Sunday, December 10, 2017

The most significant attack we have ever encountered on our access to our own website? (WITH UPDATE 10/12/2017)



This evening we cannot access our Church and State website on four laptops in the strangest of ways (videoed above). We don't know whether all four laptops have been attacked or the site has been removed from the internet. The former is not inconceivable; see my blog post of 3 December, As an assault on individual privacy, we compare the on-off targeting of Declan's relatively new £600 laptop with the removal of our flat door in 2012 (WITH UPDATE 8/12/2017). Perhaps this is the most significant attack we have ever encountered on our access to our own website. I have written to a colleague in Washington, DC to enquire if he has access to the site. I have also asked our web host, SiteGround, if they know what has happened.

UPDATE 10 December (8.10pm): I have heard back from SiteGround. I had no idea they had changed my server's hostname. They write: "[W]e have changed the server hostname back to the correct one." They further add: "It appears that the multi php module for Apache was not enabled properly or actually, it was enable incorrectly and thus during the Apache rebuild the include for the said module disappeared. I have fixed re-added it and distilled Apache configuration file so the next time the rebuild passes the same include will not be removed." What a relief!

Help Support Church and State

Please consider donating to Network for Church Monitoring!
All proceeds from the sale of these e-books are used to keep our Church and State website up and running.



Purchase straight from Amazon's Kindle Store:

From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013 for $4.67

The Life and Death of NSSM 200: How the Destruction of Political Will Doomed a U.S. Population Policy for $6.64

American Democracy and the Vatican: Population Growth and National Security for $4.99

The Pope and the New Apocalypse: The Holy War Against Family Planning for $2.99


From My Picks:

27 October: Home Department: Complaint to the Home Secretary against the Independent Police Complaints Commission. My appeal against the HM Revenue and Customs investigation of serious misconduct is simply being ignored (WITH UPDATE 28/10/2017)

'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty

Saturday, December 09, 2017

Mail Boxes Etc. UK: Is our mailbox address secure or will we receive more outstanding payment invoices relating to the previous expiry date? (WITH UPDATE 9/12/2017)

Last year Declan wrote to the Information Commissioner's Office about Mail Boxes Etc. UK; see my blog post of 16 December 2016, Mail Boxes Etc. UK: Declan writes to the Information Commissioner's Office in a last desperate attempt to try and resolve the issue of our registered office address without a court order (WITH UPDATE 19/12/2016). Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) now has two postcodes for our company mailbox: our registered office address under postcode N1 9JY and Declan's business communication address under postcode N1 9FQ. The former is not recognised by HMRC while the latter is not recognised by Companies House! It took months to come up with this two-postcode solution after HMRC put a stop on any correspondence being issued automatically to our registered office address because the building number of our mailbox did not and does not show on Royal Mail records under postcode N1 9JY, which also happens to be the only postcode Companies House will accept with our registered office address. This morning Declan has brought an outstanding payment invoice to the attention of Simon Cowie, the head of the Mail Boxes Etc. franchise in the UK:

For the attention of Simon Cowie, Chairman, Mail Boxes Etc. (UK)

Isin Yildirim
Manager
Mail Boxes Etc. (London - King's Cross)

Address removed for email


9 December 2017

Dear Mr Yildirim,

On 29 November I found in my mailbox an invoice indicating an outstanding amount on my account of £395 (invoice attached). This is the exact amount I paid on 5 September for the renewal of my service for box number 101.

The service was due for renewal on 12 September. I emptied my mailbox on 5 September before making payment. However, I was told on 29 November that there was no company stamp available to mark the said invoice as paid.

Please could you confirm that omissions from records have been rectified for my mailbox security and to ensure that I do not receive any further renewal notifications relating to the previous expiry date.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey
Managing Director
Network for Church Monitoring



UPDATE 9 December (11.46am): Declan has received a reply from Mail Boxes Etc. Kings Cross. We can only hope that we will not find any more outstanding payment invoices in our mailbox until the next renewal date in December 2018. We still have not secured our home address with Newham Council - again involving HMRC (see the My Pick link below). And this despite the fact that our home address has not changed for going on four years now!

Help Support Church and State

Please consider donating to Network for Church Monitoring!
All proceeds from the sale of these e-books are used to keep our Church and State website up and running.



