The Nation Newspaper

Tag: surveillance

  • SON puts steel firms under surveillance

    SON puts steel firms under surveillance

    THE Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has started a verification of the steel sector.

    In the first phase of the exercise, the agency paid on-the-spot assessment visit to some steel manufacturing firms in Lagos and Ogun states, hoping to extend same to other states.

    The team visited Universal Steel Company, Sankyo Steel Mills Company Limited, Phoenix Steel Mills, African Foundries Limited, Monarch Steel Mills, Metal Africa Steel Production Limited and Real Infrastructure Nigeria Limited.

    Head, Inspectrorate and Compliance, Bede Obayi, explained that the exercise was necessitated by the allegation that some companies were producing products without putting identification marks on them and mixing imported steel with local ones.

    He said: “Why we are doing the verification is because the government wants to know the exact situation of the companies in the steel sector. This is in terms of installed capacity, production capacity, level of patronage and even jobs created.

    “For example, we cannot be producing the same quality of steel as the imported ones and then, the imported ones would take over the market.”

    According to him, this is an anomaly which should not be allowed, adding that there was need for support and loyalty to indigenous steel companies as they create employment for the people.

     

     

    which supports government policy of job creation as against imported ones with less overheads.

    He said quality is better maintained when the regulator of standards regularly come to the manufacturers to see what they are doing.

    “A lot of buildings have collapsed in the past in this country. We are not limiting the factor to the quality of steel used in constructing them, but once there is a problem, all of the elements will come into question,” he said.

    Obayi said at the end of the exercise, the agency would be able to ascertain the country’s exact potentials in steel production, and then appropriately advise the government.

    Based on his findings in the course of the exercise, he reiterated that all products being churned out by the steel manufacturing companies must carry an identification mark, as it is a basic requirement in the enforcement of standards.

    He said the agency is doing its best to carry out its mandate of ensuring compliance with standards and also helping to create the right atmosphere and environment for the Nigerian industrial sector to harness its potential by ridding it of substandard products.

  • Brave new world of government surveillance

    Brave new world of government surveillance

    There’s a lot we don’t know about the secret court order giving the federal government access on an “ongoing daily basis” to millions of telephone records, and that’s a large part of the problem. But we know enough from a report in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, which essentially has been confirmed by officials, to conclude both that current law gives the government too much leeway to monitor the communications of its citizens, and that the Obama administration is exploiting that authority as aggressively as the George W. Bush administration did. The result is a brave new world of pervasive surveillance that Americans should find alarming.

    On Wednesday, the Guardian reported that the National Security Agency was collecting “telephony metadata” — information about the sources, destinations and duration of all telephone calls — from Verizon Business Networks Services. The surveillance was authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a tribunal that meets in secret and typically doesn’t make its rulings public. The order was issued April 25 and expires July 29.

    The fact that the order was issued shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings led some to speculate that the dragnet was part of the investigation of that terrorist attack. But on Thursday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that as far as she knew “this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been in place for the past seven years.” If the government is engaged in a long-term electronic fishing expedition, it’s likely that Verizon isn’t the only telecommunications provider turning over data.

    Feinstein emphasized that the government was gathering only metadata, not the actual content of communications, and suggested that investigators examine even that limited information only when there is “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that it is relevant and related to terrorist activity. But that is small comfort to Americans, many of whom will be uneasy that information that could shed light on their habits, travels and associations is being warehoused in government computers and possibly mined without their knowledge.

    When the Patriot Act was up for renewal, this page argued that its provisions for acquisition of “business records” — the section on which the judge in the Verizon case relied — were far too loose. We still believe that the government should be required to show more than that the material it seeks is “relevant to an authorized investigation.”

    Last month, President Obama warned that “a perpetual war — through drones or special forces or troop deployments — will prove self-defeating and alter our country in troubling ways.” That observation also applies to domestic legislation enacted in the anxious aftermath of 9/11, and to the culture of secrecy to which both this administration and its predecessor succumbed.

    – Los Angeles Times

  • Security surveillance and road safety

    Security surveillance and road safety

    On several occasions, we have heard of policemen abandoning their duty post when armed robbers strike, leaving the unarmed drivers and passengers to face the wrath of the armed robbers.

    The retreat of the policemen is not mainly because of the sophistication of the firearms of the armed robbers. Inadequate training, surveillance and commitment are more prominent factors.

    For example, there was an armed robbery attack some years ago near the Ketu police station in Lagos. The policemen outside quickly ran into their station and shut the station gate, leaving the members of the public to face the robbers.

    A policeman with a gun who was trying to run into the police station as well was sited by an unarmed soldier. The soldier collected the gun from him in a dramatic and military technique.

    As if watching a film, the soldier was demonstrating his combative skill, firing at the armed robbers and avoiding their bullets. He brought down one of them and the rest escaped. They could not carry out their evil act that day because of a single soldier in an environment where there were over 30 armed policemen.

    The police officers later come out and carried the soldier shoulder-high to appreciate his bravery and skill.

    When policemen stop a vehicle for search, all of them will gather round the vehicle, exposing themselves to an easy one-time attack just because they all want to witness how much the driver gives them.

    As soldiers have been drafted to some roads, you will notice they don’t crowd themselves around one vehicle at a time. Rather they will scatter themselves so that all of them will not be gunned down at a go thus making it possible for others to counter-attack, when one of them is attacked.

    It is equally important for all drivers to have a sound knowledge of security surveillance and counter-surveillance as the security system in Nigeria is not yet fool-proof.

    Drivers should know how to apply security surveillance strategies.