what if it is not? The jury will still have been predisposed to assume that it is...

Was the private prosecution, with insufficient evidence, foolish? Would it be fair for guilty men to go free because intensity of feeling led private individuals to make such a mistake? And what of the dubious police activities during the investigation?

Surely there should be a trial... I think... but equally surely there are special circumstances.

I suggest that the least worst option might be to let these suspects be tried in Europe. It would create a precedent, but not so much of one since there are cases which go from this country to Europe as a matter of course. It would be the best chance for a fair trial.

'Stephen Lawrence'

A Very British Coup; [Channel Four 1988]:

17 October 2007 .

A very suave senior British intelligence man says to his thrusting younger colleague, "One day, Mr. Fiennes, you'll have the entire British population under permanent 24 hour surveillance. Will you be happy then?" The younger man considers, for quite a long moment; before he replies, almost surprised, "Happy?" Then, musingly, he says, "Satisfied," as even that might be overstating it.

Not particularly prescient – even in the late 80's the signs were already there; I can remember what I thought then even after 25 years: what is frightening is just how quickly it has happened, and how completely, and that it happened in this country which boasts that it gave constitutional liberty to the world.

'Very British Coup' '24 hour surveillance'

Letter to the Independent, Sept 2004.

Sir:

Mr. Blair has reaffirmed his determination to bring liberty and democracy to Iraq, and he believes that history will judge him kindly.

In this country, liberty and democracy do not rest on the good intentions of the state, nor on values of sincerity or even Christianity, but on a range of fundamental liberties that have been fought for over centuries: habeas corpus, the right to silence, the right to jury trial, freedom from double jeopardy; and now, the secrecy of the ballot, the separation of powers, the inadmissibility of evidence from torture; et al. However, these are all being trimmed or threatened.

Do we really need Kofi Annan to tell us that civil liberties are being restricted unnecessarily in the fight against terrorism? Do we imagine that it is only happening elsewhere? With the threat of terrorism, of course our liberties can only survive at a (possibly tremendous) cost - but our forebears paid too, and not just so we would give everything up within a single generation. What we lose now, we will find very hard to recover.

We need to remind ourselves that the old liberties are there not to give undue protection to terrorists or criminals, but to protect all of us against arrogant and overbearing government. We are wasting our time in Iraq if we can't hold on to our values here.

Faithfully, etc.


Please also see the site page: Civil Liberties : 16 down and counting

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