Purchase straight from Amazon's Kindle Store:

From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013 for $4.67

The Life and Death of NSSM 200: How the Destruction of Political Will Doomed a U.S. Population Policy for $6.64

American Democracy and the Vatican: Population Growth and National Security for $4.99

The Pope and the New Apocalypse: The Holy War Against Family Planning for $2.99


From My Picks:

27 October: Home Department: Complaint to the Home Secretary against the Independent Police Complaints Commission. My appeal against the HM Revenue and Customs investigation of serious misconduct is simply being ignored (WITH UPDATE 28/10/2017)

'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty

Thursday, December 07, 2017

Facebook's 26th block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015. Last month Church and State topped more than 3 million hits over the past year (WITH UPDATE 15/4/2018 RE: Block 37 DAY 2)

Our Church and State website has no less than 40 Nobel Prize winners on it; for details, see this blog's sidebar under "Church and State" (updated today).

This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way FACEBOOK is treating your highly reputable site.
- Donald A. Collins, President, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC





For the fourth time in less than seven weeks, Declan and I have had to suspend work on our news website Church and State to research Northern Europe for the most committed free speech advocates we can find. The first time we were forced to do this, our web host had told us to remove a Creative Commons article from the site or the site would be disabled by them; see my blog post of 13 October, SiteGround: We are told to remove a Creative Commons article or our Church and State website will be disabled (WITH DOUBLE UPDATE 16/10/2017). Subsequently we have had to deal with three Facebook blocks, the latest this evening. Now Facebook has for the eighth time stopped me from posting to groups without first passing through a time-consuming security check for every post I wish to make, i.e. their 26th block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015 (they themselves call it a block in the video above). It seems little consolation that last month Church and State topped more than 3 million hits over the past year; about 70% of our hits are from Americans. My Facebook appeal tonight:

For the attention of Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Facebook

7 December 2017

Dear Facebook,

I wish to appeal your decision this evening to stop me from posting to groups without first passing through a time-consuming security check for every post I wish to make (called by Facebook a "block"), and this for an undisclosed period of time and without any stated reason. Please see the screenshot attached.

Please note that I only ever post to groups that are specific to an article's subject and that I am well familiar with. I also only post articles that I have already published on our Church and State website. This latest block records as the 26th time Facebook has blocked me from posting to groups since 1 December 2015. Facebook has also only responded to four of my previous 25 appeals, citing "technical problems" in each instance. (The 24th block below records as a 12-day block because no sooner was the block I appealed lifted on 1 November than I was blocked again until 8 November without any stated reason.)

1st 1-4 December 2015 (4 days)
2nd 5-7 December 2015 (3 days)
3rd 6-9 January 2016 (4 days)
4th 12-15 January 2016 (4 days)
5th 20-22 January 2016 (3 days)
6th 13-16 February 2016 (4 days)
7th 23-26 March 2016 (4 days)
8th 20-23 May 2016 (4 days)
9th 25-30 May 2016 (6 days)
10th 1-3 July 2016 (3 days)
11th 7-8 September 2016 (2 days)
12th 21-22 September 2016 (3 days)
13th 27-28 September 2016 (2 days)
14th 29 September - 3 October 2016 (5 days)
15th 4-5 October 2016 (2 days)
16th 18-23 October 2016 (6 days)
17th 9-14 December 2016 (6 days)
18th 4-6 January 2017 (3 days)
19th 20-23 January 2017 (4 days)
20th 17 May 2017 (1 day)
21st 19 June 2017 (1 day)
22nd 19-21 August 2017 (3 days)
23rd 19 September 2017 (1 day)
24th 28 October - 8 November 2017 (12 days)
25th 23-30 November 2017 (8 days)

On 5 September 2017 I reported to Facebook four other sort of blocks that since April 2017 have included the treating as spam my links to articles and book excerpts on Church and State. The Facebook block against the two articles mentioned in that report remains ongoing (an unprecedented 94-day block to date). And this notwithstanding that I told you that these posts were not spam. You responded on 5 September that you would take another look at the posts and send me a message in my Support Inbox if you have an update. Despite bringing these two posts to your attention a number of times, I have not received an update in my Support Inbox. The second of these posts, which you removed because you say it "looks like spam to us", has in fact been shared/liked by Facebook users over 70,000 times:

Contraception and the Catholic Church

Christian fundamentalists are driving our country into the Dark Ages

Please note that we currently have an international list of 147 Honorary Associates, including two Nobel Prize winners. Since Facebook's 16th block listed above, 117 distinguished academics and other intellectuals have given us permission to add their names to the list. Don Collins, President of the Washington DC-based International Services Assistance Fund, writes: "Surely after multiple postings [Facebook] must know your content is neither lewd nor extreme."

