Church and State blog

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

1,000 blocks on public access to our Church and State website since 26/7/2016. Four blocks so far today (as of 16 January at 10.39pm); the fourth block of the day occurred after Facebook's 29th block against the site since 1/12/2015

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

From my Facebook post's Update 16 January (9.21pm):

"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 16/1/2018 RE: 176th Internet cut since 26 May 2017). Perhaps of some importance is the fact that last November Church and State topped more than 3 million hits over the previous eleven months."

16 January (10.39pm): 1,000 blocks on public access to our Church and State website since 26 July 2016 (89 blocks 2016; 871 blocks 2017; 40 blocks 2018). See my blog post of 16 January 2017, The blocks on public access to our Church and State website continue unabated (WITH UPDATE 16/1/2018 RE: 1,000th block since 26 July 2016). 183 blocks during the last three months of 2017 that included 7 blocks on 19 October; 74 blocks last month; 17 blocks last week that included 5 blocks on 9 January; 4 blocks so far today.

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 (7)
------------------------------------------------
176. 985th 9 January 2018, 12.16am
177. 986th 9 January 2018, 1.35am
178. 987th 9 January 2018, 4.57pm
179. 988th 9 January 2018, 6.16pm
180. 989th 9 January 2018, 9.44pm (5)
------------------------------------------------
188. 997th 16 January 2018, 6.05am
189. 998th 16 January 2018, 11.49am
190. 999th 16 January 2018, 4.44pm
191. 1,000th 16 January 2018, 8.56pm (4)*

October 2017: 57 blocks
November 2017: 52 blocks
December 2017: 74 blocks
January 2018: 40 blocks

* This 4th block of the day occurred after Facebook's 29th block against Church and State since 1 December 2015, tonight; see my updated blog post of 7 December 2017, Fighting for survival in London: 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 - Block 29 16/1/2018). The most recent Facebook blocks (all without any stated reason):

1. 24th 28 October - 8 November 2017 (12 days)
2. 25th 23-30 November 2017 (8 days)
3. 26th 7-8 December 2017 (2 days)
4. 27th 10-17 December 2017 (8 days)
5. 28th 28 December 2017 - 4 January 2018 (8 days)
6. 29th 16 January - 23 January 2018 (8 days)

October 2017: 4 days
November 2017: 16 days
December 2017: 14 days
January 2018: 12 days

The War on Free Expression

'Independent' court scrutinising MI5 is located inside Home Office http://t.co/ZezpDipCPx via @guardian
— Ian Cobain (@IanCobain) March 5, 2014

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:

27 October 2017: 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

PayPal money transfer: We have over £1,000 in donations that Declan cannot transfer to the Network for Church Monitoring bank account because PayPal security codes are arriving late to our smartphone (WITH UPDATE 17/1/2018)

Our fight for survival in London continues apace today. Not only is Declan unable to transfer £1,200 in donations from PayPal to the Network for Church Monitoring (N4CM) bank account - because PayPal security codes are arriving late to our smartphone; not even repeatedly resetting the password has worked. This morning he heard from the Chair and Chief Executive's Office of National Health Service (NHS) England about the emergency dental care he was provided on Sunday; see my previous blog post, National Health Service: Will NHS England tell Declan that he doesn't have a complaint at all? (WITH UPDATE 16/1/2018). Subsequently, there have been three blocks on public access to our Church and State website (also revealed in that blog post). And tonight I received an 8-day block from Facebook. They have blocked me from joining and posting to groups and commenting on groups until 23 January; see my blog post of 7 December, Fighting for survival in London: 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 - Block 29 16/1/2018). This is what Declan keeps getting from PayPal no matter what he does now:

UPDATE 17 January (10.05am): This morning Declan transferred the money from PayPal to the N4CM bank account straight off the bat! Yesterday was the first time since N4CM was founded in 2011 that he was unable to carry out this transaction. We are most certainly concerned that his complaint to NHS England will be treated as abominably as the complaint of mine that the Independent Police Complaints Commission forwarded to the Professional Standards Department of HM Revenue and Customs last September; see my blog post of 27 October 2017, 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). All we can do with that complaint is use what I have written to the Home Secretary as a High Court (Judicial Review) exhibit to fight the non-renewal of our housing association tenancy this May: the complaint clearly shows that we have been unable even to secure our home address with HMRC four years into the tenancy itself. Perhaps we will also be using Declan's complaint against NHS England for the same purpose. As my previous blog post shows, it is already very usable just as it stands. The more outrageous it becomes, the stronger also will be our case to battle any eviction court.

We have been forced to sleep rough on the streets of London for almost 4 years in total - from 4 November 2006 to 13 July 2009, and again from 14 April 2013 to 17 May 2014. We were evicted from our previous flat in March 2013 because according to our then live-in landlady's ex-husband, Dr Nigel McKenzie, a consultant psychiatrist in Highgate Mental Health Centre, our flat was needed for somebody with a mental illness. Former MI5 whistleblower David Shayler also lived with human rights activist Belinda McKenzie in the same political 'safe house' for a couple of years until 2007. According to BBC Panorama, Shayler "caused the biggest crisis of official secrecy since the spy catcher affair"; he was jailed for seven weeks in 2002 for breaking the Official Secrets Act. It is unfortunate that Shayler declared himself the Messiah in 2007, became a squatter, and was subsequently ridiculed in the press for changing his name to Delores Kane. A New Statesman article published in September 2006 featuring Shayler and Belinda gives no indication that Shayler believed he was the Messiah at that time; whilst a Daily Mail interview with him the following year reveals he believed himself to be Jesus by June 2007. He has never regained his normal self.

"The MI5 Messiah: Why David Shayler believes he's the son of God" (15 August 2007) https://t.co/nTqlqxonnS
"Call me Delores, says MI5 whistleblower David Shayler" (16 July 2009) https://t.co/tu7yvdh2ko pic.twitter.com/Jl7HsIvUyu
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) August 20, 2021

"Cross-dressing MI5 whistleblower David Shayler is evicted from farmhouse" (20 August 2009) https://t.co/HuegWpZrbB pic.twitter.com/FlAMSfVYBb
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) August 20, 2021

The Esquire article below* is mentioned in a Guardian article dated 27 March 2012. It is an eye-opener, highlighting the monitoring and surveillance that Shayler had to live with back in 2000, and the contradictory briefings and slanders that were coming out of the British establishment and the media. The author, Dr Eamonn O'Neill, is a lecturer in journalism at Strathclyde University.

*On 2 May 2013, Issuu removed this pdf from my Issuu account following a copyright complaint by Hearst Communications. I had uploaded the article to my Issuu account in December 2012. In March 2013, when last I checked, the article had been viewed more than 15,000 times. It can be read here.

BBC PANORAMA: The David Shayler Affair (August 1998)

Former MI5 whistleblower David Shayler "caused the biggest crisis of official secrecy since the spy catcher affair", according to BBC Panorama. He was jailed for seven weeks in 2002 for breaking the Official Secrets Act.

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, January 16, 2018

1,000 blocks on public access to our Church and State website since 26/7/2016. Four blocks so far today (as of 16 January at 10.39pm); the fourth block of the day occurred after Facebook's 29th block against the site since 1/12/2015

PayPal money transfer: We have over £1,000 in donations that Declan cannot transfer to the Network for Church Monitoring bank account because PayPal security codes are arriving late to our smartphone (WITH UPDATE 17/1/2018)

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