Church and State blog: Declan’s emails are censored

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Declan’s emails are censored

This morning Declan had to lodge yet another complaint with The Big Issue head office (see blog of 25 July “Letter to the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue”); this time on my behalf – the Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people on registered street pitches. It is 7.20am when this rough sleeper drops his travel bag and rucksack a few feet from me and tries to bully me into leaving my pitch, which I have had since December 2006. When I don’t leave – the guy is so pushy I have to tell him to leave me alone – he sits on his travel bag, keeps talking to me (no, better, shouts at me), and finally begins to try and sell his Big Issues.

The vast majority of the emails that I am sending to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN, in support of therapeutic cloning and the use of stem cells for research and for the treatment of disease, are still being unceremoniously dumped into spam: last Saturday I sent 201 emails and all I got was 14 out-of-office autoreplies (see the previous blog “Sex, Science and Stem Cells”); and yesterday afternoon I sent 190 emails and got six out-of-office autoreplies. As I explained in the blog of 2 August “I am urinated on in the porch”, the number of out-of-office autoreplies is my best indication as to whether Declan's emails are going to inboxes or spam: two or three autoreplies within a batch of 10 would be a good indicator of the former.

My six Out-Of-Office AutoReplies

Over 30 emails were sent to scientists in Newcastle University, from which we have several distinguished signatories, but I only received one autoreply – we have an eye on Newcastle and Durham Universities because the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has granted the North-East England Stem Cell Institute, a collaboration between the two universities, permission to recruit human egg donors (see blog of 16 July “Therapeutic cloning: Researchers back bid to pay egg donors”). I then tried my luck elsewhere and went for New York State, and emailed, among others: Columbia University, State University of New York, New York Medical College, Sloan-Kettering Institute, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (from where the first Nobel laureate to sign Declan’s petition comes), The Rockefeller University, and Yeshiva University. Still no luck – of 160 or so emails all I got was five autoreplies. Clearly the American Dream – the belief in the freedom that allows people to achieve their goals in life through hard work – doesn’t apply to us. Oh well.

On 10 August, the Catholic News Agency reported that at their 126th Supreme Convention in Quebec City, the Knights of Columbus approved resolutions calling for the legal protection of marriage and asking Catholics holding elected office to “be true” to their faith by acting “bravely and publicly in defense of life” – the Knights of Columbus, headquartered in Connecticut, is the world's largest organisation of Catholic laymen with more than 1.75 million members, and is often referred to as the "strong right arm of the Church". In one resolution, the Knights advocate building a “culture of life” and opposing “any governmental action or policy that promotes abortion, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, euthanasia, assisted suicide and other offenses against life”. Knights of Columbus delegates also exhorted “our fellow Catholics who are elected officials to be true to the faith they claim to profess by acting bravely and publicly in defense of life”. Such officials, the resolution advised, should affirm with Pope Benedict XVI that “there can be no room for purely private religion”.

Diana DeGette, six-term Democrat Congresswoman from Colorado, and a chief architect of the stem cell research bill that was twice vetoed by President George W Bush, is the author of the new book "Sex, Science and Stem Cells: Inside the Right Wing Assault on Reason", which exposes the politization of science by the right wing in the US Congress and the heavy influence of the religious right. On 5 August, she told the Scientific American: “I think they want to have a society where it’s really God’s will whatever happens. That’s all well and good within their own families: they can structure their family that way. But, when you're talking about public policy, it's a very big waste of money and it's very dangerous to public health. Teen pregnancy went up last year.” I doubt any Knights of Columbus will read her book; but then, on 8 August, DeGette herself told DailyCamera.com: “The book is not targeted at opponents, because frankly I don't think I will ever convince them. I wrote it for the 87 percent of Americans who think public health policy should be based on sound science."

For the record, this is the email Declan sent this afternoon to the Big Issue outreach manager further to the formal complaint he lodged this morning:

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr Paul Joseph

In your email to me this afternoon you state the following in respect of my formal complaint in writing against Big Issue vendor 4012:

I am sorry to hear about this situation. We have already received a complaint about the same vendor begging. He has a trainee badge but will not be issued a permanent badge or supplied with magazines. I will also endeavour to speak to local police so that if they catch him they can confiscate his badge.

You do not state in this email whether the same vendor will be debadged for begging or because he did so with a Big Issue badge.

As you are aware, my wife spent several weeks at the beginning of this year begging in Liverpool Street Station, and for which she received several police tickets. On 18 June, I wrote the following to you:

Previous correspondence refers. I wish to confirm that my wife (badge no. 1170) and I are unable to buy any Big Issues today, at the very least. My wife will in fact be begging tomorrow morning to earn enough money to post my second Request for Priority to the European Court of Human Rights under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court. This morning all our money and documents were robbed in the Dellow Centre (fortunately we each retain copies of all our documents on memory sticks and CDs), crime reference number 4215697/08. We hope to get back to selling the Big Issue as soon as we are in a position to buy your stipulated "minimum" of two magazines.

This afternoon I only had the money to buy two Big Issues for resale. I would, therefore, be much obliged if you would please clarify.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Declan’s emails are censored

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