Government depertment pays for training how to create and maintain FALSE IDENTITIES on social media

Gordon Campbell on MBIE’s social media scam

Werewolf,

10 January, 2019

Back in December 2017, MBIE signed a three year contract worth $112,000 with the Wellington private security firm ZX Security Ltd, to train large numbers of its staff on how to create and maintain false identities on social media – in order to harvest information from the general public.

Reportedly, 70 staff have already been trained in these techniques, and the contract is set to run until 2021.

It would be bad enough if the security services were engaging in this kind of activity. MBIE though, has responsibility for immigration, building and housing, energy, tourism, financial markets and competition regulation and economic development. Given the ambit of MBIE’s work, almost any form of social activity could qualify as being part of MBIE’s brief, so the privacy threats posed by this training programme are extensive. The current oversight safeguards seem threadbare to non-existent.

Yesterday, No Right Turn pointed out some of the wider risks involved:

Using fake profiles with detailed backstories suggests they are trying to capture people’s private or friend-locked information….[Under] the new “reasonable expectation of privacy” standard, [this] may also constitute a “search” under s21 of the Bill of Rights Act, and therefore be illegal without explicit statutory authority (which in turn, poses a legal threat to every case MBIE has used such information in).

The Law Commission recommended that harvesting public information be covered by a statutory policy statement, setting out the purposes for which it could be done. They also suggested that using false profiles to access private, “friends-only” information be treated as a covert operation requiring a warrant. The fact that MBIE is doing this suggests we need such regulation as quickly as possible, to restrict such government spying to proper investigative purposes, rather than the current free-for-all.

Exactly. So far, the defences being offered by Duty Minister [and ACC Minister] Iain Lees-Galloway do not address these wider regulatory issues.

MBIE says it’s all to do with online safety for workers involved in investigations and the Government says so long as it’s all above board it is sometimes necessary.

Documents show MBIE spent $112,000 on a contract with ZX Security Limited to teach staff how to take material from online platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, maintain multiple online personas and extract GPS coordinates from photos.

Duty Minister [and ACC Minister] Iain Lees-Galloway says sometimes going incognito is required for the job. “Government agencies do need the ability to carry out investigations for instance, investigating tax evasion or ACC fraud,” he says.

“Where investigations are being carried out, they have to be carried out in a lawful and appropriate fashion we expect to hear back from MB once they have reviewed this work they are doing.”

This ‘explanation’ is inadequate. IRD is the department funded and empowered to investigate tax evasion. How then does IRD’s investigative unit interact with what looks like a similar (and relatively unknown tax evasion group) doing the same thing at MBIE? As for ACC fraud… apparently, anyone seeking to befriend an ACC claimant on Facebook or Linked In should now be regarded as a potential MBIE snoop engaged in analysing social media postings and scanning online photos for GPS co-ordinates. These may (for example) reveal the injured party may have been out tramping, or engaged in other activity that could be later used against them in the assessment of their ACC claim. Does Lees-Galloway think such spying activity is consistent with the ACC scheme originally envisaged by Owen Woodhouse?

Too Much, Too Many

It is not as if the ZX Security training programme is coaching a small crack unit of MBIE investigators. In year one, 70 MBIE staff were trained in these undercover skills, and a four year contract has been signed for the entire programme. By completion date in 2021 that means MBIE would have trained 280 staff in fake social media skills that they would be being expected to use online. Even allowing for staff turnover, that can only mean that these privacy-penetrating skills are being mainstreamed into MBIE’s general work in its areas of responsibility. Should tourists (for example) expect that their social media posts are being watched by the Kiwi version of Big Brother, for signs they intend overstaying their visas – and do tourists now have reason to fear that a night of revelry shared with an apparent friend online might be used against them if they should lodge a subsequent claim for residency?

To date, Shane Jones has been the only politician to raise concerns about MBIE’s decision to train its staff in how to fake their identities online. At the end of the month, MBIE is being expected to report back on its programme. Hopefully, MBIE’s rationale will be challenged by someone external to the organisation. MBIE can hardly be trusted as the main evaluator of its own scheme. In the recent past, it hired the notorious Thompson+ Clark security firm to investigate those opposed to its policies, and got heavily criticised in December by the State Services Commissioner for doing so. As RNZ reported less than a month ago:

The entire Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) was… found to have breached the State Services Standards of Integrity and Conduct (code of conduct) by failing to maintain an appropriate level of objectivity and impartiality. MBIE led the charge in a change to the Crown Minerals Act 2013 creating offences for damaging or interfering with structures or ships being used offshore in mining activities.

