Friends,
I am very keen to draw to people’s attention what I believe be to be a scandalous situation, a situation that is revealed in today’s Observer – see http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/19/census-boycott-lockheed-martin.
You may not know that Lockheed Martin – the world’s second largest weapons manufacturer – is to be the main company behind the processing of the UK census which will be carried out on March 27th next. This is a company that has moved into surveillance and intelligence in a big way and whose Vice President has said that it is her aim to “know everything about everyone, everywhere”.
This is an American company which, under the US Patriot Act, can be obliged to hand over any of their data to the US government, which can then be made more widely available, even to private US companies. In fact a Twitter group, only last month, was obliged to hand all the information they held about Julian Assange and Wikileaks to the US government.
Lockheed Martin builds cluster bombs among a range of weapons, they build Trident nuclear submarines, and they own one third of the Aldermaston nuclear weapons factory. Could any of you imagine the American government asking a similar British weapons manufacturer to process their census data?
Of course our Office of National Statistics say that our census data will be perfectly safe – but they would say this wouldn’t they. Do you really trust our government with your data – have they always kept it safe? Under the guise of ‘national security’ our government can get away with hiding anything that might happen to any of our data/information – look how BAE Systems were shielded in the armaments deals with Saudi Arabia – and now BAE Systems have been granted immunity by the Serious Fraud Office from any further prosecutions. I wonder if you or I could obtain such immunity?
An important point to make is that the census data is really important in the sense that it is used in all sorts of socio-economic research and for the government to distribute funding to county and local councils. But, by hiring Lockheed Martin to process the data, it seems that we have moved this activity from something that is worthy and useful, to an activity that may be regarded as part of a state’s security apparatus. I find this sinister indeed. And Lockheed has ambitions to take over the census for as many countries as they can. We have also generated a situation whereby the census itself becomes increasingly unreliable as more and more people question the fact that they are being obliged to deal with a company that in no way can be classed as ‘ethical’.
I intend to not fill in the census form but to attach a letter to it saying that I am perfectly happy to provide the Office of National Statistics with my census information as long as they first give me a signed affidavit stating that in no way will my data (in any form) be received, handled or processed by the Lockheed Martin company or its employees. Thus, I should have the right to not knowingly be obliged to deal with what I consider to be an unethical company.
Cheers
Geoff
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Dr Geoff Meaden
Tel: 01227 752275
Email: geoff.meaden AT gmail.com