Thank you in advance for your assistance in these matters.

Yours faithfully,

Lola Heavey
Webmaster
Network for Church Monitoring

"Let me recommend an important web site - churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out." Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty

2 October 2016: Complaint to Facebook Chairman, Chief Executive and Co-Founder Mark Zuckerberg on day 4 of Facebook's 14th block since 1 December 2015

Re: Facebook

Draft paragraph 42 of Declan's next updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

42. On 13 August 2011, then Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone wrote to Facebook on the Applicant's behalf, asking that they explain why the Applicant's wife had been barred. The bar was subsequently lifted; however, since 1 December 2015, Facebook has blocked the Applicant's wife from posting to groups on 26 separate occasions, and up to 12 days at a time (each of these blocks is well accounted for in the N4CM blog). On 22 December 2015, Labour's Lyn Brown, then Shadow Home Office Minister and now Shadow Home Secretary, made an enquiry on the Applicant's behalf to Facebook UK Managing Director Steve Hatch asking if he could offer an explanation as to the terms and conditions the Applicant's wife was alleged to have broken twice previously. To the best of the Applicant's knowledge, Mr Hatch did not respond to this letter. The Applicant's wife only ever posts to groups that are specific to an article's subject and that she is well familiar with, and she only ever posts articles that she has already published on the Church and State website. Facebook has responded to only four of the Applicant's wife's 26 appeals since 1 December 2015, citing "technical problems" in each instance.

1st 1-4 December 2015 (4 days)
2nd 5-7 December 2015 (3 days)
3rd 6-9 January 2016 (4 days)
4th 12-15 January 2016 (4 days)
5th 20-22 January 2016 (3 days)
6th 13-16 February 2016 (4 days)
7th 23-26 March 2016 (4 days)
8th 20-23 May 2016 (4 days)
9th 25-30 May 2016 (6 days)
10th 1-3 July 2016 (3 days)
11th 7-8 September 2016 (2 days)
12th 21-22 September 2016 (3 days)
13th 27-28 September 2016 (2 days)
14th 29 September - 3 October 2016 (5 days)
15th 4-5 October 2016 (2 days)
16th 18-23 October 2016 (6 days)
17th 9-14 December 2016 (6 days)
18th 4-6 January 2017 (3 days)
19th 20-23 January 2017 (4 days)
20th 17 May 2017 (1 day)
21st 19 June 2017 (1 day)
22nd 19-21 August 2017 (3 days)
23rd 19 September 2017 (1 day)
24th 28 October - 8 November 2017 (12 days)
25th 23-30 November 2017 (8 days)
26th 7 December 2017 (1 day) (ongoing)

UPDATE 15 April 2018

26th 7-8 December 2017 (2 days)
27th 10-17 December 2017 (8 days)
28th 28 December 2017 - 4 January 2018 (8 days)
29th 16-23 January 2018 (8 days)
30th 28 January - 4 February 2018 (8 days)
31st 12-19 February 2018 (8 days)
32nd 26 February - 5 March 2018 (8 days)
33rd 7-14 March 2018 (8 days)
34th 16-23 March 2018 (8 days)
35th 24 March - 1 April 2018 (9 days)
36th 4-11 April 2018 (8 days)
37th 14-21 April 2018 (8 days) (ongoing)

November 2017: 16 days
December 2017: 14 days
January 2018: 16 days
February 2018: 15 days
March 2018: 29 days
April 2018: 17 days (to 21 April)