The design of Operation Exploration was influenced by the concept of “issue motivated groups”. The Minerals Exploration Joint Intelligence Group (MEJIG) was set up and tasked with identifying activities that might lead to interference with offshore petroleum and minerals exploration. Thompson and Clark was a key participant in MEJIG.

The Commissioner found that Thompson and Clark established a very close relationship with Operation Exploration and the information it provided – particularly surveillance of Greenpeace – was most likely paid for by the private sector with interests in petroleum and minerals exploration. The Commissioner has asked MBIE to consider whether Operation Exploration should be discontinued and requested that the chief executive review MBIE’s internal policies to ensure they are consistent with the code.

In other words, MBIE has shown it can’t be trusted to respect free speech and/or the democratic right to protest. Surely then, it cannot be allowed to abuse privacy on social media in the ways this training programme explicitly sets out to do. Any costs involved in breaking the contract with ZX Security have to come out of MBIE’s own operating budget. In the meantime…if Big Brother asks to be your friend on Facebook, it needs to tell you who it is.

Footnote One. Interesting that MBIE put the ZK Security contract up on its website a year after it was signed, and just as the SSC released its damning report on the governmental use of private security firms. The timing looks less like transparency than an attempt by MBIE to pre-empt a future scandal by getting the information out (a) just as the SSC hammer fell and (b) while the media was otherwise engaged with the SSC report findings.

Footnote Two: So what is known about ZX Security? According to Deloittes, it is the 40th fastest growing company in New Zealand. Here is its founder/CEO Simon Howard talking briefly on Youtube about the company’s use of interns. And here is Howard again at a 2017 conference talking at much greater length about the threats posed by ransomware and phishing, and related matters.

According to its publically available Linked In profile, the company’s current employees are Simon Howard, Laura-Jane Howard, Claudio Contin and David Robinson.

Friends You Can Trust

Fake friends are no new thing. Eighty years ago, the Sons of the Pioneers were warning that this new fangled idea of getting an old age pension could attract friends of the wrong sort:

Digital friends come and go, but there are more trustworthy alternatives. Roy Rogers, a graduate of Sons of the Pioneers, spells out the options:

More government spying

No Right Turn,

9 January, 2019

The Herald has disturbing news this morning: MBIE has recently signed a contract to train its staff in using fake social media profiles to spy on people:

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has hired a security firm to increase staff skills in using fake social media profiles to gather intelligence.

Among the modules offered are harvesting information from social networks, creating back-stories for false online personae and creating dossiers on people and groups.

When informed of the training by the Herald, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones said senior ministers would be briefed on the issue when they returned to work at the end of the month.

"Kiwis should be able to go about their daily business without the fear of bureaucrats peering into their social media," he said.

Jones is right. This sort of spying is intensely problematic. As highlighted in the Law Commission's Review of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012, simply using public information 

has the potential to undermine the right to freedom of expression and other associated rights. It may discourage the public from engaging in debate and presenting opinions without fear of government interference. This is particularly likely if enforcement agencies use social media to monitor legitimate activity such as peaceful protest.

And that's just public information. Using fake profiles with detailed backstories suggests they are trying to capture people's private or friend-locked information, which is even more intrusive. But under the new "reasonable expectation of privacy" standard, it may also constitute a "search" under s21 of the Bill of Rights Act, and therefore be illegal without explicit statutory authority (which in turn, poses a legal threat to every case MBIE has used such information in). The Law Commission recommended that harvesting public information be covered by a statutory policy statement, setting out the purposes for which it could be done. 

They also suggested that using false profiles to access private, "friends-only" information be treated as a covert operation requiring a warrant. The fact that MBIE is doing this suggests we need such regulation as quickly as possible, to restrict such government spying to proper investigative purposes, rather than the current free-for-all.

The NZ public service and recent revelations

Chris Trotter reminds us of how fascism has entered the New Zealand psyche

Working Towards The Führer.

Chris Trotter

All Together Now! In terms of the inviolability of the new neoliberal establishment, it mattered very little whether Labour or National was in power. And, since cabinet ministers from both sides of the aisle clearly regarded ideological boat-rocking as being every bit as career-terminating as state sector CEOs, there was scant incentive to entertain any alternative definitions to what constituted “good governance”. In the years since 1984, therefore, it has made much more sense, personally and politically, to “work towards the [neoliberal] führer”.

