Census

Henry Porter's articles appear in the Observer. Concerns such as these are common to all right (as in opposite of wrong not opposite of left, natch) thinking people irrespective of political allegiance.

Mel C DOES look minging in that jumpsuit though doesn't she?

I am not surprised that the champion of freedom and liberty, the Daily Mail, has concerns. I am somewhat surprised that the progressive Guardian has similar concerns, however.

To be fair to Amir, I wouldn't sleep with her either.

How do you feel claig that the Guardian and the Mail are one in expressing concerns over companies involved the census?

Thanks for the enlightening link. Esecially the news that Amir Khan would never sleep with Katie Price.

Bloody hell Claig, are you like beetlejuice or something? You only got mentioned twice as well ;)

galsnost - I imagine they are monetizing capabilites they developed elsewhere - the same way that Amazon has become a Cloud Computing supplier.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360987/Fears-UK-census-security-US-firm-processing-details-stole-Obamas-student-records.html

To qualify it is a sine qua non that one must be an avid Daily Mail reader, able to see the wood for the trees and to distinguish the wheat from the chaff, qualities rare in a Guardian reader.

I refer you to that Oracle of Truth, the Daily Mail

[[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360987/Fears-UK-census-security-US-firm-processing-details-stole-Obamas-student-records.html

Stop lurking claig and give an opinion.

That is an accolade deserved by the very, very few.

Oh I love that! Being compared to claig.

Let's put it like this. Why on earth would a gargantuan mind bogglingly profitable multinational like them have ANY interest in earning relative peanuts from collating data on a census? PR job?

Glasnost - that's the problem - this nudge nudge wink wink can't say on here stuff makes you look like Claig.

WHAT can the US government DO if they get the Census data that they could not do otherwise, and why would they need to get it in this way?

I don't wanto go into the threats their participation in the process pose here. Suffice to say the shit's gonna hit the fan in a couple of years. Resources are scarcer and scarcer and pseudo democratic governments driven by oil/arms/banking interests like UK/US will need ever more insidious ways of controlling their populations and repressing dissent.

Enough already. MN isn't the right place to discuss certain topics anyway.

glasnost - saying you don't like Lockheed is fine. Protesting by refusing to participate in the census is fine, but it IS Civil Disobedience rather that a consumer boycott as you are refusing to do something that legislation says you have to do. So the consequences are correspondingly harsher.

What I don't think is valid is trying to claim that Lockheed's participation in this process poses a threat when you can't/won't define what the threat is/why this is the best/easiest way to acheive this.

So - "I don't like them" - fine.

"They are up to no good because I disagree with some of the other things they do" - not fine.

POSTERS I meant tee hee

This discussion is descending into tautology.

I morally object to Lockheed being involved in our great country's census, yes? So IF I still resided in the UK I would boycott it, yes? This is not the deluded rambling of a conspiracy theorist as that Hatti type implied and was backed up sycophantically by others. (MN is often like this. A thread will take on a mono opinion which must be defended and all the naysayers vanish.)

I do not trust a multinational like them to not use the data they collate for ulterior motives. Just as I didn't/don't trust the Lockheed coopted interrogators to not use torture in Iraq and Guantanamo.

Now I'm gonna stop as they're prob reading our exchange and will be round to my house to rendition me! (THAT IS A JOKE I add for the benefit of certain posers who confuse snidiness as humour. Hello, Hatti!)

Or in fact the non-consumer of the KitKat.

glasnost - that's because you aren't the consumer of the census, but you are the consumer of the KitKat.

You don't have a commercial relationship with Lockheed you have a legal relationship with HMG.

I don't buy kitkats for that very reason coalition but noone fines me a grand if I don't eat them! Or threaten to chuck me in prison. Everyone MUST do the census. There's no choice.

Damn I seem to be talking to myself there - the first Coalition should obv. have been glasnost

Coalition - there is a difference between being trusting of power and asking conspiracy theorists to provide a credible threat that there conspiracy poses.

It is nonsensical to say that because one part of a company does something you disagree with that EVERYTHING else they do must also be to further that same end.

To take a MNetty example it's like saying that as Nestle promote formula milk that KitKats must also secretly be part of a plan to promote formula milk.

On the other hand it IS perfectly coherent to sat "I won't buy KitKats because I don't support that companies other actions"

If the UK Government said "We won't use Lockheed because we dissaprove of arms trading" that might cause a few issues in the MoD.

Well if a government wonk said it it must be true. They never lie to us do they? I'm not cynical at all. I happen to think it's immoral to manufacture and deal arms. And I don't trust this multinational with links to Cheney (his wife and son are lobbyists). You do. Fine.

I think your anti-American 'dodgy foreigner' argument is based on nothing more than cyncism and prejudice. The contract was awarded in 2008, presumably on criteria such as competence, cost, quality etc. Missiles?

From the press release at the time...

The contract awarded to Lockheed Martin UK is to design the processing systems to capture the data and to coordinate the day-to-day running of operational services provided by a consortium of
UK and European partners. ONS staff are responsible for the design of census procedures and
field operations, quality assurance, secondary processing, analysis and the publication of results.

Glen Watson, ONS Census director, commented: ?The protection given to personal census data has always been very strong ? ONS takes data security and the confidentiality of personal information
extremely seriously. The security and protection of personal information is a top priority for the census. ?All the information collected is owned by ONS, it is protected by law and it will not leave the UK. We have also put stringent operational
and contractual processes and safeguards in place to maintain data security and confidentiality.?

censusalert.org.uk/lockheed_martin.html

anyone simply curious to know more should read this

coalition if you think handing over the management of the census should be for the rehabilitation of criminals then, yes, I suppose your suggestion has a certain logic as - in my eyes -arms manufacturerers are criminals of the worst kind. Much better for them to be doing this than making and flogging Trident missiles, F16 bombers, cluster bombs etc (not quite thumb screws). But when I last checked, the collating of the census data is not on the list of rehabilitative activites.

Lockheed Martin also writes the software for Echelon the global surveillance network btw. So what? you trusting of power types reply. If Lockheed weren't American but of a different nationality none of you would have a problem with that? Why was the contract awarded to them anyway? Did they chuck in a few missiles to sweeten the bid? Questions that the less trusting of us pause to ponder.

And chil when the census wasn't contracted out to any dodgy foreign tom dick or mary I had no problem with it.

The Lockheed connection is a red-herring, I believe, for the wannabee non-conformist to cling onto. If it were any other company running the census data-capture operation the same group would be find something they objected to there as well.