Church and State blog: Declan finally gets back our connection speed on his relatively new £600 laptop. But for how long? (WITH UPDATE 12/10/2017)

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Declan finally gets back our connection speed on his relatively new £600 laptop. But for how long? (WITH UPDATE 12/10/2017)

Spectacular article.

Donald A. Collins, President, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Re: Internet cuts since 26 May 2017

From my earlier blog post's Update 28 September (11.16pm):

"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 that Declan and I are dealing with these days. We have also been dealing with Internet cuts since 26 May. 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 28/9/2017 RE: 163rd Internet cut since 26 May 2017)."

12 October (10.31am): 164 internet cuts since 26 May 2017.* We had to suspend work on our Church and State website on 15 June after 4 internet cuts in one night. With an all-time record breaking 7 cuts in one day by 4pm on 29 August; 14 cuts last month that included on 5 September our latest 1/2 hour removal from the internet plus the almost total shutdown of our BT TV service; 1 cut this week; no cuts since midnight today (as of 12 October at 10.31am).

1. 143rd 29 August 2017, 8.42am
2. 144th 29 August 2017, 9.54am
3. 145th 29 August 2017, 10.52am
4. 146th 29 August 2017, 11.38am
5. 147th 29 August 2017, 12.02pm
6. 148th 29 August 2017, 12.47pm
7. 149th 29 August 2017, 3.10pm
-----------------------------------------
10. 152nd 5 September 2017, 11.53am
11. 153rd 5 September 2017, 1.48pm
12. 154th 5 September 2017, 4.35pm
13. 155th 5 September 2017, 9.32pm (28 minutes+)
-----------------------------------------
22. 164th 9 October 2017, 11.12pm

* 12 out of the first 18 internet cuts were within the first four days of a BT engineer's visit on 12 June. It is a matter of written record that this engineer "securely fitted a brand new master socket to another location on the same wall. He also carried out a comprehensive line test and could not find a problem with [our] line".

The War on Free Expression

The Importance of Hugging

I have just published a sensational piece from the absolutely brilliant Howard Bloom on our Church and State website. (Howard mentions the piece in another superb article on Islamic censorship: "Muslim activists disliked the fact that the piece, 'The Importance of Hugging,' mentioned that it is taboo in many Muslim societies for a husband and a wife to hold hands, much less kiss, in public. The article cited scientific studies and research from an Arab sociologist indicating that this lack of physical affection may be one reason Islamic societies have a tendency to produce violence. The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee took exception to the very notion that Islamic violence exists, and picketed Omni’s offices for four days and nights.") Our brand new British Telecom TV set-top box still has no signal quality or signal strength - despite our perfectly functioning aerial and TV - but more importantly tonight Declan has finally got back our connection speed on his relatively new £600 laptop; see my previous blog post of 21 September: The attack on Declan's relatively new £600 laptop is unrelenting. And we have already written off our brand new British Telecom TV set-top box as a waste of our time and money (WITH UPDATE 27/9/2017). These are Declan's internet speeds tonight (up from a download speed 0Mbps and upload speed 0Mbps three week ago):

Too bad the same cannot be said tonight of our brand new BT TV set-top box:

UPDATE 12 October (10.36am): Declan's laptop is still holding up. But we are now waiting to hear from the Independent Police Complaints Commission concerning my appeal last month against the investigation by HM Revenue and Customs into my complaint about serious misconduct by HMRC staff; see my newer blog post yesterday, Independent Police Complaints Commission: My complaint to IPCC Chair Dame Anne Owers about the handling of my appeal against the HM Revenue and Customs investigation of serious misconduct (WITH UPDATE - DAY 1 12/10/2017). As explained in that blog post's update, it's not inconceivable that our case against HMRC will see the inside of a courtroom in the New Year.

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:

9 June: Ministry of Justice: Complaint to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice against the County Court at Central London, Royal Courts of Justice (WITH UPDATE - Day 13 21/6/2017)

'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

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.

Church and State blog

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Declan finally gets back our connection speed on his relatively new £600 laptop. But for how long? (WITH UPDATE 12/10/2017)

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