Bowalley Road,

21 December, 2018

AN “AFFRONT TO DEMOCRACY”, was the State Services Commissioner’s characterisation of the state bureaucracy’s decision to spy on political activists. Few would disagree. That multiple state agencies felt entitled to contract-out the gathering of political intelligence to the privately owned and operated Thompson & Clark Investigations Ltd reveals a widespread antidemocratic disdain for citizens’ rights within the New Zealand public service. The alarming revelations of the State Services’ inquiry raise two very important questions: How did this disdain for democratic norms become so entrenched? And what, if anything, can Jacinda Ardern’s government do to eradicate it?

The dangerous truth, in relation to the first question, is also painfully relevant to the second. The effective abrogation of democratic norms in New Zealand dates back to 1984 and the events which the former CTU economist and ministerial adviser, Peter Harris, characterised as a “bureaucratic coup d’état”. In was in July 1984 that elements within the NZ Treasury and the Reserve Bank, taking full advantage of the relationships they had been cultivating for at least a year with the parliamentary leadership of the NZ Labour Party, initiated the detailed and extremely radical economic policy programme which came to be known as “Rogernomics”.

This programme, set forth in “Economic Management” – the book-length briefing paper for the incoming Minister of Finance, Roger Douglas – had received no mandate from the electorate. Indeed, the ordinary voter had no inkling whatsoever that the Labour Party of Mickey Savage and Norman Kirk was about to unleash a programme considerably to the right of Margaret Thatcher’s and Ronald Reagan’s. The authors of “Economic Management” were not, however, interested in obtaining a democratic mandate for their proposed reforms. In fact, they strongly suspected that submitting their ideas to the voters was just about the surest way of securing their emphatic rejection.

Since the mid-1970s the conviction had been growing among big-business leaders and high-ranking civil servants living in the wealthiest capitalist nations, that democracy had gotten out of hand; and that unless the scope for democratic intervention in the economy was radically reduced, then the future of capitalism could not be guaranteed. Free Market Economics, as it was called then, or Neoliberalism, as we know it today, was, from the outset, incompatible with the social-democratic principles that had underpinned western policy-making in the post-war world. It could only be imposed, and kept in place, by a political class sealed-off from all manner of pressures from below. If that meant gutting the major parties of the centre-left and right; purging the civil service, academia and the news media of dissenters; and crushing the trade unions – then so be it.

Once it became clear that the free-market “revolution” was not about to be halted in its tracks, all those with an ambition to rise within the new order made haste to learn its rules and spared no effort in enforcing them. This phenomenon: of absorbing and implementing an antidemocratic regime’s imperatives was described by British historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, as “Working Towards The Fuhrer”. Kershaw lifted the phrase from a speech delivered in 1934 by the Prussian civil servant, Werner Willikens:

“Everyone who has the opportunity to observe it knows that the Fuhrer can hardly dictate from above everything which he intends to realize sooner or later. On the contrary, up till now, everyone with a post in the new Germany has worked best when he has, so to speak, worked towards the Fuhrer. Very often and in many spheres, it has been the case—in previous years as well—that individuals have simply waited for orders and instructions. Unfortunately, the same will be true in the future; but in fact, it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Fuhrer along the lines he would wish. Anyone who makes mistakes will notice it soon enough. But anyone who really works towards the Fuhrer along his lines and towards his goal will certainly both now and in the future, one day have the finest reward in the form of the sudden legal confirmation of his work.”

The behaviour of New Zealand civil servants and their private sector contractors conforms very neatly to Kershaw’s thesis. In terms of the inviolability of the new neoliberal establishment, it mattered very little whether Labour or National was in power. And, since cabinet ministers from both sides of the aisle clearly regarded ideological boat-rocking as being every bit as career-terminating as state sector CEOs, there was scant incentive to entertain any alternative definitions to what constituted “good governance”. In the years since 1984, therefore, it has made much more sense, personally and politically, to “work towards the [neoliberal] führer”.

Certainly, Kershaw’s “Working Towards the Führer” thesis would explain the behaviour that has so disturbed readers of the State Services Commission’s report like Victoria University’s School of Government academic, Chris Eichbaum. Namely, why so few of the people involved in this “affront to democracy” displayed any awareness that they were behaving unethically. If Neoliberalism, like the Third Reich, is not a force which can be legitimately contradicted or criticised, then obviously any person or group engaging in activities inimical to the implementation of state policy is bound to be considered an enemy of the system.