Facebook UK Managing Director Steve Hatch



UPDATE 15 April (11.21am): When it comes to blocking me from posting Church and State articles to groups, Facebook's 26th block since 1 December 2015 was lifted on 8 December 2017 (2 days). I have, however, subsequently been blocked another 11 times from doing the same, and most recently until 21 April (an additional 89 days, incl. 29 days last month). All of these subsequent blocks have also been without explanation, save the 30th block (see below). We are currently on DAY 2 of the 37th block, notwithstanding my appeal yesterday. Our friend and colleague Don Collins wrote in reference to my 30th appeal: "Powerful appeal, but of course likely ignored. So unfair. The pressure for equity from those such as Facebook over their monopolistic control of disseminating public opinion from responsible entities such as Church and State moves such entities closer to legislative regulation." This is that appeal:

For the attention of Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Facebook

28 January 2018

Dear Facebook,

Today in an unprecedented block from Facebook everything I post to groups from our Church and State website you are calling spam, with no end in sight. Please see the screenshot attached. On 5 September 2017, I first reported the treating as spam my links to articles and book excerpts on our site. One of these excerpts was from a book by Paul Cliteur, a professor of Jurisprudence at Leiden University and one of the Netherlands' leading public intellectuals.

Seldom has Facebook made it clear why I am being blocked. Today's block records as the 30th time Facebook has blocked me from posting to groups since 1 December 2015. The only explanation given at the time of one of these blocks has been "spam" (received today); and Facebook has only responded to four of my previous 29 appeals, citing "technical problems" in each instance. Nonetheless, I have been blocked from posting to groups a total of 43 days (and counting) in the last three months alone.

A colleague has written that our site is "not at all offensive, especially compared to some atheist sites which, presumably, AREN'T being blocked". This is not to mention the fact that I have also been reporting technical problems with my Facebook Network for Church Monitoring page since 5 April 2017, such as being unable to view scheduled posts or being repeatedly unable to schedule posts.

Thank you in advance for your assistance in these matters.

Sincerely,

Lola Heavey
Webmaster
Network for Church Monitoring


UPDATE 15 April (cont.): Despite our distinguished list of now 174 Honorary Associates from around the world, blocks on public access to our Church and State website also continue unabated. I have updated my blog post of 16 January 2017 with this morning's 1,138th block on public access to the site since 26 July 2016. The blog post also not only reveals a record-breaking 52 such blocks in one week at the end of April 2017 (an unprecedented escalation that kicked off with our focus on the Danish Cartoon Crisis), but it reveals the daily targeting to fluctuating degrees of category pages throughout the site which continues to this day. For example, as I point out in a blog post last year about the Royal Mail's mishandling of our incoming mail following the loss of our employment contracts to the United States, the second article below has more than 1/2 million Facebook likes/shares (not zero):



UPDATE 15 April (cont.): And it's not just Facebook blocks, blocks on public access to our Church and State website, and the daily targeting to fluctuating degrees of category pages throughout the site. Since 26 May 2017, we have been recording Internet cuts to boot; see my blog post of 21 June 2017, Internet cuts: We pay £65 per month for BT Infinity but feel we are in a race against time to stay online (WITH UPDATE 15/4/2018 RE: 183rd Internet cut since 26 May 2017). Perhaps of particular importance in all this is the fact that last November Church and State topped more than 3 million hits over the previous eleven months and despite the even then far from level playing field.



From My Picks:

2 June 2018: Facebook: Will Facebook blocks against our Church and State website extend for another month? Internet cuts also continue unabated (WITH UPDATE 6/6/2018)


http://churchandstate.org.uk/honorary-associates/

Sunday, December 03, 2017

As an assault on individual privacy, we compare the on-off targeting of Declan's relatively new £600 laptop with the removal of our flat door in 2012 (WITH UPDATE 8/12/2017)

Re: Blocks on public access to our Church and State website since 26 July 2016

From my newer blog post's Update 8 December (8.11am):

"And it's not just Facebook blocks, blocks on public access to our Church and State website and the daily targeting to fluctuating degrees of category pages throughout the site. Since 26 May Declan has been dealing with Internet cuts to boot; see my blog post of 21 June, Internet cuts: We pay £65 per month for BT Infinity but feel we are in a race against time to stay online (WITH UPDATE 8/12/2017 RE: 172nd Internet cut since 26 May 2017). Perhaps it's the fact that last month Church and State topped more than 3 million hits over the past year."

