Church and State blog: The assault on my primary laptop runs into a record-breaking fourth week (WITH UPDATE

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

The assault on my primary laptop runs into a record-breaking fourth week (WITH UPDATE - DAY 85 25/1/2019)

This is a splendid posting which in its moderate and modest tone should encourage many others to join you!!
http://churchandstate.org.uk/about/
-Don Collins, President of ISAF, an NGO dedicated to helping women

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).

Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms formulates what is the core of free speech. "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression." In an important interpretation of this article, the European Court of Human Rights in Handyside v. UK (1976) indicated that this "freedom of expression" should be construed as follows. It "is applicable not only to 'information' or 'ideas' that are favourably received, or regarded as inoffensive, or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population." Such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no "democratic society" (see Cliteur, 2010).

British Telecom is one of the world's leading communications services companies. Declan pays BT £70 per month (£850 per year) for Superfast Fibre 2 Unlimited broadband (average speed 67Mb). We're well used to particular laptops being targeted with little or no internet speed, usually Declan's primary laptop; see my post of 9 August, British Telecom: Are drastically reduced internet speeds and 45-minute internet cuts to be the new norm? Declan has made countless phone calls to BT Customer Service and has dealt with BT Executive Level Complaints on multiple occasions. Now, since Facebook's 49th block against our Church and State website on 2 November (see here), I have been posting that it has been once again my primary laptop that has been targeted. For only three out of the last 26 days have I had normal internet speeds (usually we have an internet speed of about 70Mb across four laptops). Declan has no such problem on his primary laptop. Today has been quite typical for me:

Re: Targeting of individual laptops (in bold)

Paragraph 41 of Declan's updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

41. In October 2017, SiteGround's solicitors told the Applicant to remove a popular article from the Church and State website for alleged copyright infringement or the site would be disabled by SiteGround pending his legal challenge by counter notice. The Applicant removed the article even though it had a Creative Commons licence applied to it, as do all Addicting Info articles. The Applicant's wife's Church and State blog has been attacked in various ways over the years: links have been broken and images exchanged, deleted or temporarily removed. So too have the Applicant and his wife's computers. In December 2015, the Applicant's wife's laptop was rendered incapable of publishing material on the Church and State website. She could not create a WordPress post, add images, or click on most of the platform's buttons. She had posted a video of the attack on her blog before the laptop was returned to normal functioning the following afternoon. Since September 2017, the internet connection speed on any one of their four laptops has been reduced from anything between 70-74Mbps to 0Mbps, usually disabling the targeted laptop, and for up to three weeks to date. The laptop most targeted for this form of attack is the Applicant's main laptop that cost him £600 in January 2017 (emphasis added). Their internet connection has been cut 184 times since 26 May 2017, most recently today on 8 May 2018 for a half an hour (the third cut of this duration). The Applicant pays British Telecom £850 per year for broadband. He has documented communication with BT Executive Level Complaints showing there has been no problem with his phone line.

UPDATE 25 January (11.37am): The previous record for this sort of attack is three weeks on Declan's primary laptop. This time around, my primary laptop has been messed about for 3 months (85 days), and Declan's primary laptop for going on two months (49 days). Last night my internet speed was 6Mb. On 12 January I posted a blog showing some of the awful speeds I am getting week in week out now; see my post of 12 January, The assault on our two primary laptops runs into a record-breaking sixth week. My primary laptop has been messed about for over ten weeks (WITH UPDATE 25/1/2019). This week, as has become the norm, I have only gone over 70Mb a handful of times. We are currently experiencing Facebook's 54th block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015; see my post of 18 January, Facebook: The social network's 54th block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015, and with no explanation as usual (WITH UPDATE - DAY 8 25/1/2019). Declan's primary laptop has been targeted to a lesser extent than mine since the day Facebook's 52nd block kicked off on 8 December 2018. Never before have we had our two primary laptops separately under attack in this way throughout the day (and every day all week, week in week out). From our point of view, given the excessive duration of this form of attack, and as a serious invasion of privacy, this ongoing targeting of individual laptops is at least as criminal as 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.)

Yesterday we were disconnected from the internet through our BT router for the 298th time since 26 May 2017, and we have treated our second BT YouView box for TV viewing as a virtual write-off since the day after we received it on 8 September 2017. The ridiculous and persistent fluctuating bandwidths we get through our BT YouView box - or the more extreme disconnection of the box from the internet whilst we are already connected online through the router - is a constant reminder that non-stop internet cuts through our BT router can kick off at any time with cuts that can last for hours, the longest being 3 1/4 hours on 16 August.

Internet cuts (since 26 May 2017)

173 cuts 2017
122 cuts 2018
Since May 2018*
- May 2018: 22 cuts
- June 2018 40 cuts
- July 2018 26 cuts
- August 2018: 16 cuts
- September 2018: 0 cuts
- October 2018: 3 cuts
- November 2018: 1 cut
- December 2018: 4 cuts
3 cuts 2019

* All cuts on old BT router (including in 2019). We have yet to install the BT router we received on 19 August 2018. The bandwidth on our 2nd BT YouView box is seldom enough to watch a various number of TV channels (and because of this, our TV usually operates off our TV aerial or our TV viewing restricted to the BBC iPlayer, i.e., when players and apps have not also been disabled, as has occurred five times since 10 December 2018 and for up to one day at a time). The fluctuating bandwidth on our 2nd BT YouView box – or the more extreme disconnection of the box from the internet whilst we are already connected online through the router - has been from the day after we received the box on 8 September 2017, and remains, a constant reminder with respect to whichever BT router we choose to use for our laptops.

7 July 2018: INTERNET CUTS: Are 45-minute Internet cuts to be the new norm? We pay British Telecom £850 per year for broadband (WITH UPDATE 24/1/2019: re 298th Internet cut since 26 May 2017).

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From My Picks:

10 January: Pre-Action Letter: The Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's hold communication notes against Declan in clear violation of his rights (WITH UPDATE 24/1/2019)

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

'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

http://churchandstate.org.uk/about/

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

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

The assault on my primary laptop runs into a record-breaking fourth week (WITH UPDATE - DAY 85 25/1/2019)

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