Not that the neoliberal order will ever acknowledge its political imperatives so honestly. A large measure of bad faith continues to operate within the system. It has to – otherwise the still useful façade of human rights and democratic consent will rapidly fall apart.

Ministries and other state entities reach for the private investigator rather than the police officer because the latter is still (at least in theory) accountable. By contrast, the paper and/or electronic trails left by the likes of Thompson & Clark are considerably more difficult to track than those carefully logged in an official Police investigation. What’s more, the unofficial and private aggregation of “evidence” against the State’s “enemies” opens up the possibility of their unofficial and private punishment.

That job the activist lost, or failed to get. The bank loan that was refused. Simple bad luck? Or something else?

The most sinister aspect of the “Working Towards The Fuhrer” phenomenon is that any obstacles or objections encountered along the way will be taken as evidence of forces working against the führer. Popular resistance to neoliberal objectives is never taken as a sign that those objectives might be ill-advised, counterproductive, or just plain wrong. Rather, it is taken as proof that those responsible for organising such resistance are dangerous and irrational opponents of beneficent policies to which there are no viable alternatives.

It appears never to have occurred to Gerry Brownlee, for example, that the rising levels of desperation and anger among the Christchurch clients of the state-owned Southern Response insurance company – feelings that were manifesting themselves in threats to life and property – might be evidence of massive failures on the company’s part. John Key, similarly, refused to accept that oil and gas exploration might constitute a genuine threat to New Zealand’s (and, ultimately, the entire planet’s) natural environment.

Was Simon Bridges, when he introduced legislation outlawing waterborne protests within 2 kilometres of the oil and gas industry’s drilling platforms, doing no more than working along the lines and towards the goals of his leader?

As above, so below: the law of hierarchy is immutable. Thomson & Clark may have been the tool in the hands of ruthless public servants “working towards the führer”, but the masters of those servants were the neoliberal politicians from both major parties who, ever since 1984, have been tireless in their defence of the neoliberal order against its most fearsome foe – the New Zealand people.

The question, therefore, arises: If the Coalition Government demonstrates the slightest willingness to move against the servants of that neoliberal order (as Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister, Megan Woods, by forcing the resignation of the Chair of Southern Response, has arguably done already) will the same forces that subverted Labour in 1984 set in motion the measures necessary to bring down Jacinda Ardern’s “issue motivated group” in 2020?

More on corruption

John Key says the matter has been "investigated" and "proven wrong"

The PM wouldn't lie, would he - lol

Bury bad news claim: Ex-Crown lawyer calls on Government to release inquiry report

The public servant who says he was ordered to bury bad news has called on the government to release the investigation reports it is relying on to claim it was cleared of the allegations.

NZ Herald,

19 September, 2014

Curtis Gregorash has written to the Crown Law Office to seek permission to release a copy of its report into allegations he made over the handling of Official Information Act and Privacy Act requests while general legal counsel at Customs NZ.

It was one of three inquiries into the allegation - two by Customs and a third by the Crown Law Office.

Mr Gregorash was comfortable with all being made public so the investigations done into his claims can be properly aired.

A spokeswoman for the Crown Law Office said lawyers were studying the report before deciding if it could be released.

Customs said the request for the reports was being handled under its normal Official Information Act processes.

State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie said it was his "understanding" Customs took the allegations "seriously" and an inquiry by the Crown Law Office found them without substance.

LISTEN TO AUDIO INTERVIEW WITH CURTIS GREGORASH

In a written statement, Mr Rennie said it was "very important that agencies comply with the letter and the spirit of the Act".

"I would be concerned if any government agencies were not fulfilling their obligations." He said anyone with concerns should make contact with the Office of the Ombudsman.

The Herald has sought a range of information from Customs NZ over the last year. On a number of occasions, Customs has provided information it originally refused or said did not exist.

In one case, it provided information it had previously wrongly ruled outside the scope of the request by the Herald. In another, Customs initially said it did not hold information which had been sought - then provided it after other agencies showed they held the same information.

A Customs spokeswoman said yesterday: "Customs operates within the law and abides by the spirit of the OIA. If you have any concerns over our handling of OIAs please approach the Ombudsman."

Corruption in public service from top down

More evidence comes to hand of deep-level, systemic corruption under this government

Ex-Customs lawyer claims he was told to bury info that could embarrass the Government

A former high-ranking Customs lawyer says he resigned from his job after allegedly being told to bury information that could embarrass the Government

NZ Herald,

9 September, 2014

Curtis Gregorash said he was told by senior Customs executives to refuse Official Information Act and Privacy Act requests, which he believed was at the direction of former Customs Minister Maurice Williamson.