8 December (8.16am): 906 blocks on public access to our Church and State website since 26 July 2016.* See my blog post of 16 January, The blocks on public access to our Church and State website continue unabated (WITH UPDATE 8/12/2017 RE: 906th block since 26 July 2016). 109 blocks during the last two months that included 7 blocks on 19 October; 52 blocks last month; 20 blocks this month; 16 blocks this week; 4 blocks yesterday; no blocks since midnight today (as of 8 December at 8.16am).

1. 810th 19 October 2017, 6.40am
2. 811th 19 October 2017, 12.14pm
3. 812th 19 October 2017, 2.03pm
4. 813th 19 October 2017, 5.13pm
5. 814th 19 October 2017, 7.18pm
6. 815th 19 October 2017, 8.22pm
7. 816th 19 October 2017, 10.54pm
-------------------------------------------
94. 903rd 7 December 2017, 5.03am
95. 904th 7 December 2017, 1.02pm
96. 905th 7 December 2017, 4.10pm
97. 906th 7 December 2017, 5.29pm

* An unprecedented escalation of 52 blocks in one week at the end of April 2017 that kicked off with our focus on the Danish Cartoon Crisis.

The War on Free Expression


Declan's relatively new £600 laptop has been rendered entirely useless twice in two months; see my blog post of 22 November, For the second time in two months Declan's relatively new £600 laptop is rendered entirely useless. And we have written off a brand new British Telecom TV set-top box as a waste of our time and money (WITH UPDATE 2/12/2017). Our other three laptops have been and continue to be working fine with the usual good connection speed for which we pay British Telecom £65 per month. The first attack on the internet speeds on Declan's primary laptop lasted 3 weeks, and the second attack lasted 2 weeks. It kicked off with these wipeout internet speeds on 10 September:



These are the normal internet speeds Declan has been getting on his laptop since yesterday morning (up from a download speed of 0Mbps and an upload speed of 10.5Mbps on 22 November):



As an assault on individual privacy, we compare this on-off targeting of Declan's primary laptop with the removal of our flat door in 2012. It was the Independent Police Complaints Commission's finding on that occasion that since our then live-in landlady had subsequently signed an undertaking to the County Court promising not to harass us, there was no requirement for the Metropolitan Police to take further action.



UPDATE 8 December (8.21am): All four of our laptops have been functioning fine since last Saturday. But again I ask, for how long? British Telecom (BT) is one of the world's leading communications services companies. They have already established that we have a perfectly functioning TV and aerial. Nonetheless, it only took 24 hours last September for our brand new BT TV set-top box to go the way of the old one with no signal quality or strength; see my blog post of 5 September, British Telecom: Tonight Declan complains to BT about our latest 1/2 hour removal from the internet plus the almost total shutdown of our BT TV service (WITH UPDATE 8/9/2017). We have written off this latest BT offering rather than waste more time and money on our BT Infinity 2 service, for which we already pay them handsomely.




Re: Investigatory Powers Tribunal

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) dismissed Declan's complaint against the secret services on papers in less than three weeks, on 1 September 2011, stating that it was "obviously unsustainable". This is paragraph 11 of Declan's updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

11. The IPT was created in October 2000 by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and given the power to investigate any complaints against GCHQ, MI5 or MI6, as well as complaints about surveillance operations mounted by the police or any other public bodies. On 5 March 2014 the Guardian reported that the tribunal, which claims to be completely independent of the UK Government, is secretly operating from a base within the Home Office, by which it is funded. The newspaper found that the IPT had investigated about 1,500 complaints, and upheld only 10; five of these concerned members of one family who had all lodged complaints about surveillance by their local council. No complaint against any of the intelligence agencies had ever been upheld. The discovery that the IPT is lodged within a Whitehall department fuelled criticisms of the tribunal that had been levelled by rights groups, lawyers and complainants. The IPT's critics complain that the secrecy is excessive and that its procedures are stacked so heavily in favour of the government and against complainants that it is fundamentally unfair. According to the Guardian, some senior lawyers have described the IPT as "Kafkaesque", while one eminent barrister has dismissed it as "a kangaroo court". The newspaper also reports that as a consequence of the secrecy surrounding the tribunal and the perception that it is unfair, many would-be complainants spurn it.

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From My Picks:

8 May 2018: Threat to life: Updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Today we are cut off the internet for a half an hour

'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty