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STORMONT MLAS from Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Alliance Party have joined together to write to Boris Johnson expressing their opposition to his government’s “reckless” Protocol bill.
The bill is set to be tabled by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss later today and will outline plans to to override parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol that was agreed between the UK and the EU.
Unionists politicians are seeking changes to the arrangement, with the DUP blocking the operation of the Stormont Assembly as part of its opposition to the Protocol as its currently instituted.
A majority of MLAs elected to Assembly last month are in favour of the Protocol and in their letter today said that it “offers clear economic advantages to our region”.
The letter has been signed by 52 of the 90 MLAs, including all nationalist members of the Assembly and all Alliance Party members, who designate as ‘other’. No unionist MLAs signed the letter.
The letter to Johnson states that the signatories “reject in the strongest possible terms your government’s reckless new protocol legislation, which flies in the face of the expressed wishes of not just most businesses, but most people in Northern Ireland”.
Boris Johnson’s protocol legislation is an outrageous breach of international law, it does not have the support of people, businesses or political leaders in Northern Ireland.
— Colum Eastwood 🇺🇦 (@columeastwood) June 13, 2022
This letter is a significant intervention from a majority of MLAs who are calling out Johnson’s lies. pic.twitter.com/EHry0ItwPA
It continues that “whilst not ideal, the protocol currently represents the only available”.
While we share a desire to see the arrangements work as smoothly as possible, the way to achieve this is through engagement with the European Union. It is clear that solutions are available and deliverable – as have already been delivered in the area of medicines – but this must be on the basis of trust and the rule of law rather than law breaking and unilateral abrogation of treaty obligations.
“It is also deeply frustrating that you and your ministers continue to misrepresent our desire to see smooth implementation as an endorsement of your Government’s reckless actions on the Protocol – it is categorically not.”
In response to the letter DUP MP Sammy Wilson tweeted:
Not one Unionist MLA supports the Northern Ireland Protocol. Power sharing will not be restored until decisive action is taken to remove the Irish Sea Border. There will be no return to the status quo.
The Northern Ireland Protocol was agreed as part of the Withdrawal Agreement between the EU and UK following Brexit and was designed as a way of preventing the need for a hard border on the island of Ireland.
The Protocol effectively keeps Northern Ireland in the EU Single Market for goods but also keeps Northern Ireland in the UK’s Customs territory.
While the unique arrangement offers potential advantages for NI businesses to operate in both territories, unionists have criticised it because it has required some checks to be carried out on goods travelling from Britain to Northern Ireland.
Under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement, the Northern Ireland institutions will be periodically asked to consent on the continuation of the Protocol, with the first such vote due to take place in December 2024.
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Wow! Only 18 years old!!!
I could barely set the V.C.R. at 18…
This is why I would doubt the credibility of this story.
If its not Kim Kung Un its some school kid.
Any excuse to usher in the Global cyber police state.
Careful Frank the Gov’ment is probably monitoring your posts on here…
Jim Butler_ I think Declan Noonan has that job.
To be fair, what this guy did wasn’t a hack. A DDoS attack is basically downloading a tool, sticking in an IP and hitting “start”.
We call them “Script Kiddies”
Hope the litte sh!t gets put behind bars for a long time and is never allowed near a computer again
Or a life term of commador64…..with no pencil to wind the tapes back in
He should be sentenced to dial up for life,.
Haha look who got FIFA for Christmas.
Hope MI6 and FBI give him a good job offer- seems he is way ahead of them in IT skills!
Not that far ahead if he was still caught.
An ape could do a DDOS attack. What this little runt did was not hacking.
I think those agencies have slightly bigger fish to fry
Indeed they do but still these people should still be punished for the disruption they caused.
Apparently ddos attacks are not that difficult for those in the know. I doubt he’ll be employed by any government agency.
Anybody with internet access and the will to do it will find a program in seconds , a lot use ” near orbit ion cannon ” ( typical anon tool of the mid 2000′s ) and various others , it takes no understanding what so ever with these programs
It’s not a hack as the media love to call it. A hack is breaking through or bypassing security to gain access or control of a network. Example north Korea gained access to Sony and stole info. This indeed is a hack.
These kids carried out a ddos attack. Just causing to much traffic that’s all. Not accessing just collapsing the server.
Apparently not hard to do if you have the network and software to do it
They aren’t complicated attacks at all. Anyone can launch one from their computer really easily. A ddos (distributed) using more than one computer is a bit trickier but still not a technical masterpiece.
This attack actually leveraged normal joke routers with default passwords on them from around the world
They should lock him away for a while. Took me three days to download “the last of us”….this attack cost sony and Microsoft a lot of revenue, all thanks to one clever idiot!
Ha, reminds me of Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski. “This is what happens when you **** a stranger in the ass”
You’re killing your father Larry.
This is the second arrest made by police in the UK involving the Lizard Squad hacking group who are Responsibility for the attacks over Christmas. they only stopped after Kim Dotcom offered them 3,000 vouchers for his Mega cloud storage service worth $99 (€90) each.
Shorty after Xmas a user by the name of “Vinny” tried to sell 3,000 Mega vouchers In a thread on Hackforums. more can be read about that here http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/12/whos-in-the-lizard-squad/
Also Lizard squad announced on 30 December a “booter” service called LizardStresser, which charges between $6 and $500 – paid for using the bitcoin cryptocurrency – to help any person launch DDoS attacks on any website or internet service they choose.
In an interview with Daily Dot, (http://www.dailydot.com/crime/lizard-squad-lizard-stresser-ddos-service-psn-xbox-live-sony-microsoft/) a representative of Lizard Squad claimed that the Christmas attacks on Sony and Microsoft had been “a huge marketing scheme” for the DDoS service, He added that 25 people had paid to use LizardStresser within hours of its launch.
Wisked away to do some good work for the FBI now.MI6,grab him,his the next Bond.If he goes the chances are he’ll become a supervillan!
Forgot my spelling:meant “he’s” not “his”
Jail the little bollix for 5 years it might teach the rest of the nerdy shites to get a life and use the internet for porn like normal guys!
I hope that a disproportionate view is not taken. I don’t like emergency services being diverted or wasted but this does not look a life threatening situation.
A sense of perspective can be helpful. After all, this is an 18 year old male and perhaps emotionally immature.
Only seeing him hung,drawn and quartered will appease those who were unable to play Destiny over the christmas! Boys will be boys and they have more tools for mischief now than ever before, lessons need to be learned but destroying a kids life for it isn’t justice.
More of this please, world.
Fascist US President Barack Obama and David Cameron are both itching them selves to usher in the CISPA cyber security bill and take control of the Internet, usher in police state censorship and attack online free online speech.
Interestingly the H.R.234 – Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act has been in the background for quite some time and the US Government looks like it was waiting for this opportunity to usher it in. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is another filthy lie by Western Powers.. The guy is 18 years old 18 = 6+6+6
Frank – there’s some truth behind a lot of what you post but the numerology stuff is rubbish.
Bit the guy arrested in Finland recently for the same reason was only 17 Frank.
But.
665+1=666.
Be very afraid.
Aaron_ Interestingly enough the Controversial CISPA Cyber Security Bill in question is HR234
http://www.theeventchronicle.com/news/north-america/cispa-back-sneak-peak-cispa-2015/
The Number 234 = 6x6x6+6+6+6 It is also the Greek ordinal value of “Barak”
There was a story last year where A judge made an example out of a 16 year old after being nicked for a “swatting” incident by giving him25 years in jail. Turned out to be fake. Scare tactics?
have your say