It comes at a time the Prime Minister's office is under inquiry over the release of intelligence material through the OIA and accusations that former Justice Minister Judith Collins was manipulating OIA responses for political purposes.

Mr Williamson - who resigned as a minister in May after contacting police over a National party donor who was facing domestic violence charges - rejected the claim last night, as did the legal services chief at Customs.

Mr Gregorash quit his role as Customs' chief legal counsel in March this year after more than a decade as a government lawyer.

The lawyer turned whistleblower said: "I've sat on it for a long time. But the story itself is so awful it needs to be told. I think people really need to see what ministers and some senior executives do."

He had decided to speak because he believed the alleged instruction "was unlawful", undermined the way the public service was meant to operate and was given for what was ultimately political reasons.

"The direction came down (from the minister) through the CEO (Carolyn Tremain) and group manager (of legal services) Peter Taylor to me saying 'you don't release anything - I don't care what the OIA says, I'd rather fight it in the courts'."

Mr Gregorash said it was as if ministers were prepared to say: "F*** the OIA, I'd rather fight it through the Ombudsman because it takes three years."

Mr Gregorash said the alleged instruction came during a briefing from Mr Taylor to the legal team in which he referred to Ms Tremain and meeting with Mr Williamson.

"I resigned over it. I couldn't stare my staff in the face and say this is actually serious conduct that's being presented to you in a lawful way."

Mr Gregorash said the alleged instruction to withhold information was general - but became specific in relation to "sensitive" issues, including entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, wanted for copyright violation in the United States.

"Mr Taylor directed me to withhold all information and pass the same direction on to my team."

He said he was subjected to an internal investigation after releasing information about Dotcom sought by the NZ Herald through the Official Information Act. The information released saw Customs staff discuss earning "brownie points" by passing on Dotcom information to the FBI.

"Simpson Grierson [Dotcom's lawyers] had made several Privacy Act requests of the Government, some of which flowed through Customs, and decisions were made from ministerial level with Maurice Williamson directing Customs, 'Don't you dare release anything - nothing at all.'"

Mr Gregorash said Dotcom's lawyers had sought information from Customs to which he believed Dotcom was entitled. "All sorts of jokes and laughs and cut-downs that were being made by officials to each other were being withheld for [what he considered to be] no reason."

The "brownie points" OIA release to the Herald was the tipping point. "I got dragged over the coals for it. There was an investigation into me. I was cleared. I resigned after that."

Mr Gregorash had a high-level role at Customs, which would have seen him vetted for high security clearance by the Security Intelligence Service. He had worked for a decade as government lawyer, previously with the Environmental Protection Authority and the Ministry of Economic Development.

As a result of the Customs experience, he has not only quit public service but also quit law. Mr Gregorash said the issue was not with Customs but with the influence of politicians on the public service. "The front line staff are really good people with the best of intentions."

Mr Taylor confirmed there was an investigation launched into the decision to release the "brownie points" OIA. "There were issues raised as to 'was it appropriate'." He said there were no issues found with Mr Gregorash's judgment but with Customs' processes.

"It was important to have that independently investigated and it was independently investigated."

He also confirmed he referred to the Minister and Ms Tremain when he briefed the legal team on applying the OIA. "References to the minister and the chief executive may have been made but in the context of making sure we apply the correct principles."

He said he couldn't recall if the minister had concerns about how the act had been applied.

"We have a 'no surprises' policy with ministers and we have to keep ministers well informed of issues that may be raised with the minister and that's extremely important we consult with the minister."

The "no surprises" policy requires departments to tell their ministers when information on which they might be questioned is to be released - but it is not a grounds for withholding information.

Asked what expertise the minister had to contribute to OIA decisions, he said: "We will consult with the minister as appropriate on appropriate Official Information Act requests, yes we will."

Mr Taylor rejected any suggestion there was a ban on releasing Dotcom-related material. Asked if there were different views on what should be released, he said: "There's iterations over how we actually respond to issues and there will be discussions over what's in and what's out. They are appropriate discussions to have until we reach a final decision. We do apply the law appropriately."

Mr Williamson did not return calls or respond to questions about the expertise he added to OIA consideration. In a written statement, he said he was "diligent" in telling ministries "we must meet our legal obligations" under the OIA and Privacy Act. Information should only be withheld "if there were legitimate and legal reasons to do so", he said.

