The next UK Census will be in 2011. Please sign the petition below to help the Green Party stop it being run by an arms company with close links to the United States government.
The process of running the 2011 Census will be contracted out by the Office of National Statistics to a private company. One of the two contractors in the final round of selection is the arms company Lockheed Martin, 80% of whose business is with the US Department of Defense and other Federal Government agencies.
"Lockheed Martin doesn't run the United States. But it does help run a breathtakingly big part of it."
New York Times profile of the company in 2004 opening sentence
This might concern you because:
- The Census rules mean that every household will be legally obliged to provide a wide range of personal information that will be handled by the chosen contractor.
- Lockheed Martin also produces missiles and land mines which are being used in Afghanistan and Iraq and which are illegal in many countries.
- They also focus on intelligence and surveillance work and boast of their ability to provide 'integrated threat information' that combines information from many different sources.
- New questions in the 2011 Census will include information about income and place of birth, as well as existing questions about languages spoken in the household and many other personal details.
- This information would be very useful to Lockheed Martin's intelligence work, and fears that the data might not be safe could lead to many people not filling in their Census forms.
There is still time to stop this happening and we are not calling for a boycott of the Census at this stage. Before the final decisions on the contract are made, write to your MPs to express your concern, and sign our petition opposing LM's involvement at:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/census-alert/
Lots more interesting information at our campaign website: www.censusalert.org.uk
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