Dotcom's lawyers were in the High Court this week arguing for access to information held by the Government about the entrepreneur, saying there appeared to be "an over-generous use or inappropriate use of the grounds for withholding" from a range of government departments including Customs. It came after the SIS released information to the Herald under the OIA after previously refusing to provide it to Dotcom.

Labour leader David Cunliffe said if Mr Gregorash's claims were true, it would be "completely improper" but would confirm anecdotal reports Labour had heard of similar instances.

"That's why we are committed to a full review of the operations in ministerial offices.

"We want to make sure there's no abuse of power - the kind of thing we saw in the Minister of Justice's office."

Mr Cunliffe noted that the Ombudsman had had to intervene in just the last week to force the Prime Minister's Office to reveal the name of the staffer who former SIS Director Warren Tucker had briefed on plans to release information to WhaleOil blogger Cam Slater.

That staffer was Mr Key's former deputy chief of staff Phil de Joux.

Ombudsman 'appalled' by ex-Customs lawyer's OIA allegations

NZ Herald,

9 September, 2014

A former Customs lawyer claim that he was told to bury bad news matches similar stories which have sparked a wide-ranging inquiry by Chief Ombudsman Dame Beverley Wakem.

She said she was "appalled" by Curtis Gregorash's claim. "Having said that one of the reasons I am undertaking of selected agencies in respect of their OIA practices is that anecdotally a number of people have told me similar stories," she said.

She said a planned inquiry to be launched after the election could see the Ombudsman's office using its Commission of Inquiry powers to compel evidence to be given under oath were there signs information was being hidden.

"Ministerial offices will be figuring in our inquiry and that is all I will say.

She said the Ombudsman's relationship with the government service was based on trust. Without that, she said, "we're all in trouble".

"We may as well kiss democracy goodbye. The work of this office relies in great measure in the maintenance of a high level of trust and integrity between ourselves and government agencies," she said.

"If our examination and investigation finds that has been betrayed or warped in any way that is something I am going to be taking very seriously and I think the public of New Zealand should be taking very seriously because it attacks the whole integrity of the system of governance."

Dame Beverley said whistleblowers should make contact with the Office of the Ombudsman if they had evidence of such practices.

Public unrest expected in Britain

Britain Buys Water Cannons; Fears Civil Unrest From Government Workers

Zero Hedge,

13 July, 2014

Submitted by Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Economics,

The British government has just invested in water cannons because they are fearing the rising tide of civil unrest as austerity is forcing the reduction of state workers and their pensions. I have been warning that unemployment will rise, but this time it is going to flow more so from the state and municipal workers. In the UK, hundreds of thousands have took to the streets to protest against the austerity measures of the government. Prime Minister Cameron has no choice for this is the collapse of socialism. Those who think I am anti-poor or whatever, are missing the point. It is the rising cost of government that is out of control and NO LEVEL of tax increase can reverse this trend.

The British unions called for strikes nationwide. Teachers, firemen and civil servants joined the calls and and took the streets demonstrating for higher wages and pensions. Just where is this money supposed to come from they really have no idea. They merely argue to take it from someone else no matter what and give it to them.

According to the unions more than one million people took part in the strike. About one-fifth of state employees have taken part in the strikes. Indeed, the majority had appeared on the job to maintain “almost all key areas of public service” functions. The interesting question this presents if everything can function with one-fifth less, then does this suggest that government can be run with far less people? Nonetheless, some 6,000 schools did remain closed, which was about one quarter of all schools in England. The strikes also impacted museums, libraries and garbage (refuse) collection in some cities. At the airports, such as international London Heathrow and Luton, there were delays because parts of the ground crew were on strike. Around 12 percent of government employees in Scotland joined the strike. Also in Northern Ireland andWales there were many public institutions – including schools, courts and job centers – that had also closed on Thursday.

Public employees do not care where the money comes from, they refuse cuts and demand their pensions. This is similar to what happened in Rome where the army, when unpaid, just began sacking their own cities to grab whatever they had being justified as the army deserves it.

The central demands of the workers were against the austerity policy of the British government. In 2010, the salaries were frozen in the public service first. 

Then in 2012 an annual wage increase was written down by one percent. Governments are going broke because they promised pension and failed to fund it always assuming there would be ample tax revenues available.

Effectively, in Britain there was a two-year pay freeze, and then the 3rd year comes another freeze followed by a one-percent wage increase.